Rudolph, however, was successful in preventing the election of Matthias as German king, or king of the Romans, and when he died, in January 1612, no provision had been made for a successor. Already king of Hungary and Bohemia, however, Matthias obtained the remaining hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs, and in June 1612 was crowned emperor, although the ecclesiastical electors favoured his younger brother, the archduke Albert (1559-1621). The short reign of the new emperor was troubled by the religious dissensions of Germany. His health became impaired and his indolence increased, and he fell completely under the influence of Melchior Klesl (q.v.), who practically conducted the imperial business. By Klesl's advice he took up an attitude of moderation and sought to reconcile the contending religious parties; but the proceedings at the diet of Regensburg in 1613 proved the hopelessness of these attempts, while their author was regarded with general distrust. Meanwhile the younger Habsburgs, led by the emperor's brother, the archduke Maximilian, and his cousin, Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II., disliking the peaceful policy of Klesl, had allied themselves with the unyielding Roman Catholics, while the question of the imperial succession was forcing its way to the front. In 1611 Matthias had married his cousin Anna (d. 1618), daughter of the archduke Ferdinand (d. 1595), but he was old and childless and the Habsburgs were anxious to retain his extensive possessions in the family. Klesl, on the one hand, wished the settlement of the religious difficulties to precede any arrangement about the imperial succession; the Habsburgs, on the other, regarded the question of the succession as urgent and vital. Meanwhile the disputed succession to the duchies of Cleves and Jülich again threatened a European war; the imperial commands were flouted in Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Bohemians were again becoming troublesome. Having decided that Ferdinand should succeed Matthias as emperor, the Habsburgs had secured his election as king of Bohemia in June 1617, but were unable to stem the rising tide of disorder in that country. Matthias and Klesl were in favour of concessions, but Ferdinand and Maximilian met this move by seizing and imprisoning Klesl. Ferdinand had just secured his coronation as king of Hungary when there broke out in Bohemia those struggles which heralded the Thirty Years' War; and on the 20th of March 1619 the emperor died at Vienna.