The Thirty-Year War Part One

In principle, it was nothing more than the name which they had in common with these Utraquists; in essence they were totally Protestants. Complete confidence in their powerful inclination and in the Emperor’s tolerance, they dared, under the government of Maximilian to show their true intentions. They established a specific confession after the example of the Germans, in whom the Lutherans as well as the Reformed recognized their religious convictions and would have transferred to this new confession all the privileges of the former Utraquist church. This attempt found a contradiction within the authorities of their fellow Catholics and they had to content with just words of assurance from the mouth of the Emperor.

So long as Maximilian lived, they enjoyed a complete tolerance even in their new form; under his successor, however, the scene changed. An imperial edict was issued which retracted from the so called Bohemian Brothers the freedom of religion. The Bohemian Brothers differentiated themselves in nothing from the other Utraquists; the judgement of their condemnation must have hurt all the fellow bohemian brothers in religion in equal manner. Everyone opposed, for that reason, the imperial mandate in the parliament, however, without being able to overturn it. The Emperor and the catholic authorities relied on the contract and on the bohemian local rules in which, indeed, there was still nothing at the advantage of a religion which, formerly, has still not for itself the voice of the nation. However, how many things have changed ever since! What formerly was an insignificant sect, was now being a predominant church – and was it now nothing else but harassment, to want to determine the limits of a newly coming religion with old contracts? The bohemian Protestants called upon the assurance given verbally by Maximilian and on the religious freedom of the Germans, with whom they, in any way, should not set behind. In vain, for their request would be turned down.

Hence were the state of affairs in Bohemia as Matthias, already ruler of Hungary, Austria and Mähren, appeared in Kollin to lead an insurrection also the bohemian authorities against the Emperor. The embarrassment of this last one grew utmost. Abandoned by all his remaining hereditary states; put he his last hope on the bohemian authorities, from whom was supposed that they would be abusing his state of necessity to put through their demands. After many years of absence, he appeared publicly again in Prague, in the Parliament and in order to show the people that he still lives, ordered that all the windows be opened on his passage to the palace; to give enough proof how well he is. What he feared happened. The authorities who felt their importance, wanted rather not to understand this move until they have been granted privileges as authorities and the religious freedom has been secured completely. It was in vain, to hide oneself behind, now, still the old excuses; the destiny of the Emperor was in their hand and he must accommodate with the necessity. Hence, this was only concerning their other demands, the religious matters he reserved for himself, to correct on the next parliamentary session.

Now, the people of Bohemia seized the weapons in his defence and a bloody civil war should start between the both brothers. However, Rudolf who feared nothing more than to be in this slave-like dependence on the authorities, expected this not, rather rushed to accommodate himself with the Archduke, his brother, for a pacific way of resolving the problem. In a formal act of renouncement, abandoned he to the same brother, what was to him not any more to take, Austria and the kingdom of Hungary and recognized him as his successor on the throne of Bohemia.

The Emperor has pulled himself with enough difficulty from this embarrassment to implicate himself immediately into a new embarrassment. The religious matters of Bohemia were being postponed on the next parliamentary session: this session took place in 1609. They demanded the same freedom of religious practice as under the previous Emperor, their own consistory, the establishment of the Academy of Prague and the permission to establish defenders or freedom protectors from their own ranks. They were answered in the same manner as the first time; for the Catholics have tied all the resolutions of the fearful Emperor. So often and in such a menacing tone renewed also the authorities their requests, Rudolf persisted on the first declaration of not conceding anything about the old contracts. The Parliament dismissed the unresolved matters and the authorities, irritated by the Emperor; summoned themselves for an arbitrary reunion in Prague; in order to help themselves with a solution.

