FERDINAND II.
From 1621 to 1629.
Pusillanimity of Frederic.--Intreaties of the Citizens of
Prague.--Shameful Flight of Frederic.--Vengeance Inflicted Upon
Bohemia.--Protestantism and Civil Freedom.--Vast Power of the
Emperor.--Alarm of Europe.--James I.--Treaty of Marriage for the Prince
of Wales.--Cardinal Richelieu.--New League of the Protestants.--
Desolating War.--Defeat of the King of Denmark.--Energy of
Wallenstein.--Triumph of Ferdinand.--New Acts of Intolerance.--
Severities in Bohemia.--Desolation of the Kingdom.--Dissatisfaction of
the Duke of Bavaria.--Meeting of the Catholic Princes.--The Emperor
Humbled.
The citizens of Prague were indignant at the pusillanimity of Frederic.
In a body they repaired to the palace and tried to rouse his feeble
spirits. They urged him to adopt a manly resistance, and offered to
mount the ramparts and beat off the foe until succor could arrive. But
Frederic told them that he had resolved to leave Prague, that he should
escape during the darkness of the night, and advised them to capitulate
on the most favorable terms they could obtain. The inhabitants of the
city were in despair. They knew that they had nothing to hope from the
clemency of the conqueror, and that there was no salvation for them from
irretrievable ruin but in the most desperate warfare. Even now, though
the enemy was at their gates, their situation was by no means hopeless
with a leader of any energy.
"We have still," they urged, "sufficient strength to withstand a siege.
The city is not invested on every side, and reinforcements can enter by
some of the gates. We have ample means in the city to support all the
troops which can be assembled within its walls. The soldiers who have
escaped from the disastrous battle need but to see the Bohemian banners
again unfurled and to hear the blast of the bugle, to return to their
ranks. Eight thousand troops are within a few hours' march of us. There
is another strong band in the rear of the enemy, prepared to cut off
their communications. Several strong fortresses, filled with arms and
ammunition, are still in our possession, and the Bohemians, animated by
the remembrance of the heroic deeds of their ancestors, are eager to
retrieve their fortunes."
Had Frederic possessed a tithe of the perseverance and energy of
Ferdinand, with these resources he might soon have arrested the steps of
the conqueror. Never was the characteristic remark of Napoleon to Ney
better verified, that "an army of deer led by a lion is better than an
army of lions led by a deer." Frederic was panic-stricken for fear he
might fall into the hands of Ferdinand, from whom he well knew that he
was to expect no mercy. With ignominious haste, abandoning every thing,
even the coronation regalia, at midnight, surrounded by a few friends,
he stole out at one of the gates of the city, and putting spurs to his
horse, allowed himself no rest until he was safe within the walls of
Berlin, two hundred miles from Prague.
The despairing citizens, thus deserted by their sovereign, and with a
victorious foe at their very walls, had no alternative but to throw open
their gates and submit to the mercy of the conqueror. The next day the
whole imperial army, under the Duke of Bavaria, with floating banners
and exultant music, entered the streets of the capital, and took
possession of the palaces. The tyrant Ferdinand was as vengeful and
venomous as he was vigorous and unyielding. The city was immediately
disarmed, and the government intrusted to a vigorous Roman Catholic
prince, Charles of Lichtenstein. A strong garrison was left in the city
to crush, with a bloody hand, any indications of insurrection, and then
the Duke of Bavaria returned with most of his army to Munich, his
capital, tottering beneath the burden of plunder.
There was a moment's lull before the tempest of imperial wrath burst
upon doomed Bohemia. Ferdinand seemed to deliberate, and gather his
strength, that he might strike a blow which would be felt forever. He
did strike such a blow--one which has been remembered for two hundred
years, and which will not be forgotten for ages to come--one which
doomed parents and children to weary years of vagabondage, penury and
woe which must have made life a burden.
