CHAPTER III.

THE PROTESTANT COLLAPSE. (1620-30.)

I. THE BOHEMIAN AND THE PALATINATE WAR. (1620-3.)

THE Bohemian War, as the military conflict of the year 1620 is usually called, was as brief in its course as its results were decisive ; for, strictly speaking, it extended over but four months. Its story is on the Protestant side from first to last one of helplessness, incompetence, and ill-faith. While Frederick's enemies were preparing to crush him, he was impotently allowing the confusion in his government to become chaos. The Bohemian army had returned from its futile march on Vienna, demoralised by failure and with ranks thinned by disease ; its pay was in arrear, and the soldiery ready to break out into open mutiny ; yet the Bohemian nobles were jealous of Anhalt holding the chief command over it. The condition of things had, however, improved by May, when Anhalt had effected a junction with Mansfeld, and had been further reinforced by a Silesian contingent. Bethlen Gabor too had now openly promised aid ; and, a few weeks after Maximilian had crossed the frontier, a joint Bohemian and Hungarian embassy had started for Constantinople, and an informal Diet had elected Bethlen King at Pressburg.

Estates Ferdinand himself dealt, proclaiming as rebels the Protestant seceders who had formally placed themselves under the protection of Frederick. In the meantime Anhalt with the main Bohemian army fell back into Moravia ; while Mansfeld, after operating against a force of Spanish auxiliaries under Don Balthasar Maradas, threw himself into Pilsen. As early as April, having already tired of a service which brought him little plunder or pay, and not even the desired title of Field-Marshal, he had asked for his dismissal ; and in August, although he had for a year and a half been under the ban of the Empire, he made overtures to the Emperor through Maximilian.

The way to Prague thus lay open ; and, towards the end of October, Maximilian induced Bucquoy to adopt a less cautious strategy. The combined main army of the League and the Imperialists, probably amounting to rather less than 22,000 men, now set forth in its march upon the Bohemian capital. Anhalt, whose forces, including 3000 Hungarians, seem to have outnumbered the enemy by about 2000 men, moved from Moravia and, with King Frederick, who had joined him, took up a position in a fortified camp at Rakonitz, athwart the hostile line of advance. In these preliminary operations Anhalt gained a momentary advantage over Tilly, who had taken Bucquoy's place during his disablement by a slight wound. Count John Tzerklaes von Tilly was a Walloon, who under Parma and in the Hungarian wars had learnt to combine prudence with decisiveness of action at the right moment. In the Thirty Years' War the continuity of Tilly's military successes was unbroken till Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the scene. He was .neither unwilling to resort to diplomatic contrivance, nor blind to his own interests ; but his devotion to the cause which he served, inspired by an unswerving religious zeal and political loyalty, secured him the confidence of his master, while his rigorous abstention from self-indulgence won him the goodwill of his soldiery, to whose habits and desires he was accustomed to allow the licence approved by the military usage of the times. Unable to dislodge Anhalt at Rakonitz, Tilly endeavoured to reach Prague by a more circuitous northern route before the arrival of the Bohemian army ; but Anhalt and Hohenlohe contrived to be first on the spot, and encamped to the west of the city on the White Hill, where they hastily threw up entrenchments.

Palatinate, Spinola was content for the present to remain in the comfortable winter-quarters which he had secured, and to await the progress of events.

After the catastrophe of the White Hill it had seemed quite safe on the Imperial side to neglect the overtures of Mansfeld; and he consequently offered his services to Frederick, who named him commander-in-chief in Bohemia and the incorporated lands (February, 1621). Mansfeld hereupon made a series of raids from Pilsen ; but, having repaired to Heilbronn, in order to try his diplomatic powers on the members of the Union there, he found himself debarred from returning to Pilsen, which had in the meantime been occupied by the troops of the League. The fortress of Glatz on the Silesian frontier, the last place in Bohemia which held out against Ferdinand's authority, was not surrendered by the younger Thurn till October, 1622.

The manifesto issued from Breslau in November, 1620, by the unfortunate Frederick, calling on the Union to take up his cause as its own and predicting the lengths to which the Catholic Reaction, if unchecked, would proceed, fell on deaf ears. After holding repeated meetings in the last months of the year, the Union in December at Worms still proclaimed its determination not to abandon the defence of the Palatinate. But the representatives attending these meetings had dwindled in numbers, and at Worms no longer included a single deputy from any of the towns. Several of the Princes, too, were evidently bent upon making their peace with the Emperor-among them Duke John Frederick of Württemberg (who had special reasons for dreading the application to his own case of the reservation ecclesiasticurri), together with the Anhalt Princes, Christian's nephew and brothers, and his late diplomatic helpmate, Joachim Ernest of Ansbach. All the members of the Union had lost heart, with the exception of George Frederick of Baden-Durlach and the high-minded but somewhat stubborn Maurice of Hesse-Cassel. Nor was there any reliance to be placed on foreign support ; the States General were disinclined to repeat a demonstration which the incompetence of the Union had rendered futile; while James I, though the invasion of the Palatinate had furnished him with the requisite opportunity for allowing funds to be collected and volunteers shipped, and part of a loan obtained by him from Denmark had been transferred by him to his daughter Elizabeth, would go no further till his Parliament should meet in January. Inasmuch as his marriage negotiations with Spain were still in progress there was no saying what course he might then pursue.

After quitting Prague, Frederick had with his wife and children made his way into Silesia, whence he speedily sent them on into the dominions of his brother-in-law, the young Elector of Brandenburg. George William had in the previous year succeeded both in Brandenburg and in Prussia, which in 1618 had at last been united with the electorate. Just as during his administration of Cleves and Mark George William had sought to assure these western possessions to his House by keeping in touch with the States General, so he might now be expected, in opposition to Austria and Poland, to enter into close relations with Sweden. Such had indeed been the calculation of King Gustavus Àdolphus, who in May, 1620, paid an incognito visit to Berlin, and there, with the aid of the Lutheran Electress Dowager Anna, obtained the promise of the hand of the absent Elector's sister Maria Eleonora. In September the Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna negotiated the formal engagement, and in November the marriage was celebrated at Stockholm. But, though Gustavus Adolphus kept alive the relations thus begun, he was from the summer of 1621 onwards again much occupied by the renewal of the Polish War ; while George William, though he had reluctantly consented to the match, was unwilling to provoke either Poland or the Emperor, and delayed choosing his side. In January, 1621, Frederick, whose hope that the Silesian Diet might rally to his support and thus enable him to hold on till the arrival in full force of Bethlen Gabor had been frustrated, joined his wife at Kustrin. Behind his back Silesia submitted without delay to the Saxon occupation, purchasing by a large money-payment easy terms, including the liberty of exercising the Augsburg Confession. Under the pressure of Bucquoy's troops the Moravian Estates had already on December 18,1620, declared their secession from the Bohemian confederation. The Lusatians obtained conditions similar to the Silesian ; but here, in accordance with his compact with the Emperor, the Elector of Saxony was to remain in possession till he had been repaid his costs.

When the breakdown of the Union had followed on the rout of the White Hill, the first act of the changeful drama of the Great War was really played out. The lackland " King and Queen of Bohemia,1' as they continued to call themselves, had passed on from Kiistrin to Berlin, and thence, by way of Wolfenbiittel and Segeberg (in the royal portion of Holstein), into the Free Netherlands. To Segeberg Christian IV of Denmark in March summoned a few Princes of the Lower Saxon Circle, who passed some strong resolutions as to the defence of Frederick's inheritance. In Holland he and his consort were received by the population as the martyrs of its own cherished Calvinism; and a cordial welcome was extended to them at the Hague by Frederick's kinsman, Maurice of Orange (April, 1621). The Dutch truce with Spain was at this very time running out, and the arrogant Spanish demands rendered the renewal of war inevitable ; so that already in December, 1620, the States General had pressed the defence of the Palatinate both upon the Union and upon Denmark.

