BOOK II.

The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new

direction, a new scene, and new actors. From a rebellion in Bohemia,

and the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany, and

afterwards to Europe. It is, therefore, necessary to take a general

survey of the state of affairs both in Germany and the rest of Europe.

Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members

were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, neither

party could hope to maintain itself against the encroachments of its

adversary otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages,

and by a politic union among themselves. If the Roman Catholics were

the more numerous party, and more favoured by the constitution of the

empire, the Protestants, on the other hand, had the advantage of

possessing a more compact and populous line of territories, valiant

princes, a warlike nobility, numerous armies, flourishing free towns,

the command of the sea, and even at the worst, certainty of support from

Roman Catholic states. If the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy in

their favour, the republics of Venice, Holland, and England, opened

their treasures to the Protestants, while the states of the North and

the formidable power of Turkey, stood ready to afford them prompt

assistance. Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate, opposed three

Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes in the Electoral College; while

to the Elector of Bohemia, as to the Archduke of Austria, the possession

of the Imperial dignity was an important check, if the Protestants

properly availed themselves of it. The sword of the Union might keep

within its sheath the sword of the League; or if matters actually came

to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful. But, unfortunately,

private interests dissolved the band of union which should have held

together the Protestant members of the empire. This critical

conjuncture found none but second-rate actors on the political stage,

and the decisive moment was neglected because the courageous were

deficient in power, and the powerful in sagacity, courage, and

resolution.

The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants,

by the services of his ancestor Maurice, by the extent of his

territories, and by the influence of his electoral vote. Upon the

resolution he might adopt, the fate of the contending parties seemed to

depend; and John George was not insensible to the advantages which this

important situation procured him. Equally valuable as an ally, both to

the Emperor and to the Protestant Union, he cautiously avoided

committing himself to either party; neither trusting himself by any

irrevocable declaration entirely to the gratitude of the Emperor, nor

renouncing the advantages which were to be gained from his fears.

Uninfected by the contagion of religious and romantic enthusiasm which

hurried sovereign after sovereign to risk both crown and life on the

hazard of war, John George aspired to the more solid renown of improving

and advancing the interests of his territories. His cotemporaries

accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause in the very midst of the

storm; of preferring the aggrandizement of his house to the emancipation

of his country; of exposing the whole Evangelical or Lutheran church of

Germany to ruin, rather than raise an arm in defence of the Reformed or

Calvinists; of injuring the common cause by his suspicious friendship

more seriously than the open enmity of its avowed opponents. But it

would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy of the

Elector. If, despite of the prudent policy, the Saxons, like all

others, groaned at the cruelties which marked the Emperor’s progress; if

all Germany was a witness how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and

trifled with his engagements; if even the Elector himself at last

perceived this--the more shame to the Emperor who could so basely betray

such implicit confidence.

If an excessive reliance on the Emperor, and the hope of enlarging his

territories, tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony, the weak George

William, Elector of Brandenburg, was still more shamefully fettered by

fear of Austria, and of the loss of his dominions. What was made a

reproach against these princes would have preserved to the Elector

Palatine his fame and his kingdom. A rash confidence in his untried

strength, the influence of French counsels, and the temptation of a

crown, had seduced that unfortunate prince into an enterprise for which

he had neither adequate genius nor political capacity. The partition of

his territories among discordant princes, enfeebled the Palatinate,

which, united, might have made a longer resistance.

This partition of territory was equally injurious to the House of Hesse,

in which, between Darmstadt and Cassel, religious dissensions had

occasioned a fatal division. The line of Darmstadt, adhering to the

Confession of Augsburg, had placed itself under the Emperor’s

protection, who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel.

While his religious confederates were shedding their blood for their

faith and their liberties, the Landgrave of Darmstadt was won over by

the Emperor’s gold. But William of Cassel, every way worthy of his

ancestor who, a century before, had defended the freedom of Germany

against the formidable Charles V., espoused the cause of danger and of

honour. Superior to that pusillanimity which made far more powerful

princes bow before Ferdinand’s might, the Landgrave William was the

first to join the hero of Sweden, and to set an example to the princes

of Germany which all had hesitated to begin. The boldness of his

resolve was equalled by the steadfastness of his perseverance and the

valour of his exploits. He placed himself with unshrinking resolution

before his bleeding country, and boldly confronted the fearful enemy,

whose hands were still reeking from the carnage of Magdeburg.

The Landgrave William deserves to descend to immortality with the heroic

race of Ernest. Thy day of vengeance was long delayed, unfortunate John

Frederick! Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince! Slowly but brightly it

broke. Thy times returned, and thy heroic spirit descended on thy

grandson. An intrepid race of princes issues from the Thuringian

forests, to shame, by immortal deeds, the unjust sentence which robbed

thee of the electoral crown--to avenge thy offended shade by heaps of

bloody sacrifice. The sentence of the conqueror could deprive thee of

thy territories, but not that spirit of patriotism which staked them,

nor that chivalrous courage which, a century afterwards, was destined to

shake the throne of his descendant. Thy vengeance and that of Germany

whetted the sacred sword, and one heroic hand after the other wielded

the irresistible steel. As men, they achieved what as sovereigns they

dared not undertake; they met in a glorious cause as the valiant

soldiers of liberty. Too weak in territory to attack the enemy with

their own forces, they directed foreign artillery against them, and led

foreign banners to victory.

The liberties of Germany, abandoned by the more powerful states, who,

however, enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them, were

defended by a few princes for whom they were almost without value. The

possession of territories and dignities deadened courage; the want of

both made heroes. While Saxony, Brandenburg, and the rest drew back in

terror, Anhalt, Mansfeld, the Prince of Weimar and others were shedding

their blood in the field. The Dukes of Pomerania, Mecklenburg,

Luneburg, and Wirtemberg, and the free cities of Upper Germany, to whom

the name of EMPEROR was of course a formidable one, anxiously avoided a

contest with such an opponent, and crouched murmuring beneath his mighty

arm.

Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria a

champion as prudent as he was powerful. Adhering throughout the war to

one fixed plan, never divided between his religion and his political

interests; not the slavish dependent of Austria, who was labouring for

HIS advancement, and trembled before her powerful protector, Maximilian

earned the territories and dignities that rewarded his exertions. The

other Roman Catholic states, which were chiefly Ecclesiastical, too

unwarlike to resist the multitudes whom the prosperity of their

territories allured, became the victims of the war one after another,

and were contented to persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit, the

enemy whom they could not openly oppose in the field. All of them,

slaves either to Austria or Bavaria, sunk into insignificance by the

side of Maximilian; in his hand alone their united power could be

rendered available.

The formidable monarchy which Charles V. and his son had unnaturally

constructed of the Netherlands, Milan, and the two Sicilies, and their

distant possessions in the East and West Indies, was under Philip III.

and Philip IV. fast verging to decay. Swollen to a sudden greatness by

unfruitful gold, this power was now sinking under a visible decline,

neglecting, as it did, agriculture, the natural support of states. The

conquests in the West Indies had reduced Spain itself to poverty, while

they enriched the markets of Europe; the bankers of Antwerp, Venice, and

Genoa, were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the

mines of Peru. For the sake of India, Spain had been depopulated, while

the treasures drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of

Holland, in the chimerical project of changing the succession to the

crown of France, and in an unfortunate attack upon England. But the

pride of this court had survived its greatness, as the hate of its

enemies had outlived its power. Distrust of the Protestants suggested

to the ministry of Philip III. the dangerous policy of his father; and

the reliance of the Roman Catholics in Germany on Spanish assistance,

was as firm as their belief in the wonder-working bones of the martyrs.

External splendour concealed the inward wounds at which the life-blood

of this monarchy was oozing; and the belief of its strength survived,

because it still maintained the lofty tone of its golden days. Slaves

in their palaces, and strangers even upon their own thrones, the Spanish

nominal kings still gave laws to their German relations; though it is

very doubtful if the support they afforded was worth the dependence by

which the emperors purchased it. The fate of Europe was decided behind

the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive favourites. Yet, even in

its debasement, a power must always be formidable, which yields to none

in extent; which, from custom, if not from the steadfastness of its

views, adhered faithfully to one system of policy; which possessed

well-disciplined armies and consummate generals; which, where the sword

failed, did not scruple to employ the dagger; and converted even its

ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins. What it had lost in three

quarters of the globe, it now sought to regain to the eastward, and all

Europe was at its mercy, if it could succeed in its long cherished

design of uniting with the hereditary dominions of Austria all that lay

between the Alps and the Adriatic.

To the great alarm of the native states, this formidable power had

gained a footing in Italy, where its continual encroachments made the

neighbouring sovereigns to tremble for their own possessions. The Pope

himself was in the most dangerous situation; hemmed in on both sides by

the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side, and that of Milan upon

the other. Venice was confined between the Austrian Tyrol and the

Spanish territories in Milan. Savoy was surrounded by the latter and

France. Hence the wavering and equivocal policy, which from the time of

Charles V. had been pursued by the Italian States. The double

character which pertained to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate

between two contradictory systems of policy. If the successors of St.

Peter found in the Spanish princes their most obedient disciples, and

the most steadfast supporters of the Papal See, yet the princes of the

States of the Church had in these monarchs their most dangerous

neighbours, and most formidable opponents. If, in the one capacity,

their dearest wish was the destruction of the Protestants, and the

triumph of Austria, in the other, they had reason to bless the arms of

the Protestants, which disabled a dangerous enemy. The one or the other

sentiment prevailed, according as the love of temporal dominion, or zeal

for spiritual supremacy, predominated in the mind of the Pope. But the

policy of Rome was, on the whole, directed to immediate dangers; and it

is well known how far more powerful is the apprehension of losing a

present good, than anxiety to recover a long lost possession. And thus

it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with Austria

for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very

heretics for the destruction of Austria. Strangely blended are the

threads of human affairs! What would have become of the Reformation,

and of the liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of

Rome had had but one interest?

France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its

weight in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had

destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry.

