These two kingdoms, once unnaturally united and enfeebled by their union,
had been violently separated at the time of the Reformation,
and this separation was the epoch of their prosperity.
Injurious as this compulsory union had proved to both kingdoms,
equally necessary to each apart were neighbourly friendship and harmony.
On both the evangelical church leaned; both had the same seas to protect;
a common interest ought to unite them against the same enemy.
But the hatred which had dissolved the union of these monarchies
continued long after their separation to divide the two nations.
The Danish kings could not abandon their pretensions to the Swedish crown,
nor the Swedes banish the remembrance of Danish oppression.
The contiguous boundaries of the two kingdoms constantly furnished materials
for international quarrels, while the watchful jealousy of both kings,
and the unavoidable collision of their commercial interests in the North Seas,
were inexhaustible sources of dispute.

Among the means of which Gustavus Vasa, the founder of the Swedish monarchy,
availed himself to strengthen his new edifice, the Reformation had been
one of the principal.  A fundamental law of the kingdom
excluded the adherents of popery from all offices of the state,
and prohibited every future sovereign of Sweden from altering
the religious constitution of the kingdom.  But the second son
and second successor of Gustavus had relapsed into popery,
and his son Sigismund, also king of Poland, had been guilty of measures
which menaced both the constitution and the established church.
Headed by Charles, Duke of Sudermania, the third son of Gustavus,
the Estates made a courageous resistance, which terminated, at last,
in an open civil war between the uncle and nephew,
and between the King and the people.  Duke Charles,
administrator of the kingdom during the absence of the king,
had availed himself of Sigismund's long residence in Poland,
and the just displeasure of the states, to ingratiate himself
with the nation, and gradually to prepare his way to the throne.
His views were not a little forwarded by Sigismund's imprudence.
A general Diet ventured to abolish, in favour of the Protector,
the rule of primogeniture which Gustavus had established in the succession,
and placed the Duke of Sudermania on the throne, from which Sigismund,
with his whole posterity, were solemnly excluded.  The son of the new king
(who reigned under the name of Charles IX.) was Gustavus Adolphus, whom,
as the son of a usurper, the adherents of Sigismund refused to recognize.
But if the obligations between monarchy and subjects are reciprocal,
and states are not to be transmitted, like a lifeless heirloom,
from hand to hand, a nation acting with unanimity must have the power
of renouncing their allegiance to a sovereign who has violated
his obligations to them, and of filling his place by a worthier object.

Gustavus Adolphus had not completed his seventeenth year,
when the Swedish throne became vacant by the death of his father.
But the early maturity of his genius enabled the Estates
to abridge in his favour the legal period of minority.
With a glorious conquest over himself he commenced a reign
which was to have victory for its constant attendant,
a career which was to begin and end in success.  The young Countess of Brahe,
the daughter of a subject, had gained his early affections,
and he had resolved to share with her the Swedish throne.  But,
constrained by time and circumstances, he made his attachment yield
to the higher duties of a king, and heroism again took exclusive possession
of a heart which was not destined by nature to confine itself
within the limits of quiet domestic happiness.

Christian IV. of Denmark, who had ascended the throne before the birth
of Gustavus, in an inroad upon Sweden, had gained some considerable advantages
over the father of that hero.  Gustavus Adolphus hastened to put an end
to this destructive war, and by prudent sacrifices obtained a peace,
in order to turn his arms against the Czar of Muscovy.
The questionable fame of a conqueror never tempted him to spend
the blood of his subjects in unjust wars; but he never shrunk from a just one.
His arms were successful against Russia, and Sweden was augmented
by several important provinces on the east.

In the meantime, Sigismund of Poland retained against the son
the same sentiments of hostility which the father had provoked,
and left no artifice untried to shake the allegiance of his subjects,
to cool the ardour of his friends, and to embitter his enemies.
Neither the great qualities of his rival, nor the repeated proofs of devotion
which Sweden gave to her loved monarch, could extinguish
in this infatuated prince the foolish hope of regaining his lost throne.
All Gustavus's overtures were haughtily rejected.  Unwillingly was this
really peaceful king involved in a tedious war with Poland,
in which the whole of Livonia and Polish Prussia were successively conquered.
Though constantly victorious, Gustavus Adolphus was always the first
to hold out the hand of peace.