Frederick's and Elizabeth's life of exile, which in the case of the heroic Queen lasted full forty years, cannot be described here. Notwithstanding his placidity of temper, Frederick was tenacious of his rights throughout; while in the earlier years of her exile Elizabeth Stewart's royal personality inspired a passionate loyalty in both the military champions and the diplomatic agents and helpers of the Palatine cause. With the aid of indefatigable servants such as Ludwig Camerarius and Johann von Rusdorf the Palatine family constituted the chief, and at one time almost the sole, nucleus of resistance to the victorious Catholic Reaction.

Christian of Anhält's own political importance ended with this collapse. The publication of his papers seized at Prague had acted like the explosion of the master alchemist's alembic; while the great artificer himself made a noiseless escape into the protection of the King of Sweden. Within three years an elaborate negotiation secured him an Imperial pardon ; and before his death in April, 1630, he not only placed himself under obligations to Wallenstein in order to serve the interests of his hardly-used principality, but actually received favours from the Emperor. Of his companions under the ban, Hohenlohe likewise made his peace with Vienna ; while John George of Jägerndorf ultimately made his way to Transylvania, and till his death (March, 1624) did his best to stimulate Bethlen Gabor to enter into the war.

But this proceeded on an enormous scale. To the proclamation bidding all landowners who had taken any part in the insurrection avow their guilt and throw themselves on the Emperor's mercy, more than 700 nobles and knights had responded. Their lives and honour were left untouched ; but, in direct violation of a privilege of Rudolf II providing that forfeited estates should pass to innocent persons in the line of inheritance, one-third, one-half, or the whole of their respective lands were, in accordance with a scale elaborated by Slawata, declared to have escheated to the Crown. The confiscations continued till 1628, when a popular outbreak led to the closing of the proscription list ; though payments continued to be enforced for many years, chiefly on petty offenders. It may be safely stated that by the end of 1623 nearly half of the landed property in Bohemia had passed into the hands of the Emperor, and that the confiscations arising out of the insurrection amounted in value to something between four and five millions of our money.

How was the Emperor to deal with so vast an amount of landed property? So early as September, 1622, he announced his intention to sell large quantities of it for cash (of which he certainly stood in need) and to entrust both the conduct of the sale and the application of the proceeds to the Bohemian Government under Liechtenstein. Unfortunately they executed their task with reckless speed, disposing of the main mass of the estates within something like a twelvemonth. As a matter of course, enormous fortunes were made by the wary, and especially by persons claiming to be entitled to easy terms or even to free gifts-officials such as Slawata and Martinitz or military commanders such as Bucquoy, Maradas, and Aldringer. The most extensive operations, however, were carried on by Liechtenstein, Eggenberg, and above all by Albrecht von Wallenstein.

The grotesque inquisitorial process for carrying out this cruel policy at Prague and then throughout the kingdom met with much violent opposition; but the instances of a persistent refusal to conform or emigrate were quite isolated. In 1627 Ferdinand II, when at Prague to secure the coronation of his heir, instituted a tribunal of "reformation," which fixed six months as the final term within which Protestant recusants must quit the realm after the sale of their property. It is reckoned that on this last occasion more than 30,000 domiciled families of all classes abandoned Bohemia. The country lost incalculably by this drain of warlike nobles, skilled professional men, accomplished scholars and artists, and for a long time to come fell back hopelessly in learning and culture ; some of its neighbours, Saxony in particular, profiting in proportion by the immigration of Bohemian exiles. The royal towns were deprived both of their corporate property, which had formerly amounted to something like one-third of the lands of the kingdom, and of their self-government ; and their utter decline entirely changed the face of the country and dried up the sources of the activity of the people. Such of the Bohemian-bom nobles as remained in the land sooner or later became converts ; while the peasantry, unable as a class to emigrate, sank into stagnation. The hand of Ferdinand, which cut into shreds the Letter of Majesty, seemed at the same time to have severed the sinews of the nation's vitality. The new Constitution (Landesordnung'), carefully drafted by two reactionary Commissions, and signed by Ferdinand on May 23,1627, besides establishing the hereditary right of the ruling dynasty, while it reserved to the King the right of summoning the Diet and the legislative initiative, also included provisions for putting an end to the ascendancy of the Bohemian tongue and thus preparing the extinction of the Bohemian nationality.

The rout of the White Hill had also determined Bethlen Gabor to stay his advance, and after a time to enter into negotiations with the Emperor (January, 1621). But Ferdinand now felt strong enough to reject the Transylvanian's offers of compromise; and hostile operations were resumed. Bucquoy's delays, and then his death (July), enabled Bethlen, who had been reinforced by some troops under the outlawed Jägerndorf, to overrun the greater part of Hungary, to penetrate into eastern Moravia, and even to harry Lower Austria. But without aid from either Venice or the Turk he felt unable to keep up the struggle ; and on the last day of the year a peace was patched up at Nikolsburg in Moravia. Bethlen was secured the possession (with certain reservations) of seven Hungarian counties, with the reversion to his son of the Silesian duchies of Oppeln and Ratibor; in return, he renounced so much of Hungary as he had hitherto occupied, and all claims to the title of King. But all the rights and privileges of the Hungarian Estates were confirmed ; and the progress subsequently made in Hungary by the Catholic Reaction-which ultimately secured a working majority among the magnates-though throughout favoured by the Crown, was due to ecclesiastical initiative, in particular to that of Archbishop (afterwards Cardinal) Päzmany. For the present the pacification with Bethlen Gabor and his Hungarian adherents enabled Ferdinand to carry on unhindered the work of reaction in Bohemia and Moravia, and to attempt a similar settlement in the Austrian duchies.

Meanwhile the Palatinate War had resumed its course. In June, 1621, Mansfeld established himself in a fortified camp at Waidhaus in the Upper Palatinate, close to the Bohemian frontier; and here he was, in July, attacked by Tilly, at the head of a superior force. The Leaguers were unable to dislodge Mansfeld from his position ; and, the ban of the Empire having been renewed against him, in September Maximilian himself appeared on the scene, announcing his commission to carry out the Imperial sentence and secretly authorised to occupy the Upper Palatinate and hold it in pledge for his outlay. A provisional settlement was concluded between him and Mansfeld, who in return for a large money-payment was to evacuate the Upper Palatinate and either dissolve his army or transfer it to the Emperor. Pending the conclusion of the agreement, however, Mansfeld, quitting his position at Waidhaus, passed on to the Rhenish Palatinate, making war pay for war as he proceeded, and treating the country that he had come to defend hardly better than it had been treated by its invaders.

The news of his approach at the head of some 20,000 troops after effecting a junction with Vere near Mannheim, caused Gonzalez de Cordoba to raise the siege of Frankenthal on the left bank of the Rhine (Queen Elizabeth's dowry town) with serious loss, and the Spanish arms thus suffered a first check (October). Maximilian, now master of the Upper Palatinate, detached Tilly with 11,000 men to keep watch over Mansfeld on the Neckar and the Rhine. But so little was that incalculable condottiere mindful of his agreement, that he had already marched into Austrian Elsass and taken Hagenau, apparently intending to make it the seat of a permanent principality of his own (December).

This was Duke Christian of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, brother to the reigning Duke Frederick Ulric, and like his father, Duke Henry Julius (Rudolf II's steadfast adherent), occupant of the see of Hal-berstadt, which he did not resign till 1623. This " temporal bishop," as a contemporary English letter correctly calls him, was, to adopt Gardiner's euphemistic phrase, "a born cavalry-officer" of the most irregular type, and had served the Dutch as a captain of dragoons before he was chosen, in 1616, by the Halberstadt Chapter. There is no evidence of his having met his kinswoman, the Queen of Bohemia, before; in the autumn of 1621 he levied on his own account a force of 10,000 men ; but he may have made her acquaintance during her visit to the Court of his brother, when the latter, anxious to preserve his neutrality, discreetly stayed away. His declared devotion to her service casts a gleam of chivalrous romance over his career ; but he was at the same time one of the most brutal of the condottieri of the war, and a foul-mouthed censor of would-be peacemakers, such as Elizabeth's father. His earliest operations were, in connivance with Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, who had some 20,000 soldiery under arms, directed against Hesse-Darmstadt, but were frustrated, together with the junction of forces that might have ensued, by Tilly's lieutenant, Count von Anholt. Christian then went into winter quarters in the dioceses of Paderborn and Münster ; and the intolerable oppressions which he here practised in the character of "God's friend and the priest's foe" (the superscription of the dollars coined by him out of the silver statue of St Liborius at Paderborn) were continued during his subsequent advance through the lands of Fulda and the Wetterau to Frankfort, which he reached in June, 1622.