In great number they appeared in Prague. Regardless of the imperial interdiction, the council went on and almost under the eyes of the Emperor. The flexibility which he showed in the beginning, proved to them only how much they were rightfully apprehensive and increased their defiance; in the main points, he remained inflexible. They fulfilled their menaces and took seriously the resolution to put in place by themselves the free practice of their religion in all the places and to leave the Emperor so long in his needs, until he has confirmed this disposition. They went further and gave themselves the defenders whom the Emperor refused to them. Ten persons from each of the three authorities would be named: people resolved to raise a military army most promptly whereby the main commander of this insurrection, the Count of Thurn would be the general officer. This seriousness in pursuing their goals brought finally the Emperor into the flexibility where even the Spaniards, now, advised him. From fear that the utmost radicalised authorities, finally, almost wanted to throw themselves into the arms of the King of Hungary; signed he the remarkable patent of equal rights of Bohemia, through which they have justified, under the successors of this Emperor, their revolt.

The bohemian confession which the authorities have presented to the Emperor Maximilian, received in this letter of acknowledgement a patent of perfect equal rights with the Catholic Church. The Utraquists, as the bohemian Protestants still continued to call themselves, will be conceded the University of Prague and their own consistory which is independent from the Archbishop of Prague. All the churches which they have already inside the cities, villages and marketplaces at the time of the proclamation of this letter, should remain to them and if they want to build still new ones in addition to these, hence, it should be allowed to the lordly and knightly authorities and all the cities to do so. This last disposition in the letter of equal rights acknowledgement, to which later on the unfortunate dispute stretched itself, will put Europe into flames.

The letter of majestic acknowledgement made the protestant Bohemia into a sort of republic. The authorities had learned about power which they achieved through observing constancy, insight and harmony in their standards. To the Emperor remained nothing more than a shadow of his regional power; in the person of the so called freedom protector, the spirit of insurrection would be given a dangerous encouragement. Bohemia’s example and fortune was a seducing blink for the remaining hereditary states of Austria and all of them wished to receive the similar privileges in the same manner. The spirit of freedom went from a province to another and as it was preferably the discord between the austrian Princes which the Protestants knew to use so luckily, hence, people rushed to reconcile the Emperor with the King of Hungary.

However, this reconciliation could not be any more sincere. The suffering was too deep in order to be forgiven and Rudolf went on to nurture an indelible hatred against Mathias in his heart. With pain and indignation, he nurtured thoughts which finally should put into such a hated hand the sceptre of Bohemia and the perspective was not of much consolation to him when Mathias did not produce any inheritors. Therefore was Ferdinand, Archduke of Grätz, the chief of the family which he equally little appreciated. As to this one as well as to Mathias was the succession to the throne of Bohemia excluded, resorted he to hand over the throne to Ferdinand’s brother, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau who was for him, among all his relatives, the most beloved and the most deserving. The Bohemians' conceptions about the freedom of choice of their kingdom and their inclination for the person of Leopold, seemed to favour this plan in which Rudolf more his partisanship and desire for revenge than the best of his House could have taken into account.

However, to put through this project, it needed a military might which Rudolf also really derived from the diocese of Passau. The determination of this military body no one knew about, however an unpredicted invasion which it did in Bohemia from lack of salary payments and without the knowledge of the Emperor and the excesses which it used there; brought this whole kingdom into insurrection against the Emperor. In vain assured this one the authorities of Bohemia about his innocence, they believed him not; in vain sought he to stop the arbitrary violence of his soldiers, they heard him not. In the supposition that it is intended for the revocation of the letter of equal rights acknowledgement, the freedom protector made the whole of protestant Bohemia took the weapons and Mathias would be called in the country.

After the persecution of his troops from Passau, remained the Emperor deprived of any help, in Prague where people keeping watch of him as a prisoner in his own castle and all his counsellors were removed from him. Mathias has, in the meantime, entered amidst the general euphoria in Prague where Rudolf shortly before was enough coward, to recognize him as King of Bohemia. So severely destiny has punished this Emperor that he must be giving up to his enemy, during his lifetime, a throne which he would not have conceded him after his death. To complete his discouragement, people required him to dismiss from all their duties his subjects in Bohemia, Silesia and Lusatia through a unilateral act of renouncement; and he did this with a torn soul. Everything, even the ones which he believed to have most cared for, has abandoned him. As the signing of the document happened, he threw his hat on the floor and tore the feather which had performed such an outraging service to him.