On the night of the 21st of January, three months after the
capitulation, and when the inhabitants of Prague had begun to hope that
there might, after all, be some mercy in the bosom of Ferdinand, forty
of the leading citizens of the place were simultaneously arrested. They
were torn from their families and thrown into dungeons where they were
kept in terrific suspense for four months. They were then brought before
an imperial commission and condemned as guilty of high treason. All
their property was confiscated, nothing whatever being left for their
helpless families. Twenty-three were immediately executed upon the
scaffold, and all the rest were either consigned to life-long
imprisonment, or driven into banishment. Twenty-seven other nobles, who
had escaped from the kingdom, were declared traitors. Their castles were
seized, their property confiscated and presented as rewards to Roman
Catholic nobles who were the friends of Ferdinand. An order was then
issued for all the nobles and landholders throughout the kingdom to send
in a confession of whatever aid they had rendered, or encouragement they
had given to the insurrection. And the most terrible vengeance was
threatened against any one who should afterward be proved guilty of any
act whatever of which he had not made confession. The consternation
which this decree excited was so great, that not only was every one
anxious to confess the slightest act which could be construed as
unfriendly to the emperor, but many, in their terror, were driven to
accuse themselves of guilt, who had taken no share in the movement.
Seven hundred nobles, and the whole body of Protestant landholders,
placed their names on the list of those who confessed guilt and implored
pardon.
The fiend-like emperor, then, in the mockery of mercy, declared that in
view of his great clemency and their humble confession, he would spare
their forfeited lives, and would only punish them by depriving them of
their estates. He took their mansions, their estates, their property,
and turned them adrift upon the world, with their wives and their
children, fugitives and penniless. Thus between one and two thousand of
the most ancient and noble families of the kingdom were rendered
houseless and utterly beggared. Their friends, involved with them in the
same woe, could render no assistance. They were denounced as traitors;
no one dared befriend them, and their possessions were given to those
who had rallied beneath the banners of the emperor. "To the victors
belong the spoils." No pen can describe the ruin of these ancient
families. No imagination can follow them in their steps of starvation
and despair, until death came to their relief.
Ferdinand considered Protestantism and rebellion as synonymous terms.
And well he might, for Protestantism has ever been arrayed as firmly
against civil as against religious despotism. The doctrines of the
reformers, from the days of Luther and Calvin, have always been
associated with political liberty. Ferdinand was determined to crush
Protestantism. The punishment of the Elector Palatine was to be a signal
and an appalling warning to all who in future should think of disputing
the imperial sway. The elector himself, having renounced the throne, had
escaped beyond the emperor's reach. But Ferdinand took possession of his
ancestral territories and divided them among his Roman Catholic allies.
The electoral vote which he held in the diet of the empire, Ferdinand
transferred to the Duke of Bavaria, thus reducing the Protestant vote to
two, and securing an additional Catholic suffrage. The ban of the empire
was also published against the Prince of Anhalt, the Count of Hohenloe,
and the Duke Jaegendorf, who had been supporters of Frederic. This ban
of the empire deprived them of their territories, of their rank, and of
their possessions.
The Protestants throughout the empire were terrified by these fierce
acts of vengeance, and were fearful of sharing the same fate. They now
regretted bitterly that they had disbanded their organization. They
dared not make any move against the emperor, who was flushed with pride
and power, lest he should pounce at once upon them. The emperor
consequently marched unimpeded in his stern chastisements. Frederic was
thus deserted entirely by the Protestant union; and his father-in-law,
James of England, in accordance with his threat, refused to lend him any
aid. Various most heroic efforts were made by a few intrepid nobles but
one after another they were crushed by the iron hand of the emperor.
Ferdinand, having thus triumphed over all his foes, and having divided
their domains among his own followers, called a meeting of the electors
who were devoted to his cause, at Ratisbon, on the 25th of February,
1623, to confirm what he had done. In every portion of the empire, where
the arm of the emperor could reach them, the Protestants were receiving
heavy blows. They were now thoroughly alarmed and aroused. The Catholics
all over Europe were renewing their league; all the Catholic powers were
banded together, and Protestantism seemed on the eve of being destroyed
by the sword of persecution.
