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Title: The Garotters
Author: William D. Howells
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Translated from the German
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
BOOK II.
The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted,
gave
to the war a new direction,
a new scene,
and new actors.
From a rebellion in Bohemia,
and the chastisement of rebels,
a war extended first
to Germany,
and afterwards
to Europe.
It is,
therefore,
necessary
to take a general survey of the state of affairs both in Germany and the rest of Europe.
Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants,
neither party could hope
to maintain itself against the encroachments of its adversary otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages,
and by a politic union among themselves.
If the Roman Catholics were the more numerous party,
and more favoured by the constitution of the empire,
the Protestants,
on the other hand,
had the advantage of possessing a more compact and populous line of territories,
valiant princes,
a warlike nobility,
numerous armies,
flourishing free towns,
the command of the sea,
and even at the worst,
certainty of support from Roman Catholic states.
If the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy in their favour,
the republics of Venice,
Holland,
and England,
opened their treasures
to the Protestants,
while the states of the North and the formidable power of Turkey,
stood ready
to afford them prompt assistance.
Brandenburg,
Saxony,
and the Palatinate,
opposed three Protestant
to three Ecclesiastical votes in the Electoral College;
while
to the Elector of Bohemia,
as
to the Archduke of Austria,
the possession of the Imperial dignity was an important check,
if the Protestants properly availed themselves of it.
The sword of the Union might keep within its sheath the sword of the League;
or if matters actually came
to a war,
might make the issue of it doubtful.
But,
unfortunately,
private interests dissolved the band of union which should have held together the Protestant members of the empire.
This critical conjuncture found none but second-rate actors on the political stage,
and the decisive moment was neglected because the courageous were deficient in power,
and the powerful in sagacity,
courage,
and resolution.
The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants,
by the services of his ancestor Maurice,
by the extent of his territories,
and by the influence of his electoral vote.
Upon the resolution he might adopt,
the fate of the contending parties seemed
to depend;
and John George was not insensible
to the advantages which this important situation procured him.
Equally valuable as an ally,
both
to the Emperor and
to the Protestant Union,
he cautiously avoided committing himself
to either party;
neither trusting himself by any irrevocable declaration entirely
to the gratitude of the Emperor,
nor renouncing the advantages which were
to be gained from his fears.
Uninfected by the contagion of religious and romantic enthusiasm which hurried sovereign after sovereign
to risk both crown and life on the hazard of war,
John George aspired
to the more solid renown of improving and advancing the interests of his territories.
His cotemporaries accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause in the very midst of the storm;
of preferring the aggrandizement of his house
to the emancipation of his country;
of exposing the whole Evangelical or Lutheran church of Germany
to ruin,
rather than raise an arm in defence of the Reformed or Calvinists;
of injuring the common cause by his suspicious friendship more seriously than the open enmity of its avowed opponents.
But it would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy of the Elector.
If,
despite of the prudent policy,
the Saxons,
like all others,
groaned at the cruelties which marked the Emperor's progress;
if all Germany was a witness how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and trifled
with his engagements;
if even the Elector himself at last perceived this--the more shame
to the Emperor who could so basely betray such implicit confidence.
If an excessive reliance on the Emperor,
and the hope of enlarging his territories,
tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony,
the weak George William,
Elector of Brandenburg,
was still more shamefully fettered by fear of Austria,
and of the loss of his dominions.
What was made a reproach against these princes would have preserved
to the Elector Palatine his fame and his kingdom.
A rash confidence in his untried strength,
the influence of French counsels,
and the temptation of a crown,
had seduced that unfortunate prince into an enterprise
for which he had neither adequate genius nor political capacity.
The partition of his territories among discordant princes,
enfeebled the Palatinate,
which,
united,
might have made a longer resistance.
This partition of territory was equally injurious
to the House of Hesse,
in which,
between Darmstadt and Cassel,
religious dissensions had occasioned a fatal division.
The line of Darmstadt,
adhering
to the Confession of Augsburg,
had placed itself under the Emperor's protection,
who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel.
While his religious confederates were shedding their blood
for their faith and their liberties,
the Landgrave of Darmstadt was won over by the Emperor's gold.
But William of Cassel,
every way worthy of his ancestor who,
a century before,
had defended the freedom of Germany against the formidable Charles V.,
espoused the cause of danger and of honour.
Superior
to that pusillanimity which made far more powerful princes bow before Ferdinand's might,
the Landgrave William was the first
to join the hero of Sweden,
and
to set an example
to the princes of Germany which all had hesitated
to begin.
The boldness of his resolve was equalled by the steadfastness of his perseverance and the valour of his exploits.
He placed himself
with unshrinking resolution before his bleeding country,
and boldly confronted the fearful enemy,
whose hands were still reeking from the carnage of Magdeburg.
The Landgrave William deserves
to descend
to immortality
with the heroic race of Ernest.
Thy day of vengeance was long delayed,
unfortunate John Frederick! Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince! Slowly but brightly it broke.
Thy times returned,
and thy heroic spirit descended on thy grandson.
An intrepid race of princes issues from the Thuringian forests,
to shame,
by immortal deeds,
the unjust sentence which robbed thee of the electoral crown--to avenge thy offended shade by heaps of bloody sacrifice.
The sentence of the conqueror could deprive thee of thy territories,
but not that spirit of patriotism which staked them,
nor that chivalrous courage which,
a century afterwards,
was destined
to shake the throne of his descendant.
Thy vengeance and that of Germany whetted the sacred sword,
and one heroic hand after the other wielded the irresistible steel.
As men,
they achieved what as sovereigns they dared not undertake;
they met in a glorious cause as the valiant soldiers of liberty.
Too weak in territory
to attack the enemy
with their own forces,
they directed foreign artillery against them,
and led foreign banners
to victory.
The liberties of Germany,
abandoned by the more powerful states,
who,
however,
enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them,
were defended by a few princes
for whom they were almost without value.
The possession of territories and dignities deadened courage;
the want of both made heroes.
While Saxony,
Brandenburg,
and the rest drew back in terror,
Anhalt,
Mansfeld,
the Prince of Weimar and others were shedding their blood in the field.
The Dukes of Pomerania,
Mecklenburg,
Luneburg,
and Wirtemberg,
and the free cities of Upper Germany,
to whom the name of EMPEROR was of course a formidable one,
anxiously avoided a contest
with such an opponent,
and crouched murmuring beneath his mighty arm.
Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria a champion as prudent as he was powerful.
Adhering throughout the war
to one fixed plan,
never divided between his religion and his political interests;
not the slavish dependent of Austria,
who was labouring
for HIS advancement,
and trembled before her powerful protector,
Maximilian earned the territories and dignities that rewarded his exertions.
The other Roman Catholic states,
which were chiefly Ecclesiastical,
too unwarlike
to resist the multitudes whom the prosperity of their territories allured,
became the victims of the war one after another,
and were contented
to persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit,
the enemy whom they could not openly oppose in the field.
All of them,
slaves either
to Austria or Bavaria,
sunk into insignificance by the side of Maximilian;
in his hand alone their united power could be rendered available.
The formidable monarchy which Charles V.
and his son had unnaturally constructed of the Netherlands,
Milan,
and the two Sicilies,
and their distant possessions in the East and West Indies,
was under Philip III.
and Philip IV.
fast verging
to decay.
Swollen
to a sudden greatness by unfruitful gold,
this power was now sinking under a visible decline,
neglecting,
as it did,
agriculture,
the natural support of states.
The conquests in the West Indies had reduced Spain itself
to poverty,
while they enriched the markets of Europe;
the bankers of Antwerp,
Venice,
and Genoa,
were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the mines of Peru.
For the sake of India,
Spain had been depopulated,
while the treasures drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of Holland,
in the chimerical project of changing the succession
to the crown of France,
and in an unfortunate attack upon England.
But the pride of this court had survived its greatness,
as the hate of its enemies had outlived its power.
Distrust of the Protestants suggested
to the ministry of Philip III.
the dangerous policy of his father;
and the reliance of the Roman Catholics in Germany on Spanish assistance,
was as firm as their belief in the wonder-working bones of the martyrs.
External splendour concealed the inward wounds at which the life-blood of this monarchy was oozing;
and the belief of its strength survived,
because it still maintained the lofty tone of its golden days.
Slaves in their palaces,
and strangers even upon their own thrones,
the Spanish nominal kings still gave laws
to their German relations;
though it is very doubtful if the support they afforded was worth the dependence by which the emperors purchased it.
The fate of Europe was decided behind the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive favourites.
Yet,
even in its debasement,
a power must always be formidable,
which yields
to none in extent;
which,
from custom,
if not from the steadfastness of its views,
adhered faithfully
to one system of policy;
which possessed well-disciplined armies and consummate generals;
which,
where the sword failed,
did not scruple
to employ the dagger;
and converted even its ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins.
What it had lost in three quarters of the globe,
it now sought
to regain
to the eastward,
and all Europe was at its mercy,
if it could succeed in its long cherished design of uniting
with the hereditary dominions of Austria all that lay between the Alps and the Adriatic.
To the great alarm of the native states,
this formidable power had gained a footing in Italy,
where its continual encroachments made the neighbouring sovereigns
to tremble
for their own possessions.
The Pope himself was in the most dangerous situation;
hemmed in on both sides by the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side,
and that of Milan upon the other.
Venice was confined between the Austrian Tyrol and the Spanish territories in Milan.
Savoy was surrounded by the latter and France.
Hence the wavering and equivocal policy,
which from the time of Charles V.
had been pursued by the Italian States.
The double character which pertained
to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate between two contradictory systems of policy.
If the successors of St. Peter found in the Spanish princes their most obedient disciples,
and the most steadfast supporters of the Papal See,
yet the princes of the States of the Church had in these monarchs their most dangerous neighbours,
and most formidable opponents.
If,
in the one capacity,
their dearest wish was the destruction of the Protestants,
and the triumph of Austria,
in the other,
they had reason
to bless the arms of the Protestants,
which disabled a dangerous enemy.
The one or the other sentiment prevailed,
according as the love of temporal dominion,
or zeal
for spiritual supremacy,
predominated in the mind of the Pope.
But the policy of Rome was,
on the whole,
directed
to immediate dangers;
and it is well known how far more powerful is the apprehension of losing a present good,
than anxiety
to recover a long lost possession.
And thus it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine
with Austria
for the destruction of heresy,
and then conspire
with these very heretics
for the destruction of Austria.