House of Brunswick-Lüneburg at Celle, the House of Saxe-Weimar from the beginning of the Bohemian War onwards identified itself with the Protestant cause. Of the seven surviving sons of Duke John of Saxe-Weimar, six bore arms against the Emperor ; of these the senior three had fought on Frederick's side in Bohemia; and the eldest of them, John Ernest, a prince who inherited with the military spirit something of the intellectual tastes characteristic of his line, had followed him to the Netherlands. Two others, Frederick and William-the founder of a military confraternity called the Order of Constancy-found their way to Mansfeld ; and, finally, the youngest, Bernard, the day of whose greatness was still distant, after fighting under Mansfeld at Wiesloch, took service in the Margrave of Baden's army. The government at Weimar was in the meantime carried on, and the patrimony of the family preserved by the next youngest brother, Duke Ernest the Pious.

Duke John Frederick of Württemberg and Margrave Joachim Ernest of Ansbach were likewise in touch with Frederick and his supporters; but though Duke Magnus of Württemberg took service with the Margrave of Baden, the large amount of formerly ecclesiastical property held by his reigning brother made caution indispensable.

In the spring of 1622 the ex-Elector Palatine Frederick, encouraged by these adhesions to his cause, concluded that the time had come for him to join the army of 20,000 men assembled under Mansfeld at Germersheim (on the left bank of the Rhine above Speier). He may have been moved by fresh reports of tergiversations intended by Mansfeld to approve the great captain's suggestion that parts of the see of Speier should form part of his proposed principality. With a view to a combined movement of his own and the Margrave of Baden's forces, which might have put an end to Tilly's investment of Heidelberg, Mansfeld now crossed the Rhine by a bridge from Germersheim ; but at Wiesloch on the opposite side Tilly threw himself between them (April 27). A battle ensued, at the close of which Tilly was forced to fall back towards the Neckar, and a day or two later the junction which brought up the Protestant forces to some 70,000 men was accomplished. They, however, separated again almost immediately, George Frederick being left alone to confront Tilly. On May 6 the general of the League inflicted upon him a sanguinary defeat at Wimpfen on the Neckar, close to the Württemberg frontier. After this battle, which, though decisive, had not annihilated the Margrave's army, Mansfeld, who had in the meantime relieved Hagenau, on which he always kept a vigilant eye and to which Archduke Leopold had been laying siege, recrossed the Rhine, and, with the intention of joining hands with Christian of Halberstadt, executed a raid upon Darmstadt, where he took prisoners the loyal Landgrave Lewis and his son.

But though Frederick might dismiss his troops, he could not pay them; and Mansfeld once more began to consider in what quarter he could turn his soldiery to the best account. To understand either this passage of the Thirty Years' War, or that which preceded the catastrophe of Wallenstein, it must be borne in mind that the mercenary armies were reckoned as main, and at times as paramount, factors in the general political situation-not as mere adventitious elements in it. At this particular season the Infanta's Government at Brussels was, with the approval of Maximilian, seriously meditating the purchase of Mansfeld, of course at a very high price ; while he balanced his former plan of taking service with the Emperor against that of engaging himself to the French Government against the Huguenots. In the end both he and Christian of Halberstadt struck a bargain with the States General, who since the determination of their truce with Spain in 1621 were in immediate need of troops, and whose great general, Maurice of Orange, was for want of them unable to force Spinola to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom.

This end was achieved in October, after Mansfeld and Christian, boldly marching without leave asked or granted through the Spanish Netherlands, had defeated a much inferior force hastily brought up from the Palatinate by Cordoba, first at Ligny, and then, more decisively, at Fleurus (August 29). The victory of Fleurus was largely due to the valour of Christian, who in this battle lost an arm. But his fighting days were not yet quite over; and during the remainder of the year 1622 he and Mansfeld, together with Duke William of Weimar, began afresh to enlist troops in the Lower Saxon Circle.

The citadel of German Calvinism was defended by a force of a few thousand Germans, Dutchmen, and Englishmen, commanded by Henry van der Merven.' By September town and castle were at the mercy of the artillery that poured down destruction upon them from the neighbouring hills ; and after the town had been easily carried by assault (July 17), the remnants of the garrison, which had in vain hoped to be relieved by Vere from Mannheim, were two days later allowed to depart with the honours of war, Tilly in person enforcing respect for the terms of the capitulation. But, in accordance with custom, no mercy was shown to the town during a period of three days allowed to the soldiery for plunder; excesses of all kinds were committed, and a hospital and some dwelling-houses were burnt to the ground. Then Tilly marched upon Mannheim, and, after taking the town (October 19), forced the garrison to surrender the citadel of the Friedrichsburg, Vere finding his way to Maurice of Hesse. With the exception of Frankenthal, the entire Palatinate was now in the hands of the Emperor and his allies.

Though in the Electoral College a working majority was now assured to the Catholic side, the meeting at Ratisbon had signally failed to establish a satisfactory understanding between the Catholics and the loyal Lutherans. The solitary Protestant Prince who had faithfully adhered to the Imperial policy, the Lutheran Lewis of Hesse-Darmstadt, was rewarded by the grant of the Marburg inheritance, long disputed by him with his relation of Hesse-Cassel, and was tempted to claim that landgravate itself in payment of the arrears which he held to be his due. About the same time the margravate of Baden-Baden was detached from that of Baden-Durlach in favour of the Catholic claimant.

II. THE LOWER SAXON AND DANISH WAR. (1623-9.)

Even before the Ratisbon gathering of Princes had separated it was becoming evident that in the next stage of the Great War the chief theatre of military operations would be found in the north-west of the Empire. Mansfeld and his more impulsive associate Christian of Halberstadt had, on their dismissal by Frederick, transferred themselves to the Low Countries, whither they had drawn after them Cordoba and, in the first instance for the protection of the dioceses of the Middle and Lower Rhine and their neighbourhood, Tilly's able lieutenant Anholt. Mansfeld's commission under the States General, to whom he had rendered valuable service, expired in October, 1622 ; but the States of Holland knew it to be worth their while to take him provisionally into their pay. Thereupon, showing as little care for the inviolability of the frontier of the Empire as was exhibited by the Spaniards themselves, he took up comfortable quarters in East Frisia and the neighbouring Westphalian districts. His intentions were unknown ; so late as June, 1623, he was still negotiating with the French Government.

In January, 162,3, Mansfeld had been joined by Christian of the iron arm, and both captains manifestly looked forward to a renewal of the German War in the approaching summer. Already in September, 1622, Bethlen Gabor had once more begun to prepare for a forward movement, though it was not actually set on foot till a year later. Its end might be the restoration of Frederick to the Bohemian throne ; and the Palatine agents in Copenhagen and at the north-German Courts, and at Paris, were straining every nerve. Unfortunately English money was not forthcoming to sustain this great offensive operation; for James I was making his final effort for peace, and in May even contrived to inveigle his son-in-law into a promise of abstaining from hostile efforts. But Christian IV of Denmark, greedy alike of fame and of territory, took a very different view of the situation ; and in Germany itself Brandenburg and Hesse-Cassel, now the two chief remaining representatives of Calvinism, might be expected to take part in a new effort of resistance.

