Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including Anglicized spellings of the names of some places
and people. Some changes have been made. They are listed at the end
of the text, apart from some changes of puctuation in the Index.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.
EPOCHS OF HISTORY
EDITED BY
EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A.
THE ERA
OF
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648.
S. R. GARDINER.
_EPOCHS SELECTED._
=THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION.= By F. SEEBOHM, Author of 'The
Oxford Reformers.'--_Now ready._
=THE CRUSADES.= By the Rev. G. W. COX, M.A.; Author of the 'History of
Greece.'--_Now ready._
=THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648.= By SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER.--_Nearly
ready._
=THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES=; CHARLES the GREAT and ALFRED; the
HISTORY of ENGLAND in its connexion with that of EUROPE in the NINTH
CENTURY. By the Very Rev. R. W. CHURCH, M.A. Dean of St. Paul's.
=THE NORMAN KINGS AND THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.= By the Rev. A. H. JOHNSON,
M.A.
=THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS= and their relation to the HISTORY of EUROPE;
the foundation and growth of CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. By the Rev.
WILLIAM STUBBS, M.A. &c. Regius Professor of Modern History in the
University of Oxford.
=EDWARD III.= By the Rev. W. WARBURTON, M.A.
=THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK=; with the CONQUEST and LOSS of
FRANCE. By JAMES GAIRDNER of the Public Record Office.
=THE AGE OF ELIZABETH.= By the Rev. M. CREIGHTON, M.A.
=THE STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION.= By J. LANGTON SANFORD, Author
of 'Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion.'
=THE FALL OF THE STUARTS=; and WESTERN EUROPE from 1678 to 1697. By the
Rev. EDWARD HALE, M.A. Assistant-Master at Eton.
=THE AGE OF ANNE=. By EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. Editor of the Series.
=FREDERICK THE GREAT= and the =SEVEN YEARS' WAR=. By F. W. LONGMAN, of
Balliol College, Oxford.
=THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.= By JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW.
EACH 1 VOL. 16MO., CLOTH, UNIFORM. PRICE, $1.00.
New York: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
THE
THIRTY YEARS' WAR
1618-1648
BY
SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER
_Late Student of Christ Church
Author of 'History of England from the Accession of James I. to the
Disgrace of Justice Coke' and 'Prince Charles and the
Spanish Marriage'_
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
1874.
JAS. B. RODGERS CO.,
Electrotypers and Printers,
52 & 54 N. SIXTH ST.,
PHILADELPHIA.
PREFACE.
If the present work should appear to be written for more advanced
students than those for whom most if not all the other books of the
series are designed, the nature of the subject must be pleaded in
excuse. The mere fact that it relates exclusively to Continental history
makes it unlikely that junior pupils would approach it in any shape, and
it is probably impossible to make the very complicated relations between
the German states and other European nations interesting to those who
are for the first time, or almost the first time, attempting to acquire
historical knowledge. Every history, to be a history, must have a unity
of its own, and here we have no unity of national life such as that
which is reflected in the institutions of England and France, not even
the unity of a great race of sovereigns handing down the traditions of
government from one generation to another. The unity of the subject
which I have chosen must be sought in the growth of the principle of
religious toleration as it is adopted or repelled by the institutions
under which Germany and France, the two principal nations with which we
are concerned, are living. Thus the history of the period may be
compared to a gigantic dissolving view. As we enter upon it our minds
are filled with German men and things. But Germany fails to find the
solution of the problem before it. Gradually France comes with
increasing distinctness before us. It succeeds where Germany had failed,
and occupies us more and more till it fills the whole field of action.
But though, as I have said, the present work is not intended for young
children, neither is it intended for those who require the results of
original research. The data for a final judgment on the story are
scattered in so many repositories that the Germans themselves have now
discovered that a complete investigation into one or other of the
sections into which the war naturally falls, is sufficient work for any
man. There must surely, however, be many, as well in the upper classes
of schools as in more advanced life, who would be glad to know at second
hand what is the result of recent inquiry in Germany into the causes of
the failure of the last attempt, before our own day, to constitute a
united German nation. The writer who undertakes such a task encounters,
with his eyes open, all the hazards to which a second-hand narrative is
liable. His impressions are less sharp, and are exposed to greater risk
of error than those of one who goes direct to the fountain head. He must
be content to be the retailer rather than the manufacturer of history,
knowing that each kind of work has its use.
Not that the present book is a mere collection of other men's words. If
I have often adopted without much change the narrative or opinions of
German writers, I have never said any thing which I have not made my
own, by passing it through my own mind. To reproduce with mere paste and
scissors passages from the writings of men so opposed to one another as
Ranke, Gindely, Ritter, Opel, Hurter, Droysen, Gfrörer, Klopp, Förster,
Villermont, Uetterodt, Koch, and others, would be to bewilder, not to
instruct. And in forming my own opinions I have had the advantage not
merely of being in the habit of writing from original documents, but of
having studied at least some of the letters and State papers of the
time. I have thus, for example, been able, from my knowledge of the
despatches of Sir Robert Anstruther, to neglect Droysen's elaborate
argument that Christian IV. took part in the war through jealousy of
Gustavus Adolphus; and to speak, in opposition to Onno Klopp, of the
persistence of the Dukes of Mecklenburg in the support which they gave
to the King of Denmark.
More valuable than the little additional knowledge thus obtained is the
insight into the feelings and thoughts of the Catholic princes gained by
a very slight acquaintance with their own correspondence. To start by
trying to understand what a man appears to himself, and only when that
has been done, to try him by the standard of the judgment of others, is
in my opinion the first canon of historical portraiture; and it is one
which till very recent times has been more neglected by writers on the
Thirty Years' War than by students of any other portion of history.
My teachers in Germany from whom I have borrowed so freely, and
according to the rules of the series, without acknowledgment in
foot-notes, will, I hope, accept this little book, not as an attempt to
do that which they are so much better qualified to execute, but as an
expression of the sympathy which an Englishman cannot but feel for the
misfortunes as well as the achievements of his kindred on the Continent,
and as an effort to tell something of the by-gone fortunes of their race
to those amongst his own countrymen to whom, from youth or from
circumstances of education, German literature is a sealed book.
I have only to add that the dates are according to the New Style. Ten
days must be deducted to bring them in accordance with those used at the
time in England.
CONTENTS.
_Events in English History not noticed in the text, or only referred to,
are printed in Italics._
CHAPTER I.
CAUSES OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
SECTION I.--_Political Institutions of Germany_ (1440-1517).
PAGE
National institutions of Germany defective 1
(_a_) As regarded the Emperor 1
(_b_) As regarded the great vassals 3
Attempts made to introduce order by giving a regular
form to the Diet 5
These, though only partially successful, are not
altogether useless 6
Constitution of the Diet 6
SECTION II.--_Protestantism in Germany_ (1517-1570).
Protestantism acceptable to the majority of the nation,
but rejected by the Emperor and the Diet 8
The result is a civil war, resulting in a compromise,
called the Peace of Augsburg (1555). Its terms being
ambiguous on some important points, give rise to
controversy 10
But as Protestantism is on the increase, the ambiguous
points are, at first, construed by the Protestants in
their own favour 11
The main points at issue relate to the right of
Protestants to hold bishoprics, and to the right of
Protestant princes to secularize church lands 12
SECTION III.--_Reaction against Protestantism_ (1570-1596).
Theological controversies are carried on with
bitterness amongst the Protestants 13
The Catholics, accordingly, begin to gain ground 14
And having the Emperor and Diet on their side, are
able to use force as well as persuasion 14
Want of any popular representation prevents any fair
settlement of the dispute 15
SECTION IV.--_Three Parties and Three Leaders_ (1596-1612).
Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists are respectively
guided by Maximilian Duke of Bavaria, John George
Elector of Saxony, and Christian of Anhalt 15
Character and policy of Maximilian dangerous to the
Protestants 15
The Protestants of the south more alive to the danger
than the Protestants of the north 17
Spread of Calvinism, especially in the south, accounted
for by the greater danger from Catholic
States 17
Character and policy of Christian of Anhalt 18
1603 _Accession of James I. of England_
1605 _Gunpowder Plot_
1607 Donauwörth occupied by Maximilian 19
1608 Formation of the Protestant Union and the Catholic
League 21
1609 The quarrel for the succession of Cleves does not result
in open war 21
1612 John George fruitlessly attempts to mediate between the
Catholics and the Calvinists 22
1613 _Marriage of Frederick V., Elector Palatine, to
Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England_
CHAPTER II.
THE BOHEMIAN REVOLUTION.
SECTION I.--_The House of Austria and its Subjects_ (1600-1618).
Political and religious dissensions between the rulers
and their subjects 24
1609 The Emperor Rudolph, as King of Bohemia, grants the
Royal Charter to Bohemia 25
1611 He is succeeded by Matthias in spite of the intrigues
of Christian of Anhalt 26
Matthias evades the charter 27
1617 Ferdinand accepted by the Bohemian Diet as King by
hereditary right 28
1618 The Protestant churches on ecclesiastical lands
declared illegal by the government of Matthias; one at
Braunau shut up, one at Klostergrab pulled down 29
SECTION II.--_The Revolution at Prague_ (March-May 1618).
Mar. 5. Meeting of the Protestant Estates of Bohemia 29
May 23. Attack headed by Thurn upon the Regents at
Prague. Martinitz and Slawata thrown out of window.
Beginning of the Thirty Years' War 30
Appointment of Thirty Directors as a Revolutionary
Government in Bohemia 31
SECTION III.--_The War in Bohemia (May 1618-February 1619)._
Aug. 13. Bohemia invaded by the Emperor's general, Bucquoi.
The Bohemians look abroad for help. Mansfeld
brings troops to them. He besieges Pilsen, whilst
Thurn makes head against Bucquoi 33
Nov. 21. Pilsen surrenders 34
Christian of Anhalt urges Frederick V., Elector
Palatine, to intervene on behalf of the Bohemians,
and asks the Duke of Savoy to help them 34
1619 The Duke of Savoy talks of dividing the Austrian
Feb. dominions with Frederick 35
SECTION IV.--_Ferdinand on his Defence (March-November 1619)._
Mar. 20. Death of Matthias 36
June 5. Vienna besieged by Thurn. Ferdinand threatened
by a deputation from the Estates of Lower Austria 36
He is delivered by a regiment of horse, and Thurn
raises the siege 37
Aug. 28. Ferdinand II. elected Emperor 38
Aug. 26. Frederick, Elector Palatine, elected King of Bohemia,
Ferdinand having been previously deposed 38
Nov. 4. Frederick Crowned at Prague 39
CHAPTER III.
IMPERIALIST VICTORIES IN BOHEMIA AND THE PALATINATE
SECTION I.--_The Attack upon Frederick (November 1619-January 1621)._
1619 Maximilian of Bavaria prepares for war 39
Vienna fruitlessly attacked by Bethlen Gabor 40
Frederick finds no support in the Union 41
1620 The North German Princes agree to neutrality at
Mar. Mühlhausen 42
June 3. Spinola, the Spanish General, prepares to attack the
Palatinate, and the Union, being frightened, signs
the treaty of Ulm, by which it agrees to observe
neutrality towards the League 42
June 23. Maximilian, with Tilly in command of his army,
enters Austria and compels the Austrian Estates to
submit, whilst Spinola reduces the Western Palatinate 42
Maximilian joins Bucquoi, and enters Bohemia 43
Sep. 28. Frederick, having failed to organize resistance, joins
the Bohemian army 44
Nov. 8. Defeat of Frederick at the Battle of the White Hill,
1619 and submission of Bohemia to the Emperor 45
Jan. 22. Frederick put to the Ban of the Empire 46
SECTION II.--_The War in the Upper Palatinate (January-October 1621)._
1621 Frederick does not abandon hope of regaining Bohemia 47
Jan.
Ap. 12. The Treaty of Mentz dissolves the Union 47
Bad character of Mansfeld's Army 48
May Mansfeld takes the offensive 49
Aug. Recommencement of the War in the Lower Palatinate 50
Oct. Mansfeld unable to hold out in the Upper Palatinate 50
Oct. 10. Signs an engagement to disband his forces, but escapes
with them to Alsace 50
SECTION III.--_Frederick's Allies (October 1621-May 1622)._
1621 James I. of England proposes to take Mansfeld into
his pay, but he cannot agree with the House of
Commons, and is therefore in want of money 50
1622 He then tries to obtain a settlement of the German
disputes with the aid of Spain 51
May A conference for the pacification of Germany held at
Brussels 52
Frederick prepares for War, with the help of Mansfeld,
the Margrave of Baden, and Christian of
Brunswick, the latter being a Protestant Administrator
of the Bishopric of Halberstadt 53
He ravages the diocese of Paderborn 55
SECTION IV.--_The Fight for the Lower Palatinate (April-July 1622)._
Ap. 12. Frederick joins Mansfeld. Tilly defeats the Margrave
May 6. of Baden at Wimpfen 57
June Frederick, hopeful of success, refuses to consent to a
treaty, and seizes the Landgrave of Darmstadt 58
But is driven by Tilly to retreat 59
June 30. Defeat of Christian of Brunswick at Höchst 59
July Mansfeld abandons the Palatinate, and Frederick,
after taking refuge at Sedan, retires to the Hague 60
CHAPTER IV.
MANSFELD AND CHRISTIAN IN NORTH GERMANY.
SECTION I.--_Mansfeld's March into the Netherlands (July-November
1622)._
1622 Tilly proceeds to reduce the fortified places in the
Lower Palatinate 60
1623 The Electorate transferred from Frederick to Maximilian
Feb. 13 61
1622 Change of feeling in North Germany 61
Aug. Mansfeld and Christian establish themselves in Lorraine,
and then try to cut their way through the
Spanish Netherlands to join the Duke 63
Aug. 28. Battle of Fleurus. Christian loses his arm 63
Nov. Mansfeld establishes himself in East Friesland 64
SECTION II.--_Christian of Brunswick in Lower Saxony
(November 1622-August 1623)._
1622 The Lower Saxon Circle urged by Tilly to join him
against Mansfeld, and by Christian of Brunswick to
join him against Tilly 64
1623 Warlike preparations of the Circle 65
Feb.
Aug. 6. Christian expelled from the Circle, and defeated by
Tilly at Stadtlohn 66
SECTION III.--_Danger of the Lower Saxon Circle (August-December
1623)._
1623 The North German Protestant Bishoprics in danger 66
Aug. Alarm in the Lower Saxon Circle 68
Dec. But nothing is done, and its troops are disbanded 68
SECTION IV.--_England and France (October 1623-August 1624)._
Oct. Foreign Powers ready to interfere 69
Return of the Prince of Wales from Madrid 70
1624 Divergence between the English House of Commons
Feb.-May and James I. upon the mode of recovering the Palatinate 70
Position of the Huguenots in France 72
SECTION V.--_Rise of Richelieu (August 1624-September 1625)._
Aug. Lewis XIII. makes Richelieu his chief minister. He
is divided between a desire to combat Spain and a
desire to reduce the Huguenots to submission 72
Richelieu's position less strong than it afterwards
became. He has to make great allowances for the
King's humour 74
Dec. French attack upon the Spanish garrisons in the
Valtelline 75
1625 Failure of Mansfeld's expedition intended by James
Jan.-June to recover the Palatinate 76
Jan. Richelieu's plans for engaging more deeply in the
war frustrated by the rising of the Huguenots of
Rochelle 77
Sept. The Huguenot fleet is defeated, but Rochelle holds
out 77
CHAPTER V.
INTERVENTION OF THE KING OF DENMARK.
SECTION I.--_Christian IV. and Gustavus Adolphus (1624)._
Character and position of Christian IV., King of
Denmark 78
Genius of Gustavus Adolphus 79
Sketch of the earlier part of his reign 80
His interest in German affairs 82
SECTION II.--_English Diplomacy (August 1624-July 1625)._
1624 The Kings of Denmark and Sweden asked by James
Aug. I. to join him in recovering the Palatinate 84
1625 The English Government, thinking the demands of
Jan. Gustavus exorbitant, forms an alliance with
Christian IV. 85
June _Meeting of the first Parliament of Charles I._
June Gustavus directs his forces against Poland 86
Mar. 27. Death of James I. Accession of Charles I. 86
July 18. Christian IV., at the head of the Circle of Lower
Saxony, enters upon war with the army of the
League commanded by Tilly 87
Aug. _Dissolution of the first Parliament of Charles I._
SECTION III.--_Wallenstein's Armament (July 1625-February 1626)._
The Emperor needs more forces 87
Wallenstein offers to raise an army for him. Account
of Wallenstein's early life 89
The system by which the army is to be supported is
to be one of forced contributions 90
Oppressive burdens laid thereby on the country 91
Wallenstein enters the dioceses of Magdeburg and
Halberstadt, and lies quietly there during the winter 92
1626 Failure of negotiations for peace 93
Feb.
SECTION IV.--_Defeat of Mansfeld and Christian IV.
(February-August 1626)._
1626 Numerical superiority on the side of the King of
Feb. Denmark, but the Imperialists are superior in other
respects 94
Failure of the supplies promised to Christian by
Charles I. 95
Feb. _Meeting of the second Parliament of
Charles I.--Impeachment of Buckingham_
Ap. 25. Mansfeld defeated by Wallenstein at the Bridge of
Dessau 96
June _Dissolution of the second Parliament of Charles I._
Aug. 27. Christian IV. defeated by Tilly at Lutter 97
Wallenstein pursues Mansfeld into Hungary 97
CHAPTER VI.
STRALSUND AND ROCHELLE.
SECTION I.--_Fresh Successes of Wallenstein (August 1626-October
1627)._
1626 Divergence between the League and Wallenstein 98
Nov. Wallenstein advocates religious equality and the
predominance of the army 98
1627 He persuades Ferdinand to increase his army, and is
Jan. created Duke of Friedland, in spite of the growing
dissatisfaction with his proceedings 100
May-Aug. The King of Denmark hopes to resist Tilly, but
Wallenstein returns from Hungary, and gains possession
of Silesia 101
Sept. 20. Defeat of the Margrave of Baden at Heiligenhafen 102
Oct. Christian IV. flies to the Island of Fünen, leaving
Jutland to Wallenstein 102
SECTION II.--_Resistance to Wallenstein in the Empire
(October 1627-February 1628)._
1627 Meeting of the Electors at Mühlhausen. They complain
Oct. of Wallenstein 103
1628 The commercial towns of North Germany jealous of
Wallenstein 105
Feb. The Emperor declares the Dukes of Mecklenburg to
have forfeited their lands and titles, and pledges the
territory to Wallenstein 106
Wallenstein tries in vain to gain over the Hanse
Towns 106
He attempts to establish himself on the coast of the
Baltic by getting possession of the towns 108
SECTION III.--_The Siege of Stralsund (August-February 1628)._
Feb. As Stralsund refuses to admit a garrison, it is
attacked by Wallenstein's orders 108
May It is succoured by Denmark and Sweden 109
Aug. 3. The siege is raised 110
SECTION IV.--_The Siege of Rochelle (1625-1628)._
1625 Richelieu would have made peace with the Huguenots
if he had been able 112
1626 An agreement is effected, but comes to nothing
through the jealousy of Charles I. 112
1627 War between France and England, Buckingham's
expedition to Rhé 113
Nov. Richelieu besieges Rochelle 114
1628 Mar. _Meeting of the third Parliament of Charles I._
May Failure of an English fleet to succour Rochelle 115
June _The Petition of Right granted_
Aug. Murder of the Duke of Buckingham 115
Nov. 1. Surrender of Rochelle 115
Contrast between France and Germany. Toleration
granted to the Huguenots 116
CHAPTER VII.
THE EDICT OF RESTITUTION.
SECTION I.--_Oppression of the Protestants (March 1628-May 1629)._
1628 Mar. Surrender of Stade to Tilly 117
1629 Jan. Wallenstein fails to take Glückstadt 117
Mar. _Dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles I._
May 22. Peace of Lübeck between Christian IV. and the
Emperor 118
Wallenstein invested with the Duchy of Mecklenburg 118
1628 The Protestants oppressed in the South of Germany 119
1629 Issue of the Edict of Restitution 120
Mar. 29.
SECTION II.--_French Intervention in Italy (1628-1630)._
1628 War in Italy for the succession to the Duchy of
Mantua 121
1629 Richelieu enters Italy, and compels the Spaniards to
Mar. raise the siege of Casale 122
Rebellion of Rohan in the south of France 123
1629 Richelieu again enters Italy, seizes Pignerol and
Saluces, and again forces the Spaniards to raise the
siege of Casale 123
1630 Negotiations between France and Sweden 124
SECTION III.--_Wallenstein deprived of his Command
(March 1629-September 1630)._
1629 Wallenstein increases his forces 125
Jealousy between him and the Catholic Electors 126
1630 Assembly at Ratisbon 127
July 3. It demands that Wallenstein be deprived of his
command 127
July 4. Landing of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany 128
Sept. Dismissal of Wallenstein 129
Tilly in command 130
SECTION IV.--_The Swedes establish themselves on the Coast of the
Baltic (July 1630-January 1631)._
July Discipline in the Swedish Army 130
The Duke of Pomerania submits to him, but the
Elector of Brandenburg declares himself neutral 130
1651 The treaty of Bärwalde between France and Sweden 132
SECTION V.--_The Fall of Magdeburg (January-May 1631)._
Jan. Success of Gustavus on the Baltic coast 133
March The Electors of Saxony hold a Protestant Assembly
at Leipzig 133
Tilly attacks the Swedes, but is driven to retreat 134
Ap. 26. Treaty of Cherasco between France and the English 135
May 15. Convention between Gustavus and the Elector of
Brandenburg 136
May 20. Magdeburg stormed, plundered, and burnt 136
The Emperor refuses to cancel the Edict of Restitution 137
CHAPTER VIII.
THE VICTORIES OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
SECTION I.--_Alliance between the Swedes and the Saxons
(June-September 1631)._
June 21. Gustavus compels the Elector of Brandenburg to an
alliance 138
July Gustavus at the Camp of Werben 138
Aug. Tilly summons the Elector of Saxony to submit 139
Sept. He attacks Saxony, upon which the Elector forms an
alliance with Gustavus 139
Gustavus joins the Saxons 140
SECTION II.--_Battle of Breitenfeld (September 1631)._
Sept. 17. Victory of Gustavus over Tilly at Breitenfeld 141
Wallenstein's intrigues with Gustavus 142
Wallenstein and Gustavus unlikely to agree 143
Political and military designs of Gustavus 144
He looks for a basis of operations on the Rhine 146
SECTION III.--_March of Gustavus into South Germany
(October 1631-May 1632)._
Oct. March of Gustavus to Mentz 148
1632 In spite of the objections of the French, he attacks
Bavaria 149
Ap. 14. Tilly defeated and mortally wounded at the passage
of the Lech 149
May 17. Gustavus enters Munich 150
SECTION IV.--_Wallenstein's Restoration to command
(September 1631-June 1632)._
Sept. Wallenstein breaks off all intercourse with Gustavus 151
Nov. Attempts to reconcile the Elector of Saxony with the
Emperor 152
Dec. Is reinstated temporarily in the command of the
Imperial Army 153
1632 Character of that Army 153
April Wallenstein permanently appointed Commander 155
May Offers peace to the Saxons, and drives them out of
Bohemia 155
June Gustavus does not approve of the terms of peace
offered by Wallenstein 156
SECTION V.--_Struggle between Gustavus and Wallenstein
(June-October 1632)._
June Gustavus and Wallenstein opposed to one
another at Nüremberg 157
Efforts of Gustavus to maintain discipline 159
Sept. 4. Fails to storm Wallenstein's lines 160
Sept. 18. Gustavus leaves Nüremberg 160
Oct. Wallenstein marches into Saxony 160
SECTION VI.--_The Battle of Lützen (October-November 1632)._
Oct. Gustavus follows Wallenstein into Saxony 161
Nov. 16. Battle of Lützen 162
Death of Gustavus 163
Victory of the Swedes 164
Irreparable loss by the death of Gustavus to the
Protestants 164
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN AND THE TREATY OF PRAGUE.
SECTION I.--_French Influence in Germany (November 1632-April 1633)._
1633 Differences between Bernhard and Oxenstjerna 166
Ap. 23. The League of Heilbronn signed 167
Firm establishment of Richelieu's authority in
France 168
Richelieu's interposition in German affairs 169
SECTION II.--_Wallenstein's Attempt to dictate Peace
(April-December 1633)._
1633 Wallenstein's peace negotiations with the Swedes
and Saxons 170
Oct. He drives the Saxons out of Silesia 172
Nov. Ratisbon taken by Bernhard 173
Spanish opposition to a peace which would leave
Spain exposed to French attacks 173
Dec. Wallenstein thinks of making peace, whether the Emperor
consents or not 175
SECTION III.--_Resistance to Wallenstein's Plans
(January-February 1634)._
1634 Oñate, the Spanish Ambassador, persuades the Emperor
Jan. that Wallenstein is a traitor 175
Ferdinand determines to displace Wallenstein 176
Feb. 19. Wallenstein engages the Colonels to support him 177
SECTION IV.--_Assassination of Wallenstein (February 1634)._
Feb. 18. Wallenstein declared a traitor 179
Feb. 21. The garrison of Prague declares against him 179
Feb. 24. Wallenstein at Eger 179
Feb. 25. He is assassinated 181
Comparison between Gustavus and Wallenstein 181
SECTION V.--_Imperialist Victories and the Treaty of Prague
(February 1634-May 1635)._
1634 The King of Hungary reorganizes the imperial
Feb. army 181
Sept. 6. In conjunction with the Cardinal-Infant, he defeats
Bernhard at Nördlingen 183
Consequent necessity of an increased French intervention 184
1635 Peace of Prague 184
May 30. It is not universally accepted 185
Miserable condition of Germany. Notes of an English
traveller 187
CHAPTER X.
THE PREPONDERANCE OF FRANCE.
SECTION I.--_Open Intervention of France (May 1635)._
1635 Protestantism not out of danger 189
May Close alliance of some of the Princes with France 190
Importance of the possession of Alsace and Lorraine 191
May 19. France declares war against Spain 192
SECTION II.--_Spanish Successes (May 1635-December 1637)._
1635 Failure of the French attack on the Spanish Netherlands 192
1636 Spanish invasion of France 193
Oct. 4. Baner's victory at Wittstock 194
1637 Death of Ferdinand II. Accession of Ferdinand III. 194
Feb. 15.
Imperialist success in Germany 195
SECTION III.--_The Struggle for Alsace (January 1638-July
1639)._
1638 Bernhard's victories in the Breisgau and Alsace 195
July 8. Death of Bernhard 196
SECTION IV.--_French Successes (July 1639-Dec. 1642)._
French maritime successes 197
1639 Spanish fleet taking refuge in the Downs 198
It is destroyed by the Dutch 198
1640 Insurrection of Catalonia 199
Nov. Independence of Portugal 200
1641 Defeat of the Imperialists at Wolfenbüttel 201
1642 Defeat of the Imperialists at Kempten 201
Aug. _Charles I. sets up his standard. Beginning of the
English Civil War_
Dec. 4. Death of Richelieu 201
SECTION V.--_Aims and Character of Richelieu (December 1642-May
1643)._
Richelieu's domestic policy 201
Contrast between France and England 202
Richelieu's foreign policy 203
1643 Moderation of his aims 204
May 14. Death of Lewis XIII 205
SECTION VI.--_More French Victories (May 1643--August 1645)._
1643 Rule of Cardinal Mazarin 205
May 19. Enghien defeats the Spaniards at Rocroy 206
The French kept in check in Germany 207
1644 Enghien and Turenne. Battle of Freiburg 208
July _Battle of Marston Moor_
1645 Second Battle of Nördlingen 208
Aug. 3.
Mar. 6. Swedish victory at Jankow 209
CHAPTER XI.
THE END OF THE WAR.
SECTION I.--_Turenne's Strategy (June 1645-October 1648)._
1645 Negotiations for peace begun 209
June _Battle of Naseby_
Aims of the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria 210
1646 Turenne outmanoeuvres the Imperialists 212
1647 Truce between the French and the Bavarians 213
May-Sept.
1648 Defeat of the Bavarians at Zusmarshausen 213
May 17.
SECTION II.--_The Treaty of Westphalia (Oct. 1648)._
1648 Terms of the peace 213
Oct. 24. How far was toleration effected by it 214
General desire for peace 217
SECTION III.--_Condition of Germany._
Debasing effects of the war 217
Decrease of the population 218
Moral and intellectual decadence 218
Disintegration of Germany 220
Protestantism saved, and with it the future culture of
Germany 220
SECTION IV.--_Continuance of the War between France and Spain
(1648-1660)._
1648 Recognition of the independence of the Dutch
Republic 221
1649 _Execution of Charles I._
The Fronde 222
Continuance of the war with Spain 223
Alliance between France and Cromwell 223
1660 Treaty of Pyrenees 224
French greatness based on Tolerance 225
Intolerance of Lewis XIV. and downfall of the
French monarchy 226
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
CHAPTER I.
CAUSES OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
SECTION I.--_Political Institutions of Germany._
[Sidenote: § 1. Want of national institutions in Germany.]
It was the misfortune of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries that, with most of the conditions requisite for the formation
of national unity, she had no really national institutions. There was an
emperor, who looked something like an English king, and a Diet, or
General Assembly, which looked something like an English Parliament, but
the resemblance was far greater in appearance than in reality.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Emperor.]
