THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.
From the time of the abdication of Charles V. of Germany the country
had, for about sixty years, enjoyed comparative peace. Luther's
translation of the complete Bible had appeared in 1634. Nearly one
hundred years had been given the plain people to study the word of God,
to see what Christ said and what Paul preached, and to compare them with
the doctrines of the Church as set forth by the priests of Rome.
The work of Luther was destructive as well as constructive. He tore down
what was false in the worship of God. The greater part of the
constructive work of his life was formulated in the Augsburg Confession.
The Diet of Augsburg met in the city of Augsburg in 1530. It consisted
of leading divines of both Protestant and Catholic faith, and of the
princes who upheld the Reformation.
The Protestants set before the emperor, Charles V., on June 25th, 1530,
their doctrines in a remarkable document known as the Augsburg
Confession, or the Augustana. It is the plain statement of the doctrines
of the Lutheran Church the world over, and is the basis from which all
other Protestant confessions are largely taken.
Then followed twenty-five years of the successful propagation of the
doctrines of the Reformation, and the purified faith was accepted not
only in Germany, but in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, the
Netherlands and in England and Scotland.
The Council of Trent, the eighteenth Ecumenical Council of Rome, met
near the time of Luther's death. If it had been called in 1520, when
Luther entreated for the calling of an Ecumenical Council to correct the
abuses existing in the Church, it is quite possible that Luther would
not have come out of the Church of Rome. If King George III. of England
had yielded, even in part, to the prayer of the colonists, what is now
the United States would probably have remained a colony of Great
Britain.
The Council of Trent remained in somewhat interrupted session for over
eighteen years. It was called with some idea of coming to some
understanding with the Protestants, and of bringing them back into the
Catholic Church. The Protestants paid little or no attention to the
call, and the Council contented itself with reforming some of the abuses
within the Church, and reformulating the doctrines of Rome.
The reform party at the Council of Trent demanded "wine as well as bread
in the sacrament for the laity, schools for the poor, church hymns,
preaching and Communion in the language of the people, a better
catechism, reform in convents (some of which were mere houses of
immorality), and the right to marry for the priests." The papal power
called this rank heresy, and the entire council from beginning to end
was a disgraceful spectacle. A few subordinate improvements on church
discipline were granted, but no important reformation of church affairs,
and the farce ended by an exultant proclamation calling down curses on
the heretics.
From that day to this it has been Trent _versus_ Augsburg. These two
great councils were the most important events of the mediæval period. It
is quite possible that the common people did not understand the bearing
of the new religious thought, but the great statesmen of Europe saw that
what is now called the Dark Ages had passed forever.
"The Protestants," says Ranke, "guided by the Scriptures, retraced their
steps with ever-increasing firmness toward the primitive forms of faith
and life. The Catholics, on the contrary, confronted with unflinching
opposition and repelled with determined hostility whatever could recall
the idea of Evangelical doctrines."
At the beginning the Thirty Years' War may be called a religious
quarrel, but it soon became for the house of Hapsburg a scramble for
personal aggrandizement. Ferdinand II. fought for territory, power and
money, and he hoped, by recovering all the property which had belonged
to the Catholic Church before the Reformation, he would attain these
three objects. He followed this idea, although the formal edict was not
announced for several years. It was his intention to break down all
princes, both Catholic and Protestant, of the smaller German States, to
incorporate Denmark, Holland and Italy (the old dream of Charles V.)
into one great empire, and thus restore the old German-Roman Empire. It
was a fine opportunity for self-aggrandizement under the guise of
fighting for his church.
It was not to the interest of France to have the house of Hapsburg
further aggrandized. God used this jealousy and ambition to further the
work of the Reformation, so that France, through Cardinal Richelieu,
became the ally of Gustavus Adolphus, and furnished a monthly stipend
for paying Protestant soldiers, but even more valuable to the cause was
the information and advice of this great Catholic ally. It was now
believed that Richelieu[2] even hoped for a confederacy of the smaller
German States and free cities under the protectorate of France.
Footnote 2:
See Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IV.
Reviewing for a moment the past, we shall remember that Charles V. was
succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand I., who reigned from 1556 to 1564.
Maximilian II., his son, was lenient to the Protestants, and ruled from
1564 to 1576. It was during his reign, in 1572, the St. Bartholomew
massacre occurred in Paris, in which Catherine de Medicis and her son,
Charles IX., caused the murder of over fifty thousand Huguenots, as the
Protestants were called in France. The massacre continued three days and
nights.