While, however, these proceedings were in preparation, Tilly, who had advanced his quarters as far as the Wetterau, was in February directly commissioned by the Emperor to march against Mansfeld and his adherents-a commission supposed to carry with it the right of transit through the territories of any Estate of the Empire. At the head of some 17,000 men he in the first instance entered the Hesse-Cassel dominions, occupying the abbey of Hersfeld, the important ecclesiastical principality appropriated a century before by Landgrave Philip ; and then advanced towards the boundary of the Lower Saxon Circle, with the intention of breaking up the army of Christian of Halberstadt. Christian, who had not yet received the news of Bethlen Gabor's start, could not risk marching into Silesia to meet him ; and, when the Estates at Liineburg declared themselves ready to stand by the Emperor, who in return guaranteed them through Tilly their temporal as well as ecclesiastical possessions (July 23), Christian, baffled but not disheartened, decided on a rapid return into the hospitable United Provinces. It was at this time that he resigned his tenure of the see of Halberstadt. But Tilly, resolved to prevent his escape and still more to render impossible his junction with Mansfeld, followed Christian with a force superior to his both in quality and numbers, and, coming up with him at Stadtlohn in the diocese of Münster, inflicted on him a crushing defeat (August 6, 1623). Christian escaped, but two of the Weimar dukes (William and Frederick) were taken prisoners in the encounter. Tilly, after giving Lower Saxony a partial foretaste of the sufferings which it was to endure, then transferred his quarters to the still vexed districts of Hesse-Cassel. Before this Mansfeld had drawn back from the Münster country into East Frisia ; whence, after handing over the strong places of the country to the States General for a money consideration, he withdrew to England, in order to study the opportunities of the situation created by the return of the Prince of Wales from Madrid and the revival of the national desire for the recovery of the Palatinate.

Hitherto the Emperor had either stood on the defensive or carried on war in self-defence or as it were in the wake of the League. So late as 1624 he cannot be shown to have desired to extend the war in Germany or to take part in the renewed struggle of Spain against the Dutch ; while Spain was sufficiently occupied by this struggle, and was soon to find herself involved in new complications. But Ferdinand had chosen his part from religious, even more than from political, motives ; the influences around him interpreted his success as the beginning of a religious reaction on which the blessing of Heaven would rest ; and Europe was thus once more confronted by an aggressive Habsburg policy.

No direct interference with the advance of this policy was, so far as Germany was concerned, to be looked for from England, even after James I had given up both the Spanish marriage treaty and the control of his own policy. Mansfeld, it is true, without much difficulty obtained ample promises of men and money in England ; and in July, 1624, notwithstanding the untoward news of the Amboyna " massacre," a treaty of defensive alliance was signed with the States General, by which the English Government undertook to maintain 6000 volunteers in the Dutch service. But before the end of the first year of the reign of Charles I England was engaged in war with Spain ; and, though Charles anxiously kept in view the recovery of the Palatinate for his sister's family, this war, which after all was what the nation had mainly at heart, would have to be actually fought out at sea ; nor were supplies now obtainable from Parliament for any other warlike purpose.

For some time since, the attention of the German Protestants and their friends had inevitably been directed to Christian IV, who as has been seen was himself a member of the Lower Saxon Circle. As monarch of Denmark and Norway, he laid claim to a preponderance of power in the Scandinavian North-a claim which the issue of the " Kalmar War " could not be said to have upset. His multifarious and eager activity (for he had a true despot's love of detail) in the maritime, industrial, educational, and military affairs of his government gave proof of an aspiring ambition ; and his arrogance brooked no check upon his personal will. Thus he was tolerably sure to be ready to listen to an invitation to assume a leading part in the affairs of the Empire in the Protestant interest. He was connected by the marriages of three of his sisters with princely dynasties of the Empire-Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, Holstein-Gottorp, and Electoral Saxony (another sister of his was Queen Anne of England, who had become estranged from the Protestant faith). Of his brothers, one, Ulric, had recently died as Bishop of Schwerin. The second of Christian's sons, Frederick, was Bishop of Verden (June, 1623), and had with some difficulty been forced by the King as coadjutor upon the Archbishop of Bremen, John Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp (1621). An attempt to secure in addition the coadjutorship of Osnabrück had been frustrated by the firmness of the Catholic Chapter there. These proceedings, besides alienating the Gottorp line, had added to the apprehensions aroused by Christian's imperious dealings with Hamburg, whose independence he openly threatened, and by his hostility to the commercial privileges and policy of Lübeck, and the Hanse Towns in general. His declared intention of making himself master of the mouths of the Elbe and Weser could not but alarm some of the Estates of the Lower Saxon Circle ; and for a time he seemed to take up an attitude of reserve towards the overtures made to him by the supporters of a new Protestant coalition.

It was thus that he bore himself to Sir Robert Anstruther, who in the summer of 1624« proposed an alliance to him in the name of King James, and to Christian von Beilin, who shortly afterwards came to Copenhagen with a mission from George William of Brandenburg, and doubtless also from the ex-Elector Palatine. From Copenhagen Bellin went on to Stockholm, whither he had been preceded by Sir James Spens, another diplomatic agent of James I. Pending further information as to the intentions of the north-German Courts, it seemed expedient to sound Gustavus Adolphus.

JVIeanwhile a French diplomatic agent, Louis des Hayes (Baron de Courmenin) had twice visited the Northern Courts and suggested a separate set of proposals of a more moderate cast to Christian IV. The latter, stimulated, it can hardly be doubted, by an irresistible feeling of jealousy, now likewise formulated his offers. Towards the cost of an armament commanded by himself, which, with German aid, he hoped to raise to a total of 30,000, and that of his own contingent, amounting to 5000 men, England was to furnish a subvention reckoned at ,£30,000 a month. On March 2,1625, King James, then near his end, decided on accepting the smaller Danish instead of the wider Suedo-Brandenburg scheme, while characteristically informing Christian IV that both schemes had been accepted, subject to an arrangement between him and the King of Sweden as to the supreme command. The great design of a general Protestant alliance was, as will be seen, left an open question; but Gustavus Adolphus rightly interpreted the meaning of the English decision. It signified, what from the English point of view was intelligible enough, that the prestige of Christian IV still seemed to surpass that of his Swedish rival. The news that the Danish King had definitively placed himself at the head of the proposed undertaking finally determined the withdrawal of the Swedish monarch (March 21), whose energies were for the next five yeai-s and a half absorbed by his conflict with Poland, though he continued to pay a close attention to the course of the German War.

Throughout the ensuing war Christian IV consistently contended that, though as a sovereign Prince he had been invited by England and other Powers to intervene for the recovery of the Palatinate, the struggle which the Lower Saxon Circle actually carried on under his leadership was provoked by the invasion of that Circle, and directed to the restoration of the peace of the Empire. The members of the Circle were even at first far from unanimous in the wish to take up arms. The Bishop of Hildesheim (the Elector of Cologne) was a pronounced Catholic; the towns, as those of the Union had been, were anxious for non-committal ; and Lübeck and Hamburg detested the policy of the Danish King. Duke Christian of Brunswick-Luneburg, the actual Director of the Circle (Kreisoberster), was, notwithstanding his Lutheran sympathies and interests, unwilling to carry on war against the Emperor. But since the summer of 1623 the majority of the Estates had begun to incline to invite the cooperation, or in other words to follow the lead, of King Christian. In this they were chiefly moved by their fears ; more especially of an endeavour to bring about the restitution of ecclesiastical lands, which, though repudiated by Tilly in the name of the Emperor would hardly fail to ensue in the event of a successful invasion of the Circle. A gradual change in the whole character of the northern episcopates might follow. When in July, before the battle of Stadtlohn, the martial Christian had resigned the see of Halberstadt, he had done so on condition that the Danish King's second son Frederick should be his successor. It was no secret that the Emperor would have liked to see his younger son Leopold William elected Bishop of Halberstadt. But, though the Chapter, into which a Catholic element had been introduced, rejected the Danish Prince, the Archduke's time had not yet come ; and eventually the Administrator of Magdeburg, Christian William of Brandenburg, was elected Bishop of Halberstadt, and Prince Frederick associated with him as coadjutor and prospective successor.