This contest between Sweden and Poland falls somewhere about the beginning of
the Thirty Years' War in Germany, with which it is in some measure connected.
It was enough that Sigismund, himself a Roman Catholic, was disputing
the Swedish crown with a Protestant prince, to assure him the active support
of Spain and Austria; while a double relationship to the Emperor
gave him a still stronger claim to his protection.  It was his reliance
on this powerful assistance that chiefly encouraged the King of Poland
to continue the war, which had hitherto turned out so unfavourably for him,
and the courts of Madrid and Vienna failed not to encourage him
by high-sounding promises.  While Sigismund lost one place after another
in Livonia, Courland, and Prussia, he saw his ally in Germany
advancing from conquest after conquest to unlimited power.
No wonder then if his aversion to peace kept pace with his losses.
The vehemence with which he nourished his chimerical hopes blinded him to
the artful policy of his confederates, who at his expense were keeping
the Swedish hero employed, in order to overturn, without opposition,
the liberties of Germany, and then to seize on the exhausted North
as an easy conquest.  One circumstance which had not been calculated on --
the magnanimity of Gustavus -- overthrew this deceitful policy.
An eight years' war in Poland, so far from exhausting the power of Sweden,
had only served to mature the military genius of Gustavus, to inure
the Swedish army to warfare, and insensibly to perfect that system of tactics
by which they were afterwards to perform such wonders in Germany.

After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe,
I now resume the thread of my history.

Ferdinand had regained his dominions, but had not indemnified himself
for the expenses of recovering them.  A sum of forty millions of florins,
which the confiscations in Bohemia and Moravia had produced,
would have sufficed to reimburse both himself and his allies;
but the Jesuits and his favourites soon squandered this sum, large as it was.
Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, to whose victorious arm, principally,
the Emperor owed the recovery of his dominions; who, in the service
of religion and the Emperor, had sacrificed his near relation,
had the strongest claims on his gratitude; and moreover,
in a treaty which, before the war, the duke had concluded with the Emperor,
he had expressly stipulated for the reimbursement of all expenses.
Ferdinand felt the full weight of the obligation imposed upon him
by this treaty and by these services, but he was not disposed to discharge it
at his own cost.  His purpose was to bestow a brilliant reward upon the duke,
but without detriment to himself.  How could this be done better
than at the expense of the unfortunate prince who, by his revolt,
had given the Emperor a right to punish him, and whose offences
might be painted in colours strong enough to justify the most violent measures
under the appearance of law.  That, then, Maximilian may be rewarded,
Frederick must be further persecuted and totally ruined;
and to defray the expenses of the old war, a new one must be commenced.

But a still stronger motive combined to enforce the first.
Hitherto Ferdinand had been contending for existence alone;
he had been fulfilling no other duty than that of self-defence.
But now, when victory gave him freedom to act, a higher duty
occurred to him, and he remembered the vow which he had made
at Loretto and at Rome, to his generalissima, the Holy Virgin,
to extend her worship even at the risk of his crown and life.
With this object, the oppression of the Protestants was inseparably connected.
More favourable circumstances for its accomplishment could not offer
than those which presented themselves at the close of the Bohemian war.
Neither the power, nor a pretext of right, were now wanting
to enable him to place the Palatinate in the hands of the Catholics,
and the importance of this change to the Catholic interests in Germany
would be incalculable.  Thus, in rewarding the Duke of Bavaria
with the spoils of his relation, he at once gratified his meanest passions
and fulfilled his most exalted duties; he crushed an enemy whom he hated,
and spared his avarice a painful sacrifice, while he believed he was winning
a heavenly crown.

In the Emperor's cabinet, the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon
long before fortune had decided against him; but it was only after this event
that they ventured to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary power.
A decree of the Emperor, destitute of all the formalities required
on such occasions by the laws of the Empire, pronounced the Elector,
and three other princes who had borne arms for him at Silesia and Bohemia,
as offenders against the imperial majesty, and disturbers of the public peace,
under the ban of the empire, and deprived them of their titles
and territories.  The execution of this sentence against Frederick,
namely the seizure of his lands, was, in further contempt of law,
committed to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy,
to the Duke of Bavaria, and the League.  Had the Evangelic Union been worthy
of the name it bore, and of the cause which it pretended to defend,
insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of the sentence;
but it was hopeless for a power which was far from a match
even for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate, to contend against
the united strength of the Emperor, Bavaria, and the League.
The sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector
soon detached the free cities from the Union; and the princes quickly followed
their example.  Fortunate in preserving their own dominions,
they abandoned the Elector, their former chief, to the Emperor's mercy,
renounced the Union, and vowed never to revive it again.