Strangely blended are the threads of human affairs! What would have become of the Reformation,
and of the liberties of Germany,
if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of Rome had had but one interest?
France had lost
with its great Henry all its importance and all its weight in the political balance of Europe.
A turbulent minority had destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry.
Incapable ministers,
the creatures of court intrigue,
squandered in a few years the treasures which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had amassed.
Scarce able
to maintain their ground against internal factions,
they were compelled
to resign
to other hands the helm of European affairs.
The same civil war which armed Germany against itself,
excited a similar commotion in France;
and Louis XIII.
attained majority only
to wage a war
with his own mother and his Protestant subjects.
This party,
which had been kept quiet by Henry's enlightened policy,
now seized the opportunity
to take up arms,
and,
under the command of some adventurous leaders,
began
to form themselves into a party within the state,
and
to fix on the strong and powerful town of Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom.
Too little of a statesman
to suppress,
by a prudent toleration,
this civil commotion in its birth,
and too little master of the resources of his kingdom
to direct them
with energy,
Louis XIII.
was reduced
to the degradation of purchasing the submission of the rebels by large sums of money.
Though policy might incline him,
in one point of view,
to assist the Bohemian insurgents against Austria,
the son of Henry the Fourth was now compelled
to be an inactive spectator of their destruction,
happy enough if the Calvinists in his own dominions did not unseasonably bethink them of their confederates beyond the Rhine.
A great mind at the helm of state would have reduced the Protestants in France
to obedience,
while it employed them
to fight
for the independence of their German brethren.
But Henry IV.
was no more,
and Richelieu had not yet revived his system of policy.
While the glory of France was thus upon the wane,
the emancipated republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness.
The enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which,
enkindled by the House of Orange,
had converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes,
and had enabled them
to maintain their independence in a bloody war against the Spanish monarchy.
Aware how much they owed their own liberty
to foreign support,
these republicans were ready
to assist their German brethren in a similar cause,
and the more so,
as both were opposed
to the same enemy,
and the liberty of Germany was the best warrant
for that of Holland.
But a republic which had still
to battle
for its very existence,
which,
with all its wonderful exertions,
was scarce a match
for the formidable enemy within its own territories,
could not be expected
to withdraw its troops from the necessary work of self-defence
to employ them
with a magnanimous policy in protecting foreign states.
England too,
though now united
with Scotland,
no longer possessed,
under the weak James,
that influence in the affairs of Europe which the governing mind of Elizabeth had procured
for it.
Convinced that the welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,
this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting every enterprise which had
for its object the diminution of the Austrian power.
Her successor was no less devoid of capacity
to comprehend,
than of vigour
to execute,
her views.
While the economical Elizabeth spared not her treasures
to support the Flemings against Spain,
and Henry IV.
against the League,
James abandoned his daughter,
his son-in-law,
and his grandchild,
to the fury of their enemies.
While he exhausted his learning
to establish the divine right of kings,
he allowed his own dignity
to sink into the dust;
while he exerted his rhetoric
to prove the absolute authority of kings,
he reminded the people of theirs;
and by a useless profusion,
sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights-- that of dispensing
with his parliament,
and thus depriving liberty of its organ.
An innate horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him from the most just of wars;
while his favourite Buckingham practised on his weakness,
and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of Spanish artifice.
While his son-in-law was ruined,
and the inheritance of his grandson given
to others,
this weak prince was imbibing,
with satisfaction,
the incense which was offered
to him by Austria and Spain.
To divert his attention from the German war,
he was amused
with the proposal of a Spanish marriage
for his son,
and the ridiculous parent encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his addresses in person
to the Spanish princess.
But his son lost his bride,
as his son-in-law lost the crown of Bohemia and the Palatine Electorate;
and death alone saved him from the danger of closing his pacific reign by a war at home,
which he never had courage
to maintain,
even at a distance.
The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited burst forth under his unfortunate son,
and forced him,
after some unimportant attempts,
to renounce all further participation in the German war,
in order
to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.
Two illustrious monarchs,
far unequal in personal reputation,
but equal in power and desire of fame,
made the North at this time
to be respected.
Under the long and active reign of Christian IV.,
Denmark had risen into importance.
The personal qualifications of this prince,
an excellent navy,
a formidable army,
well-ordered finances,
and prudent alliances,
had combined
to give her prosperity at home and influence abroad.
Gustavus Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage,
reformed it by wise laws,
and had introduced,
for the first time,
this newly-organized state into the field of European politics.
What this great prince had merely sketched in rude outline,
was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus,
his still greater grandson.
These two kingdoms,
once unnaturally united and enfeebled by their union,
had been violently separated at the time of the Reformation,
and this separation was the epoch of their prosperity.
Injurious as this compulsory union had proved
to both kingdoms,
equally necessary
to each apart were neighbourly friendship and harmony.
On both the evangelical church leaned;
both had the same seas
to protect;
a common interest ought
to unite them against the same enemy.
But the hatred which had dissolved the union of these monarchies continued long after their separation
to divide the two nations.
The Danish kings could not abandon their pretensions
to the Swedish crown,
nor the Swedes banish the remembrance of Danish oppression.
The contiguous boundaries of the two kingdoms constantly furnished materials
for international quarrels,
while the watchful jealousy of both kings,
and the unavoidable collision of their commercial interests in the North Seas,
were inexhaustible sources of dispute.
Among the means of which Gustavus Vasa,
the founder of the Swedish monarchy,
availed himself
to strengthen his new edifice,
the Reformation had been one of the principal.
A fundamental law of the kingdom excluded the adherents of popery from all offices of the state,
and prohibited every future sovereign of Sweden from altering the religious constitution of the kingdom.
But the second son and second successor of Gustavus had relapsed into popery,
and his son Sigismund,
also king of Poland,
had been guilty of measures which menaced both the constitution and the established church.
Headed by Charles,
Duke of Sudermania,
the third son of Gustavus,
the Estates made a courageous resistance,
which terminated,
at last,
in an open civil war between the uncle and nephew,
and between the King and the people.
Duke Charles,
administrator of the kingdom during the absence of the king,
had availed himself of Sigismund's long residence in Poland,
and the just displeasure of the states,
to ingratiate himself
with the nation,
and gradually
to prepare his way
to the throne.
His views were not a little forwarded by Sigismund's imprudence.
A general Diet ventured
to abolish,
in favour of the Protector,
the rule of primogeniture which Gustavus had established in the succession,
and placed the Duke of Sudermania on the throne,
from which Sigismund,
with his whole posterity,
were solemnly excluded.
The son of the new king
(who reigned under the name of Charles IX.)
was Gustavus Adolphus,
whom,
as the son of a usurper,
the adherents of Sigismund refused
to recognize.
But if the obligations between monarchy and subjects are reciprocal,
and states are not
to be transmitted,
like a lifeless heirloom,
from hand
to hand,
a nation acting
with unanimity must have the power of renouncing their allegiance
to a sovereign who has violated his obligations
to them,
and of filling his place by a worthier object.
Gustavus Adolphus had not completed his seventeenth year,
when the Swedish throne became vacant by the death of his father.
But the early maturity of his genius enabled the Estates
to abridge in his favour the legal period of minority.
With a glorious conquest over himself he commenced a reign which was
to have victory
for its constant attendant,
a career which was
to begin and end in success.
The young Countess of Brahe,
the daughter of a subject,
had gained his early affections,
and he had resolved
to share
with her the Swedish throne.
But,
constrained by time and circumstances,
he made his attachment yield
to the higher duties of a king,
and heroism again took exclusive possession of a heart which was not destined by nature
to confine itself within the limits of quiet domestic happiness.
Christian IV.
of Denmark,
who had ascended the throne before the birth of Gustavus,
in an inroad upon Sweden,
had gained some considerable advantages over the father of that hero.
Gustavus Adolphus hastened
to put an end
to this destructive war,
and by prudent sacrifices obtained a peace,
in order
to turn his arms against the Czar of Muscovy.
The questionable fame of a conqueror never tempted him
to spend the blood of his subjects in unjust wars;
but he never shrunk from a just one.
His arms were successful against Russia,
and Sweden was augmented by several important provinces on the east.
In the meantime,
Sigismund of Poland retained against the son the same sentiments of hostility which the father had provoked,
and left no artifice untried
to shake the allegiance of his subjects,
to cool the ardour of his friends,
and
to embitter his enemies.
Neither the great qualities of his rival,
nor the repeated proofs of devotion which Sweden gave
to her loved monarch,
could extinguish in this infatuated prince the foolish hope of regaining his lost throne.
All Gustavus's overtures were haughtily rejected.
Unwillingly was this really peaceful king involved in a tedious war
with Poland,
in which the whole of Livonia and Polish Prussia were successively conquered.
Though constantly victorious,
Gustavus Adolphus was always the first
to hold out the hand of peace.
This contest between Sweden and Poland falls somewhere about the beginning of the Thirty Years'
War in Germany,
with which it is in some measure connected.
It was enough that Sigismund,
himself a Roman Catholic,
was disputing the Swedish crown
with a Protestant prince,
to assure him the active support of Spain and Austria;
while a double relationship
to the Emperor gave him a still stronger claim
to his protection.
It was his reliance on this powerful assistance that chiefly encouraged the King of Poland
to continue the war,
which had hitherto turned out so unfavourably
for him,
and the courts of Madrid and Vienna failed not
to encourage him by high-sounding promises.
While Sigismund lost one place after another in Livonia,
Courland,
and Prussia,
he saw his ally in Germany advancing from conquest after conquest
to unlimited power.
No wonder then if his aversion
to peace kept pace
with his losses.
The vehemence
with which he nourished his chimerical hopes blinded him
to the artful policy of his confederates,
who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed,
in order
to overturn,
without opposition,
the liberties of Germany,
and then
to seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest.
One circumstance which had not been calculated on--the magnanimity of Gustavus-- overthrew this deceitful policy.
An eight years'
war in Poland,
so far from exhausting the power of Sweden,
had only served
to mature the military genius of Gustavus,
to inure the Swedish army
to warfare,
and insensibly
to perfect that system of tactics by which they were afterwards
to perform such wonders in Germany.
After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe,
I now resume the thread of my history.
Ferdinand had regained his dominions,
but had not indemnified himself
for the expenses of recovering them.
A sum of forty millions of florins,
which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced,
would have sufficed
to reimburse both himself and his allies;
but the Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum,
large as it was.
