This eBook was produced by David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
THE WORKS
OF
FREDERICK SCHILLER
Translated from the German
Illustrated
HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY.
BOOK II.
The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new
direction, a new scene, and new actors. From a rebellion in Bohemia,
and the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany, and
afterwards to Europe. It is, therefore, necessary to take a general
survey of the state of affairs both in Germany and the rest of Europe.
Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members
were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, neither
party could hope to maintain itself against the encroachments of its
adversary otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages,
and by a politic union among themselves. If the Roman Catholics were
the more numerous party, and more favoured by the constitution of the
empire, the Protestants, on the other hand, had the advantage of
possessing a more compact and populous line of territories, valiant
princes, a warlike nobility, numerous armies, flourishing free towns,
the command of the sea, and even at the worst, certainty of support from
Roman Catholic states. If the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy in
their favour, the republics of Venice, Holland, and England, opened
their treasures to the Protestants, while the states of the North and
the formidable power of Turkey, stood ready to afford them prompt
assistance. Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate, opposed three
Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes in the Electoral College; while
to the Elector of Bohemia, as to the Archduke of Austria, the possession
of the Imperial dignity was an important check, if the Protestants
properly availed themselves of it. The sword of the Union might keep
within its sheath the sword of the League; or if matters actually came
to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful. But, unfortunately,
private interests dissolved the band of union which should have held
together the Protestant members of the empire. This critical
conjuncture found none but second-rate actors on the political stage,
and the decisive moment was neglected because the courageous were
deficient in power, and the powerful in sagacity, courage, and
resolution.
The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants,
by the services of his ancestor Maurice, by the extent of his
territories, and by the influence of his electoral vote. Upon the
resolution he might adopt, the fate of the contending parties seemed to
depend; and John George was not insensible to the advantages which this
important situation procured him. Equally valuable as an ally, both to
the Emperor and to the Protestant Union, he cautiously avoided
committing himself to either party; neither trusting himself by any
irrevocable declaration entirely to the gratitude of the Emperor, nor
renouncing the advantages which were to be gained from his fears.
Uninfected by the contagion of religious and romantic enthusiasm which
hurried sovereign after sovereign to risk both crown and life on the
hazard of war, John George aspired to the more solid renown of improving
and advancing the interests of his territories. His cotemporaries
accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause in the very midst of the
storm; of preferring the aggrandizement of his house to the emancipation
of his country; of exposing the whole Evangelical or Lutheran church of
Germany to ruin, rather than raise an arm in defence of the Reformed or
Calvinists; of injuring the common cause by his suspicious friendship
more seriously than the open enmity of its avowed opponents. But it
would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy of the
Elector. If, despite of the prudent policy, the Saxons, like all
others, groaned at the cruelties which marked the Emperor's progress; if
all Germany was a witness how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and
trifled with his engagements; if even the Elector himself at last
perceived this--the more shame to the Emperor who could so basely betray
such implicit confidence.
If an excessive reliance on the Emperor, and the hope of enlarging his
territories, tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony, the weak George
William, Elector of Brandenburg, was still more shamefully fettered by
fear of Austria, and of the loss of his dominions. What was made a
reproach against these princes would have preserved to the Elector
Palatine his fame and his kingdom. A rash confidence in his untried
strength, the influence of French counsels, and the temptation of a
crown, had seduced that unfortunate prince into an enterprise for which
he had neither adequate genius nor political capacity. The partition of
his territories among discordant princes, enfeebled the Palatinate,
which, united, might have made a longer resistance.
This partition of territory was equally injurious to the House of Hesse,
in which, between Darmstadt and Cassel, religious dissensions had
occasioned a fatal division. The line of Darmstadt, adhering to the
Confession of Augsburg, had placed itself under the Emperor's
protection, who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel.
While his religious confederates were shedding their blood for their
faith and their liberties, the Landgrave of Darmstadt was won over by
the Emperor's gold. But William of Cassel, every way worthy of his
ancestor who, a century before, had defended the freedom of Germany
against the formidable Charles V., espoused the cause of danger and of
honour. Superior to that pusillanimity which made far more powerful
princes bow before Ferdinand's might, the Landgrave William was the
first to join the hero of Sweden, and to set an example to the princes
of Germany which all had hesitated to begin. The boldness of his
resolve was equalled by the steadfastness of his perseverance and the
valour of his exploits. He placed himself with unshrinking resolution
before his bleeding country, and boldly confronted the fearful enemy,
whose hands were still reeking from the carnage of Magdeburg.