Other parts of Europe also began to look with alarm upon the vast power
acquired by Austria. There was but little of conciliation in the
character of Ferdinand, and his unbounded success, while it rendered him
more haughty, excited also the jealousy of the neighboring powers. In
Lower Saxony, nearly all the nobles and men of influence were
Protestants. The principal portion of the ecclesiastical property was in
their hands. It was very evident that unless the despotism of Ferdinand
was checked, he would soon wrest from them their titles and possessions,
and none the less readily because he had succeeded in bribing the
Elector of Saxony to remain neutral while he tore the crown of Bohemia
from the Elector of the Palatine, and despoiled him of his wide-spread
ancestral territories.
James I. of England had been negotiating a marriage of his son, the
Prince of Wales, subsequently Charles I., with the daughter of the King
of Spain. This would have been, in that day, a brilliant match for his
son; and as the Spanish monarch was a member of the house of Austria,
and a coöperator with his cousin, the Emperor Ferdinand, in all his
measures in Germany, it was an additional reason why James should not
interfere in defense of his son-in-law, Frederic of the Palatine. But
now this match was broken off by the influence of the haughty English
minister Buckingham, who had the complete control of the feeble mind of
the British monarch. A treaty of marriage was soon concluded between the
Prince of Wales and Henrietta, a princess of France. There was
hereditary hostility between France and Spain, and both England and
France were now quite willing to humble the house of Austria. The nobles
of Lower Saxony availed themselves of this new turn in the posture of
affairs, and obtained promises of aid from them both, and, through their
intercession, aid also from Denmark and Sweden.
Richelieu, the imperious French minister, was embarrassed by two
antagonistic passions. He was eager to humble the house of Austria; and
this he could only do by lending aid to the Protestants. On the other
hand, it was the great object of his ambition to restore the royal
authority to unlimited power, and this he could only accomplish by
aiding the house of Austria to crush the Protestants, whose love of
freedom all despots have abhorred. Impelled by these conflicting
passions, he did all in his power to extirpate Protestantism from
France, while he omitted neither lures nor intrigues to urge the
Protestants in Germany to rise against the despotism of Austria.
Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, was personally inimical to Ferdinand, in
consequence of injuries he had received at his hands. Christian IV. of
Denmark was cousin to Elizabeth, the mother of Frederic, and, in
addition to this interest in the conflict which relationship gave him,
he was also trembling lest some of his own possessions should soon be
wrested from him by the all-grasping emperor. A year was employed, the
year 1624, in innumerable secret intrigues, and plans of combination,
for a general rising of the Protestant powers. It was necessary that the
utmost secrecy should be observed in forming the coalition, and that all
should be ready, at the same moment, to cooperate against a foe so able,
so determined and so powerful.
Matters being thus essentially arranged, the States of Lower Saxony, who
were to take the lead, held a meeting at Segeberg on the 25th of March,
1625. They formed a league for the preservation of their religion and
liberties, settled the amount of money and men which each of the
contracting parties was to furnish, and chose Christian IV., King of
Denmark, their leader. The emperor had for some time suspected that a
confederacy was in the process of formation, and had kept a watchful eye
upon every movement. The vail was now laid aside, and Christian IV.
issued a proclamation, stating the reasons why they had taken up arms
against the emperor. This was the signal for a blaze of war, which
wrapped all northern Europe in a wide conflagration. Victory ebbed and
flowed. Bohemia, Hungary, Denmark, Austria--all the States of the
empire, were swept and devastated by pursuing and retreating armies. But
gradually the emperor gained. First he overwhelmed all opposition in
Lower Saxony, and riveting anew the shackles of despotism, rewarded his
followers with the spoils of the vanquished. Then he silenced every
murmur in Austria, so that no foe dared lift up the voice or peep. Then
he poured his legions into Hungary, swept back the tide of victory which
had been following the Hungarian banners, and struck blow after blow,
until Gabriel Bethlehem was compelled to cry for peace and mercy.
Bohemia, previously disarmed and impoverished, was speedily struck down.
And now the emperor turned his energies against the panic-stricken King
of Denmark. He pursued him from fortress to fortress; attacked him in
the open field, and beat him; attacked him behind his intrenchments, and
drove him from them through the valleys, and over the hills, across
rivers, and into forests; bombarded his cities, plundered his provinces,
shot down his subjects, till the king, reduced almost to the last
extremity, implored peace. The emperor repelled his advances with scorn,
demanding conditions of debasement more to be dreaded than death. The
King of Denmark fled to the isles of the Baltic. Ferdinand took
possession of the shores of this northern sea, and immediately commenced
with vigor creating a fleet, that he might have sea as well as land
forces, that he might pursue the Danish monarch over the water, and that
he might more effectually punish Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. He had
determined to dethrone this monarch, and to transfer the crown of Sweden
to Sigismond, his brother-in-law, King of Poland, who was almost as
zealous a Roman Catholic as was the emperor himself.
