And when he now, yielding to the stern law of necessity,
made overtures to the Bohemian rebels, all his proposals for peace
were insolently rejected.  Count Thurn, at the head of an army,
entered Moravia to bring this province, which alone continued to waver,
to a decision.  The appearance of their friends is the signal of revolt
for the Moravian Protestants.  Bruenn is taken, the remainder of the country
yields with free will, throughout the province government and religion
are changed.  Swelling as it flows, the torrent of rebellion pours down
upon Austria, where a party, holding similar sentiments,
receives it with a joyful concurrence.  Henceforth, there should be
no more distinctions of religion; equality of rights should be guaranteed
to all Christian churches.  They hear that a foreign force has been
invited into the country to oppress the Bohemians.  Let them be sought out,
and the enemies of liberty pursued to the ends of the earth.
Not an arm is raised in defence of the Archduke, and the rebels, at length,
encamp before Vienna to besiege their sovereign.

Ferdinand had sent his children from Gratz, where they were no longer safe,
to the Tyrol; he himself awaited the insurgents in his capital.
A handful of soldiers was all he could oppose to the enraged multitude;
these few were without pay or provisions, and therefore
little to be depended on.  Vienna was unprepared for a long siege.
The party of the Protestants, ready at any moment to join the Bohemians,
had the preponderance in the city; those in the country had already begun
to levy troops against him.  Already, in imagination, the Protestant populace
saw the Emperor shut up in a monastery, his territories divided,
and his children educated as Protestants.  Confiding in secret,
and surrounded by public enemies, he saw the chasm every moment widening
to engulf his hopes and even himself.  The Bohemian bullets were already
falling upon the imperial palace, when sixteen Austrian barons
forcibly entered his chamber, and inveighing against him
with loud and bitter reproaches, endeavoured to force him into a confederation
with the Bohemians.  One of them, seizing him by the button of his doublet,
demanded, in a tone of menace, "Ferdinand, wilt thou sign it?"

Who would not be pardoned had he wavered in this frightful situation?
Yet Ferdinand still remembered the dignity of a Roman emperor.
No alternative seemed left to him but an immediate flight or submission;
laymen urged him to the one, priests to the other.  If he abandoned the city,
it would fall into the enemy's hands; with Vienna, Austria was lost;
with Austria, the imperial throne.  Ferdinand abandoned not his capital,
and as little would he hear of conditions.

The Archduke is still engaged in altercation with the deputed barons,
when all at once a sound of trumpets is heard in the palace square.
Terror and astonishment take possession of all present;
a fearful report pervades the palace; one deputy after another disappears.
Many of the nobility and the citizens hastily take refuge
in the camp of Thurn.  This sudden change is effected by a regiment
of Dampierre's cuirassiers, who at that moment marched into the city
to defend the Archduke.  A body of infantry soon followed;
reassured by their appearance, several of the Roman Catholic citizens,
and even the students themselves, take up arms.  A report which arrived
just at the same time from Bohemia made his deliverance complete.
The Flemish general, Bucquoi, had totally defeated Count Mansfeld at Budweiss,
and was marching upon Prague.  The Bohemians hastily broke up
their camp before Vienna to protect their own capital.

And now also the passes were free which the enemy had taken possession of,
in order to obstruct Ferdinand's progress to his coronation at Frankfort.
If the accession to the imperial throne was important for the plans
of the King of Hungary, it was of still greater consequence
at the present moment, when his nomination as Emperor would afford
the most unsuspicious and decisive proof of the dignity of his person,
and of the justice of his cause, while, at the same time,
it would give him a hope of support from the Empire.  But the same cabal
which opposed him in his hereditary dominions, laboured also to counteract him
in his canvass for the imperial dignity.  No Austrian prince, they maintained,
ought to ascend the throne; least of all Ferdinand, the bigoted persecutor
of their religion, the slave of Spain and of the Jesuits.  To prevent this,
the crown had been offered, even during the lifetime of Matthias,
to the Duke of Bavaria, and on his refusal, to the Duke of Savoy.
As some difficulty was experienced in settling with the latter
the conditions of acceptance, it was sought, at all events,
to delay the election till some decisive blow in Austria or Bohemia
should annihilate all the hopes of Ferdinand, and incapacitate him
from any competition for this dignity.  The members of the Union
left no stone unturned to gain over from Ferdinand the Electorate of Saxony,
which was bound to Austrian interests; they represented to this court
the dangers with which the Protestant religion, and even the constitution
of the empire, were threatened by the principles of this prince and
his Spanish alliance.  By the elevation of Ferdinand to the imperial throne,
Germany, they further asserted, would be involved in the private quarrels
of this prince, and bring upon itself the arms of Bohemia.
But in spite of all opposing influences, the day of election was fixed,
Ferdinand summoned to it as lawful king of Bohemia, and his electoral vote,
after a fruitless resistance on the part of the Bohemian Estates,
acknowledged to be good.  The votes of the three ecclesiastical electorates
were for him, Saxony was favourable to him, Brandenburg made no opposition,
and a decided majority declared him Emperor in 1619.
Thus he saw the most doubtful of his crowns placed first of all on his head;
but a few days after he lost that which he had reckoned among the most certain
of his possessions.  While he was thus elected Emperor in Frankfort,
he was in Prague deprived of the Bohemian throne.