While Rudolf lost one of his hereditary countries one after the other, would the dignity of Emperor not be affirmed by him. Each of the religious parties, among which Germany was divided, strived in their effort to improve at the cost of the other or to prevent themselves from their attacks. The weaker was the hand which held the sceptre of the Empire, and the more the Protestants and Catholics felt themselves abandoned, the more must their attention be stretched onto one another; the more grew the mistrust of the counterpart. It was enough that the Emperor ruled through the Jesuits and would be driven by a spanish council to give the Protestants cause for fear and an excuse to enmity. The imprudent zeal of the Jesuits which made doubtful in writing and on the pulpit the validity of the religious peace, fuelled their mistrust ever more and let them suppose of dangerous intentions in every insignificant move of the Catholics.

Everything that would be undertaken in the imperial hereditary countries to the limitation of the evangelical religion, made enthusiastic the attention of the whole protestant Germany and precisely this powerful reserve which the evangelical subjects of Austria found or expected to find in their fellow religious believers in the rest of Germany, have a great share in their defiance and on the rapid fortune of Mathias. People believed within the Empire that people should only think about the longer enjoyment of the religious peace, only about the embarrassment, wherein the Emperor put the inner unrest in his countries and precisely for that reason, people did not rush to relieve him of this embarrassment.

Almost all the affairs of the Parliament remained pending either on the care of the Emperor or on the obligingness of the protestant imperial authorities which have made it into law, not to contribute anything to the common need of the emperor, before their complaints were dissipated. The complaints would be preferably concerning the terrible governance of the Emperor, the vexation inflicted to the religious peace and the new measures of the Imperial council which among other government bodies has started to enlarge its jurisdiction to the disadvantage of the tribunal court. Otherwise, the Emperors have decided by himself in unimportant cases, alone and in important ones, in consultation with the princes, upon all the legal dealings between the authorities which could not settle anything under the right of the stronger without them in the highest instances or allow it to be settled through imperial judges who only followed the advice of their administration.

This higher court administration they had transferred, at the end of the fifteenth century, to a regular, permanent and functioning tribunal, the tribunal court in Speyer to which the authorities of the Empire, in order not to be oppressed by the arbitrariness of the Emperor, held on to, to appoint the jury, to also examine the verdicts of the tribunal through periodic revisions. Through the religious peace was this right of the authorities, the right of presentation and visitation, also been extended to the Lutherans so that from now on, also protestant judges decide in protestant legal proceedings and an apparent equilibrium of both religions took place in this highest imperial court.

However, the enemies of Reformation and of the freedom of the authorities, attentive to every circumstance which favoured their goals, found soon an exit to destroy the use of this directive. Little by little, it was appearing that a private tribunal of the Emperor, the Imperial Council in Vienna exercised the highest authority in legal proceedings concerning the Imperial authorities – in the beginning, it was determined for nothing else than providing the Emperor with counsel in the exercise of his unquestioned, personal imperial rights – this tribunal which members would be nominated alone arbitrarily by the Emperor and paid by him alone, must be having as its unique guiding principle the leaning to the advantage of its sovereign in their highest legal instances and to the best interest of the catholic religion to which they recognized themselves. Before the Imperial council would, from now on, be presented many legal proceedings between authorities of different religion, over which only the tribunal was suited to decide and the appearance before it was decided by the council of the Prince.