The Landgrave William deserves to descend to immortality with the heroic
race of Ernest. Thy day of vengeance was long delayed, unfortunate John
Frederick! Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince! Slowly but brightly it
broke. Thy times returned, and thy heroic spirit descended on thy
grandson. An intrepid race of princes issues from the Thuringian
forests, to shame, by immortal deeds, the unjust sentence which robbed
thee of the electoral crown--to avenge thy offended shade by heaps of
bloody sacrifice. The sentence of the conqueror could deprive thee of
thy territories, but not that spirit of patriotism which staked them,
nor that chivalrous courage which, a century afterwards, was destined to
shake the throne of his descendant. Thy vengeance and that of Germany
whetted the sacred sword, and one heroic hand after the other wielded
the irresistible steel. As men, they achieved what as sovereigns they
dared not undertake; they met in a glorious cause as the valiant
soldiers of liberty. Too weak in territory to attack the enemy with
their own forces, they directed foreign artillery against them, and led
foreign banners to victory.
The liberties of Germany, abandoned by the more powerful states, who,
however, enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them, were
defended by a few princes for whom they were almost without value. The
possession of territories and dignities deadened courage; the want of
both made heroes. While Saxony, Brandenburg, and the rest drew back in
terror, Anhalt, Mansfeld, the Prince of Weimar and others were shedding
their blood in the field. The Dukes of Pomerania, Mecklenburg,
Luneburg, and Wirtemberg, and the free cities of Upper Germany, to whom
the name of EMPEROR was of course a formidable one, anxiously avoided a
contest with such an opponent, and crouched murmuring beneath his mighty
arm.
Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria a
champion as prudent as he was powerful. Adhering throughout the war to
one fixed plan, never divided between his religion and his political
interests; not the slavish dependent of Austria, who was labouring for
HIS advancement, and trembled before her powerful protector, Maximilian
earned the territories and dignities that rewarded his exertions. The
other Roman Catholic states, which were chiefly Ecclesiastical, too
unwarlike to resist the multitudes whom the prosperity of their
territories allured, became the victims of the war one after another,
and were contented to persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit, the
enemy whom they could not openly oppose in the field. All of them,
slaves either to Austria or Bavaria, sunk into insignificance by the
side of Maximilian; in his hand alone their united power could be
rendered available.
The formidable monarchy which Charles V. and his son had unnaturally
constructed of the Netherlands, Milan, and the two Sicilies, and their
distant possessions in the East and West Indies, was under Philip III.
and Philip IV. fast verging to decay. Swollen to a sudden greatness by
unfruitful gold, this power was now sinking under a visible decline,
neglecting, as it did, agriculture, the natural support of states. The
conquests in the West Indies had reduced Spain itself to poverty, while
they enriched the markets of Europe; the bankers of Antwerp, Venice, and
Genoa, were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the
mines of Peru. For the sake of India, Spain had been depopulated, while
the treasures drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of
Holland, in the chimerical project of changing the succession to the
crown of France, and in an unfortunate attack upon England. But the
pride of this court had survived its greatness, as the hate of its
enemies had outlived its power. Distrust of the Protestants suggested
to the ministry of Philip III. the dangerous policy of his father; and
the reliance of the Roman Catholics in Germany on Spanish assistance,
was as firm as their belief in the wonder-working bones of the martyrs.
External splendour concealed the inward wounds at which the life-blood
of this monarchy was oozing; and the belief of its strength survived,
because it still maintained the lofty tone of its golden days. Slaves
in their palaces, and strangers even upon their own thrones, the Spanish
nominal kings still gave laws to their German relations; though it is
very doubtful if the support they afforded was worth the dependence by
which the emperors purchased it. The fate of Europe was decided behind
the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive favourites. Yet, even in
its debasement, a power must always be formidable, which yields to none
in extent; which, from custom, if not from the steadfastness of its
views, adhered faithfully to one system of policy; which possessed
well-disciplined armies and consummate generals; which, where the sword
failed, did not scruple to employ the dagger; and converted even its
ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins. What it had lost in three
quarters of the globe, it now sought to regain to the eastward, and all
Europe was at its mercy, if it could succeed in its long cherished
design of uniting with the hereditary dominions of Austria all that lay
between the Alps and the Adriatic.
To the great alarm of the native states, this formidable power had
gained a footing in Italy, where its continual encroachments made the
neighbouring sovereigns to tremble for their own possessions. The Pope
himself was in the most dangerous situation; hemmed in on both sides by
the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side, and that of Milan upon
the other. Venice was confined between the Austrian Tyrol and the
Spanish territories in Milan. Savoy was surrounded by the latter and
France. Hence the wavering and equivocal policy, which from the time of
Charles V. had been pursued by the Italian States. The double
character which pertained to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate
between two contradictory systems of policy. If the successors of St.