Incapable ministers, the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a

few years the treasures which Sully’s economy and Henry’s frugality had

amassed. Scarce able to maintain their ground against internal

factions, they were compelled to resign to other hands the helm of

European affairs. The same civil war which armed Germany against

itself, excited a similar commotion in France; and Louis XIII. attained

majority only to wage a war with his own mother and his Protestant

subjects. This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry’s enlightened

policy, now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under the

command of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a

party within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of

Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom. Too little of a

statesman to suppress, by a prudent toleration, this civil commotion in

its birth, and too little master of the resources of his kingdom to

direct them with energy, Louis XIII. was reduced to the degradation of

purchasing the submission of the rebels by large sums of money. Though

policy might incline him, in one point of view, to assist the Bohemian

insurgents against Austria, the son of Henry the Fourth was now

compelled to be an inactive spectator of their destruction, happy enough

if the Calvinists in his own dominions did not unseasonably bethink them

of their confederates beyond the Rhine. A great mind at the helm of

state would have reduced the Protestants in France to obedience, while

it employed them to fight for the independence of their German brethren.

But Henry IV. was no more, and Richelieu had not yet revived his system

of policy.

While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated

republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness. The

enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the House

of Orange, had converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes,

and had enabled them to maintain their independence in a bloody war

against the Spanish monarchy. Aware how much they owed their own

liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready to assist their

German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so, as both were

opposed to the same enemy, and the liberty of Germany was the best

warrant for that of Holland. But a republic which had still to battle

for its very existence, which, with all its wonderful exertions, was

scarce a match for the formidable enemy within its own territories,

could not be expected to withdraw its troops from the necessary work of

self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous policy in protecting

foreign states.

England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed, under

the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe which the

governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it. Convinced that the

welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,

this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting

every enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian

power. Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend, than

of vigour to execute, her views. While the economical Elizabeth spared

not her treasures to support the Flemings against Spain, and Henry IV.

against the League, James abandoned his daughter, his son-in-law, and

his grandchild, to the fury of their enemies. While he exhausted his

learning to establish the divine right of kings, he allowed his own

dignity to sink into the dust; while he exerted his rhetoric to prove

the absolute authority of kings, he reminded the people of theirs; and

by a useless profusion, sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights--

that of dispensing with his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of

its organ. An innate horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him

from the most just of wars; while his favourite Buckingham practised on

his weakness, and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of

Spanish artifice. While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance

of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with

satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain.

To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the

proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent

encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his

addresses in person to the Spanish princess. But his son lost his

bride, as his son-in-law lost the crown of Bohemia and the Palatine

Electorate; and death alone saved him from the danger of closing his

pacific reign by a war at home, which he never had courage to maintain,

even at a distance.

The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited

burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some

unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the

German war, in order to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.

Two illustrious monarchs, far unequal in personal reputation, but equal

in power and desire of fame, made the North at this time to be

respected. Under the long and active reign of Christian IV., Denmark

had risen into importance. The personal qualifications of this prince,

an excellent navy, a formidable army, well-ordered finances, and prudent

alliances, had combined to give her prosperity at home and influence

abroad. Gustavus Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage, reformed it by

wise laws, and had introduced, for the first time, this newly-organized

state into the field of European politics. What this great prince had

merely sketched in rude outline, was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus, his

still greater grandson.

These two kingdoms, once unnaturally united and enfeebled by their

union, had been violently separated at the time of the Reformation, and

this separation was the epoch of their prosperity. Injurious as this

compulsory union had proved to both kingdoms, equally necessary to each

apart were neighbourly friendship and harmony. On both the evangelical

church leaned; both had the same seas to protect; a common interest

ought to unite them against the same enemy. But the hatred which had

dissolved the union of these monarchies continued long after their

separation to divide the two nations. The Danish kings could not

abandon their pretensions to the Swedish crown, nor the Swedes banish

the remembrance of Danish oppression. The contiguous boundaries of the

two kingdoms constantly furnished materials for international quarrels,

while the watchful jealousy of both kings, and the unavoidable collision

of their commercial interests in the North Seas, were inexhaustible

sources of dispute.

Among the means of which Gustavus Vasa, the founder of the Swedish

monarchy, availed himself to strengthen his new edifice, the Reformation

had been one of the principal. A fundamental law of the kingdom

excluded the adherents of popery from all offices of the state, and

prohibited every future sovereign of Sweden from altering the religious

constitution of the kingdom. But the second son and second successor of

Gustavus had relapsed into popery, and his son Sigismund, also king of

Poland, had been guilty of measures which menaced both the constitution

and the established church. Headed by Charles, Duke of Sudermania, the

third son of Gustavus, the Estates made a courageous resistance, which

terminated, at last, in an open civil war between the uncle and nephew,

and between the King and the people. Duke Charles, administrator of the

kingdom during the absence of the king, had availed himself of

Sigismund’s long residence in Poland, and the just displeasure of the

states, to ingratiate himself with the nation, and gradually to prepare

his way to the throne. His views were not a little forwarded by

Sigismund’s imprudence. A general Diet ventured to abolish, in favour

of the Protector, the rule of primogeniture which Gustavus had

established in the succession, and placed the Duke of Sudermania on the

throne, from which Sigismund, with his whole posterity, were solemnly

excluded. The son of the new king (who reigned under the name of

Charles IX.) was Gustavus Adolphus, whom, as the son of a usurper, the

adherents of Sigismund refused to recognize. But if the obligations

between monarchy and subjects are reciprocal, and states are not to be

transmitted, like a lifeless heirloom, from hand to hand, a nation

acting with unanimity must have the power of renouncing their allegiance

to a sovereign who has violated his obligations to them, and of filling

his place by a worthier object.

Gustavus Adolphus had not completed his seventeenth year, when the

Swedish throne became vacant by the death of his father. But the early

maturity of his genius enabled the Estates to abridge in his favour the

legal period of minority. With a glorious conquest over himself he

commenced a reign which was to have victory for its constant attendant,

a career which was to begin and end in success. The young Countess of

Brahe, the daughter of a subject, had gained his early affections, and

he had resolved to share with her the Swedish throne. But, constrained

by time and circumstances, he made his attachment yield to the higher

duties of a king, and heroism again took exclusive possession of a heart

which was not destined by nature to confine itself within the limits of

quiet domestic happiness.

Christian IV. of Denmark, who had ascended the throne before the birth

of Gustavus, in an inroad upon Sweden, had gained some considerable

advantages over the father of that hero. Gustavus Adolphus hastened to

put an end to this destructive war, and by prudent sacrifices obtained a

peace, in order to turn his arms against the Czar of Muscovy. The

questionable fame of a conqueror never tempted him to spend the blood of

his subjects in unjust wars; but he never shrunk from a just one. His

arms were successful against Russia, and Sweden was augmented by several

important provinces on the east.

In the meantime, Sigismund of Poland retained against the son the same

sentiments of hostility which the father had provoked, and left no

artifice untried to shake the allegiance of his subjects, to cool the

ardour of his friends, and to embitter his enemies. Neither the great

qualities of his rival, nor the repeated proofs of devotion which Sweden

gave to her loved monarch, could extinguish in this infatuated prince

the foolish hope of regaining his lost throne. All Gustavus’s overtures

were haughtily rejected. Unwillingly was this really peaceful king

involved in a tedious war with Poland, in which the whole of Livonia and

Polish Prussia were successively conquered. Though constantly

victorious, Gustavus Adolphus was always the first to hold out the hand

of peace.

This contest between Sweden and Poland falls somewhere about the

beginning of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, with which it is in some

measure connected. It was enough that Sigismund, himself a Roman

Catholic, was disputing the Swedish crown with a Protestant prince, to

assure him the active support of Spain and Austria; while a double

relationship to the Emperor gave him a still stronger claim to his

protection. It was his reliance on this powerful assistance that

chiefly encouraged the King of Poland to continue the war, which had

hitherto turned out so unfavourably for him, and the courts of Madrid

and Vienna failed not to encourage him by high-sounding promises. While

Sigismund lost one place after another in Livonia, Courland, and

Prussia, he saw his ally in Germany advancing from conquest after

conquest to unlimited power. No wonder then if his aversion to peace

kept pace with his losses. The vehemence with which he nourished his

chimerical hopes blinded him to the artful policy of his confederates,

who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed, in order to

overturn, without opposition, the liberties of Germany, and then to

seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest. One circumstance

which had not been calculated on--the magnanimity of Gustavus--

overthrew this deceitful policy. An eight years’ war in Poland, so far

from exhausting the power of Sweden, had only served to mature the

military genius of Gustavus, to inure the Swedish army to warfare, and

insensibly to perfect that system of tactics by which they were

afterwards to perform such wonders in Germany.

After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe,

I now resume the thread of my history.

Ferdinand had regained his dominions, but had not indemnified himself

for the expenses of recovering them. A sum of forty millions of

florins, which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced,

would have sufficed to reimburse both himself and his allies; but the

Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum, large as it was.

Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, to whose victorious arm, principally, the

Emperor owed the recovery of his dominions; who, in the service of

religion and the Emperor, had sacrificed his near relation, had the

strongest claims on his gratitude; and moreover, in a treaty which,

before the war, the duke had concluded with the Emperor, he had

expressly stipulated for the reimbursement of all expenses. Ferdinand

felt the full weight of the obligation imposed upon him by this treaty

and by these services, but he was not disposed to discharge it at his

own cost. His purpose was to bestow a brilliant reward upon the duke,

but without detriment to himself. How could this be done better than at

the expense of the unfortunate prince who, by his revolt, had given the

Emperor a right to punish him, and whose offences might be painted in

colours strong enough to justify the most violent measures under the

appearance of law. That, then, Maximilian may be rewarded, Frederick

must be further persecuted and totally ruined; and to defray the

expenses of the old war, a new one must be commenced.