The significance of the new Protestant combination was recognised by both friend and foe. While Gustavus Adolphus shrewdly if not generously credited his rival with the design of making himself Bishop General of northern Germany, every effort was used at Vienna to prevent even a local concentration of Protestant sympathies. The Imperial diplomacy succeeded not only in restraining the Dukes of Brunswick-Liineburg and Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel from joining Christian IV's following, but also, by means of an assurance that no ecclesiastical lands should be seized except for military purposes, in obtaining from the Hanse Towns at their meeting at Bergedorf (April), notwithstanding the efforts of Richelieu's agent, an open refusal to adhere to the detested Danish King. John George of Saxony's hesitancy was prolonged by the proposal of another Deputationstag ; and George William of Brandenburg, to whom the Emperor sent Hannibal von Dohna on a special mission, and who was no doubt also influenced by his secret understanding with Gustavus Adolphus, for some months refrained from any dealings with Christian IV. On the other hand, Maximilian, probably influenced in his turn by Richelieu, showed no desire to hasten the military action of the League. When, on May 23, Christian arrived in the Lower Saxon Circle with his armament, although he had imposed heavy sacrifices on his Danish subjects for his own share of it, the numbers fell far short of the total contemplated by him. Not only was the Brandenburg contingent wanting, but Mansfeld's English levies, as has been seen, were rapidly rotting away. Christian's army had thus not reached a total of 20,000 when at last, on July 15, Tilly (who held a double commission) was with the Emperor's approval authorised by Maximilian to advance "in the name of God and His Holy Mother.'1 On the 28th he crossed the Weser near Höxter.

As the summer wore on the offensive strength of both sides in the struggle had increased ; and about August Mansfeld's force, which now only amounted to about 4000 foot and a few hundred horse, joined the Danish army. But the importance of this accession was not measurable by its numbers; and a crisis was felt to be at hand. Soon Mansfeld was summoned to confer with Richelieu at Paris; and the eastern enemy might be speedily expected to be stirring again. For some time Maximilian of Bavaria had urged upon the Emperor the necessity of calling a new army into the field, but without foreseeing the way in which his demand was to be fulfilled. Wallenstein's great opportunity had now arrived. He had been created Prince of Friedland in 1623, the importance of the position which his powers of administration, organisation, and statesmanship secured to him being hereby formally recognised. Thus the agreement into which he now entered with the Emperor already in some measure resembled a treaty between sovereign Powers. In April, 1625, he received a patent from the Emperor creating him commander-in-chief (capo) over all the Imperial troops employed in the Empire or in the Netherlands. Their total was reckoned at 24,000 men, of whom he undertook himself to raise 20,000. The method of levy, the grant of commissions (which he freely offered to Protestants as well as Catholics), and the choice of places of muster, were left entirely to his decision. He fixed the contributions to be paid by towns desirous of escaping the imposition of quarters; thus Nürnberg paid 100,000 florins. From the first, it was evident that the Imperial authority, rather than the interests of the Catholic faith, would be advanced by the compact between the Emperor and his new generalissimo. With a strong army Ferdinand would no longer be dependent on the League ; and this was a calculation not likely to escape Maximilian. There is no reason for supposing that Wallenstein at present carried his speculations further ; but it is clear that the fidelity of such an army as his to the Emperor depended on its chief. Unfortunately, the actual instructions under which Wallenstein took up the supreme command are unknown.

(where he joined it at Schweinfurt) and Thuringia. In this campaign, his first as Imperial commander-in-chief, it was already noticeable how he remained entirely uncontrolled by orders from the Emperor, and how he resented and punished any reference to the Imperial authority by any of his officers. No general who disputed his judgment was allowed to retain a superior command ; and no advice was treated with respect by the commander-in-chief, except that of his chief supporter at Vienna, Ulric von Eggenberg. Surrounded by a kind of Court of his own, and magnificently hospitable, he was at the same time difficult of access, and rarely to be found in the midst of his troops, whom, even when on the march, he preferred to precede or to follow. For the rest, he always maintained the bearing of a good Catholic, though tolerant in practice, and making no secret of being so in principle. Of his soldiery, probably only a minority were Germans, while they included many Hungarians, Cechs, and even Illyrians, and were largely officered by Spaniards, Italians, and Frenchmen. They inflicted much of the suffering inseparable from the accepted practices of war upon the inhabitants of the lands through which they passed, without, however, committing such excesses as had accompanied Tilly's entrance into Lower Saxony. Indeed, Wallenstein himself, as well as some of his generals, paid personal attention to the maintenance of discipline.

In October Wallenstein entered Lower Saxony, but there is no indication that either he or Tilly, who hitherto had held the supreme command there, was anxious for a junction of their forces. Requisitioning ample supplies for his troops and threatening to burn down villages where the life of a single soldier was lost, but leaving unmolested those towns which paid in hard cash for this immunity, Wallenstein slowly advanced through the Göttingen district, without meeting with any very serious resistance. He then passed into the bishopric of Halberstadt and the archbishopric of Magdeburg, both of which were under the administration of Prince Christian William of Brandenburg. At Magdeburg the Saxon prince Augustus was about this time elected coadjutor; but Halberstadt was regarded at Vienna as a vacant see, and its occupant as a rebel, since after much hesitation (for it might in either event fare ill with his tenure of his pluralities) he had thrown in his lot with the Danish King. It was therefore in accordance with a perfect understanding between the party of restitution and reaction at the Imperial Court and Wallenstein, that both dioceses were now flooded by his troops, who treated them as conquered territory, and imposed intolerable contributions upon them. The army itself suffered much from disease and desertion ; and Wallenstein on his own authority filled its ranks, and even increased its numbers, by fresh levies. The capture of Halle (the archiépiscopal residence) sent a thrill of apprehension through the neighbouring Saxon electorate.

Simultaneous negotiations with a more limited scope had been carried on at Brunswick, where in October, 1625, Danish representatives met those of several other Lower Saxon Estates, as well as of Holstein-Gottorp, Hesse-Cassel, and Brandenburg, and of John George of Saxony, who appeared as mediator. Later, both Tilly and Wallenstein sent agents to the assembly. But John George, though he prevailed upon both sides to agree to a short suspension of hostilities (from November 17), had nothing to propose beyond the withdrawal of the armies on both sides ; and Tilly and Wallenstein at once attached conditions to their consent which would have deprived the Circle of all powers of defence. The sufferings of the population and the fear of restitutions decided the Estates to reject such a solution ; and by March, 1626, the fate of the Circle was once more committed to the arbitrament of war.

A certain obscurity still surrounds the last effort of the Brunswick Christian ; .but no doubt can exist as to the purpose of MansfekTs notable expedition to Silesia. While King Christian was occupied in crushing Tilly, Mansfeld was to divert Wallenstein towards the east, whence support from Bethlen Gabor had continued to be expected. Mansfeld had necessarily to begin by an assault on the defences of the bridge across the Elbe at Dessau erected by Wallenstein. Mansfeld, to whom, unhappily for them, George William had allowed a transit through part of his territories, attacked the bridge on April 25, 1626, but notwithstanding his admirable strategy was repulsed, with the loss of 4000 men, by Wallenstein in person. Of Wallenstein's few victories in the field this is perhaps the most conspicuous. But he failed to turn his success to full account, allowing Mansfeld to make good some of his losses, and to push on into Silesia with a force not far short of 10,000 men (June-July), Christian IV, desirous above all of diverting Wallenstein from an attack upon Holstein, had despatched John Ernest of Saxe-Weimar to augment the forces of Mansfeld, who was encouraged by secret information that Bethlen Gabor was preparing to march, and by the news that Upper Austria, as has been seen, was in revolt. In the meantime Wallenstein met Tilly, who had just taken Münden and was preparing to lay siege to Göttingen, at Duderstadt ; but, though they discussed the remoter issues of the war, with the assistance of an envoy from Spain, whose interest in the German War was reviving, Wallenstein for the present had no choice but to follow Mansfeld. The daring eastward movement of the latter had thus at a.11 events succeeded in separating the two hostile armies ; though Wallenstein left behind 8000 of his troops to support Tilly.