Peter found in the Spanish princes their most obedient disciples, and
the most steadfast supporters of the Papal See, yet the princes of the
States of the Church had in these monarchs their most dangerous
neighbours, and most formidable opponents. If, in the one capacity,
their dearest wish was the destruction of the Protestants, and the
triumph of Austria, in the other, they had reason to bless the arms of
the Protestants, which disabled a dangerous enemy. The one or the other
sentiment prevailed, according as the love of temporal dominion, or zeal
for spiritual supremacy, predominated in the mind of the Pope. But the
policy of Rome was, on the whole, directed to immediate dangers; and it
is well known how far more powerful is the apprehension of losing a
present good, than anxiety to recover a long lost possession. And thus
it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with Austria
for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very
heretics for the destruction of Austria. Strangely blended are the
threads of human affairs! What would have become of the Reformation,
and of the liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of
Rome had had but one interest?
France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its
weight in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had
destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry.
Incapable ministers, the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a
few years the treasures which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had
amassed. Scarce able to maintain their ground against internal
factions, they were compelled to resign to other hands the helm of
European affairs. The same civil war which armed Germany against
itself, excited a similar commotion in France; and Louis XIII. attained
majority only to wage a war with his own mother and his Protestant
subjects. This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry's enlightened
policy, now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under the
command of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a
party within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of
Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom. Too little of a
statesman to suppress, by a prudent toleration, this civil commotion in
its birth, and too little master of the resources of his kingdom to
direct them with energy, Louis XIII. was reduced to the degradation of
purchasing the submission of the rebels by large sums of money. Though
policy might incline him, in one point of view, to assist the Bohemian
insurgents against Austria, the son of Henry the Fourth was now
compelled to be an inactive spectator of their destruction, happy enough
if the Calvinists in his own dominions did not unseasonably bethink them
of their confederates beyond the Rhine. A great mind at the helm of
state would have reduced the Protestants in France to obedience, while
it employed them to fight for the independence of their German brethren.
But Henry IV. was no more, and Richelieu had not yet revived his system
of policy.
While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated
republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness. The
enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the House
of Orange, had converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes,
and had enabled them to maintain their independence in a bloody war
against the Spanish monarchy. Aware how much they owed their own
liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready to assist their
German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so, as both were
opposed to the same enemy, and the liberty of Germany was the best
warrant for that of Holland. But a republic which had still to battle
for its very existence, which, with all its wonderful exertions, was
scarce a match for the formidable enemy within its own territories,
could not be expected to withdraw its troops from the necessary work of
self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous policy in protecting
foreign states.
England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed, under
the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe which the
governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it. Convinced that the
welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,
this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting
every enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian
power. Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend, than
of vigour to execute, her views. While the economical Elizabeth spared
not her treasures to support the Flemings against Spain, and Henry IV.
against the League, James abandoned his daughter, his son-in-law, and
his grandchild, to the fury of their enemies. While he exhausted his
learning to establish the divine right of kings, he allowed his own
dignity to sink into the dust; while he exerted his rhetoric to prove
the absolute authority of kings, he reminded the people of theirs; and
by a useless profusion, sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights--
that of dispensing with his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of
its organ. An innate horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him
from the most just of wars; while his favourite Buckingham practised on
his weakness, and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of
Spanish artifice. While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance
of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with
satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain.
To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the
proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent
encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his
addresses in person to the Spanish princess. But his son lost his
bride, as his son-in-law lost the crown of Bohemia and the Palatine
Electorate; and death alone saved him from the danger of closing his
pacific reign by a war at home, which he never had courage to maintain,
even at a distance.
The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited
burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some
unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the
German war, in order to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.
Two illustrious monarchs, far unequal in personal reputation, but equal
in power and desire of fame, made the North at this time to be
respected. Under the long and active reign of Christian IV., Denmark
had risen into importance. The personal qualifications of this prince,
an excellent navy, a formidable army, well-ordered finances, and prudent
alliances, had combined to give her prosperity at home and influence
abroad. Gustavus Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage, reformed it by
wise laws, and had introduced, for the first time, this newly-organized
state into the field of European politics. What this great prince had
merely sketched in rude outline, was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus, his
still greater grandson.