No wonder that the verdicts of this tribunal betrayed its origin, that catholic judges and creatures of the Emperor, would sacrifice justice to the interest of the Catholic religion and of the Emperor. Even if all the imperial authorities of Germany seemed to have reason to commit such a dangerous misuse over times, hence, the Protestants to whom this misuse was pressed most sensitively, and under this misuse not once all of the parties, positioned themselves only as defender of the german freedom which such an arbitrary institute harmed in its most sacred pretence, the duty of justice.

Actually, Germany would really have little cause not to wish itself luck for the abolition of the right of the stronger and the installation of the tribunal when near the last one still an arbitrary imperial jurisdiction might take place. The german imperial authorities would in these times of barbarism, have really little improved if in the tribunal where they sat, sat at the same time the Emperor, a tribunal for which they have abolished, hence, the previous right of the princes, should cease to be a necessary instance. However, in the mindset of the people in this century the strangest contradictions would often be encountered. To the name of Emperor, to the legacy of the despotic Rome, was attached in those days still a concept of omnipotence which against the remaining sovereignty of the Germans made the most ridiculous contrast, however nevertheless, it would be protected by jurists, spread by partisans of despotism and believed by the weak parties.

To these general complaints accumulated also, little by little, a series of specific incidents which transformed the worry of the Protestants, finally, into the highest mistrust. While the spanish religious persecutions in the Netherlands have led some protestant families to flee into the catholic imperial city where they settled and increased, unnoticeable, their partisanship. After it was succeeded them through cleverness to bring some of their representatives into the city council, hence, demanded they their own church and the practice of an open religious service which they created for themselves near the settlement of the city regiment in a violent manner; after they have received a negative answer. To see such a considerable city in protestant hands was too serious a blow for the Emperor and the whole catholic party. After all imperial exhortations and commands for the return into the former condition remained fruitless, a decision of the Imperial council declared the city under an imperial ban which, however, would be only applied by the following governing authority.

Of greater significance were the two other attempts of the Protestants to enlarge their territory and their power. The palatinate elector Gebhard of Cologne, born Truchsess of Waldburg, felt a strong passion for the young Countess Agnes of Mansfeld, canoness of Gerresheim, which remained not unreturned. As the eyes of the whole Germany were directed on this idyll, hence the brothers of the Countess, two zealous Calvinists, demanded compensation for the offended honour of their House, which, so long as the Electorate Palatinate Prince remained a catholic Bishop, could not be compensated by any marriage. They menaced the Electorate Palatinate Prince to compensate for this shame on his and their sister’s blood if he renounced not, at once, to any relationship with the countess or recover again their honour by bringing the Countess before the altar. The Electorate Palatinate Prince, indifferent to all the consequences of this move, heard nothing than the voice of love. Was it because he was already inclining, in general, to the reformed religion, or because the attraction for his beloved alone was responsible for this miracle? Nonetheless, he renounced to the catholic faith and brought the beautiful Agnes to the altar.

The case was of the highest sensitivity. According to the letter of the spiritual conduct, has the Electorate Palatinate Prince lost, through this apostasy, all the rights to his core foundation and if it was important for the Catholics, in any way, to continue the spiritual conduct, hence, it was also important to the people of the Electorate Palatinate. On the other side, was this separation of the highest importance such a hard decision and the harder for such a tender spouse who wanted so voluntarily to raise the value of his heart and his hand through the present of a principality.

The spiritual conduct was anyway a contested article in the peace treaty of Augsburg and for the whole protestant Germany; it seemed of utmost importance to deprive the catholic part of this fourth principality. The example itself was already given in many spiritual foundations of the Netherlands and has been continued successfully there. Many more capitulates from Cologne’s cathedral were already Protestants and on the side of the Electorate Palatinate Prince; in the city itself a numerous protestant partisanship was assured. All these grounds, to which the encouragement of his friends and relatives were added, and the promise of many german palaces gave them even more strength, brought the Electorate Palatinate Princes to the resolution to also keep in the converted religion his core foundation.