The forward movement begun by Christian IV in July had been too late to prevent the capture of Göttingen (August 5) by Tilly, whose junction with the Wallenstein contingent induced the King to turn back towards Wolfenbüttel (August 14). Hotly pursued by Tilly, he at last halted at Lutter by the Barenberg, a spur of the Harz mountains some ten miles north of Goslar. Neither of the contending armies probably exceeded, or even reached, a total of 20,000. None the less was this battle (August 27) an event of very great moment. For a brief space of time the result was well contested by the Danish infantry; but the end was a complete rout of Christian's forces and the loss of the whole of his artillery, besides that of several of his commanders. The first cause of his calamity, as Christian himself seems afterwards to have pleaded, was the demoralisation of his troops by the want of pay ; for the promised English subsidies had failed,

By the death of Mansfeld, Wallenstein was freed of his chief exemplar and rival in the twofold process of enlisting large bodies of troops and inspiring them with a sense of confidence in their commander, and of an adversary who, even in the final struggle in which he had succumbed, had given proof of high capacity. A great and incalculable force had at the same time been removed from the conduct and progress of the war as a whole ; and the so-called Danish War had really come to an end on the plains of Hungary rather than in the mountains of the Harz.

Christian's efforts to carry on the war after the rout of Lutter and his retreat to Stade were doomed to failure ; and gradually he recognised the wisdom of the pacific advice given by the Infanta Isabel so early as June, 1626. High-sounding promises of men and money from England resulted only in the junction with the Danish army, in April, 1627, of less than 3000 English troops, under the command of Sir Charles Morgan ; but these were merely the remnant of the four regiments which had completed their time of service in the Netherlands. Though doling out some assistance to Christian, Richelieu was beginning to calculate on Bavaria and the League as the readiest counterpoise to the augmented power of the House of Austria. In the course of 1627, even the States General put a stop to their payments. Though the far-sighted Wallenstein was still apprehensive of Swedish intervention, Gustavus Adolphus paid no serious attention to the Danish request that he should detach part of his army from its Polish campaign. Bethlen Gabor was once more immovable. Even in the northern regions of the Empire, to which he had retreated, the ground was giving way round Christian and his army. Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp, whose interests were op posed to the King's, had already declared his adherence to the Emperor. Both Hamburg and Lübeck with the other Hanse Towns of the Baltic, upon whom pressure was being put to join Christian's adversaries, were only anxious to remain neutral; and though the Mecklenburg Dukes, whose territories were flooded by Danish troops, could not renounce their alliance with Christian, they desired nothing but peace, being no doubt aware of Wallenstein's designs upon their duchies. Finally, the Danish Rigsraad itself urged upon the King the conclusion of peace, provided things could be restored to the condition in which they had stood before the war.

To the east the Danish commander Mitzlaff had begun the Silesian campaign by spreading his troops-the remains of Mansfeld's army- into the south-eastern part of the country, advancing even into Moravia. Wallenstein, deliberate in his movements as usual, did not quit Prague till the end of May ; but then by a series of well-devised operations completely cleared Upper Silesia ahd Moravia of MitzlafTs soldiery. While according to the usage of the times not a few of the garrisons under Danish colours took service with Wallenstein, Mitzlaff was, on his return home, sentenced to imprisonment by a court-martial ; whereupon he entered the Swedish service. Wallenstein's complete success in this difficult campaign left his hands free ; and he could now join in carrying the war into Christian IV's own dominions, and there bringing it to an end.

At Rendsburg, where Christian was holding a Diet of his Holstein Estates, the news was brought to him that Tilly had crossed the Elbe, and that Wallenstein was on his march northwards from Silesia. On May 31 Tilly entered Lauenburg ; and soon afterwards Han^ Georg von Arnim-a Brandenburger by birth and one of the most versatile soldier-diplomatists of the war-approached with his detachment of Wallen-steiners. The two Mecklenburg Dukes-Adolphus Frederick of Schwerin and John Albert of Gustrow-before long announced to Tilly their submission to the Emperor (August 1-3). There were occasions on which Wallenstein showed himself aware of the importance of speed, and three weeks later he had himself entered Mecklenburg. Hence he pushed on into Lauenburg, where he soon met Tilly ; and by the end of the month their joint invasion of Holstein had begun.

Pinneberg was taken (September 2) ; and though a wound received on the occasion obliged Tilly to return to Lauenburg, the advance proceeded under the undivided command of Wallenstein, On Septem ber 14 four regiments of foot and horse, the nucleus of Christian's forces, were obliged to capitulate at Grossenbrode on the Femer Sound, in the extreme north-east of Holstein; but their commanders, the Margrave of Baden, Bernard of Weimar, and the redoubtable Robert Munro (who belonged to a family of Scots distinguished in the German wars) made their escape to Fiinen. Some resistance was still offered by Count Thurn, who had recently entered into the Danish service. He was now a sexa genarian; but his activity had by no means come to an end with the failure of the Bohemian War, of which he was a principal author, and he remained for some years to come one of the most eager and resolute supporters of the Protestant cause. The King himself, who had taken ship from Glückstadt, and had been received with great coldness by the Ditmarschen peasantry, found his way, first to Flensburg, and then to Kolding. Utterly disheartened, though Danish troops were approaching on the Fiinen side of the Little Belt, he now threw up the game and crossed into safety. The exact date of His flight is unknown; but it must have been early in October. Behind his back Rendsburg fell; and a few days earlier (October 3) Schlick, sent on in pursuit by Wallenstein, captured 8000 Danish horse near Aalborg in Jutland, and the whole of the Danish mainland was now flooded by the Imperial soldiery.

During the winter of 1627-8 the army of Jutland and Schleswig appears to have amounted to quite 30,000 men, and that in Holstein to a similar total. It is difficult to see how Jutland at all events could have supported the heavy exactions demanded ; but the discipline maintained under Wallenstein contrasted favourably with the lack of it in Christian's own forces. Of these none were now left in the entire peninsula ; while to the west the defensive position on the Weser above Bremen was likewise evacuated on the approach of Tilly's able lieutenant Anholt, and nearly the whole of the Bremen diocese was occupied by the troops of the League without any show of resistance. Before the close of the year 1627, the reduction of the Lower Saxon Circle had been completed, almost the last place to fall being Wolfenbiittel, which held out till December 14, when it capitulated to another of Tilly's lieutenants who was rising to distinction, Count zu Pappenheim.

On the other hand, the failure of Christian IV could not but suggest the transfer of the task, in the execution of which he had broken down, to the rival Scandinavian Power. Gustavus Adolphus had left Denmark to take care of itself, and had afterwards 'declined to furnish an army for the reconquest of Jutland. ' But he was-though hardly, in Ranke's phrase, "awakened," since his vigilance had throughout been unremitting-at last moved to action when the Emperor's arms approached the Baltic, and the question of the control of its waters as it were suddenly sprang into prominence. The interests of the two Scandinavian monarchies in the Baltic were by no means identical, but up to a certain point they necessitated an understanding between them. In January, 1628, a treaty was concluded between Sweden and Denmark by which the former, in return for the opening of the Sound to Swedish vessels, bound herself to keep eight men-of-war in the Baltic during the summer and autumn of the year. At the same time family arrangements were made intended to draw the dynasties more closely together.

Gustavus Adolphus had stirred neither without reason nor too soon. Wallenstein, whose diplomatic skill had laid the eastern peril, whose military operations had subdued Silesia, who by a mixture of force and conciliation had brought Brandenburg over to the Emperor, and placed him in a position of ascendancy in Germany such as his predecessors had not held since the days of Charles V, was now nearing the height of his power. As yet the rise of that power had at almost every step seemed to imply the extension and confirmation of the Imperial authority ; and now .the opportunity seemed at hand for an unprecedented development of both.

Late in October, 1627, Arnim was instructed by Wallenstein to occupy all the Pomeranian seaports, and more especially the island of Rügen, which Duke Philip Julius of Pomerania- Wolgast had not long since proposed to sell to Denmark, and on the necessity of securing which Wallenstein specially insisted. In November the country at large was occupied by the Imperial troops. Two years before this date the entire heritage of the Pomeranian Dukes had, in consequence of several deaths (some of which were occasioned by the vice that was the bane of so many of the German dynasties, excess in drinking), come into the hands of Duke Bogislav XIV, the last of his ancient line. Without being wholly wanting in patriotic spirit, he was weak and ill-advised, unable really to unite the several divisions of his land or to adopt any policy in the war except that of a neutrality which the antiquated military organisation of his duchy was incapable of guarding. On the extinction of the native line, the Pomeranian succession was by the Treaty of Grimnitz (1529) secured to Brandenburg. But, though Wallenstein did not encourage any interference with this settlement in his own favour, it was understood to depend on the loyalty of George William whether Pomerania, like Jiilich-Cleves and Prussia before it, would be allowed to pass to the House of Brandenburg.