But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted
the unfortunate Frederick, and while Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia
submitted to the Emperor, a single man, a soldier of fortune,
whose only treasure was his sword, Ernest Count Mansfeld, dared,
in the Bohemian town of Pilsen, to defy the whole power of Austria.
Left without assistance after the battle of Prague by the Elector,
to whose service he had devoted himself, and even uncertain
whether Frederick would thank him for his perseverance,
he alone for some time held out against the imperialists,
till the garrison, mutinying for want of pay, sold the town to the Emperor.
Undismayed by this reverse, he immediately commenced new levies
in the Upper Palatinate, and enlisted the disbanded troops of the Union.
A new army of 20,000 men was soon assembled under his banners,
the more formidable to the provinces which might be the object of its attack,
because it must subsist by plunder.  Uncertain where this swarm might light,
the neighbouring bishops trembled for their rich possessions, which offered
a tempting prey to its ravages.  But, pressed by the Duke of Bavaria,
who now entered the Upper Palatinate, Mansfeld was compelled to retire.
Eluding, by a successful stratagem, the Bavarian general, Tilly,
who was in pursuit of him, he suddenly appeared in the Lower Palatinate,
and there wreaked upon the bishoprics of the Rhine the severities he had
designed for those of Franconia.  While the imperial and Bavarian allies
thus overran Bohemia, the Spanish general, Spinola, had penetrated
with a numerous army from the Netherlands into the Lower Palatinate,
which, however, the pacification of Ulm permitted the Union to defend.
But their measures were so badly concerted, that one place after another
fell into the hands of the Spaniards; and at last, when the Union broke up,
the greater part of the country was in the possession of Spain.
The Spanish general, Corduba, who commanded these troops after the recall
of Spinola, hastily raised the siege of Frankenthal, when Mansfeld entered
the Lower Palatinate.  But instead of driving the Spaniards out
of this province, he hastened across the Rhine to secure for his needy troops
shelter and subsistence in Alsace.  The open countries on which this
swarm of maurauders threw themselves were converted into frightful deserts,
and only by enormous contributions could the cities purchase
an exemption from plunder.  Reinforced by this expedition,
Mansfeld again appeared on the Rhine to cover the Lower Palatinate.

So long as such an arm fought for him, the cause of the Elector Frederick
was not irretrievably lost.  New prospects began to open,
and misfortune raised up friends who had been silent during his prosperity.
King James of England, who had looked on with indifference while
his son-in-law lost the Bohemian crown, was aroused from his insensibility
when the very existence of his daughter and grandson was at stake,
and the victorious enemy ventured an attack upon the Electorate.
Late enough, he at last opened his treasures, and hastened to afford supplies
of money and troops, first to the Union, which at that time was defending
the Lower Palatinate, and afterwards, when they retired, to Count Mansfeld.
By his means his near relation, Christian, King of Denmark,
was induced to afford his active support.  At the same time,
the approaching expiration of the truce between Spain and Holland
deprived the Emperor of all the supplies which otherwise he might expect
from the side of the Netherlands.  More important still was the assistance
which the Palatinate received from Transylvania and Hungary.
The cessation of hostilities between Gabor and the Emperor
was scarcely at an end, when this old and formidable enemy of Austria
overran Hungary anew, and caused himself to be crowned king in Presburg.
So rapid was his progress that, to protect Austria and Hungary,
Boucquoi was obliged to evacuate Bohemia.  This brave general met his death
at the siege of Neuhausel, as, shortly before, the no less valiant Dampierre
had fallen before Presburg.  Gabor's march into the Austrian territory
was irresistible; the old Count Thurn, and several other
distinguished Bohemians, had united their hatred and their strength
with this irreconcileable enemy of Austria.  A vigorous attack
on the side of Germany, while Gabor pressed the Emperor on that of Hungary,
might have retrieved the fortunes of Frederick; but, unfortunately,
the Bohemians and Germans had always laid down their arms
when Gabor took the field; and the latter was always exhausted
at the very moment that the former began to recover their vigour.

Meanwhile Frederick had not delayed to join his protector Mansfeld.
In disguise he entered the Lower Palatinate, of which the possession
was at that time disputed between Mansfeld and the Bavarian general, Tilly,
the Upper Palatinate having been long conquered.  A ray of hope
shone upon him as, from the wreck of the Union, new friends came forward.
A former member of the Union, George Frederick, Margrave of Baden,
had for some time been engaged in assembling a military force,
which soon amounted to a considerable army.  Its destination
was kept a secret till he suddenly took the field and joined Mansfeld.
Before commencing the war, he resigned his Margraviate to his son,
in the hope of eluding, by this precaution, the Emperor's revenge,
if his enterprize should be unsuccessful.  His neighbour,
the Duke of Wirtemberg, likewise began to augment his military force.
The courage of the Palatine revived, and he laboured assiduously
to renew the Protestant Union.  It was now time for Tilly to consult
for his own safety, and he hastily summoned the Spanish troops, under Corduba,
to his assistance.  But while the enemy was uniting his strength,
Mansfeld and the Margrave separated, and the latter was defeated
by the Bavarian general near Wimpfen (1622).