The Emperor was chosen by three ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishops
of Mentz, Treves and Cologne, and four lay electors, the Elector
Palatine, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, and the King of
Bohemia. In theory he was the successor of the Roman Emperors Julius and
Constantine, the ruler of the world, or of so much of it at least as he
could bring under his sway. More particularly, he was the successor of
Charles the Great and Otto the Great, the lay head of Western
Christendom. The Emperor Sigismund, on his death-bed, had directed that
his body should lie in state for some days, that men might see 'that the
lord of all the world was dead.' 'We have chosen your grace,' said the
electors to Frederick III., 'as head, protector, and governor of all
Christendom.' Yet it would be hard to find a single fragment of reality
corresponding to the magnificence of the claim.
[Sidenote: § 3. The German kingship.]
As far, however, as the period now under review is concerned, though the
name of Emperor was retained, it is unnecessary to trouble ourselves
with the rights, real or imaginary, connected with the imperial dignity.
Charles the Great, before the imperial crown was conferred on him, ruled
as king, by national assent or by conquest, over a great part of Western
Europe. When his dominions were divided amongst his successors, the rule
of those successors in Germany or elsewhere had no necessary connexion
with the imperial crown. Henry the Fowler, one of the greatest of the
Kings of the Germans, was never an emperor at all, and though, after the
reign of his son Otto the Great, the German kings claimed from the Pope
the imperial crown as their right, they never failed also to receive a
special German crown at Aachen (_Aix-la-Chapelle_) or at Frankfort as
the symbol of their headship over German lands and German men.
[Sidenote: § 4. Its connexion with the Empire.]
When, therefore, the writers of the 16th or 17th centuries speak of the
rights of the Emperor in Germany, they really mean to speak of the
rights of the Emperor in his capacity of German king, just as, when they
speak of the Empire, they mean what we call Germany, together with
certain surrounding districts, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands,
Lorraine, and Eastern Burgundy or Franche Comté, which are not now, if
Alsace and the newly-conquered part of Lorraine be excepted, included
under that name. In the same way the mere fragments of feudal supremacy,
and the payment of feudal dues which the emperors claimed in Italy,
belonged to them, not as emperors, but simply as Italian kings, and as
wearers of the iron crown of Lombardy, which, as the legends told, was
formed of nails taken from the Saviour's cross.
[Sidenote: § 5. Some confusion unavoidable.]
Not that it would be wise, even if it were possible, to do otherwise
than to follow the practice of contemporaries. The strange form, Emperor
of Germany, by which, at a later period, men unfamiliar with Germany
history strove to reconcile the old claims with something like the
actual fact, had not been yet invented. And, after all, the confusions
of history, the use of words and titles when their meaning is changed,
are so many tokens to remind us of the unity of successive generations,
and of the impossibility of any one of them building anew without
regarding the foundations of their fathers. All that is needed is to
remember that the emperor of later times is a personage whose rights and
functions can be profitably compared with those of Henry VIII. of
England or Lewis XIV. of France, not with Julius or Constantine whose
successor he professed himself to be.
[Sidenote: § 6. The great vassals.]
'Take away the rights of the Emperor,' said a law book of the fifteenth
century, in language which would have startled an old Roman legislator,
'and who can say, "This house is mine, this village belongs to me?"' But
the princes and bishops, the counts and cities, who were glad enough to
plead on their own behalf that their lands were held directly from the
head of the Empire, took care to allow him scarcely any real authority.
This kingly dignity which passed under the name of the Empire was
indeed very weak. It had never outgrown the needs of the Middle Ages,
and was still essentially a feudal kingship. From circumstances which it
would take too much space to notice here, it had failed in placing
itself at the head of a national organization, and in becoming the
guardian of the rights of the tillers of the soil and the burghers of
the towns, who found no place in the ranks of the feudal chivalry.
[Sidenote: § 7. Their independence.]
The immediate vassals of the Empire, in fact, were almost independent
sovereigns, like the Dukes of Normandy in the France of the tenth
century, or the Dukes of Burgundy in the France of the fifteenth
century. They quarrelled and made war with one another like the Kings of
England and France. Their own vassals, their own peasants, their own
towns could only reach the Emperor through them, if anybody thought it
worth while to reach him at all.
[Sidenote: § 8. Prospect of order.]
The prospect of reviving the German kingship which was veiled under the
august title of Emperor seemed far distant at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. But whilst the Empire, in its old sense, with its
claims to universal dominion, was a dream, this German kingship needed
but wisdom in the occupant of the throne to seize the national feeling,
which was certain sooner or later to call out for a national ruler, in
order to clothe itself in all the authority which was needed for the
maintenance of the unity and the safety of the German people. That, when
the time came, the man to grasp the opportunity was not there, was the
chief amongst the causes of that unhappy tragedy of disunion which
culminated in the Thirty Years' War.
[Sidenote: § 9. Attempts to introduce order.]
In the middle of the fifteenth century an effort was made to introduce a
system of regular assemblies, under the name of a Diet, in order to
stem the tide of anarchy. But it never entered into the mind of the
wisest statesman living to summon any general representation of the
people. In the old feudal assemblies no one had taken part who was not
an immediate vassal of the Empire, and the Diet professed to be only a
more regular organization of the old feudal assemblies.
[Sidenote: § 10. The Diet, or general assemblies of the Empire.]
From the Diet, therefore, all subjects of the territorial princes were
rigorously excluded. Whatever their wishes or opinions might be, they
had neither part nor lot in the counsels of the nation. There was
nothing in the Diet answering to those representatives of English
counties, men not great enough to assume the state of independent
princes, nor small enough to be content simply to register without
question the decrees of those in authority who with us did more than any
other class to cement town and country, king and people together. Nor
did even the less powerful of the immediate vassals take part in the
meetings. Like the lesser barons of the early Plantagenet reigns, they
slipped out of a position to which they seemed to have a right by the
fact that they held their few square miles of land as directly from the
Emperor as the Dukes of Bavaria or the Electors of Saxony held the
goodly principalities over which they ruled.
[Sidenote: § 11. The princes care little for the Diet.]
Such a body was more like a congress of the representatives of European
sovereigns than an English Parliament. Each member came in his own
right. He might or might not speak the sentiments of his subjects, and,
even if he did, he naturally preferred deciding pretty much as he
pleased at home to allowing the question to be debated by an assembly
of his equals. An Elector of Saxony, a Landgrave of Hesse, or an
Archduke of Austria knew that taxes were levied, armies trained,
temporal and spiritual wants provided for at his own court at Dresden,
at Cassel, or at Vienna, and he had no wish that it should be otherwise.
Nor was it easy, even when a prince had made himself so obnoxious as to
call down upon himself the condemnation of his fellows, to subject him
to punishment. He might, indeed, be put to the ban of the Empire, a kind
of secular excommunication. But if he were powerful himself, and had
powerful friends, it might be difficult to put it in execution. It would
be necessary to levy war against him, and that war might not be
successful.
[Sidenote: § 12. Some sort of order established.]
Still, at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries some progress was made. An Imperial Court
(_Reichskammergericht_) came into existence, mainly nominated by the
princes of the Empire, and authorized to pronounce judgment upon cases
arising between the rulers of the various territories. In order to
secure the better execution of the sentences of this court, Germany was
divided into circles, in each of which the princes and cities who were
entitled to a voice in the Diet of the Empire were authorized to meet
together and to levy troops for the maintenance of order.
[Sidenote: § 13. The three Houses of the Diet.]
These princes, lay and ecclesiastical, together with the cities holding
immediately from the Empire, were called the Estates of the Empire. When
they met in the general Diet they voted in three houses. The first house
was composed of the seven Electors, though it was only at an Imperial
election that the number was complete. At all ordinary meetings for
legislation, or for the dispatch of business, the king of Bohemia was
excluded, and six Electors only appeared. The next house was the House
of Princes, comprising all those persons, lay or ecclesiastical, who had
the right of sitting in the Diet. Lastly, came the Free Imperial Cities,
the only popular element in the Diet. But they were treated as decidedly
inferior to the other two houses. When the Electors and the Princes had
agreed upon a proposition, then and not till then it was submitted to
the House of Cities.
[Sidenote: § 14. The cities too weak.]
The special risk attending such a constitution was that it provided
almost exclusively for the wants of the princes and electors. In the
Diet, in the circles, and in the Imperial Court, the princes and
electors exercised a preponderating, if not quite an exclusive
influence. In ordinary times there might be no danger. But if
extraordinary times arose, if any great movement swept over the surface
of the nation, it might very well be that the nation would be on one
side and the princes and the electors on the other. And if this were the
case there would be great difficulty in bringing the nation into harmony
with its institutions. In England the sovereign could alter a hostile
majority in the House of Lords by a fresh creation of peers, and the
constituencies could alter a hostile majority of the House of Commons by
a fresh election. In Germany there was no House of Commons, and an
emperor who should try to create fresh princes out of the immediate
vassals who were too weak to be summoned to the Diet would only render
himself ridiculous by an attempt to place in check the real possessors
of power by the help of those who had the mere appearance of it.
SECTION II.--_Protestantism in Germany._
[Sidenote: § 1. The German people in favor of Protestantism; the Diet
opposed to it.]
When, in the sixteenth century, Protestantism suddenly raised its head,
the institutions of the Empire were tried to the uttermost. For the mass
of the nation declared itself in favour of change, and the Diet was so
composed as to be hostile to change, as soon as it appeared that it was
likely to take the direction of Lutheranism. In the Electoral House,
indeed, the votes of the three ecclesiastical electors were met by the
votes of the three lay electors. But in the House of Princes there were
thirty-eight ecclesiastical dignitaries and but eighteen laymen. It was
a body, in short, like the English House of Lords before the
Reformation, and there was no Henry VIII. to bring it into harmony with
the direction which lay society was taking, by some act equivalent to
the dissolution of the monasteries, and the consequent exclusion of the
mitred abbots from their seats in Parliament. To pass measures
favourable to Protestantism through such a house was simply impossible.
Yet it can hardly be doubted that a really national Parliament would
have adopted Lutheranism, more or less modified, as the religion of the
nation. Before Protestantism was fifty years old, in spite of all
difficulties, ninety per cent. of the population of Germany were
Protestant.
[Sidenote: § 2. Most of the lay princes adopt it.]
In default of national action in favor of Protestantism, it was adopted
and supported by most of the lay princes and electors. A new principle
of disintegration was thus introduced into Germany, as these princes
were forced to act in opposition to the views adopted by the Diet.
[Sidenote: § 3. The Emperor Charles V.]
If the Diet was unlikely to play the part of an English Parliament,
neither was the Emperor likely to play the part of Henry VIII. For the
interests of Germany, Charles V., who had been elected in 1519, was
weak where he ought to have been strong, and strong where he ought to
have been weak. As Emperor, he was nothing. As feudal sovereign and
national ruler, he was very little. But he was also a prince of the
Empire, and as such he ruled over the Austrian duchies and Tyrol.
Further than this, he was one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe.
He was king of Spain, and of the Indies with all their mines. In Italy,
he disposed of Naples and the Milanese. Sicily and Sardinia were his,
and, under various titles, he ruled over the fragments of the old
Burgundian inheritance, Franche Comté, and the seventeen provinces of
the Netherlands. Such a man would influence the progress of affairs in
Germany with a weight out of all proportion to his position in the
German constitution. And unhappily, with the power of a foreign
sovereign, he brought the mind of a foreigner. His mother's Spanish
blood beat in his veins, and he had the instinctive aversion of a
Spaniard to anything which savoured of opposition to the doctrines of
the Church. 'That man,' he said, when he caught sight of Luther for the
first time, 'shall never make me a heretic.'
[Sidenote: 1552.
§ 4. The Convention of Passau.]
Of this antagonism between the minority of the princes backed by the
majority of the nation, and the majority of the princes backed by an
Emperor who was also a foreign sovereign, civil war was the natural
result. In the end, the triumph of the Protestants was so far secured
that they forced their opponents in 1552 to yield to the Convention of
Passau, by which it was arranged that a Diet should be held as soon as
possible for a general pacification.
[Sidenote: 1555.
§ 5. The peace of Augsburg.]
That Diet, which was assembled at Augsburg in 1555, met under remarkably
favourable circumstances. Charles V., baffled and disappointed, had
retired from the scene, and had left behind him, as his representative,
his more conciliatory brother Ferdinand, who was already King of Hungary
and Bohemia, and was his destined successor in the German possessions of
the House of Austria. Both he and the leading men on either side were
anxious for peace, and were jealous of the influence which Philip, the
son of Charles V., and his successor in Spain, Italy, and the
Netherlands, might gain from a continuance of the war.
[Sidenote: § 6. Its terms.]
There was little difficulty in arranging that the Protestant princes,
who, before the date of the Convention of Passau, had seized
ecclesiastical property within their own territories, either for their
own purposes or for the support of Protestant worship, should no longer
be subject to the law or authority of the Catholic clergy. The real
difficulty arose in providing for the future. With Protestantism as a
growing religion, the princes might be inclined to proceed further with
the secularizing of the Church property still left untouched within
their own territories; and besides this, it was possible that even
bishops or abbots themselves, being princes of the Empire, might be
inclined to abandon their religion, and to adopt Protestantism.
[Sidenote: § 7. Might the princes seize more lands?]
The first of these difficulties was left by the treaty in some
obscurity; but, from the stress laid on the abandonment by the Catholics
of the lands secularized before the Convention of Passau, it would seem
that they might fairly urge that they had never abandoned their claims
to lands which at that date had not been secularized.
[Sidenote: § 8. Might the ecclesiastics turn Protestants?]
The second difficulty led to long discussions. The Protestants wished
that any bishop or abbot who pleased might be allowed to turn
Protestant, and might then establish Protestantism as the religion of
his subjects. The Catholics insisted that any bishop or abbot who
changed his religion should be compelled to vacate his post, and this
view of the case prevailed, under the name of the Ecclesiastical
Reservation. It was further agreed that the peace should apply to the
Lutheran Church alone, no other confession having been as yet adopted by
any of the princes.
[Sidenote: § 9. Dangers of the future.]
Such a peace, acceptable as it was at the time, was pregnant with future
evil. Owing its origin to a Diet in which everything was arranged by the
princes and electors, it settled all questions as if nobody but princes
and electors had any interest in the matter. And, besides this, there
was a most unstatesmanlike want of provision for future change. The year
1552 was to give the line by which the religious institutions of Germany
were to be measured for all time. There was nothing elastic about such
legislation. It did not, on the one hand, adopt the religion of the vast
majority as the established religion of the Empire. It did not, on the
other hand, adopt the principle of religious liberty. In thinking of
themselves and their rights, the princes had forgotten the German
people.
[Sidenote: § 10. Fresh encroachments upon Church lands.]
The barriers set up against Protestantism were so plainly artificial
that they soon gave way. The princes claimed the right of continuing to
secularize Church lands within their territories as inseparable from
their general right of providing for the religion of their subjects. At
all events they had might on their side. About a hundred monasteries are
said to have fallen victims in the Palatinate alone, and an almost equal
number, the gleanings of a richer harvest which had been reaped before
the Convention of Passau, were taken possession of in Northern Germany.
[Sidenote: § 11. The Ecclesiastical Reservation.]
The Ecclesiastical Reservation applied to a different class of property,
namely, to the bishoprics and abbeys held immediately of the Empire.
Here, too, the Protestants found an excuse for evading the Treaty of
Augsburg. The object of the reservation, they argued, was not to keep
the bishoprics in Catholic hands, but to prevent quarrels arising
between the bishops and their chapters. If, therefore, a bishop elected
as a Catholic chose to turn Protestant, he must resign his see in order
to avoid giving offence to the Catholic chapter. But where a chapter,
itself already Protestant, elected a Protestant bishop, he might take
the see without hesitation, and hold it as long as he lived.
[Sidenote: § 12. The northern bishoprics Protestant.]
In this way eight of the great northern bishoprics soon came under
Protestant rule. Not that the Protestant occupant was in any real sense
of the word a bishop. He was simply an elected prince, calling himself a
bishop, or often more modestly an administrator, and looking after the
temporal affairs of his dominions.
[Sidenote: § 13. Good and bad side of the arrangement.]
In some respects the arrangement was a good one. The populations of
these territories were mainly Protestant, and they had no cause to
complain. Besides, if only a sufficient number of these bishoprics could
be gained to Protestantism, the factitious majority in the Diet might be
reversed, and an assembly obtained more truly representing the nation
than that which was in existence. But it must be acknowledged that the
whole thing had an ugly look; and it is no wonder that Catholics
pronounced these administrators to be no bishops at all, and to have no
right to hold the bishops' lands, or to take their seat as bishops in
the Diet of the Empire.
SECTION III.--_Reaction against Protestantism._
[Sidenote: § 1. Theological disputes among Protestants.]
In course of time Protestantism, in its turn, exposed itself to attack.
Each petty court soon had its own school of theologians, whose minds
were dwarfed to the limits of the circle which they influenced with
their logic and their eloquence. The healthful feeling which springs
from action on a large stage was wanting to them. Bitterly wrangling
with one another, they were eager to call in the secular arm against
their opponents. Seizing the opportunity, the newly-constituted order of
Jesuits stepped forward to bid silence in the name of the renovated
Papal Church, alone, as they urged, able to give peace instead of
strife, certainty instead of disputation. The Protestants were taken at
a disadvantage. The enthusiasm of a national life, which repelled the
Jesuits in the England of the sixteenth century, and the enthusiasm of
scientific knowledge which repels them in the Germany of the nineteenth
century, were alike wanting to a Germany in which national life was a
dream of the past, and science a dream of the future. Luther had long
ago passed away from the world. Melanchthon's last days were spent in
hopeless protest against the evil around him. 'For two reasons,' he
said, as he lay upon his death-bed, 'I desire to leave this life: First,
that I may enjoy the sight, which I long for, of the Son of God and of
the Church in Heaven. Next, that I may be set free from the monstrous
and implacable hatreds of the theologians.'
[Sidenote: § 2. The Catholics make progress.]
In the face of a divided people, or self-seeking princes, and of
conflicting theories, the Jesuits made their way. Step by step the
Catholic reaction gained ground, not without compulsion, but also not
without that moral force which makes compulsion possible. The bishops
and abbots gave their subjects the choice between conversion and exile.
An attempt made by the Archbishop of Cologne to marry and turn
Protestant was too plainly in contradiction to the Ecclesiastical
Reservation to prosper, and when the Protestant majority of the Chapter
of Strasburg elected a Protestant bishop they were soon overpowered. A
Protestant Archbishop of Magdeburg offering to take his place amongst
the princes of the Empire at the Diet was refused admission, and though
nothing was done to dispossess him and the other northern administrators
of their sees, yet a slur had been cast upon their title which they were
anxious to efface. A few years later a legal decision was obtained in
the cases of four monasteries secularized after the Convention of
Passau, and that decision was adverse to the claim of the Protestants.
[Sidenote: § 3. The disputes which led finally to war.]
Out of these two disputes--the dispute about the Protestant
administrators and the dispute about the secularized lands--the Thirty
Years' War arose. The Catholic party stood upon the strict letter of the
law, according, at least, to their own interpretation, and asked that
everything might be replaced in the condition in which it was in 1552,
the date of the Convention of Passau. The Protestant view, that
consideration should be taken for changes, many of which at the end of
the sixteenth century were at least a generation old, may or may not
have been in accordance with the law, but it was certainly in accordance
with the desires of the greater part of the population affected by
them.
[Sidenote: § 4. No popular representation.]
There is every reason to believe that if Germany had possessed anything
like a popular representation its voice would have spoken in favour of
some kind of compromise. There is no trace of any mutual hostility
between the populations of the Catholic and Protestant districts apart
from their rulers.
SECTION IV.--_Three Parties and Three Leaders._
[Sidenote: § 1. The leaders of parties.]
Two men stood forward to personify the elements of strife--Maximilian,
the Catholic Duke of Bavaria, and the Calvinist Prince Christian of
Anhalt, whilst the warmest advocate of peace was John George, the
Lutheran Elector of Saxony.
[Sidenote: § 2. Maximilian of Bavaria.]
Maximilian of Bavaria was the only lay prince of any importance on the
side of the Catholics. He had long been known as a wise administrator of
his own dominions. No other ruler was provided with so well-filled a
treasury, or so disciplined an army. No other ruler was so capable of
forming designs which were likely to win the approbation of others, or
so patient in waiting till the proper time arrived for their execution.
'What the Duke of Bavaria does,' said one of his most discerning
opponents, 'has hands and feet.' His plans, when once they were launched
into the world, seemed to march forwards of themselves to success.
[Sidenote: § 3. His love of legality.]
Such a man was not likely to take up the wild theories which were here
and there springing up, of the duty of uprooting Protestantism at all
times and all places, or to declare, as some were declaring, that the
Peace of Augsburg was invalid because it had never been confirmed by the
Pope. To him the Peace of Augsburg was the legal settlement by which
all questions were to be tried. What he read there was hostile to the
Protestant administrators and the secularizing princes. Yet he did not
propose to carry his views into instant action. He would await his
opportunity. But he would do his best to be strong, in order that he
might not be found wanting when the opportunity arrived, and, in spite
of his enthusiasm for legal rights, it was by no means unlikely that, if
a difficult point arose, he might be inclined to strain the law in his
own favour.
[Sidenote: § 4. Danger of the Protestants.]
Such an opponent, so moderate and yet so resolute, was a far more
dangerous enemy to the Protestants than the most blatant declaimer
against their doctrines. Naturally, the Protestants regarded his views
as entirely inadmissible. They implied nothing less than the forcible
conversion of the thousands of Protestants who were inhabitants of the
administrators' dominions, and the occupation by the Catholic clergy of
points of vantage which would serve them in their operations upon the
surrounding districts. It is true that the change, if effected would
simply replace matters in the position which had been found endurable in
1552. But that which could be borne when the Catholics were weak and
despondent might be an intolerable menace when they were confident and
aggressive.
[Sidenote: § 5. Danger of the Protestants.]
Resistance, therefore, became a duty, a duty to which the princes were
all the more likely to pay attention because it coincided with their
private interest. In the bishoprics and chapters they found provision
for their younger sons, from which they would be cut off if Protestants
were hereafter to be excluded.
[Sidenote: § 6. Protestants of the north and south.]
The only question was in what spirit the resistance should be offered.
The tie which bound the Empire together was so loose, and resistance to
law, or what was thought to be law, was so likely to lead to resistance
to law in general, that it was the more incumbent on the Protestants to
choose their ground well. And in Germany, at least, there was not likely
to be any hasty provocation to give Maximilian an excuse for reclaiming
the bishoprics. Far removed from the danger, these northern Lutherans
found it difficult to conceive that there was any real danger at all.
The states of the south, lying like a wedge driven into the heart of
European Catholicism, were forced by their geographical position to be
ever on the alert. They knew that they were the advanced guard of
Protestantism. On the one flank was the Catholic duchy of Bavaria, and
the bishoprics of Würzburg and Bamberg. On the other flank were the
ecclesiastical electorates on the Rhine and the Moselle, the bishoprics
of Worms, Spires, and Strasburg, the Austrian lands in Swabia and
Alsace, and the long line of the Spanish frontier in Franche Comté and
the Netherlands garrisoned by the troops of the first military monarchy
in Europe. What wonder if men so endangered were in haste to cut the
knot which threatened to strangle them, and to meet the enemy by flying
in his face rather than by awaiting the onslaught which they believed to
be inevitable.
[Sidenote: § 7. Spread of Calvinism.]
Under the influence of this feeling the princes of these southern
regions for the most part adopted a religion very different from the
courtly Lutheranism of the north. If Würtemberg continued Lutheran under
the influence of the University of Tübingen, the rulers of the
Palatinate, of Hesse Cassel, of Baden-Durlach, of Zwei-Brücken, sought
for strength in the iron discipline of Calvinism, a form of religion
which always came into favour when there was an immediate prospect of a
death-struggle with Rome.
[Sidenote: § 8. Courtly character of Calvinism in Germany.]
Unhappily, German Calvinism differed from that of Scotland and the
Netherlands. Owing to its adoption by the princes rather than by the
people, it failed in gaining that hardy growth which made it invincible
on its native soil. It had less of the discipline of an army about it,
less resolute defiance, less strength altogether. And whilst it was
weaker it was more provocative. Excluded from the benefits of the Peace
of Augsburg, which knew of no Protestant body except the Lutheran, the
Calvinists were apt to talk about the institutions of the Empire in a
manner so disparaging as to give offence to Lutherans and Catholics
alike.
[Sidenote: § 9. Frederick IV., Elector Palatine.]
Of this Calvinist feeling Christian of Anhalt became the impersonation.
The leadership of the Calvinist states in the beginning of the
seventeenth century would naturally have devolved on Frederick IV.,
Elector Palatine. But Frederick was an incapable drunkard, and his
councillors, with Christian at their head, were left to act in his name.
[Sidenote: § 10. Christian of Anhalt.]
Christian of Anhalt possessed a brain of inexhaustible fertility. As
soon as one plan which he had framed appeared impracticable, he was
ready with another. He was a born diplomatist, and all the chief
politicians of Europe were intimately known to him by report, whilst
with many of them he carried on a close personal intercourse. His
leading idea was that the maintenance of peace was hopeless, and that
either Protestantism must get rid of the House of Austria, or the House
of Austria would get rid of Protestantism. Whether this were true or
false, it is certain that he committed the terrible fault of
underestimating his enemy. Whilst Maximilian was drilling soldiers and
saving money, Christian was trusting to mere diplomatic finesse. He had
no idea of the tenacity with which men will cling to institutions,
however rotten, till they feel sure that some other institutions will be
substituted for them, or of the strength which Maximilian derived from
the appearance of conservatism in which his revolutionary designs
were shrouded even from his own observation. In order to give to
Protestantism that development which in Christian's eyes was necessary
to its safety, it would be needful to overthrow the authority of the
Emperor and of the Diet. And if the Emperor and the Diet were
overthrown, what had Christian to offer to save Germany from anarchy? If
his plan included, as there is little doubt that it did, the seizure of
the lands of the neighbouring bishops, and a fresh secularization of
ecclesiastical property, even Protestant towns might begin to ask
whether their turn would not come next. A return to the old days of
private war and the law of the strongest would be welcome to very few.
[Sidenote: 1607.
§ 11. The occupation of Donauwörth.]
In 1607 an event occurred which raised the alarm of the southern
Protestants to fever heat. In the free city of Donauwörth the abbot of a
monastery saw fit to send out a procession to flaunt its banners in the
face of an almost entirely Protestant population. Before the
starting-point was regained mud and stones were thrown, and some of
those who had taken part in the proceedings were roughly handled. The
Imperial Court (_Reichskammergericht_), whose duty it was to settle such
quarrels, was out of working order in consequence of the religious
disputes; but there was an Imperial Council (_Reichshofrath_),
consisting of nominees of the Emperor, and professing to act out of the
plenitude of imperial authority. By this council Donauwörth was put to
the ban of the Empire without due form of trial, and Maximilian was
appointed to execute the decree. He at once marched a small army into
the place, and, taking possession of the town, declared his intention of
retaining his hold till his expenses had been paid, handing over the
parish church in the meanwhile to the Catholic clergy. It had only been
given over to Protestant worship after the date of the Convention of
Passau, and Maximilian could persuade himself that he was only carrying
out the law.
[Sidenote: 1608.
§ 12. The Diet of 1608.]
It was a flagrant case of religious aggression under the name of the
law. The knowledge that a partial tribunal was ready to give effect to
the complaints of Catholics at once threw the great Protestant cities of
the South--Nüremberg, Ulm, and Strasburg into the arms of the
neighbouring princes of whom they had hitherto been jealous. Yet there
was much in the policy of those princes which would hardly have
reassured them. At the Diet of 1608 the representatives of the Elector
Palatine were foremost in demanding that the minority should not be
bound by the majority in questions of taxation or religion; that is to
say, that they should not contribute to the common defence unless they
pleased, and that they should not be subject to any regulation about
ecclesiastical property unless they pleased. Did this mean only that
they were to keep what they had got, or that they might take more as
soon as it was convenient? The one was the Protestant, the other the
Catholic interpretation of their theory.
[Sidenote: § 13. Formation of the Union.]
On May 14, 1608, the Protestant Union, to which Lutherans and Calvinists
were alike admitted, came into existence under the guidance of Christian
of Anhalt. It was mainly composed of the princes and towns of the south.
Its ostensible purpose was for self-defence, and in this sense it was
accepted by most of those who took part in it. Its leaders had very
different views.
[Sidenote: §14. Formation of the League.]
A Catholic League was at once formed under Maximilian. It was composed
of a large number of bishops and abbots, who believed that the princes
of the Union wished to annex their territories. Maximilian's ability
gave it a unity of action which the Union never possessed. It, too, was
constituted for self-defence, but whether that word was to include the
resumption of the lands lost since the Convention of Passau was a
question probably left for circumstances to decide.
[Sidenote: § 15. Revolutionary tendencies of the Union.]
Whatever the majority of the princes of the Union may have meant, there
can be no doubt that Christian of Anhalt meant aggression. He believed
that the safety of Protestantism could not be secured without the
overthrow of the German branch of the House of Austria, and he was
sanguine enough to fancy that an act which would call up all Catholic
Europe in arms against him was a very easy undertaking.
[Sidenote: 1609.
§ 16. The succession of Cleves.]
Scarcely had the Union been formed when events occurred which almost
dragged Germany into war. In the spring of 1609 the Duke of Cleves died.