However, soon enough it was found out that he has undertaken a battle which he could not be ending. Already the free practice of the protestant religious service in the vicinity of Cologne has encountered within the catholic authorities and the capitulates of the cathedrals the most violent opposition. The unpredictability of the Emperor and a ban from Rome which cursed him as an apostate and horrified all his spiritual as well as worldly dignitaries; caused his regional authorities and his capital to take the arms against him. The Electorate Palatinate Prince gathered a military might; the capitulates did the same. In order to secure for themselves rapidly a powerful army, rushed they to the election of a new Electorate Palatinate Prince which resulted in the election of the Bishop of Liege, a bavarian Prince.

A civil war begins, now, which, in regard the great share which both religious parties in Germany must be necessarily taking during this event, could be ending easily into a general dissolution of the religious peace. Mostly it infuriated the Protestants that the Pope might resort, in line with the authority of the apostolic power, to deprive an imperial Prince from his imperial dignities.

Still in the golden times of their spiritual domination have the Popes been contested of this right; how much more in a century where their respect was really destroyed in a part of the population and in the other, only relied upon very weak pillars! All the protestant palaces in Germany took this cause emphatically to the Emperor; Henry the Fourth of France, then still King of Navarra; left not any way of negotiation unsought to recommend strongly to the german princes the implementation of their rights. The case was decisive for the freedom of Germany. Four Protestant voices against three Catholics in the Electorate Palatinate Council must be balancing the power towards the prevalence of power on the Protestants’ side and hinder forever the Austrian House the way to the imperial throne.

However, the Electorate Palatinate Prince Gebhard has encompassed the Reformed and not the Lutheran Religion: this unique circumstance made his misfortune. The resentment of both these churches against one another allowed not the evangelic imperial authorities to view the Electorate Palatinate Prince as their own and as such to support him with emphasis. All have sworn him assistance, in truth, and promised him help; however only an appendage Prince of the Palatinate House, Palatinate Count Johann Casimir, a Calvinist zealot, kept his word. This one rushed, despite the imperial interdiction, to go to Cologne with his small army, however without anything considerable to do because the Electorate Palatinate Prince, himself of the highest necessity put into, left him really and totally without any help.

The moves which the newly postulating Electorate Palatinate Prince whom his bavarian relatives and the Spaniards from the Netherlands support most forcefully, were made even more quicker. Gebhard's troops, left without pay by their master, delivered to the enemy one place after the other; the others would be forced into capitulation. Gebhard remained still for some time in his land in Westphalia until he, also there, was forced to hand over the power. After he has made many vain attempts to regain force in Holland and England, he returned to the foundation of Strasbourg; to die there as cathedral decant; the first victim of the spiritual reserve; or rather more; of the terrible harmony prevailing among the german Protestants.

To this dispute in Cologne was added shortly after a new one in Strasbourg. Many more protestant capitulates from Cologne’s cathedral who have encountered the ban from the Pope at the same time as the Electorate Palatinate Prince, have fled in this diocese where the equally possessed prebends. As the catholic capitulates in the foundation of Strasbourg had reticence to allow them as banned persons the benefit of their prebends; hence, they put themselves arbitrarily and violently into possession of it and a powerful protestant partisanship among the citizens of Strasbourg provided them almost the upper hand in the foundation. The catholic rulers in the cathedral escaped to Alsace-Zabern where they continued under the protection of their Bishop their chapter as the unique lawful one and declared the people who remained in Strasbourg for usurpers.

In the meantime have these last ones through inclusion of more protestant members of high rank strengthened themselves so much that they could undertake, after the death of the Bishop; to apply a new protestant Bishop in the person of the Prince Johann Georges of Brandenburg to the position. The catholic rulers of the cathedral, far from accepting this election, proposed the Bishop of Metz, a Prince from Lorraine, to this dignity which announced his nomination at the same time, with declaration of enmities to the territory of Strasbourg.