To defend a king whom his nearest relation persecuted,
and who was deserted even by his own father-in-law, there had come forward
an adventurer without money, and whose very legitimacy was questioned.
A sovereign had resigned possessions over which he reigned in peace,
to hazard the uncertain fortune of war in behalf of a stranger.
And now another soldier of fortune, poor in territorial possessions,
but rich in illustrious ancestry, undertook the defence of a cause
which the former despaired of.  Christian, Duke of Brunswick,
administrator of Halberstadt, seemed to have learnt from Count Mansfeld
the secret of keeping in the field an army of 20,000 men without money.
Impelled by youthful presumption, and influenced partly by the wish of
establishing his reputation at the expense of the Roman Catholic priesthood,
whom he cordially detested, and partly by a thirst for plunder,
he assembled a considerable army in Lower Saxony, under the pretext
of espousing the defence of Frederick, and of the liberties of Germany.
"God's Friend, Priest's Foe", was the motto he chose for his coinage,
which was struck out of church plate; and his conduct belied one half at least
of the device.

The progress of these banditti was, as usual, marked by
the most frightful devastation.  Enriched by the spoils of the chapters
of Lower Saxony and Westphalia, they gathered strength
to plunder the bishoprics upon the Upper Rhine.  Driven from thence,
both by friends and foes, the Administrator approached
the town of Hoechst on the Maine, which he crossed after a murderous action
with Tilly, who disputed with him the passage of the river.
With the loss of half his army he reached the opposite bank, where he
quickly collected his shattered troops, and formed a junction with Mansfeld.
Pursued by Tilly, this united host threw itself again into Alsace,
to repeat their former ravages.  While the Elector Frederick followed,
almost like a fugitive mendicant, this swarm of plunderers
which acknowledged him as its lord, and dignified itself with his name,
his friends were busily endeavouring to effect a reconciliation
between him and the Emperor.  Ferdinand took care not to deprive them
of all hope of seeing the Palatine restored to his dominion.
Full of artifice and dissimulation, he pretended to be willing to enter
into a negotiation, hoping thereby to cool their ardour in the field,
and to prevent them from driving matters to extremity.  James I.,
ever the dupe of Spanish cunning, contributed not a little,
by his foolish intermeddling, to promote the Emperor's schemes.
Ferdinand insisted that Frederick, if he would appeal to his clemency,
should, first of all, lay down his arms, and James considered this demand
extremely reasonable.  At his instigation, the Elector dismissed
his only real defenders, Count Mansfeld and the Administrator,
and in Holland awaited his own fate from the mercy of the Emperor.

Mansfeld and Duke Christian were now at a loss for some new name;
the cause of the Elector had not set them in motion, so his dismissal
could not disarm them.  War was their object; it was all the same to them
in whose cause or name it was waged.  After some vain attempts
on the part of Mansfeld to be received into the Emperor's service,
both marched into Lorraine, where the excesses of their troops
spread terror even to the heart of France.  Here they long waited in vain
for a master willing to purchase their services; till the Dutch,
pressed by the Spanish General Spinola, offered to take them into pay.
After a bloody fight at Fleurus with the Spaniards,
who attempted to intercept them, they reached Holland,
where their appearance compelled the Spanish general forthwith
to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom.  But even Holland was soon weary
of these dangerous guests, and availed herself of the first moment
to get rid of their unwelcome assistance.  Mansfeld allowed his troops
to recruit themselves for new enterprises in the fertile province
of East Friezeland.  Duke Christian, passionately enamoured
of the Electress Palatine, with whom he had become acquainted in Holland,
and more disposed for war than ever, led back his army into Lower Saxony,
bearing that princess's glove in his hat, and on his standards the motto
"All for God and Her".  Neither of these adventurers had as yet run
their career in this war.