Maximilian,
Duke of Bavaria,
to whose victorious arm,
principally,
the Emperor owed the recovery of his dominions;
who,
in the service of religion and the Emperor,
had sacrificed his near relation,
had the strongest claims on his gratitude;
and moreover,
in a treaty which,
before the war,
the duke had concluded
with the Emperor,
he had expressly stipulated
for the reimbursement of all expenses.
Ferdinand felt the full weight of the obligation imposed upon him by this treaty and by these services,
but he was not disposed
to discharge it at his own cost.
His purpose was
to bestow a brilliant reward upon the duke,
but without detriment
to himself.
How could this be done better than at the expense of the unfortunate prince who,
by his revolt,
had given the Emperor a right
to punish him,
and whose offences might be painted in colours strong enough
to justify the most violent measures under the appearance of law.
That,
then,
Maximilian may be rewarded,
Frederick must be further persecuted and totally ruined;
and
to defray the expenses of the old war,
a new one must be commenced.
But a still stronger motive combined
to enforce the first.
Hitherto Ferdinand had been contending
for existence alone;
he had been fulfilling no other duty than that of self-defence.
But now,
when victory gave him freedom
to act,
a higher duty occurred
to him,
and he remembered the vow which he had made at Loretto and at Rome,
to his generalissima,
the Holy Virgin,
to extend her worship even at the risk of his crown and life.
With this object,
the oppression of the Protestants was inseparably connected.
More favourable circumstances
for its accomplishment could not offer than those which presented themselves at the close of the Bohemian war.
Neither the power,
nor a pretext of right,
were now wanting
to enable him
to place the Palatinate in the hands of the Catholics,
and the importance of this change
to the Catholic interests in Germany would be incalculable.
Thus,
in rewarding the Duke of Bavaria
with the spoils of his relation,
he at once gratified his meanest passions and fulfilled his most exalted duties;
he crushed an enemy whom he hated,
and spared his avarice a painful sacrifice,
while he believed he was winning a heavenly crown.
In the Emperor's cabinet,
the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon long before fortune had decided against him;
but it was only after this event that they ventured
to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary power.
A decree of the Emperor,
destitute of all the formalities required on such occasions by the laws of the Empire,
pronounced the Elector,
and three other princes who had borne arms
for him at Silesia and Bohemia,
as offenders against the imperial majesty,
and disturbers of the public peace,
under the ban of the empire,
and deprived them of their titles and territories.
The execution of this sentence against Frederick,
namely the seizure of his lands,
was,
in further contempt of law,
committed
to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy,
to the Duke of Bavaria,
and the League.
Had the Evangelic Union been worthy of the name it bore,
and of the cause which it pretended
to defend,
insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of the sentence;
but it was hopeless
for a power which was far from a match even
for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate,
to contend against the united strength of the Emperor,
Bavaria,
and the League.
The sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector soon detached the free cities from the Union;
and the princes quickly followed their example.
Fortunate in preserving their own dominions,
they abandoned the Elector,
their former chief,
to the Emperor's mercy,
renounced the Union,
and vowed never
to revive it again.
But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted the unfortunate Frederick,
and while Bohemia,
Silesia,
and Moravia submitted
to the Emperor,
a single man,
a soldier of fortune,
whose only treasure was his sword,
Ernest Count Mansfeld,
dared,
in the Bohemian town of Pilsen,
to defy the whole power of Austria.
Left without assistance after the battle of Prague by the Elector,
to whose service he had devoted himself,
and even uncertain whether Frederick would thank him
for his perseverance,
he alone
for some time held out against the imperialists,
till the garrison,
mutinying
for want of pay,
sold the town
to the Emperor.
Undismayed by this reverse,
he immediately commenced new levies in the Upper Palatinate,
and enlisted the disbanded troops of the Union.
A new army of 20,000 men was soon assembled under his banners,
the more formidable
to the provinces which might be the object of its attack,
because it must subsist by plunder.
Uncertain where this swarm might light,
the neighbouring bishops trembled
for their rich possessions,
which offered a tempting prey
to its ravages.
But,
pressed by the Duke of Bavaria,
who now entered the Upper Palatinate,
Mansfeld was compelled
to retire.
Eluding,
by a successful stratagem,
the Bavarian general,
Tilly,
who was in pursuit of him,
he suddenly appeared in the Lower Palatinate,
and there wreaked upon the bishoprics of the Rhine the severities he had designed
for those of Franconia.
While the imperial and Bavarian allies thus overran Bohemia,
the Spanish general,
Spinola,
had penetrated
with a numerous army from the Netherlands into the Lower Palatinate,
which,
however,
the pacification of Ulm permitted the Union
to defend.
But their measures were so badly concerted,
that one place after another fell into the hands of the Spaniards;
and at last,
when the Union broke up,
the greater part of the country was in the possession of Spain.
The Spanish general,
Corduba,
who commanded these troops after the recall of Spinola,
hastily raised the siege of Frankenthal,
when Mansfeld entered the Lower Palatinate.
But instead of driving the Spaniards out of this province,
he hastened across the Rhine
to secure
for his needy troops shelter and subsistence in Alsace.
The open countries on which this swarm of maurauders threw themselves were converted into frightful deserts,
and only by enormous contributions could the cities purchase an exemption from plunder.
Reinforced by this expedition,
Mansfeld again appeared on the Rhine
to cover the Lower Palatinate.
So long as such an arm fought
for him,
the cause of the Elector Frederick was not irretrievably lost.
New prospects began
to open,
and misfortune raised up friends who had been silent during his prosperity.
King James of England,
who had looked on
with indifference while his son-in-law lost the Bohemian crown,
was aroused from his insensibility when the very existence of his daughter and grandson was at stake,
and the victorious enemy ventured an attack upon the Electorate.
Late enough,
he at last opened his treasures,
and hastened
to afford supplies of money and troops,
first
to the Union,
which at that time was defending the Lower Palatinate,
and afterwards,
when they retired,
to Count Mansfeld.
By his means his near relation,
Christian,
King of Denmark,
was induced
to afford his active support.
At the same time,
the approaching expiration of the truce between Spain and Holland deprived the Emperor of all the supplies which otherwise he might expect from the side of the Netherlands.
More important still was the assistance which the Palatinate received from Transylvania and Hungary.
The cessation of hostilities between Gabor and the Emperor was scarcely at an end,
when this old and formidable enemy of Austria overran Hungary anew,
and caused himself
to be crowned king in Presburg.
So rapid was his progress that,
to protect Austria and Hungary,
Boucquoi was obliged
to evacuate Bohemia.
This brave general met his death at the siege of Neuhausel,
as,
shortly before,
the no less valiant Dampierre had fallen before Presburg.
Gabor's march into the Austrian territory was irresistible;
the old Count Thurn,
and several other distinguished Bohemians,
had united their hatred and their strength
with this irreconcileable enemy of Austria.
A vigorous attack on the side of Germany,
while Gabor pressed the Emperor on that of Hungary,
might have retrieved the fortunes of Frederick;
but,
unfortunately,
the Bohemians and Germans had always laid down their arms when Gabor took the field;
and the latter was always exhausted at the very moment that the former began
to recover their vigour.
Meanwhile Frederick had not delayed
to join his protector Mansfeld.
In disguise he entered the Lower Palatinate,
of which the possession was at that time disputed between Mansfeld and the Bavarian general,
Tilly,
the Upper Palatinate having been long conquered.
A ray of hope shone upon him as,
from the wreck of the Union,
new friends came forward.
A former member of the Union,
George Frederick,
Margrave of Baden,
had
for some time been engaged in assembling a military force,
which soon amounted
to a considerable army.
Its destination was kept a secret till he suddenly took the field and joined Mansfeld.
Before commencing the war,
he resigned his Margraviate
to his son,
in the hope of eluding,
by this precaution,
the Emperor's revenge,
if his enterprize should be unsuccessful.
His neighbour,
the Duke of Wirtemberg,
likewise began
to augment his military force.
The courage of the Palatine revived,
and he laboured assiduously
to renew the Protestant Union.
It was now time
for Tilly
to consult
for his own safety,
and he hastily summoned the Spanish troops,
under Corduba,
to his assistance.
But while the enemy was uniting his strength,
Mansfeld and the Margrave separated,
and the latter was defeated by the Bavarian general near Wimpfen
(1622).
To defend a king whom his nearest relation persecuted,
and who was deserted even by his own father-in-law,
there had come forward an adventurer without money,
and whose very legitimacy was questioned.
A sovereign had resigned possessions over which he reigned in peace,
to hazard the uncertain fortune of war in behalf of a stranger.
And now another soldier of fortune,
poor in territorial possessions,
but rich in illustrious ancestry,
undertook the defence of a cause which the former despaired of.
Christian,
Duke of Brunswick,
administrator of Halberstadt,
seemed
to have learnt from Count Mansfeld the secret of keeping in the field an army of 20,000 men without money.
Impelled by youthful presumption,
and influenced partly by the wish of establishing his reputation at the expense of the Roman Catholic priesthood,
whom he cordially detested,
and partly by a thirst
for plunder,
he assembled a considerable army in Lower Saxony,
under the pretext of espousing the defence of Frederick,
and of the liberties of Germany.
"God's Friend,
Priest's Foe",
was the motto he chose
for his coinage,
which was struck out of church plate;
and his conduct belied one half at least of the device.
The progress of these banditti was,
as usual,
marked by the most frightful devastation.
Enriched by the spoils of the chapters of Lower Saxony and Westphalia,
they gathered strength
to plunder the bishoprics upon the Upper Rhine.
Driven from thence,
both by friends and foes,
the Administrator approached the town of Hoechst on the Maine,
which he crossed after a murderous action
with Tilly,
who disputed
with him the passage of the river.
With the loss of half his army he reached the opposite bank,
where he quickly collected his shattered troops,
and formed a junction
with Mansfeld.
Pursued by Tilly,
this united host threw itself again into Alsace,
to repeat their former ravages.
While the Elector Frederick followed,
almost like a fugitive mendicant,
this swarm of plunderers which acknowledged him as its lord,
and dignified itself
with his name,
his friends were busily endeavouring
to effect a reconciliation between him and the Emperor.
Ferdinand took care not
to deprive them of all hope of seeing the Palatine restored
to his dominion.
Full of artifice and dissimulation,
he pretended
to be willing
to enter into a negotiation,
hoping thereby
to cool their ardour in the field,
and
to prevent them from driving matters
to extremity.
James I.,
ever the dupe of Spanish cunning,
contributed not a little,
by his foolish intermeddling,
to promote the Emperor's schemes.
Ferdinand insisted that Frederick,
if he would appeal
to his clemency,
should,
first of all,
lay down his arms,
and James considered this demand extremely reasonable.
