Part 7

After Maurice of Saxony had made terms with Charles at Passau he went to help Ferdinand against the Turks, but one of his allies, Henry II. of France, continued the war in Germany while another, Albert Alcibiades, entered upon a wild campaign of plunder in Franconia. The French king seized Metz, which was part of the spoil promised to him by his allies, and Charles made an attempt to regain the city. For this purpose he took Albert Alcibiades into his service, but after a stubborn fight his troops were compelled to retreat in January 1553. Albert then renewed his raids, and these became so terrible that a league of princes, under Maurice of Saxony, was formed to crush him; although Maurice lost his life at Sievershausen in July 1553, this purpose was accomplished, and Albert was driven from Germany. After the peace of Augsburg, which was published in September 1555, the emperor carried out his intention of abdicating. He entrusted Spain and the Netherlands to Philip, while Ferdinand took over the conduct of affairs in Germany; although it was not until 1558 that he was formally installed as his brother's successor.

Ferdinand I.

Ferdinand I., who like all the German sovereigns after him was recognized as emperor without being crowned by the pope, made it a prime object of his short reign to defend and enforce the religious peace of Augsburg for which he was largely responsible. Although in all probability numerically superior at this time to the Romanists, the Protestants were weakened by divisions, which were becoming daily more pronounced and more serious, and partly owing to this fact the emperor was able to resist the demands of each party and to moderate their excesses. He was continually harassed by the Turks until peace was made in 1562, and connected therewith were troubles in Bohemia and especially in Hungary, two countries which he had acquired through marriage, while North Germany was disturbed by the wild schemes of Wilhelm von Grumbach (q.v.) and his associate John Frederick, duke of Saxony. With regard to the religious question efforts were made to compose the differences among the Protestants; but while these ended in failure the Roman Catholics were gaining ground. Ferdinand sought earnestly to reform the church from within, and before he died in July 1564 the Counter-Reformation, fortified by the entrance of the Jesuits into Germany and by the issue of the decrees of the council of Trent, had begun.

Administrative changes.

Under Ferdinand's rule there were some changes in the administration of the Empire. Lutherans sat among the judges of the _Reichskammergericht_, and the Aulic Council, or _Hofrat_, established by Maximilian I. for the Austrian lands, extended its authority over the Empire and was known as the _Reichshofrat_. Side by side with these changes the imperial diet was becoming more useless and unwieldy, and the electors were gaining power, owing partly to the _Wahlkapitulation_, by which on election they circumscribed the power of each occupant of the imperial throne.

Maximilian II.

Ferdinand's son and successor, the emperor Maximilian II., was a man of tolerant views; in fact at one time he was suspected of being a Lutheran, a circumstance which greatly annoyed the Habsburgs and delayed his own election as king of the Romans. However, having given to the electors assurances of his fidelity to the Roman Church, he was chosen king in November 1562, and became ruler of Germany on his father's death nearly two years later. Like other German sovereigns Maximilian pursued the phantom of religious union. His first diet, which met at Augsburg in 1566, was, however, unable, or unwilling, to take any steps in this direction, and while the Roman Catholics urged the enforcement of the decrees of the council of Trent the serious differences among the Protestants received fresh proof from the attempt made to exclude the Calvinist prince Frederick III., elector palatine of the Rhine, from the benefits of the peace of Augsburg. After this Frederick and the Calvinists looked for sympathy more and more to the Protestants in France and the Netherlands, whom they assisted with troops, while the Lutherans, whose chief prince was Augustus, elector of Saxony, adopted a more cautious policy and were anxious not to offend the emperor. There were, moreover, troubles of a personal and private nature between these two electors and their families, and these embittered their religious differences. But these divergences of opinion were not only between Roman Catholic and Lutheran or between Lutheran and Calvinist, they were, in electoral and ducal Saxony at least, between Lutheran and Lutheran. Thus the Protestant cause was weakened just when it needed strengthening, as, on the other side, the Roman Catholics, especially Albert, duke of Bavaria, were eagerly forwarding the progress of the older faith, which towards the end of this reign was restored in the important abbey of Fulda. In secular affairs Maximilian had, just after his accession, to face a renewal of the Turkish war. Although his first diet voted liberal assistance for the defence of the country, and a large and splendid army was collected, he had gained no advantage when the campaign ended. The diet of Spires, which met in 1570, was mainly occupied in discussing measures for preventing the abuses caused by the enlistment by foreigners of German mercenary troops, but nothing was done to redress this grievance, as the estates were unwilling to accept proposals which placed more power in the emperor's hands. Maximilian found time to make earnest but unavailing efforts to mediate between his cousin, Philip II. of Spain, and the revolted Netherlands, and also to interfere in the affairs of Poland, where a faction elected him as their king. He was still dealing with this matter and hoping to gain support for it from the diet of Regensburg when he died (October 1576).