These two kingdoms, once unnaturally united and enfeebled by their
union, had been violently separated at the time of the Reformation, and
this separation was the epoch of their prosperity. Injurious as this
compulsory union had proved to both kingdoms, equally necessary to each
apart were neighbourly friendship and harmony. On both the evangelical
church leaned; both had the same seas to protect; a common interest
ought to unite them against the same enemy. But the hatred which had
dissolved the union of these monarchies continued long after their
separation to divide the two nations. The Danish kings could not
abandon their pretensions to the Swedish crown, nor the Swedes banish
the remembrance of Danish oppression. The contiguous boundaries of the
two kingdoms constantly furnished materials for international quarrels,
while the watchful jealousy of both kings, and the unavoidable collision
of their commercial interests in the North Seas, were inexhaustible
sources of dispute.
Among the means of which Gustavus Vasa, the founder of the Swedish
monarchy, availed himself to strengthen his new edifice, the Reformation
had been one of the principal. A fundamental law of the kingdom
excluded the adherents of popery from all offices of the state, and
prohibited every future sovereign of Sweden from altering the religious
constitution of the kingdom. But the second son and second successor of
Gustavus had relapsed into popery, and his son Sigismund, also king of
Poland, had been guilty of measures which menaced both the constitution
and the established church. Headed by Charles, Duke of Sudermania, the
third son of Gustavus, the Estates made a courageous resistance, which
terminated, at last, in an open civil war between the uncle and nephew,
and between the King and the people. Duke Charles, administrator of the
kingdom during the absence of the king, had availed himself of
Sigismund's long residence in Poland, and the just displeasure of the
states, to ingratiate himself with the nation, and gradually to prepare
his way to the throne. His views were not a little forwarded by
Sigismund's imprudence. A general Diet ventured to abolish, in favour
of the Protector, the rule of primogeniture which Gustavus had
established in the succession, and placed the Duke of Sudermania on the
throne, from which Sigismund, with his whole posterity, were solemnly
excluded. The son of the new king (who reigned under the name of
Charles IX.) was Gustavus Adolphus, whom, as the son of a usurper, the
adherents of Sigismund refused to recognize. But if the obligations
between monarchy and subjects are reciprocal, and states are not to be
transmitted, like a lifeless heirloom, from hand to hand, a nation
acting with unanimity must have the power of renouncing their allegiance
to a sovereign who has violated his obligations to them, and of filling
his place by a worthier object.
Gustavus Adolphus had not completed his seventeenth year, when the
Swedish throne became vacant by the death of his father. But the early
maturity of his genius enabled the Estates to abridge in his favour the
legal period of minority. With a glorious conquest over himself he
commenced a reign which was to have victory for its constant attendant,
a career which was to begin and end in success. The young Countess of
Brahe, the daughter of a subject, had gained his early affections, and
he had resolved to share with her the Swedish throne. But, constrained
by time and circumstances, he made his attachment yield to the higher
duties of a king, and heroism again took exclusive possession of a heart
which was not destined by nature to confine itself within the limits of
quiet domestic happiness.
Christian IV. of Denmark, who had ascended the throne before the birth
of Gustavus, in an inroad upon Sweden, had gained some considerable
advantages over the father of that hero. Gustavus Adolphus hastened to
put an end to this destructive war, and by prudent sacrifices obtained a
peace, in order to turn his arms against the Czar of Muscovy. The
questionable fame of a conqueror never tempted him to spend the blood of
his subjects in unjust wars; but he never shrunk from a just one. His
arms were successful against Russia, and Sweden was augmented by several
important provinces on the east.
In the meantime, Sigismund of Poland retained against the son the same
sentiments of hostility which the father had provoked, and left no
artifice untried to shake the allegiance of his subjects, to cool the
ardour of his friends, and to embitter his enemies. Neither the great
qualities of his rival, nor the repeated proofs of devotion which Sweden
gave to her loved monarch, could extinguish in this infatuated prince
the foolish hope of regaining his lost throne. All Gustavus's overtures
were haughtily rejected. Unwillingly was this really peaceful king
involved in a tedious war with Poland, in which the whole of Livonia and
Polish Prussia were successively conquered. Though constantly
victorious, Gustavus Adolphus was always the first to hold out the hand
of peace.
