Maximilian II of Hendalarsk

Maximilian II Gustaf of Hendalarsk (Lagyar: II. Miksa Gusztáv; 16 September 1539 - 30 May 1619), also commonly known as Maximilian the Great (Lagyar: Nagy Miksa), was Archking of Hendalarsk from 1558 until his death. Acceding to the throne upon his father's sudden death, his 61-year reign is longer than any other historically attested Hendalarskara or Lagyar monarch. Maximilian dramatically expanded the lands of the Hendalarskara state from their previous base in the Fröse and Zalgis watersheds to roughly its current scope.

Many of Maximilian's policies and decisions had lasting consequences. His distrust of much of the Hendalarskara aristocracy, only intensified by a foiled plot on his life in 1562, led him to appoint many "new men" from the emerging urban bourgeoisie to posts in the royal administration, and it would take over a century for the aristocracy to (temporarily) regain their position in the Hendalarskara state. His granting of the Wardenship of the Lagyar March to a native Lagyar aristocrat reversed a century of ethnic Hendalarskara dominion over the region, establishing a precedent of Lagyar autonomy that has largely endured to the present day. Although a devout Hendalarskara Catholic, Maximilian's expansion of his father Udo's tolerance towards Protestants also established Hendalarsk as one of the few safe havens for refugees fleeing the aftermath of the Great Confessional War.

However, his attack on the privileges of the aristocracy also involved the destruction of many ancient peasant liberties. This was exacerbated by his determination to keep the Hendalarskara state on a strong fiscal footing after the Plague of 1590, with his oppressive taxation ultimately sparking the Rasenland Rising in 1595. Contemporaries and subsequent historians alike criticise Maximilian for his ruthlessness towards his enemies, and this was never more evident than in his response to the Rising, which saw mass executions of peasant rebels even after surrender and the razing of entire villages. His ruthlessness and personal courage ultimately brought about his death, as he chose to lead an army to punish the rebel town of 's-Heelkronen in person and was beheaded by a cannonball fired from the town walls soon after his arrival.

An autocrat who prefigured the later era of enlightened absolutism by almost a century, Maximilian's legacy remains a source of controversy in Hendalarsk to this day, although his pronounced Lagyarphilia has been largely reciprocated by the Lagyar people since his reign. He renamed the city of Groß-Maximilianshafen, conquered in the lead-up to the Pentapolitan campaign of 1584, after himself, while both the Maximilianic University and Maximilian's Square in Hendalarsk were named in his honour by his successors. His body is buried in the Royal Crypt in Agendorf along with his father, his son Lothar II and many other Hendalarskara monarchs. His heart is interred alongside his first and third wives Zsófia and Erszébet in the Cathedral of Saint Ladislaus in Márványfalak.