At his instigation,
the Elector dismissed his only real defenders,
Count Mansfeld and the Administrator,
and in Holland awaited his own fate from the mercy of the Emperor.
Mansfeld and Duke Christian were now at a loss
for some new name;
the cause of the Elector had not set them in motion,
so his dismissal could not disarm them.
War was their object;
it was all the same
to them in whose cause or name it was waged.
After some vain attempts on the part of Mansfeld
to be received into the Emperor's service,
both marched into Lorraine,
where the excesses of their troops spread terror even
to the heart of France.
Here they long waited in vain
for a master willing
to purchase their services;
till the Dutch,
pressed by the Spanish General Spinola,
offered
to take them into pay.
After a bloody fight at Fleurus
with the Spaniards,
who attempted
to intercept them,
they reached Holland,
where their appearance compelled the Spanish general forthwith
to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom.
But even Holland was soon weary of these dangerous guests,
and availed herself of the first moment
to get rid of their unwelcome assistance.
Mansfeld allowed his troops
to recruit themselves
for new enterprises in the fertile province of East Friezeland.
Duke Christian,
passionately enamoured of the Electress Palatine,
with whom he had become acquainted in Holland,
and more disposed
for war than ever,
led back his army into Lower Saxony,
bearing that princess's glove in his hat,
and on his standards the motto
"All
for God and Her".
Neither of these adventurers had as yet run their career in this war.
All the imperial territories were now free from the enemy;
the Union was dissolved;
the Margrave of Baden,
Duke Christian,
and Mansfeld,
driven from the field,
and the Palatinate overrun by the executive troops of the empire.
Manheim and Heidelberg were in possession of Bavaria,
and Frankenthal was shortly afterwards ceded
to the Spaniards.
The Palatine,
in a distant corner of Holland,
awaited the disgraceful permission
to appease,
by abject submission,
the vengeance of the Emperor;
and an Electoral Diet was at last summoned
to decide his fate.
That fate,
however,
had been long before decided at the court of the Emperor;
though now,
for the first time,
were circumstances favourable
for giving publicity
to the decision.
After his past measures towards the Elector,
Ferdinand believed that a sincere reconciliation was not
to be hoped for.
The violent course he had once begun,
must be completed successfully,
or recoil upon himself.
What was already lost was irrecoverable;
Frederick could never hope
to regain his dominions;
and a prince without territory and without subjects had little chance of retaining the electoral crown.
Deeply as the Palatine had offended against the House of Austria,
the services of the Duke of Bavaria were no less meritorious.
If the House of Austria and the Roman Catholic church had much
to dread from the resentment and religious rancour of the Palatine family,
they had as much
to hope from the gratitude and religious zeal of the Bavarian.
Lastly,
by the cession of the Palatine Electorate
to Bavaria,
the Roman Catholic religion would obtain a decisive preponderance in the Electoral College,
and secure a permanent triumph in Germany.
The last circumstance was sufficient
to win the support of the three Ecclesiastical Electors
to this innovation;
and among the Protestants the vote of Saxony was alone of any importance.
But could John George be expected
to dispute
with the Emperor a right,
without which he would expose
to question his own title
to the electoral dignity?
To a prince whom descent,
dignity,
and political power placed at the head of the Protestant church in Germany,
nothing,
it is true,
ought
to be more sacred than the defence of the rights of that church against all the encroachments of the Roman Catholics.
But the question here was not whether the interests of the Protestants were
to be supported against the Roman Catholics,
but which of two religions equally detested,
the Calvinistic and the Popish,
was
to triumph over the other;
to which of the two enemies,
equally dangerous,
the Palatinate was
to be assigned;
and in this clashing of opposite duties,
it was natural that private hate and private gain should determine the event.
The born protector of the liberties of Germany,
and of the Protestant religion,
encouraged the Emperor
to dispose of the Palatinate by his imperial prerogative;
and
to apprehend no resistance on the part of Saxony
to his measures on the mere ground of form.
If the Elector was afterwards disposed
to retract this consent,
Ferdinand himself,
by driving the Evangelical preachers from Bohemia,
was the cause of this change of opinion;
and,
in the eyes of the Elector,
the transference of the Palatine Electorate
to Bavaria ceased
to be illegal,
as soon as Ferdinand was prevailed upon
to cede Lusatia
to Saxony,
in consideration of six millions of dollars,
as the expenses of the war.
Thus,
in defiance of all Protestant Germany,
and in mockery of the fundamental laws of the empire,
which,
as his election,
he had sworn
to maintain,
Ferdinand at Ratisbon solemnly invested the Duke of Bavaria
with the Palatinate,
without prejudice,
as the form ran,
to the rights which the relations or descendants of Frederick might afterwards establish.
That unfortunate prince thus saw himself irrevocably driven from his possessions,
without having been even heard before the tribunal which condemned him--a privilege which the law allows
to the meanest subject,
and even
to the most atrocious criminal.
This violent step at last opened the eyes of the King of England;
and as the negociations
for the marriage of his son
with the Infanta of Spain were now broken off,
James began seriously
to espouse the cause of his son-in-law.
A change in the French ministry had placed Cardinal Richelieu at the head of affairs,
and this fallen kingdom soon began
to feel that a great mind was at the helm of state.
The attempts of the Spanish Viceroy in Milan
to gain possession of the Valtelline,
and thus
to form a junction
with the Austrian hereditary dominions,
revived the olden dread of this power,
and
with it the policy of Henry the Great.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales
with Henrietta of France,
established a close union between the two crowns;
and
to this alliance,
Holland,
Denmark,
and some of the Italian states presently acceded.
Its object was
to expel,
by force of arms,
Spain from the Valtelline,
and
to compel Austria
to reinstate Frederick;
but only the first of these designs was prosecuted
with vigour.
James I.
died,
and Charles I.,
involved in disputes
with his Parliament,
could not bestow attention on the affairs of Germany.
Savoy and Venice withheld their assistance;
and the French minister thought it necessary
to subdue the Huguenots at home,
before he supported the German Protestants against the Emperor.
Great as were the hopes which had been formed from this alliance,
they were yet equalled by the disappointment of the event.
Mansfeld,
deprived of all support,
remained inactive on the Lower Rhine;
and Duke Christian of Brunswick,
after an unsuccessful campaign,
was a second time driven out of Germany.
A fresh irruption of Bethlen Gabor into Moravia,
frustrated by the want of support from the Germans,
terminated,
like all the rest,
in a formal peace
with the Emperor.
The Union was no more;
no Protestant prince was in arms;
and on the frontiers of Lower Germany,
the Bavarian General Tilly,
at the head of a victorious army,
encamped in the Protestant territory.
The movements of the Duke of Brunswick had drawn him into this quarter,
and even into the circle of Lower Saxony,
when he made himself master of the Administrator's magazines at Lippstadt.
The necessity of observing this enemy,
and preventing him from new inroads,
was the pretext assigned
for continuing Tilly's stay in the country.
But,
in truth,
both Mansfeld and Duke Christian had,
from want of money,
disbanded their armies,
and Count Tilly had no enemy
to dread.
Why,
then,
still burden the country
with his presence?
It is difficult,
amidst the uproar of contending parties,
to distinguish the voice of truth;
but certainly it was matter
for alarm that the League did not lay down its arMs.
The premature rejoicings of the Roman Catholics,
too,
were calculated
to increase apprehension.
The Emperor and the League stood armed and victorious in Germany without a power
to oppose them,
should they venture
to attack the Protestant states and
to annul the religious treaty.
Had Ferdinand been in reality far from disposed
to abuse his conquests,
still the defenceless position of the Protestants was most likely
to suggest the temptation.
Obsolete conventions could not bind a prince who thought that he owed all
to religion,
and believed that a religious creed would sanctify any deed,
however violent.
Upper Germany was already overpowered.
Lower Germany alone could check his despotic authority.
Here the Protestants still predominated;
the church had been forcibly deprived of most of its endowments;
and the present appeared a favourable moment
for recovering these lost possessions.
A great part of the strength of the Lower German princes consisted in these Chapters,
and the plea of restoring its own
to the church,
afforded an excellent pretext
for weakening these princes.
Unpardonable would have been their negligence,
had they remained inactive in this danger.
The remembrance of the ravages which Tilly's army had committed in Lower Saxony was too recent not
to arouse the Estates
to measures of defence.
With all haste,
the circle of Lower Saxony began
to arm itself.
Extraordinary contributions were levied,
troops collected,
and magazines filled.
Negociations
for subsidies were set on foot
with Venice,
Holland,
and England.
They deliberated,
too,
what power should be placed at the head of the confederacy.
The kings of the Sound and the Baltic,
the natural allies of this circle,
would not see
with indifference the Emperor treating it as a conqueror,
and establishing himself as their neighbour on the shores of the North Sea.
The twofold interests of religion and policy urged them
to put a stop
to his progress in Lower Germany.
Christian IV.
of Denmark,
as Duke of Holstein,
was himself a prince of this circle,
and by considerations equally powerful,
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was induced
to join the confederacy.
These two kings vied
with each other
for the honour of defending Lower Saxony,
and of opposing the formidable power of Austria.
Each offered
to raise a well-disciplined army,
and
to lead it in person.
His victorious campaigns against Moscow and Poland gave weight
to the promises of the King of Sweden.
The shores of the Baltic were full of the name of Gustavus.
But the fame of his rival excited the envy of the Danish monarch;
and the more success he promised himself in this campaign,
the less disposed was he
to show any favour
to his envied neighbour.
Both laid their conditions and plans before the English ministry,
and Christian IV.
finally succeeded in outbidding his rival.
Gustavus Adolphus,
for his own security,
had demanded the cession of some places of strength in Germany,
where he himself had no territories,
to afford,
in case of need,
a place of refuge
for his troops.
Christian IV.
possessed Holstein and Jutland,
through which,
in the event of a defeat,
he could always secure a retreat.
Eager
to get the start of his competitor,
the King of Denmark hastened
to take the field.
Appointed generalissimo of the circle of Lower Saxony,
he soon had an army of 60,000 men in motion;
the administrator of Magdeburg,
and the Dukes of Brunswick and Mecklenburgh,
entered into an alliance
with him.
Encouraged by the hope of assistance from England,
and the possession of so large a force,
he flattered himself he should be able
to terminate the war in a single campaign.
At Vienna,
it was officially notified that the only object of these preparations was the protection of the circle,
and the maintenance of peace.