This contest between Sweden and Poland falls somewhere about the
beginning of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, with which it is in some
measure connected. It was enough that Sigismund, himself a Roman
Catholic, was disputing the Swedish crown with a Protestant prince, to
assure him the active support of Spain and Austria; while a double
relationship to the Emperor gave him a still stronger claim to his
protection. It was his reliance on this powerful assistance that
chiefly encouraged the King of Poland to continue the war, which had
hitherto turned out so unfavourably for him, and the courts of Madrid
and Vienna failed not to encourage him by high-sounding promises. While
Sigismund lost one place after another in Livonia, Courland, and
Prussia, he saw his ally in Germany advancing from conquest after
conquest to unlimited power. No wonder then if his aversion to peace
kept pace with his losses. The vehemence with which he nourished his
chimerical hopes blinded him to the artful policy of his confederates,
who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed, in order to
overturn, without opposition, the liberties of Germany, and then to
seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest. One circumstance
which had not been calculated on--the magnanimity of Gustavus--
overthrew this deceitful policy. An eight years' war in Poland, so far
from exhausting the power of Sweden, had only served to mature the
military genius of Gustavus, to inure the Swedish army to warfare, and
insensibly to perfect that system of tactics by which they were
afterwards to perform such wonders in Germany.
After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe,
I now resume the thread of my history.
Ferdinand had regained his dominions, but had not indemnified himself
for the expenses of recovering them. A sum of forty millions of
florins, which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced,
would have sufficed to reimburse both himself and his allies; but the
Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum, large as it was.
Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, to whose victorious arm, principally, the
Emperor owed the recovery of his dominions; who, in the service of
religion and the Emperor, had sacrificed his near relation, had the
strongest claims on his gratitude; and moreover, in a treaty which,
before the war, the duke had concluded with the Emperor, he had
expressly stipulated for the reimbursement of all expenses. Ferdinand
felt the full weight of the obligation imposed upon him by this treaty
and by these services, but he was not disposed to discharge it at his
own cost. His purpose was to bestow a brilliant reward upon the duke,
but without detriment to himself. How could this be done better than at
the expense of the unfortunate prince who, by his revolt, had given the
Emperor a right to punish him, and whose offences might be painted in
colours strong enough to justify the most violent measures under the
appearance of law. That, then, Maximilian may be rewarded, Frederick
must be further persecuted and totally ruined; and to defray the
expenses of the old war, a new one must be commenced.
But a still stronger motive combined to enforce the first. Hitherto
Ferdinand had been contending for existence alone; he had been
fulfilling no other duty than that of self-defence. But now, when
victory gave him freedom to act, a higher duty occurred to him, and he
remembered the vow which he had made at Loretto and at Rome, to his
generalissima, the Holy Virgin, to extend her worship even at the risk
of his crown and life. With this object, the oppression of the
Protestants was inseparably connected. More favourable circumstances
for its accomplishment could not offer than those which presented
themselves at the close of the Bohemian war. Neither the power, nor a
pretext of right, were now wanting to enable him to place the Palatinate
in the hands of the Catholics, and the importance of this change to the
Catholic interests in Germany would be incalculable. Thus, in rewarding
the Duke of Bavaria with the spoils of his relation, he at once
gratified his meanest passions and fulfilled his most exalted duties; he
crushed an enemy whom he hated, and spared his avarice a painful
sacrifice, while he believed he was winning a heavenly crown.
In the Emperor's cabinet, the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon
long before fortune had decided against him; but it was only after this
event that they ventured to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary
power. A decree of the Emperor, destitute of all the formalities
required on such occasions by the laws of the Empire, pronounced the
Elector, and three other princes who had borne arms for him at Silesia
and Bohemia, as offenders against the imperial majesty, and disturbers
of the public peace, under the ban of the empire, and deprived them of
their titles and territories. The execution of this sentence against
Frederick, namely the seizure of his lands, was, in further contempt of
law, committed to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy, to the
Duke of Bavaria, and the League. Had the Evangelic Union been worthy of
the name it bore, and of the cause which it pretended to defend,
insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of the
sentence; but it was hopeless for a power which was far from a match
even for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate, to contend against
the united strength of the Emperor, Bavaria, and the League. The
sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector soon detached the
free cities from the Union; and the princes quickly followed their
example. Fortunate in preserving their own dominions, they abandoned
the Elector, their former chief, to the Emperor's mercy, renounced the
Union, and vowed never to revive it again.