Almost all of his German hereditary dominions had in the meantime
entered into a formidable league with the Bohemians, whose insolence now
exceeded all bounds.  In a general Diet, the latter, on the 17th of August,
1619, proclaimed the Emperor an enemy to the Bohemian religion and liberties,
who by his pernicious counsels had alienated from them the affections
of the late Emperor, had furnished troops to oppress them,
had given their country as a prey to foreigners, and finally,
in contravention of the national rights, had bequeathed the crown,
by a secret compact, to Spain:  they therefore declared
that he had forfeited whatever title he might otherwise have had to the crown,
and immediately proceeded to a new election.  As this sentence was pronounced
by Protestants, their choice could not well fall upon a Roman Catholic prince,
though, to save appearances, some voices were raised for Bavaria and Savoy.
But the violent religious animosities which divided
the evangelical and the reformed parties among the Protestants,
impeded for some time the election even of a Protestant king;
till at last the address and activity of the Calvinists carried the day
from the numerical superiority of the Lutherans.

Among all the princes who were competitors for this dignity,
the Elector Palatine Frederick V. had the best grounded claims
on the confidence and gratitude of the Bohemians; and among them all,
there was no one in whose case the private interests of particular Estates,
and the attachment of the people, seemed to be justified by so many
considerations of state.  Frederick V. was of a free and lively spirit,
of great goodness of heart, and regal liberality.  He was the head
of the Calvinistic party in Germany, the leader of the Union,
whose resources were at his disposal, a near relation of the Duke of Bavaria,
and a son-in-law of the King of Great Britain,
who might lend him his powerful support.  All these considerations
were prominently and successfully brought forward by the Calvinists,
and Frederick V. was chosen king by the Assembly at Prague,
amidst prayers and tears of joy.

The whole proceedings of the Diet at Prague had been premeditated,
and Frederick himself had taken too active a share in the matter
to feel at all surprised at the offer made to him by the Bohemians.
But now the immediate glitter of this throne dazzled him,
and the magnitude both of his elevation and his delinquency made
his weak mind to tremble.  After the usual manner of pusillanimous spirits,
he sought to confirm himself in his purpose by the opinions of others;
but these opinions had no weight with him when they ran counter to
his own cherished wishes.  Saxony and Bavaria, of whom he sought advice,
all his brother electors, all who compared the magnitude of the design
with his capacities and resources, warned him of the danger
into which he was about to rush.  Even King James of England preferred to see
his son-in-law deprived of this crown, than that the sacred majesty of kings
should be outraged by so dangerous a precedent.  But of what avail
was the voice of prudence against the seductive glitter of a crown?
In the moment of boldest determination, when they are indignantly rejecting
the consecrated branch of a race which had governed them for two centuries,
a free people throws itself into his arms.  Confiding in his courage,
they choose him as their leader in the dangerous career of glory and liberty.
To him, as to its born champion, an oppressed religion looks for shelter
and support against its persecutors.  Could he have the weakness
to listen to his fears, and to betray the cause of religion and liberty?
This religion proclaims to him its own preponderance,
and the weakness of its rival, -- two-thirds of the power of Austria
are now in arms against Austria itself, while a formidable confederacy,
already formed in Transylvania, would, by a hostile attack,
further distract even the weak remnant of its power.
Could inducements such as these fail to awaken his ambition,
or such hopes to animate and inflame his resolution?

A few moments of calm consideration would have sufficed to show
the danger of the undertaking, and the comparative worthlessness of the prize.
But the temptation spoke to his feelings; the warning only to his reason.
It was his misfortune that his nearest and most influential counsellors
espoused the side of his passions.  The aggrandizement of their master's power
opened to the ambition and avarice of his Palatine servants an unlimited field
for their gratification; this anticipated triumph of their church
kindled the ardour of the Calvinistic fanatic.  Could a mind so weak
as that of Ferdinand resist the delusions of his counsellors,
who exaggerated his resources and his strength, as much as they underrated
those of his enemies; or the exhortations of his preachers, who announced
the effusions of their fanatical zeal as the immediate inspiration of heaven?
The dreams of astrology filled his mind with visionary hopes;
even love conspired, with its irresistible fascination,
to complete the seduction.  "Had you," demanded the Electress,
"confidence enough in yourself to accept the hand of a king's daughter,
and have you misgivings about taking a crown which is voluntarily offered you?
I would rather eat bread at thy kingly table, than feast
at thy electoral board."

Frederick accepted the Bohemian crown.  The coronation was celebrated
with unexampled pomp at Prague, for the nation displayed all its riches
in honour of its own work.  Silesia and Moravia, the adjoining provinces
to Bohemia, followed their example, and did homage to Frederick.
The reformed faith was enthroned in all the churches of the kingdom;
the rejoicings were unbounded, their attachment to their new king
bordered on adoration.  Denmark and Sweden, Holland and Venice,
and several of the Dutch states, acknowledged him as lawful sovereign,
and Frederick now prepared to maintain his new acquisition.