But the negociations
with Holland,
England,
and even France,
the extraordinary exertions of the circle,
and the raising of so formidable an army,
seemed
to have something more in view than defensive operations,
and
to contemplate nothing less than the complete restoration of the Elector Palatine,
and the humiliation of the dreaded power of Austria.
After negociations,
exhortations,
commands,
and threats had in vain been employed by the Emperor in order
to induce the King of Denmark and the circle of Lower Saxony
to lay down their arms,
hostilities commenced,
and Lower Germany became the theatre of war.
Count Tilly,
marching along the left bank of the Weser,
made himself master of all the passes as far as Minden.
After an unsuccessful attack on Nieuburg,
he crossed the river and overran the principality of Calemberg,
in which he quartered his troops.
The king conducted his operations on the right bank of the river,
and spread his forces over the territories of Brunswick,
but having weakened his main body by too powerful detachments,
he could not engage in any enterprise of importance.
Aware of his opponent's superiority,
he avoided a decisive action as anxiously as the general of the League sought it.
With the exception of the troops from the Spanish Netherlands,
which had poured into the Lower Palatinate,
the Emperor had hitherto made use only of the arms of Bavaria and the League in Germany.
Maximilian conducted the war as executor of the ban of the empire,
and Tilly,
who commanded the army of execution,
was in the Bavarian service.
The Emperor owed superiority in the field
to Bavaria and the League,
and his fortunes were in their hands.
This dependence on their goodwill,
but ill accorded
with the grand schemes,
which the brilliant commencement of the war had led the imperial cabinet
to form.
However active the League had shown itself in the Emperor's defence,
while thereby it secured its own welfare,
it could not be expected that it would enter as readily into his views of conquest.
Or,
if they still continued
to lend their armies
for that purpose,
it was too much
to be feared that they would share
with the Emperor nothing but general odium,
while they appropriated
to themselves all advantages.
A strong army under his own orders could alone free him from this debasing dependence upon Bavaria,
and restore
to him his former pre-eminence in Germany.
But the war had already exhausted the imperial dominions,
and they were unequal
to the expense of such an armament.
In these circumstances,
nothing could be more welcome
to the Emperor than the proposal
with which one of his officers surprised him.
This was Count Wallenstein,
an experienced officer,
and the richest nobleman in Bohemia.
From his earliest youth he had been in the service of the House of Austria,
and several campaigns against the Turks,
Venetians,
Bohemians,
Hungarians,
and Transylvanians had established his reputation.
He was present as colonel at the battle of Prague,
and afterwards,
as major-general,
had defeated a Hungarian force in Moravia.
The Emperor's gratitude was equal
to his services,
and a large share of the confiscated estates of the Bohemian insurgents was their reward.
Possessed of immense property,
excited by ambitious views,
confident in his own good fortune,
and still more encouraged by the existing state of circumstances,
he offered,
at his own expense and that of his friends,
to raise and clothe an army
for the Emperor,
and even undertook the cost of maintaining it,
if he were allowed
to augment it
to 50,000 men.
The project was universally ridiculed as the chimerical offspring of a visionary brain;
but the offer was highly valuable,
if its promises should be but partially fulfilled.
Certain circles in Bohemia were assigned
to him as depots,
with authority
to appoint his own officers.
In a few months he had 20,000 men under arms,
with which,
quitting the Austrian territories,
he soon afterwards appeared on the frontiers of Lower Saxony
with 30,000.
The Emperor had lent this armament nothing but his name.
The reputation of the general,
the prospect of rapid promotion,
and the hope of plunder,
attracted
to his standard adventurers from all quarters of Germany;
and even sovereign princes,
stimulated by the desire of glory or of gain,
offered
to raise regiments
for the service of Austria.
Now,
therefore,
for the first time in this war,
an imperial army appeared in Germany;--an event which if it was menacing
to the Protestants,
was scarcely more acceptable
to the Catholics.
Wallenstein had orders
to unite his army
with the troops of the League,
and in conjunction
with the Bavarian general
to attack the King of Denmark.
But long jealous of Tilly's fame,
he showed no disposition
to share
with him the laurels of the campaign,
or in the splendour of his rival's achievements
to dim the lustre of his own.
His plan of operations was
to support the latter,
but
to act entirely independent of him.
As he had not resources,
like Tilly,
for supplying the wants of his army,
he was obliged
to march his troops into fertile countries which had not as yet suffered from war.
Disobeying,
therefore,
the order
to form a junction
with the general of the League,
he marched into the territories of Halberstadt and Magdeburg,
and at Dessau made himself master of the Elbe.
All the lands on either bank of this river were at his command,
and from them he could either attack the King of Denmark in the rear,
or,
if prudent,
enter the territories of that prince.
Christian IV.
was fully aware of the danger of his situation between two such powerful armies.
He had already been joined by the administrator of Halberstadt,
who had lately returned from Holland;
he now also acknowledged Mansfeld,
whom previously he had refused
to recognise,
and supported him
to the best of his ability.
Mansfeld amply requited this service.
He alone kept at bay the army of Wallenstein upon the Elbe,
and prevented its junction
with that of Tilly,
and a combined attack on the King of Denmark.
Notwithstanding the enemy's superiority,
this intrepid general even approached the bridge of Dessau,
and ventured
to entrench himself in presence of the imperial lines.
But attacked in the rear by the whole force of the Imperialists,
he was obliged
to yield
to superior numbers,
and
to abandon his post
with the loss of 3,000 killed.
After this defeat,
Mansfeld withdrew into Brandenburg,
where he soon recruited and reinforced his army;
and suddenly turned into Silesia,
with the view of marching from thence into Hungary;
and,
in conjunction
with Bethlen Gabor,
carrying the war into the heart of Austria.
As the Austrian dominions in that quarter were entirely defenceless,
Wallenstein received immediate orders
to leave the King of Denmark,
and if possible
to intercept Mansfeld's progress through Silesia.
The diversion which this movement of Mansfeld had made in the plans of Wallenstein,
enabled the king
to detach a part of his force into Westphalia,
to seize the bishoprics of Munster and Osnaburg.
To check this movement,
Tilly suddenly moved from the Weser;
but the operations of Duke Christian,
who threatened the territories of the League
with an inroad in the direction of Hesse,
and
to remove thither the seat of war,
recalled him as rapidly from Westphalia.
In order
to keep open his communication
with these provinces,
and
to prevent the junction of the enemy
with the Landgrave of Hesse,
Tilly hastily seized all the tenable posts on the Werha and Fulda,
and took up a strong position in Minden,
at the foot of the Hessian Mountains,
and at the confluence of these rivers
with the Weser.
He soon made himself master of Goettingen,
the key of Brunswick and Hesse,
and was meditating a similar attack upon Nordheim,
when the king advanced upon him
with his whole army.
After throwing into this place the necessary supplies
for a long siege,
the latter attempted
to open a new passage through Eichsfeld and Thuringia,
into the territories of the League.
He had already reached Duderstadt,
when Tilly,
by forced marches,
came up
with him.
As the army of Tilly,
which had been reinforced by some of Wallenstein's regiments,
was superior in numbers
to his own,
the king,
to avoid a battle,
retreated towards Brunswick.
But Tilly incessantly harassed his retreat,
and after three days'
skirmishing,
he was at length obliged
to await the enemy near the village of Lutter in Barenberg.
The Danes began the attack
with great bravery,
and thrice did their intrepid monarch lead them in person against the enemy;
but at length the superior numbers and discipline of the Imperialists prevailed,
and the general of the League obtained a complete victory.
The Danes lost sixty standards,
and their whole artillery,
baggage,
and ammunition.
Several officers of distinction and about 4,000 men were killed in the field of battle;
and several companies of foot,
in the flight,
who had thrown themselves into the town-house of Lutter,
laid down their arms and surrendered
to the conqueror.
The king fled
with his cavalry,
and soon collected the wreck of his army which had survived this serious defeat.
Tilly pursued his victory,
made himself master of the Weser and Brunswick,
and forced the king
to retire into Bremen.
Rendered more cautious by defeat,
the latter now stood upon the defensive;
and determined at all events
to prevent the enemy from crossing the Elbe.
But while he threw garrisons into every tenable place,
he reduced his own diminished army
to inactivity;
and one after another his scattered troops were either defeated or dispersed.
The forces of the League,
in command of the Weser,
spread themselves along the Elbe and Havel,
and everywhere drove the Danes before them.
Tilly himself crossing the Elbe penetrated
with his victorious army into Brandenburg,
while Wallenstein entered Holstein
to remove the seat of war
to the king's own dominions.
This general had just returned from Hungary whither he had pursued Mansfeld,
without being able
to obstruct his march,
or prevent his junction
with Bethlen Gabor.
Constantly persecuted by fortune,
but always superior
to his fate,
Mansfeld had made his way against countless difficulties,
through Silesia and Hungary
to Transylvania,
where,
after all,
he was not very welcome.
Relying upon the assistance of England,
and a powerful diversion in Lower Saxony,
Gabor had again broken the truce
with the Emperor.
But in place of the expected diversion in his favour,
Mansfeld had drawn upon himself the whole strength of Wallenstein,
and instead of bringing,
required,
pecuniary assistance.
The want of concert in the Protestant counsels cooled Gabor's ardour;
and he hastened,
as usual,
to avert the coming storm by a speedy peace.
Firmly determined,
however,
to break it,
with the first ray of hope,
he directed Mansfeld in the mean time
to apply
for assistance
to Venice.
Cut off from Germany,
and unable
to support the weak remnant of his troops in Hungary,
Mansfeld sold his artillery and baggage train,
and disbanded his soldiers.
With a few followers,
he proceeded through Bosnia and Dalmatia,
towards Venice.
New schemes swelled his bosom;
but his career was ended.
Fate,
which had so restlessly sported
with him throughout,
now prepared
for him a peaceful grave in Dalmatia.
Death overtook him in the vicinity of Zara in 1626,
and a short time before him died the faithful companion of his fortunes,
Christian,
Duke of Brunswick--two men worthy of immortality,
had they but been as superior
to their times as they were
to their adversities.
The King of Denmark,
with his whole army,
was unable
to cope
with Tilly alone;
much less,
therefore,
with a shattered force could he hold his ground against the two imperial generals.
The Danes retired from all their posts on the Weser,
the Elbe,
and the Havel,
and the army of Wallenstein poured like a torrent into Brandenburg,
Mecklenburg,
Holstein and Sleswick.