Pope Gregory XIII., on hearing the news, openly expressed his joy at
"the glorious event," caused public thanksgiving to be made, and had a
coin struck in commemoration of this vile sin. This event gave warning
to the Protestants that Rome would take advantage of whatever
opportunity offered to destroy Protestantism.
During the great war Rudolph II. ruled Germany from 1576 to 1612,
Mathias from 1612 to 1619, followed now by Ferdinand II. Louis XIII.,
the creature of his minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who, though a
churchman, always put the State before the Church, was the ruler of
France. He was followed by Louis XIV., whose mother, Queen Anne of
Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin ruled till the majority of Louis XIV. The
kings of England were James I., from 1603 to 1625, and Charles I., from
1625 to 1649. The Popes were Paul V., Gregory XV., Urban VIII. and
Innocent X.
The Catholics now formed a strong league. The Protestants already had a
weak union.
Mathias, during a reign of seven years, had favored the Catholics, and
caused Ferdinand, one of the most cruel Catholics who ever lived, to be
elected king of Hungary and Bohemia.
The election of Ferdinand was a great blow to Bohemia, and the new king
lost no time in trying to destroy all the Protestants in his kingdom.
Protestants were persecuted as criminals, and when they appealed to the
law of the land, the Jesuits replied that Ferdinand's election as king
of Bohemia canceled all laws in favor of Protestants.
"_Novus rex, nova lex._" This they declared was what was meant by the
_Reservatum Ecclesiasticum_ in the Augsburg Treaty of Peace. The clause
stipulated that the people of each State should follow the religion of
the ruler of the State. It is true the clause was there, but modified by
two things:
1st. Cities were excepted.
2d. The Evangelical princes had not agreed to the clause and had
protested against it.
Ferdinand's action as king, of course, made an insurrection. How could
it fail to do so?
The Emperor Mathias became frightened and fled to Vienna, after
appointing a regency of four Catholics and three Protestants. The
Protestant regents sent a petition to the Emperor, and the Catholic
regents at the same time sent a report. Mathias ordered the implicit and
instant obedience of the Protestants.
While the seven regents were assembled in an upper room in the palace at
Prague to announce the Emperor's decision, Count Thurn, chief of the
Protestant party, entered the room with a company of armed men. He
demanded of each Catholic regent, "Did you advise the Emperor's
arbitrary reply?" Two of them answered evasively, the other two said,
"Yes, we did." At this point the four Catholic regents were seized and
pitched out of the windows from the third story. They fell on a great
heap of barnyard manure and were not killed. But by this the Protestants
took the responsibility of saying, "By this act we pitch out of our
lives the Pope of Rome, the King of Bohemia and the Emperor of Germany."
The Emperor was in feeble health and desired to make peace, but
Ferdinand dissuaded him, and sent an army against these Protestants. The
army was driven by Count Thurn and his men to the very gates of Vienna,
and were only there turned back by the regular army of Austria.
The winter was coming, and no provision having been made for the
Protestant army, the force returned to Prague.
This was to the Thirty Years' War what the firing on Fort Sumter was in
the Civil War, or the skirmish at Lexington to the Revolutionary War.
Just after this Mathias died and Ferdinand, king of Bohemia, became
Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany. He, with his Jesuits, determined to
retake all property which before the Reformation belonged to the
Catholic Church.
In many places all the people had become Protestants, and the church
having been built by the money of either themselves or their ancestors,
the churches had been used for nearly one hundred years for Protestant
services. Americans can understand the situation by thinking how it
would be and what would happen if England should now demand that all
property owned by the Crown before the Revolutionary War should be
restored.
Ferdinand II. was now to force a war upon his subjects which left Europe
a great cemetery. During the Thirty Years' War the population of Europe
was reduced from sixteen millions to less than six million people.
Thirty-five thousand towns and villages were destroyed.
Three-fourths of the population perished in Bohemia, partly by the
sword, but also by pestilence and famine, and many emigrated. The
question had resolved itself into this, "Shall we permit Protestantism
to be forever exterminated?" It took all this sorrow of destruction of
property and of human life to bring about political toleration between
Protestant and Catholic States.
For thirty-three years Germany seems to have been blind to what was
going on around her. The intellectual impetus given by the Reformation
made the theological strife between Lutherans and Calvinists bitter and
absorbing.
Large districts both south and west of them had been forced back under
the dominion of the Church of Rome, and the Germans did not interfere.
They had done but little for the Dutch in their desperate fight against
the Spanish Hapsburgs and Romanism, so that William of Orange, in
bitterness of heart, had said, "If Germany remains an idle spectator of
our tragedy, a war will presently be kindled on German soil which will
swallow up all the wars which have gone before it." That war was now on.
"No, true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And with heart and hand to be
Earnest to make others free."