His principal hopes rested on Prince Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania.
This formidable enemy of Austria, and of the Roman Catholic church,
not content with the principality which, with the assistance of the Turks,
he had wrested from his legitimate prince, Gabriel Bathori, gladly seized
this opportunity of aggrandizing himself at the expense of Austria,
which had hesitated to acknowledge him as sovereign of Transylvania.
An attack upon Hungary and Austria was concerted with the Bohemian rebels,
and both armies were to unite before the capital.  Meantime, Bethlen Gabor,
under the mask of friendship, disguised the true object
of his warlike preparations, artfully promising the Emperor
to lure the Bohemians into the toils, by a pretended offer of assistance,
and to deliver up to him alive the leaders of the insurrection.
All at once, however, he appeared in a hostile attitude in Upper Hungary.
Before him went terror, and devastation behind; all opposition yielded,
and at Presburg he received the Hungarian crown.  The Emperor's brother,
who governed in Vienna, trembled for the capital.  He hastily summoned
General Bucquoi to his assistance, and the retreat of the Imperialists
drew the Bohemians, a second time, before the walls of Vienna.
Reinforced by twelve thousand Transylvanians, and soon after joined
by the victorious army of Bethlen Gabor, they again menaced the capital
with assault; all the country round Vienna was laid waste,
the navigation of the Danube closed, all supplies cut off,
and the horrors of famine were threatened.  Ferdinand,
hastily recalled to his capital by this urgent danger,
saw himself a second time on the brink of ruin.  But want of provisions,
and the inclement weather, finally compelled the Bohemians
to go into quarters, a defeat in Hungary recalled Bethlen Gabor,
and thus once more had fortune rescued the Emperor.

In a few weeks the scene was changed, and by his prudence and activity
Ferdinand improved his position as rapidly as Frederick,
by indolence and impolicy, ruined his.  The Estates of Lower Austria
were regained to their allegiance by a confirmation of their privileges;
and the few who still held out were declared guilty of `lese-majeste'
and high treason.  During the election of Frankfort, he had contrived,
by personal representations, to win over to his cause
the ecclesiastical electors, and also Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, at Munich.
The whole issue of the war, the fate of Frederick and the Emperor,
were now dependent on the part which the Union and the League should take
in the troubles of Bohemia.  It was evidently of importance to all
the Protestants of Germany that the King of Bohemia should be supported,
while it was equally the interest of the Roman Catholics to prevent
the ruin of the Emperor.  If the Protestants succeeded in Bohemia,
all the Roman Catholic princes in Germany might tremble for their possessions;
if they failed, the Emperor would give laws to Protestant Germany.
Thus Ferdinand put the League, Frederick the Union, in motion.
The ties of relationship and a personal attachment to the Emperor,
his brother-in-law, with whom he had been educated at Ingolstadt,
zeal for the Roman Catholic religion, which seemed to be
in the most imminent peril, and the suggestions of the Jesuits,
combined with the suspicious movements of the Union,
moved the Duke of Bavaria, and all the princes of the League,
to make the cause of Ferdinand their own.

According to the terms of a treaty with the Emperor,
which assured to the Duke of Bavaria compensation for all the expenses
of the war, or the losses he might sustain, Maximilian took, with full powers,
the command of the troops of the League, which were ordered to march
to the assistance of the Emperor against the Bohemian rebels.
The leaders of the Union, instead of delaying by every means
this dangerous coalition of the League with the Emperor,
did every thing in their power to accelerate it.  Could they,
they thought, but once drive the Roman Catholic League
to take an open part in the Bohemian war, they might reckon
on similar measures from all the members and allies of the Union.
Without some open step taken by the Roman Catholics against the Union,
no effectual confederacy of the Protestant powers was to be looked for.
They seized, therefore, the present emergency of the troubles in Bohemia
to demand from the Roman Catholics the abolition of their past grievances,
and full security for the future exercise of their religion.  They addressed
this demand, which was moreover couched in threatening language,
to the Duke of Bavaria, as the head of the Roman Catholics,
and they insisted on an immediate and categorical answer.
Maximilian might decide for or against them, still their point was gained;
his concession, if he yielded, would deprive the Roman Catholic party of its
most powerful protector; his refusal would arm the whole Protestant party,
and render inevitable a war in which they hoped to be the conquerors.
Maximilian, firmly attached to the opposite party from so many
other considerations, took the demands of the Union as a formal declaration
of hostilities, and quickened his preparations.  While Bavaria and the League
were thus arming in the Emperor's cause, negotiations for a subsidy
were opened with the Spanish court.  All the difficulties with which
the indolent policy of that ministry met this demand were happily surmounted
by the imperial ambassador at Madrid, Count Khevenhuller.
In addition to a subsidy of a million of florins, which from time to time
were doled out by this court, an attack upon the Lower Palatinate,
from the side of the Spanish Netherlands, was at the same time agreed upon.