He drove the two Dukes of Mecklenburg from their territory, and gave the
rich and beautiful duchy, extending along the south-eastern shore of the
Baltic, to his renowned general, Wallenstein. This fierce, ambitious
warrior was made generalissimo of all the imperial troops by land, and
admiral of the Baltic sea. Ferdinand took possession of all the ports,
from the mouth of the Keil, to Kolberg, at the mouth of the Persante.
Wismar, on the magnificent bay bearing the same name, was made the great
naval depot; and, by building, buying, hiring and robbing, the emperor
soon collected quite a formidable fleet. The immense duchy of Pomerania
was just north-east of Mecklenburg, extending along the eastern shore of
the Baltic sea some hundred and eighty miles, and about sixty miles in
breadth. Though the duke had in no way displeased Ferdinand, the emperor
grasped the magnificent duchy, and held it by the power of his
resistless armies. Crossing a narrow arm of the sea, he took the rich
and populous islands of Rugen and Usedom, and laid siege to the city of
Stralsund, which almost commanded the Baltic sea.
The kings of Sweden and Denmark, appalled by the rapid strides of the
imperial general, united all their strength to resist him. They threw a
strong garrison into Stralsund, and sent the fleets of both kingdoms to
aid in repelling the attack, and succeeded in baffling all the attempts
of Wallenstein, and finally in driving him off, though he had boasted
that "he would reduce Stralsund, even if it were bound to heaven with
chains of adamant." Though frustrated in this attempt, the armies of
Ferdinand had swept along so resistlessly, that the King of Denmark was
ready to make almost any sacrifice for peace. A congress was accordingly
held at Lubec in May, 1629, when peace was made; Ferdinand retaining a
large portion of his conquests, and the King of Denmark engaging no
longer to interfere in the affairs of the empire.
Ferdinand was now triumphant over all his foes. The Protestants
throughout the empire were crushed, and all their allies vanquished. He
now deemed himself omnipotent, and with wild ambition contemplated the
utter extirpation of Protestantism, and the subjugation of nearly all of
Europe to his sway. He formed the most intimate alliance with the branch
of his house ruling over Spain, hoping that thus the house of Austria
might be the arbiter of the fate of Europe. The condition of Europe at
that time was peculiarly favorable for the designs of the emperor.
Charles I. of England was struggling against that Parliament which soon
deprived him both of his crown and his head. France was agitated, from
the Rhine to the Pyrenees, by civil war, the Catholics striving to
exterminate the Protestants. Insurrections in Turkey absorbed all the
energies of the Ottoman court, leaving them no time to think of
interfering with the affairs of Europe. The King of Denmark was
humiliated and prostrate. Sweden was too far distant and too feeble to
excite alarm. Sigismond of Poland was in intimate alliance with the
emperor. Gabriel Bethlehem of Hungary was languishing on a bed of
disease and pain, and only asked permission to die in peace.
The first step which the emperor now took was to revoke all the
concessions which had been granted to the Protestants. In Upper Austria,
where he felt especially strong, he abolished the Protestant worship
utterly. In Lower Austria he was slightly embarrassed by engagements
which he had so solemnly made, and dared not trample upon them without
some little show of moderation. First he prohibited the circulation of
all Protestant books; he then annulled all baptisms and marriages
performed by Protestants; then all Protestants were excluded from
holding any civil or military office; then he issued a decree that all
the children, without exception, should be educated by Catholic priests,
and that every individual should attend Catholic worship. Thus coil by
coil he wound around his subjects the chain of unrelenting intolerance.
In Bohemia he was especially severe, apparently delighting to punish
those who had made a struggle for civil and religious liberty. Every
school teacher, university professor and Christian minister, was ejected
from office, and their places in schools, universities and churches were
supplied by Catholic monks. No person was allowed to exercise any
mechanical trade whatever, unless he professed the Roman Catholic faith.