All the imperial territories were now free from the enemy;
the Union was dissolved; the Margrave of Baden, Duke Christian, and Mansfeld,
driven from the field, and the Palatinate overrun by the executive troops
of the empire.  Manheim and Heidelberg were in possession of Bavaria,
and Frankenthal was shortly afterwards ceded to the Spaniards.  The Palatine,
in a distant corner of Holland, awaited the disgraceful permission to appease,
by abject submission, the vengeance of the Emperor; and an Electoral Diet
was at last summoned to decide his fate.  That fate, however,
had been long before decided at the court of the Emperor; though now,
for the first time, were circumstances favourable for giving publicity
to the decision.  After his past measures towards the Elector,
Ferdinand believed that a sincere reconciliation was not to be hoped for.
The violent course he had once begun, must be completed successfully,
or recoil upon himself.  What was already lost was irrecoverable;
Frederick could never hope to regain his dominions;
and a prince without territory and without subjects had little chance
of retaining the electoral crown.  Deeply as the Palatine had offended
against the House of Austria, the services of the Duke of Bavaria were
no less meritorious.  If the House of Austria and the Roman Catholic church
had much to dread from the resentment and religious rancour
of the Palatine family, they had as much to hope from
the gratitude and religious zeal of the Bavarian.  Lastly,
by the cession of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria,
the Roman Catholic religion would obtain a decisive preponderance
in the Electoral College, and secure a permanent triumph in Germany.

The last circumstance was sufficient to win the support
of the three Ecclesiastical Electors to this innovation;
and among the Protestants the vote of Saxony was alone of any importance.
But could John George be expected to dispute with the Emperor a right,
without which he would expose to question his own title
to the electoral dignity?  To a prince whom descent, dignity,
and political power placed at the head of the Protestant church in Germany,
nothing, it is true, ought to be more sacred than the defence of the rights
of that church against all the encroachments of the Roman Catholics.
But the question here was not whether the interests of the Protestants
were to be supported against the Roman Catholics, but which of
two religions equally detested, the Calvinistic and the Popish,
was to triumph over the other; to which of the two enemies,
equally dangerous, the Palatinate was to be assigned; and in this clashing
of opposite duties, it was natural that private hate and private gain
should determine the event.  The born protector of the liberties of Germany,
and of the Protestant religion, encouraged the Emperor
to dispose of the Palatinate by his imperial prerogative;
and to apprehend no resistance on the part of Saxony to his measures
on the mere ground of form.  If the Elector was afterwards disposed to
retract this consent, Ferdinand himself, by driving the Evangelical preachers
from Bohemia, was the cause of this change of opinion; and, in the eyes
of the Elector, the transference of the Palatine Electorate to Bavaria
ceased to be illegal, as soon as Ferdinand was prevailed upon
to cede Lusatia to Saxony, in consideration of six millions of dollars,
as the expenses of the war.

Thus, in defiance of all Protestant Germany, and in mockery of
the fundamental laws of the empire, which, as his election,
he had sworn to maintain, Ferdinand at Ratisbon solemnly invested
the Duke of Bavaria with the Palatinate, without prejudice, as the form ran,
to the rights which the relations or descendants of Frederick
might afterwards establish.  That unfortunate prince thus saw himself
irrevocably driven from his possessions, without having been even heard
before the tribunal which condemned him -- a privilege which the law allows
to the meanest subject, and even to the most atrocious criminal.

This violent step at last opened the eyes of the King of England;
and as the negociations for the marriage of his son with the Infanta of Spain
were now broken off, James began seriously to espouse the cause
of his son-in-law.  A change in the French ministry had placed
Cardinal Richelieu at the head of affairs, and this fallen kingdom
soon began to feel that a great mind was at the helm of state.  The attempts
of the Spanish Viceroy in Milan to gain possession of the Valtelline,
and thus to form a junction with the Austrian hereditary dominions,
revived the olden dread of this power, and with it the policy
of Henry the Great.  The marriage of the Prince of Wales
with Henrietta of France, established a close union between the two crowns;
and to this alliance, Holland, Denmark, and some of the Italian states
presently acceded.  Its object was to expel, by force of arms,
Spain from the Valtelline, and to compel Austria to reinstate Frederick;
but only the first of these designs was prosecuted with vigour.
James I. died, and Charles I., involved in disputes with his Parliament,
could not bestow attention on the affairs of Germany.  Savoy and Venice
withheld their assistance; and the French minister thought it necessary
to subdue the Huguenots at home, before he supported the German Protestants
against the Emperor.  Great as were the hopes which had been formed from
this alliance, they were yet equalled by the disappointment of the event.