During these attempts to draw all the Roman Catholic powers into the League,
every exertion was made against the counter-league of the Protestants.
To this end, it was important to alarm the Elector of Saxony
and the other Evangelical powers, and accordingly the Union were diligent in
propagating a rumour that the preparations of the League had for their object
to deprive them of the ecclesiastical foundations they had secularized.
A written assurance to the contrary calmed the fears of the Duke of Saxony,
whom moreover private jealousy of the Palatine, and the insinuations of
his chaplain, who was in the pay of Austria, and mortification at having been
passed over by the Bohemians in the election to the throne,
strongly inclined to the side of Austria.  The fanaticism of the Lutherans
could never forgive the reformed party for having drawn,
as they expressed it, so many fair provinces into the gulf of Calvinism,
and rejecting the Roman Antichrist only to make way for an Helvetian one.

While Ferdinand used every effort to improve the unfavourable situation
of his affairs, Frederick was daily injuring his good cause.
By his close and questionable connexion with the Prince of Transylvania,
the open ally of the Porte, he gave offence to weak minds;
and a general rumour accused him of furthering his own ambition at the expense
of Christendom, and arming the Turks against Germany.  His inconsiderate zeal
for the Calvinistic scheme irritated the Lutherans of Bohemia,
his attacks on image-worship incensed the Papists of this kingdom against him.
New and oppressive imposts alienated the affections of all his subjects.
The disappointed hopes of the Bohemian nobles cooled their zeal;
the absence of foreign succours abated their confidence.  Instead of
devoting himself with untiring energies to the affairs of his kingdom,
Frederick wasted his time in amusements; instead of filling his treasury
by a wise economy, he squandered his revenues by a needless theatrical pomp,
and a misplaced munificence.  With a light-minded carelessness,
he did but gaze at himself in his new dignity, and in the ill-timed desire to
enjoy his crown, he forgot the more pressing duty of securing it on his head.

But greatly as men had erred in their opinion of him,
Frederick himself had not less miscalculated his foreign resources.
Most of the members of the Union considered the affairs of Bohemia
as foreign to the real object of their confederacy; others,
who were devoted to him, were overawed by fear of the Emperor.
Saxony and Hesse Darmstadt had already been gained over by Ferdinand;
Lower Austria, on which side a powerful diversion had been looked for,
had made its submission to the Emperor; and Bethlen Gabor had concluded
a truce with him.  By its embassies, the court of Vienna had induced Denmark
to remain inactive, and to occupy Sweden in a war with the Poles.
The republic of Holland had enough to do to defend itself against
the arms of the Spaniards; Venice and Saxony remained inactive;
King James of England was overreached by the artifice of Spain.
One friend after another withdrew; one hope vanished after another --
so rapidly in a few months was every thing changed.

In the mean time, the leaders of the Union assembled an army; --
the Emperor and the League did the same.  The troops of the latter
were assembled under the banners of Maximilian at Donauwerth,
those of the Union at Ulm, under the Margrave of Anspach.
The decisive moment seemed at length to have arrived which was to end
these long dissensions by a vigorous blow, and irrevocably to settle
the relation of the two churches in Germany.  Anxiously on the stretch
was the expectation of both parties.  How great then was their astonishment
when suddenly the intelligence of peace arrived, and both armies separated
without striking a blow!

The intervention of France effected this peace, which was equally acceptable
to both parties.  The French cabinet, no longer swayed by the counsels
of Henry the Great, and whose maxims of state were perhaps not applicable
to the present condition of that kingdom, was now far less alarmed
at the preponderance of Austria, than of the increase which would accrue
to the strength of the Calvinists, if the Palatine house should be able
to retain the throne of Bohemia.  Involved at the time in a dangerous conflict
with its own Calvinistic subjects, it was of the utmost importance to France
that the Protestant faction in Bohemia should be suppressed
before the Huguenots could copy their dangerous example.  In order therefore
to facilitate the Emperor's operations against the Bohemians,
she offered her mediation to the Union and the League,
and effected this unexpected treaty, of which the main article was,
"That the Union should abandon all interference in the affairs of Bohemia,
and confine the aid which they might afford to Frederick the Fifth,
to his Palatine territories."  To this disgraceful treaty,
the Union were moved by the firmness of Maximilian,
and the fear of being pressed at once by the troops of the League,
and a new Imperial army which was on its march from the Netherlands.

The whole force of Bavaria and the League was now at the disposal
of the Emperor to be employed against the Bohemians,
who by the pacification of Ulm were abandoned to their fate.
With a rapid movement, and before a rumour of the proceedings at Ulm
could reach there, Maximilian appeared in Upper Austria,
when the Estates, surprised and unprepared for an enemy,
purchased the Emperor's pardon by an immediate and unconditional submission.
In Lower Austria, the duke formed a junction with the troops
from the Low Countries under Bucquoi, and without loss of time
the united Imperial and Bavarian forces, amounting to 50,000 men,
entered Bohemia.  All the Bohemian troops, which were dispersed
over Lower Austria and Moravia, were driven before them;
every town which attempted resistance was quickly taken by storm;
others, terrified by the report of the punishment inflicted on these,
voluntarily opened their gates; nothing in short interrupted
the impetuous career of Maximilian.  The Bohemian army,
commanded by the brave Prince Christian of Anhalt,
retreated to the neighbourhood of Prague; where, under the walls of the city,
Maximilian offered him battle.