The Elector of Brandenburg and the son of the Duke of Neuburg laid claim
to the succession. On the plea that the Emperor had the right to settle
the point, a Catholic army advanced to take possession of the country.
The two pretenders, both of them Lutherans, made common cause against
the invaders. [Sidenote: 1610.] Henry IV. of France found in the dispute
a pretext for commencing his long-meditated attack upon Spain and her
allies. But his life was cut short by an assassin, and his widow only
thought of sending a small French force to join the English and the
Dutch in maintaining the claims of the two princes, who were ready to
unite for a time against a third party.
[Sidenote: 1613.
§ 17. The box on the ear.]
It was not easy to bring the princes to an arrangement for the future.
One day the young Prince of Neuburg proposed what seemed to him an
excellent way out of the difficulty. 'He was ready,' he said, 'to marry
the Elector's daughter, if only he might have the territory.' Enraged at
the impudence of the proposal, the Elector raised his hand and boxed his
young rival's ears. The blow had unexpected consequences. The injured
prince renounced his Protestantism, and invoked, as a good Catholic, the
aid of Spain and the League. The Elector passed from Lutheranism to
Calvinism, and took a more active part than before in the affairs of the
Union. That immediate war in Germany did not result from the quarrel is
probably the strongest possible evidence of the reluctance of the German
people to break the peace.
[Sidenote: 1612.
§ 18. John George, Elector of Saxony.]
The third party, the German Lutherans, looked with equal abhorrence upon
aggression on either side. Their leader, John George, Elector of Saxony,
stood aloof alike from Christian of Anhalt, and from Maximilian of
Bavaria. He was attached by the traditions of his house as well as by
his own character to the Empire and the House of Austria. But he was
anxious to obtain security for his brother Protestants. He saw there
must be a change; but he wisely desired to make the change as slight as
possible. In 1612, therefore, he proposed that the highest jurisdiction
should still be retained by the Imperial Council, but that the Council,
though still nominated by the Emperor, should contain an equal number of
Catholics and Protestants. Sentences such as that which had deprived
Donauwörth of its civil rights would be in future impossible.
[Sidenote: § 19. His weakness of character.]
Unhappily, John George had not the gift of ruling men. He was a hard
drinker and a bold huntsman, but to convert his wishes into actual facts
was beyond his power. When he saw his plan threatened with opposition on
either side he left it to take care of itself. In 1613 a Diet met, and
broke up in confusion, leaving matters in such a state that any spark
might give rise to a general conflagration.
CHAPTER II.
THE BOHEMIAN REVOLUTION.
SECTION I.--_The House of Austria and its Subjects._
[Sidenote: § 1. The Austrian dominions.]
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the dominions of the German
branch of the House of Austria were parcelled out amongst the various
descendants of Ferdinand I., the brother of Charles V. The head of the
family, the Emperor Rudolph II., was Archduke of Austria--a name which
in those days was used simply to indicate the archduchy itself, and not
the group of territories which are at present ruled over by the Austrian
sovereign--and he was also King of Bohemia and of Hungary. His brother
Maximilian governed Tyrol, and his cousin Ferdinand ruled in Styria,
Carinthia, and Carniola.
[Sidenote: § 2. Aristocracy and Protestantism.]
The main difficulty of government arose from the fact that whilst every
member of the family clung firmly to the old creed, the greater part of
the population, excepting in Tyrol, had adopted the new; that is to say,
that on the great question of the day the subjects and the rulers had no
thoughts in common. And this difficulty was aggravated by the further
fact that Protestantism prospered mainly from the support given to it by
a powerful aristocracy, so that political disagreement was added to the
difference in religion. Ferdinand had, indeed, contrived to put down
with a strong hand the exercise of Protestantism in his own dominions so
easily as almost to suggest the inference that it had not taken very
deep root in those Alpine regions. But Rudolph was quite incapable of
following his example. If not absolutely insane, he was subject to
sudden outbursts of temper, proceeding from mental disease.
[Sidenote: 1606.
§ 3. Rudolph and Matthias.]
In 1606, a peace having been concluded with the Turks, Rudolph fancied
that his hands were at last free to deal with his subjects as Ferdinand
had dealt with his. The result was a general uprising, and if Rudolph's
brother Matthias had not placed himself at the head of the movement, in
order to save the interests of the family, some stranger would probably
have been selected as a rival to the princes of the House of Austria.
In the end, two years later, Austria and Hungary were assigned to
Matthias, whilst Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia were left to Rudolph for
his lifetime.
[Sidenote: 1609.
§ 4. The Royal Charter of Bohemia.]
The result of Rudolph's ill-advised energy was to strengthen the hands
of the Protestant nobility. In Hungary the Turks were too near to make
it easy for Matthias to refuse concessions to a people who might, at any
time, throw themselves into the arms of the enemy, and in Austria he was
driven, after some resistance, to agree to a compromise. In Bohemia, in
1609, the Estates extorted from Rudolph the Royal Charter (_Majestätts
brief_) which guaranteed freedom of conscience to every inhabitant of
Bohemia, as long as he kept to certain recognised creeds. But freedom of
conscience did not by any means imply freedom of worship. A man might
think as he pleased, but the building of churches and the performance of
divine service were matters for the authorities to decide upon. The only
question was, who the authorities were.
[Sidenote: § 5. Position of the landowner.]
By the Royal Charter this authority was given over to members of the
Estates, that is to say, to about 1,400 of the feudal aristocracy and
42 towns. In an agreement attached to the charter, a special exception
was made for the royal domains. A Protestant landowner could and would
prohibit the erection of a Catholic church on his own lands, but the
king was not to have that privilege. On his domains worship was to be
free.
[Sidenote: § 6. Rudolph tries to get rid of it.]
From this bondage, as he counted it, Rudolph struggled to liberate
himself. There was fresh violence, ending in 1611 in Rudolph's
dethronement in favour of Matthias, who thus became king of Bohemia. The
next year he died, and Matthias succeeded him as Emperor also.
[Sidenote: § 7. Christian of Anhalt hopes for general confusion.]
During all these troubles, Christian of Anhalt had done all that he
could to frustrate a peaceful settlement. 'When Hungary, Moravia,
Austria, and Silesia are on our side,' he explained, before the Royal
Charter had been granted, to a diplomatist in his employment, 'the House
of Hapsburg will have no further strength to resist us, except in
Bohemia, Bavaria, and a few bishoprics. Speaking humanly, we shall be
strong enough not only to resist these, but to reform all the clergy,
and bring them into submission to our religion. The game will begin in
this fashion. As soon as Bavaria arms to use compulsion against
Austria,' (that is to say, against the Austrian Protestants, who were at
that time resisting Matthias) 'we shall arm to attack Bavaria, and
retake Donauwörth. In the same way, we shall get hold of two or three
bishops to supply us with money. Certainly, it seems that by proceeding
dexterously we shall give the law to all, and set up for rulers whom we
will.'
[Sidenote: § 8. Matthias King of Bohemia.]
For the time Christian was disappointed. The dominions of Matthias
settled down into quietness. But Matthias was preparing another
opportunity for his antagonist. Whether it would have been possible in
those days for a Catholic king to have kept a Protestant nation in
working order we cannot say. At all events, Matthias did not give the
experiment a fair trial. He did not, indeed, attack the Royal Charter
directly on the lands of the aristocracy. But he did his best to
undermine it on his own. The Protestants of Braunau, on the lands of the
Abbot of Braunau and the Protestants of Klostergrab, on the lands of the
Archbishop of Prague, built churches for themselves, the use of which
was prohibited by the abbot and the archbishop. A dispute immediately
arose as to the rights of ecclesiastical landowners, and it was argued
on the Protestant side, that their lands were technically Crown lands,
and that they had therefore no right to close the churches. Matthias
took the opposite view.
[Sidenote: § 9. He evades the charter.]
On his own estates Matthias found means to evade the charter. He
appointed Catholic priests to Protestant churches, and allowed measures
to be taken to compel Protestants to attend the Catholic service. Yet
for a long time the Protestant nobility kept quiet. Matthias was old and
infirm, and when he died they would, as they supposed, have an
opportunity of choosing their next king, and it was generally believed
that the election would fall upon a Protestant. The only question was
whether the Elector Palatine or the Elector of Saxony would be chosen.
[Sidenote: 1617.
§ 10. Ferdinand proposed as king of Bohemia.]
Suddenly, in 1617, the Bohemian Diet was summoned. When the Estates of
the kingdom met they were told that it was a mistake to suppose that the
crown of Bohemia was elective. Evidence was produced that for some time
before the election of Matthias the Estates had acknowledged the throne
to be hereditary, and the precedent of Matthias was to be set aside as
occurring in revolutionary times. Intimidation was used to assist the
argument, and men in the confidence of the court whispered in the ears
of those who refused to be convinced that it was to be hoped that they
had at least two heads on their shoulders.
[Sidenote: § 11. The Bohemians acknowledge him as their king.]
If ever there was a moment for resistance, if resistance was to be made
at all, it was this. The arguments of the court were undoubtedly strong,
but a skilful lawyer could easily have found technicalities on the other
side, and the real evasion of the Royal Charter might have been urged as
a reason why the court had no right to press technical arguments too
closely. The danger was all the greater as it was known that by the
renunciation of all intermediate heirs the hereditary right fell upon
Ferdinand of Styria, the man who had already stamped Protestantism out
in his own dominions. Yet, in spite of this, the Diet did as it was
bidden, and renounced the right of election by acknowledging Ferdinand
as their hereditary king.
[Sidenote: § 12. His character.]
The new king was more of a devotee and less of a statesman than
Maximilian of Bavaria, his cousin on his mother's side. But their
judgments of events were formed on the same lines. Neither of them were
mere ordinary bigots, keeping no faith with heretics. But they were both
likely to be guided in their interpretation of the law by that which
they conceived to be profitable to their church. Ferdinand was
personally brave; but except when his course was very clear before him,
he was apt to let difficulties settle themselves rather than come to a
decision.
[Sidenote: § 13. He takes the oath to the Royal Charter.]
He had at once to consider whether he would swear to the Royal Charter.
He consulted the Jesuits, and was told that, though it had been a sin to
grant it, it was no sin to accept it now that it was the law of the
land. As he walked in state to his coronation, he turned to a nobleman
who was by his side. 'I am glad,' he said, 'that I have attained the
Bohemian crown without any pangs of conscience.' He took the oath
without further difficulty.
The Bohemians were not long in feeling the effects of the change.
Hitherto the hold of the House of Austria upon the country had been
limited to the life of one old man. It had now, by the admission of the
Diet itself, fixed itself for ever upon Bohemia. The proceedings against
the Protestants on the royal domains assumed a sharper character. The
Braunau worshippers were rigorously excluded from their church. The
walls of the new church of Klostergrab were actually levelled with the
ground.
SECTION II.--_The Revolution at Prague._
[Sidenote: 1618. § 1. The Bohemians petition Matthias.]
The Bohemians had thus to resist in 1618, under every disadvantage, the
attack which they had done nothing to meet in 1617. Certain persons
named Defensors had, by law, the right of summoning an assembly of
representatives of the Protestant Estates. Such an assembly met on March
5, and having prepared a petition to Matthias, who was absent from the
kingdom, adjourned to May 21.
[Sidenote: § 2. Reply of Matthias.]
Long before the time of meeting came, an answer was sent from Matthias
justifying all that had been done, and declaring the assembly illegal.
It was believed at the time, though incorrectly, that the answer was
prepared by Slawata and Martinitz, two members of the regency who had
been notorious for the vigour of their opposition to Protestantism.
[Sidenote: § 3. Violent counsels.]
In the Protestant assembly there was a knot of men, headed by Count
Henry of Thurn, which was bent on the dethronement of Ferdinand. They
resolved to take advantage of the popular feeling to effect the murder
of the two regents, and so to place an impassable gulf between the
nation and the king.
[Sidenote: § 4. Martinitz and Slawata thrown out of window.]
Accordingly, on the morning of May 23, the 'beginning and cause,' as a
contemporary calls it, 'of all the coming evil,' the first day, though
men as yet knew it not, of thirty years of war, Thurn sallied forth at
the head of a band of noblemen and their followers, all of them with
arms in their hands. Trooping into the room where the regents were
seated, they charged the obnoxious two with being the authors of the
king's reply. After a bitter altercation both Martinitz and Slawata were
dragged to a window which overlooked the fosse below from a dizzy height
of some seventy feet. Martinitz, struggling against his enemies, pleaded
hard for a confessor. 'Commend thy soul to God,' was the stern answer.
'Shall we allow the Jesuit scoundrels to come here?' In an instant he
was hurled out, crying, 'Jesus, Mary!' 'Let us see,' said some one
mockingly, 'Whether his Mary will help him.' A moment later he added:
'By God, his Mary has helped him.' Slawata followed, and then the
secretary Fabricius. By a wonderful preservation, in which pious
Catholics discerned the protecting hand of God, all three crawled away
from the spot without serious hurt.
[Sidenote: § 5. A bad beginning.]
There are moments when the character of a nation or party stands
revealed as by a lightning flash, and this was one of them. It is not in
such a way as this that successful revolutions are begun.
[Sidenote: § 6. The revolutionary government.]
The first steps to constitute a new government were easy. Thirty
Directors were appointed, and the Jesuits were expelled from Bohemia.
The Diet met and ordered soldiers to be levied to form an army. But to
support this army money would be needed, and the existing taxes were
insufficient. A loan was accordingly thought of, and the nobles resolved
to request the towns to make up the sum, they themselves contributing
nothing. The project falling dead upon the resistance of the towns, new
taxes were voted; but no steps were taken to collect them, and the army
was left to depend in a great measure upon chance.
[Sidenote: § 7. The Elector of Saxony wishes for peace.]
Would the princes of Germany come to the help of the Directors? John
George of Saxony told them that he deeply sympathized with them, but
that rebellion was a serious matter. To one who asked him what he meant
to do, he replied, 'Help to put out the fire.'
[Sidenote: § 8. The Elector Palatine holds out hopes of assistance.]
There was more help for them at Heidelberg than at Dresden. Frederick
IV. had died in 1610, and his son, the young Frederick V., looked up to
Christian of Anhalt as the first statesman of his age. By his marriage
with Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England, he had contracted
an alliance which gave him the appearance rather than the reality of
strength. He offered every encouragement to the Bohemians, but for the
time held back from giving them actual assistance.
SECTION III.--_The War in Bohemia._
[Sidenote: § 1. Outbreak of war.]
The Directors were thus thrown on their own resources. Ferdinand had
secured his election as king of Hungary, and, returning to Vienna, had
taken up the reins of government in the name of Matthias. He had got
together an army of 14,000 men, under the command of Bucquoi, an officer
from the great school of military art in the Netherlands, and on August
13, the Bohemian frontier was invaded. War could hardly be avoided by
either side. Budweis and Pilsen, two Catholic towns in Bohemia,
naturally clung to their sovereign, and as soon as the Directors ordered
an attack upon Budweis, the troops of Matthias prepared to advance to
its succour.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Bohemians vote men, but object to paying taxes.]
The Directors took alarm, and proposed to the Diet that new taxes should
be raised and not merely voted, and that, in addition to the army of
regular soldiers, there should be a general levy of a large portion of
the population. To the levy the Diet consented without difficulty. But
before the day fixed for discussing the proposed taxes arrived, the
majority of the members deliberately returned to their homes, and no new
taxes were to be had.
[Sidenote: § 3. They are not likely to prosper.]
This day, August 30, may fairly be taken as the date of the political
suicide of the Bohemian aristocracy. In almost every country in Europe
order was maintained by concentrating the chief powers of the State in
the hands of a single governor, whether he were called king, duke, or
elector. To this rule there were exceptions in Venice, Switzerland, and
the Netherlands, and by-and-by there would be an exception on a grander
scale in England. But the peoples who formed these exceptions had
proved themselves worthy of the distinction, and there would be no room
in the world for men who had got rid of their king without being able to
establish order upon another basis.
[Sidenote: § 4. Help from Savoy.]
Still there were too many governments in Europe hostile to the House of
Austria to allow the Bohemians to fall at once. Charles Emmanuel, Duke
of Savoy, had just brought a war with Spain to a close, but he had not
become any better disposed towards his late adversary. He accordingly
entered into an agreement with the leaders of the Union, by which 2,000
men who had been raised for his service were to be placed at the
disposal of the Bohemian Directors.
[Sidenote: § 5. Mansfeld.]
The commander of these troops was Count Ernest of Mansfeld, an
illegitimate son of a famous general in the service of Spain. He had
changed his religion and deserted his king. He now put himself forward
as a champion of Protestantism. He was brave, active, and versatile, and
was possessed of those gifts which win the confidence of professional
soldiers. But he was already notorious for the readiness with which he
allowed his soldiers to support themselves on the most unbridled
pillage. An adventurer himself, he was just the man to lead an army of
adventurers.
[Sidenote: § 6. A forced loan.]
Soon after his arrival in Bohemia, Mansfeld was employed in the siege of
Pilsen, whilst Thurn was occupied with holding Bucquoi in check. The
failure in obtaining additional taxes had led the Directors to adopt the
simple expedient of levying a forced loan from the few rich.
[Sidenote: § 7. Success of the Bohemians.]
For a time this desperate expedient was successful. The help offered to
Ferdinand by Spain was not great, and it was long in coming. The prudent
Maximilian refused to ruin himself by engaging in an apparently
hopeless cause. At last the Silesians, who had hesitated long, threw in
their lot with their neighbours, and sent their troops to their help
early in November. Bucquoi was in full retreat to Budweis. On the 21st
Pilsen surrendered to Mansfeld. Further warfare was stopped as winter
came on--a terrible winter for the unhappy dwellers in Southern Bohemia.
Starving armies are not particular in their methods of supplying their
wants. Plunder, devastation and reckless atrocities of every kind fell
to the lot of the doomed peasants, Bucquoi's Hungarians being
conspicuous for barbarity.
[Sidenote: § 8. Scheme of Christian of Anhalt.]
Meanwhile, Christian of Anhalt was luring on the young Elector Palatine
to more active intervention. The Bohemian leaders had already begun to
talk of placing the crown on Frederick's head. Frederick, anxious and
undecided, consented on the one hand, at the Emperor's invitation, to
join the Duke of Bavaria and the Electors of Mentz and Saxony in
mediating an arrangement, whilst, on the other hand, he gave his assent
to an embassy to Turin, the object of which was to dazzle the Duke of
Savoy with the prospect of obtaining the imperial crown after the death
of Matthias, and to urge him to join in an attack upon the German
dominions of the House of Austria.
[Sidenote: § 9. Coolness of the Union.]
The path on which Frederick was entering was the more evidently unsafe,
as the Union, which met at Heilbronn in September, had shown great
coolness in the Bohemian cause. Christian of Anhalt had not ventured
even to hint at the projects which he entertained. If he was afterwards
deserted by the Union he could not say that its members as a body had
engaged to support him.
[Sidenote: 1619.
§ 10. The Duke of Savoy gives hopes.]
The Duke of Savoy, on the other hand, at least talked as if the Austrian
territories were at his feet. In August 1618 he had given his consent to
the proposed elevation of Frederick to the Bohemian throne. In February
1619 he explained that he wished to have Bohemia for himself. Frederick
might be compensated with the Austrian lands in Alsace and Swabia. He
might, perhaps, have the Archduchy of Austria too, or become King of
Hungary. If he wished to fall upon the bishops' lands, let him do it
quickly, before the Pope had time to interfere. This sort of talk, wild
as it was, delighted the little circle of Frederick's confidants. The
Margrave of Anspach, who, as general of the army of the Union, was
admitted into the secret, was beyond measure pleased: 'We have now,' he
said, 'the means of upsetting the world.'
[Sidenote: § 11. Conservative feeling alienated.]
For the present, these negotiations were veiled in secresy. They
engendered a confident levity, which was certain to shock that
conservative, peace-loving feeling which the Bohemians had already done
much to alienate.
SECTION IV.--_Ferdinand on his Defence._
[Sidenote: § 1. The Bohemians look for aid from foreign powers.]
If the assistance of the Union was thus likely to do more harm than good
to the Bohemians, their hopes of aid from other powers were still more
delusive. The Dutch, indeed, sent something, and would willingly have
sent more, but they had too many difficulties at home to be very profuse
in their offers. James of England told his son-in-law plainly that he
would have nothing to do with any encroachment upon the rights of
others, and he had undertaken at the instigation of Spain a formal
mediation between the Bohemians and their king--a mediation which had
been offered him merely in order to keep his hands tied whilst others
were arming.
[Sidenote: § 2. Attack upon Vienna.]
On March 20, before the next campaign opened, Matthias died. Ferdinand's
renewed promises to respect the Royal Charter--made doubtless under the
reservation of putting his own interpretation upon the disputed
points--were rejected with scorn by the Directors. The sword was to
decide the quarrel. With the money received from the Dutch, and with aid
in money and munitions of war from Heidelberg, Thurn and Mansfeld were
enabled to take the field. The latter remained to watch Bucquoi, whilst
the former undertook to win the other territories, which had hitherto
submitted to Matthias, and had stood aloof from the movement in Bohemia.
Without much difficulty he succeeded in revolutionizing Moravia, and he
arrived on June 5 under the walls of Vienna. Within was Ferdinand
himself, with a petty garrison of 300 men, and as many volunteers as he
could attach to his cause. Thurn hoped that his partisans inside the
cities would open the gates to admit him. But he lost time in
negotiations with the Austrian nobility. The estates of the two
territories of Upper and Lower Austria were to a great extent
Protestant, and they had refused to do homage to Ferdinand on the death
of Matthias. The Lower Austrians now sent a deputation to Vienna to
demand permission to form a confederation with the Bohemians, on terms
which would practically have converted the whole country, from the
Styrian frontier to the borders of Silesia, into a federal aristocratic
republic.
[Sidenote: § 3. Ferdinand resists the demands of the Lower Austrian
Estates.]
In Ferdinand they had to do with a man who was not to be overawed by
personal danger. He knew well that by yielding he would be giving a
legal basis to a system which he regarded as opposed to all law, human
and divine. Throwing himself before the crucifix, he found strength for
the conflict into which he entered on behalf of his family, his church,
and, as he firmly believed, of his country and his God--strength none
the less real because the figure on the cross did not, as men not long
afterwards came fondly to believe, bow its head towards the suppliant,
or utter the consoling words: 'Ferdinand, I will not forsake thee.'
[Sidenote: § 4. Rescue arrives.]
To a deputation from the Austrian Estates he was firm and unbending.
They might threaten as they pleased, but the confederation with Bohemia
he would not sign. Rougher and rougher grew the menaces addressed to
him. Some one, it is said, talked of dethroning him and of educating his
children in the Protestant religion. Suddenly the blare of a trumpet was
heard in the court below. A regiment of horses had slipped in through a
gate unguarded by Thurn, and had hurried to Ferdinand's defence. The
deputation, lately so imperious, slunk away, glad enough to escape
punishment.
[Sidenote: § 5. The siege raised.]
Little would so slight a reinforcement have availed if Thurn had been
capable of assaulting the city. But, unprovided with stores of food or
siege munitions, he had counted on treason within. Disappointed of his
prey, he returned to Bohemia, to find that Bucquoi had broken out of
Budweis, and had inflicted a serious defeat on Mansfeld.
[Sidenote: § 6. The Imperial election.]
Ferdinand did not linger at Vienna to dispute his rights with his
Austrian subjects. The election of a new Emperor was to take place at
Frankfort, and it was of importance to him to be on the spot. To the
German Protestants the transfer of the Imperial crown to his head could
not be a matter of indifference. If he succeeded, as there seemed every
probability of his succeeding, in re-establishing his authority over
Bohemia, he would weigh with a far heavier weight than Matthias upon the
disputes by which Germany was distracted. The Elector Palatine and his
councillors had a thousand schemes for getting rid of him, without
fixing upon any. John George of Saxony, in 1619 as in 1612, had a
definite plan to propose. Ferdinand, he said, was not in possession of
Bohemia, and could not, therefore, vote as King of Bohemia at the
election. The election must, therefore, be postponed till the Bohemian
question had been settled by mediation. If only the three Protestant
electors could have been brought to agree to this course, an immediate
choice of Ferdinand would have been impossible.
[Sidenote: § 7. Ferdinand chosen Emperor.]
Whatever might be the merits of the proposal itself, it had the
inestimable advantage of embarking the Lutherans of the North and the
Calvinists of the South in a common cause. But Frederick distrusted John
George, and preferred another plan of his own. John George lost his
temper, and voted unconditionally for Ferdinand. Frederick, if he did
not mean to be left alone in impotent isolation, had nothing for it but
to follow his example. He had no other candidate seriously to propose;
and on August 28, 1619, Ferdinand was chosen by a unanimous vote. He was
now known as the Emperor Ferdinand II.
[Sidenote: § 8. Frederick elected King of Bohemia.]
Two days before, another election had taken place at Prague. The
Bohemians, after deposing Ferdinand from the throne, which in 1617 they
had acknowledged to be his, chose Frederick to fill the vacant seat.
[Sidenote: § 9. He accepts the throne.]
Would Frederick accept the perilous offer? Opinions round him were
divided on the advisability of the step. The princes of the Union, and
even his own councillors, took opposite sides. In his own family, his
mother raised a voice of warning. His wife, Elizabeth of England, the
beautiful and high-spirited, urged him to the enterprise. The poor young
man himself was well-nigh distracted. At last he found a consolation in
the comfortable belief that his election was the act of God. Amidst the
tears of the good people of Heidelberg he set out from the proud castle,
magnificent even now in its ruins as it looks down upon the rushing
stream of the Neckar. 'He is carrying the Palatinate into Bohemia,' said
his sorrowing mother. On November 4 he was crowned at Prague, and the
last act of the Bohemian Revolution was accomplished.
CHAPTER III.
IMPERIALIST VICTORIES IN BOHEMIA AND THE PALATINATE.
SECTION I.--_The Attack upon Frederick._
[Sidenote: § 1. Maximilian prepares for war.]
The news of Frederick's acceptance of the Bohemian crown sent a thrill
of confidence through the ranks of his opponents. 'That prince,' said
the Pope, 'has cast himself into a fine labyrinth.' 'He will only be a
winter-king,' whispered the Jesuits to one another, certain that the
summer's campaign would see his pretensions at an end. Up to that time
the Bohemian cause stood upon its own merits. But if one prince of the
Empire was to be allowed, on any pretext, to seize upon the territories
of another, what bulwark was there against a return of the old
fist-right, or general anarchy? Frederick had attacked the foundations
on which the institutions of his time rested, without calling up
anything to take their place.
[Sidenote: § 2. Makes use of Frederick's mistakes.]
Maximilian saw more clearly than any one the mistake that had been
committed. In an interview with the new Emperor he engaged to forsake
his inaction. Hitherto he had kept quiet, because he knew well that the
apparent aggressor would have the general opinion of the world against
him. Now that the blunder had been committed, he was ready to take
advantage of it. At the same time, he did not forget his own interests,
and he stipulated that, when all was over, Frederick's electoral
dignity--not necessarily his territory--should be transferred to
himself, and that he should retain Upper Austria in pledge till his
military expenses had been repaid.
[Sidenote: § 3. Bethlen Gabor attacks Austria.]
The effect of the change from the passive endurance of Ferdinand to the
active vigour of Maximilian was immediately perceptible. His first
object was to gain over or neutralize the German Protestants, and events
in the East were seconding him to a marvel. About one-fifth only of
Hungary was in Ferdinand's possession. The rest was about equally
divided between the Turks and Bethlen Gabor, the Protestant Prince of
Transylvania, a semi-barbarous but energetic chieftain, who hoped, with
Turkish support, to make himself master of all Hungary, if not of
Austria as well. In the first days of November, his hordes, in friendly
alliance with the Bohemians, were burning and plundering round the walls
of Vienna. But such armies as his can only support themselves by
continuous success; and Bethlen Gabor found the capture of Vienna as
hopeless in the winter as Thurn had found it in the summer. Retiring
eastwards, he left behind him a bitter indignation against those who had
abetted his proceedings, and who had not been ashamed, as their
adversaries declared, to plant the Crescent upon the ruins of
Christianity and civilization.
[Sidenote: § 4. The Union refuses to support Frederick.]
Such declamation, overstrained as it was, was not without its effect.
German Protestantism had no enthusiasm to spare for Frederick's
enterprise in Bohemia. At a meeting of the Union at Nüremberg,
Frederick's cause found no support. Maximilian could well afford to
leave the Union to its own hesitation, and to think only of conciliating
the Elector of Saxony and the North German princes.
[Sidenote: 1620.
§ 5. The agreement of Mühlhausen.]
That John George should have taken serious alarm at his rival's increase
of power is not surprising. Not only did it assail whatever shadow still
remained of the protecting institutions of the Empire, but it did so in
a way likely to be especially disagreeable at Dresden. The revolution at
Prague did not simply raise an otherwise powerless person into
Ferdinand's place. It gave the crown of Bohemia to a man whose
territories were already so extensive that if he managed to consolidate
his new dominion with them he would unite in his hands a power which
would be unequalled in the Empire, and which would bring with it the
unheard-of accumulation of two votes upon one person at imperial
elections. John George would descend from being one of the first of the
German princes to a mere second-rate position.
[Sidenote: § 6. The ecclesiastical lands held by Protestants guaranteed
under conditions.]
John George was not to be won for nothing. At an assembly held at
Mühlhausen in March 1620, the League promised that they would never
attempt to recover by force the lands of the Protestant administrators,
or the secularized lands in the northern territories, as long as the
holders continued to act as loyal subjects; and this promise was
confirmed by the Emperor.