Mansfeld, deprived of all support, remained inactive on the Lower Rhine;
and Duke Christian of Brunswick, after an unsuccessful campaign,
was a second time driven out of Germany.  A fresh irruption of Bethlen Gabor
into Moravia, frustrated by the want of support from the Germans,
terminated, like all the rest, in a formal peace with the Emperor.
The Union was no more; no Protestant prince was in arms;
and on the frontiers of Lower Germany, the Bavarian General Tilly,
at the head of a victorious army, encamped in the Protestant territory.
The movements of the Duke of Brunswick had drawn him into this quarter,
and even into the circle of Lower Saxony, when he made himself
master of the Administrator's magazines at Lippstadt.  The necessity
of observing this enemy, and preventing him from new inroads,
was the pretext assigned for continuing Tilly's stay in the country.
But, in truth, both Mansfeld and Duke Christian had, from want of money,
disbanded their armies, and Count Tilly had no enemy to dread.  Why, then,
still burden the country with his presence?

It is difficult, amidst the uproar of contending parties,
to distinguish the voice of truth; but certainly it was matter for alarm
that the League did not lay down its arms.  The premature rejoicings
of the Roman Catholics, too, were calculated to increase apprehension.
The Emperor and the League stood armed and victorious in Germany
without a power to oppose them, should they venture to attack
the Protestant states and to annul the religious treaty.
Had Ferdinand been in reality far from disposed to abuse his conquests,
still the defenceless position of the Protestants was most likely to suggest
the temptation.  Obsolete conventions could not bind a prince who thought
that he owed all to religion, and believed that a religious creed would
sanctify any deed, however violent.  Upper Germany was already overpowered.
Lower Germany alone could check his despotic authority.  Here the Protestants
still predominated; the church had been forcibly deprived of most
of its endowments; and the present appeared a favourable moment
for recovering these lost possessions.  A great part of the strength
of the Lower German princes consisted in these Chapters,
and the plea of restoring its own to the church, afforded an excellent pretext
for weakening these princes.

Unpardonable would have been their negligence, had they remained inactive
in this danger.  The remembrance of the ravages which Tilly's army
had committed in Lower Saxony was too recent not to arouse the Estates
to measures of defence.  With all haste, the circle of Lower Saxony began
to arm itself.  Extraordinary contributions were levied, troops collected,
and magazines filled.  Negociations for subsidies were set on foot
with Venice, Holland, and England.  They deliberated, too,
what power should be placed at the head of the confederacy.
The kings of the Sound and the Baltic, the natural allies of this circle,
would not see with indifference the Emperor treating it as a conqueror,
and establishing himself as their neighbour on the shores of the North Sea.
The twofold interests of religion and policy urged them to put a stop
to his progress in Lower Germany.  Christian IV. of Denmark,
as Duke of Holstein, was himself a prince of this circle,
and by considerations equally powerful, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
was induced to join the confederacy.

These two kings vied with each other for the honour of defending Lower Saxony,
and of opposing the formidable power of Austria.  Each offered to raise
a well-disciplined army, and to lead it in person.  His victorious campaigns
against Moscow and Poland gave weight to the promises of the King of Sweden.
The shores of the Baltic were full of the name of Gustavus.
But the fame of his rival excited the envy of the Danish monarch;
and the more success he promised himself in this campaign,
the less disposed was he to show any favour to his envied neighbour.
Both laid their conditions and plans before the English ministry,
and Christian IV. finally succeeded in outbidding his rival.
Gustavus Adolphus, for his own security, had demanded the cession
of some places of strength in Germany, where he himself had no territories,
to afford, in case of need, a place of refuge for his troops.
Christian IV. possessed Holstein and Jutland, through which,
in the event of a defeat, he could always secure a retreat.

Eager to get the start of his competitor, the King of Denmark hastened
to take the field.  Appointed generalissimo of the circle of Lower Saxony,
he soon had an army of 60,000 men in motion; the administrator of Magdeburg,
and the Dukes of Brunswick and Mecklenburgh, entered into an alliance
with him.  Encouraged by the hope of assistance from England,
and the possession of so large a force, he flattered himself
he should be able to terminate the war in a single campaign.

At Vienna, it was officially notified that the only object
of these preparations was the protection of the circle,
and the maintenance of peace.  But the negociations with Holland, England,
and even France, the extraordinary exertions of the circle, and the raising
of so formidable an army, seemed to have something more in view
than defensive operations, and to contemplate nothing less
than the complete restoration of the Elector Palatine,
and the humiliation of the dreaded power of Austria.