The wretched condition in which he hoped to surprise the insurgents,
justified the rapidity of the duke's movements, and secured him the victory.
Frederick's army did not amount to 30,000 men.  Eight thousand of these
were furnished by the Prince of Anhalt; 10,000 were Hungarians,
whom Bethlen Gabor had despatched to his assistance.
An inroad of the Elector of Saxony upon Lusatia, had cut off all succours
from that country, and from Silesia; the pacification of Austria
put an end to all his expectations from that quarter; Bethlen Gabor,
his most powerful ally, remained inactive in Transylvania;
the Union had betrayed his cause to the Emperor.  Nothing remained to him
but his Bohemians; and they were without goodwill to his cause,
and without unity and courage.  The Bohemian magnates were indignant
that German generals should be put over their heads;
Count Mansfeld remained in Pilsen, at a distance from the camp,
to avoid the mortification of serving under Anhalt and Hohenlohe.
The soldiers, in want of necessaries, became dispirited;
and the little discipline that was observed, gave occasion to
bitter complaints from the peasantry.  It was in vain that Frederick made
his appearance in the camp, in the hope of reviving the courage
of the soldiers by his presence, and of kindling the emulation of the nobles
by his example.

The Bohemians had begun to entrench themselves on the White Mountain
near Prague, when they were attacked by the Imperial and Bavarian armies,
on the 8th November, 1620.  In the beginning of the action,
some advantages were gained by the cavalry of the Prince of Anhalt;
but the superior numbers of the enemy soon neutralized them.
The charge of the Bavarians and Walloons was irresistible.
The Hungarian cavalry was the first to retreat.  The Bohemian infantry
soon followed their example; and the Germans were at last
carried along with them in the general flight.  Ten cannons,
composing the whole of Frederick's artillery, were taken by the enemy;
four thousand Bohemians fell in the flight and on the field;
while of the Imperialists and soldiers of the League only a few hundred
were killed.  In less than an hour this decisive action was over.

Frederick was seated at table in Prague, while his army was thus
cut to pieces.  It is probable that he had not expected the attack
on this day, since he had ordered an entertainment for it.
A messenger summoned him from table, to show him from the walls
the whole frightful scene.  He requested a cessation of hostilities
for twenty-four hours for deliberation; but eight was all the Duke of Bavaria
would allow him.  Frederick availed himself of these to fly by night
from the capital, with his wife, and the chief officers of his army.
This flight was so hurried, that the Prince of Anhalt left behind him
his most private papers, and Frederick his crown.  "I know now what I am,"
said this unfortunate prince to those who endeavoured to comfort him;
"there are virtues which misfortune only can teach us,
and it is in adversity alone that princes learn to know themselves."

Prague was not irretrievably lost when Frederick's pusillanimity abandoned it.
The light troops of Mansfeld were still in Pilsen, and were not engaged
in the action.  Bethlen Gabor might at any moment have assumed
an offensive attitude, and drawn off the Emperor's army
to the Hungarian frontier.  The defeated Bohemians might rally.
Sickness, famine, and the inclement weather, might wear out the enemy;
but all these hopes disappeared before the immediate alarm.
Frederick dreaded the fickleness of the Bohemians, who might probably yield
to the temptation to purchase, by the surrender of his person,
the pardon of the Emperor.

Thurn, and those of this party who were in the same condemnation with him,
found it equally inexpedient to await their destiny within the walls
of Prague.  They retired towards Moravia, with a view of seeking refuge
in Transylvania.  Frederick fled to Breslau, where, however,
he only remained a short time.  He removed from thence to the court
of the Elector of Brandenburg, and finally took shelter in Holland.

The battle of Prague had decided the fate of Bohemia.
Prague surrendered the next day to the victors; the other towns followed
the example of the capital.  The Estates did homage without conditions,
and the same was done by those of Silesia and Moravia.  The Emperor allowed
three months to elapse, before instituting any inquiry into the past.
Reassured by this apparent clemency, many who, at first, had fled in terror
appeared again in the capital.  All at once, however, the storm burst forth;
forty-eight of the most active among the insurgents were arrested
on the same day and hour, and tried by an extraordinary commission,
composed of native Bohemians and Austrians.  Of these, twenty-seven,
and of the common people an immense number, expired on the scaffold.
The absenting offenders were summoned to appear to their trial,
and failing to do so, condemned to death, as traitors and offenders
against his Catholic Majesty, their estates confiscated,
and their names affixed to the gallows.  The property also of the rebels
who had fallen in the field was seized.  This tyranny might have been borne,
as it affected individuals only, and while the ruin of one enriched another;
but more intolerable was the oppression which extended to the whole kingdom,
without exception.  All the Protestant preachers were banished
from the country; the Bohemians first, and afterwards those of Germany.
The `Letter of Majesty', Ferdinand tore with his own hand, and burnt the seal.
Seven years after the battle of Prague, the toleration
of the Protestant religion within the kingdom was entirely revoked.
But whatever violence the Emperor allowed himself against
the religious privileges of his subjects, he carefully abstained from
interfering with their political constitution; and while he deprived them
of the liberty of thought, he magnanimously left them the prerogative
of taxing themselves.