That general,
too proud
to act in conjunction
with another,
had dispatched Tilly across the Elbe,
to watch,
as he gave out,
the motions of the Dutch in that quarter;
but in reality that he might terminate the war against the king,
and reap
for himself the fruits of Tilly's conquests.
Christian had now lost all his fortresses in the German States,
with the exception of Gluckstadt;
his armies were defeated or dispersed;
no assistance came from Germany;
from England,
little consolation;
while his confederates in Lower Saxony were at the mercy of the conqueror.
The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel had been forced by Tilly,
soon after the battle of Lutter,
to renounce the Danish alliance.
Wallenstein's formidable appearance before Berlin reduced the Elector of Brandenburgh
to submission,
and compelled him
to recognise,
as legitimate,
Maximilian's title
to the Palatine Electorate.
The greater part of Mecklenburgh was now overrun by imperial troops;
and both dukes,
as adherents of the King of Denmark,
placed under the ban of the empire,
and driven from their dominions.
The defence of the German liberties against illegal encroachments,
was punished as a crime deserving the loss of all dignities and territories;
and yet this was but the prelude
to the still more crying enormities which shortly followed.
The secret how Wallenstein had purposed
to fulfil his extravagant designs was now manifest.
He had learned the lesson from Count Mansfeld;
but the scholar surpassed his master.
On the principle that war must support war,
Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick had subsisted their troops by contributions levied indiscriminately on friend and enemy;
but this predatory life was attended
with all the inconvenience and insecurity which accompany robbery.
Like a fugitive banditti,
they were obliged
to steal through exasperated and vigilant enemies;
to roam from one end of Germany
to another;
to watch their opportunity
with anxiety;
and
to abandon the most fertile territories whenever they were defended by a superior army.
If Mansfeld and Duke Christian had done such great things in the face of these difficulties,
what might not be expected if the obstacles were removed;
when the army raised was numerous enough
to overawe in itself the most powerful states of the empire;
when the name of the Emperor insured impunity
to every outrage;
and when,
under the highest authority,
and at the head of an overwhelming force,
the same system of warfare was pursued,
which these two adventurers had hitherto adopted at their own risk,
and
with only an untrained multitude?
Wallenstein had all this in view when he made his bold offer
to the Emperor,
which now seemed extravagant
to no one.
The more his army was augmented,
the less cause was there
to fear
for its subsistence,
because it could irresistibly bear down upon the refractory states;
the more violent its outrages,
the more probable was impunity.
Towards hostile states it had the plea of right;
towards the favourably disposed it could allege necessity.
The inequality,
too,
with which it dealt out its oppressions,
prevented any dangerous union among the states;
while the exhaustion of their territories deprived them of the power of vengeance.
Thus the whole of Germany became a kind of magazine
for the imperial army,
and the Emperor was enabled
to deal
with the other states as absolutely as
with his own hereditary dominions.
Universal was the clamour
for redress before the imperial throne;
but there was nothing
to fear from the revenge of the injured princes,
so long as they appealed
for justice.
The general discontent was directed equally against the Emperor,
who had lent his name
to these barbarities,
and the general who exceeded his power,
and openly abused the authority of his master.
They applied
to the Emperor
for protection against the outrages of his general;
but Wallenstein had no sooner felt himself absolute in the army,
than he threw off his obedience
to his sovereign.
The exhaustion of the enemy made a speedy peace probable;
yet Wallenstein continued
to augment the imperial armies until they were at least 100,000 men strong.
Numberless commissions
to colonelcies and inferior commands,
the regal pomp of the commander-in-chief,
immoderate largesses
to his favourites,
(for he never gave less than a thousand florins,)
enormous sums lavished in corrupting the court at Vienna--all this had been effected without burdening the Emperor.
These immense sums were raised by the contributions levied from the lower German provinces,
where no distinction was made between friend and foe;
and the territories of all princes were subjected
to the same system of marching and quartering,
of extortion and outrage.
If credit is
to be given
to an extravagant contemporary statement,
Wallenstein,
during his seven years command,
had exacted not less than sixty thousand millions of dollars from one half of Germany.
The greater his extortions,
the greater the rewards of his soldiers,
and the greater the concourse
to his standard,
for the world always follows fortune.
His armies flourished while all the states through which they passed withered.
What cared he
for the detestation of the people,
and the complaints of princes?
His army adored him,
and the very enormity of his guilt enabled him
to bid defiance
to its consequences.
It would be unjust
to Ferdinand,
were we
to lay all these irregularities
to his charge.
Had he foreseen that he was abandoning the German States
to the mercy of his officer,
he would have been sensible how dangerous
to himself so absolute a general would prove.
The closer the connexion became between the army,
and the leader from whom flowed favour and fortune,
the more the ties which united both
to the Emperor were relaxed.
Every thing,
it is true,
was done in the name of the latter;
but Wallenstein only availed himself of the supreme majesty of the Emperor
to crush the authority of other states.
His object was
to depress the princes of the empire,
to destroy all gradation of rank between them and the Emperor,
and
to elevate the power of the latter above all competition.
If the Emperor were absolute in Germany,
who then would be equal
to the man intrusted
with the execution of his will?
The height
to which Wallenstein had raised the imperial authority astonished even the Emperor himself;
but as the greatness of the master was entirely the work of the servant,
the creation of Wallenstein would necessarily sink again into nothing upon the withdrawal of its creative hand.
Not without an object,
therefore,
did Wallenstein labour
to poison the minds of the German princes against the Emperor.
The more violent their hatred of Ferdinand,
the more indispensable
to the Emperor would become the man who alone could render their ill-will powerless.
His design unquestionably was,
that his sovereign should stand in fear of no one in all Germany--besides himself,
the source and engine of this despotic power.
As a step towards this end,
Wallenstein now demanded the cession of Mecklenburg,
to be held in pledge till the repayment of his advances
for the war.
Ferdinand had already created him Duke of Friedland,
apparently
with the view of exalting his own general over Bavaria;
but an ordinary recompense would not satisfy Wallenstein's ambition.
In vain was this new demand,
which could be granted only at the expense of two princes of the empire,
actively resisted in the Imperial Council;
in vain did the Spaniards,
who had long been offended by his pride,
oppose his elevation.
The powerful support which Wallenstein had purchased from the imperial councillors prevailed,
and Ferdinand was determined,
at whatever cost,
to secure the devotion of so indispensable a minister.
For a slight offence,
one of the oldest German houses was expelled from their hereditary dominions,
that a creature of the Emperor might be enriched by their spoils
(1628).
Wallenstein now began
to assume the title of generalissimo of the Emperor by sea and land.
Wismar was taken,
and a firm footing gained on the Baltic.
Ships were required from Poland and the Hanse towns
to carry the war
to the other side of the Baltic;
to pursue the Danes into the heart of their own country,
and
to compel them
to a peace which might prepare the way
to more important conquests.
The communication between the Lower German States and the Northern powers would be broken,
could the Emperor place himself between them,
and encompass Germany,
from the Adriatic
to the Sound,
(the intervening kingdom of Poland being already dependent on him,)
with an unbroken line of territory.
If such was the Emperor's plan,
Wallenstein had a peculiar interest in its execution.
These possessions on the Baltic should,
he intended,
form the first foundation of a power,
which had long been the object of his ambition,
and which should enable him
to throw off his dependence on the Emperor.
To effect this object,
it was of extreme importance
to gain possession of Stralsund,
a town on the Baltic.
Its excellent harbour,
and the short passage from it
to the Swedish and Danish coasts,
peculiarly fitted it
for a naval station in a war
with these powers.
This town,
the sixth of the Hanseatic League,
enjoyed great privileges under the Duke of Pomerania,
and totally independent of Denmark,
had taken no share in the war.
But neither its neutrality,
nor its privileges,
could protect it against the encroachments of Wallenstein,
when he had once cast a longing look upon it.
The request he made,
that Stralsund should receive an imperial garrison,
had been firmly and honourably rejected by the magistracy,
who also refused his cunningly demanded permission
to march his troops through the town,
Wallenstein,
therefore,
now proposed
to besiege it.
The independence of Stralsund,
as securing the free navigation of the Baltic,
was equally important
to the two Northern kings.
A common danger overcame at last the private jealousies which had long divided these princes.
In a treaty concluded at Copenhagen in 1628,
they bound themselves
to assist Stralsund
with their combined force,
and
to oppose in common every foreign power which should appear in the Baltic
with hostile views.
Christian IV.
also threw a sufficient garrison into Stralsund,
and by his personal presence animated the courage of the citizens.
Some ships of war which Sigismund,
King of Poland,
had sent
to the assistance of the imperial general,
were sunk by the Danish fleet;
and as Lubeck refused him the use of its shipping,
this imperial generalissimo of the sea had not even ships enough
to blockade this single harbour.
Nothing could appear more adventurous than
to attempt the conquest of a strongly fortified seaport without first blockading its harbour.
Wallenstein,
however,
who as yet had never experienced a check,
wished
to conquer nature itself,
and
to perform impossibilities.
Stralsund,
open
to the sea,
continued
to be supplied
with provisions and reinforcements;
yet Wallenstein maintained his blockade on the land side,
and endeavoured,
by boasting menaces,
to supply his want of real strength.
"I will take this town,"
said he,
"though it were fastened by a chain
to the heavens."
The Emperor himself,
who might have cause
to regret an enterprise which promised no very glorious result,
joyfully availed himself of the apparent submission and acceptable propositions of the inhabitants,
to order the general
to retire from the town.
Wallenstein despised the command,
and continued
to harass the besieged by incessant assaults.
As the Danish garrison,
already much reduced,
was unequal
to the fatigues of this prolonged defence,
and the king was unable
to detach any further troops
to their support,
Stralsund,
with Christian's consent,
threw itself under the protection of the King of Sweden.
The Danish commander left the town
to make way
for a Swedish governor,
who gloriously defended it.
Here Wallenstein's good fortune forsook him;
and,
for the first time,
his pride experienced the humiliation of relinquishing his prey,
after the loss of many months and of 12,000 men.
The necessity
to which he reduced the town of applying
for protection
to Sweden,
laid the foundation of a close alliance between Gustavus Adolphus and Stralsund,
which greatly facilitated the entrance of the Swedes into Germany.
Hitherto invariable success had attended the arms of the Emperor and the League,
and Christian IV.,
defeated in Germany,
had sought refuge in his own islands;
but the Baltic checked the further progress of the conquerors.
The want of ships not only stopped the pursuit of the king,
but endangered their previous acquisitions.
The union of the two northern monarchs was most
to be dreaded,
because,
so long as it lasted,
it effectually prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a footing on the Baltic,
or effecting a landing in Sweden.