A very severe fine was inflicted upon any one who should be detected
worshiping at any time, even in family prayer, according to the
doctrines and customs of the Protestant church. Protestant marriages
were pronounced illegal, their children illegitimate, their wills
invalid. The Protestant poor were driven from the hospitals and the
alms-houses. No Protestant was allowed to reside in the capital city of
Prague, but, whatever his wealth or rank, he was driven ignominiously
from the metropolis.
In the smaller towns and remote provinces of the kingdom, a military
force, accompanied by Jesuits and Capuchin friars, sought out the
Protestants, and they were exposed to every conceivable insult and
indignity. Their houses were pillaged, their wives and children
surrendered to all the outrages of a cruel soldiery; many were
massacred; many, hunted like wild beasts, were driven into the forest;
many were put to the torture, and as their bones were crushed and
quivering nerves were torn, they were required to give in their adhesion
to the Catholic faith. The persecution to which the Bohemians were
subjected has perhaps never been exceeded in severity.
While Bohemia was writhing beneath these woes, the emperor, to secure
the succession, repaired in regal pomp to Prague, and crowned his son
King of Bohemia. He then issued a decree abolishing the right which the
Bohemians had claimed, to elect their king, forbade the use of the
Bohemian language in the court and in all public transactions, and
annulled all past edicts of toleration. He proclaimed that no religion
but the Roman Catholic should henceforth be tolerated in Bohemia, and
that all who did not immediately return to the bosom of the Church
should be banished from the kingdom. This cruel edict drove into
banishment thirty thousand families. These Protestant families composed
the best portion of the community, including the most illustrious in
rank, the most intelligent, the most industrious and the most virtuous,
No State could meet with such a loss without feeling it deeply, and
Bohemia has never yet recovered from the blow. One of the Bohemian
historians, himself a Roman Catholic, thus describes the change which
persecution wrought in Bohemia:
"The records of history scarcely furnish a similar example of such a
change as Bohemia underwent during the reign of Ferdinand II. In 1620,
the monks and a few of the nobility only excepted, the whole country was
entirely Protestant. At the death of Ferdinand it was, in appearance at
least, Catholic. Till the battle of the White Mountain the States
enjoyed more exclusive privileges than the Parliament of England. They
enacted laws, imposed taxes, contracted alliances, declared war and
peace, and chose or confirmed their kings. But all these they now lost.
"Till this fatal period the Bohemians were daring, undaunted,
enterprising, emulous of fame; now they have lost all their courage,
their national pride, their enterprising spirit. Their courage lay
buried in the White Mountain. Individuals still possessed personal
valor, military ardor and a thirst of glory, but, blended with other
nations, they resembled the waters of the Moldau which join those of the
Elbe. These united streams bear ships, overflow lands and overturn
rocks; yet the Elbe is only mentioned, and the Moldau forgotten.
"The Bohemian language, which had been used in all the courts of
justice, and which was in high estimation among the nobles, fell into
contempt. The German was introduced, became the general language among
the nobles and citizens, and was used by the monks in their sermons. The
inhabitants of the towns began to be ashamed of their native tongue,
which was confined to the villages and called the language of peasants.
The arts and sciences, so highly cultivated and esteemed under Rhodolph,
sunk beyond recovery. During the period which immediately followed the
banishment of the Protestants, Bohemia scarcely produced one man who
became eminent in any branch of learning. The greater part of the
schools were conducted by Jesuits and other monkish orders, and nothing
taught therein but bad Latin.
"It can not be denied that several of the Jesuits were men of great
learning and science; but their system was to keep the people in
ignorance. Agreeably to this principle they gave their scholars only the
rind, and kept to themselves the pulp of literature. With this view they
traveled from town to town as missionaries, and went from house to
house, examining all books, which the landlord was compelled under pain
of eternal damnation to produce. The greater part they confiscated and
burnt. They thus endeavored to extinguish the ancient literature of the
country, labored to persuade the students that before the introduction
of their order into Bohemia nothing but ignorance prevailed, and
carefully concealed the learned labors and even the names of our
ancestors."