[Sidenote: § 7. Spinola prepares to attack the Palatinate.]
That this engagement was not enough, later events were to show. For the
present it seemed satisfactory to John George, and Maximilian was able
to turn his attention to the actual preparations for war. In May orders
had been issued from Madrid to Spinola, the Spanish general in the
Netherlands, to make ready to march to the Emperor's defence; and on
June 3 the frightened Union signed the treaty of Ulm, by which they
promised to observe neutrality towards the League, thus securing to
Maximilian freedom from attack in the rear during his march into
Bohemia. The Union, however, if it should be attacked, was to be allowed
to defend its own territories, including the Palatinate.
[Sidenote: § 8. The invasions.]
At the head of Maximilian's army was the Walloon Tilly, a man capable of
inspiring confidence alike by the probity of his character and by the
possession of eminent military capacity. On June 23 he crossed the
Austrian frontier. On August 20 the Estates of Upper Austria
unconditionally bowed to Ferdinand as their lord and master. Lower
Austria had already submitted to its fate. About the same time John
George had entered Lusatia, and was besieging Bautzen in Ferdinand's
name. Spinola, too, had marched along the Rhine, and had reached Mentz
by the end of August.
[Sidenote: § 9. Spinola subdues the Western Palatinate.]
The army of the Union was drawn up to oppose the Spaniards. But there
was no harmony amongst the leaders; no spirit in the troops. Falling
upon one town after another, Spinola now brought into his power nearly
the whole of that portion of the Palatinate which lay on the left bank
of the Rhine. The army of the Union retreated helplessly to Worms,
waiting for what might happen next.
[Sidenote: § 10. Invasion of Bohemia.]
Maximilian was now ready to attack Bohemia. He soon effected a junction
with Bucquoi. Frederick's position was deplorable.
[Sidenote: § 11. Growing unpopularity of Frederick.]
At first he had been received at Prague with the liveliest joy. When a
son was born to him, who was in after days to become the Prince Rupert
of our English civil wars, every sign of rejoicing accompanied the child
to the font. But it was not long before Frederick's Lutheran subjects
were offended by his Calvinistic proceedings. In the royal chapel
pictures of the saints were ruthlessly torn down from the walls, and the
great crucifix, an object of reverence to the Lutheran as well as the
Catholic, was tossed aside like a common log of wood. The treasures of
art which Rudolph II. had collected during his life of seclusion were
catalogued that they might be offered for sale; and it is said that many
of them were carried off by the officials entrusted with the duty. And
besides real grievances, there were others that were purely imaginary. A
story has been told which, whether true or false, is a good illustration
of the impracticable nature of the Bohemian aristocracy. Frederick is
said to have convened some of them to council early in the morning and
to have received an answer that it was against their privileges to get
up so soon.
[Sidenote: § 12. Frederick brings no strength to the Bohemians.]
The Bohemians were not long in discovering that no real strength had
been brought to them by Frederick. He had been set upon the throne, not
for his personal qualities, but because he was supposed to have good
friends, and to be able to prop up the falling cause of Bohemia by aid
from all parts of Protestant Europe. But his friends gave him little or
no help, and he was himself looking tranquilly on whilst the storm was
gathering before his eyes. In his ranks there was neither organization
nor devotion. Christian of Anhalt had been placed in command of the
army, but, though personally brave he did not inspire confidence. The
other generals were quarrelling about precedence. New levies were
ordered, but the men either remained at home or took the earliest
opportunity to slink away. Those who remained, scantily provided with
the necessities of life, were on the verge of mutiny.
[Sidenote: § 13. March of Tilly and Bucquoi.]
On September 28 Frederick joined the army. He still cherished hope.
Bethlen Gabor, who had deserted his cause a few months before, had
repented his defection, and was now coming to his aid. Sickness was
raging in the enemy's camp. Yet, in spite of sickness, Tilly pressed on,
taking town after town, and choosing his positions too skilfully to be
compelled to fight unless it suited him. On the morning of November 8
the Imperialists were close upon Prague. The enemy was posted on the
White Hill, a rising ground of no great height outside the walls. The
Imperial army had been weakened by its sufferings; and Bucquoi still
counselled delay. But Tilly knew better, and urged an immediate advance.
As the commanders were disputing, a Dominican friar, who accompanied the
armies, stepped forward. 'Sons of the church,' he said, 'why do you hang
back? We ought to march straight forward, for the Lord hath delivered
the enemy into our hands. We shall overcome them as sure as we are
alive.' Then showing them a figure of the Virgin which had been defaced
by Protestant hands, 'See here,' he said, 'what they have done. The
prayers of the Holy Virgin shall be yours. Trust in God, and go boldly
to the battle. He fights on your side, and will give you the victory.'
Before the fiery utterances of the friar Bucquoi withdrew his
opposition.
[Sidenote: § 14. The battle of the White Hill.]
It was a Sunday morning, and the gospel of the day contained the words,
'Render unto Cæsar the things that be Cæsar's,' and the warriors of the
Cæsar at Vienna felt themselves inspired to fulfil the Saviour's words.
The task which they had before them was more difficult in appearance
than in reality. Frederick was inside the city entertaining two English
ambassadors at dinner whilst the blow was being struck. Some Hungarians
on whom he chiefly relied set the example of flight, and the day was
irretrievably lost. Frederick fled for his life through North Germany,
till he found a refuge at the Hague.
[Sidenote: § 15. Submission of Bohemia.]
The reign of the Bohemian aristocracy was at an end. Tilly, indeed, had
mercifully given time to the leaders to make their escape. But, blind in
adversity as they had been in prosperity, they made no use of the
opportunity. The chiefs perished on the scaffold. Their lands were
confiscated, and a new German and Catholic nobility arose, which owed
its possessions to its sovereign, and which, even if the Royal Charter
had remained in existence, would have entered into the privileges which
allowed their predecessors to convert the churches in their domains to
what use they pleased. But the Royal Charter was declared to have been
forfeited by rebellion, and the Protestant churches in the towns and
on the royal estates had nothing to depend on but the will of
the conqueror. The ministers of one great body,--the Bohemian
Brethren--were expelled at once. The Lutherans were spared for a time.
[Sidenote: § 16. Frederick put to the ban.]
Was it yet possible to keep the Bohemian war from growing into a German
one? Ferdinand and Maximilian were hardly likely to stop of themselves
in their career of victory. To them Frederick was a mere aggressor, on
whom they were bound to inflict condign punishment. Would he not, if he
were allowed to recover strength, play the same game over again?
Besides, the expenses of the war had been heavy. Ferdinand had been
obliged to leave Upper Austria in pledge with Maximilian till his share
of those expenses had been repaid to him. It would be much pleasanter
for both parties if Maximilian could have a slice of the Palatinate
instead. With this and the promised transference of the electorate to
Maximilian, there would be some chance of securing order and a due
respect for the Catholic ecclesiastical lands. On January 22, therefore,
Frederick was solemnly put to the ban, and his lands and dignities
declared to be forfeited.
[Sidenote: § 17. Danger of the Protestants.]
Whether Ferdinand was justified in doing this was long a moot point. He
had certainly promised at his election that he would not put anyone to
the ban without giving him the benefit of a fair trial. But he argued
that this only applied to one whose guilt was doubtful, and that
Frederick's guilt had been open and palpable. However this may have
been, something of far greater importance than a legal or personal
question was at issue. For Frederick there was little sympathy in
Germany; but there was a strong feeling that it would not do to allow a
Protestant country to fall into Catholic hands, both for its own sake
and for the sake of its Protestant neighbours.
SECTION II.--_The War in the Upper Palatinate._
[Sidenote: § 1. Frederick does not give up hope.]
If Frederick could only have made it clear that he had really renounced
all his pretensions to meddle with other people's lands he might
possibly have ended his days peaceably at Heidelberg. But he could not
give up his hopes of regaining his lost kingdom. One day he talked of
peace; another day he talked of war. When he was most peaceably inclined
he would give up his claim if he could have an amnesty for the past. But
he would not first give up his claim and then ask for an amnesty.
[Sidenote: § 2. Part taken by James of England.]
Even to this he had been driven half unwillingly by his father-in-law.
The King of England charged himself with the office of a mediator, and
fancied that it was unnecessary to arm in the meantime.
[Sidenote: § 3. Dissolution of the Union.]
The states of the Union were in great perplexity. The Landgrave of Hesse
Cassel was compelled by his own subjects to come to terms with Spinola.
The cities of Strasburg, Ulm, and Nüremberg were the next to give way.
On April 12 a treaty was signed at Mentz, by which the Union dissolved
itself, and engaged to withdraw its troops from the Palatinate. On the
other hand, Spinola promised to suspend hostilities till May 14.
[Sidenote: § 4. Chances in Frederick's favour.]
The danger to which the Palatinate was exposed, and the hints let drop
that the conquest of the Palatinate might be followed by the
transference of the electorate, caused alarm in quarters by no means
favourable to Frederick. John George began to raise objections, and even
the Catholic ecclesiastics were frightened at the prospects of the
enlargement of the war, and at the risk of seeing many powers, hitherto
neutral, taking the part of the proscribed Elector.
[Sidenote: § 5. He still holds places in Bohemia.]
The claim kept up by Frederick to Bohemia was something more than a
claim to an empty title. He had appointed Mansfeld to act there as his
general; and, though Mansfeld had lost one post after another, at the
end of April he still held Tabor and Wittingau in Frederick's name.
[Sidenote: § 6. Mansfeld's army.]
The appointment of Mansfeld was unfortunately in itself fatal to the
chances of peace. Ever since the capture of Pilsen, his troops,
destitute of support, had been the terror of the country they were
called upon to defend. In those days, indeed, the most disciplined army
was often guilty of excesses from which in our days the most depraved
outcasts would shrink. The soldiers, engaged merely for as long a time
as they happened to be wanted, passed from side to side as the prospect
of pay or booty allured them. No tie of nationality bound the mercenary
to the standard under which accident had placed him. He had sold himself
to his hirer for the time being, and he sought his recompense in the
gratification of every evil passion of which human nature in its deepest
degradation is capable.
[Sidenote: § 7. Soldiers of the Thirty Years' War.]
Yet, even in this terrible war, there was a difference between one army
and another. In an enemy's country all plundered alike. Tilly's
Bavarians had been guilty of horrible excesses in Bohemia. But a
commander like Tilly, who could pay his soldiers, and could inspire them
with confidence in his generalship, had it in his power to preserve some
sort of discipline; and if, as Tilly once told a complaining official,
his men were not nuns, they were at all events able to refrain on
occasion from outrageous villany. A commander, like Mansfeld, who could
not pay his soldiers, must, of necessity, plunder wherever he was. His
movements would not be governed by military or political reasons. As
soon as his men had eaten up one part of the country they must go to
another, if they were not to die of starvation. They obeyed, like the
elements, a law of their own, quite independent of the wishes or needs
of the sovereign whose interests they were supposed to serve.
[Sidenote: § 8. Mansfeld takes the offensive.]
Before the end of May the breaking up of the army of the Union sent
fresh swarms of recruits to Mansfeld's camp. He was soon at the head of
a force of 16,000 men in the Upper Palatinate. The inhabitants suffered
terribly, but he was strong enough to maintain his position for a time.
Nor was he content with standing on the defensive. He seized a post
within the frontiers of Bohemia, and threatened to harry the lands of
the Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg if he did not withdraw his troops
from the army of the League. He then fell upon Leuchtenberg, and carried
off the Landgrave a prisoner to his camp.
[Sidenote: § 9. A truce impossible for him.]
The first attack of the Bavarians failed entirely. Bethlen Gabor, too,
was again moving in Hungary, had slain Bucquoi, and was driving the
Emperor's army before him. Under these circumstances, even Ferdinand
seems to have hesitated, and to have doubted whether he had not better
accept the English offer of mediation. Yet such was the character of
Mansfeld's army that it made mediation impossible. It must attack
somebody in order to exist.
[Sidenote: § 10. Vere in the Lower Palatinate.]
Yet it was in the Lower, not in the Upper, Palatinate that the first
blow was struck. Sir Horace Vere, who had gone out the year before, with
a regiment of English volunteers, was now in command for Frederick. But
Frederick had neither money nor provisions to give him, and the supplies
of the Palatinate were almost exhausted. The existing truce had been
prolonged by the Spaniards. But the lands of the Bishop of Spires lay
temptingly near. Salving his conscience by issuing the strictest orders
against pillage, he quartered some of his men upon them.
[Sidenote: § 11. War recommenced in the Lower Palatinate.]
The whole Catholic party was roused to indignation. Cordova, left in
command of the Spanish troops after Spinola's return to Brussels,
declared the truce to have been broken, and commenced operations against
Vere.
[Sidenote: § 12. Mansfeld driven from the Upper Palatinate.]
By this time Mansfeld's power of defending the Upper Palatinate was at
an end. The magistrates of the towns were sick of his presence, and
preferred coming to terms with Maximilian to submitting any longer to
the extortions of their master's army. Mansfeld, seeing how matters
stood, offered to sell himself and his troops to the Emperor. But he had
no real intention of carrying out the bargain. On October 10 he signed
an engagement to disband his forces. Before the next sun arose he had
slipped away, and was in full march for Heidelberg.
Tilly followed hard upon his heels. But Mansfeld did not stop to fight
him. Throwing himself upon Alsace, he seized upon Hagenau, and converted
it into a place of strength.
SECTION III.--_Frederick's Allies._
[Sidenote: § 1. Proposal to take Mansfeld into English pay.]
The winter was coming on, and there would be time for negotiations
before another blow was struck. But to give negotiations a chance it was
necessary that Mansfeld's army should be fed, in order that he might be
able to keep quiet while the diplomatists were disputing. James,
therefore, wisely proposed to provide a sum of money for this purpose.
But a quarrel with the House of Commons hurried on a dissolution, and he
was unable to raise money sufficient for the purpose without a grant
from Parliament.
[Sidenote: § 2. England and Spain.]
James, poor and helpless, was thus compelled to fall back upon the
friendship of Spain, a friendship which he hoped to knit more closely by
a marriage between his son, the Prince of Wales, and a Spanish Infanta.
The Spanish Government was anxious, if possible, to avoid an extension
of the war in Germany. Though all the riches of the Indies were at its
disposal, that government was miserably poor. In a land where industry,
the source of wealth, was held in dishonour, all the gold in the world
was thrown away. Scarcely able to pay the armies she maintained in time
of peace, Spain had now again to find money for the war in the
Netherlands. In 1621 the twelve years' truce with the Dutch had come to
an end, and Spinola's armies in Brabant and Flanders could not live,
like Mansfeld's at the expense of the country, for fear of throwing the
whole of the obedient provinces, as they were called, into the enemies'
hands. If possible, therefore, that yawning gulf of the German war,
which threatened to swallow up so many millions of ducats, must be
closed. And yet how was it to be done? The great difficulty in the way
of peace did not lie in Frederick's pretensions. They could easily be
swept aside. The great difficulty lay in this--that the Catholics,
having already the institutions of the Empire in their hands, were now
also in possession of a successful army. How, under such circumstances,
was Protestantism, with which so many temporal interests were bound up,
to feel itself secure? And without giving security to Protestantism, how
could a permanent peace be obtained?
[Sidenote: § 3. Spanish plans.]
To this problem the Spanish ministers did not care to address
themselves. They thought that it would be enough to satisfy personal
interests. They offered James a larger portion with the Infanta than any
other sovereign in Europe would have given. They opposed tooth and nail
the project for transferring the Electorate to Maximilian, as likely to
lead to endless war. But into the heart of the great question they dared
not go, tied and bound as they were by their devotion to the Church.
Could not Frederick and James, they asked, be bought off by the
assurance of the Palatinate to Frederick's heirs, on the simple
condition of his delivering up his eldest son to be educated at Vienna?
Though they said nothing whatever about any change in the boy's
religion, they undoubtedly hoped that he would there learn to become a
good Catholic.
[Sidenote: § 4. Frederick not likely to accede to them.]
Such a policy was hopeless from the beginning. Frederick had many
faults. He was shallow and obstinate. But he really did believe in his
religion as firmly as any Spaniard in Madrid believed in his; and it was
certain that he would never expose his children to the allurements of
the Jesuits of Vienna.
[Sidenote: § 5. A conference to be held at Brussels.]
It was settled that a conference should be held at Brussels, the capital
of the Spanish Netherlands, first to arrange terms for a suspension of
arms, and then to prepare the way for a general peace. The Spanish plan
of pacification was not yet announced. But Frederick can hardly be
blamed for suspecting that no good would come from diplomacy, or for
discerning that a few regiments on his side would weigh more heavily in
his favour than a million of words.
[Sidenote: § 6. Where was Frederick to expect help?]
The only question for him to decide was the quarter in which he should
seek for strength. His weakness had hitherto arisen from his confidence
in physical strength alone. To get together as many thousand men as
possible and to launch them at the enemy had been his only policy, and
he had done nothing to conciliate the order-loving portion of the
population. The cities stood aloof from his cause. The North German
princes would have nothing to say to him. If he could only have
renounced his past, if he could have acknowledged that all he had
hitherto done had been the fruitful root of disaster, if he could, with
noble self-renunciation, have entreated others to take up the cause of
German Protestantism, which in his hands had suffered so deeply, then it
is not impossible that opinion, whilst opinion was still a power in
Germany, would have passed over to his side, and that the coming
mischief might yet have been averted.
[Sidenote: § 7. His preparations for war.]
But Frederick did not do this. If he had been capable of doing it he
must have been other than he was. In 1622, as in 1619, the pupil of
Christian of Anhalt looked to the mere development of numerical
strength, without regard to the moral basis of force.
[Sidenote: § 8. Frederick's allies.]
It must be acknowledged that if numbers could give power, Frederick's
prospects were never better than in the spring of 1622. Mansfeld's army
was not, this time, to stand alone. In the south the Margrave of
Baden-Durlach was arming in Frederick's cause. In the north, Christian
of Brunswick was preparing to march to the aid of the Palatinate. Such
names as these call up at once before us the two main difficulties which
would have remained in the way of peace even if the question of the
Palatinate could have been laid aside.
[Sidenote: § 9. The Margrave of Baden.]
The Margrave of Baden-Durlach had long been notorious for the skill with
which he had found excuses for appropriating ecclesiastical property,
and for defeating legal attempts to embarrass him in his proceedings.
[Sidenote: 1616.
§ 10. Christian of Brunswick.]
Christian of Brunswick was a younger brother of the Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. By the influence of his family he secured in
1616 his election to the bishopric or administratorship of Halberstadt.
The ceremonies observed at the institution of the youth, who had nothing
of the bishop but the name, may well have seemed a degrading profanation
in the eyes of a Catholic of that day. As he entered the Cathedral the
_Te Deum_ was sung to the pealing organ. He was led to the high altar
amidst the blaze of lighted candles. Then, whilst the choir sang 'Oh
Lord! save thy people,' the four eldest canons placed him upon the
altar. Subsequently he descended and, kneeling with the canons before
the altar, three times intoned the words 'Oh Lord, save thy servant.'
Then he was placed again upon the altar whilst a hymn of praise was
sung. Lastly, he took his place opposite the pulpit whilst the courtly
preacher explained that Christian's election had been in accordance with
the express will of God. 'This,' he cried triumphantly, 'is the bishop
whom God himself has elected. This is the man whom God has set as the
ruler of the land.'
[Sidenote: § 11. Christian's fondness for fighting.]
Christian's subsequent proceedings by no means corresponded with the
expectations of his enthusiastic admirers. Like one who has been handed
down to evil renown in early English history, he did nought bishoplike.
He was not even a good ruler of his domain. He left his people to be
misgoverned by officials, whilst he wandered about the world in quest
of action. As brainless for all higher purposes as Murat, the young
Bishop was a born cavalry officer. He took to fighting for very love of
it, just as young men in more peaceful times take to athletic sports.
[Sidenote: § 12. He takes up the cause of Elizabeth.]
And, if he was to fight at all, there could be no question on which side
he would be found. There was a certain heroism about him which made him
love to look upon himself as the champion of high causes and the
promoter of noble aims. To such an one it would seem to be altogether
debasing to hold his bishopric on the mere tenure of the agreement of
Mühlhausen, to be debarred from taking the place due to him in the Diet
of the Empire, and to be told that if he was very loyal and very
obedient to the Emperor, no force would be employed to wrest from him
that part of the property of the Church which he held through a system
of iniquitous robbery. Then, too, came a visit to the Hague, where the
bright eyes of his fair cousin the titular Queen of Bohemia chained him
for ever to her cause, a cause which might soon become his own. For who
could tell, when once the Palatinate was lost, whether the agreement of
Mühlhausen would be any longer regarded?
[Sidenote: § 13. His ravages in the diocese of Paderborn.]
In the summer of 1621 Christian levied a force with which he marched
into the Catholic bishopric of Paderborn. The country was in the course
of forcible conversion by its bishop, and there was still in it a strong
Lutheran element, which would perhaps have answered the appeal of a
leader who was less purely an adventurer. But except in word, Catholic
and Protestant were alike to Christian, so long as money could be got to
support his army. Castles, towns, farmhouses were ransacked for the
treasure of the rich, and the scanty hoard of the poor. We need not be
too hard on him if he tore down the silver shrine of a saint in
the cathedral of Paderborn, and melted it into coin bearing the
legend:--'The friend of God and the enemy of the priests.' But it is
impossible to forget he was the enemy of the peasants as well.
Burning-masters appear among the regular officers of his army; and many
a village, unable to satisfy his demands, went up in flames, with its
peaceful industry ruined for ever. At last, satiated with plunder, he
turned southward to the support of Mansfeld.
[Sidenote: § 14. Mansfeld will not make peace.]
Such were the commanders into whose hands the fortunes of German
Protestantism had fallen. Mansfeld told Vere plainly that whether there
were a truce or not, he at least would not lay down his arms unless he
were indemnified for his expenses by a slice out of the Austrian
possession of Alsace.
[Sidenote: § 15. Tilly in the midst of his enemies.]
If the three armies of the Margrave of Baden, of Christian of Brunswick,
and of Mansfeld, could be brought to co-operate, Tilly, even if
supported by Cordova's Spaniards, would be in a decided numerical
inferiority. But he had the advantage of a central situation, of
commanding veteran troops by whom he was trusted, and above all of being
able to march or remain quiet at his pleasure, as not being dependent on
mere pillage for his commissariat. He was inspired, too, by a childlike
faith in the cause for which he was fighting as the cause of order and
religion against anarchy and vice.
SECTION IV.--_The Fight for the Lower Palatinate._
[Sidenote: § 1. Frederick joins Mansfeld in the Palatinate.]
By the middle of April the hostile armies were in movement, converging
upon the Palatinate, where the fortresses of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and
Frankenthal were safe in Vere's keeping. Frederick himself had joined
Mansfeld's army in Alsace, and his first operations were attended with
success. Effecting a junction with the Margrave of Baden he inflicted a
severe check upon Tilly at Wiesloch. The old Walloon retreated to
Wimpfen, calling Cordova to his aid, and he did not call in vain.
Mansfeld, on the other hand, and the Margrave could not agree. Each had
his own plan for the campaign, and neither would give way to the other.
Besides, there were no means of feeding so large an army if it kept
together. Mansfeld marched away, leaving the Margrave to his fate.
[Sidenote: § 2. Battle of Wimpfen.]
The battle of Wimpfen was the result. On May 6 Tilly and Cordova caught
the Margrave alone, and defeated him completely. As soon as the action
was over, Cordova left the field to resist the progress of Mansfeld; and
Mansfeld, whose men were almost starving, was unable to overcome serious
resistance. There was nothing for it but a speedy retreat to Alsace.
[Sidenote: § 3. The Congress at Brussels.]
In the meantime the diplomatists had met at Brussels. After some
difficulties of form had been got over, Sir Richard Weston, the
representative of England, sent to ask Frederick to agree to a truce.
When the message reached him the battle of Wimpfen had not been fought,
and his hopes were still high. A truce, he wrote to his father-in-law,
would be his utter ruin. The country was exhausted. Unless his army
lived by plunder it could not exist. A few days later he was a beaten
man. On May 13 he gave way, and promised to agree to the truce. On the
28th all was again changed. He had learned that the Margrave of Baden
hoped to bring back his army into the field. He knew that Christian of
Brunswick was approaching from beyond the Main; and he informed Weston
that he could do nothing to assist the negotiations at Brussels.
[Sidenote: § 4. Seizure of the Landgrave of Darmstadt.]
On June 1 Frederick and Mansfeld marched out of Mannheim to meet
Christian. On their way they passed by Darmstadt. The Landgrave was
especially obnoxious to them, as a Lutheran prince who had warmly
adopted the Emperor's side. Love of peace, combined with pretensions to
lands in dispute with the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, in which he hoped
to be supported by Ferdinand, had made him a bitter enemy of Mansfeld
and his proceedings; and though it was not known at the time that he was
actually in receipt of a Spanish pension, Frederick was not likely to
attribute to other than interested motives a line of action which seemed
so incomprehensible.
[Sidenote: § 5. Mansfeld unable to pass the Main.]
As soon as the troops reached Darmstadt, they commenced their usual
work, ravaging the country, and driving off the cattle. To the
Landgrave, who recommended submission to the Emperor as the best way of
recovering peace, Frederick used high language. It was not in quest of
peace that he had come so far. The Landgrave had a fortified post which
commanded a passage over the Main, and its possession would enable the
army to join Christian without difficulty. But the Landgrave was firm;
and finding that a denial would not be taken, tried to avoid his
importunate guests by flight. He was overtaken and brought back a
prisoner. But even in this plight he would give no orders for the
surrender of the post, and its commander resolutely refused to give it
up without instructions. Before another passage could be found, Tilly
had received reinforcements, and Frederick, carrying the Landgrave with
him, was driven to retreat to Mannheim, not without loss.
[Sidenote: § 6. Condition of Mansfeld's army.]
Once more Frederick was ready to consent to the cessation of arms
proposed at Brussels. But Cordova and Tilly were now of a different
opinion. Christian, they knew, would soon be on the Main, and they were
resolved to crush him whilst he was still unaided. Lord Chichester, who
had come out to care for English interests in the Palatinate, and who
judged all that he saw with the eye of an experienced soldier, perceived
clearly the causes of Frederick's failure. 'I observe,' he wrote, 'so
much of the armies of the Margrave of Baden and of Count Mansfeld, which
I have seen, and of their ill discipline and order, that I must conceive
that kingdom and principality for which they shall fight to be in great
danger and hazard. The Duke of Brunswick's, it is said, is not much
better governed: and how can it be better or otherwise where men are
raised out of the scum of the people by princes who have no dominion
over them, nor power, for want of pay, to punish them, nor means to
reward them, living only upon rapine and spoil as they do?'
[Sidenote: § 7. Battle of Höchst.]
On June 20, the day before these words were written, Tilly and Cordova
had met with Christian at Höchst, and though they did not prevent him
from crossing the Main, they inflicted on him such enormous losses that
he joined Mansfeld with the mere fragments of his army.
[Sidenote: § 8. Mansfeld abandons the Palatinate.]
Great was the consternation at Mannheim when the truth was known. The
Margrave of Baden at once abandoned his associates. Mansfeld and
Christian, taking Frederick with them, retreated into Alsace, where
Frederick formally dismissed them from his service, and thus washed his
hands of all responsibility for their future proceedings.
[Sidenote: § 9. Frederick goes back to the Hague.]
Retiring for a time to Sedan, he watched events as they passed from that
quiet retreat. 'Would to God,' he wrote to his wife, 'that we possessed
a little corner of the earth where we could rest together in peace.' The
destinies of Germany and Europe had to be decided by clearer heads and
stronger wills than his. After a short delay he found his way back to
the Hague, to prove, as many a wiser man had proved before him, how
bitter a lot it is to go up and down on the stairs which lead to the
antechambers of the great: to plead for help which never is given, and
to plan victories which never come.
CHAPTER IV.
MANSFELD AND CHRISTIAN IN NORTH GERMANY.
SECTION I.--_Mansfeld's March into the Netherlands._
[Sidenote: § 1. Reduction of the Palatinate.]
When once Tilly had got the better of the armies in the field, the
reduction of the fortresses in the Palatinate was merely a work of time.
Heidelberg surrendered on September 16. On November 8 Vere found
Mannheim no longer tenable. Frankenthal alone held out for a few months
longer, and was then given up to the Spaniards.
[Sidenote: § 2. Aims of the Catholics.]
James still hoped that peace was possible, though the conference at
Brussels had broken up in September. In the meanwhile, Ferdinand and
Maximilian were pushing on to the end which they had long foreseen; and
an assembly of princes was invited to meet at Ratisbon in November to
assent to the transference of the electorate to the Duke of Bavaria.
[Sidenote: 1623.
§ 3. The Electorate transferred to Maximilian.]
Constitutional opposition on the part of the Protestants was impossible.
In addition to the majority against them amongst the princes, there was
now, by the mere fact of Frederick's exclusion, a majority against them
amongst the Electors, a majority which was all the more firmly
established when, on February 13, the transfer was solemnly declared.
Maximilian was to be Elector for his lifetime. If any of Frederick's
relations claimed that the electorate ought rather to pass over to them,
they would be heard, and if their case appeared to be a good one, they
would receive what was due to them after Maximilian's death. If, in the
meanwhile, Frederick chose to ask humbly for forgiveness, and to abandon
his claim to the electoral dignity, the Emperor would take his request
for the restitution of his lands into favourable consideration. Against
all this the Spanish ambassador protested; but the protest was evidently
not meant to be followed by action.