The victory of the White Mountain put Ferdinand in possession
of all his dominions.  It even invested him with greater authority over them
than his predecessors enjoyed, since their allegiance had been
unconditionally pledged to him, and no Letter of Majesty now existed
to limit his sovereignty.  All his wishes were now gratified,
to a degree surpassing his most sanguine expectations.

It was now in his power to dismiss his allies, and disband his army.
If he was just, there was an end of the war -- if he was both
magnanimous and just, punishment was also at an end.  The fate of Germany
was in his hands; the happiness and misery of millions depended on
the resolution he should take.  Never was so great a decision resting
on a single mind; never did the blindness of one man produce so much ruin.






Book II.




The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new direction,
a new scene, and new actors.  From a rebellion in Bohemia,
and the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany,
and afterwards to Europe.  It is, therefore, necessary to take
a general survey of the state of affairs both in Germany
and the rest of Europe.

Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members
were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants,
neither party could hope to maintain itself against the encroachments
of its adversary otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages,
and by a politic union among themselves.  If the Roman Catholics were
the more numerous party, and more favoured by the constitution of the empire,
the Protestants, on the other hand, had the advantage of possessing
a more compact and populous line of territories, valiant princes,
a warlike nobility, numerous armies, flourishing free towns,
the command of the sea, and even at the worst, certainty of support
from Roman Catholic states.  If the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy
in their favour, the republics of Venice, Holland, and England,
opened their treasures to the Protestants, while the states of the North
and the formidable power of Turkey, stood ready to afford them
prompt assistance.  Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate,
opposed three Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes
in the Electoral College; while to the Elector of Bohemia,
as to the Archduke of Austria, the possession of the Imperial dignity
was an important check, if the Protestants properly availed themselves of it.
The sword of the Union might keep within its sheath the sword of the League;
or if matters actually came to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful.
But, unfortunately, private interests dissolved the band of union
which should have held together the Protestant members of the empire.
This critical conjuncture found none but second-rate actors
on the political stage, and the decisive moment was neglected because
the courageous were deficient in power, and the powerful in sagacity,
courage, and resolution.

The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants,
by the services of his ancestor Maurice, by the extent of his territories,
and by the influence of his electoral vote.  Upon the resolution
he might adopt, the fate of the contending parties seemed to depend;
and John George was not insensible to the advantages which
this important situation procured him.  Equally valuable as an ally,
both to the Emperor and to the Protestant Union, he cautiously avoided
committing himself to either party; neither trusting himself
by any irrevocable declaration entirely to the gratitude of the Emperor,
nor renouncing the advantages which were to be gained from his fears.
Uninfected by the contagion of religious and romantic enthusiasm
which hurried sovereign after sovereign to risk both crown and life
on the hazard of war, John George aspired to the more solid renown
of improving and advancing the interests of his territories.
His cotemporaries accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause
in the very midst of the storm; of preferring the aggrandizement of his house
to the emancipation of his country; of exposing the whole Evangelical
or Lutheran church of Germany to ruin, rather than raise an arm in defence
of the Reformed or Calvinists; of injuring the common cause
by his suspicious friendship more seriously than the open enmity
of its avowed opponents.  But it would have been well if his accusers had
imitated the wise policy of the Elector.  If, despite of the prudent policy,
the Saxons, like all others, groaned at the cruelties
which marked the Emperor's progress; if all Germany was a witness
how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and trifled with his engagements;
if even the Elector himself at last perceived this -- the more shame
to the Emperor who could so basely betray such implicit confidence.

If an excessive reliance on the Emperor, and the hope of enlarging
his territories, tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony,
the weak George William, Elector of Brandenburg, was still more shamefully
fettered by fear of Austria, and of the loss of his dominions.
What was made a reproach against these princes would have preserved
to the Elector Palatine his fame and his kingdom.  A rash confidence
in his untried strength, the influence of French counsels,
and the temptation of a crown, had seduced that unfortunate prince into
an enterprise for which he had neither adequate genius nor political capacity.
The partition of his territories among discordant princes,
enfeebled the Palatinate, which, united, might have made a longer resistance.