Rudolph II.

Maximilian's successor was his son, Rudolph II., who had been chosen king of the Romans in October 1575, and who in his later years showed marked traces of insanity. The new emperor had little of his father's tolerant spirit, and under his feeble and erratic rule religious and political considerations alike tended to increase the disorder in Germany. The death of the Calvinist leader, the elector palatine Frederick III., in October 1576 and the accession of his son Louis, a prince who held Lutheran opinions, obviously afforded a favourable opportunity for making another attempt to unite the Protestants. Under the guidance of Augustus of Saxony a Lutheran confession of faith, the _Formula concordiae_, was drawn up; but, although this was accepted by 51 princes and 35 towns, others--like the landgraves of Hesse and the cities of Magdeburg and Strassburg--refused to sign it, and thus it served only to emphasize the divisions among the Protestants. Moreover, the friendship between the Saxon and the Palatine houses was soon destroyed; for, when the elector Louis died in 1583, he was succeeded by a minor, his son Frederick IV., who was under the guardianship of his uncle John Casimir (1543-1592), a prince of very marked Calvinist sympathies and of some military experience. Just before this time much unrest in the north-west of Germany had been caused by the settlement there of a number of refugees from the Netherlands. Spreading their advanced religious views, these settlers were partly responsible for two serious outbreaks of disorder. At Aix-la-Chapelle the Protestants, not being allowed freedom of worship, took possession of the city in 1581. The matter came before the diet, which was opened at Augsburg in July 1582, but the case was left undecided; afterwards, however, the _Reichshofrat_ declared against the insurgents, although it was not until 1598 that Protestant worship was abolished and the Roman Catholic governing body was restored. At Cologne the archbishop, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, married and announced his intention of retaining his spiritual office. Had this proceeding passed unchallenged, the Protestants, among whom Gebhard now counted himself, would have had a majority in the electoral college. The Roman Catholics, however, secured the deposition of Gebhard and the election in his stead of Ernest, bishop of Liege, and war broke out in 1583. Except John Casimir, the Protestant princes showed no eagerness to assist Gebhard, who in a short time was driven from his see, and afterwards took up his residence in Strassburg, where also he instigated a rebellion on a small scale. Thus these quarrels terminated in victories for the Roman Catholics, who were successful about this time in restoring their faith in the bishoprics of Wurzburg, Salzburg, Bamberg, Paderborn, Minden and Osnabruck. Another dispute also ended in a similar way. This was the claim made by the administrator of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, a Hohenzollern prince, Joachim Frederick, afterwards elector of Brandenburg, to sit and vote in the imperial diet; it was not admitted, and the administrator retired from Augsburg, a similar fate befalling a similar claim made by several other administrators some years later.

The Protestant grievances.

After the death of Augustus of Saxony in February 1586 there was another brief alliance between the Protestant parties, although on this occasion the lead was taken not by the Saxon, but by the Palatine prince. Less strict in his adherence to the tenets of Lutheranism than Augustus, the new elector of Saxony, Christian I., fell under the influence of John Casimir. The result was that Protestant princes, including the three temporal electors, united in placing their grievances before the emperor; obtaining no redress they met at Torgau in 1591 and offered help to Henry IV. of France, a proceeding which was diametrically opposed to the past policy of Saxony. But this alliance, like its forerunner, was of very short duration. Christian I. died in 1591, and under Christian II. electoral Saxony re-established a rigid Lutheranism at home and pursued a policy of moderation and neutrality abroad. A short time afterwards the militant party among the Protestants suffered a heavy loss by the death of their leader, John Casimir, whose policy, however, was continued by his nephew and pupil, the elector Frederick IV. But neither desertion nor death was able to crush entirely the militant Protestants, among whom Christian, prince of Anhalt (1568-1630), was rapidly becoming the most prominent figure. They made themselves very troublesome at the diet of Regensburg in 1593, and also at the diet held in the same city four years later, putting forward various demands for greater religious freedom and seeking to hinder, or delay, the payment of the grant for the Turkish war. Moreover, in 1598 they put forward the theory that the vote of a majority in the diet was not binding upon the minority; they took up the same position at Regensburg in 1603, when they raised strong objections to the decisions of the _Reichshofrat_ and afterwards withdrew from the diet in a body. Thus, under Maximilian of Bavaria and Christian of Anhalt respectively the two great parties were gaining a better idea of their own needs and of each other's aims and were watching vigilantly the position in the duchies of Cleves, Julich and Berg, where a dispute over the succession was impending. While wars and rumours of wars were disturbing the peace in the west of Germany the Turks were again harassing the east. The war between them and the Empire, which was renewed in 1593, lasted almost without interruption until November 1606, when peace was made, the tribute long paid by the emperor to the sultan being abandoned. This peace was concluded not by Rudolph, but by his brother, the archduke Matthias, who owing to the emperor's mental incapacity had just been declared by his kinsman the head of the house of Habsburg. Rudolph resented this indignity very greatly, and until his death in January 1612 the relations between the brothers were very strained, but this mainly concerns the history of Hungary and of Bohemia, which were sensibly affected by the fraternal discord.