[Sidenote: § 4. The North German Protestants.]
The question of peace or war now depended mainly on the North German
Protestants. Nobody doubted that, if they could hit upon a united plan
of action, and if they vigorously set to work to carry it out, they
would bring an irresistible weight to bear upon the points at issue.
Unfortunately, however, such uniformity of action was of all things most
improbable. John George, indeed, had more than once been urged in
different directions during the past years by events as they
successively arose. The invasion of the Palatinate had shaken him in his
friendship for the Emperor. Then had come the kidnapping of the
Landgrave of Darmstadt to give him a shock on the other side. Later in
the year the news that an excuse had been found for driving the Lutheran
clergy out of Bohemia had deeply exasperated him, and his exasperation
had been increased by the transference of the electorate, by which the
Protestants were left in a hopeless minority in the Electoral House. But
the idea of making war upon the Emperor, and unsettling what yet
remained as a security for peace, was altogether so displeasing to John
George that it is doubtful whether anything short of absolute necessity
would have driven him to war. What he would have liked would have been a
solemn meeting, at which he might have had the opportunity of advancing
his views. But if those views had been seriously opposed he would hardly
have drawn the sword to uphold them.
[Sidenote: § 5. Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick.]
If the only danger to be apprehended by the North Germans had been the
march of Tilly's army, it is not unlikely that the war would here have
come to an end. Ferdinand and Maximilian would doubtless have respected
the agreement of Mühlhausen, and there would hardly have been found
sufficient determination in the northern princes to induce them to arm
for the recovery of the Palatinate. But a new danger had arisen.
Mansfeld and Christian had not laid down their arms when Frederick
dismissed them in July, and so far from being ready to make sacrifices
for peace, they were ready to make any sacrifices for the sake of the
continuance of the war.
[Sidenote: 1622.
§ 6. They establish themselves in Lorraine.]
It was not long before the adventurers were forced to leave Alsace. They
had eaten up everything that was to be eaten there, and the enemy was
known to be on their track. Throwing themselves into Lorraine, they
settled down for a time like a swarm of locusts upon that smiling land.
But where were they to turn next? The French government hurried up
reinforcements to guard their frontier. That road, at all events, was
barred to them, and Christian, whose troops were in a state of mutiny,
tried in vain to lead them towards the Lower Rhine. Whilst the leaders
hardly knew what to do, they received an invitation to place themselves
for three months at the disposal of the Dutch Republic.
[Sidenote: § 7. Battle of Fleurus.]
Matters had not been going well with the Dutch since the re-opening of
the war in 1621. Their garrison at Juliers had surrendered to Spinola in
the winter, and the great Spanish commander was now laying siege to
Bergen-op-Zoom, with every prospect of reducing it. To come to its
relief Mansfeld would have to march across the Spanish Netherlands. On
August 28 he found Cordova on his way to Fleurus, as he had stood in his
way in the Palatinate the year before. Worse than all, two of his own
regiments broke out into mutiny, refusing to fight unless they were
paid. At such a time Mansfeld was at his best. He was a man of cool
courage and infinite resource, and he rode up to the mutineers,
entreating them if they would not fight at least to look as if they
meant to fight. Then, with the rest of his force, he charged the enemy.
Christian seconded him bravely at the head of his cavalry, fighting on
in spite of a shot in his left arm. Three horses were killed under him.
The loss was enormous on both sides, but Mansfeld gained his object, and
was able to pursue his way in safety.
[Sidenote: § 8. Christian loses his arm.]
Christian's arm was amputated. He ordered that the operation should be
performed to the sound of trumpets. 'The arm that is left,' he said,
'shall give my enemies enough to do.' He coined money out of the silver
he had taken from the Spaniards, with the inscription '_Altera restat_.'
[Sidenote: § 9. Mansfeld in Münster and East Friesland.]
Bergen-op-Zoom was saved. Spinola raised the siege. But Mansfeld's
disorderly habits did not comport well with the regular discipline of
the Dutch army. Those whom he had served were glad to be rid of him. In
November he was dismissed, and marched to seek his fortune in the
diocese of Münster. But the enemy was too strong for him there, and he
turned his steps to East Friesland, a land rich and fertile, easily
fortified against attack, yet perfectly helpless. There he settled down
to remain till the stock of money and provisions which he was able to
wring from the inhabitants had been exhausted.
SECTION II.--_Christian of Brunswick in Lower Saxony._
[Sidenote: § 1. Difficulties of the Lower Saxon circle.]
Here then was a new rock of offence, a new call for the Emperor to
interfere, if he was in any way to be regarded as the preserver of the
peace of the Empire. But a march of Tilly against an enemy in East
Friesland was not a simply military operation. Not a few amongst the
northern princes doubted whether a victorious Catholic army would
respect the agreement of Mühlhausen. Christian of Brunswick, of course,
lost no time in favouring the doubt. For, whatever else might be
questionable there was no question that the diocese of Halberstadt was
no longer secured by the provisions of that agreement. Neither the
League nor the Emperor had given any promise to those administrators who
did not continue loyal to the Emperor, and no one could for a moment
contend that Christian had ever shown a spark of loyalty.
[Sidenote: § 2. Christian and Tilly urge them to opposite courses.]
On the one side was Christian, assuring those poor princes that
neutrality was impossible, and that it was their plain duty to fight for
the bishoprics and Protestantism. On the other side was Tilly, equally
assuring them that neutrality was impossible, but asserting that it was
their plain duty to fight for their Emperor against Mansfeld and
brigandage. The princes felt that it was all very hard. How desirable it
would be if only the war would take some other direction, or if Tilly
and Christian would mutually exterminate one another, and rid them of
the difficulty of solving such terrible questions!
[Sidenote: § 3. Halberstadt in danger.]
But the question could not be disposed of. Halberstadt was a member of
the Lower Saxon circle, one of those districts of which the princes and
cities were legally bound together for mutual defence. The Lower Saxon
circle, therefore, was placed between two fires. The Catholic troops
were gathering round them on the south. Mansfeld was issuing forth from
his fastness in East Friesland and threatening to occupy the line of the
Weser on the north.
[Sidenote: § 4. Warlike preparations.]
In February the circle determined to levy troops and prepare for war.
But the preparations were rather directed against Mansfeld than against
Tilly. If the Emperor could only have given satisfaction about the
bishoprics, he would have had no vassals more loyal than the Lower Saxon
princes. But in Ferdinand's eyes to acknowledge more than had been
acknowledged at Mühlhausen would be to make himself partaker in other
men's sins. It would have been to acknowledge that robbery might give a
lawful title to possession.
[Sidenote: § 5. Christian invited to take service under his brother.]
Almost unavoidably the circle became further involved in opposition to
the Emperor. Christian's brother, Frederick Ulric, the reigning Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was a weak and incompetent prince much under
his mother's guidance. Anxious to save her favourite son, the dashing
Christian, from destruction, the Duchess persuaded the Duke to offer his
brother a refuge in his dominions. If he would bring his troops there,
he and they would be taken into the service of the Duke, a respectable
law-abiding prince, and time would be afforded him to make his peace
with the Emperor.
[Sidenote: § 6. The Battle of Stadtlohn.]
Christian at once accepted the offer, and entered into negotiations with
Ferdinand. But he had never any thought of really abandoning his
adventurous career. Young princes, eager for distinction, levied troops
and gathered round his standard. Every week the number of his followers
increased. At last the neighbouring states could bear it no longer. The
authorities of the circle told him plainly to be gone. Reproaching them
for their sluggishness in thus abandoning the cause of the Gospel, he
started for the Dutch Netherlands, with Tilly following closely upon
him. On August 6 he was overtaken at Stadtlohn, within a few hours'
march of the frontier, behind which he would have been in safety. His
hastily levied recruits were no match for Tilly's veterans. Of 20,000
men only 6,000 found their way across the border.
SECTION III.--_Danger of the Lower Saxon Circle._
[Sidenote: § 1. Danger of the Northern bishoprics.]
Christian's defeat, however disastrous, settled nothing. Mansfeld was
still in East Friesland. The princes of Lower Saxony were still anxious
about the bishoprics. Even if the agreement of Mühlhausen were
scrupulously observed, was it so very certain that the bishoprics might
not be wrenched from them in another way than by force of arms? The
administrators held the sees simply because they had been elected by the
chapters, and if only a Catholic majority could be obtained in a chapter
the election at the next vacancy would be certain to fall upon a
Catholic. Often it happened that the Protestant majority had taken care
to perpetuate its power by methods of very doubtful legality, and it
would be open to the Emperor to question those methods. It might even
come to pass that strict law might turn the majority into a minority.
Already, on April 18, the chapter of Osnabrück had chosen a Catholic to
succeed a Protestant bishop, perhaps not altogether uninfluenced by the
near neighbourhood of a Catholic army. Christian of Brunswick, certain
that he would not be allowed to retain his see, had formally given in
his resignation, and it was not impossible that with some manipulation
the chapter of Halberstadt might be induced to follow the example of
Osnabrück. The question of the bishoprics had, no doubt, its low and
petty side. It may be spoken of simply as a question interesting to a
handful of aristocratic sinecurists, who had had the luck to reap the
good things of the old bishops without doing their work. But this would
be a very incomplete account of the matter. Scattered as these
bishoprics were over the surface of North Germany, their restitution
meant nothing less than the occupation by the Emperor and his armies of
points of vantage over the whole of the north. No one who casts his eyes
over the map can doubt for an instant that, with these bishoprics open
to the troops of the League, or it might be even to the troops of the
King of Spain, the independence of the princes would have been a thing
of the past; and it must never be forgotten that, as matters stood, the
cause of the independence of the princes was inextricably bound up with
the independence of Protestantism. If Ferdinand and Maximilian had
their way, German Protestantism would exist merely upon sufferance; and
whatever they and the Jesuits might say, German Protestantism was, in
spite of all its shortcomings, too noble a creed to exist on sufferance.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Lower Saxon circle does nothing.]
Would the members of the circle of Lower Saxony be strong enough to
maintain their neutrality? They sent ambassadors to the Emperor, asking
him to settle the question of the bishoprics in their favour, and to
John George to ask for his support. The Emperor replied that he would
not go beyond the agreement of Mühlhausen. John George gave them good
advice, but nothing more. And, worse than all, they were disunited
amongst themselves. Princes and towns, after agreeing to support troops
for the common defence, had done their best to evade their duties. As
few men as possible had been sent, and the money needed for their
support was still slower in coming in. As usual, unpaid men were more
dangerous to the country which they were called upon to protect than to
the enemy. The circle came to the conclusion that it would be better to
send the troops home than to keep them under arms. By the beginning of
the new year, Lower Saxony was undefended, a tempting prey to him who
could first stretch out his hand to take it.
[Sidenote: § 3. Low state of public feeling.]
It was the old story. With the Empire, the Diet and the Church in the
hands of mere partisans, there was nothing to remind men of their duty
as citizens of a great nation. Even the idea of being members of a
circle was too high to be seriously entertained. The cities strove to
thrust the burden of defence upon the princes, and the princes thrust
it back upon the cities. The flood was rising rapidly which was to
swallow them all.
SECTION IV.--_England and France._
[Sidenote: § 1. Foreign powers ready to interfere.]
In the spring of 1624 there was rest for a moment. Mansfeld, having
stripped East Friesland bare, drew back into the Netherlands. The only
army still on foot was the army of the League, and if Germany had been
an island in the middle of the Atlantic, exercising no influence upon
other powers and uninfluenced by them, the continuance in arms of those
troops might fairly be cited in evidence that the Emperor and the League
wished to push their advantages still further, in spite of their
assertions that they wanted nothing more than assurance of peace.
[Sidenote: § 2. Ferdinand's weakness.]
But Germany was not an island. Around it lay a multitude of powers with
conflicting interests, but all finding in her distractions a fair field
for pursuing their own objects. Ferdinand, in fact, had made himself
just strong enough to raise the jealousy of his neighbours, but not
strong enough to impose an impassible barrier to their attacks. He had
got on his side the legal and military elements of success. He had put
down all resistance. He had frightened those who dreaded anarchy. But he
had not touched the national heart. He had taught men to make it a mere
matter of calculation whether a foreign invasion was likely to do them
more damage than the success of their own Emperor. Whilst he affected to
speak in the name of Germany, more than half of Germany was neutral if
not adverse in the struggle.
[Sidenote: 1623.
§ 3. Breach between England and Spain.]
England, at last, was giving signs of warlike preparation. Prince
Charles had paid a visit to Madrid in hopes of bringing home a Spanish
bride, and of regaining the Palatinate for his brother-in-law. He had
come back without a wife, and with the prospect of getting back the
Palatinate as distant as ever. He had learned what the Spanish plan was,
that wonderful scheme for educating Frederick's children at Vienna, with
all ostensible guarantees for keeping them in their father's faith,
which were, however, almost certain to come to nothing when reduced to
practice. And so he came back angry with the Spaniards, and resolved to
urge his father to take up arms. In the spring of 1624 all negotiations
between England and Spain were brought to an end, and Parliament was
discussing with the king the best means of recovering the Palatinate.
[Sidenote: § 4. English plans.]
In the English House of Commons there was but little real knowledge of
German affairs. The progress of the Emperor and the League was of too
recent a date to be thoroughly comprehended. Men, remembering the days
of Philip II., were inclined to overestimate the power of Spain, and to
underestimate the power of the Emperor. They therefore fancied that it
would be enough to attack Spain by sea, and to send a few thousand
soldiers to the aid of the Dutch Republic.
[Sidenote: § 5. Question between the king and the House of Commons.]
James, if he was not prompt in action, at all events knew better than
this. He believed that the Imperial power was now too firmly rooted in
Germany to fall before anything short of a great European confederacy.
From this the Commons shrunk. A war upon the continent would be
extremely expensive, and, after all, their wrath had been directed
against Spain, which had meddled with their internal affairs, rather
than against the Emperor, who had never taken the slightest interest in
English politics. The utmost they would do was to accept the king's
statement that he would enter into negotiations with other powers and
would lay the results before them in the winter.
[Sidenote: § 6. The French Government and the Huguenots.]
James first applied to France. He saw truly that the moment the struggle
in Germany developed into a European war the key to success would lie in
the hands of the French government. In that great country, then as now,
ideas of the most opposite character were striving for the mastery. Old
thoughts which had been abandoned in England in the sixteenth century
were at issue with new thoughts which would hardly be adopted in England
before the eighteenth. In France as well as in England and Germany, the
question of the day was how religious toleration could be granted
without breaking up the national unity. In England that unity was so
strong that no party in the state could yet be brought to acknowledge
that toleration should be granted at all. But for that very reason the
question was on the fair way to a better settlement than it could have
in France or Germany. When the nation was once brought face to face with
the difficulty, men would ask, not whether one religion should be
established in Northumberland and another in Cornwall, but what amount
of religious liberty was good for men as men all over England. In
Germany it could not be so. There the only question was where the
geographical frontier was to be drawn between two religions. Neither
those who wished to increase the power of the princes, nor those who
wished to increase the power of the Emperor, were able to rise above the
idea of a local and geographical division. And to some extent France was
in the same condition. The Edict of Nantes had recognised some hundreds
of the country houses of the aristocracy, and certain cities and towns,
as places where the reformed religious doctrines might be preached
without interference. But in France the ideal of national unity, though
far weaker than it was in England, was far stronger than it was in
Germany. In order to give security to the Protestant, or Huguenot towns
as they were called in France, they had been allowed the right of
garrisoning themselves, and of excluding the royal troops. They had thus
maintained themselves as petty republics in the heart of France,
practically independent of the royal authority.
SECTION V.--_Rise of Richelieu._
[Sidenote: § 1. Lewis XIII.]
Such a state of things could not last. The idea involved in the
exaltation of the monarchy was the unity of the nation. The idea
involved in the maintenance of these guarantees was its disintegration.
Ever since the young king, Lewis XIII., had been old enough to take an
active part in affairs he had been striving to establish his authority
from one end of the kingdom to the other.
[Sidenote: § 2. His ideas.]
The supremacy and greatness of the monarchy was the thought in which he
lived and moved. His intellect was not of a high order, and he was not
likely to originate statesmanlike projects, or to carry them out
successfully to execution. But he was capable of appreciating merit, and
he would give his undivided confidence to any man who could do the thing
which he desired to have done, without himself exactly knowing how to do
it.
[Sidenote: § 3. Early years of his reign.]
During the first years of his reign everything seemed falling to pieces.
As soon as his father's strong hand was removed some of the nobility
fell back into half-independence of the Crown, whilst others submitted
to it in consideration of receiving large pensions and high positions
in the state. To this Lewis was for the time obliged to submit. But the
privileges of the Huguenot towns roused his indignation. It was not long
before he levied war upon them, determined to reduce them to submission
to the royal authority.
[Sidenote: § 4. The intolerant party at Court.]
All this foreboded a future for France not unlike the future which
appeared to be opening upon Germany. There were too many signs that the
establishment of the king's authority over the towns would be followed
by the forcible establishment of his religion. There was a large party
at Court crying out with bigoted intolerance against any attempt to
treat the Huguenots with consideration, and that cry found an echo in
the mind of the king. For he was himself a devout Catholic, and nothing
would have pleased him better than to see the victories of his arms
attended by the victories of the Church to which he was attached.
[Sidenote: § 5. Lewis jealous of Spain.]
If Lewis was not a Ferdinand, it was not because he was a nobler or a
better man, but because he had his eye open to dangers from more
quarters than one. When the troubles in Germany first broke out, French
influence was exerted on the side of the Emperor. French ambassadors had
taken part in the negotiations which preceded the treaty of Ulm, and had
thrown all their weight in the scale to secure the safety of
Maximilian's march into Bohemia. But in 1622 the conquest of the
Palatinate brought other thoughts into the mind of the King of France.
His monarchical authority was likely to suffer far more from the
victorious union between the two branches of the House of Austria than
from a few Huguenot towns. For many a long year Spain had planted her
standards not only beyond the Pyrenees, but in Naples, Milan, Franche
Comté, and the Netherlands. Frankenthal and the Western Palatinate were
now garrisoned by her troops, and behind those troops was the old
shadowy empire once more taking form and substance, and presenting
itself before the world as a power hereafter to be counted with. In
1622, accordingly, Lewis made peace with the Huguenots at home. In 1623
he sent some slight aid to Mansfeld. In 1624 he called Richelieu to his
counsels.
[Sidenote: § 6. Richelieu's accession to power.]
It would be a mistake to suppose that the cool and far-sighted Cardinal
who was thus suddenly placed at the head of the French ministry had it
all his own way from the first. He had to take into account the ebb and
flow of feeling in the Court and the country, and the ebb and flow of
feeling in Lewis himself. There was still with Lewis the old anxiety to
crush the Huguenots and to make himself absolute master at home,
alongside with the new anxiety to shake off the superiority of the House
of Austria abroad. It was Richelieu's task to show him how to satisfy
both his longings; how to strike down rebellion whilst welcoming
religious liberty, and how, by uniting Catholic and Protestant in
willing obedience to his throne, he might make himself feared abroad in
proportion as he was respected at home.
[Sidenote: § 7. Marriage of Henrietta Maria.]
Richelieu's first idea was not altogether a successful one. He
encouraged Lewis to pursue the negotiation which had been already
commenced for a marriage between his sister and the Prince of Wales. At
the wish either of Lewis himself or of Richelieu the marriage was
hampered with conditions for the religious liberty of the English
Catholics, to which the prince, when he afterwards came to the throne
as Charles I., was unwilling or unable to give effect. These conditions
were therefore the beginning of an ill feeling between the two crowns,
which helped ultimately to bring about a state of war.
[Sidenote: § 8. Foreign policy of Lewis and Richelieu.]
Nor were other causes of dispute wanting. James and his son expected
France to join them in an avowed league for the recovery of the
Palatinate. But to this Lewis and Richelieu refused to consent. Lewis
was proud of the name of Catholic, and he was unwilling to engage in
open war with the declared champions of the Catholic cause. But he was
also King of France, and he was ready to satisfy his conscience by
refusing to join the league, though he had no scruple in sending money
to the support of armies who were fighting for Protestantism. He agreed
to pay large subsidies to the Dutch, and to join the King of England in
promoting an expedition which was to march under Mansfeld through France
to Alsace, with the object of attacking the Palatinate. At the same time
he was ready to carry on war in Italy. The Spaniards had taken military
possession of the Valtelline, a valley through which lay the only secure
military road from their possessions in Italy to the Austrian lands in
Germany. Before the end of the year a French army entered the valley and
drove out the Spaniards with ease.
[Sidenote: § 9. Mansfeld's expedition.]
Mansfeld's expedition, on the other hand, never reached Alsace at all.
Before the troops of which it was composed were ready to sail from
England, Richelieu had found an excuse for diverting its course. Spinola
had laid siege to Breda, and the Dutch were as anxiously seeking
for means to succour it as they had sought for means to succour
Bergen-op-Zoom when it was besieged in 1622. The French averred that
Mansfeld would be far better employed at Breda than in Alsace. At all
events, they now declined positively to allow him to pass through
France.
[Sidenote: 1625.
§ 10. Failure of the expedition.]
James grumbled and remonstrated in vain. At last, after long delays,
Mansfeld was allowed to sail for the Dutch coast, with strict orders to
march to the Palatinate without going near Breda. He had with him 12,000
English foot, and was to be accompanied by 2,000 French horse under
Christian of Brunswick. No good came of the expedition. James had
consented to conditions appended to his son's marriage contract which he
did not venture to submit to discussion in the House of Commons, and
Parliament was not, therefore, allowed to meet. Without help from
Parliament the Exchequer was almost empty, and James was unable to send
money with Mansfeld to pay his men. Upon their landing, the poor
fellows, pressed a few weeks before, and utterly without military
experience, found themselves destitute of everything in a hard frost.
Before long they were dying like flies in winter. The help which they
were at last permitted to give could not save Breda from surrender, and
the handful which remained were far too few to cross the frontier into
Germany.
[Sidenote: § 11. The rising of the French Huguenots.]
Richelieu had hoped to signalize the year 1625 by a larger effort than
that of 1624. He had mastered the Valtelline in alliance with Venice and
Savoy, and French troops were to help the Duke of Savoy to take Genoa, a
city which was in close friendship with Spain. There was further talk of
driving the Spaniards out of the Duchy of Milan, and even intervention
in Germany was desired by Richelieu, though no decision had been come to
on the subject. In the midst of these thoughts he was suddenly reminded
that he was not completely master at home. The peace made with the
Huguenots in 1622 had not been fairly kept: royal officials had
encroached upon their lands, and had failed to observe the terms of the
treaty. On a sudden, Soubise, a powerful Huguenot nobleman with a fleet
of his own, swooped down upon some of the king's ships lying at Blavet,
in Brittany, and carried them off as his prize. Sailing to Rochelle, he
persuaded that great commercial city to come to an understanding with
him, and to declare for open resistance to the king's authority.
[Sidenote: § 12. Interruption to Richelieu's plans for intervening in
Germany.]
If Richelieu intended seriously to take part in the German war, this was
cause enough for hesitation. Cleverly availing himself of the
expectations formed of the French alliance in England and Holland, he
contrived to borrow ships from both those countries, and before the
autumn was over Soubise was driven to take refuge in England. But
Rochelle and the Huguenots on land were still unconquered, and Ferdinand
was safe for the moment from any considerable participation of France in
the German war. Whether Richelieu would at any time be able to take up
again the thread of his plans depended in the first place upon his
success in suppressing rebellion, but quite as much upon the use which
he might make of victory if the event proved favourable to him. A
tolerant France might make war with some chances in its favour. A France
composed of conquerors and conquered, in which each party regarded the
other as evil-doers to be suppressed, not as erring brothers to be
argued with, would weigh lightly enough in the scale of European
politics.
CHAPTER V.
INTERVENTION OF THE KING OF DENMARK.
SECTION I.--_Christian IV. and Gustavus Adolphus._
[Sidenote: § 1. Denmark and Sweden.]
Whilst France was thus temporarily hindered from taking part in German
affairs, and whilst James and his son were promising more than their
poverty would allow them to perform, the rulers of Denmark and Sweden
were watching with increasing interest the tide of war as it rolled
northwards.
[Sidenote: § 2. Christian IV.]
Christian IV. of Denmark had every reason to look with anxiety upon the
future. As Duke of Holstein, he was a member of the Lower Saxon circle,
and he had long been doing his best to extend his influence over the
coasts of the North Sea. By his new fortifications at Glückstadt he
aimed at intercepting the commerce of Hamburg, and his success in
procuring for one of his sons the Bishopric of Verden and the
coadjutorship and eventual succession to the archbishopric of Bremen was
doubtless specially grateful to him on account of the position he thus
acquired on the Elbe and the Weser. The question of the Protestant
bishoprics was therefore a very important question to him personally,
and he was well aware that a real national empire in Germany would make
short work with his attempts to establish his dominion over the mouths
of the German rivers.
[Sidenote: § 3. His early interest in the war.]
His attention was not now called for the first time to the progress of
the war. Like all the Lutheran princes, he had thoroughly disapproved of
Frederick's Bohemian enterprise. But when Frederick was a fugitive he
had seen that a strong force was needed to stop the Emperor from a
retaliation which would be ruinous to the Protestants, and he had in the
beginning of 1621 given a willing ear to James's proposal for a joint
armament in defence of the Palatinate. Had the war been undertaken then,
with the character of moderation which James and Christian would have
been certain to impress upon it, the world might perhaps have been
spared the spectacle of Mansfeld's plunderings, with their unhappy
results. But James came too soon to the conclusion that it was
unnecessary to arm till mediation had failed; and Christian, auguring no
good from such a course, drew back and left the Palatinate to its fate.
But the events which followed had increased his anxiety, and in 1624 his
mind was distracted between his desire to check the growth of the
imperial power and his hesitation to act with allies so vacillating and
helpless as the Lower Saxon princes were proving themselves to be. In
his own lands he had shown himself a good administrator and able ruler.
Whether he was possessed of sufficient military capacity to cope with
Tilly remained to be seen.
[Sidenote: § 4. Gustavus Adolphus.]
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was a man of a higher stamp. His is
the one of the few names which relieve the continental Protestantism of
the seventeenth century from the charge of barrenness. Possessed of a
high and brilliant imagination, and of a temperament restless and
indefatigable, to which inaction was the sorest of trials, he was never
happier than when he was infusing his own glowing spirit into the
comrades of some perilous enterprise. Christian of Brunswick was not
more ready than he to lead a charge or to conduct a storm. But he had,
too, that of which no thought ever entered the mind of Christian for an
instant--the power of seeing facts in their infinite variety as they
really were, and the self-restraint with which he curbed in his
struggling spirit and his passionate longing for action whenever a calm
survey of the conditions around showed him that action was inexpedient.
In all the pages of history there is probably no man who leaves such an
impression of that energy under restraint, which is the truest mark of
greatness in human character as it is the source of all that is sublime
or lovely in nature or in art.
[Sidenote: § 5. His conflict with Poland and Russia.]
Such a man was certain not to be a mere enthusiast embarking heedlessly
in a Protestant crusade. Neither would he be careful for mere temporal
or political power, regardless of the higher interests of his time. His
first duty, and he never forgot it, was to his country. When he came to
the throne, in 1611, Sweden was overrun by Danish armies, and in an
almost desperate condition. In two years he had wrested a peace from the
invaders, under conditions hard indeed, but which at least secured the
independence of Sweden. His next effort, an effort which to the day of
his death he never relaxed, was to bring into his own hands the dominion
of the Baltic. He drove the Russians from its coasts. 'Now,' he said
triumphantly in 1617, 'this enemy cannot, without our permission launch
a single boat upon the Baltic.' He had another enemy more dangerous than
Russia. Sigismund, King of Poland, was his cousin, the son of his
father's elder brother, who had been driven from the throne of Sweden
for his attachment to the Catholic belief. And so Gustavus was involved
in the great question which was agitating Europe. The bare legal right
which gave the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands to
Spain, which gave Bohemia to Ferdinand, and the Protestant bishoprics
and the secularized lands to the Catholic clergy, gave also Sweden to
Sigismund. Was it strange if Gustavus stood forth to combat this
doctrine to the death, or if in his mind the growth of the two branches
of the House of Austria, by whom this doctrine was maintained, became
inextricably blended with the creed which that doctrine was to favour?
Was it strange, too, if Protestantism and the national right of each
separate country to go its own way untrammelled by such a doctrine
appeared in his eyes, as in his days for the most part they really were,
but two forms of the same spirit?
[Sidenote: § 6. His visit to Germany.]