After negociations, exhortations, commands, and threats had in vain
been employed by the Emperor in order to induce the King of Denmark
and the circle of Lower Saxony to lay down their arms, hostilities commenced,
and Lower Germany became the theatre of war.  Count Tilly,
marching along the left bank of the Weser, made himself master
of all the passes as far as Minden.  After an unsuccessful attack on Nieuburg,
he crossed the river and overran the principality of Calemberg,
in which he quartered his troops.  The king conducted his operations
on the right bank of the river, and spread his forces over
the territories of Brunswick, but having weakened his main body by
too powerful detachments, he could not engage in any enterprise of importance.
Aware of his opponent's superiority, he avoided a decisive action
as anxiously as the general of the League sought it.

With the exception of the troops from the Spanish Netherlands,
which had poured into the Lower Palatinate, the Emperor had hitherto
made use only of the arms of Bavaria and the League in Germany.
Maximilian conducted the war as executor of the ban of the empire,
and Tilly, who commanded the army of execution, was in the Bavarian service.
The Emperor owed superiority in the field to Bavaria and the League,
and his fortunes were in their hands.  This dependence on their goodwill,
but ill accorded with the grand schemes, which the brilliant commencement
of the war had led the imperial cabinet to form.

However active the League had shown itself in the Emperor's defence,
while thereby it secured its own welfare, it could not be expected
that it would enter as readily into his views of conquest.  Or,
if they still continued to lend their armies for that purpose,
it was too much to be feared that they would share with the Emperor
nothing but general odium, while they appropriated to themselves
all advantages.  A strong army under his own orders could alone free him
from this debasing dependence upon Bavaria, and restore to him
his former pre-eminence in Germany.  But the war had already exhausted
the imperial dominions, and they were unequal to the expense
of such an armament.  In these circumstances, nothing could be
more welcome to the Emperor than the proposal with which
one of his officers surprised him.

This was Count Wallenstein, an experienced officer,
and the richest nobleman in Bohemia.  From his earliest youth
he had been in the service of the House of Austria, and several campaigns
against the Turks, Venetians, Bohemians, Hungarians, and Transylvanians
had established his reputation.  He was present as colonel
at the battle of Prague, and afterwards, as major-general,
had defeated a Hungarian force in Moravia.  The Emperor's gratitude
was equal to his services, and a large share of the confiscated estates
of the Bohemian insurgents was their reward.  Possessed of immense property,
excited by ambitious views, confident in his own good fortune,
and still more encouraged by the existing state of circumstances,
he offered, at his own expense and that of his friends,
to raise and clothe an army for the Emperor, and even undertook
the cost of maintaining it, if he were allowed to augment it to 50,000 men.
The project was universally ridiculed as the chimerical offspring
of a visionary brain; but the offer was highly valuable, if its promises
should be but partially fulfilled.  Certain circles in Bohemia
were assigned to him as depots, with authority to appoint his own officers.
In a few months he had 20,000 men under arms, with which,
quitting the Austrian territories, he soon afterwards appeared
on the frontiers of Lower Saxony with 30,000.  The Emperor
had lent this armament nothing but his name.  The reputation of the general,
the prospect of rapid promotion, and the hope of plunder,
attracted to his standard adventurers from all quarters of Germany;
and even sovereign princes, stimulated by the desire of glory or of gain,
offered to raise regiments for the service of Austria.

Now, therefore, for the first time in this war, an imperial army
appeared in Germany; -- an event which if it was menacing to the Protestants,
was scarcely more acceptable to the Catholics.  Wallenstein had orders
to unite his army with the troops of the League, and in conjunction
with the Bavarian general to attack the King of Denmark.
But long jealous of Tilly's fame, he showed no disposition to share with him
the laurels of the campaign, or in the splendour of his rival's achievements
to dim the lustre of his own.  His plan of operations was
to support the latter, but to act entirely independent of him.
As he had not resources, like Tilly, for supplying the wants of his army,
he was obliged to march his troops into fertile countries
which had not as yet suffered from war.  Disobeying, therefore,
the order to form a junction with the general of the League,
he marched into the territories of Halberstadt and Magdeburg,
and at Dessau made himself master of the Elbe.  All the lands
on either bank of this river were at his command, and from them
he could either attack the King of Denmark in the rear, or, if prudent,
enter the territories of that prince.