This partition of territory was equally injurious to the House of Hesse,
in which, between Darmstadt and Cassel, religious dissensions
had occasioned a fatal division.  The line of Darmstadt, adhering to
the Confession of Augsburg, had placed itself under the Emperor's protection,
who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel.
While his religious confederates were shedding their blood
for their faith and their liberties, the Landgrave of Darmstadt
was won over by the Emperor's gold.  But William of Cassel,
every way worthy of his ancestor who, a century before,
had defended the freedom of Germany against the formidable Charles V.,
espoused the cause of danger and of honour.  Superior to that pusillanimity
which made far more powerful princes bow before Ferdinand's might,
the Landgrave William was the first to join the hero of Sweden,
and to set an example to the princes of Germany which all had hesitated
to begin.  The boldness of his resolve was equalled by the steadfastness
of his perseverance and the valour of his exploits.  He placed himself
with unshrinking resolution before his bleeding country,
and boldly confronted the fearful enemy, whose hands were still reeking
from the carnage of Magdeburg.

The Landgrave William deserves to descend to immortality
with the heroic race of Ernest.  Thy day of vengeance was long delayed,
unfortunate John Frederick!  Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince!
Slowly but brightly it broke.  Thy times returned, and thy heroic spirit
descended on thy grandson.  An intrepid race of princes issues from
the Thuringian forests, to shame, by immortal deeds, the unjust sentence
which robbed thee of the electoral crown -- to avenge thy offended shade
by heaps of bloody sacrifice.  The sentence of the conqueror
could deprive thee of thy territories, but not that spirit of patriotism
which staked them, nor that chivalrous courage which, a century afterwards,
was destined to shake the throne of his descendant.
Thy vengeance and that of Germany whetted the sacred sword,
and one heroic hand after the other wielded the irresistible steel.
As men, they achieved what as sovereigns they dared not undertake;
they met in a glorious cause as the valiant soldiers of liberty.
Too weak in territory to attack the enemy with their own forces,
they directed foreign artillery against them, and led foreign banners
to victory.

The liberties of Germany, abandoned by the more powerful states,
who, however, enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them,
were defended by a few princes for whom they were almost without value.
The possession of territories and dignities deadened courage;
the want of both made heroes.  While Saxony, Brandenburg, and the rest
drew back in terror, Anhalt, Mansfeld, the Prince of Weimar and others
were shedding their blood in the field.  The Dukes of Pomerania,
Mecklenburg, Luneburg, and Wirtemberg, and the free cities of Upper Germany,
to whom the name of EMPEROR was of course a formidable one,
anxiously avoided a contest with such an opponent, and crouched murmuring
beneath his mighty arm.

Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria
a champion as prudent as he was powerful.  Adhering throughout the war
to one fixed plan, never divided between his religion
and his political interests; not the slavish dependent of Austria,
who was labouring for HIS advancement, and trembled before
her powerful protector, Maximilian earned the territories and dignities
that rewarded his exertions.  The other Roman Catholic states,
which were chiefly Ecclesiastical, too unwarlike to resist
the multitudes whom the prosperity of their territories allured,
became the victims of the war one after another, and were contented
to persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit, the enemy whom
they could not openly oppose in the field.  All of them,
slaves either to Austria or Bavaria, sunk into insignificance
by the side of Maximilian; in his hand alone their united power
could be rendered available.

The formidable monarchy which Charles V. and his son
had unnaturally constructed of the Netherlands, Milan, and the two Sicilies,
and their distant possessions in the East and West Indies,
was under Philip III. and Philip IV. fast verging to decay.
Swollen to a sudden greatness by unfruitful gold, this power was now sinking
under a visible decline, neglecting, as it did, agriculture,
the natural support of states.  The conquests in the West Indies
had reduced Spain itself to poverty, while they enriched
the markets of Europe; the bankers of Antwerp, Venice, and Genoa,
were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the mines of Peru.
For the sake of India, Spain had been depopulated, while the treasures
drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of Holland,
in the chimerical project of changing the succession to the crown of France,
and in an unfortunate attack upon England.  But the pride of this court
had survived its greatness, as the hate of its enemies
had outlived its power.  Distrust of the Protestants suggested to
the ministry of Philip III. the dangerous policy of his father;
and the reliance of the Roman Catholics in Germany on Spanish assistance,
was as firm as their belief in the wonder-working bones of the martyrs.
External splendour concealed the inward wounds at which the life-blood
of this monarchy was oozing; and the belief of its strength survived,
because it still maintained the lofty tone of its golden days.
Slaves in their palaces, and strangers even upon their own thrones,
the Spanish nominal kings still gave laws to their German relations;
though it is very doubtful if the support they afforded was worth
the dependence by which the emperors purchased it.  The fate of Europe
was decided behind the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive favourites.
Yet, even in its debasement, a power must always be formidable,
which yields to none in extent; which, from custom, if not from
the steadfastness of its views, adhered faithfully to one system of policy;
which possessed well-disciplined armies and consummate generals; which,
where the sword failed, did not scruple to employ the dagger;
and converted even its ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins.
What it had lost in three quarters of the globe, it now sought to regain
to the eastward, and all Europe was at its mercy, if it could succeed in
its long cherished design of uniting with the hereditary dominions of Austria
all that lay between the Alps and the Adriatic.