The peace concluded by Gustavus with Russia in 1617 was accompanied by a
fresh outbreak of the war with Poland; and this renewal of the contest
with the old rival of his house naturally drew the king's attention to
affairs in Germany; for Ferdinand, now rising into power, was the
brother-in-law of Sigismund, and likely to give him what aid he could in
his Swedish enterprise. And Gustavus, too, was not quite a foreigner in
Germany. Through his mother German blood ran in his veins, and when, in
the summer of 1618, he visited Berlin in secret, he was won by the
lovely face of the daughter of that energetic Elector of Brandenburg who
after boxing the ears of the rival candidate for the dukedom of Cleves
had adopted the Calvinist creed and had entered the Union. The death of
the Elector delayed the marriage, and it was not till 1620 that, on a
second visit, Gustavus wrung a consent from the new Elector, George
William, whose weakness and vacillation were to be a sore trial to the
Swedish king in after years. In strict incognito, Gustavus travelled as
far as Heidelberg, at a time when the Elector was far away, in the midst
of his short-lived splendour at Prague. Gustavus learned something from
that visit which he never forgot. He saw the rich luxuriance of that
fair Rhine valley, stretching away till the western hills are but dimly
visible in the blue distance, and which, compared by Venetian travellers
to the green Lombard plain, must have caused strange sensations of
wonder in the wanderer from the cold and barren north. And he saw
another sight, too, which he never forgot--the wealth and magnificence
of the Rhenish prelates. 'If these priests were subjects to the king my
master' (he spoke in the assumed character of a Swedish nobleman) 'he
would long ago have taught them that modesty, humility, and obedience
are the true characteristics of their profession.'
[Sidenote: § 7. His daring and prudence.]
Plainly in this man there was something of Christian of Anhalt,
something of the desire to overthrow existing institutions. But there
was that in him which Christian of Anhalt was ignorant of--the long and
calm preparation for the crisis, and the power of establishing a new
order, if his life should be prolonged, to take the place of the old
which was falling away.
[Sidenote: § 8. Renewed war with Poland.]
Gustavus returned to carry on the war with Poland with renewed vigour.
In 1621 Riga surrendered to him. The next year he concluded a truce
which gave him leisure to look about him.
[Sidenote: § 9. His interest in the German war.]
The year 1624 brought with it fresh alarm. The empire, hostile to Sweden
and the religion of Sweden, was growing terribly strong. Unlike
Christian of Denmark, Gustavus had sympathized with Frederick's Bohemian
undertaking, although he had expected but little from an enterprise
under Frederick's guidance. And now the tide of victory was running
northward. An empire with a firm grasp on the shores of Mecklenburg and
Pomerania would soon call in question the Swedish dominion of the
Baltic. If this was to be the end, Gustavus had gained but little by his
victories over Russia and Poland.
[Sidenote: § 10. Character of his policy.]
It all sounds like mere selfishness,--Christian alarmed for his family
bishoprics, and his hold upon the Elbe and the Weser; Gustavus providing
against an attack upon his lordship in the Baltic. But it does not
follow that with both of them, and especially with Gustavus, the defence
of the persecuted Gospel was not a very real thing. Historians coolly
dissect a man's thoughts as they please, and label them like specimens
in a naturalist's cabinet. Such a thing, they argue, was done for mere
personal aggrandizement; such a thing for national objects; such a thing
from high religious motives. In real life we may be sure it was not so.
As with Ferdinand and Maximilian, the love of law and orderly government
was indissolubly blended with the desire to propagate the faith on which
their own spiritual life was based; so it was with Gustavus. To extend
the power of Sweden, to support the princes of Germany against the
Emperor's encroachments, to give a firm and unassailable standing ground
to German Protestantism, were all to him parts of one great work,
scarcely even in thought to be separated from one another. And, after
all, let it never be forgotten that the unity which he attacked was the
unity of the Jesuit and the soldier. It had no national standing ground
at all. The Germany of a future day, the Germany of free intelligence
and ordered discipline, would have far more in common with the destroyer
than with the upholder of the hollow unity of the seventeenth century.
SECTION II.--_English Diplomacy._
[Sidenote: § 1. English proposal to Sweden and Denmark.]
In August 1624 two English ambassadors, Sir Robert Anstruther and Sir
James Spens, set out from London; the first to the King of Denmark, the
second to the King of Sweden. The object of the embassies was identical,
to urge upon the two kings the necessity of stirring themselves up to
take part in a war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and for the
re-establishment of the old condition of things in Germany.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Danish answer.]
Christian hesitated only so far as to wish to be quite sure that James
was too much in earnest to turn back as he had turned back in 1621.
Anstruther was to go around the circle of the princes of Lower Saxony,
and as soon as a favorable report was received from them, and the
impression made by that report was strengthened by the news of
Mansfeld's preparations in England, Christian engaged to take part in
the war.
[Sidenote: § 3. Foresight of Gustavus.]
Gustavus was far more cautious. Never doubting for a moment that the
task before him was one of enormous magnitude, he argued that it would
not be too much if all who had reason to complain of the House of
Austria, from Bethlen Gabor in the east to Lewis of France in the west,
were to join heart and soul in the great enterprise. With this view he
was already in close communication with his brother-in-law, George
William, the Elector of Brandenburg, who for once in his life was eager
for war, perhaps because he had hardly reached to a full conception of
all that such a war implied.
[Sidenote: § 4. His answer.]
Gustavus, too, had his own ideas about the way in which the war was to
be carried on. In the first place there must be no divided command, and
he himself must have the whole military direction of the troops. A
certain number of men must be actually levied, and a certain sum of
money actually paid into his hands. To the mere promises which satisfied
Christian he would not listen. And besides, two ports, one on the
Baltic, the other on the North Sea, must be given over to him in order
to secure his communications. Perhaps, however, the part of his scheme
which gives the greatest evidence of his prescience is that which
relates to France. Avoiding the rock upon which the English government
was splitting, he made no attempt to force a Catholic sovereign like
Lewis into over-close union with the Protestant powers. Help from France
he would most willingly have if he could get it; but he argued that it
would be better for the French forces to find a sphere of action for
themselves in South Germany or Italy, far away from the regions in which
Gustavus himself hoped to operate at the head of a purely Protestant
army.
[Sidenote: 1625.
§ 5. England adopts the Danish plan.]
In January 1625 the answers of the two kings were known in England. Of
the 50,000 men demanded by Gustavus, 17,000 were to be paid out of the
English exchequer. Till four months' pay had been provided he would not
stir. He, for his part, had no intention of being a second Mansfeld, the
leader of an army driven by sheer necessity to exist upon pillage.
[Sidenote: § 6. Thinking it easier to satisfy Christian than Gustavus.]
Christian's ideas were framed on a more moderate scale. He thought that
30,000 men would be sufficient altogether, and that 6,000 would be
enough to fall to the share of England. Both James and Charles declared
that if they must make a choice they preferred the Danish plan. Even
6,000 men would cost them 30,000_l._ a month, and, though the French
marriage was settled, Parliament had not yet been summoned to vote the
subsidies on which alone such an expenditure could be based. But they
did not yet understand that a choice was necessary. They thought that
Gustavus might still come in as an auxiliary to the Danish armament. To
this suggestion, however, Gustavus turned a deaf ear. He had no
confidence in Christian, or in allies who had taken so scant a measure
of the difficulties before them. It was true, he replied to a
remonstrance from the English ambassador, that he had asked for hard
conditions. 'But,' he added, 'if anyone thinks it easy to make war upon
the most powerful potentate in Europe, and upon one, too, who has the
support of Spain and of so many of the German princes, besides being
supported, in a word, with the whole strength of the Roman Catholic
alliance; and if he also thinks it easy to bring into common action so
many minds, each having in view their own separate object and to regain
for their own masters so many lands out of the power of those who
tenaciously hold them, we shall be quite willing to leave to him the
glory of his achievement, and all its accompanying advantages.'
[Sidenote: § 7. Gustavus attacks Poland.]
With these words of bitter irony Gustavus turned away for a time from
the German war to fight out his own quarrel with the King of Poland, a
quarrel which he always held to be subservient to the general interests
in so far as it hindered Sigismund from taking part in the larger
conflict.
[Sidenote: § 8. Attempt of Charles to fulfil his engagements.]
Christian's more sanguine ideas were soon to be put to the test. In
March James of England died, and two months later Charles I. entered
into an engagement to supply the king of Denmark with 30,000_l._ a
month, and scraped together 46,000_l._ to make a beginning. Mansfeld, it
was arranged, should abandon his hopeless attempt to reach the
Palatinate along the Rhine, and should convey the remnants of his force
by the sea to the assistance of Christian.
[Sidenote: § 9. Commencement of the Danish war.]
After all, however, the main point was the success or failure of the
king to gain support in Germany itself. The circle of Lower Saxony,
indeed, chose him for its military chief. But even then there was much
division of opinion. With the commercial classes in the towns war
against the Emperor was as yet decidedly unpopular. They were tolerably
well assured that they would reap no benefit from any accession of
strength to the princes, whilst the danger from the Emperor was still in
the future. But they were not strong enough to carry the circle with
them. A centre of resistance was formed, which must be broken down if
the Emperor's pretensions were not to be abated. On July 18 Tilly
crossed the Weser into Lower Saxony, and the Danish war began.
SECTION III.--_Wallenstein's Armament._
[Sidenote: § 1. The Emperor's need of support.]
Would Tilly's force be sufficient to overcome the King of Denmark and
his foreign allies? Ferdinand and his ministers doubted it. In
proportion as his power increased, the basis on which it rested grew
narrower. Of his allies of 1620 the League alone supported him still.
Spain, exhausted for the time with the siege of Breda, could do little
for him, and contented herself with forming clever plans for cajoling
the Elector of Saxony, and with urging the Pope to flatter the Lutherans
by declaring them to be far better than the Calvinists. Of all such
schemes as this nothing satisfactory was likely to come. John George of
Saxony, indeed, refused to join in the King of Denmark's movement. He
thought that the Lower Saxony princes ought to have been content with
the agreement of Mühlhausen, and that Frederick ought to have made his
submission to the Emperor. But even in the eyes of John George the Lower
Saxon war was very different from the Bohemian war. The Emperor's
refusal to confirm permanently the Protestant bishoprics had made it
impossible for any Protestant to give him more than a passive support.
[Sidenote: § 2. His numerous enemies.]
And if the Emperor's friends were fewer, his enemies were more numerous.
Christian IV. was more formidable than Frederick. Bethlen Gabor, who had
made peace in 1622, was again threatening in the east; and no one could
say how soon France might be drawn into the strife in the west.
Ferdinand needed another army besides Tilly's. Yet his treasury was so
empty that he could not afford to pay a single additional regiment.
[Sidenote: § 3. Wallenstein's offer.]
Suddenly, in the midst of his difficulties, one of his own subjects
offered to take the burden on his shoulders. Albert of Waldstein,
commonly known as Wallenstein, sprang from an impoverished branch of one
of the greatest of the families of the Bohemian aristocracy. His parents
were Lutheran, but when, at the age of twelve, he was left an orphan, he
was placed under the care of an uncle, who attempted to educate him in
the strict school of the Bohemian Brotherhood, a body better known in
later times under the name of Moravians, and distinguished, as they are
now, for their severe moral training.
[Sidenote: § 4. His early life.]
The discipline of the brethren seems to have had much the same
influence upon the young nobleman that the long sermons of the Scotch
Presbyterians had upon Charles II. The boy found his way to the Jesuits
at Olmütz, and adopted their religion, so far as he adopted any
religion at all. His real faith was in himself and in the revelations of
astrology, that mystic science which told him how the bright rulers of
the sky had marked him out for fame. For a young Protestant of ability
without wealth there was no room in Bohemia under the shadow of the
great houses. With Ferdinand, as yet ruler only of his three hereditary
duchies, he found a soldier's welcome, and was not long in displaying a
soldier's capacity for war. To Wallenstein no path came amiss which led
to fortune. A wealthy marriage made him the owner of large estates. When
the revolution broke out he was colonel of one of the regiments in the
service of the Estates of Moravia. The population and the soldiers were
alike hostile to the Emperor. Seizing the cash-box of the estates he
rode off, in spite of all opposition, to Vienna. Ferdinand refused to
accept booty acquired after the fashion of a highwayman, and sent the
money back to be used against himself. The Moravians said openly that
Wallenstein was no gentleman. But the events which were hurrying on
brought his name into prominence in connexion with more legitimate
warfare, and he had become famous for many a deed of skill and daring
before Frederick's banner sunk before the victors on the White Hill.
[Sidenote: § 5. Offers to raise an army.]
Wallenstein was now in a position to profit by his master's victory.
Ferdinand was not a man of business. In peace as in war he gladly left
details to others, and there were good pickings to be had out of the
ruin of the defeated aristocracy. Besides the lands which fell to
Wallenstein's share as a reward for his merit, he contrived to purchase
large estates at merely nominal prices. Before long he was the richest
landowner in Bohemia. He became Prince of Friedland. And now, when
Ferdinand's difficulties were at their height, Wallenstein came forward
offering to raise an army at his own cost. The Emperor needed not to
trouble himself about its pay. Nor was it to be fed by mere casual
plunder. Wherever it was cantoned the general would raise contributions
from the constituted authorities. Discipline would thus be maintained,
and the evils upon which Mansfeld's projects had been wrecked would be
easily avoided.
[Sidenote: § 6. The larger the better.]
Modern criticism has rejected the long accredited story of Wallenstein's
assertion at this time that he could find means to support an army of
50,000 men, but not an army of 20,000. It is certain that his original
request was for only 20,000. But the idea was sure to occur to him
sooner or later. Government by military force was the essence of his
proposal, and for that purpose the larger the number of his army the
better.
[Sidenote: § 7. Ferdinand cannot refuse.]
The connexion between two men whose characters differed so widely as
those of Ferdinand and Wallenstein was from first to last of a nature to
excite curiosity. Yet, after all, it was only the natural result of
Ferdinand's own methods of government. The ruler who knows nothing
beyond the duty of putting the law in execution, whilst he shuts his
eyes to the real requirements of those for whom the law ought to have
been made, must in the end have recourse to the sword to maintain him
and his legality from destruction.
[Sidenote: § 8. Wallenstein's system.]
The substitution of contributions for pillage may have seemed to
Ferdinand a mode of having recourse to a legal, orderly way of making
war. Unfortunately for him, it was not so. As the civil laws of the
Empire gave him no right to raise a penny for military purposes without
the assent of the Diet, and as, in the distracted condition of Germany,
the Diet was no longer available for the purpose, no one was likely to
regard money so raised as legal in any sense at all. In fact, it could
only be justified as Charles I. justified the forced loan of 1626, as an
act done out of the plenitude of power inherent in the Crown,
authorizing him to provide in cases of emergency for the good of his
subjects. Ferdinand, in truth had brought himself into a position from
which he could neither advance nor retreat with honour. If he did not
accept Wallenstein's services he would almost certainly be beaten. If he
did accept them, he would almost certainly raise a feeling in Germany
which would provoke a still stronger opposition than that which he had
for the present to deal with.
[Sidenote: § 9. Moderation impossible to Wallenstein.]
For the contributions were to be raised by military authority, with no
check or control whatever from civil officials. Even if the utmost
moderation was used there was something utterly exasperating to the
peasant or the townsman in having to pay over a greater or less share of
his hoardings to a colonel who had no civil authority to produce, and
who had no limit to his demands excepting in his own conscience. Those
who expected that moderation would be used must have formed a very
sanguine idea of the influence of the events of the war upon ordinary
military character.
[Sidenote: § 10. Wallenstein's army.]
In point of fact, neither Wallenstein nor his soldiers thought of
moderation. With him there was just enough of regularity to preserve the
discipline he needed; just enough order to wring the utmost possible
amount of money out of the country. 'God help the land to which these
men come,' was the natural exclamation of a frightened official who
watched the troops march past him.
[Sidenote: § 11. Explanation of Wallenstein's success.]
How was it then, if Wallenstein's system was no better than Mansfeld's
system more thoroughly organized, that he did not meet with Mansfeld's
misfortunes? The true explanation doubtless is that he was able to avoid
the cause of Mansfeld's misfortunes. Mansfeld was a rolling stone from
the beginning. With troops supporting themselves by plunder, he had to
make head against armies in excellent condition, and commanded by such
generals as Tilly and Cordova, before his own men had acquired the
consistency of a disciplined army. Wallenstein made up his mind that it
should not be so with him. He would lead his new troops where there was
much to be gained and little to do. In due course of time they would
learn to have confidence in him as their leader, and would be ready to
march further under his orders.
[Sidenote: § 12. Wallenstein in the autumn of 1625.]
In the autumn, Wallenstein entered the dioceses of Magdeburg and
Halberstadt, levying the means of support for his army upon rich and
poor. Nor were the requirements of himself and his men like the modest
requirements of Tilly. With him every man was more highly paid. Splendid
equipments and magnificence of every kind were necessaries of life to
the general and his officers, and the example was quickly followed, so
far as imitation was possible, in the lower ranks of the army. To
Tilly's entreaties for aid Wallenstein turned a deaf ear, and left him
to carry on the war against the Danes as best he could. He was doubtless
wise in refusing to expose his recruits so early to the fierce trial of
battle. With him everything was based on calculation. Even his luxury
and splendour would serve to fix upon him the eyes of his soldiers, and
to hold out to them another prospect than that of the endless hardships,
varied by an occasional debauch at the storming of a town, which was
the lot of those who followed Tilly. Yet Wallenstein never allowed this
luxury and splendour to stand in the way of higher objects. He was
himself a strategist of no mean order. He had a keen eye for military
capacity. He never troubled himself to inquire what a man's religion was
if he thought he could render good service as a soldier. There were
generals in his army whose ancestry was as illustrious as that of any
sovereign in Europe, and generals who had no other title to eminence
than their skill and valour. High and low were equal before his military
code. Honours and rewards were dispensed to the brave: his friendship
was accorded to those who had been distinguished for special acts of
daring.
[Sidenote: § 13. Wallenstein not a German.]
It was a new power in Germany, a power which had no connexion with the
princes of the Empire, scarcely more than a nominal connexion with the
Emperor himself. And the man who wielded it was not even a German. By
his birth he was a Bohemian, of Slavonian race. The foremost men of the
war, Tilly, Wallenstein, Gustavus, were foreigners. Germany had failed
to produce either a statesman or a warrior of the first rank.
[Sidenote: 1626.
§ 14. Failure of peace negotiations.]
During the winter, negotiations for peace were opened at Brunswick. But
they foundered on the old rock. The Emperor and the League would grant
the terms of Mühlhausen and nothing more. It was against their
consciences to grant a permanent guarantee to the Protestant
administrators, and to admit them to the full enjoyment of the
privileges of princes of the Empire. With this the Lower Saxon princes
refused to be contented. Amongst the means by which the chapters had
secured their Protestant character were some acts of formal and even of
technical illegality. Such acts might easily be made use of by the
Emperor and his council to effect an alteration in the character of
those bodies. The Emperor and his council might possibly intend to be
just, but somehow or another they always contrived to decide disputed
questions in favour of their own partisans. On behalf of the religious
and political institutions of Protestant Germany, the King of Denmark
and his allies refused to accept the terms which had been offered them,
and demanded that Protestant territories should receive a legal and
permanent confirmation of their right to continue Protestant.
SECTION IV.--_Defeat of Mansfeld and Christian IV._
[Sidenote: § 1. Campaign of 1626.]
When the campaign opened, in the spring of 1626, the numbers at the
disposal of the two belligerents were not so very unequal. Wallenstein's
forces had been swelling far beyond his original reckoning. He and Tilly
together, it is said could command the services of 70,000 men, whilst
60,000 were ready to march against them. On Christian's side were
fighting Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, and a nobler than either,
John Ernest of Saxe-Weimar, on whom, first of German men, the idea had
dawned of composing the distractions of his fatherland by proclaiming a
general toleration. Bethlen Gabor was once more threatening Vienna from
the side of Hungary. Even the Protestant peasants in Lower Austria had
risen in defence of their religion and their homes against the Bavarian
garrisons which guarded the land till their master's expenses had been
paid.
[Sidenote: § 2. Christian IV. at a disadvantage.]
In other respects than numbers, however, the conditions were most
unequal. Tilly and Wallenstein both quartered their troops on the
enemy's country. In raising supplies they had no susceptibilities to
consult, no friendly princes or cities to spare. Christian, on the other
hand, was still amongst his allies, and was forced, on pain of driving
them over to the Emperor, to show them every consideration. And in the
midst of these difficulties one source of supply on which he had been
justified in counting entirely failed him.
[Sidenote: 1625.
§ 3. Failure of the English supplies.]
Charles I. of England had engaged in the spring of 1625 to pay over to
the King of Denmark 30,000_l._ a month, reckoning that Parliament would
enable him to fulfil his promise. Parliament met in May, but it had no
confidence either in Charles or in his favourite and adviser, the Duke
of Buckingham. A war carried on in Germany with English money was most
distasteful to the English feeling. The session came to an end after a
vote of a bare 140,000_l._, to meet a war expenditure scarcely, if at
all, short of 1,000,000_l._ a year. Still Charles persisted. In the
winter Buckingham went over to Holland and negotiated the Treaty of the
Hague, by which the Dutch were to pay 5,000_l._ a month, and the English
renewed their obligation to pay the 30,000_l._ already promised to
Christian IV. This time, it was thought, a fresh Parliament would be
ready to take up the king's engagement. But the fresh Parliament proved
more recalcitrant than its predecessor. The sum of 46,000_l._ which had
been sent across the seas in May 1625 was the only representative of
Charles' promised support.
[Sidenote: 1626.
§ 4. Danger of the Danish army.]
Christian of Denmark and his allies, therefore, were to some extent in
the position in which Mansfeld had been in 1621 and 1622. If not utterly
without resource, they were sadly straitened, and were obliged to
govern their movements by the necessity of finding supplies rather than
by military calculations.
[Sidenote: § 5. Mansfeld in the north.]
Mansfeld was the first to meet the enemy. For some time he had been
quartered beyond the Elbe, making himself troublesome to the Lübeckers
and the Elector of Brandenburg. But this could not go on for ever.
Wallenstein was in front of him, and he must fight him, or leave him to
join Tilly against the king.
[Sidenote: § 6. Battle of the bridge of Dessau.]
Wallenstein never, in his whole career, exposed his men to a battle in
the open field if he could help it; and least of all was he likely to do
so whilst they were yet untried. He seized upon the bridge of Dessau
over the Elbe, and, having fortified it strongly, waited for Mansfeld to
do his work. On April 25 Mansfeld appeared. In vain he dashed his troops
against the entrenchments. Then, watching a favourable opportunity,
Wallenstein ordered a charge. The enemy fled in confusion and the
victory was gained.
[Sidenote: § 7. Mansfeld's march towards Hungary.]
Not long after Mansfeld's defeat at the bridge of Dessau, Christian of
Brunswick died. The remaining chiefs of the Danish party had a desperate
game to play. Mansfeld, reinforced by John Ernest of Weimar, was
dispatched through Silesia, to hold out a hand to Bethlen Gabor.
Wallenstein followed in pursuit, after sending some of his regiments to
the assistance of Tilly.
[Sidenote: § 8. The battle of Lutter.]
What could Christian do in the face of the danger? The English subsidies
did not come. To remain on the defensive was to court starvation, with
its inevitable accompaniment, mutiny. Elated by a slight success over
the enemy, he made a dash at Thuringia, hoping to slip through into
Bohemia, and to combine with Bethlen Gabor and Mansfeld in raising the
old Protestant flag in the heart of the Emperor's hereditary dominions.
But Tilly was on the watch. On August 27 he came up with the Danish army
at Lutter. The fight was fiercely contested. But before it was decided a
cry arose from some of the men in the Danish ranks that they would fight
no longer without pay. Christian was driven from the field. In after
days he complained bitterly that if the King of England had fulfilled
his promises the battle would have ended otherwise.
[Sidenote: § 9. Mansfeld's death.]
The soldiers lent by Wallenstein to Tilly had borne them well in the
fight. Wallenstein himself was far away. Mansfeld had been welcomed by
the Protestants of Silesia, and when Wallenstein followed he found the
principal towns garrisoned by the enemy. By the time he reached Hungary
Mansfeld had joined Bethlen Gabor. Once more Wallenstein pursued his old
tactics. Taking up a strong position, he left his opponents to do what
they could. The events showed that his calculations were well founded.
Bethlen Gabor had counted on help from the Turks. But the Turks gave him
no adequate assistance, and he did not venture to repeat unaided the
operation of the bridge of Dessau, and to attack Wallenstein in his
entrenchments. He preferred making a truce, one of the conditions of
which was that Mansfeld should be expelled from Hungary. On his way to
Venice the great adventurer was seized by a mortal disease. The
unconquerable man, like an old northern warrior, refused to die in a
bed. 'Raise me up,' he said to his friends, 'I am dying now.' Propped up
in an upright position in their arms, and gazing out upon the dawn,
which was lighting up the hills with the first rays of morning, he
passed away. 'Be united, united,' he murmured with his last breath;
'hold out like men.' His own absence from the scene would perhaps remove
one of the chief difficulties in the way of union.
CHAPTER VI.
STRALSUND AND ROCHELLE.
SECTION I.--_Fresh Successes of Wallenstein._
[Sidenote: 1626.
§ 1. Confiscations in the north.]
Differences had already arisen between Wallenstein and the League. It
was understood that the defeat of the northern rebels would lead to
confiscations in the north, as the defeat of Frederick had led to
confiscations in the south. To part at least of the land of one of the
defeated princes the Elector of Mentz laid claim. Wallenstein wished to
have it all for George of Lüneburg, who, Lutheran as he was, had held
high command in the imperial army.
[Sidenote: §2. Wallenstein advocates religious equality.]
The quarrel was more than a mere personal dispute. The League wished to
pursue the old policy of pushing forward the interests of the Catholic
clergy under cover of legality. Wallenstein wished Catholic and
Protestant, already united in his army, to be equally united in the
Empire. Rebellion would then be the only punishable crime; loyalty, and
especially the loyalty of his own officers, the only virtue to be
rewarded.
[Sidenote: § 3. Comes into collision with the League.]
Another question between the two powers reached almost as deeply. The
League demanded that Wallenstein should support his army upon supplies
taken from the Protestants alone. Wallenstein asserted his right, as the
Emperor's general, to quarter his men where he would, and to levy
contributions for their maintenance even on the territories of the
League.
[Sidenote: § 4. Wallenstein could not found unity.]
For the first time for many a long year, a friendly voice had been heard
urging the Emperor in the only wise direction. Ferdinand, turning aside
from the promotion of a sectional policy, was, if he would listen to
Wallenstein, to place the unity of the Empire above the interests of the
princes, by resting it on the basis of religious equality. Unhappily
that advice was tendered to him by a man who could not offer him
security for the realization of so wise a policy. To stand above parties
it is necessary to obtain the confidence of a nation, and how could men
have confidence in Wallenstein? Durable institutions may be guarded by
the sword. They cannot be founded by the sword. All that was known of
Wallenstein in Germany was that he was master of an army more numerous
and more oppressive than that of Tilly. German unity, coming in the
shape of boundless contributions and extortions, and enforced by the
example of starving peasants and burning villages, was not likely to
prove very attractive.
[Sidenote: § 5. Wallenstein's conference with Eggenberg.]
It is strange that the better part of Wallenstein's programme did not
repel Ferdinand at once. But Ferdinand never made up his mind in a hurry
when there were difficulties on both sides, and he was accustomed to
defer to the opinion of his chief minister, Eggenberg. In November
Wallenstein held a conference with that minister. He unfolded all his
scheme. He would increase his army, if it were necessary, to 70,000 men.
With such a force he would be able to avoid a pitched battle, always
dangerous to troops not thoroughly inured to campaigning. By the
occupation of superior strategical points, he would be able to
out-manoeuvre the enemy. And then Ferdinand would be master in
Germany. The whole of the Empire would be brought under contribution.
There would be submission at home, and abroad no power would be strong
enough to lay a finger upon the re-established Empire.
[Sidenote: 1627.
§ 6. Ferdinand supports Wallenstein.]
Eggenberg was easily persuaded, and when Eggenberg was won, Ferdinand
was won. In January, Wallenstein was created Duke of Friedland, a higher
title than that of Prince of Friedland, which he already bore, in token
of the Emperor's approbation. If only Wallenstein could have shown
Ferdinand the way to win the hearts of Germans as readily as he showed
him the way to overpower their resistance, the history of Germany and of
Europe would have been changed.
[Sidenote: § 7. Preponderance of Wallenstein.]
The resistance of the Protestants to the institutions of the Empire had
hitherto failed. They had been weak because there had been something
revolutionary in all their proceedings. And now those institutions,
which up to this time had been working harmoniously, were giving signs
of breaking-up. There was a little rift in them which might any day
become wider. "Is the Emperor," asked Wallenstein, "to be a mere image
which is never to move?" "It is not only the Empire," answered the
representatives of the League, "which is bound to the Emperor. The
Emperor is also bound to the Empire." There was nothing to reconcile the
opposing theories. The Emperor who claimed to be something had been the
tool of a few bishops; he would be, if Wallenstein had his way, the tool
of a successful general. The Empire, in the mouth of the representatives
of the League, meant not the populations of Germany, not even the true
interest of the princes, but simply the interest of the bishops and
their Church.
[Sidenote: § 8. The campaign of 1627.]
The time had not yet come for an open quarrel. The enemy, though
weakened, was still powerful. Charles I., by dint of a forced loan,
which every Englishman except himself and his courtiers declared to be
in violation of all constitutional precedents, contrived to get some
money into his exchequer, and Sir Charles Morgan was sent over to the
King of Denmark's aid with an army nominally of 6,000 men, but which in
reality never reached two-thirds of that number. Thurn, the old hero of
the revolution at Prague, and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach, brought
their experience, such as it was, to Christian's aid, and a younger
brother of John Ernest's, soon to be known to fame as Bernhard of
Weimar, was also to be found fighting under his banners. Strong
towns--Wolfenbüttel, Nordheim, and Nienburg--still held out on his side,
and peasants and citizens were eager to free the land from the
oppressions of the soldiery and the yoke of the priests.
[Sidenote: § 9. Submission of Bethlen Gabor.]
