From the Reformation to the age of Enlightenment

The Reformation never really gained a foothold in Bonn. Three attempts failed whereby the last one ended in the “Truchsess war” that was also called the “Cologne war”. Gerhard Truchsess of Waldburg was defeated. The first member of the Wittelsbach family, Ernest of Bavaria, became the archbishop-elector of Cologne and managed to guide Bonn through the Thirty Years’ War relatively unscathed.
The Habsburgs followed the Wittelsbachs on the Electoral Cologne see – Bonn's glorious age as a royal seat commences and reaches its peak in the form of Baroque splendour under the reign of Clemens August.
His successor the electoral prince Max Franz led the people of Bonn into the age of the Enlightenment in a more thrifty, but also more progressive, manner. Amongst other things he founded the University of Bonn and turned Godesberg into a health spa. The name of Beethoven is mentioned in Bonn for the first time.

Data and facts: 

1542 /46:
Reformation attempt of the electoral prince Hermann of Wied.

1583/ 87:
Reformation attempt of the electoral prince Gebhard Truchsess of Waldburg; Truchsess war

1597:
Bonn finally becomes the royal city and capital city of the electoral princes and archbishops of Cologne.

1689:
Destruction of the city that had been extended to become a modern fortress during the siege of the imperial troops under electoral prince Friedrich III of Brandenburg.

1715:
Razing to the ground of the fortress of Bonn. Beginning of the extension of the city converting it into a Baroque royal seat under the Wittelsbach electoral prince Joseph Clemens (1688-1723) and Clemens August (1723-1761).

1770:
Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven in Bonn.

1786:
Foundation of the first University of Bonn.

1790:
Extension of the Godesberg mineral springs by electoral prince Max Franz of Habsburg Lorraine.