But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted the unfortunate
Frederick, and while Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia submitted to the
Emperor, a single man, a soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his
sword, Ernest Count Mansfeld, dared, in the Bohemian town of Pilsen, to
defy the whole power of Austria. Left without assistance after the
battle of Prague by the Elector, to whose service he had devoted
himself, and even uncertain whether Frederick would thank him for his
perseverance, he alone for some time held out against the imperialists,
till the garrison, mutinying for want of pay, sold the town to the
Emperor. Undismayed by this reverse, he immediately commenced new
levies in the Upper Palatinate, and enlisted the disbanded troops of the
Union. A new army of 20,000 men was soon assembled under his banners,
the more formidable to the provinces which might be the object of its
attack, because it must subsist by plunder. Uncertain where this swarm
might light, the neighbouring bishops trembled for their rich
possessions, which offered a tempting prey to its ravages. But, pressed
by the Duke of Bavaria, who now entered the Upper Palatinate, Mansfeld
was compelled to retire. Eluding, by a successful stratagem, the
Bavarian general, Tilly, who was in pursuit of him, he suddenly appeared
in the Lower Palatinate, and there wreaked upon the bishoprics of the
Rhine the severities he had designed for those of Franconia. While the
imperial and Bavarian allies thus overran Bohemia, the Spanish general,
Spinola, had penetrated with a numerous army from the Netherlands into
the Lower Palatinate, which, however, the pacification of Ulm permitted
the Union to defend. But their measures were so badly concerted, that
one place after another fell into the hands of the Spaniards; and at
last, when the Union broke up, the greater part of the country was in
the possession of Spain. The Spanish general, Corduba, who commanded
these troops after the recall of Spinola, hastily raised the siege of
Frankenthal, when Mansfeld entered the Lower Palatinate. But instead of
driving the Spaniards out of this province, he hastened across the Rhine
to secure for his needy troops shelter and subsistence in Alsace. The
open countries on which this swarm of maurauders threw themselves were
converted into frightful deserts, and only by enormous contributions
could the cities purchase an exemption from plunder. Reinforced by this
expedition, Mansfeld again appeared on the Rhine to cover the Lower
Palatinate.
So long as such an arm fought for him, the cause of the Elector
Frederick was not irretrievably lost. New prospects began to open, and
misfortune raised up friends who had been silent during his prosperity.
King James of England, who had looked on with indifference while his
son-in-law lost the Bohemian crown, was aroused from his insensibility
when the very existence of his daughter and grandson was at stake, and
the victorious enemy ventured an attack upon the Electorate. Late
enough, he at last opened his treasures, and hastened to afford supplies
of money and troops, first to the Union, which at that time was
defending the Lower Palatinate, and afterwards, when they retired, to
Count Mansfeld. By his means his near relation, Christian, King of
Denmark, was induced to afford his active support. At the same time,
the approaching expiration of the truce between Spain and Holland
deprived the Emperor of all the supplies which otherwise he might expect
from the side of the Netherlands. More important still was the
assistance which the Palatinate received from Transylvania and Hungary.
The cessation of hostilities between Gabor and the Emperor was scarcely
at an end, when this old and formidable enemy of Austria overran Hungary
anew, and caused himself to be crowned king in Presburg. So rapid was
his progress that, to protect Austria and Hungary, Boucquoi was obliged
to evacuate Bohemia. This brave general met his death at the siege of
Neuhausel, as, shortly before, the no less valiant Dampierre had fallen
before Presburg. Gabor's march into the Austrian territory was
irresistible; the old Count Thurn, and several other distinguished
Bohemians, had united their hatred and their strength with this
irreconcileable enemy of Austria. A vigorous attack on the side of
Germany, while Gabor pressed the Emperor on that of Hungary, might have
retrieved the fortunes of Frederick; but, unfortunately, the Bohemians
and Germans had always laid down their arms when Gabor took the field;
and the latter was always exhausted at the very moment that the former
began to recover their vigour.
Meanwhile Frederick had not delayed to join his protector Mansfeld. In
disguise he entered the Lower Palatinate, of which the possession was at
that time disputed between Mansfeld and the Bavarian general, Tilly, the
Upper Palatinate having been long conquered. A ray of hope shone upon
him as, from the wreck of the Union, new friends came forward. A former
member of the Union, George Frederick, Margrave of Baden, had for some
time been engaged in assembling a military force, which soon amounted to
a considerable army. Its destination was kept a secret till he suddenly
took the field and joined Mansfeld. Before commencing the war, he
resigned his Margraviate to his son, in the hope of eluding, by this
precaution, the Emperor's revenge, if his enterprize should be
unsuccessful. His neighbour, the Duke of Wirtemberg, likewise began to
augment his military force. The courage of the Palatine revived, and he
laboured assiduously to renew the Protestant Union. It was now time for
Tilly to consult for his own safety, and he hastily summoned the Spanish
troops, under Corduba, to his assistance. But while the enemy was
uniting his strength, Mansfeld and the Margrave separated, and the
latter was defeated by the Bavarian general near Wimpfen (1622).