Once more the Protestants of the north looked anxiously to the east. But
Bethlen Gabor did not stir. Without Turkish help he could do nothing,
and the Turks, involved in a war with Persia, resolved to negotiate a
peace with the Emperor. When peace was agreed upon in September Bethlen
Gabor was powerless.
[Sidenote: § 10. Wallenstein in Silesia.]
Wallenstein's hands were freed as soon as these negotiations were
opened. John Ernest of Weimar had died the year before, but his
lieutenants were still in possession of Silesia. In May, Wallenstein
sent Duke George of Lüneburg to cut off their retreat. In July, he was
in Silesia himself. His men were three to one of the enemy. Place after
place surrendered. Only once did he meet with an attempt at resistance
in the open field. Before the end of August the whole of Silesia was in
his hands. Fifty-five standards were sent in triumph to Vienna. The
Silesian towns were set to ransom, and the money of the citizens went to
swell the military chest of the Emperor's general.
[Sidenote: § 11. Combat of Heiligenhafen.]
When Silesia was lost Christian sought to avert destruction by offering
terms of peace. But the two generals would accept nothing less than the
surrender of Holstein, and to that Christian refused to accede.
Wallenstein and Tilly joined their forces to drive him northwards before
them. By this movement the Margrave of Baden was cut off from the rest
of the Danish army. Making his way to the coast near Wismar, he had long
to wait before transports arrived to carry him across the sea to join
the King of Denmark. Scarcely had he landed at Heiligenhafen when a
large body of imperialist troops arrived, and at once commenced the
attack. He himself and a few of his principal officers escaped on
ship-board. His men, seeing themselves deserted, took service under
Wallenstein, and seven of the best regiments in the Danish army were
lost to Christian.
[Sidenote: § 12. Conquest of Schleswig and Jutland.]
Tilly found occupation for his men in the siege of the strong places in
Lower Saxony. Wallenstein undertook to follow up the King of Denmark.
Before the end of the year all Schleswig and Jutland, with the exception
of two or three fortified towns, were in Wallenstein's hands.
[Sidenote: § 13. Wallenstein's schemes.]
A few sieges, and all, it seemed, would be over. Wallenstein had begun
to cherish the wildest plans. When resistance had been put down in
Germany, he would place himself at the head of 100,000 men and drive the
Turks out of Constantinople. Such dreams, however, were to remain
dreams. If Denmark had been beaten down, Tilly was still there, and
Tilly represented forces with which the new military Empire was certain
sooner or later to be brought into collision.
SECTION II.--_Resistance to Wallenstein in the Empire._
[Sidenote: § 1. The Assembly of Mühlhausen.]
In October, the electors in person, or by deputy, met at Mühlhausen to
take into consideration the condition of the Empire. The Ecclesiastical
electors urged that the engagement given in 1620 to the Protestant
administrators was no longer valid. They had been told that they would
not be dispossessed by force if they acted as loyal subjects. But they
had not been loyal subjects. They had joined the King of Denmark in a
war in which, with the aid of foreign powers, he had attempted to
dismember the Empire. It was now time for justice to prevail, and for
the Church, so far as the Peace of Augsburg allowed, to come by its own.
To this reasoning the new Elector of Bavaria gave the whole weight of
his authority, and even the two Protestant electors did not venture to
meet the argument by an open denial. The circle of Lower Saxony had
entered upon the war against the advice of John George, and he held that
the administrators were only reaping the consequences of neglecting his
counsel.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Catholic Electors complain of Wallenstein.]
The Catholic electors felt themselves within reach of the settlement
which they had long proclaimed as the object of their desires. They then
proceeded to kick away the ladder by which they had climbed so high. It
is not derogating from the merits of Tilly and his veterans to say that
without Wallenstein they would have been unable to cope with the forces
opposed to them. Wallenstein's army had driven Mansfeld back, had hemmed
in Bethlen Gabor, had recovered Silesia, had contributed to the victory
of Lutter. And yet that army threatened to establish itself upon the
ruins of the authority of the princes and electors, and to set up
a military despotism of the most intolerable kind. Everywhere
Wallenstein's recruiting officers were beating their drums. Quiet
episcopal cities in the south of Germany, which hoped to have seen the
last of their troubles when Mansfeld vanished westward out of Alsace in
1622, found themselves suddenly selected as a trysting-place for some
new regiment. Rough men poured in from every direction to be armed,
clothed, lodged, and fed at their expense. The alarming doctrine that
the army was to support itself, that men were to be raised for the
purpose not of fighting the enemy, but of pressing contributions out of
friends caused universal consternation. Wallenstein's officers, too, had
been heard to talk with military frankness about pulling down princes
and electors, and making a real sovereign of the Emperor.
[Sidenote: § 3. Yet they cannot do without him.]
The voice of complaint swelled loudly. But those who raised it did not
see that their own policy was at fault; that but for their refusal to
yield on the question of the bishoprics, there would have been no need
for Wallenstein's army at all. What they were doing required the aid of
overpowering military force, and they were startled when he who wielded
the sword insisted on being their master. For the present, therefore,
the electors did not venture on anything more than a gentle remonstrance
with Wallenstein, and a petition to the Emperor to remove the abuses
which, as they well knew, were radically connected with the new system.
[Sidenote: 1628.
§ 4. The commercial towns of the north.]
The dislike of the rule of the sword which was felt amongst those for
whom that sword had been drawn was sure to be felt far more strongly in
the Protestant cities of North Germany. Up to Wallenstein's appearance
the commercial oligarchies by which those cities were governed, had
shown themselves at the best but lukewarm in the Protestant cause. The
towns of the south had been the first to desert the Union. The towns of
the north had been dragged half against their will into the Danish war.
To them the imperial sway was connected by a tradition of centuries with
support against the encroachments of the princes. But they had no
traditions in favour of an army living at free quarters amongst them, of
bullying colonels and hectoring soldiers. Magdeburg braved all the
terrors of Wallenstein's anger rather than admit a single company within
its walls. Hamburg declared itself ready to submit to the Emperor's
authority, but closed its gates against his army. And though Magdeburg
might be besieged when there was leisure, Hamburg and the other maritime
towns were less easily to be gained. All-powerful on land, Wallenstein's
authority ended at low-water mark. The King of Denmark had fled to his
islands. The King of Sweden was master of the Baltic. If it was doubtful
whether they could set an army in battle array in Germany, at least they
could throw provisions and munitions of war into a besieged seaport
town. If the Empire was to be secured, these seaports must be brought
under the Emperor's authority.
[Sidenote: § 5. Wallenstein in possession of the Duchy of Mecklenburg.]
Here, therefore, in the midst of the danger Wallenstein determined to
plant himself firmly, with the instinctive conviction that the post of
danger is the post of power. The two Dukes of Mecklenburg had steadily
supported the King of Denmark in his struggle against the Emperor. In
1627, when most of the other states ceased to pay any contributions
towards the war, they had continued to fulfil their engagements, and
though they now professed their readiness to make their submission, it
was Wallenstein's interest to make the most of their treason, and the
least of their repentance. In February, 1628, the Emperor, using the
rights which he had claimed in the case of the Elector Palatine,
declared them to have forfeited their lands and dignities, and placed
the Duchies in Wallenstein's hands as a pledge for the payment of
military expenses which still remained to be liquidated. It was
significant of the change of feeling in Germany that the ecclesiastical
electors, who had seen nothing amiss in the deprivation of Frederick,
had not a good word to say for this concession to Wallenstein.
[Sidenote: § 6. Negotiation with the Hanse Towns.]
In Mecklenburg the imperial general had gained a footing on the Baltic
coast. But more than that was needed if he was to be safe from attack.
All through the winter negotiations had been going on with the Hanse
Towns, the maritime cities of the old commercial league, which had once
taken up a dominant position in the north, and which, though shorn of
its ancient glory, was still worth courting by a power which aspired to
rule in Germany.
[Sidenote: § 7. Wallenstein's offers tempting.]
Reasons were not wanting to induce the Hanse Towns to accept the
Emperor's offers. There was something very tempting in the notion of
having the power of the imperial armies to fall back upon in their
conflicts for foreign states. Hamburg especially had been the object of
the jealousy of these states, as the mart from whence the western
nations supplied themselves with the materials used in ship-building.
The King of Denmark had built Glückstadt, lower down the Elbe, in the
hope of intercepting so lucrative a trade. The King of England had
blockaded the river, and carried off Hamburg vessels which he suspected
of being freighted with timber and hemp for the use of his enemies in
Spain.
[Sidenote: § 8. But they are repelled when they understand his plan.]
From the growth of a national authority in Germany, therefore, the Hanse
Towns would have had everything to gain. But Ferdinand was not, could
not be really national. What he had to offer was a special agreement
with Spain, which would have given them the monopoly of the trade
between Germany and the Spanish dominions. Such a trade could only be
supported by war. It was a privilege which would bring with it a deadly
conflict with England and Holland, perhaps with Denmark and Sweden as
well. And the prospect was none the more alluring because Wallenstein
was to play the principal part in the design. The general of the
imperial forces was appointed Admiral of the Baltic, and the Hanse Towns
were expected to find him a fleet.
[Sidenote: § 9. They decline to accept his proposal.]
What a prospect for a body of calculating traders. The Spanish monopoly,
under such circumstances, was hardly to be recommended as a prudent
investment. The Emperor's overtures were politely declined. Wallenstein,
when he heard of their answer, rated them soundly. He had means, he
said, to shut up their trade by land, and to seize goods which they
might import either from England or the Netherlands. He would deal with
them, in short, as Napoleon was to deal with them two centuries later.
[Sidenote: § 10. Wallenstein and the Baltic towns.]
Wallenstein's thoughts, however, were more immediately directed to the
towns on the Baltic. He had long been alarmed at the danger which
threatened him from Sweden. In November, 1627, he had entered into
negotiations with an adventurer who offered to set fire to the ships in
the Swedish harbours. But as the project had broken down there was
nothing for it but to gain possession of the port towns on the Baltic
coast, and to bar them against the enemy. For no man could expect that
Gustavus would look on quietly, whilst a great military power was
forming on the southern coast of the Baltic.
[Sidenote: § 11. Growth of his power.]
Wismar was soon in Wallenstein's hands. The harbour of Rostock was
blocked up by a line of sunken ships. Though Boguslav, the Duke of
Pomerania, promised to keep his long line of coast safe from attack, he
was compelled to admit a strong imperialist force within his territory.
Everything seemed to be succeeding as Wallenstein wished.
SECTION III.--_The Siege of Stralsund._
[Sidenote: § 1. Stralsund holds out.]
One town alone held out. Stralsund was not a free city of the Empire.
But though it was nominally dependent on the Duke of Pomerania it was
practically its own mistress. The citizens had no wish to put themselves
forward in opposition to the Emperor, far less to assist a foreign power
to gain a footing in Germany. But they would never admit a garrison of
such troops as Wallenstein's within their walls.
[Sidenote: § 2. He orders the siege to be commenced.]
Wallenstein would have all or nothing. He ordered his commander in those
parts, the Lutheran Arnim, to enforce submission. "I will never," he
wrote, "allow them to keep anything back from me, lest others should be
encouraged to do the like." Arnim, already master of Rügen, seized
Dänholm, a smaller island commanding the mouth of the harbour. In
February hostilities were commenced. In March the citizens attacked the
imperialists in Dänholm, and drove them out of the island.
[Sidenote: § 3. Wallenstein's first check.]
It was Wallenstein's first check, and desperately did he struggle to
wipe out the disgrace. Every day the spirit of the citizens was rising.
There were old soldiers there, fugitives from the Danish war, and
peasants who had fled from their desolated homes, and who had terrible
tales to tell of the wretchedness which followed in the track of
Wallenstein's soldiers. In April, all within the town bound themselves
by a solemn oath to defend their religion and their liberty to the last
drop of their blood, and to admit no garrison within their walls. In the
midst of their resistance they still kept up some recollection of their
nationality, so far as any tie of nationality could still be said to
exist. The name of the Emperor was carefully avoided, but they professed
attachment to the Empire and its laws.
[Sidenote: § 4. Succour from Denmark and Sweden.]
Practically, however, the shape in which the Empire presented itself to
them was that of Wallenstein's army, and if they were to resist that
army, the Stralsunders must, whether they liked it or not, make common
cause with those who were hostile to the Empire. In May a Danish embassy
appeared amongst them, and the King of Sweden sent a present of
gunpowder. When the siege was formally opened, these overtures were
followed by a succour of armed men. Sweden and Denmark were working
together to break up the new military Empire, and their forlorn hope was
thrown into Stralsund.
[Sidenote: § 5. Wallenstein abandons the siege.]
Wallenstein saw that the case was serious, and came in person to the
help of his lieutenant. According to a doubtful story, he exclaimed, 'I
will have Stralsund, even if it be fastened by chains to heaven.' It is
certain that when a deputation from the citizens pleaded with him that
he would abandon his demand that they should admit a garrison within
their walls, he drew his hand along the surface of a table before him,
and answered sternly, 'Your town shall be made as flat as this.' But the
problem of overcoming the resistance of a fortress open to unlimited
succours by sea is one of the most difficult in the whole art of war.
Still, however, there were fearful odds in favour of the besiegers.
Without the walls Wallenstein had no enemy to fear. He was himself Duke
of Mecklenburg. With the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of
Pomerania he was on friendly terms, and he had received the support of
the latter in his attempts upon the town. Within the walls there was no
certainty of ultimate success. Those who had anything to lose placed
their property on shipboard. Many sent their wives and daughters to seek
a safe refuge in Sweden. But whatever doubts might arise the defenders
of the town fought sturdily on. Week after week passed away, and
Stralsund was still untaken. Wallenstein lowered his terms. He ceased to
demand entrance for a garrison of his own men. It would be enough, he
now said, if the citizens would entrust their walls to troops of their
own ruler, the Duke of Pomerania, and would in this manner tear
themselves away from the connexion with foreign powers hostile to the
Emperor. And to this offer the governing council of the town was ready
to assent. But the general body of the citizens rejected it utterly.
They deliberately preferred the alliance of the two foreign kings to
submission, however indirect, to the Emperor's authority. Before this
resolution, Wallenstein, with all his armies, was powerless. On August 3
he raised the siege.
[Sidenote: § 6. Character of the resistance.]
Wallenstein's failure was an event of incalculable importance in the
history of Germany. It was much that one, and that not one of the first,
towns of the Empire should have beaten back the tide of conquest. But it
was more that the resistance should have been attempted in a case which
sooner or later would be the cause of the great majority of Germans.
Ferdinand had floated to power because he personified order as opposed
to anarchy. The Stralsunders fought for the Protestant religion and
freedom from the presence of a garrison. Ferdinand's order meant the
rule of the priest, and the rule of the soldiers. Slowly and unwillingly
the citizens of Stralsund declared for the presence of foreigners as
better than such order as this.
SECTION IV.--_The Siege of Rochelle._
[Sidenote: § 1. Stralsund and Rochelle.]
The tide was on the turn in Germany. But the tide was not on the turn in
France. There, too, a maritime city, greater and wealthier than
Stralsund, and supported by fleets and armies from beyond the sea, was
defending the cause of Protestantism against the central government.
Mainly because in France the central government represented something
more than the rule of the priest and the soldier, the resistance which
was successful in Germany was overpowered in France.
[Sidenote: 1625.
§ 2. England and France.]
During the year 1625 the coolness between England and France had been on
the increase. The persecution of the English Catholics by Charles, in
contravention of his promises, had greatly exasperated Lewis, and the
seizure by the English cruisers of numerous French vessels charged with
carrying on a contraband traffic with the Spanish Netherlands had not
contributed to calm his indignation. Charles, on the other hand,
regarded himself as the natural protector of the French Protestants, and
made demands in their favour which only served to make Lewis more
resolved to refuse every concession.
[Sidenote: § 3. Richelieu would have made peace with the Huguenots if he
could.]
Richelieu had therefore a hard part to play. He knew perfectly well that
the government had violated its engagements with the Huguenots,
especially in keeping up the fortifications of Fort Louis, a work
commanding the entrance to the harbour of Rochelle, which it had long
ago promised to pull down. If Richelieu had had his way he would have
pulled down the fort, and by generous concessions to the Huguenots would
have carried them with him to the support of his foreign policy. But
such a policy, in appearance so rash, in reality so wise, was not likely
to be palatable to Lewis, and Richelieu had to steer his way between the
danger of offending the king and the danger of lighting up still more
vividly the flames of civil war. In the course of the winter all that
could be done he did. Deputies of the Huguenot towns appeared to
negotiate a peace, with the support of two English ambassadors. But they
were instructed to demand the demolition of the fort, and to this the
king steadily refused his consent.
[Sidenote: 1626.
§ 4. An agreement effected.]
The priests and the friends of the priests were delighted at the
prospect of another civil war. The assembled clergy commissioned one of
their number to offer to the king a considerable sum of money for the
suppression of rebellion. The time was appointed for his audience, but
Richelieu contrived to put it off for a few hours longer, and, by a
representation of the dangers of the situation, induced the Huguenot
deputies, with the support of the English ambassadors, to be satisfied
with a loose verbal promise from the king. When the clerical train swept
into the royal presence it was too late. The king had already promised
the Huguenot deputies that if they behaved as good subjects he would do
for them more than they could possibly expect. His ministers had already
assured them that these words pointed to the demolition of the fort.
[Sidenote: § 5. Intervention of Charles I.]
If a peace thus made was to be enduring, it would be necessary to keep
up for a long time the appearance of its being a submission and not a
peace. Unhappily, the intervention of the King of England was not likely
to help to keep up appearances. He urged Lewis to engage in the war in
Germany in the exact way and to the exact extent that suited the English
government, and he put himself ostentatiously forward as the protector
of the Huguenots.
[Sidenote: § 6. Lewis indignant.]
Such conduct awoke once more the susceptibilities of Lewis. It was bad
enough to be bearded by his own subjects. But it was worse to be bearded
by a foreign sovereign. A group of Huguenot communities in the south of
France supported in practical independence by England would be as
insupportable to him as the resistance of the Hanse Towns was two years
later to Wallenstein.
[Sidenote: 1627.
§ 7. War between France and England.]
Fort Louis, therefore, was not demolished. A peace was patched up
between France and Spain. Charles grew more and more angry with Lewis
for deserting the common cause. Fresh seizures of French ships by
English cruisers came to exasperate the quarrel, and in the early months
of 1627 war existed between the two nations, in reality if not in name.
In July a great English fleet, with a land army on board, appeared off
Rochelle, under the command of Charles' favourite, Buckingham. A
landing was effected on the Isle of Rhé, and siege was laid to the
principal fort of the island. At last the garrison was almost starved
out, and the commander offered to come the next morning into the English
quarters to treat for terms of surrender. That night a stiff easterly
breeze sprung up, and a French flotilla, heavily laden with provisions,
put off from the main land. Some of the boats were taken, but most of
them made their way safely through the English guardships, and delivered
their precious store under the guns of the fort. Buckingham lingered for
some weeks longer. Every day the besiegers swept the horizon in vain
with their glasses, looking for succour from England. But Charles,
without parliamentary support, was too poor to send off succours
hurriedly, and when they were at last ready a long continuance of
westerly winds prevented them from leaving the Channel. Before they
could put to sea, a French force was landed on the island, and
Buckingham, to save himself from defeat, was forced to break up the
siege and to return home discomfited.
[Sidenote: § 8. Siege of Rochelle.]
Richelieu and the king were now thoroughly of one mind. The French city
which could enter into an understanding with the foreigner must be
reduced to submission. An army of thirty thousand men gathered round the
walls, and on the land side the town was as hopelessly blocked up as
Stralsund. The only question was whether it would be possible to cut off
the entrance of English supplies by sea. By the end of November a
commencement was made of the mole which was to shut off Rochelle from
all external help. Piles were driven in with stones between them.
Heavily laden vessels were scuttled and sunk. Richelieu himself directed
the operations, this time with the full support of the clergy, who
poured their money lavishly into the royal treasury. In May, 1628, the
work, in spite of the storms of winter, was almost completed. An English
fleet, which came up to the succour of the town, retired without
accomplishing anything.
[Sidenote: § 9. Increasing despondency in the town.]
Inside the town distress was rapidly growing unendurable. The mayor,
Jean Guiton, was still the soul of the resistance. But he had to
struggle against an increasing number who counselled surrender. He did
not venture to appear in the streets without a pistol in his hand and
half-a-dozen stout guardians around him.
[Sidenote: § 10. Failure of the English attempt to succour it.]
The only hope for Rochelle lay in the great armament which was known to
be prepared in England, and which was to be conducted by Buckingham in
person. The House of Commons had purchased the Petition of Right with
large subsidies, and Charles, for the first time in his reign, was
enabled to make an effort worthy of his dignity. But the popular hatred
found a representative in the murderer Felton, and a knife struck home
to the favourite's heart put an end to his projects for ever. The
dissatisfaction which arrayed the English people against its government
had found its way into the naval service. When the fleet arrived in
September, under a new commander, all was disorganization and confusion.
It returned to England without accomplishing a single object for which
it had been sent forth.
[Sidenote: § 11. Surrender of Rochelle.]
The surrender of Rochelle followed as a matter of necessity. On November
1 the king entered the conquered town in triumph. The independence of
French cities was at an end.
[Sidenote: § 12. Cause of Richelieu's success.]
The different success of the two great sieges of the year may partly be
accounted for by the difference of vigour in the powers to which the
threatened towns looked for succour. Charles was very far from being a
Christian IV., much less a Gustavus Adolphus; and if England at unity
with itself was stronger than Sweden, England distracted by civil broils
was weaker than Sweden. But there were more serious reasons than these
for Richelieu's victory and Wallenstein's failure. Richelieu represented
what Wallenstein did not--the authority of the state. His armies were
under the control of discipline; and, even if the taxation needed to
support them pressed hardly upon the poor, the pressure of the hardest
taxation was easy to be borne in comparison with a far lighter
contribution exacted at random by a hungry and rapacious soldiery. If
Richelieu had thus an advantage over Wallenstein, he had a still greater
advantage over Ferdinand and Maximilian. He had been able to isolate the
Rochellese by making it clear to their fellow Huguenots in the rest of
France that no question of religion was at stake. The Stralsunders
fought with the knowledge that their cause was the cause of the whole of
Protestant Germany. The Rochellese knew that their resistance had been
tacitly repudiated by the whole of Protestant France.
[Sidenote: §13. Religious liberty of the Huguenots.]
When Lewis appeared within the walls of Rochelle he cancelled the
privileges of the town, ordered its walls to be pulled down and its
churches to be given over to the Catholic worship. But under Richelieu's
guidance he announced his resolution to assure the Protestants a
continuance of the religious liberties granted by his father. No towns
in France should be garrisoned by troops other than the king's. No
authorities in France should give orders independently of the king. But
wherever a religion which was not that of the king had succeeded in
establishing its power over men's minds no attempt should be made to
effect a change by force. Armed with such a principle as this, France
would soon be far stronger than her neighbours. If Catholic and Huguenot
could come to regard one another as Frenchmen and nothing else, what
chance had foreign powers of resisting her? She had already beaten back
the attack of a divided England. Would she not soon acquire a
preponderance over a divided Germany? It is time for us now to ask what
steps were being taken in Germany to meet or to increase the danger.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EDICT OF RESTITUTION.
SECTION I.--_Oppression of the Protestants._
[Sidenote: 1628.
§ 1. Siege of Glückstadt.]
It was not at Stralsund only that Wallenstein learned that he could be
successfully resisted. Stade had surrendered with its English garrison
to Tilly in April, but Glückstadt still held out. In vain Wallenstein
came in person to Tilly's aid. The Danish cruisers kept the sea open.
Wallenstein was obliged to retire. In January, 1629, the works of the
besiegers were destroyed by a sally of the garrison.
[Sidenote: 1629.
§ 2. The Peace of Lübeck.]
Wallenstein, the great calculator, saw that peace with Denmark was
necessary. The Swedes and the Danes were beginning to act together, and
resistance to one nation, if there must be resistance, would be easier
than resistance to two. Much to his satisfaction he found Christian not
unwilling to listen to the voice of his charming. Just as the eagle eye
of Gustavus descried the first feeble beams of light on the horizon,
the King of Denmark, weary of misfortune and vexed at the prospect of
having to crave help from his old competitor of Sweden, laid down his
arms. On May 22, 1629, a treaty of peace was signed at Lübeck. Christian
received back the whole of his hereditary possessions. In return he
resigned all claim to the bishoprics held by his family in the Empire,
and engaged to meddle no further with the territorial arrangements of
Lower Saxony.
[Sidenote: § 3. Necessity of healing measures.]
If the Peace of Lübeck was really to be a source of strength to
Ferdinand it must be accompanied by some such measures as those with
which Richelieu was accompanying his victory at Rochelle. It was not
enough to have got rid of a foreign enemy. Some means must be found to
allay the fears of the Germans themselves, which had found expression in
the resistance of Stralsund.
[Sidenote: § 4. Opposite views as to what measures are needed.]
That there was much to be done in this direction was openly acknowledged
by almost all who had been concerned in the imperialist successes.
Maximilian and the League held that it was above all things necessary to
restrain the excesses of Wallenstein and his soldiers. Wallenstein held
that it was above all things necessary to restrain the excessive demands
of Maximilian and the clergy. Ferdinand, the man in whose hands fortune
had placed the decision of the great question, probably stood alone in
thinking that it was possible to satisfy both the soldiers and the
priests without weakening his hold on the Empire.
The first act of Ferdinand after the signature of the treaty was to
invest Wallenstein formally with the Duchy of Mecklenburg. Offence was
thus given to those who believed that the rights of territorial
sovereignty had been unduly invaded, and who were jealous of the right
claimed by the Emperor to supersede by his own authority a prince of the
Empire in favour of a successful soldier.
[Sidenote: § 5. Ill treatment of the Protestants.]
On the other side offence was given still more widely to those who
wished to maintain the rights of Protestantism. Without wishing to enter
upon a general persecution, Ferdinand was resolved to allow no rights
against his church to those who could not conclusively prove to his own
satisfaction that those rights were under the guarantee of unassailable
law. He had begun in his own hereditary dominions. It is true that in
Bohemia and Austria no tortures were inflicted, no martyrs suffered
either at the stake or on the scaffold. But it was found that the stern,
relentless pressure of daily annoyance was sufficient for the purpose of
producing at least external conformity. By 1627 the desired result had
been obtained, and Protestantism existed only as a proscribed religion.
Then came the turn of the Palatinate. For a time there had been no open
persecution. In 1625 Maximilian had written to the governor of
Heidelberg not to let any opportunity slip, if he could find an excuse
for turning out a Protestant minister from his parish and replacing him
by a Catholic priest. In February, 1628, the Jesuits were able to report
that they had made 400 converts in Heidelberg itself, and 1,200 in the
neighbouring country districts. Then came a further change. In March an
agreement was drawn up between Maximilian and Ferdinand. The Emperor
received back Upper Austria, and made over to the Elector of Bavaria, in
its stead, the Upper Palatinate and that part of the Lower Palatinate
which lies on the right bank of the Rhine. Maximilian held that by this
transfer he had acquired the full rights of a territorial prince, and
that amongst these rights was that of disposing of the religion of his
new subjects. In June all noblemen residing in the country were told
that they must either change their religion within two months or go into
exile. In September the order was extended to the inhabitants generally.
[Sidenote: § 6. The cities of South Germany.]
The year 1628 was a year of alarm over all Protestant South Germany.
There at least Ferdinand was ready to carry out the wishes expressed by
the Catholic electors at Mühlhausen the year before. Whilst Maximilian
was threatening the Palatinate, imperial commissioners were passing
through the other territories and cities, taking account of churches and
church property which had come into Protestant possession since the
Convention of Passau. To the wishes of the populations not the slightest
attention was paid. In Nördlingen, for instance, not a single Catholic
was to be found. Every church in the place was none the less marked down
for re-delivery to the Catholic clergy. In some places to which the
commissioners came, Shylock-like, to claim their pound of flesh, they
demanded more even than the strict letter of the law allowed them. Not
content with restoring to the Catholic worship churches which had with
general consent been in the hands of Protestants for half a century,
they proceeded to compel the inhabitants of the towns to attend the
mass.
[Sidenote: § 7. The Edict of Restitution.]
The success of these outrageous measures in the south encouraged
Ferdinand to pursue the same course in the north. There he had to deal
not merely with scattered towns, or a few abbeys, but with the great lay
bishoprics, many of which were extensive enough to form the domain of a
duke or a landgrave. On March 29, 1629, before the Peace of Lübeck was
actually signed, he issued the fatal Edict of Restitution. With a stroke
of his pen, the two archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen, the twelve
bishoprics of Minden, Verden, Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg, Misnia,
Merseburg, Naumburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, Lebus, and Camin, with
about a hundred and twenty smaller ecclesiastical foundations, were
restored to the Catholic clergy.
[Sidenote: § 8. Real weakness of the Emperor.]
The wheel had come full circle round since the day when Christian of
Anhalt had planned the great uprising to sweep away the Catholic bishops
and the House of Austria. The House of Austria was firmer in its seat
than ever. The Catholic bishops were triumphant. But in the midst of
their triumph the enemies of the Empire were watching them keenly, and
judging that both they and the Emperor were all the weaker for this
grand vindication of legality.
SECTION II.--_French Intervention in Italy._
[Sidenote: § 1. Gustavus and Richelieu.]