Ferdinand, having thus bound Bohemia hand and foot, and having
accomplished all his purpose in that kingdom, now endeavored, by
cautious but very decisive steps, to expel Protestant doctrines from all
parts of the German empire. Decree succeeded decree, depriving
Protestants of their rights and conferring upon the Roman Catholics
wealth and station. He had a powerful and triumphant standing army at
his control, under the energetic and bigoted Wallenstein, ready and able
to enforce his ordinances. No Protestant prince dared to make any show
of resistance. All the church property was torn from the Protestants,
and this vast sum, together with the confiscated territories of those
Protestant princes or nobles who had ventured to resist the emperor,
placed at his disposal a large fund from which to reward his followers.
The emperor kept, however, a large portion of the spoils in his own
hands for the enriching of his own family.
This state of things soon alarmed even the Catholics. The emperor was
growing too powerful, and his power was bearing profusely its natural
fruit of pride and arrogance. The army was insolent, trampling alike
upon friend and foe. As there was no longer any war, the army had become
merely the sword of the emperor to maintain his despotism. Wallenstein
had become so essential to the emperor, and possessed such power at the
head of the army, that he assumed all the air and state of a sovereign,
and insulted the highest nobles and the most powerful bishops by his
assumptions of superiority. The electors of the empire perceiving that
the emperor was centralizing power in his own hands, and that they would
soon become merely provincial governors, compelled to obey his laws and
subject to his appointment and removal, began to whisper to each other
their alarm.
The Duke of Bavaria was one of the most powerful princes of the German
empire. He had been the rival of Count Wallenstein, and was now
exceedingly annoyed by the arrogance of this haughty military chief.
Wallenstein was the emperor's right arm of strength. Inflamed by as
intense an ambition as ever burned in a human bosom, every thought and
energy was devoted to self-aggrandizement. He had been educated a
Protestant, but abandoned those views for the Catholic faith which
opened a more alluring field to ambition. Sacrificing the passions of
youth he married a widow, infirm and of advanced age, but of great
wealth. The death of his wrinkled bride soon left him the vast property
without incumbrance. He then entered into a matrimonial alliance which
favored his political prospects, marrying Isabella, the daughter of
Count Harruch, who was one of the emperor's greatest favorites.
When Ferdinand's fortunes were at a low ebb, and he knew not in which
way to find either money or an army, Wallenstein offered to raise fifty
thousand men at his own expense, to pay their wages, supply them with
arms and all the munitions of war, and to call upon the emperor for no
pecuniary assistance whatever, if the emperor would allow him to retain
the plunder he could extort from the conquered. Upon this majestic scale
Wallenstein planned to act the part of a highwayman. Ferdinand's
necessities were so great that he gladly availed himself of this
infamous offer. Wallenstein made money by the bargain. Wherever he
marched he compelled the people to support his army, and to support it
luxuriously. The emperor had now constituted him admiral of the Baltic
fleet, and had conferred upon him the title of duke, with the splendid
duchy of Mecklenburg, and the principality of Sagan in Silesia. His
overbearing conduct and his enormous extortions--he having, in seven
years, wrested from the German princes more than four hundred million of
dollars--excited a general feeling of discontent, in which the powerful
Duke of Bavaria took the lead.
Envy is a stronger passion than political religion. Zealous as the Duke
of Bavaria had been in the cause of the papal church, he now forgot that
church in his zeal to abase an arrogant and insulting rival. Richelieu,
the prime minister of France, was eagerly watching for opportunities to
humiliate the house of Austria, and he, with alacrity, met the advances
of the Duke of Bavaria, and conspired with him to form a Catholic
league, to check the ambition of Wallenstein, and to arrest the enormous
strides of the emperor. With this object in view, a large number of the
most powerful Catholic princes met at Heidelberg, in March, 1629, and
passed resolutions soliciting Ferdinand to summon a diet of the German
empire to take into consideration the evils occasioned by the army of
Wallenstein, and to propose a remedy. The emperor had, in his arrogance,
commanded the princes of the various States in the departments of Suabia
and Franconia, to disband their troops. To this demand they returned the
bold and spirited reply,
"Till we have received an indemnification, or a pledge for the payment
of our expenses, we will neither disband a single soldier, nor
relinquish a foot of territory, ecclesiastical or secular, _demand it
who will_."