The Counter-Reformation.

By this time however, there were signs of substantial progress on the part of the great Catholic reaction, which was to have important consequences for Germany. This was due mainly to the persistent zeal of the Jesuits. For a long time the Protestants had absorbed the intellectual strength of the country, but now many able scholars and divines among the Jesuits could hold their own with their antagonists. These devoted missionaries of the church gave their attention mainly to the young, and during the reign of Rudolph II. they were fortunate enough to make a deep impression upon two princes, each of whom was destined to play a great part in the events of his time. These princes were Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, and Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, the former a member of the house of Wittelsbach, and the latter of the house of Habsburg. Maximilian became prominent in 1607 by executing an imperial mandate against the free city of Donauworth, where a religious riot had taken place, and afterwards treating it as his own. Rendered suspicious by this arbitrary act, the Protestant princes in 1608 formed a confederation known as the Evangelical Union, and in response the Roman Catholics, under the guidance of Maximilian, united in a similar confederation afterwards called the Catholic League. This was founded at Munich in July 1609. As the Union was headed by the elector palatine of the Rhine, Frederick IV., who was a Calvinist, many Lutherans, among them the elector of Saxony, were by no means enthusiastic in its support. It acquired, however, immense importance through its alliance with Henry IV. of France, who, like Henry II., wished to profit by the quarrels in Germany, and who interfered in the disputed succession to the duchies of Cleves and Julich. War seemed about to break out between the two confederations and their foreign allies over this question, but after the murder of the French king in May 1610 the Union did not venture to fight.

Ferdinand II.

Ferdinand was even more vigorous than Maximilian in defence of his religion. On assuming the government of Styria he set to work to extirpate Protestantism, which had made considerable progress in the Austrian archduchies. Soon afterwards he was selected by the Habsburgs as the heir of the childless emperor Matthias, and on coming to Vienna after the death of that sovereign in March 1619 he found himself in the midst of hopeless confusion. The Bohemians refused to acknowledge him as their king and elected in his stead Frederick V., the elector palatine of the Rhine, a son-in-law of the English king James I., and the Hungarians and the Austrians were hardly less disaffected. As Ferdinand II., however, he succeeded in obtaining the imperial crown in August 1619, and from that time he was dominated by a fixed resolve to secure the triumph of his church throughout the Empire, a resolve which cost Germany the Thirty Years' War.

The congress in Bohemia.

He began with Bohemia. Although supported by Spain he could not obtain from this quarter an army sufficiently strong to crush the Bohemians, and for some time he remained powerless and inactive in Vienna. Then at the beginning of 1620 he came to terms with Maximilian of Bavaria, who, after carefully securing his own interests, placed the army of the League, commanded by the celebrated Tilly, at his disposal. Conditionally the Union promised assistance to Frederick, but he wasted several months and vaguely hoped that the English king would help him out of his embarrassments. Meanwhile Tilly advanced into Bohemia, and in November 1620 Frederick's army was utterly routed at the battle of the White Hill, near Prague, and the unfortunate elector had just time to escape from the kingdom he had rashly undertaken to govern. Ferdinand drove to the uttermost the advantages of his victory. The Union being destroyed and the Bohemian revolution crushed, attention was turned to the hereditary lands of the elector palatine. The Spanish troops and the army of the League invaded the Rhenish Palatinate, which was defended by Frederick's remaining adherents, Christian of Brunswick and Count Ernst von Mansfeld, but after several battles it passed completely into the possession of the imperialists. Having been placed under the imperial ban Frederick became an exile from his inheritance, and the electorate which he was declared to have forfeited was conferred on Maximilian.

Danish interference in the war.