To defend a king whom his nearest relation persecuted, and who was
deserted even by his own father-in-law, there had come forward an
adventurer without money, and whose very legitimacy was questioned. A
sovereign had resigned possessions over which he reigned in peace, to
hazard the uncertain fortune of war in behalf of a stranger. And now
another soldier of fortune, poor in territorial possessions, but rich in
illustrious ancestry, undertook the defence of a cause which the former
despaired of. Christian, Duke of Brunswick, administrator of
Halberstadt, seemed to have learnt from Count Mansfeld the secret of
keeping in the field an army of 20,000 men without money. Impelled by
youthful presumption, and influenced partly by the wish of establishing
his reputation at the expense of the Roman Catholic priesthood, whom he
cordially detested, and partly by a thirst for plunder, he assembled a
considerable army in Lower Saxony, under the pretext of espousing the
defence of Frederick, and of the liberties of Germany. "God's Friend,
Priest's Foe", was the motto he chose for his coinage, which was struck
out of church plate; and his conduct belied one half at least of the
device.
The progress of these banditti was, as usual, marked by the most
frightful devastation. Enriched by the spoils of the chapters of Lower
Saxony and Westphalia, they gathered strength to plunder the bishoprics
upon the Upper Rhine. Driven from thence, both by friends and foes, the
Administrator approached the town of Hoechst on the Maine, which he
crossed after a murderous action with Tilly, who disputed with him the
passage of the river. With the loss of half his army he reached the
opposite bank, where he quickly collected his shattered troops, and
formed a junction with Mansfeld. Pursued by Tilly, this united host
threw itself again into Alsace, to repeat their former ravages. While
the Elector Frederick followed, almost like a fugitive mendicant, this
swarm of plunderers which acknowledged him as its lord, and dignified
itself with his name, his friends were busily endeavouring to effect a
reconciliation between him and the Emperor. Ferdinand took care not to
deprive them of all hope of seeing the Palatine restored to his
dominion. Full of artifice and dissimulation, he pretended to be
willing to enter into a negotiation, hoping thereby to cool their ardour
in the field, and to prevent them from driving matters to extremity.
James I., ever the dupe of Spanish cunning, contributed not a little, by
his foolish intermeddling, to promote the Emperor's schemes. Ferdinand
insisted that Frederick, if he would appeal to his clemency, should,
first of all, lay down his arms, and James considered this demand
extremely reasonable. At his instigation, the Elector dismissed his
only real defenders, Count Mansfeld and the Administrator, and in
Holland awaited his own fate from the mercy of the Emperor.
Mansfeld and Duke Christian were now at a loss for some new name; the
cause of the Elector had not set them in motion, so his dismissal could
not disarm them. War was their object; it was all the same to them in
whose cause or name it was waged. After some vain attempts on the part
of Mansfeld to be received into the Emperor's service, both marched into
Lorraine, where the excesses of their troops spread terror even to the
heart of France. Here they long waited in vain for a master willing to
purchase their services; till the Dutch, pressed by the Spanish General
Spinola, offered to take them into pay. After a bloody fight at Fleurus
with the Spaniards, who attempted to intercept them, they reached
Holland, where their appearance compelled the Spanish general forthwith
to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. But even Holland was soon weary
of these dangerous guests, and availed herself of the first moment to
get rid of their unwelcome assistance. Mansfeld allowed his troops to
recruit themselves for new enterprises in the fertile province of East
Friezeland. Duke Christian, passionately enamoured of the Electress
Palatine, with whom he had become acquainted in Holland, and more
disposed for war than ever, led back his army into Lower Saxony, bearing
that princess's glove in his hat, and on his standards the motto "All
for God and Her". Neither of these adventurers had as yet run their
career in this war.
All the imperial territories were now free from the enemy; the Union was
dissolved; the Margrave of Baden, Duke Christian, and Mansfeld, driven
from the field, and the Palatinate overrun by the executive troops of
the empire. Manheim and Heidelberg were in possession of Bavaria, and
Frankenthal was shortly afterwards ceded to the Spaniards. The
Palatine, in a distant corner of Holland, awaited the disgraceful
permission to appease, by abject submission, the vengeance of the
Emperor; and an Electoral Diet was at last summoned to decide his fate.