The emperor did not venture to disregard the request for him to summon a
diet. Indeed he was anxious, on his own account, to convene the
electors, for he wished to secure the election of his son to the throne
of the empire, and he needed succors to aid him in the ambitious wars
which he was waging in various and distant parts of Europe. The diet was
assembled at Ratisbon: the emperor presided in person. As he had
important favors to solicit, he assumed a very conciliatory tone. He
expressed his regret that the troops had been guilty of such disorders,
and promised immediate redress. He then, supposing that his promise
would be an ample satisfaction, very graciously solicited of them the
succession of the imperial throne for his son, and supplies for his
army.
But the electors were not at all in a pliant mood. Some were resolved
that, at all hazards, the imperial army, which threatened Germany,
should be reduced, and that Wallenstein should be dismissed from the
command. Others were equally determined that the crown of the empire
should not descend to the son of Ferdinand. The Duke of Bavaria headed
the party who would debase Wallenstein; and Cardinal Richelieu, with all
the potent influences of intrigue and bribery at the command of the
French court, was the soul of the party resolved to wrest the crown of
the empire from the house of Austria. Richelieu sent two of the most
accomplished diplomatists France could furnish, as ambassadors to the
diet, who, while maintaining, as far as possible, the guise of
friendship, were to do every thing in their power to thwart the election
of Ferdinand's son. These were supplied with inexhaustible means for the
purchase of votes, and were authorized to make any promises, however
extravagant, which should be deemed essential for the attainment of
their object.
Ferdinand, long accustomed to have his own way, was not anticipating any
serious resistance. He was therefore amazed and confounded, when the
diet returned to him, instead of their humble submission and
congratulations, a long, detailed, emphatic remonstrance against the
enormities perpetrated by the imperial army, and demanding the immediate
reduction of the army, now one hundred and fifty thousand strong, and
the dismission of Wallenstein, before they could proceed to any other
business whatever. This bold stand animated the Protestant princes of
the empire, and they began to be clamorous for their rights. Some of the
Catholics even espoused their cause, warning Ferdinand that, unless he
granted the Protestants some degree of toleration, they would seek
redress by joining the enemies of the empire.
It would have been impossible to frame three demands more obnoxious to
the emperor. To crush the Protestants had absorbed the energies of his
life; and now that they were utterly prostrate, to lift them up and
place them on their feet again, was an idea he could not endure. The
imperial army had been his supple tool. By its instrumentality he had
gained all his power, and by its energies alone he retained that power.
To disband the army was to leave himself defenseless. Wallenstein had
been every thing to the emperor, and Ferdinand still needed the support
of his inflexible and unscrupulous energies. Wallenstein was in the
cabinet of the emperor advising him in this hour of perplexity. His
counsel was characteristic of his impetuous, headlong spirit. He advised
the emperor to pour his army into the territory of the Duke of Bavaria;
chastise him and all his associates for their insolence, and thus
overawe the rest. But the Duke of Bavaria was in favor of electing the
emperor's son as his successor on the throne of the empire; and
Ferdinand's heart was fixed upon this object.
"Dismiss Wallenstein, and reduce the army," said the Duke of Bavaria,
"and the Catholic electors will vote for your son; grant the required
toleration to the Protestants, and they will vote for him likewise."
The emperor yielded, deciding in his own mind, aided by the Jesuitical
suggestions of a monk, that he could afterwards recall Wallenstein, and
assemble anew his dispersed battalions. He dismissed sixteen thousand of
his best cavalry; suspended some of the most obnoxious edicts against
the Protestants, and _implored_ Wallenstein to resign his post. The
emperor was terribly afraid that this proud general would refuse, and
would lead the army to mutiny. The emperor accordingly accompanied his
request with every expression of gratitude and regret, and assured the
general of his continued favor. Wallenstein, well aware that the
disgrace would be but temporary, quietly yielded. He dismissed the
envoys of the emperor with presents, wrote a very submissive letter,
and, with much ostentation of obedience, retired to private life.