But a still stronger motive combined to enforce the first. Hitherto

Ferdinand had been contending for existence alone; he had been

fulfilling no other duty than that of self-defence. But now, when

victory gave him freedom to act, a higher duty occurred to him, and he

remembered the vow which he had made at Loretto and at Rome, to his

generalissima, the Holy Virgin, to extend her worship even at the risk

of his crown and life. With this object, the oppression of the

Protestants was inseparably connected. More favourable circumstances

for its accomplishment could not offer than those which presented

themselves at the close of the Bohemian war. Neither the power, nor a

pretext of right, were now wanting to enable him to place the Palatinate

in the hands of the Catholics, and the importance of this change to the

Catholic interests in Germany would be incalculable. Thus, in rewarding

the Duke of Bavaria with the spoils of his relation, he at once

gratified his meanest passions and fulfilled his most exalted duties; he

crushed an enemy whom he hated, and spared his avarice a painful

sacrifice, while he believed he was winning a heavenly crown.

In the Emperor’s cabinet, the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon

long before fortune had decided against him; but it was only after this

event that they ventured to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary

power. A decree of the Emperor, destitute of all the formalities

required on such occasions by the laws of the Empire, pronounced the

Elector, and three other princes who had borne arms for him at Silesia

and Bohemia, as offenders against the imperial majesty, and disturbers

of the public peace, under the ban of the empire, and deprived them of

their titles and territories. The execution of this sentence against

Frederick, namely the seizure of his lands, was, in further contempt of

law, committed to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy, to the

Duke of Bavaria, and the League. Had the Evangelic Union been worthy of

the name it bore, and of the cause which it pretended to defend,

insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of the

sentence; but it was hopeless for a power which was far from a match

even for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate, to contend against

the united strength of the Emperor, Bavaria, and the League. The

sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector soon detached the

free cities from the Union; and the princes quickly followed their

example. Fortunate in preserving their own dominions, they abandoned

the Elector, their former chief, to the Emperor’s mercy, renounced the

Union, and vowed never to revive it again.

But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted the unfortunate

Frederick, and while Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia submitted to the

Emperor, a single man, a soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his

sword, Ernest Count Mansfeld, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen, to

defy the whole power of Austria. Left without assistance after the

battle of Prague by the Elector, to whose service he had devoted

himself, and even uncertain whether Frederick would thank him for his

perseverance, he alone for some time held out against the imperialists,

till the garrison, mutinying for want of pay, sold the town to the

Emperor. Undismayed by this reverse, he immediately commenced new

levies in the Upper Palatinate, and enlisted the disbanded troops of the

Union. A new army of 20,000 men was soon assembled under his banners,

the more formidable to the provinces which might be the object of its

attack, because it must subsist by plunder. Uncertain where this swarm

might light, the neighbouring bishops trembled for their rich

possessions, which offered a tempting prey to its ravages. But, pressed

by the Duke of Bavaria, who now entered the Upper Palatinate, Mansfeld

was compelled to retire. Eluding, by a successful stratagem, the

Bavarian general, Tilly, who was in pursuit of him, he suddenly appeared

in the Lower Palatinate, and there wreaked upon the bishoprics of the

Rhine the severities he had designed for those of Franconia. While the

imperial and Bavarian allies thus overran Bohemia, the Spanish general,

Spinola, had penetrated with a numerous army from the Netherlands into

the Lower Palatinate, which, however, the pacification of Ulm permitted

the Union to defend. But their measures were so badly concerted, that

one place after another fell into the hands of the Spaniards; and at

last, when the Union broke up, the greater part of the country was in

the possession of Spain. The Spanish general, Corduba, who commanded

these troops after the recall of Spinola, hastily raised the siege of

Frankenthal, when Mansfeld entered the Lower Palatinate. But instead of

driving the Spaniards out of this province, he hastened across the Rhine

to secure for his needy troops shelter and subsistence in Alsace. The

open countries on which this swarm of maurauders threw themselves were

converted into frightful deserts, and only by enormous contributions

could the cities purchase an exemption from plunder. Reinforced by this

expedition, Mansfeld again appeared on the Rhine to cover the Lower

Palatinate.

So long as such an arm fought for him, the cause of the Elector

Frederick was not irretrievably lost. New prospects began to open, and

misfortune raised up friends who had been silent during his prosperity.

King James of England, who had looked on with indifference while his

son-in-law lost the Bohemian crown, was aroused from his insensibility

when the very existence of his daughter and grandson was at stake, and

the victorious enemy ventured an attack upon the Electorate. Late

enough, he at last opened his treasures, and hastened to afford supplies

of money and troops, first to the Union, which at that time was

defending the Lower Palatinate, and afterwards, when they retired, to

Count Mansfeld. By his means his near relation, Christian, King of

Denmark, was induced to afford his active support. At the same time,

the approaching expiration of the truce between Spain and Holland

deprived the Emperor of all the supplies which otherwise he might expect

from the side of the Netherlands. More important still was the

assistance which the Palatinate received from Transylvania and Hungary.

The cessation of hostilities between Gabor and the Emperor was scarcely

at an end, when this old and formidable enemy of Austria overran Hungary

anew, and caused himself to be crowned king in Presburg. So rapid was

his progress that, to protect Austria and Hungary, Boucquoi was obliged

to evacuate Bohemia. This brave general met his death at the siege of

Neuhausel, as, shortly before, the no less valiant Dampierre had fallen

before Presburg. Gabor’s march into the Austrian territory was

irresistible; the old Count Thurn, and several other distinguished

Bohemians, had united their hatred and their strength with this

irreconcileable enemy of Austria. A vigorous attack on the side of

Germany, while Gabor pressed the Emperor on that of Hungary, might have

retrieved the fortunes of Frederick; but, unfortunately, the Bohemians

and Germans had always laid down their arms when Gabor took the field;

and the latter was always exhausted at the very moment that the former

began to recover their vigour.

Meanwhile Frederick had not delayed to join his protector Mansfeld. In

disguise he entered the Lower Palatinate, of which the possession was at

that time disputed between Mansfeld and the Bavarian general, Tilly, the

Upper Palatinate having been long conquered. A ray of hope shone upon

him as, from the wreck of the Union, new friends came forward. A former

member of the Union, George Frederick, Margrave of Baden, had for some

time been engaged in assembling a military force, which soon amounted to

a considerable army. Its destination was kept a secret till he suddenly

took the field and joined Mansfeld. Before commencing the war, he

resigned his Margraviate to his son, in the hope of eluding, by this

precaution, the Emperor’s revenge, if his enterprize should be

unsuccessful. His neighbour, the Duke of Wirtemberg, likewise began to

augment his military force. The courage of the Palatine revived, and he

laboured assiduously to renew the Protestant Union. It was now time for

Tilly to consult for his own safety, and he hastily summoned the Spanish

troops, under Corduba, to his assistance. But while the enemy was

uniting his strength, Mansfeld and the Margrave separated, and the

latter was defeated by the Bavarian general near Wimpfen (1622).

To defend a king whom his nearest relation persecuted, and who was

deserted even by his own father-in-law, there had come forward an

adventurer without money, and whose very legitimacy was questioned. A

sovereign had resigned possessions over which he reigned in peace, to

hazard the uncertain fortune of war in behalf of a stranger. And now

another soldier of fortune, poor in territorial possessions, but rich in

illustrious ancestry, undertook the defence of a cause which the former

despaired of. Christian, Duke of Brunswick, administrator of

Halberstadt, seemed to have learnt from Count Mansfeld the secret of

keeping in the field an army of 20,000 men without money. Impelled by

youthful presumption, and influenced partly by the wish of establishing

his reputation at the expense of the Roman Catholic priesthood, whom he

cordially detested, and partly by a thirst for plunder, he assembled a

considerable army in Lower Saxony, under the pretext of espousing the

defence of Frederick, and of the liberties of Germany. “God’s Friend,

Priest’s Foe”, was the motto he chose for his coinage, which was struck

out of church plate; and his conduct belied one half at least of the

device.

The progress of these banditti was, as usual, marked by the most

frightful devastation. Enriched by the spoils of the chapters of Lower

Saxony and Westphalia, they gathered strength to plunder the bishoprics

upon the Upper Rhine. Driven from thence, both by friends and foes, the

Administrator approached the town of Hoechst on the Maine, which he

crossed after a murderous action with Tilly, who disputed with him the

passage of the river. With the loss of half his army he reached the

opposite bank, where he quickly collected his shattered troops, and

formed a junction with Mansfeld. Pursued by Tilly, this united host

threw itself again into Alsace, to repeat their former ravages. While

the Elector Frederick followed, almost like a fugitive mendicant, this

swarm of plunderers which acknowledged him as its lord, and dignified

itself with his name, his friends were busily endeavouring to effect a

reconciliation between him and the Emperor. Ferdinand took care not to

deprive them of all hope of seeing the Palatine restored to his

dominion. Full of artifice and dissimulation, he pretended to be

willing to enter into a negotiation, hoping thereby to cool their ardour

in the field, and to prevent them from driving matters to extremity.

James I., ever the dupe of Spanish cunning, contributed not a little, by

his foolish intermeddling, to promote the Emperor’s schemes. Ferdinand

insisted that Frederick, if he would appeal to his clemency, should,

first of all, lay down his arms, and James considered this demand

extremely reasonable. At his instigation, the Elector dismissed his

only real defenders, Count Mansfeld and the Administrator, and in

Holland awaited his own fate from the mercy of the Emperor.

Mansfeld and Duke Christian were now at a loss for some new name; the

cause of the Elector had not set them in motion, so his dismissal could

not disarm them. War was their object; it was all the same to them in

whose cause or name it was waged. After some vain attempts on the part

of Mansfeld to be received into the Emperor’s service, both marched into

Lorraine, where the excesses of their troops spread terror even to the

heart of France. Here they long waited in vain for a master willing to

purchase their services; till the Dutch, pressed by the Spanish General

Spinola, offered to take them into pay. After a bloody fight at Fleurus

with the Spaniards, who attempted to intercept them, they reached

Holland, where their appearance compelled the Spanish general forthwith

to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. But even Holland was soon weary

of these dangerous guests, and availed herself of the first moment to

get rid of their unwelcome assistance. Mansfeld allowed his troops to

recruit themselves for new enterprises in the fertile province of East

Friezeland. Duke Christian, passionately enamoured of the Electress

Palatine, with whom he had become acquainted in Holland, and more

disposed for war than ever, led back his army into Lower Saxony, bearing

that princess’s glove in his hat, and on his standards the motto “All

for God and Her”. Neither of these adventurers had as yet run their

career in this war.