In the north Gustavus had an eye not likely to be deceived for the
joints of Ferdinand's harness. In the west Richelieu was preparing for
the day when he too might aid in the overthrow of the Colossus. It is
true that his first thought was of Spain and not of Germany. But he
could hardly be brought into collision with one branch of the House of
Austria without having sooner or later to deal with the other.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Mantuan War.]
In Italy, the death of the Duke of Mantua and Montferrat without near
heirs had given rise to war. The next heir was a very distant relation,
the Duke of Nevers, whose family had long been naturalized in France. To
Spain the presence of a dependent of France so near her possessions in
the Milanese was in the highest degree undesirable, and she called upon
Ferdinand to sequester the territory till another way of disposing it
could be found. If in Germany before Ferdinand's election the rights of
the Emperors had been but a shadow, those which they possessed in the
old kingdom of Italy were but the shadow of a shade. But whatever they
were, Ferdinand was the man to put them forth, and whilst Richelieu was
engaged at Rochelle, Spanish troops had overrun Mantua, and in
conjunction with the Duke of Savoy, ready now to seek his own interests
by fighting for Spain, as in earlier days to seek his own interests by
fighting against her, were besieging the Duke of Nevers in Casale, the
only fortress which remained to him.
[Sidenote: § 3. Italian feeling against the Emperor.]
This intervention of the Spaniards in the Emperor's name caused even
greater indignation in Italy than their intervention in the Palatinate
had caused in Germany. For in Germany the Emperor's name was in 1621
still connected with the ideas of law and order. In Italy it reminded
men of nothing but foreign domination, a memory which was none the less
vivid when the Emperor used his authority, whatever it might be, to
support the real foreign domination of the immediate present, the
Spanish domination in Milan. The Italian princes took alarm. Venice and
the pope summoned France to their aid, and in March, 1629, Richelieu,
taking Lewis with him across the snowy passes of the Alps, reduced the
Duke of Savoy to submission, and forced the Spaniards to raise the siege
of Casale.
[Sidenote: § 4. Check inflicted on him by Richelieu.]
Casale was the Stralsund of Italy. A power which had ventured to clothe
itself in the attributes of a national authority, with even less reason
than in Germany, had found its limits. Richelieu had the general feeling
on his side.
[Sidenote: § 5. The last Huguenot rebellion.]
He did not venture to do more in Italy. The Duke of Rohan, the brother
of that Soubise who had begun the war of Rochelle in 1625, had roused
the Huguenots of Languedoc and the Cevennes to a fresh attempt at
resistance, half Protestant, half aristocratic. As if the Rochellese had
not sufficiently suffered for the mistake of calling in foreign aid,
Rohan followed their example, and was foolish enough to ask for help
from Spain. But the Spanish troops came not to his aid. Richelieu
hurried back from Italy, made peace with England, and pitilessly crushed
the rebellion in the south. Once more the victory was attended by the
confirmation of the religious liberties of the Huguenots. They might
worship as they pleased, but political independence they were not to
have.
[Sidenote: § 6. Strength of France.]
The French monarchy was stronger for external enterprise than ever. By
crushing all resistance, it had no longer to fear occupation for its
energies at home, and by its tolerance of religion it had rendered
itself capable of accepting the service of all its subjects, and it
could offer its alliance to Protestant states without fear of suffering
a rebuff.
[Sidenote: § 7. Richelieu and the Imperialists in Italy.]
Richelieu was again able to turn his attention to Italy. In the summer
of 1629 an imperialist force of 20,000 men descended from the Alps and
laid siege to Mantua. Ferdinand, having established peace in Germany,
fancied that he could take up again in Italy the work which had been too
great for Barbarossa. Spinola came to his aid with an army of equal
force, and recommenced the attack upon Casale. In the spring of 1630
Richelieu was once more in Italy. Cardinal as he was, he was placed in
command of the army. But instead of marching against the Spaniards, he
turned first upon the Duke of Savoy. Seizing Pignerol and Saluces, he
gained possession of the Alpine passes. Then, with Piedmont at his feet,
he passed on to relieve Casale, and forced the Spanish besiegers to
retreat. But Richelieu was prudent as well as daring, and he left Mantua
for the present in the hands of Spain and the Emperor.
[Sidenote: § 8. State of Germany.]
It was a hard thing to attack the united forces of Spain and the Empire
face to face. It might be easier to support their enemies abroad, and to
favour dissensions at home. In the Netherlands, the Dutch, encouraged by
the diversion of the Italian war, were at last taking the offensive, and
entering upon that aggressive warfare which ended by bringing the whole
of North Brabant under their authority. In the north, Gustavus had
concluded a peace with Poland, and was making preparations for actual
intervention in Germany. In all this Richelieu was deeply interested. An
ambassador of Lewis was engaged in arranging with Gustavus the terms on
which France should assist him in the attack upon the Empire which he
already contemplated.
[Sidenote: § 9. Richelieu's expectations.]
Not that even Richelieu foresaw the possibility of the magnificent
results which were to follow from that enterprise. In 1630, as in 1624
and 1625, he would have preferred that a Protestant power should not be
too successful. He would rather conquer with Sweden than not at all. But
he would rather conquer with the help of the League than with the help
of Sweden. Gustavus might be pushed on to do his best. He would effect a
diversion, and that would be enough.
SECTION III.--_Wallenstein deprived of his Command._
[Sidenote: § 1. Strong position of Wallenstein.]
The long expected breach between the League and the Emperor's general
had come at last. Instead of reducing his forces after the Peace of
Lübeck, Wallenstein had increased them. He was now at the head of
100,000 men. From a military point of view no one could say it was too
much. He had Mantua to defend, the coasts of the North Sea to watch,
perhaps France to guard against, and that too with all the princes and
peoples of Germany exasperated against him. Some efforts he made to curb
the violence of his soldiers. But to restrain the monster he had created
was beyond his power. And if his soldiers bore hard upon burgher and
peasant, he himself treated the princes with contemptuous scorn. He
asked why the electors and the other princes should not be treated as
the Bohemian nobles had been treated. The Estates of the Empire had no
more right to independence than the Estates of the kingdom. It was time
for the Emperor to make himself master of Germany, as the kings of
France and Spain were masters of their own dominions. All this made the
electors above measure indignant. "A new domination," they told
Ferdinand, "has arisen for the complete overthrow of the old and
praiseworthy constitution of the Empire."
[Sidenote: § 2. What could he effect?]
A reconstruction of that old rotten edifice would have done no harm. But
its overthrow by military violence was another matter. A new form of
government, to be exercised by a soldier with the help of soldiers,
could never be found in justice,
For always formidable was the league
And partnership of free power and free will.
The way of ancient ordinances, though it winds,
Is yet no devious path. Straight forward goes
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.
Schiller's _Piccolomini_, act i. scene 4.
[Sidenote: § 3. His partiality.]
Even whilst he was defending the universality of oppression on the
principle that it was but fair that all estates should contribute to the
common defence, he was exhibiting in his own case an extraordinary
instance of partiality. Whilst all Germany was subjected to contributions
and exactions, not a soldier was allowed to set foot on Wallenstein's
own duchy of Mecklenburg.
[Sidenote: § 4. The Edict of Restitution carried out.]
And if the Catholic electors had good reason to complain of Wallenstein,
Wallenstein had also good reason to complain of the electors. The
process of carrying out the Edict of Restitution was increasing the
number of his enemies. "The Emperor," he said, "needed recruits, not
reforms." Ferdinand did not think so. He had persuaded the chapter of
Halberstadt to elect a younger son of his own as their bishop. He
induced the chapter of Magdeburg to depose their administrator, on the
ground that he had taken part in the Danish war. But, in spite of the
Edict of Restitution, the chapter of Magdeburg refused to choose a
Catholic bishop in his place, and preferred a son of the Elector of
Saxony. John George was thereby brought by his family interests into
collision with the Edict of Restitution.
[Sidenote: § 5. Magdeburg refuses a garrison.]
The city of Magdeburg had not been on good terms with the chapter.
Wallenstein offered to support its resistance with the help of a
garrison. But the city refused, and Wallenstein, in the face of the
growing opposition, did not venture to force it to accept his offer.
[Sidenote: § 6. Growing opposition to Wallenstein.]
Of the fact of the growing opposition no one could be doubtful. As to
its causes there was much difference of opinion. The priests ascribed it
to the barbarities of the soldiers. Wallenstein ascribed it to the
violence of the priests, and especially to the vigour with which they
were attempting to reconvert the inhabitants of the archbishopric of
Bremen, which they had recovered in virtue of the Edict of Restitution.
[Sidenote: § 7. He talks of attacking the Pope.]
On every side the priests and their schemes were in the way of
Wallenstein's dazzling visions of a grand imperialist restoration. The
Pope, as an Italian prince, had sympathized with France. "It is a
hundred years," said Wallenstein, "since Rome has been plundered, and it
is richer now than ever."
[Sidenote: § 8. Assembly of Ratisbon.]
On July 3, 1630, Ferdinand assembled round him the princes and electors
at Ratisbon, in the hope of inducing them to elect his son, the King of
Hungary, as King of the Romans, and therefore as his successor in the
Empire. But to this project the electors refused even to listen. All who
attended the assembly came with their minds full of the excesses of
Wallenstein's soldiery. The commissioners of that very Duke of Pomerania
who had served the imperial cause so well in the siege of Stralsund, had
a tale of distress to pour out before the princes. His master's
subjects, he said, had been driven to feed upon grass and the leaves of
trees. Cases had occurred in which starving wretches had maintained life
by devouring human flesh. A woman had even been known to feed upon her
own child.
[Sidenote: § 9. The deprivation of Wallenstein demanded.]
Other tales were told, bad enough, if not quite so bad as this, and the
misery of the populations gave support to the political grievances of
their rulers. Ferdinand was plainly told that the electors did not mean
to be subjected to military despotism. He must choose between them and
Wallenstein.
[Sidenote: § 10. Richelieu's intrigues.]
Behind the Catholic Electors was Richelieu himself. Together with the
recognized French ambassadors, the Capuchin Father Joseph, Richelieu's
trusted confidant, had come to Ratisbon, encouraging the opposition to
Wallenstein, and urging the electors to demand the neutrality of the
Empire, if a war broke out between France and Spain.
[Sidenote: § 11. Policy of the Electors.]
Unhappily for Germany, the policy of the electors was purely
conservative. There was nothing constructive even in Maximilian, the
greatest of them all. The old loose relationship between the princes and
the Emperor was to be restored whether it was adequate to the emergency
or not. At the very moment when he had every need of conciliating
opposition, he and his brother electors were refusing the petition of
the deputies of the Duke of Pomerania that their masters might be
allowed to keep possession of the bishopric of Camin.
[Sidenote: § 12. Landing of Gustavus.]
At the moment when the offence was given, it was known at Ratisbon that
Gustavus Adolphus had landed on the coast of Pomerania.
[Sidenote: § 13. Gustavus comes without allies.]
Five years before Gustavus had refused to stir against the Emperor
without the aid of a powerful coalition. He now ventured to throw
himself alone into the midst of Germany. He had no certainty even of
French aid. The French ambassador had offered him money, but had
accompanied the offer by conditions. Gustavus thrust aside both the
money and the conditions. If he went at all, he would go on his own
terms.
[Sidenote: § 14. His hopefulness.]
He knew well enough that the task before him, apparently far harder
than in 1625, was in reality far easier. He saw that between the
ecclesiastical Electors on the one hand, and Wallenstein on the other,
the Protestant princes must cling to him for safety. To one who
suggested that even if he were victorious the princes would seek to
profit by his victory, he answered, with the assurance of genius, 'If I
am victorious, they will be my prey.'
[Sidenote: § 15. Dismissal of Wallenstein.]
Events were working for him at Ratisbon. Before the persistent demand of
the electors for Wallenstein's dismissal Ferdinand was powerless. Even
Wallenstein would not have been strong enough to contend against the
League, backed by France, with a whole Protestant north bursting into
insurrection in his rear. But, in truth, neither Ferdinand nor
Wallenstein thought of resistance. The general, strong as his position
was, at the head of the most numerous and well-appointed army in Europe,
retired into private life without a murmur. He may, perhaps, have
calculated that it would not be long before he would be again needed.
[Sidenote: § 16. Ferdinand's position.]
That Ferdinand felt the blow keenly it is impossible to doubt. He
thought much of the maintenance of the imperial dignity, and the
uprising of the electors was in some sort an uprising against himself.
But the system which had fallen was the system of Wallenstein rather
than his own. He had sanctioned the contributions and exactions, feebly
hoping that they were not so bad as they seemed, or that if anything was
wrong a little more energy on Wallenstein's part would set things
straight. As to Wallenstein's idea of a revolutionary empire founded on
the ruins of the princes, Ferdinand would have been the first to regard
it with horror. His policy was in the main far more in accordance with
that of Maximilian than with that of Wallenstein.
[Sidenote: § 17. Concessions of Ferdinand in Italy.]
Wallenstein's dismissal was not the only sacrifice to which Ferdinand
was obliged to consent. He agreed to invest the Duke of Nevers with the
Duchy of Mantua, hoping in return to secure the neutrality of France in
his conflict with Sweden.
[Sidenote: § 18. Tilly in command.]
The result of that conflict depended mainly on the attitude taken by the
Protestants of the north, whom Ferdinand, in combination with the
Catholic electors, was doing his best to alienate. Tilly was placed in
command of the army which had lately been Wallenstein's, as well as of
his own. The variety of habits and of feeling in the two armies did not
promise well for the future. But, numerically, Tilly was far superior to
Gustavus.
SECTION IV.--_The Swedes establish themselves on the Coast of the
Baltic._
[Sidenote: § 1. The Swedish army.]
Gustavus, on the other hand, commanded a force inferior only in numbers.
Thoroughly disciplined, it was instinct with the spirit of its
commander. It shared his religious enthusiasm and his devotion to the
interests of his country. It had followed him in many a hardly-won
fight, and had never known defeat under his orders. It believed with
justice that his genius for war was far greater than that of any
commander who was likely to be sent against him.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Duke of Pomerania submits to Gustavus.]
The first attempt of Gustavus to win over a prince of the Empire to his
side was made before Stettin, the capital of the Duke of Pomerania. He
insisted on a personal interview with the aged Boguslav, the last of the
old Wendish line. Boguslav had ever been on good terms with the Emperor.
He had helped Wallenstein at Stralsund. But his deputies had pleaded in
vain at Ratisbon for his right to retain the bishopric of Camin and for
some amelioration of the misery of his subjects. He now pleaded in
person with Gustavus to be allowed to remain neutral. Gustavus, like
Tilly in 1623, would hear nothing of neutrality. The old man could hold
out no longer. "Be it as you wish, in God's name," he said. He begged
the king to be a father to him. "Nay," replied Gustavus, "I would rather
be your son." The inheritance of the childless man would make an
excellent bulwark for the defence of the Baltic.
[Sidenote: § 3. The Elector of Brandenburg prefers neutrality.]
For some time longer Gustavus was busy in securing a basis of operations
along the coast by clearing Pomerania and Mecklenburg of imperialist
garrisons. But, as yet, the northern princes were unwilling to
support him. In vain Gustavus reasoned with the ambassador of his
brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg, who had come to announce his
master's neutrality. "It is time," he said, "for his highness to open
his eyes, and to rouse himself from his ease, that his highness may no
longer be in his own land a lieutenant of the Emperor, nay, rather of
the Emperor's servant. He who makes a sheep of himself is eaten by the
wolf. His highness must be my friend or enemy, when I come to his
frontier. He must be hot or cold. No third course will be allowed, be
you sure of that." The words were thrown away for the present. There may
have been something of mere cowardice in the Elector's resistance to the
overtures made to him. Frederick had failed, and Christian had failed,
and why not Gustavus? But there was something, too, of the old German
feeling remaining, of unwillingness to join with the foreigner against
the Empire. "To do so," said the Brandenburg ambassador, "would be both
dishonourable and disloyal."
[Sidenote: § 4. Negotiations between Sweden and France.]
Gustavus had but to wait till Ferdinand's repeated blunders made loyalty
impossible even with the much-enduring George William. Fortunately for
Gustavus, he was now in a position in which he was able to wait a
little. An attempt had been made in France to overthrow Richelieu, in
which the queen mother, Mary of Medici, had taken a leading part.
Richelieu, she warned her son, was leading him to slight the interests
of the Church. But Lewis was unconvinced, and Mary of Medici found that
all political authority was in Richelieu's hands.
[Sidenote: 1631.
§ 5. The Treaty of Bärwalde.]
The complete success of the princes opposed to Wallenstein had perhaps
exceeded Richelieu's expectations. A balance of power between
Wallenstein and the League would have served his purpose better. But if
Ferdinand was to be strong, it did not matter to France whether the army
which gave him strength was commanded by Wallenstein or by Tilly.
Richelieu, therefore, made up his mind to grant subsidies to Gustavus
without asking for the conditions which had been refused in the
preceding spring. On January 23 the Treaty of Bärwalde was signed
between France and Sweden. A large payment of money was assured to
Gustavus for five years. Gustavus, on his part, engaged to respect the
constitutions of the Empire as they were before Ferdinand's victories,
and to leave untouched the Catholic religion wherever he found it
established. Out of the co-operation of Catholic and Protestant states,
a milder way of treating religious differences was already arising, just
as the final establishment of toleration in England grew out of the
co-operation between the Episcopal Church and the Nonconformists.
SECTION V.--_The Fall of Magdeburg._
[Sidenote: § 1. Hesitation of the Elector of Saxony.]
Further successes marked the early months of 1631. But till the two
Protestant Electors could make up their minds to throw in their lot with
Gustavus, nothing serious could be effected. John George felt that
something ought to be done. All over North Germany the Protestants were
appealing to him to place himself at their head. To say that he was
vacillating and irresolute, born to watch events rather than to control
them, is only to say that he had not changed his nature. But it must
never be forgotten that the decision before him was a very hard one. In
no sense could it be regarded otherwise than as a choice between two
evils. On the one side lay the preponderance of a hostile religion. On
the other side lay the abandonment of all hope of German unity, a unity
which was nothing to Gustavus, but which a German Elector could not
venture to disregard. It might be, indeed, that a new and better system
would arise on the ruins of the old. But if Saxony were victorious with
the aid of Sweden, the destruction of the existing order was certain,
the establishment of a new one was problematical.
[Sidenote: § 2. The Assembly at Leipzig.]
A great Protestant assembly held at Leipzig in March, determined to make
one more appeal to the Emperor. If only he would withdraw that fatal
Edict of Restitution, the Protestants of the north would willingly take
their places as obedient estates of the Empire. No foreign king should
win them from their allegiance, or induce them to break asunder the last
ties which bound them together to their head. But this time the appeal
was accompanied by a step in the direction of active resistance. The
Protestant estates represented at Leipzig agreed to levy soldiers, in
order to be prepared for whatever might happen.
[Sidenote: § 3. Tilly in the north.]
Time was pressing. The Treaty of Bärwalde had opened the eyes of
Maximilian and the League to the danger of procrastination. If they had
entertained any hope that France would leave them to contend with
Gustavus alone, that hope was now at an end. Tilly was despatched into
the north to combat the Swedish king.
[Sidenote: § 4. Tilly's advance and retreat.]
Ferdinand had despised the danger from Gustavus. "We have got a new
little enemy," he said, laughing, when he heard of the disembarkation of
the Swedes. Tilly knew better. He pressed rapidly forward, hoping to
thrust himself between Gustavus in Pomerania and his lieutenant, Horn,
in Mecklenburg. If he succeeded, the invading army would be cut in two,
and liable to be defeated in detail. Success at first attended his
effort. On March 29, whilst the princes were debating at Leipzig, he
took New Brandenburg, cutting down the whole Swedish garrison of 2,000
men. But Gustavus was too rapid for him. Uniting his forces with those
of Horn, he presented a bold front to the enemy. Tilly was driven back
upon the Elbe. The remaining fortresses on the Baltic, and the important
post of Frankfort on the Oder, garrisoned with eight imperialist
regiments, fell into the power of the conqueror.
[Sidenote: § 5. Magdeburg.]
A greater and more important city than Frankfort was at stake. The
citizens of Magdeburg had raised the standard of independence without
waiting for leave from John George of Saxony. Gustavus had sent a
Swedish officer to conduct their defence. But without the support of the
Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, he durst not bring his army to their
assistance.
[Sidenote: § 6. Treaty of Cherasco.]
The imperialists were gathering thickly round Magdeburg. On April 26 a
treaty was signed at Cherasco, between France and the Empire, which
restored peace in Italy, and set free the Emperor's troops beyond the
Alps for service in Germany. If Tilly saw matters still in a gloomy
light, his fiery lieutenant, Pappenheim, thought there was no reason to
despair. "This summer," he wrote, "we can sweep our enemies before us.
God give us grace thereto."
[Sidenote: § 7. Convention with the Elector of Brandenburg.]
As the siege went on, Gustavus, writing under his enforced inaction,
pleaded hard with the two Electors. From the Elector of Brandenburg he
demanded the right to occupy the two fortresses of Küstrin and Spandau.
Hopes were held out to him of the surrender of Küstrin, but he was
assured that Spandau should never be his. Accompanied by a picked body
of troops, he marched straight upon Berlin. On May 13, outside the city
gates, he held a long conference with his brother-in-law, the Elector.
He argued in vain. To one of the Dukes of Mecklenburg, who had
accompanied him, he spoke in bitter words. "I am marching," he said,
"upon Magdeburg, to deliver the city. If no one will assist me, I will
retreat at once. I will offer peace to the Emperor, and go home to
Stockholm. I know that the Emperor will agree to my terms. But you
Protestants will have to answer at the day of judgment that you would do
nothing for the cause of God. In this world, too, you will be punished.
Magdeburg will be taken, and, if I retire, you will have to look to
yourselves." The next day the conference was resumed. From early morning
till nine at night the Elector persisted in his refusal. But the armed
men who stood behind Gustavus were the most powerful of arguments. At
last the Swedish king had his way. On the 15th the gates of Spandau were
thrown open to his troops.
[Sidenote: § 8. Resistance of the Elector of Saxony.]
But, if the Elector of Brandenburg had given way, the Elector of Saxony
was not to be moved. He had not yet received an answer to his appeal to
the Emperor; and till that arrived he would enter into no alliance with
a foreigner. Further advance was impossible. Cut to the heart by the
refusal, Gustavus withdrew, leaving Magdeburg to its fate.
[Sidenote: § 9. Storming of Magdeburg.]
That fate was not long in coming. The city was hardly in a state to make
a desperate resistance. The council had levied men to fight their
battle. But amongst the body of the townsmen there were some who
counselled submission, and others who preferred taking their ease whilst
the hired soldiers were manning the walls. On May 20, Pappenheim stormed
the city. In those days the sack of a town taken by storm was claimed as
a right by the soldiers, as firmly by those of Gustavus as by those of
Tilly and Wallenstein. But a few weeks before, the Protestant population
of Frankfort had been exposed to the violence and greed of the Swedish
army, simply because they had been unable to prevent the imperialists
from defending the place. But the sack of Magdeburg was accompanied by
circumstances of peculiar horror. Scarcely had the first rush taken
place over the walls when, either intentionally or by accident, some of
the houses were set on fire. In the excitement of plunder or of terror
no one thought of stopping the progress of the flames. The conquerors,
angered by the thought that their booty was being snatched away from
before their eyes by an enemy more irresistible than themselves, were
inflamed almost to madness. Few could meet that infuriated soldiery and
live. Whilst every form of death, and of outrage worse than death, was
encountered in the streets, the shrieks of the wretched victims were
overpowered by the roaring of the flames. In a few hours the great city,
the virgin fortress which had resisted Charles V. and Wallenstein, with
the exception of the Cathedral and a few houses around it, was reduced
to a blackened ruin, beneath which lay the calcined bones of men, of
tender women, and of innocent babes.
[Sidenote: § 10. Tilly's part in the matter.]
For the horrors of that day Tilly was not personally responsible. He
would have hindered the storm if he had been able. The tales which
carried through all Protestant Germany the evil deeds of the old
warrior, and represented him as hounding on his men to the wretched
work, were pure inventions. He had nothing to gain by the destruction of
Magdeburg. He had everything to gain by saving it as a basis of
operations for his army.
[Sidenote: § 11. False policy which led to the disaster.]
But if Tilly was not responsible for the consequences of the siege, he
and his masters were responsible for the policy which had made the siege
possible. That cathedral standing out from amidst the ruins of Magdeburg
was but too apt a symbol of the work which he and the League had set
themselves to do. That the rights of the clergy and the church might be
maintained, all the homes and dwellings of men in Germany were to be
laid waste, all the social and political arrangements to which they had
attached themselves were to be dashed into ruin.
[Sidenote: § 12. Ferdinand refuses to cancel the Edict of Restitution.]
Even now Ferdinand was preparing his answer to the last appeal of the
faithful Protestant estates. The Edict of Restitution he would maintain
to the uttermost. Of the armament of the princes he spoke in terms of
contemptuous arrogance. Let John George and his companions in ill-doing
dismiss their soldiers, and not presume to dictate terms by force to the
head of the Empire. Ferdinand had declared the law as it was, and by the
law he meant to abide.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE VICTORIES OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
SECTION I.--_Alliance between the Swedes and the Saxons._
[Sidenote: 1631.
§ 1. The camp of Werben.]
A great fear fell upon the minds of all Protestant men. The cities of
the south, Augsburg and Nüremberg, which had begun to protest against
the execution of the edict, fell back into silence. In the north,
Gustavus, using terror to counteract terror, planted his cannon before
the walls of Berlin, and wrung from his reluctant brother-in-law the
renunciation of his neutrality. But such friendship could last no longer
than the force which imposed it, and John George could not be won so
easily. William of Hesse Cassel was the first of the German princes to
come voluntarily into the camp of Gustavus. Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar came
too, young as he was, full of military experience, and full too of
memories of his forefathers, the heroes of that old Saxon line which had
forfeited the Saxon Electorate for the sake of the Gospel. But neither
William nor Bernhard could bring much more than their own swords.
Gustavus dared not take the offensive. Throwing up an entrenched camp at
Werben, where the Havel joins the Elbe, he waited for Tilly, and
repulsed an attack made upon him. But what was such a victory worth?
Hardships and disease were thinning his ranks, and unless aid came, the
end would be very near.
[Sidenote: § 2. Tilly reinforced.]
The aid which he needed was brought to him by the blindness of
Ferdinand. At last the results of the treaty of Cherasco were making
themselves felt. The troops from Italy had reached the north, and, in
August, Tilly was at the head of 40,000 men. With the reinforcements
came orders from the Emperor. The tame deflection of John George from
the line of strict obedience was no longer to be borne. Tilly must
compel him to lay down his arms, or to join in the war against the
foreign invasion.
[Sidenote: § 3. Summons John George to disarm.]
These orders reached Tilly on August 18. On the 24th he sent a message
to the Elector, asking him by what right he was in arms against the laws
of the Empire. John George had some difficulty in finding an answer, but
he refused to dismiss his troops.
[Sidenote: § 4. Attacks Saxony.]
If Tilly had only let the Elector alone, he would probably have had
nothing to fear from him for some time to come. But Tilly knew no policy
beyond the letter of his instructions. He at once crossed the Saxon
frontier. Pappenheim seized Merseburg. Tilly reduced Leipzig to
surrender by the threat that he would deal with the city worse than with
Magdeburg. The Elector, so long unwilling to draw the sword, was beyond
measure angry. He sent speedy couriers to Gustavus, offering his
alliance on any terms.
[Sidenote: § 5. Union of the Swedes and the Saxons.]
Gustavus did not wait for a second bidding. The wish of his heart was at
last accomplished. He put his forces at once in motion, bringing the
Elector of Brandenburg with him. The Saxon commander was the Lutheran
Arnim, the very man who had led Wallenstein's troops to the siege of
Stralsund. The Edict of Restitution had taught him that Wallenstein's
idea of a Germany united without respect for differences of religion
was not to be realized under Ferdinand. He had thrown up his post, and
had sought service with John George. Without being in any way a man of
commanding ability, he had much experience in war.
[Sidenote: § 6. The Saxon troops.]
The Saxon soldiers were a splendid sight. New clothed and new armed,
they had with them all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.
But they had had no experience of fighting. They were as raw as
Wallenstein's troops had been when he first entered the diocese of
Halberstadt in 1625.
[Sidenote: § 7. The Swedish troops.]
The Swedes were a rabble rout to look upon, at least in the eyes of the
inexperienced Saxons. Their new allies laughed heartily at their
uniforms, ragged with long service and soiled with the dust of the camp
and the bivouac. But the war-worn men had confidence in their general,
and their general had confidence in them.
[Sidenote: § 8. Gustavus as a commander.]
Such confidence was based on even better grounds than the confidence of
the veterans of the League in Tilly. Tilly was simply an excellent
commander of the old Spanish school. He had won his battles by his power
of waiting till he was superior in numbers. When the battles came they
were what are generally called soldiers' battles. The close-packed
columns won their way to victory by sheer push of pike. But Gustavus,
like all great commanders, was an innovator in the art of war. To the
heavy masses of the enemy he opposed lightness and flexibility. His
cannon were more easily moved, his muskets more easily handled. In
rapidity of fire he was as superior to the enemy as Frederick the Great
with his iron ramrods at Mollwitz, or Moltke with his needle-guns at
Sadowa. He had, too, a new method of drill. His troops were drawn up
three deep, and were capable of manoeuvering with a precision which
might be looked for in vain from the solid columns of the imperialists.