July, and then again to September. Religious motives had an unmistakable share in this unwillingness, even if they were not its primary cause. At their meeting the Hanse Towns had brought forward many grievances both old and new, turning in the main respectively on violation of their mercantile and maritime privileges by the Spanish Government, and on the exactions of the Imperial troops, especially those enforced upon Wismar, and the large sum extorted from Rostock for the avoidance of similar treatment. But of all the complaints the loudest were those provoked by the attempt made in Wallenstein's and the Emperor's names to force an Imperial garrison upon Stralsund.

This attempt, which formed part of the general scheme for securing the cooperation of the Baltic towns, was to result not only in completely frustrating the whole design, but in checking at their full height the advance of the Imperial power and of Wallenstein's personal authority. About this time no achievement seemed impossible to him-even that which, like other conquerors before and after him, he seems to have contemplated, the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. The dream of an Imperial dominium maris was dissipated, and Wallenstein's planet for the first time arrested in its course, before the walls of Stralsund.

On May 13, 1628, the siege proper was begun by Arnim ; and, after two attempted assaults had failed, the Scandinavian reinforcements arrived. It is clear that without their aid Stralsund could not have held out against her besiegers. First came an auxiliary force despatched by Christian IV, under the command of Colonel Henry Hoik, and consisting of Major Munro's regiment of 900 Scots and 400 Danes and Germans ; then followed eight Swedish ships, with 600 soldiers and a diplomatic agent, who on June 23 concluded on behalf of his King a treaty of alliance for twenty years, the basis, as it proved, of Gustavus Adolphus' subsequent expedition. The city was sufficiently garrisoned, and Arnim in vain essayed both assault and bombardment. By June 23 Wallenstein himself assumed the conduct of the siege, and massed round Stralsund an army amounting to 25,000 men, in addition to the 6000 (or thereabouts) on Rügen. In a preliminary interview with Arnim at Greifswald he had declared his determination, negotiations or no negotiations, to make short work of the canagîia in Stralsund ; and to the time of his actual appearance before Stralsund seems to belong his famous vaunt, to which Munro's narrative bears testimony, that the city " must down, were it bound with chains to the heavens."

Wallenstein's opportunity had passed away ; his attempts to circumvent Stralsund by negotiation and to crush her by force had simultaneously broken down. It was impossible any longer to keep the Imperial forces massed round the place ; on July 21 the withdrawal of the army began, and by the 24th the siege had to all intents and purposes been raised, though Arnim remained with the army no further off than Brandshagen. Christian IV had the satisfaction of bidding the unfortunate Bogislav clear his duchy of the Imperialists, and of taking Wolgast by a coup de main (August 3). But Wallenstein rapidly swooped down upon the King with a force of 12,000 men, and, defeating the troops which he had landed, drove him back to his ships (August 12). Before the end of the autumn Wallenstein himself quitted Pomerania.

Wallenstein's success gained over the Danish King could not compensate him for so striking a failure as the raising of the siege of Stralsund-an event whose significance in the eyes of Europe was enhanced by the fall, in November, of .Huguenot Rochelle. Those who were jealous of the growth of the Emperor's power, or who resented Wallenstein's own pre-eminence, could now decry him as a baffled general, and charge him with having been the chief promoter, if not the actual originator, of a great political blunder. The Hanse Towns, at their September meeting in Lübeck, took courage to reject altogether the Imperial proposals intended to involve them in the new mercantile and maritime ambitions of the House of Habsburg. But more than this. The Swedish troops.remained in Stralsund; the town concluded a treaty with their King; and Wallenstein's assertion was on the point of being falsified, that " the Roman Empire could settle its war without Gustavus Adolphus."

III. THE EDICT OF RESTITUTION AND THE DISMISSAL OF WALLENSTEIN. (1628-30.)

Among the conditions of the Peace of Lübeck, by determining which Wallenstein had achieved another great political success, had been the appropriation of the northern sees in accordance with the wishes of the League. The religious conflict had now reached a point when a settlement of one of its fundamental problems was no longer to be avoided ; and the Emperor himself at last decided to take that settlement in hand.

The outbreak of the war and the danger of the falling asunder of the whole Empire had, however, made some sort of understanding indispensable. At the Miihlhausen meeting in March, 1620, the Catholic Electors had agreed that the Lutheran occupants-the Calvinists remained unmentioned-of bishoprics and other ecclesiastical foundations should not be removed by force, if they held Imperial letters of protection. The Elector of Saxony, upon whom as usual the issue largely depended, was content with this meagre assurance ; and the Bohemian War ran its course without the intervention of the Union. When, after his victory at the White Hill, the Emperor, in February, 1621, sued for the aid of the League to enable him to continue the war, he expressly indicated as its purpose the relief of those who had suffered wrong in contravention of the Religious Peace. When the Lower Saxon Circle grew restive, he refused to appease it by confirming the tenure of ecclesiastical foundations by its (Protestant) members (May, 1621 ). When the victory of Lutter had encouraged the forward action of the League, and the Imperial forces overwhelmed the retreating King of Denmark and his allies, there seemed no necessity for further delay. While the party of advance was stimulated by such publications as the Dillingen Book, the Imperial tribunals expeditiously granted the prayer of every Catholic complainant. Already the old enemy of the Protestants of the south-west, the Bishop of Augsburg (Heinrich von Knqrringen), was to the front, and recovering the convents in Swabia and Franconia appropriated by Württemberg and Ansbach.

Yet, even after the Danish War was practically over, Ferdinand still hesitated. The Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg urged him to qualify any such Edict as that proposed by a clause safeguarding the rights of the Estates to be consulted in the matter. The Emperor could not conceal from himself that the chief advantages of a restitution would rest with the members of the League; and he was fain to extract from them in return a promise to support the election of his son as Roman King, and to keep under arms the military forces now in the Empire. Bavaria and Mainz would hear of no such concessions. Maximilian, who, in February, 1628, had obtained from the Emperor a formal guarantee for thirty years of the Upper and part of the Lower Palatinate in exchange for Upper Austria, as well as a recognition of the hereditary right of his line to the Electoral succession, had never been more self-confident.

There was, however, another way of inducing the Emperor to act. The great north-German bishoprics, Bremen, Verden, and Minden, might, together with Halberstadt and Magdeburg, be secured to the Emperor's son, Archduke Leopold William, who would thus acquire a domain larger than any of the spiritual electorates. This was a scheme that commended itself not only to Ferdinand, but also to Wallenstein, who had hitherto looked askance at the principle of restitution, but who had nothing to say against it if so applied as to benefit the Imperial House and to advance its military power. And now the religious zeal of another group of the Emperor's advisers-the Nuncio CarafFa, and the confessor Lamormain-and Ferdinand's own religious enthusiasm, rarely appealed to in vain, were fired by the project of a great Counter-reformation, to go hand in hand with the restitution. On September 13, 1628. the order was given to draft the Edict ; and after having been submitted to Mainz and Bavaria it was promulgated on March 6, 1629.

This Edict, which was communicated without note or comment even to the loyal Elector of Saxony, spread the utmost alarm throughout the Protestant portions of the Empire, and especially those occupied by the Catholic armies. It was heightened by the circumstance that the terminus chosen was the year 1552, when the Catholics were in possession of many foundations just recovered by them, which by 1555 had reverted to Protestant tenure. Further apprehensions were rife, and a vague fear prevailed of the Edict being stretched so as to meet every demand of the supporters of the Counter-reformation, and of their leaders the Jesuits. In the case of the small Imperial towns, Archduke Leopold had some months since set a precedent in Elsass, both by the restitution of ecclesiastical property, and by forcing the profession of Catholicism upon all the inhabitants under his rule.