But if they could succeed in dissolving this union,
and especially securing the friendship of the Danish king,
they might hope
to overpower the insulated force of Sweden.
The dread of the interference of foreign powers,
the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states,
and still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole of Protestant Germany,
inclined the Emperor
to peace,
which his general,
from opposite motives,
was equally desirous
to effect.
Far from wishing
for a state of things which would reduce him from the meridian of greatness and glory
to the obscurity of private life,
he only wished
to change the theatre of war,
and by a partial peace
to prolong the general confusion.
The friendship of Denmark,
whose neighbour he had become as Duke of Mecklenburgh,
was most important
for the success of his ambitious views;
and he resolved,
even at the sacrifice of his sovereign's interests,
to secure its alliance.
By the treaty of Copenhagen,
Christian IV.
had expressly engaged not
to conclude a separate peace
with the Emperor,
without the consent of Sweden.
Notwithstanding,
Wallenstein's proposition was readily received by him.
In a conference at Lubeck in 1629,
from which Wallenstein,
with studied contempt,
excluded the Swedish ambassadors who came
to intercede
for Mecklenburgh,
all the conquests taken by the imperialists were restored
to the Danes.
The conditions imposed upon the king were,
that he should interfere no farther
with the affairs of Germany than was called
for by his character of Duke of Holstein;
that he should on no pretext harass the Chapters of Lower Germany,
and should leave the Dukes of Mecklenburgh
to their fate.
By Christian himself had these princes been involved in the war
with the Emperor;
he now sacrificed them,
to gain the favour of the usurper of their territories.
Among the motives which had engaged him in a war
with the Emperor,
not the least was the restoration of his relation,
the Elector Palatine--yet the name of that unfortunate prince was not even mentioned in the treaty;
while in one of its articles the legitimacy of the Bavarian election was expressly recognised.
Thus meanly and ingloriously did Christian IV.
retire from the field.
Ferdinand had it now in his power,
for the second time,
to secure the tranquillity of Germany;
and it depended solely on his will whether the treaty
with Denmark should or should not be the basis of a general peace.
From every quarter arose the cry of the unfortunate,
petitioning
for an end of their sufferings;
the cruelties of his soldiers,
and the rapacity of his generals,
had exceeded all bounds.
Germany,
laid waste by the desolating bands of Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick,
and by the still more terrible hordes of Tilly and Wallenstein,
lay exhausted,
bleeding,
wasted,
and sighing
for repose.
An anxious desire
for peace was felt by all conditions,
and by the Emperor himself;
involved as he was in a war
with France in Upper Italy,
exhausted by his past warfare in Germany,
and apprehensive of the day of reckoning which was approaching.
But,
unfortunately,
the conditions on which alone the two religious parties were willing respectively
to sheath the sword,
were irreconcileable.
The Roman Catholics wished
to terminate the war
to their own advantage;
the Protestants advanced equal pretensions.
The Emperor,
instead of uniting both parties by a prudent moderation,
sided
with one;
and thus Germany was again plunged in the horrors of a bloody war.
From the very close of the Bohemian troubles,
Ferdinand had carried on a counter reformation in his hereditary dominions,
in which,
however,
from regard
to some of the Protestant Estates,
he proceeded,
at first,
with moderation.
But the victories of his generals in Lower Germany encouraged him
to throw off all reserve.
Accordingly he had it intimated
to all the Protestants in these dominions,
that they must either abandon their religion,
or their native country,--a bitter and dreadful alternative,
which excited the most violent commotions among his Austrian subjects.
In the Palatinate,
immediately after the expulsion of Frederick,
the Protestant religion had been suppressed,
and its professors expelled from the University of Heidelberg.
All this was but the prelude
to greater changes.
In the Electoral Congress held at Muehlhausen,
the Roman Catholics had demanded of the Emperor that all the archbishoprics,
bishoprics,
mediate and immediate,
abbacies and monasteries,
which,
since the Diet of Augsburg,
had been secularized by the Protestants,
should be restored
to the church,
in order
to indemnify them
for the losses and sufferings in the war.
To a Roman Catholic prince so zealous as Ferdinand was,
such a hint was not likely
to be neglected;
but he still thought it would be premature
to arouse the whole Protestants of Germany by so decisive a step.
Not a single Protestant prince but would be deprived,
by this revocation of the religious foundations,
of a part of his lands;
for where these revenues had not actually been diverted
to secular purposes they had been made over
to the Protestant church.
To this source,
many princes owed the chief part of their revenues and importance.
All,
without exception,
would be irritated by this demand
for restoration.
The religious treaty did not expressly deny their right
to these chapters,
although it did not allow it.
But a possession which had now been held
for nearly a century,
the silence of four preceding emperors,
and the law of equity,
which gave them an equal right
with the Roman Catholics
to the foundations of their common ancestors,
might be strongly pleaded by them as a valid title.
Besides the actual loss of power and authority,
which the surrender of these foundations would occasion,
besides the inevitable confusion which would necessarily attend it,
one important disadvantage
to which it would lead,
was,
that the restoration of the Roman Catholic bishops would increase the strength of that party in the Diet by so many additional votes.
Such grievous sacrifices likely
to fall on the Protestants,
made the Emperor apprehensive of a formidable opposition;
and until the military ardour should have cooled in Germany,
he had no wish
to provoke a party formidable by its union,
and which in the Elector of Saxony had a powerful leader.
He resolved,
therefore,
to try the experiment at first on a small scale,
in order
to ascertain how it was likely
to succeed on a larger one.
Accordingly,
some of the free cities in Upper Germany,
and the Duke of Wirtemberg,
received orders
to surrender
to the Roman Catholics several of the confiscated chapters.
The state of affairs in Saxony enabled the Emperor
to make some bolder experiments in that quarter.
In the bishoprics of Magdeburg and Halberstadt,
the Protestant canons had not hesitated
to elect bishops of their own religion.
Both bishoprics,
with the exception of the town of Magdeburg itself,
were overrun by the troops of Wallenstein.
It happened,
moreover,
that by the death of the Administrator Duke Christian of Brunswick,
Halberstadt was vacant,
as was also the Archbishopric of Magdeburg by the deposition of Christian William,
a prince of the House of Brandenburgh.
Ferdinand took advantage of the circumstance
to restore the see of Halberstadt
to a Roman Catholic bishop,
and a prince of his own house.
To avoid a similar coercion,
the Chapter of Magdeburg hastened
to elect a son of the Elector of Saxony as archbishop.
But the pope,
who
with his arrogated authority interfered in this matter,
conferred the Archbishopric of Magdeburg also on the Austrian prince.
Thus,
with all his pious zeal
for religion,
Ferdinand never lost sight of the interests of his family.
At length,
when the peace of Lubeck had delivered the Emperor from all apprehensions on the side of Denmark,
and the German Protestants seemed entirely powerless,
the League becoming louder and more urgent in its demands,
Ferdinand,
in 1629,
signed the Edict of Restitution,
(so famous by its disastrous consequences,)
which he had previously laid before the four Roman Catholic electors
for their approbation.
In the preamble,
he claimed the prerogative,
in right of his imperial authority,
to interpret the meaning of the religious treaty,
the ambiguities of which had already caused so many disputes,
and
to decide as supreme arbiter and judge between the contending parties.
This prerogative he founded upon the practice of his ancestors,
and its previous recognition even by Protestant states.
Saxony had actually acknowledged this right of the Emperor;
and it now became evident how deeply this court had injured the Protestant cause by its dependence on the House of Austria.
But though the meaning of the religious treaty was really ambiguous,
as a century of religious disputes sufficiently proved,
yet
for the Emperor,
who must be either a Protestant or a Roman Catholic,
and therefore an interested party,
to assume the right of deciding between the disputants,
was clearly a violation of an essential article of the pacification.
He could not be judge in his own cause,
without reducing the liberties of the empire
to an empty sound.
And now,
in virtue of this usurpation,
Ferdinand decided,
"That every secularization of a religious foundation,
mediate or immediate,
by the Protestants,
subsequent
to the date of the treaty,
was contrary
to its spirit,
and must be revoked as a breach of it."
He further decided,
"That,
by the religious peace,
Catholic proprietors of estates were no further bound
to their Protestant subjects than
to allow them full liberty
to quit their territories."
In obedience
to this decision,
all unlawful possessors of benefices--the Protestant states in short without exception--were ordered,
under pain of the ban of the empire,
immediately
to surrender their usurped possessions
to the imperial commissioners.
This sentence applied
to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve bishoprics,
besides innumerable abbacies.
The edict came like a thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany;
dreadful even in its immediate consequences;
but yet more so from the further calamities it seemed
to threaten.
The Protestants were now convinced that the suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and the League,
and that the overthrow of German liberty would soon follow.
Their remonstrances were unheeded;
the commissioners were named,
and an army assembled
to enforce obedience.
The edict was first put in force in Augsburg,
where the treaty was concluded;
the city was again placed under the government of its bishop,
and six Protestant churches in the town were closed.
The Duke of Wirtemberg was,
in like manner,
compelled
to surrender his abbacies.
These severe measures,
though they alarmed the Protestant states,
were yet insufficient
to rouse them
to an active resistance.
Their fear of the Emperor was too strong,
and many were disposed
to quiet submission.
The hope of attaining their end by gentle measures,
induced the Roman Catholics likewise
to delay
for a year the execution of the edict,
and this saved the Protestants;
before the end of that period,
the success of the Swedish arms had totally changed the state of affairs.
In a Diet held at Ratisbon,
at which Ferdinand was present in person
(in 1630),
the necessity of taking some measures
for the immediate restoration of a general peace
to Germany,
and
for the removal of all grievances,
was debated.
The complaints of the Roman Catholics were scarcely less numerous than those of the Protestants,
although Ferdinand had flattered himself that by the Edict of Restitution he had secured the members of the League,
and its leader by the gift of the electoral dignity,
and the cession of great part of the Palatinate.
But the good understanding between the Emperor and the princes of the League had rapidly declined since the employment of Wallenstein.
Accustomed
to give law
to Germany,
and even
to sway the Emperor's own destiny,
the haughty Elector of Bavaria now at once saw himself supplanted by the imperial general,
and
with that of the League,
his own importance completely undermined.
Another had now stepped in
to reap the fruits of his victories,
and
to bury his past services in oblivion.
Wallenstein's imperious character,
whose dearest triumph was in degrading the authority of the princes,
and giving an odious latitude
to that of the Emperor,
tended not a little
to augment the irritation of the Elector.