All the imperial territories were now free from the enemy; the Union was

dissolved; the Margrave of Baden, Duke Christian, and Mansfeld, driven

from the field, and the Palatinate overrun by the executive troops of

the empire. Manheim and Heidelberg were in possession of Bavaria, and

Frankenthal was shortly afterwards ceded to the Spaniards. The

Palatine, in a distant corner of Holland, awaited the disgraceful

permission to appease, by abject submission, the vengeance of the

Emperor; and an Electoral Diet was at last summoned to decide his fate.

That fate, however, had been long before decided at the court of the

Emperor; though now, for the first time, were circumstances favourable

for giving publicity to the decision. After his past measures towards

the Elector, Ferdinand believed that a sincere reconciliation was not to

be hoped for. The violent course he had once begun, must be completed

successfully, or recoil upon himself. What was already lost was

irrecoverable; Frederick could never hope to regain his dominions; and a

prince without territory and without subjects had little chance of

retaining the electoral crown. Deeply as the Palatine had offended

against the House of Austria, the services of the Duke of Bavaria were

no less meritorious. If the House of Austria and the Roman Catholic

church had much to dread from the resentment and religious rancour of

the Palatine family, they had as much to hope from the gratitude and

religious zeal of the Bavarian. Lastly, by the cession of the Palatine

Electorate to Bavaria, the Roman Catholic religion would obtain a

decisive preponderance in the Electoral College, and secure a permanent

triumph in Germany.

The last circumstance was sufficient to win the support of the three

Ecclesiastical Electors to this innovation; and among the Protestants

the vote of Saxony was alone of any importance. But could John George

be expected to dispute with the Emperor a right, without which he would

expose to question his own title to the electoral dignity? To a prince

whom descent, dignity, and political power placed at the head of the

Protestant church in Germany, nothing, it is true, ought to be more

sacred than the defence of the rights of that church against all the

encroachments of the Roman Catholics. But the question here was not

whether the interests of the Protestants were to be supported against

the Roman Catholics, but which of two religions equally detested, the

Calvinistic and the Popish, was to triumph over the other; to which of

the two enemies, equally dangerous, the Palatinate was to be assigned;

and in this clashing of opposite duties, it was natural that private

hate and private gain should determine the event. The born protector of

the liberties of Germany, and of the Protestant religion, encouraged the

Emperor to dispose of the Palatinate by his imperial prerogative; and to

apprehend no resistance on the part of Saxony to his measures on the

mere ground of form. If the Elector was afterwards disposed to retract

this consent, Ferdinand himself, by driving the Evangelical preachers

from Bohemia, was the cause of this change of opinion; and, in the eyes

of the Elector, the transference of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria

ceased to be illegal, as soon as Ferdinand was prevailed upon to cede

Lusatia to Saxony, in consideration of six millions of dollars, as the

expenses of the war.

Thus, in defiance of all Protestant Germany, and in mockery of the

fundamental laws of the empire, which, as his election, he had sworn to

maintain, Ferdinand at Ratisbon solemnly invested the Duke of Bavaria

with the Palatinate, without prejudice, as the form ran, to the rights

which the relations or descendants of Frederick might afterwards

establish. That unfortunate prince thus saw himself irrevocably driven

from his possessions, without having been even heard before the tribunal

which condemned him--a privilege which the law allows to the meanest

subject, and even to the most atrocious criminal.

This violent step at last opened the eyes of the King of England; and as

the negociations for the marriage of his son with the Infanta of Spain

were now broken off, James began seriously to espouse the cause of his

son-in-law. A change in the French ministry had placed Cardinal

Richelieu at the head of affairs, and this fallen kingdom soon began to

feel that a great mind was at the helm of state. The attempts of the

Spanish Viceroy in Milan to gain possession of the Valtelline, and thus

to form a junction with the Austrian hereditary dominions, revived the

olden dread of this power, and with it the policy of Henry the Great.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales with Henrietta of France,

established a close union between the two crowns; and to this alliance,

Holland, Denmark, and some of the Italian states presently acceded. Its

object was to expel, by force of arms, Spain from the Valtelline, and to

compel Austria to reinstate Frederick; but only the first of these

designs was prosecuted with vigour. James I. died, and Charles I.,

involved in disputes with his Parliament, could not bestow attention on

the affairs of Germany. Savoy and Venice withheld their assistance; and

the French minister thought it necessary to subdue the Huguenots at

home, before he supported the German Protestants against the Emperor.

Great as were the hopes which had been formed from this alliance, they

were yet equalled by the disappointment of the event.

Mansfeld, deprived of all support, remained inactive on the Lower Rhine;

and Duke Christian of Brunswick, after an unsuccessful campaign, was a

second time driven out of Germany. A fresh irruption of Bethlen Gabor

into Moravia, frustrated by the want of support from the Germans,

terminated, like all the rest, in a formal peace with the Emperor. The

Union was no more; no Protestant prince was in arms; and on the

frontiers of Lower Germany, the Bavarian General Tilly, at the head of a

victorious army, encamped in the Protestant territory. The movements of

the Duke of Brunswick had drawn him into this quarter, and even into the

circle of Lower Saxony, when he made himself master of the

Administrator’s magazines at Lippstadt. The necessity of observing this

enemy, and preventing him from new inroads, was the pretext assigned for

continuing Tilly’s stay in the country. But, in truth, both Mansfeld

and Duke Christian had, from want of money, disbanded their armies, and

Count Tilly had no enemy to dread. Why, then, still burden the country

with his presence?

It is difficult, amidst the uproar of contending parties, to distinguish

the voice of truth; but certainly it was matter for alarm that the

League did not lay down its arms. The premature rejoicings of the Roman

Catholics, too, were calculated to increase apprehension. The Emperor

and the League stood armed and victorious in Germany without a power to

oppose them, should they venture to attack the Protestant states and to

annul the religious treaty. Had Ferdinand been in reality far from

disposed to abuse his conquests, still the defenceless position of the

Protestants was most likely to suggest the temptation. Obsolete

conventions could not bind a prince who thought that he owed all to

religion, and believed that a religious creed would sanctify any deed,

however violent. Upper Germany was already overpowered. Lower Germany

alone could check his despotic authority. Here the Protestants still

predominated; the church had been forcibly deprived of most of its

endowments; and the present appeared a favourable moment for recovering

these lost possessions. A great part of the strength of the Lower

German princes consisted in these Chapters, and the plea of restoring

its own to the church, afforded an excellent pretext for weakening these

princes.

Unpardonable would have been their negligence, had they remained

inactive in this danger. The remembrance of the ravages which Tilly’s

army had committed in Lower Saxony was too recent not to arouse the

Estates to measures of defence. With all haste, the circle of Lower

Saxony began to arm itself. Extraordinary contributions were levied,

troops collected, and magazines filled. Negociations for subsidies were

set on foot with Venice, Holland, and England. They deliberated, too,

what power should be placed at the head of the confederacy. The kings

of the Sound and the Baltic, the natural allies of this circle, would

not see with indifference the Emperor treating it as a conqueror, and

establishing himself as their neighbour on the shores of the North Sea.

The twofold interests of religion and policy urged them to put a stop to

his progress in Lower Germany. Christian IV. of Denmark, as Duke of

Holstein, was himself a prince of this circle, and by considerations

equally powerful, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was induced to join the

confederacy.

These two kings vied with each other for the honour of defending Lower

Saxony, and of opposing the formidable power of Austria. Each offered

to raise a well-disciplined army, and to lead it in person. His

victorious campaigns against Moscow and Poland gave weight to the

promises of the King of Sweden. The shores of the Baltic were full of

the name of Gustavus. But the fame of his rival excited the envy of the

Danish monarch; and the more success he promised himself in this

campaign, the less disposed was he to show any favour to his envied

neighbour. Both laid their conditions and plans before the English

ministry, and Christian IV. finally succeeded in outbidding his rival.

Gustavus Adolphus, for his own security, had demanded the cession of

some places of strength in Germany, where he himself had no territories,

to afford, in case of need, a place of refuge for his troops. Christian

IV. possessed Holstein and Jutland, through which, in the event of a

defeat, he could always secure a retreat.

Eager to get the start of his competitor, the King of Denmark hastened

to take the field. Appointed generalissimo of the circle of Lower

Saxony, he soon had an army of 60,000 men in motion; the administrator

of Magdeburg, and the Dukes of Brunswick and Mecklenburgh, entered into

an alliance with him. Encouraged by the hope of assistance from

England, and the possession of so large a force, he flattered himself he

should be able to terminate the war in a single campaign.

At Vienna, it was officially notified that the only object of these

preparations was the protection of the circle, and the maintenance of

peace. But the negociations with Holland, England, and even France, the

extraordinary exertions of the circle, and the raising of so formidable

an army, seemed to have something more in view than defensive

operations, and to contemplate nothing less than the complete

restoration of the Elector Palatine, and the humiliation of the dreaded

power of Austria.

After negociations, exhortations, commands, and threats had in vain been

employed by the Emperor in order to induce the King of Denmark and the

circle of Lower Saxony to lay down their arms, hostilities commenced,

and Lower Germany became the theatre of war. Count Tilly, marching

along the left bank of the Weser, made himself master of all the passes

as far as Minden. After an unsuccessful attack on Nieuburg, he crossed

the river and overran the principality of Calemberg, in which he

quartered his troops. The king conducted his operations on the right

bank of the river, and spread his forces over the territories of

Brunswick, but having weakened his main body by too powerful

detachments, he could not engage in any enterprise of importance. Aware

of his opponent’s superiority, he avoided a decisive action as anxiously

as the general of the League sought it.