The process of restitution and reformation which now ensued was continued more or less during the next three years. In many cases it remained incomplete; in others it was successfully resisted, as in Magdeburg, to which Wallenstein actually laid siege, though he was ultimately induced to raise it (September, 1629). The great events of the year 1631 prevented the final transfer of the archbishoprics of Bremen and Magdeburg into Catholic hands. But up to that time five bishoprics (Halberstadt, which together with the Hessian abbey of Hersfeld had been secured by the pluralist Archduke Leopold William ; Minden and Verden, which fell to the Bishop of Osnabrück, a kinsman of Maximilian ; and Ratzeburg and Schwerin) had been recovered to the Church of Rome, and a sixth (held by the pluralist of Cologne) had received back two-thirds of its lands, long since alienated from it. In addition, the restitution had been carried out more or less fully in about thirty Imperial or Hanse Towns, and in fifteen more it had been announced, planned, or partially executed. In different parts of Germany nearly a hundred convents had been restored, and some eighty or ninety ordered to be brought back-out of the total more than threescore in the duchy of Brunswick alone, many in Lüneburg, Hesse, and Nassau, and some twenty in Württemberg. The number of parish and other churches in which Catholic worship was once more set up can hardly be estimated. In general, the localities where the Counter-reformation was most effectively carried out were, besides the diocese of Osnabrück and the territories of Lippe, Waldeck, and Saxe-Weimar, the duchy of Württemberg, and most especially the Brandenburg margravates of Ansbach and Baireuth.

The Saxon Elector in consequence at last became more amenable to Protestant influence, and, though still opposed to common action, sent a protest of his own against the Edict to Vienna. The Emperor's answer was to refer him to the Kurfurstentag which was assembling at Ratisbon at this time (July, 1630).

At Ratisbon a chance was still offered to the Emperor and the League of reconsidering the policy which, while striving to force religious unity upon the Empire, was cleaving it hopelessly asunder. In August, A compromise, fair in some respects if not in all-its most essential point being the restriction of restitution to sees and foundations that had remained Catholic up to 1555-was offered on behalf of the young Landgrave George of Hesse-Darmstadt, son-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. But the proposal was rejected by the Catholic Electors, who absolutely adhered to the Edict and insisted upon its rigorous execution, more especially in Württemberg. They consented, however, in November, to attend a "composition11 meeting to be held at Frankfort in the iFebruary following on the subject of the restitutions. It was known that John George hoped to assemble the Protestant Princes before that date at Leipzig ; for already Gustavus Adolphus had landed on the Pomeranian coast (July 4), and, though this event had not made so profound an impression as might have been expected, common action of some kind could hardly any longer be avoided by the Protestant Princes. But the proceedings which followed on their part will be more conveniently narrated in a later chapter.

When the discussions on the Restitutions opened at Frankfort, tjeorge of Hesse-Darmstadt, true to the tendencies of his line, advocated submission to the Catholic demands ; but Electoral Saxony now insisted on the revocation of the Edict, and the restoration of spiritual lands and foundations to the condition in which they had been before 1620.

It has been seen within what narrow limits the Imperial Commander-in-chief had approved of the Restitution policy adopted by the Emperor. He was likewise so dissatisfied with the responsibility incurred by Ferdinand in taking part in the Mantuan War, that at one time (October, 1629) he seems to have thought of a division of the supreme command into two departments, of which he would reserve only the northern to himself. The Mantuan War is described in another chapter. Here it will suffice to state that in regard to the disputed succession in Mantua and Montferrat Pope Urban VIII, involved in a variety of quarrels with Ferdinand-as to the Hungarian sees, as to the Imperial fiefs in Parma, as to the surrender of Prague University to the detested Jesuits-had espoused the cause of the French claimant, the Duke of Nevers, while Ferdinand asserted his right to dispose of Mantua as an Imperial fief. Richelieu, now master of the Huguenots after the fall of La Rochelle and the suppression of Henry de Rohan's rising, had resolved upon intervention. The successful French campaign of 1629 had led to the rapid muster of an Imperial army at Lindau, for which Wallenstein was obliged to detach 20,000 of his troops; and, though in 1630 Richelieu himself took the field and conquered Savoy, the Imperialists under Gallas and Aldringer, after repulsing a Venetian attempt at relief, took Mantua (July 18, 1630). They were, however, unable to take Casale; and the peace with the Emperor and Savoy, signed at Cherasco (April 16, 1631), which put France in possession of Pinerolo, entirely justified Wallenstein's doubts as to the expediency of entering into this war, even though it for the time made it difficult for France to cooperate actively with Gustavus Adolphus.

When, on July 3, 1630, Ferdinand at last reached Ratisbon, his first concern was the election of his eldest son and namesake as Roman King. But he was also troubled by the external dangers threatening the Empire, and by the doubtful attitude of France. The United Provinces had become more dangerous by their capture of Hertogenbosch (September, 1629). About the same time Gustavus Adolphus had concluded with his Polish adversary the truce of Altmark, equivalent to a peace on his own conditions. His landing in Pomerania was now imminent ; and an "honest conjunction" between the Emperor and the Electors seemed indispensable for the preservation of the Empire. Unhappily, however, the rift between Ferdinand and Maximilian was still deep. Not in vain had the Papal suggestion of his own election as Roman King sounded in the ear of the prudent but ambitious Bavarian (January, 1629) ; not in vain had the draft of a French alliance actually been submitted for his consideration (October). A French ambassador, Brulart, appeared at Ratisbon, accompanied by the most confidential of all the confidential agents of the Cardinal, the Capuchin Father Joseph.

Wallenstein, with his usual sensitiveness to changes in the political atmosphere, had of late shown himself conciliatory in some matters of foreign policy; but he had steadily gone on increasing the Imperial army, till in April, 1630, he had been explicitly ordered to stop further levies and to take steps towards the reduction of the existing bodies of troops. In June he moved his head-quarters as near as Memmingen in Swabia. On August 11 certain of the Imperial councillors entered into pourparlers with the French ambassador at Ratisbon as to the renewal of peace ; and two days later the Emperor announced to the Catholic Electors his intention of making a change in the command of his army. While the Protestant Electors, opposed to the existence of any Imperial army at all, stood apart, the Catholic promptly took up the question of the command ; and, having secured the " hard assent " of Maximilian, the Spiritual Electors proposed him as the new com-mander-in-chief, a demand which if successful would have placed both the Catholic armies in the Empire under the control of a sagacious politician wholly devoid of military qualities. The Spanish ambassador vehemently protested ; but the Emperor was ready to discuss the proposal, though desirous of modifying it in various ways, more especially by blending the'two armies into one.

For the moment, Tilly, who never shrank from a duty imposed upon him, assumed the temporary command over both armies, which it was intended to reduce to a total of 39,000 men. But the difficulty as to how the Imperialist forces were to be maintained was of course hard to meet, and a rapid diminution of them was inevitable. In these circumstances there was but faint hope of a successful negotiation with France. Notwithstanding the tidings of the fall of Mantua (July), French diplomacy pressed the withdrawal of the Spanish and Imperial troops from Italy, while Richelieu was secretly urging Gustavus Adol-phus through Hercule de Charnacé, the French ambassador, to make war upon the Emperon The Catholic Electors were so intent upon a pacification with France that on this head too Ferdinand was ready to give way. But Richelieu had no present wish for a general peace, and, after the Kurfürstentag had broken up, contented himself with concluding the Treaty of Cherasco and a subsequent agreement (April and June, 1631), limited to Italian affairs. Thus the Spanish and Imperialist forces, at all events, were once more free.

The Emperor was unable at Ratisbon to carry the election of his eldest son as Roman King. The question of the Edict of Restitution was urged by Saxony and Brandenburg, who went so far as to announce a separate meeting of Protestant Estates which might have proceeded to discuss the question of war contributions ; but, as has been seen, it was relegated to a "composition" meeting, to be held at Frankfort early in the following year. When, in November, 1630, the Ratisbon assembly came to an end, unanimity had been reached by the Emperor, the Catholic, and the Protestant Electors, on one point only. They had all agreed on a missive to King Gustavus Adolphus, in which they pointed out the unlawfulness of his recent irruption into the Empire, and requested him to return home.