Discontented
with the Emperor,
and distrustful of his intentions,
he had entered into an alliance
with France,
which the other members of the League were suspected of favouring.
A fear of the Emperor's plans of aggrandizement,
and discontent
with existing evils,
had extinguished among them all feelings of gratitude.
Wallenstein's exactions had become altogether intolerable.
Brandenburg estimated its losses at twenty,
Pomerania at ten,
Hesse Cassel at seven millions of dollars,
and the rest in proportion.
The cry
for redress was loud,
urgent,
and universal;
all prejudices were hushed;
Roman Catholics and Protestants were united on this point.
The terrified Emperor was assailed on all sides by petitions against Wallenstein,
and his ear filled
with the most fearful descriptions of his outrages.
Ferdinand was not naturally cruel.
If not totally innocent of the atrocities which were practised in Germany under the shelter of his name,
he was ignorant of their extent;
and he was not long in yielding
to the representation of the princes,
and reduced his standing army by eighteen thousand cavalry.
While this reduction took place,
the Swedes were actively preparing an expedition into Germany,
and the greater part of the disbanded Imperialists enlisted under their banners.
The Emperor's concessions only encouraged the Elector of Bavaria
to bolder demands.
So long as the Duke of Friedland retained the supreme command,
his triumph over the Emperor was incomplete.
The princes of the League were meditating a severe revenge on Wallenstein
for that haughtiness
with which he had treated them all alike.
His dismissal was demanded by the whole college of electors,
and even by Spain,
with a degree of unanimity and urgency which astonished the Emperor.
The anxiety
with which Wallenstein's enemies pressed
for his dismissal,
ought
to have convinced the Emperor of the importance of his services.
Wallenstein,
informed of the cabals which were forming against him in Ratisbon,
lost no time in opening the eyes of the Emperor
to the real views of the Elector of Bavaria.
He himself appeared in Ratisbon,
with a pomp which threw his master into the shade,
and increased the hatred of his opponents.
Long was the Emperor undecided.
The sacrifice demanded was a painful one.
To the Duke of Friedland alone he owed his preponderance;
he felt how much he would lose in yielding him
to the indignation of the princes.
But at this moment,
unfortunately,
he was under the necessity of conciliating the Electors.
His son Ferdinand had already been chosen King of Hungary,
and he was endeavouring
to procure his election as his successor in the empire.
For this purpose,
the support of Maximilian was indispensable.
This consideration was the weightiest,
and
to oblige the Elector of Bavaria he scrupled not
to sacrifice his most valuable servant.
At the Diet at Ratisbon,
there were present ambassadors from France,
empowered
to adjust the differences which seemed
to menace a war in Italy between the Emperor and their sovereign.
Vincent,
Duke of Mantua and Montferrat,
dying without issue,
his next relation,
Charles,
Duke of Nevers,
had taken possession of this inheritance,
without doing homage
to the Emperor as liege lord of the principality.
Encouraged by the support of France and Venice,
he refused
to surrender these territories into the hands of the imperial commissioners,
until his title
to them should be decided.
On the other hand,
Ferdinand had taken up arms at the instigation of the Spaniards,
to whom,
as possessors of Milan,
the near neighbourhood of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming,
and who welcomed this prospect of making,
with the assistance of the Emperor,
additional conquests in Italy.
In spite of all the exertions of Pope Urban VIII.
to avert a war in that country,
Ferdinand marched a German army across the Alps,
and threw the Italian states into a general consternation.
His arms had been successful throughout Germany,
and exaggerated fears revived the olden apprehension of Austria's projects of universal monarchy.
All the horrors of the German war now spread like a deluge over those favoured countries which the Po waters;
Mantua was taken by storm,
and the surrounding districts given up
to the ravages of a lawless soldiery.
The curse of Italy was thus added
to the maledictions upon the Emperor which resounded through Germany;
and even in the Roman Conclave,
silent prayers were offered
for the success of the Protestant arms.
Alarmed by the universal hatred which this Italian campaign had drawn upon him,
and wearied out by the urgent remonstrances of the Electors,
who zealously supported the application of the French ambassador,
the Emperor promised the investiture
to the new Duke of Mantua.
This important service on the part of Bavaria,
of course,
required an equivalent from France.
The adjustment of the treaty gave the envoys of Richelieu,
during their residence in Ratisbon,
the desired opportunity of entangling the Emperor in dangerous intrigues,
of inflaming the discontented princes of the League still more strongly against him,
and of turning
to his disadvantage all the transactions of the Diet.
For this purpose Richelieu had chosen an admirable instrument in Father Joseph,
a Capuchin friar,
who accompanied the ambassadors without exciting the least suspicion.
One of his principal instructions was assiduously
to bring about the dismissal of Wallenstein.
With the general who had led it
to victory,
the army of Austria would lose its principal strength;
many armies could not compensate
for the loss of this individual.
It would therefore be a masterstroke of policy,
at the very moment when a victorious monarch,
the absolute master of his operations,
was arming against the Emperor,
to remove from the head of the imperial armies the only general who,
by ability and military experience,
was able
to cope
with the French king.
Father Joseph,
in the interests of Bavaria,
undertook
to overcome the irresolution of the Emperor,
who was now in a manner besieged by the Spaniards and the Electoral Council.
"It would be expedient,"
he thought,
"to gratify the Electors on this occasion,
and thereby facilitate his son's election
to the Roman Crown.
This object once gained,
Wallenstein could at any time resume his former station."
The artful Capuchin was too sure of his man
to touch upon this ground of consolation.
The voice of a monk was
to Ferdinand II.
the voice of God.
"Nothing on earth,"
writes his own confessor,
"was more sacred in his eyes than a priest.
If it could happen,
he used
to say,
that an angel and a Regular were
to meet him at the same time and place,
the Regular should receive his first,
and the angel his second obeisance."
Wallenstein's dismissal was determined upon.
In return
for this pious concession,
the Capuchin dexterously counteracted the Emperor's scheme
to procure
for the King of Hungary the further dignity of King of the Romans.
In an express clause of the treaty just concluded,
the French ministers engaged in the name of their sovereign
to observe a complete neutrality between the Emperor and his enemies;
while,
at the same time,
Richelieu was actually negociating
with the King of Sweden
to declare war,
and pressing upon him the alliance of his master.
The latter,
indeed,
disavowed the lie as soon as it had served its purpose,
and Father Joseph,
confined
to a convent,
must atone
for the alleged offence of exceeding his instructions.
Ferdinand perceived,
when too late,
that he had been imposed upon.
"A wicked Capuchin,"
he was heard
to say,
"has disarmed me
with his rosary,
and thrust nothing less than six electoral crowns into his cowl."
Artifice and trickery thus triumphed over the Emperor,
at the moment when he was believed
to be omnipotent in Germany,
and actually was so in the field.
With the loss of 18,000 men,
and of a general who alone was worth whole armies,
he left Ratisbon without gaining the end
for which he had made such sacrifices.
Before the Swedes had vanquished him in the field,
Maximilian of Bavaria and Father Joseph had given him a mortal blow.
At this memorable Diet at Ratisbon the war
with Sweden was resolved upon,
and that of Mantua terminated.
Vainly had the princes present at it interceded
for the Dukes of Mecklenburgh;
and equally fruitless had been an application by the English ambassadors
for a pension
to the Palatine Frederick.
Wallenstein was at the head of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men who adored him,
when the sentence of his dismissal arrived.
Most of the officers were his creatures:--with the common soldiers his hint was law.
His ambition was boundless,
his pride indomitable,
his imperious spirit could not brook an injury unavenged.
One moment would now precipitate him from the height of grandeur into the obscurity of a private station.
To execute such a sentence upon such a delinquent seemed
to require more address than it cost
to obtain it from the judge.
Accordingly,
two of Wallenstein's most intimate friends were selected as heralds of these evil tidings,
and instructed
to soften them as much as possible,
by flattering assurances of the continuance of the Emperor's favour.
Wallenstein had ascertained the purport of their message before the imperial ambassadors arrived.
He had time
to collect himself,
and his countenance exhibited an external calmness,
while grief and rage were storming in his bosom.
He had made up his mind
to obey.
The Emperor's decision had taken him by surprise before circumstances were ripe,
or his preparations complete,
for the bold measures he had contemplated.
His extensive estates were scattered over Bohemia and Moravia;
and by their confiscation,
the Emperor might at once destroy the sinews of his power.
He looked,
therefore,
to the future
for revenge;
and in this hope he was encouraged by the predictions of an Italian astrologer,
who led his imperious spirit like a child in leading strings.
Seni had read in the stars,
that his master's brilliant career was not yet ended;
and that bright and glorious prospects still awaited him.
It was,
indeed,
unnecessary
to consult the stars
to foretell that an enemy,
Gustavus Adolphus,
would ere long render indispensable the services of such a general as Wallenstein.
"The Emperor is betrayed,"
said Wallenstein
to the messengers;
"I pity but forgive him.
It is plain that the grasping spirit of the Bavarian dictates
to him.
I grieve that,
with so much weakness,
he has sacrificed me,
but I will obey."
He dismissed the emissaries
with princely presents;
and in a humble letter besought the continuance of the Emperor's favour,
and of the dignities he had bestowed upon him.
The murmurs of the army were universal,
on hearing of the dismissal of their general;
and the greater part of his officers immediately quitted the imperial service.
Many followed him
to his estates in Bohemia and Moravia;
others he attached
to his interests by pensions,
in order
to command their services when the opportunity should offer.
But repose was the last thing that Wallenstein contemplated when he returned
to private life.
In his retreat,
he surrounded himself
with a regal pomp,
which seemed
to mock the sentence of degradation.
Six gates led
to the palace he inhabited in Prague,
and a hundred houses were pulled down
to make way
for his courtyard.
Similar palaces were built on his other numerous estates.
Gentlemen of the noblest houses contended
for the honour of serving him,
and even imperial chamberlains resigned the golden key
to the Emperor,
to fill a similar office under Wallenstein.
He maintained sixty pages,
who were instructed by the ablest masters.
His antichamber was protected by fifty life guards.
His table never consisted of less than 100 covers,
and his seneschal was a person of distinction.
When he travelled,
his baggage and suite accompanied him in a hundred wagons,
drawn by six or four horses;
his court followed in sixty carriages,
attended by fifty led horses.
The pomp of his liveries,
the splendour of his equipages,
and the decorations of his apartments,
were in keeping
with all the rest.
Six barons and as many knights,
were in constant attendance about his person,
and