With the exception of the troops from the Spanish Netherlands, which had

poured into the Lower Palatinate, the Emperor had hitherto made use only

of the arms of Bavaria and the League in Germany. Maximilian conducted

the war as executor of the ban of the empire, and Tilly, who commanded

the army of execution, was in the Bavarian service. The Emperor owed

superiority in the field to Bavaria and the League, and his fortunes

were in their hands. This dependence on their goodwill, but ill

accorded with the grand schemes, which the brilliant commencement of the

war had led the imperial cabinet to form.

However active the League had shown itself in the Emperor’s defence,

while thereby it secured its own welfare, it could not be expected that

it would enter as readily into his views of conquest. Or, if they still

continued to lend their armies for that purpose, it was too much to be

feared that they would share with the Emperor nothing but general odium,

while they appropriated to themselves all advantages. A strong army

under his own orders could alone free him from this debasing dependence

upon Bavaria, and restore to him his former pre-eminence in Germany.

But the war had already exhausted the imperial dominions, and they were

unequal to the expense of such an armament. In these circumstances,

nothing could be more welcome to the Emperor than the proposal with

which one of his officers surprised him.

This was Count Wallenstein, an experienced officer, and the richest

nobleman in Bohemia. From his earliest youth he had been in the service

of the House of Austria, and several campaigns against the Turks,

Venetians, Bohemians, Hungarians, and Transylvanians had established his

reputation. He was present as colonel at the battle of Prague, and

afterwards, as major-general, had defeated a Hungarian force in Moravia.

The Emperor’s gratitude was equal to his services, and a large share of

the confiscated estates of the Bohemian insurgents was their reward.

Possessed of immense property, excited by ambitious views, confident in

his own good fortune, and still more encouraged by the existing state of

circumstances, he offered, at his own expense and that of his friends,

to raise and clothe an army for the Emperor, and even undertook the cost

of maintaining it, if he were allowed to augment it to 50,000 men. The

project was universally ridiculed as the chimerical offspring of a

visionary brain; but the offer was highly valuable, if its promises

should be but partially fulfilled. Certain circles in Bohemia were

assigned to him as depots, with authority to appoint his own officers.

In a few months he had 20,000 men under arms, with which, quitting the

Austrian territories, he soon afterwards appeared on the frontiers of

Lower Saxony with 30,000. The Emperor had lent this armament nothing

but his name. The reputation of the general, the prospect of rapid

promotion, and the hope of plunder, attracted to his standard

adventurers from all quarters of Germany; and even sovereign princes,

stimulated by the desire of glory or of gain, offered to raise regiments

for the service of Austria.

Now, therefore, for the first time in this war, an imperial army

appeared in Germany;--an event which if it was menacing to the

Protestants, was scarcely more acceptable to the Catholics. Wallenstein

had orders to unite his army with the troops of the League, and in

conjunction with the Bavarian general to attack the King of Denmark.

But long jealous of Tilly’s fame, he showed no disposition to share with

him the laurels of the campaign, or in the splendour of his rival’s

achievements to dim the lustre of his own. His plan of operations was

to support the latter, but to act entirely independent of him. As he

had not resources, like Tilly, for supplying the wants of his army, he

was obliged to march his troops into fertile countries which had not as

yet suffered from war. Disobeying, therefore, the order to form a

junction with the general of the League, he marched into the territories

of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, and at Dessau made himself master of the

Elbe. All the lands on either bank of this river were at his command,

and from them he could either attack the King of Denmark in the rear,

or, if prudent, enter the territories of that prince.

Christian IV. was fully aware of the danger of his situation between

two such powerful armies. He had already been joined by the

administrator of Halberstadt, who had lately returned from Holland; he

now also acknowledged Mansfeld, whom previously he had refused to

recognise, and supported him to the best of his ability. Mansfeld amply

requited this service. He alone kept at bay the army of Wallenstein

upon the Elbe, and prevented its junction with that of Tilly, and a

combined attack on the King of Denmark. Notwithstanding the enemy’s

superiority, this intrepid general even approached the bridge of Dessau,

and ventured to entrench himself in presence of the imperial lines. But

attacked in the rear by the whole force of the Imperialists, he was

obliged to yield to superior numbers, and to abandon his post with the

loss of 3,000 killed. After this defeat, Mansfeld withdrew into

Brandenburg, where he soon recruited and reinforced his army; and

suddenly turned into Silesia, with the view of marching from thence into

Hungary; and, in conjunction with Bethlen Gabor, carrying the war into

the heart of Austria. As the Austrian dominions in that quarter were

entirely defenceless, Wallenstein received immediate orders to leave the

King of Denmark, and if possible to intercept Mansfeld’s progress

through Silesia.

The diversion which this movement of Mansfeld had made in the plans of

Wallenstein, enabled the king to detach a part of his force into

Westphalia, to seize the bishoprics of Munster and Osnaburg. To check

this movement, Tilly suddenly moved from the Weser; but the operations

of Duke Christian, who threatened the territories of the League with an

inroad in the direction of Hesse, and to remove thither the seat of war,

recalled him as rapidly from Westphalia. In order to keep open his

communication with these provinces, and to prevent the junction of the

enemy with the Landgrave of Hesse, Tilly hastily seized all the tenable

posts on the Werha and Fulda, and took up a strong position in Minden,

at the foot of the Hessian Mountains, and at the confluence of these

rivers with the Weser. He soon made himself master of Goettingen, the

key of Brunswick and Hesse, and was meditating a similar attack upon

Nordheim, when the king advanced upon him with his whole army. After

throwing into this place the necessary supplies for a long siege, the

latter attempted to open a new passage through Eichsfeld and Thuringia,

into the territories of the League. He had already reached Duderstadt,

when Tilly, by forced marches, came up with him. As the army of Tilly,

which had been reinforced by some of Wallenstein’s regiments, was

superior in numbers to his own, the king, to avoid a battle, retreated

towards Brunswick. But Tilly incessantly harassed his retreat, and

after three days’ skirmishing, he was at length obliged to await the

enemy near the village of Lutter in Barenberg. The Danes began the

attack with great bravery, and thrice did their intrepid monarch lead

them in person against the enemy; but at length the superior numbers and

discipline of the Imperialists prevailed, and the general of the League

obtained a complete victory. The Danes lost sixty standards, and their

whole artillery, baggage, and ammunition. Several officers of

distinction and about 4,000 men were killed in the field of battle; and

several companies of foot, in the flight, who had thrown themselves into

the town-house of Lutter, laid down their arms and surrendered to the

conqueror.

The king fled with his cavalry, and soon collected the wreck of his army

which had survived this serious defeat. Tilly pursued his victory, made

himself master of the Weser and Brunswick, and forced the king to retire

into Bremen. Rendered more cautious by defeat, the latter now stood

upon the defensive; and determined at all events to prevent the enemy

from crossing the Elbe. But while he threw garrisons into every tenable

place, he reduced his own diminished army to inactivity; and one after

another his scattered troops were either defeated or dispersed. The

forces of the League, in command of the Weser, spread themselves along

the Elbe and Havel, and everywhere drove the Danes before them. Tilly

himself crossing the Elbe penetrated with his victorious army into

Brandenburg, while Wallenstein entered Holstein to remove the seat of

war to the king’s own dominions.

This general had just returned from Hungary whither he had pursued

Mansfeld, without being able to obstruct his march, or prevent his

junction with Bethlen Gabor. Constantly persecuted by fortune, but

always superior to his fate, Mansfeld had made his way against countless

difficulties, through Silesia and Hungary to Transylvania, where, after

all, he was not very welcome. Relying upon the assistance of England,

and a powerful diversion in Lower Saxony, Gabor had again broken the

truce with the Emperor. But in place of the expected diversion in his

favour, Mansfeld had drawn upon himself the whole strength of

Wallenstein, and instead of bringing, required, pecuniary assistance.

The want of concert in the Protestant counsels cooled Gabor’s ardour;

and he hastened, as usual, to avert the coming storm by a speedy peace.

Firmly determined, however, to break it, with the first ray of hope, he

directed Mansfeld in the mean time to apply for assistance to Venice.

Cut off from Germany, and unable to support the weak remnant of his

troops in Hungary, Mansfeld sold his artillery and baggage train, and

disbanded his soldiers. With a few followers, he proceeded through

Bosnia and Dalmatia, towards Venice. New schemes swelled his bosom; but

his career was ended. Fate, which had so restlessly sported with him

throughout, now prepared for him a peaceful grave in Dalmatia. Death

overtook him in the vicinity of Zara in 1626, and a short time before

him died the faithful companion of his fortunes, Christian, Duke of

Brunswick--two men worthy of immortality, had they but been as superior

to their times as they were to their adversities.

The King of Denmark, with his whole army, was unable to cope with Tilly

alone; much less, therefore, with a shattered force could he hold his

ground against the two imperial generals. The Danes retired from all

their posts on the Weser, the Elbe, and the Havel, and the army of

Wallenstein poured like a torrent into Brandenburg, Mecklenburg,

Holstein and Sleswick. That general, too proud to act in conjunction

with another, had dispatched Tilly across the Elbe, to watch, as he gave

out, the motions of the Dutch in that quarter; but in reality that he

might terminate the war against the king, and reap for himself the

fruits of Tilly’s conquests. Christian had now lost all his fortresses

in the German States, with the exception of Gluckstadt; his armies were

defeated or dispersed; no assistance came from Germany; from England,

little consolation; while his confederates in Lower Saxony were at the

mercy of the conqueror. The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel had been forced

by Tilly, soon after the battle of Lutter, to renounce the Danish

alliance. Wallenstein’s formidable appearance before Berlin reduced the

Elector of Brandenburgh to submission, and compelled him to recognise,

as legitimate, Maximilian’s title to the Palatine Electorate. The

greater part of Mecklenburgh was now overrun by imperial troops; and

both dukes, as adherents of the King of Denmark, placed under the ban of

the empire, and driven from their dominions. The defence of the German

liberties against illegal encroachments, was punished as a crime

deserving the loss of all dignities and territories; and yet this was

but the prelude to the still more crying enormities which shortly

followed.