That fate, however, had been long before decided at the court of the
Emperor; though now, for the first time, were circumstances favourable
for giving publicity to the decision. After his past measures towards
the Elector, Ferdinand believed that a sincere reconciliation was not to
be hoped for. The violent course he had once begun, must be completed
successfully, or recoil upon himself. What was already lost was
irrecoverable; Frederick could never hope to regain his dominions; and a
prince without territory and without subjects had little chance of
retaining the electoral crown. Deeply as the Palatine had offended
against the House of Austria, the services of the Duke of Bavaria were
no less meritorious. If the House of Austria and the Roman Catholic
church had much to dread from the resentment and religious rancour of
the Palatine family, they had as much to hope from the gratitude and
religious zeal of the Bavarian. Lastly, by the cession of the Palatine
Electorate to Bavaria, the Roman Catholic religion would obtain a
decisive preponderance in the Electoral College, and secure a permanent
triumph in Germany.
The last circumstance was sufficient to win the support of the three
Ecclesiastical Electors to this innovation; and among the Protestants
the vote of Saxony was alone of any importance. But could John George
be expected to dispute with the Emperor a right, without which he would
expose to question his own title to the electoral dignity? To a prince
whom descent, dignity, and political power placed at the head of the
Protestant church in Germany, nothing, it is true, ought to be more
sacred than the defence of the rights of that church against all the
encroachments of the Roman Catholics. But the question here was not
whether the interests of the Protestants were to be supported against
the Roman Catholics, but which of two religions equally detested, the
Calvinistic and the Popish, was to triumph over the other; to which of
the two enemies, equally dangerous, the Palatinate was to be assigned;
and in this clashing of opposite duties, it was natural that private
hate and private gain should determine the event. The born protector of
the liberties of Germany, and of the Protestant religion, encouraged the
Emperor to dispose of the Palatinate by his imperial prerogative; and to
apprehend no resistance on the part of Saxony to his measures on the
mere ground of form. If the Elector was afterwards disposed to retract
this consent, Ferdinand himself, by driving the Evangelical preachers
from Bohemia, was the cause of this change of opinion; and, in the eyes
of the Elector, the transference of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria
ceased to be illegal, as soon as Ferdinand was prevailed upon to cede
Lusatia to Saxony, in consideration of six millions of dollars, as the
expenses of the war.
Thus, in defiance of all Protestant Germany, and in mockery of the
fundamental laws of the empire, which, as his election, he had sworn to
maintain, Ferdinand at Ratisbon solemnly invested the Duke of Bavaria
with the Palatinate, without prejudice, as the form ran, to the rights
which the relations or descendants of Frederick might afterwards
establish. That unfortunate prince thus saw himself irrevocably driven
from his possessions, without having been even heard before the tribunal
which condemned him--a privilege which the law allows to the meanest
subject, and even to the most atrocious criminal.
This violent step at last opened the eyes of the King of England; and as
the negociations for the marriage of his son with the Infanta of Spain
were now broken off, James began seriously to espouse the cause of his
son-in-law. A change in the French ministry had placed Cardinal
Richelieu at the head of affairs, and this fallen kingdom soon began to
feel that a great mind was at the helm of state. The attempts of the
Spanish Viceroy in Milan to gain possession of the Valtelline, and thus
to form a junction with the Austrian hereditary dominions, revived the
olden dread of this power, and with it the policy of Henry the Great.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales with Henrietta of France,
established a close union between the two crowns; and to this alliance,
Holland, Denmark, and some of the Italian states presently acceded. Its
object was to expel, by force of arms, Spain from the Valtelline, and to
compel Austria to reinstate Frederick; but only the first of these
designs was prosecuted with vigour. James I. died, and Charles I.,
involved in disputes with his Parliament, could not bestow attention on
the affairs of Germany. Savoy and Venice withheld their assistance; and
the French minister thought it necessary to subdue the Huguenots at
home, before he supported the German Protestants against the Emperor.
Great as were the hopes which had been formed from this alliance, they
were yet equalled by the disappointment of the event.
Mansfeld, deprived of all support, remained inactive on the Lower Rhine;
and Duke Christian of Brunswick, after an unsuccessful campaign, was a
second time driven out of Germany. A fresh irruption of Bethlen Gabor
into Moravia, frustrated by the want of support from the Germans,
terminated, like all the rest, in a formal peace with the Emperor. The
Union was no more; no Protestant prince was in arms; and on the
frontiers of Lower Germany, the Bavarian General Tilly, at the head of a
victorious army, encamped in the Protestant territory. The movements of
the Duke of Brunswick had drawn him into this quarter, and even into the
circle of Lower Saxony, when he made himself master of the
Administrator's magazines at Lippstadt. The necessity of observing this
enemy, and preventing him from new inroads, was the pretext assigned for
continuing Tilly's stay in the country. But, in truth, both Mansfeld
and Duke Christian had, from want of money, disbanded their armies, and
Count Tilly had no enemy to dread. Why, then, still burden the country
with his presence?