To the great alarm of the native states, this formidable power
had gained a footing in Italy, where its continual encroachments
made the neighbouring sovereigns to tremble for their own possessions.
The Pope himself was in the most dangerous situation;
hemmed in on both sides by the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side,
and that of Milan upon the other.  Venice was confined between
the Austrian Tyrol and the Spanish territories in Milan.
Savoy was surrounded by the latter and France.  Hence the wavering
and equivocal policy, which from the time of Charles V. had been pursued
by the Italian States.  The double character which pertained to the Popes
made them perpetually vacillate between two contradictory systems of policy.
If the successors of St. Peter found in the Spanish princes
their most obedient disciples, and the most steadfast supporters
of the Papal See, yet the princes of the States of the Church
had in these monarchs their most dangerous neighbours,
and most formidable opponents.  If, in the one capacity, their dearest wish
was the destruction of the Protestants, and the triumph of Austria,
in the other, they had reason to bless the arms of the Protestants,
which disabled a dangerous enemy.  The one or the other sentiment prevailed,
according as the love of temporal dominion, or zeal for spiritual supremacy,
predominated in the mind of the Pope.  But the policy of Rome was,
on the whole, directed to immediate dangers; and it is well known
how far more powerful is the apprehension of losing a present good,
than anxiety to recover a long lost possession.  And thus
it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with Austria
for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very heretics
for the destruction of Austria.  Strangely blended are the threads
of human affairs!  What would have become of the Reformation,
and of the liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of Rome
had had but one interest?

France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its weight
in the political balance of Europe.  A turbulent minority had destroyed
all the benefits of the able administration of Henry.  Incapable ministers,
the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a few years
the treasures which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had amassed.
Scarce able to maintain their ground against internal factions,
they were compelled to resign to other hands the helm of European affairs.
The same civil war which armed Germany against itself,
excited a similar commotion in France; and Louis XIII. attained majority
only to wage a war with his own mother and his Protestant subjects.
This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry's enlightened policy,
now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under the command
of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a party
within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of Rochelle
as the capital of their intended kingdom.  Too little of a statesman
to suppress, by a prudent toleration, this civil commotion in its birth,
and too little master of the resources of his kingdom
to direct them with energy, Louis XIII. was reduced
to the degradation of purchasing the submission of the rebels
by large sums of money.  Though policy might incline him,
in one point of view, to assist the Bohemian insurgents against Austria,
the son of Henry the Fourth was now compelled to be an inactive spectator
of their destruction, happy enough if the Calvinists in his own dominions
did not unseasonably bethink them of their confederates beyond the Rhine.
A great mind at the helm of state would have reduced
the Protestants in France to obedience, while it employed them to fight
for the independence of their German brethren.  But Henry IV. was no more,
and Richelieu had not yet revived his system of policy.

While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated
republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness.
The enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which,
enkindled by the House of Orange, had converted this mercantile people
into a nation of heroes, and had enabled them to maintain their independence
in a bloody war against the Spanish monarchy.  Aware how much they owed
their own liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready
to assist their German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so,
as both were opposed to the same enemy, and the liberty of Germany
was the best warrant for that of Holland.  But a republic which had still
to battle for its very existence, which, with all its wonderful exertions,
was scarce a match for the formidable enemy within its own territories,
could not be expected to withdraw its troops from the necessary work
of self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous policy
in protecting foreign states.

England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed,
under the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe
which the governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it.  Convinced that
the welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,
this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting every
enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian power.
Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend,
than of vigour to execute, her views.  While the economical Elizabeth
spared not her treasures to support the Flemings against Spain,
and Henry IV. against the League, James abandoned his daughter,
his son-in-law, and his grandchild, to the fury of their enemies.
While he exhausted his learning to establish the divine right of kings,
he allowed his own dignity to sink into the dust;
while he exerted his rhetoric to prove the absolute authority of kings,
he reminded the people of theirs; and by a useless profusion,
sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights -- that of dispensing with
his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of its organ.  An innate horror
at the sight of a naked sword averted him from the most just of wars;
while his favourite Buckingham practised on his weakness,
and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of Spanish artifice.
While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance of his grandson
given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with satisfaction,
the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain.
To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the proposal
of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent
encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his addresses
in person to the Spanish princess.  But his son lost his bride,
as his son-in-law lost the crown of Bohemia and the Palatine Electorate;
and death alone saved him from the danger of closing his pacific reign
by a war at home, which he never had courage to maintain, even at a distance.

The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited
burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some
unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the German war,
in order to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.

Two illustrious monarchs, far unequal in personal reputation,
but equal in power and desire of fame, made the North at this time
to be respected.  Under the long and active reign of Christian IV.,
Denmark had risen into importance.  The personal qualifications
of this prince, an excellent navy, a formidable army, well-ordered finances,
and prudent alliances, had combined to give her prosperity at home
and influence abroad.  Gustavus Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage,
reformed it by wise laws, and had introduced, for the first time,
this newly-organized state into the field of European politics.
What this great prince had merely sketched in rude outline,
was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus, his still greater grandson.