Thus ended the first stage of the Thirty Years' War, although some desultory fighting continued between the League and its opponents. The second began in 1625 with the formation, after much fruitless negotiation, of a Protestant combination, which had the support of England, although its leading member was Christian IV., king of Denmark, who as duke of Holstein was a prince of the Empire, and who like other Lutherans was alarmed at the emperor's successes. It was in this war that Europe first became familiar with the great name of Wallenstein. Unable himself to raise and equip a strong army, and restive at his dependence on the League, Ferdinand gladly accepted Wallenstein's offer to put an army into the field at no cost to himself. After Wallenstein had beaten Mansfeld at the bridge of Dessau in April 1626, and Tilly had defeated Christian of Denmark at Lutter in the succeeding August, the two generals united their forces. Denmark was invaded, and Wallenstein, now duke of Friedland, was authorized to govern the conquered duchies of Mecklenburg and Pomerania; but his ambitious scheme of securing the whole of the south coast of the Baltic was thwarted by the resistance of the city of Stralsund, which for five months he vainly tried to take. Denmark, however, was compelled to conclude peace at Lubeck in May 1629.

Dismissal of Wallenstein.

Intoxicated by success, Ferdinand had issued two months before the famous Edict of Restitution. This ordered the restoration of all ecclesiastical lands which had come into the possession of the Protestants since the peace of Passau in 1552, and, as several archbishoprics and bishoprics had become Protestant, it struck a tremendous blow at the emperor's foes and stirred among them intense and universal opposition. A little later, yielding to Maximilian and his colleagues in the League, Ferdinand dismissed Wallenstein, whose movements had aroused their resentment, from his service. A more inauspicious moment could not have been chosen for these two serious steps, because in the summer of 1630 Gustavus Adolphus left Sweden at the head of a strong army for the purpose of sustaining the Protestant cause in Germany. At first this great king was coldly received by the Protestants, who were ignorant of his designs and did not want a stranger to profit by the internal disputes of their country. A mistake at the outset would probably have been fatal to him, but he saw the dangers of his position and moved so warily that in less than a year he had obtained the alliance of the elector of Saxony, a consequence of the terrible sack of Magdeburg by the imperialists in May 1631 and of the devastation of the electorate by Tilly. He had also obtained on his own terms the assistance of France, and was ready to enter upon his short but brilliant campaign.

The campaign of Gustavus Adolphus.

Having captured Frankfort-on-Oder and forced the hesitating elector of Brandenburg, George William, to grant him some assistance, Gustavus Adolphus added the Saxon army to his own, and in September 1631 he met Tilly, at the head of nearly the whole force of the League, at Breitenfeld, near Leipzig, where he gained a victory which placed North Germany entirely at his feet. So utterly had he shattered the emperor's power that he could doubtless have marched straight to Vienna; he preferred, however, to proceed through central into southern Germany, while his Saxon ally, the elector John George, recovered Silesia and Lusatia and invaded Bohemia. Wurzburg and Frankfort were among the cities which opened their gates to the Swedish king as the deliverer of the Protestants; several princes sought his alliance, and, making the captured city of Mainz his headquarters, he was busily engaged for some months in resting and strengthening his army and in negotiating about the future conduct of the war. Early in 1632 he led his troops into Bavaria. In April he defeated Tilly at the crossing of the Lech, the imperialist general being mortally wounded during this fight, and then he took possession of Augsburg and of Munich. Before these events Ferdinand had realized how serious had been his mistake in dismissing Wallenstein, and after some delay his agents persuaded the great general to emerge from his retirement. The conditions, however, upon which Wallenstein consented to come to the emperor's aid were remarkably onerous, but Ferdinand had perforce to assent to them. He obtained sole command of the imperial armies, with the power of concluding treaties and of granting pardons, and he doubtless insisted on the withdrawal of the Edict of Restitution, although this is not absolutely certain; in brief, the only limits to his power were the limits to the strength of his army. Having quickly assembled this, he drove the Saxons from Bohemia, and then marched towards Franconia, with the intention of crossing swords with his only serious rival, Gustavus Adolphus, who had left Munich when he heard that this foe had taken the field. The Swedes and their allies occupied Nuremberg, while the imperialists fortified a great camp and blockaded the city. Gustavus made an attempt to storm these fortifications, but he failed to make any impression on them; he failed also in inducing Wallenstein to accept battle, and he was forced to abandon Nuremberg and to march to the protection of Saxony. Wallenstein followed, and the two armies faced each other at Lutzen on the 16th of November 1632. Here the imperialists were beaten, but the victory was even more disastrous to the Protestant cause than a defeat, for the Swedish king was among the slain.

The league of Heilbronn and the death of Wallenstein.