The secret how Wallenstein had purposed to fulfil his extravagant

designs was now manifest. He had learned the lesson from Count

Mansfeld; but the scholar surpassed his master. On the principle that

war must support war, Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick had subsisted

their troops by contributions levied indiscriminately on friend and

enemy; but this predatory life was attended with all the inconvenience

and insecurity which accompany robbery. Like a fugitive banditti, they

were obliged to steal through exasperated and vigilant enemies; to roam

from one end of Germany to another; to watch their opportunity with

anxiety; and to abandon the most fertile territories whenever they were

defended by a superior army. If Mansfeld and Duke Christian had done

such great things in the face of these difficulties, what might not be

expected if the obstacles were removed; when the army raised was

numerous enough to overawe in itself the most powerful states of the

empire; when the name of the Emperor insured impunity to every outrage;

and when, under the highest authority, and at the head of an

overwhelming force, the same system of warfare was pursued, which these

two adventurers had hitherto adopted at their own risk, and with only an

untrained multitude?

Wallenstein had all this in view when he made his bold offer to the

Emperor, which now seemed extravagant to no one. The more his army was

augmented, the less cause was there to fear for its subsistence, because

it could irresistibly bear down upon the refractory states; the more

violent its outrages, the more probable was impunity. Towards hostile

states it had the plea of right; towards the favourably disposed it

could allege necessity. The inequality, too, with which it dealt out

its oppressions, prevented any dangerous union among the states; while

the exhaustion of their territories deprived them of the power of

vengeance. Thus the whole of Germany became a kind of magazine for the

imperial army, and the Emperor was enabled to deal with the other states

as absolutely as with his own hereditary dominions. Universal was the

clamour for redress before the imperial throne; but there was nothing to

fear from the revenge of the injured princes, so long as they appealed

for justice. The general discontent was directed equally against the

Emperor, who had lent his name to these barbarities, and the general who

exceeded his power, and openly abused the authority of his master. They

applied to the Emperor for protection against the outrages of his

general; but Wallenstein had no sooner felt himself absolute in the

army, than he threw off his obedience to his sovereign.

The exhaustion of the enemy made a speedy peace probable; yet

Wallenstein continued to augment the imperial armies until they were at

least 100,000 men strong. Numberless commissions to colonelcies and

inferior commands, the regal pomp of the commander-in-chief, immoderate

largesses to his favourites, (for he never gave less than a thousand

florins,) enormous sums lavished in corrupting the court at Vienna--all

this had been effected without burdening the Emperor. These immense

sums were raised by the contributions levied from the lower German

provinces, where no distinction was made between friend and foe; and the

territories of all princes were subjected to the same system of marching

and quartering, of extortion and outrage. If credit is to be given to

an extravagant contemporary statement, Wallenstein, during his seven

years command, had exacted not less than sixty thousand millions of

dollars from one half of Germany. The greater his extortions, the

greater the rewards of his soldiers, and the greater the concourse to

his standard, for the world always follows fortune. His armies

flourished while all the states through which they passed withered.

What cared he for the detestation of the people, and the complaints of

princes? His army adored him, and the very enormity of his guilt

enabled him to bid defiance to its consequences.

It would be unjust to Ferdinand, were we to lay all these irregularities

to his charge. Had he foreseen that he was abandoning the German States

to the mercy of his officer, he would have been sensible how dangerous

to himself so absolute a general would prove. The closer the connexion

became between the army, and the leader from whom flowed favour and

fortune, the more the ties which united both to the Emperor were

relaxed. Every thing, it is true, was done in the name of the latter;

but Wallenstein only availed himself of the supreme majesty of the

Emperor to crush the authority of other states. His object was to

depress the princes of the empire, to destroy all gradation of rank

between them and the Emperor, and to elevate the power of the latter

above all competition. If the Emperor were absolute in Germany, who

then would be equal to the man intrusted with the execution of his will?

The height to which Wallenstein had raised the imperial authority

astonished even the Emperor himself; but as the greatness of the master

was entirely the work of the servant, the creation of Wallenstein would

necessarily sink again into nothing upon the withdrawal of its creative

hand. Not without an object, therefore, did Wallenstein labour to

poison the minds of the German princes against the Emperor. The more

violent their hatred of Ferdinand, the more indispensable to the Emperor

would become the man who alone could render their ill-will powerless.

His design unquestionably was, that his sovereign should stand in fear

of no one in all Germany--besides himself, the source and engine of

this despotic power.

As a step towards this end, Wallenstein now demanded the cession of

Mecklenburg, to be held in pledge till the repayment of his advances for

the war. Ferdinand had already created him Duke of Friedland,

apparently with the view of exalting his own general over Bavaria; but

an ordinary recompense would not satisfy Wallenstein’s ambition. In

vain was this new demand, which could be granted only at the expense of

two princes of the empire, actively resisted in the Imperial Council; in

vain did the Spaniards, who had long been offended by his pride, oppose

his elevation. The powerful support which Wallenstein had purchased

from the imperial councillors prevailed, and Ferdinand was determined,

at whatever cost, to secure the devotion of so indispensable a minister.

For a slight offence, one of the oldest German houses was expelled from

their hereditary dominions, that a creature of the Emperor might be

enriched by their spoils (1628).

Wallenstein now began to assume the title of generalissimo of the

Emperor by sea and land. Wismar was taken, and a firm footing gained on

the Baltic. Ships were required from Poland and the Hanse towns to

carry the war to the other side of the Baltic; to pursue the Danes into

the heart of their own country, and to compel them to a peace which

might prepare the way to more important conquests. The communication

between the Lower German States and the Northern powers would be broken,

could the Emperor place himself between them, and encompass Germany,

from the Adriatic to the Sound, (the intervening kingdom of Poland being

already dependent on him,) with an unbroken line of territory. If such

was the Emperor’s plan, Wallenstein had a peculiar interest in its

execution. These possessions on the Baltic should, he intended, form

the first foundation of a power, which had long been the object of his

ambition, and which should enable him to throw off his dependence on the

Emperor.

To effect this object, it was of extreme importance to gain possession

of Stralsund, a town on the Baltic. Its excellent harbour, and the

short passage from it to the Swedish and Danish coasts, peculiarly

fitted it for a naval station in a war with these powers. This town,

the sixth of the Hanseatic League, enjoyed great privileges under the

Duke of Pomerania, and totally independent of Denmark, had taken no

share in the war. But neither its neutrality, nor its privileges, could

protect it against the encroachments of Wallenstein, when he had once

cast a longing look upon it.

The request he made, that Stralsund should receive an imperial garrison,

had been firmly and honourably rejected by the magistracy, who also

refused his cunningly demanded permission to march his troops through

the town, Wallenstein, therefore, now proposed to besiege it.

The independence of Stralsund, as securing the free navigation of the

Baltic, was equally important to the two Northern kings. A common

danger overcame at last the private jealousies which had long divided

these princes. In a treaty concluded at Copenhagen in 1628, they bound

themselves to assist Stralsund with their combined force, and to oppose

in common every foreign power which should appear in the Baltic with

hostile views. Christian IV. also threw a sufficient garrison into

Stralsund, and by his personal presence animated the courage of the

citizens. Some ships of war which Sigismund, King of Poland, had sent

to the assistance of the imperial general, were sunk by the Danish

fleet; and as Lubeck refused him the use of its shipping, this imperial

generalissimo of the sea had not even ships enough to blockade this

single harbour.

Nothing could appear more adventurous than to attempt the conquest of a

strongly fortified seaport without first blockading its harbour.

Wallenstein, however, who as yet had never experienced a check, wished

to conquer nature itself, and to perform impossibilities. Stralsund,

open to the sea, continued to be supplied with provisions and

reinforcements; yet Wallenstein maintained his blockade on the land

side, and endeavoured, by boasting menaces, to supply his want of real

strength. “I will take this town,” said he, “though it were fastened by

a chain to the heavens.” The Emperor himself, who might have cause to

regret an enterprise which promised no very glorious result, joyfully

availed himself of the apparent submission and acceptable propositions

of the inhabitants, to order the general to retire from the town.

Wallenstein despised the command, and continued to harass the besieged

by incessant assaults. As the Danish garrison, already much reduced,

was unequal to the fatigues of this prolonged defence, and the king was

unable to detach any further troops to their support, Stralsund, with

Christian’s consent, threw itself under the protection of the King of

Sweden. The Danish commander left the town to make way for a Swedish

governor, who gloriously defended it. Here Wallenstein’s good fortune

forsook him; and, for the first time, his pride experienced the

humiliation of relinquishing his prey, after the loss of many months and

of 12,000 men. The necessity to which he reduced the town of applying

for protection to Sweden, laid the foundation of a close alliance

between Gustavus Adolphus and Stralsund, which greatly facilitated the

entrance of the Swedes into Germany.

Hitherto invariable success had attended the arms of the Emperor and the

League, and Christian IV., defeated in Germany, had sought refuge in his

own islands; but the Baltic checked the further progress of the

conquerors. The want of ships not only stopped the pursuit of the king,

but endangered their previous acquisitions. The union of the two

northern monarchs was most to be dreaded, because, so long as it lasted,

it effectually prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a

footing on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden. But if they

could succeed in dissolving this union, and especially securing the

friendship of the Danish king, they might hope to overpower the

insulated force of Sweden. The dread of the interference of foreign

powers, the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states, and

still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole of

Protestant Germany, inclined the Emperor to peace, which his general,

from opposite motives, was equally desirous to effect. Far from wishing

for a state of things which would reduce him from the meridian of

greatness and glory to the obscurity of private life, he only wished to

change the theatre of war, and by a partial peace to prolong the general

confusion. The friendship of Denmark, whose neighbour he had become as

Duke of Mecklenburgh, was most important for the success of his

ambitious views; and he resolved, even at the sacrifice of his

sovereign’s interests, to secure its alliance.