As the city of Strasbourg took the weapons for the protestant chapter and the Prince of Brandenburg, but the other party sought to take possession of the goods of the monastery with the help of the troops from Lorraine, hence it became an enduring war which according to the spirit of these times, was accompanied with a barbaric devastation. In vain, mingled the Emperor with his highest authority in between, to decide about the dispute: the goods of the monastery remained still for a long time divided between the two parties; until finally the protestant Prince renounced to his pretences on them against a reasonable equivalent in money and hence, also here, the Catholic Church came out victorious from the dispute.

More serious for the whole protestant Germany was the event that happened, soon after the settlement of the previous dispute, in Donauwörth, an imperial city in Swabia. In this city, otherwise a catholic city, which was under the ruling of Ferdinand and his son, the protestant party, through its usual way, became so much the prevailing one that the catholic inhabitants must be attending mass in a church chapel in the Cloister of the Holy Cross and not to irritate the Protestants must renounce to most of their liturgical practices during the mass. Finally, dared a fanatic Abbot of this cloister, who defied the popular voice and established an open procession with the exhibition of the Cross and the use of floating flags; however, people forced him, soon, to refrain from this conduct. As this namely Abbot, encouraged by a favourable imperial declaration, repeated this procession a year after that, people resorted to open violence to settle the issue.

The fanatic populace obstructed the gate of the cloister to the returning brothers, threw their flags down and accompanied them among shouts and swears to their house. An imperial citation was the consequence of this violence and as the exhausted people even showed the intention to attack the imperial police offices, as the attempts for an amicable settlement from the fanatical horde appeared improbable, hence, followed finally the formal imperial ban towards the city which execution would be entrusted to the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Discouragement seized the otherwise so defiant citizenry at the approach of the bavarian army and without any resistance, they put down their weapons. The whole abolition of the protestant religion in their walls was the punishment for their offence. The city lost its privileges and would be transformed from an imperial city of Swabia into a local city of Bavaria.

Two circumstances accompanied this process which must have aroused the highest interest of the Protestants when the interest of religion has also been lesser effective with them. The council of the Imperial Palace, an arbitrary and throughout catholic tribunal, which jurisdiction would anyway be disputed so forcefully by them, has accepted the judgement; and to the Duke of Bavaria, to the chef of foreign circle, people have transferred the execution of the same judgement. Hence, anti-constitutional steps meant for them, from the catholic side, violent measures which could be relying easily on secret appointments and a dangerous plan support and be ending with the whole oppression of their religious freedom.

In a situation where the right of the strongest reigns and on power alone relies all forms of security, the weakest party will always be the one most preoccupied in putting itself in the state of defence. This was now the case also in Germany. If something really terrible was decided by the Catholics against the Protestants, hence, according to the most reasonable account, the first blow must be hitting rather more in the south than in the north of Germany because the Protestants from Lower Germany held together there, within a long uninterrupted strip of land and could also be supporting themselves very easily, the Germans of the upper part however, separated from the rest and surrounded by catholic states, were vulnerable to any attack. If furthermore, as it is to be guessed, the Catholics would use the internal divisions of the Protestants and would direct their attacks against an individual religious party, hence, were the Calvinists the weaker party and as they were anyway deprived of religious freedom, they apparently were exposed to a more imminent danger and on them must the first blow fall upon.

Both met together in the electorate palatinate countries which had a very doubtful neighbour in the Duke of Bavaria; because of their fall back to Calvinism, however, could not hope of any protection form the religious peace and of little assistance from the evangelical authorities. No german country had, in such a short time, experience so rapid religious conversion than this palatinate one in those times. In the short space of sixty years, people saw this country, an unfortunate toy of its ruler, two times swore itself to the religious teachings of Luther and these teachings were abandoned two times for Calvinism. Electorate Palatinate Prince Frederick the Third was first unfaithful to the Confession of Augsburg, which made suddenly and violently into prominence his first born son and successor, Ludwig.