By the treaty of Copenhagen, Christian IV. had expressly engaged not to

conclude a separate peace with the Emperor, without the consent of

Sweden. Notwithstanding, Wallenstein’s proposition was readily received

by him. In a conference at Lubeck in 1629, from which Wallenstein, with

studied contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors who came to intercede

for Mecklenburgh, all the conquests taken by the imperialists were

restored to the Danes. The conditions imposed upon the king were, that

he should interfere no farther with the affairs of Germany than was

called for by his character of Duke of Holstein; that he should on no

pretext harass the Chapters of Lower Germany, and should leave the Dukes

of Mecklenburgh to their fate. By Christian himself had these princes

been involved in the war with the Emperor; he now sacrificed them, to

gain the favour of the usurper of their territories. Among the motives

which had engaged him in a war with the Emperor, not the least was the

restoration of his relation, the Elector Palatine--yet the name of that

unfortunate prince was not even mentioned in the treaty; while in one of

its articles the legitimacy of the Bavarian election was expressly

recognised. Thus meanly and ingloriously did Christian IV. retire from

the field.

Ferdinand had it now in his power, for the second time, to secure the

tranquillity of Germany; and it depended solely on his will whether the

treaty with Denmark should or should not be the basis of a general

peace. From every quarter arose the cry of the unfortunate, petitioning

for an end of their sufferings; the cruelties of his soldiers, and the

rapacity of his generals, had exceeded all bounds. Germany, laid waste

by the desolating bands of Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick, and by

the still more terrible hordes of Tilly and Wallenstein, lay exhausted,

bleeding, wasted, and sighing for repose. An anxious desire for peace

was felt by all conditions, and by the Emperor himself; involved as he

was in a war with France in Upper Italy, exhausted by his past warfare

in Germany, and apprehensive of the day of reckoning which was

approaching. But, unfortunately, the conditions on which alone the two

religious parties were willing respectively to sheath the sword, were

irreconcileable. The Roman Catholics wished to terminate the war to

their own advantage; the Protestants advanced equal pretensions. The

Emperor, instead of uniting both parties by a prudent moderation, sided

with one; and thus Germany was again plunged in the horrors of a bloody

war.

From the very close of the Bohemian troubles, Ferdinand had carried on a

counter reformation in his hereditary dominions, in which, however, from

regard to some of the Protestant Estates, he proceeded, at first, with

moderation. But the victories of his generals in Lower Germany

encouraged him to throw off all reserve. Accordingly he had it

intimated to all the Protestants in these dominions, that they must

either abandon their religion, or their native country,--a bitter and

dreadful alternative, which excited the most violent commotions among

his Austrian subjects. In the Palatinate, immediately after the

expulsion of Frederick, the Protestant religion had been suppressed, and

its professors expelled from the University of Heidelberg.

All this was but the prelude to greater changes. In the Electoral

Congress held at Muehlhausen, the Roman Catholics had demanded of the

Emperor that all the archbishoprics, bishoprics, mediate and immediate,

abbacies and monasteries, which, since the Diet of Augsburg, had been

secularized by the Protestants, should be restored to the church, in

order to indemnify them for the losses and sufferings in the war. To a

Roman Catholic prince so zealous as Ferdinand was, such a hint was not

likely to be neglected; but he still thought it would be premature to

arouse the whole Protestants of Germany by so decisive a step. Not a

single Protestant prince but would be deprived, by this revocation of

the religious foundations, of a part of his lands; for where these

revenues had not actually been diverted to secular purposes they had

been made over to the Protestant church. To this source, many princes

owed the chief part of their revenues and importance. All, without

exception, would be irritated by this demand for restoration. The

religious treaty did not expressly deny their right to these chapters,

although it did not allow it. But a possession which had now been held

for nearly a century, the silence of four preceding emperors, and the

law of equity, which gave them an equal right with the Roman Catholics

to the foundations of their common ancestors, might be strongly pleaded

by them as a valid title. Besides the actual loss of power and

authority, which the surrender of these foundations would occasion,

besides the inevitable confusion which would necessarily attend it, one

important disadvantage to which it would lead, was, that the restoration

of the Roman Catholic bishops would increase the strength of that party

in the Diet by so many additional votes. Such grievous sacrifices

likely to fall on the Protestants, made the Emperor apprehensive of a

formidable opposition; and until the military ardour should have cooled

in Germany, he had no wish to provoke a party formidable by its union,

and which in the Elector of Saxony had a powerful leader. He resolved,

therefore, to try the experiment at first on a small scale, in order to

ascertain how it was likely to succeed on a larger one. Accordingly,

some of the free cities in Upper Germany, and the Duke of Wirtemberg,

received orders to surrender to the Roman Catholics several of the

confiscated chapters.

The state of affairs in Saxony enabled the Emperor to make some bolder

experiments in that quarter. In the bishoprics of Magdeburg and

Halberstadt, the Protestant canons had not hesitated to elect bishops of

their own religion. Both bishoprics, with the exception of the town of

Magdeburg itself, were overrun by the troops of Wallenstein. It

happened, moreover, that by the death of the Administrator Duke

Christian of Brunswick, Halberstadt was vacant, as was also the

Archbishopric of Magdeburg by the deposition of Christian William, a

prince of the House of Brandenburgh. Ferdinand took advantage of the

circumstance to restore the see of Halberstadt to a Roman Catholic

bishop, and a prince of his own house. To avoid a similar coercion, the

Chapter of Magdeburg hastened to elect a son of the Elector of Saxony as

archbishop. But the pope, who with his arrogated authority interfered

in this matter, conferred the Archbishopric of Magdeburg also on the

Austrian prince. Thus, with all his pious zeal for religion, Ferdinand

never lost sight of the interests of his family.

At length, when the peace of Lubeck had delivered the Emperor from all

apprehensions on the side of Denmark, and the German Protestants seemed

entirely powerless, the League becoming louder and more urgent in its

demands, Ferdinand, in 1629, signed the Edict of Restitution, (so famous

by its disastrous consequences,) which he had previously laid before the

four Roman Catholic electors for their approbation. In the preamble, he

claimed the prerogative, in right of his imperial authority, to

interpret the meaning of the religious treaty, the ambiguities of which

had already caused so many disputes, and to decide as supreme arbiter

and judge between the contending parties. This prerogative he founded

upon the practice of his ancestors, and its previous recognition even by

Protestant states. Saxony had actually acknowledged this right of the

Emperor; and it now became evident how deeply this court had injured the

Protestant cause by its dependence on the House of Austria. But though

the meaning of the religious treaty was really ambiguous, as a century

of religious disputes sufficiently proved, yet for the Emperor, who must

be either a Protestant or a Roman Catholic, and therefore an interested

party, to assume the right of deciding between the disputants, was

clearly a violation of an essential article of the pacification. He

could not be judge in his own cause, without reducing the liberties of

the empire to an empty sound.

And now, in virtue of this usurpation, Ferdinand decided, “That every

secularization of a religious foundation, mediate or immediate, by the

Protestants, subsequent to the date of the treaty, was contrary to its

spirit, and must be revoked as a breach of it.” He further decided,

“That, by the religious peace, Catholic proprietors of estates were no

further bound to their Protestant subjects than to allow them full

liberty to quit their territories.” In obedience to this decision, all

unlawful possessors of benefices--the Protestant states in short

without exception--were ordered, under pain of the ban of the empire,

immediately to surrender their usurped possessions to the imperial

commissioners.

This sentence applied to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve

bishoprics, besides innumerable abbacies. The edict came like a

thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany; dreadful even in its

immediate consequences; but yet more so from the further calamities it

seemed to threaten. The Protestants were now convinced that the

suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and

the League, and that the overthrow of German liberty would soon follow.

Their remonstrances were unheeded; the commissioners were named, and an

army assembled to enforce obedience. The edict was first put in force

in Augsburg, where the treaty was concluded; the city was again placed

under the government of its bishop, and six Protestant churches in the

town were closed. The Duke of Wirtemberg was, in like manner, compelled

to surrender his abbacies. These severe measures, though they alarmed

the Protestant states, were yet insufficient to rouse them to an active

resistance. Their fear of the Emperor was too strong, and many were

disposed to quiet submission. The hope of attaining their end by gentle

measures, induced the Roman Catholics likewise to delay for a year the

execution of the edict, and this saved the Protestants; before the end

of that period, the success of the Swedish arms had totally changed the

state of affairs.

In a Diet held at Ratisbon, at which Ferdinand was present in person (in

1630), the necessity of taking some measures for the immediate

restoration of a general peace to Germany, and for the removal of all

grievances, was debated. The complaints of the Roman Catholics were

scarcely less numerous than those of the Protestants, although Ferdinand

had flattered himself that by the Edict of Restitution he had secured

the members of the League, and its leader by the gift of the electoral

dignity, and the cession of great part of the Palatinate. But the good

understanding between the Emperor and the princes of the League had

rapidly declined since the employment of Wallenstein. Accustomed to

give law to Germany, and even to sway the Emperor’s own destiny, the

haughty Elector of Bavaria now at once saw himself supplanted by the

imperial general, and with that of the League, his own importance

completely undermined. Another had now stepped in to reap the fruits of

his victories, and to bury his past services in oblivion. Wallenstein’s

imperious character, whose dearest triumph was in degrading the

authority of the princes, and giving an odious latitude to that of the

Emperor, tended not a little to augment the irritation of the Elector.

Discontented with the Emperor, and distrustful of his intentions, he had

entered into an alliance with France, which the other members of the

League were suspected of favouring. A fear of the Emperor’s plans of

aggrandizement, and discontent with existing evils, had extinguished

among them all feelings of gratitude. Wallenstein’s exactions had

become altogether intolerable. Brandenburg estimated its losses at

twenty, Pomerania at ten, Hesse Cassel at seven millions of dollars, and

the rest in proportion. The cry for redress was loud, urgent, and

universal; all prejudices were hushed; Roman Catholics and Protestants

were united on this point. The terrified Emperor was assailed on all

sides by petitions against Wallenstein, and his ear filled with the most

fearful descriptions of his outrages. Ferdinand was not naturally

cruel. If not totally innocent of the atrocities which were practised

in Germany under the shelter of his name, he was ignorant of their

extent; and he was not long in yielding to the representation of the

princes, and reduced his standing army by eighteen thousand cavalry.

While this reduction took place, the Swedes were actively preparing an

expedition into Germany, and the greater part of the disbanded

Imperialists enlisted under their banners.

The Emperor’s concessions only encouraged the Elector of Bavaria to

bolder demands. So long as the Duke of Friedland retained the supreme

command, his triumph over the Emperor was incomplete. The princes of

the League were meditating a severe revenge on Wallenstein for that

haughtiness with which he had treated them all alike. His dismissal was

demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by Spain, with a

degree of unanimity and urgency which astonished the Emperor. The

anxiety with which Wallenstein’s enemies pressed for his dismissal,

ought to have convinced the Emperor of the importance of his services.

Wallenstein, informed of the cabals which were forming against him in

Ratisbon, lost no time in opening the eyes of the Emperor to the real

views of the Elector of Bavaria. He himself appeared in Ratisbon, with

a pomp which threw his master into the shade, and increased the hatred

of his opponents.

Long was the Emperor undecided. The sacrifice demanded was a painful

one. To the Duke of Friedland alone he owed his preponderance; he felt

how much he would lose in yielding him to the indignation of the

princes. But at this moment, unfortunately, he was under the necessity

of conciliating the Electors. His son Ferdinand had already been chosen

King of Hungary, and he was endeavouring to procure his election as his

successor in the empire. For this purpose, the support of Maximilian

was indispensable. This consideration was the weightiest, and to oblige

the Elector of Bavaria he scrupled not to sacrifice his most valuable

servant.

At the Diet at Ratisbon, there were present ambassadors from France,

empowered to adjust the differences which seemed to menace a war in

Italy between the Emperor and their sovereign. Vincent, Duke of Mantua

and Montferrat, dying without issue, his next relation, Charles, Duke of

Nevers, had taken possession of this inheritance, without doing homage

to the Emperor as liege lord of the principality. Encouraged by the

support of France and Venice, he refused to surrender these territories

into the hands of the imperial commissioners, until his title to them

should be decided. On the other hand, Ferdinand had taken up arms at

the instigation of the Spaniards, to whom, as possessors of Milan, the

near neighbourhood of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming, and

who welcomed this prospect of making, with the assistance of the

Emperor, additional conquests in Italy. In spite of all the exertions

of Pope Urban VIII. to avert a war in that country, Ferdinand marched a

German army across the Alps, and threw the Italian states into a general

consternation. His arms had been successful throughout Germany, and

exaggerated fears revived the olden apprehension of Austria’s projects

of universal monarchy. All the horrors of the German war now spread

like a deluge over those favoured countries which the Po waters; Mantua

was taken by storm, and the surrounding districts given up to the

ravages of a lawless soldiery. The curse of Italy was thus added to the

maledictions upon the Emperor which resounded through Germany; and even

in the Roman Conclave, silent prayers were offered for the success of

the Protestant arms.

Alarmed by the universal hatred which this Italian campaign had drawn

upon him, and wearied out by the urgent remonstrances of the Electors,

who zealously supported the application of the French ambassador, the

Emperor promised the investiture to the new Duke of Mantua.

This important service on the part of Bavaria, of course, required an

equivalent from France. The adjustment of the treaty gave the envoys of

Richelieu, during their residence in Ratisbon, the desired opportunity

of entangling the Emperor in dangerous intrigues, of inflaming the

discontented princes of the League still more strongly against him, and

of turning to his disadvantage all the transactions of the Diet. For

this purpose Richelieu had chosen an admirable instrument in Father

Joseph, a Capuchin friar, who accompanied the ambassadors without

exciting the least suspicion. One of his principal instructions was

assiduously to bring about the dismissal of Wallenstein. With the

general who had led it to victory, the army of Austria would lose its

principal strength; many armies could not compensate for the loss of

this individual. It would therefore be a masterstroke of policy, at the

very moment when a victorious monarch, the absolute master of his

operations, was arming against the Emperor, to remove from the head of

the imperial armies the only general who, by ability and military

experience, was able to cope with the French king. Father Joseph, in

the interests of Bavaria, undertook to overcome the irresolution of the

Emperor, who was now in a manner besieged by the Spaniards and the

Electoral Council. “It would be expedient,” he thought, “to gratify the

Electors on this occasion, and thereby facilitate his son’s election to

the Roman Crown. This object once gained, Wallenstein could at any time

resume his former station.” The artful Capuchin was too sure of his man

to touch upon this ground of consolation.

The voice of a monk was to Ferdinand II. the voice of God. “Nothing on

earth,” writes his own confessor, “was more sacred in his eyes than a

priest. If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a Regular

were to meet him at the same time and place, the Regular should receive

his first, and the angel his second obeisance.” Wallenstein’s dismissal

was determined upon.

In return for this pious concession, the Capuchin dexterously

counteracted the Emperor’s scheme to procure for the King of Hungary the

further dignity of King of the Romans. In an express clause of the

treaty just concluded, the French ministers engaged in the name of their

sovereign to observe a complete neutrality between the Emperor and his

enemies; while, at the same time, Richelieu was actually negociating

with the King of Sweden to declare war, and pressing upon him the

alliance of his master. The latter, indeed, disavowed the lie as soon

as it had served its purpose, and Father Joseph, confined to a convent,

must atone for the alleged offence of exceeding his instructions.

Ferdinand perceived, when too late, that he had been imposed upon. “A

wicked Capuchin,” he was heard to say, “has disarmed me with his rosary,

and thrust nothing less than six electoral crowns into his cowl.”

Artifice and trickery thus triumphed over the Emperor, at the moment

when he was believed to be omnipotent in Germany, and actually was so in

the field. With the loss of 18,000 men, and of a general who alone was

worth whole armies, he left Ratisbon without gaining the end for which

he had made such sacrifices. Before the Swedes had vanquished him in

the field, Maximilian of Bavaria and Father Joseph had given him a

mortal blow. At this memorable Diet at Ratisbon the war with Sweden was

resolved upon, and that of Mantua terminated. Vainly had the princes

present at it interceded for the Dukes of Mecklenburgh; and equally

fruitless had been an application by the English ambassadors for a

pension to the Palatine Frederick.

Wallenstein was at the head of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men

who adored him, when the sentence of his dismissal arrived. Most of the

officers were his creatures:--with the common soldiers his hint was

law. His ambition was boundless, his pride indomitable, his imperious

spirit could not brook an injury unavenged. One moment would now

precipitate him from the height of grandeur into the obscurity of a

private station. To execute such a sentence upon such a delinquent

seemed to require more address than it cost to obtain it from the judge.

Accordingly, two of Wallenstein’s most intimate friends were selected as

heralds of these evil tidings, and instructed to soften them as much as

possible, by flattering assurances of the continuance of the Emperor’s

favour.

Wallenstein had ascertained the purport of their message before the

imperial ambassadors arrived. He had time to collect himself, and his

countenance exhibited an external calmness, while grief and rage were

storming in his bosom. He had made up his mind to obey. The Emperor’s

decision had taken him by surprise before circumstances were ripe, or

his preparations complete, for the bold measures he had contemplated.

His extensive estates were scattered over Bohemia and Moravia; and by

their confiscation, the Emperor might at once destroy the sinews of his

power. He looked, therefore, to the future for revenge; and in this

hope he was encouraged by the predictions of an Italian astrologer, who

led his imperious spirit like a child in leading strings. Seni had read

in the stars, that his master’s brilliant career was not yet ended; and

that bright and glorious prospects still awaited him. It was, indeed,

unnecessary to consult the stars to foretell that an enemy, Gustavus

Adolphus, would ere long render indispensable the services of such a

general as Wallenstein.

“The Emperor is betrayed,” said Wallenstein to the messengers; “I pity

but forgive him. It is plain that the grasping spirit of the Bavarian

dictates to him. I grieve that, with so much weakness, he has

sacrificed me, but I will obey.” He dismissed the emissaries with

princely presents; and in a humble letter besought the continuance of

the Emperor’s favour, and of the dignities he had bestowed upon him.

The murmurs of the army were universal, on hearing of the dismissal of

their general; and the greater part of his officers immediately quitted

the imperial service. Many followed him to his estates in Bohemia and

Moravia; others he attached to his interests by pensions, in order to

command their services when the opportunity should offer.

But repose was the last thing that Wallenstein contemplated when he

returned to private life. In his retreat, he surrounded himself with a

regal pomp, which seemed to mock the sentence of degradation. Six gates

led to the palace he inhabited in Prague, and a hundred houses were

pulled down to make way for his courtyard. Similar palaces were built

on his other numerous estates. Gentlemen of the noblest houses

contended for the honour of serving him, and even imperial chamberlains

resigned the golden key to the Emperor, to fill a similar office under

Wallenstein. He maintained sixty pages, who were instructed by the

ablest masters. His antichamber was protected by fifty life guards.

His table never consisted of less than 100 covers, and his seneschal was

a person of distinction. When he travelled, his baggage and suite

accompanied him in a hundred wagons, drawn by six or four horses; his

court followed in sixty carriages, attended by fifty led horses. The

pomp of his liveries, the splendour of his equipages, and the

decorations of his apartments, were in keeping with all the rest. Six

barons and as many knights, were in constant attendance about his

person, and ready to execute his slightest order. Twelve patrols went

their rounds about his palace, to prevent any disturbance. His busy

genius required silence. The noise of coaches was to be kept away from

his residence, and the streets leading to it were frequently blocked up

with chains. His own circle was as silent as the approaches to his

palace; dark, reserved, and impenetrable, he was more sparing of his

words than of his gifts; while the little that he spoke was harsh and

imperious. He never smiled, and the coldness of his temperament was

proof against sensual seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he

despised all those idle amusements in which so many waste their lives.

The correspondence he kept up with the whole of Europe was chiefly

managed by himself, and, that as little as possible might be trusted to

the silence of others, most of the letters were written by his own hand.

He was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short

red hair, and small sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding seriousness

sat upon his brow; and his magnificent presents alone retained the

trembling crowd of his dependents.