Christian IV. was fully aware of the danger of his situation between
two such powerful armies.  He had already been joined by the administrator
of Halberstadt, who had lately returned from Holland; he now also
acknowledged Mansfeld, whom previously he had refused to recognise,
and supported him to the best of his ability.  Mansfeld amply requited
this service.  He alone kept at bay the army of Wallenstein upon the Elbe,
and prevented its junction with that of Tilly, and a combined attack
on the King of Denmark.  Notwithstanding the enemy's superiority,
this intrepid general even approached the bridge of Dessau,
and ventured to entrench himself in presence of the imperial lines.
But attacked in the rear by the whole force of the Imperialists,
he was obliged to yield to superior numbers, and to abandon his post
with the loss of 3,000 killed.  After this defeat, Mansfeld withdrew
into Brandenburg, where he soon recruited and reinforced his army;
and suddenly turned into Silesia, with the view of marching from thence
into Hungary; and, in conjunction with Bethlen Gabor, carrying the war
into the heart of Austria.  As the Austrian dominions in that quarter
were entirely defenceless, Wallenstein received immediate orders
to leave the King of Denmark, and if possible to intercept
Mansfeld's progress through Silesia.

The diversion which this movement of Mansfeld had made in the plans
of Wallenstein, enabled the king to detach a part of his force
into Westphalia, to seize the bishoprics of Munster and Osnaburg.
To check this movement, Tilly suddenly moved from the Weser;
but the operations of Duke Christian, who threatened the territories
of the League with an inroad in the direction of Hesse, and to remove thither
the seat of war, recalled him as rapidly from Westphalia.
In order to keep open his communication with these provinces,
and to prevent the junction of the enemy with the Landgrave of Hesse,
Tilly hastily seized all the tenable posts on the Werha and Fulda,
and took up a strong position in Minden, at the foot of the Hessian Mountains,
and at the confluence of these rivers with the Weser.  He soon made himself
master of Goettingen, the key of Brunswick and Hesse, and was meditating
a similar attack upon Nordheim, when the king advanced upon him
with his whole army.  After throwing into this place the necessary supplies
for a long siege, the latter attempted to open a new passage
through Eichsfeld and Thuringia, into the territories of the League.
He had already reached Duderstadt, when Tilly, by forced marches,
came up with him.  As the army of Tilly, which had been reinforced
by some of Wallenstein's regiments, was superior in numbers to his own,
the king, to avoid a battle, retreated towards Brunswick.
But Tilly incessantly harassed his retreat, and after three days' skirmishing,
he was at length obliged to await the enemy near the village of Lutter
in Barenberg.  The Danes began the attack with great bravery, and thrice did
their intrepid monarch lead them in person against the enemy; but at length
the superior numbers and discipline of the Imperialists prevailed,
and the general of the League obtained a complete victory.
The Danes lost sixty standards, and their whole artillery, baggage,
and ammunition.  Several officers of distinction and about 4,000 men
were killed in the field of battle; and several companies of foot,
in the flight, who had thrown themselves into the town-house of Lutter,
laid down their arms and surrendered to the conqueror.

The king fled with his cavalry, and soon collected the wreck of his army
which had survived this serious defeat.  Tilly pursued his victory,
made himself master of the Weser and Brunswick, and forced the king
to retire into Bremen.  Rendered more cautious by defeat,
the latter now stood upon the defensive; and determined at all events
to prevent the enemy from crossing the Elbe.  But while he threw garrisons
into every tenable place, he reduced his own diminished army to inactivity;
and one after another his scattered troops were either defeated or dispersed.
The forces of the League, in command of the Weser, spread themselves along
the Elbe and Havel, and everywhere drove the Danes before them.
Tilly himself crossing the Elbe penetrated with his victorious army
into Brandenburg, while Wallenstein entered Holstein to remove the seat of war
to the king's own dominions.

This general had just returned from Hungary whither he had pursued Mansfeld,
without being able to obstruct his march, or prevent his junction
with Bethlen Gabor.  Constantly persecuted by fortune, but always superior
to his fate, Mansfeld had made his way against countless difficulties,
through Silesia and Hungary to Transylvania, where, after all,
he was not very welcome.  Relying upon the assistance of England,
and a powerful diversion in Lower Saxony, Gabor had again broken the truce
with the Emperor.  But in place of the expected diversion in his favour,
Mansfeld had drawn upon himself the whole strength of Wallenstein,
and instead of bringing, required, pecuniary assistance.  The want of concert
in the Protestant counsels cooled Gabor's ardour; and he hastened, as usual,
to avert the coming storm by a speedy peace.  Firmly determined, however,
to break it, with the first ray of hope, he directed Mansfeld in the mean time
to apply for assistance to Venice.

Cut off from Germany, and unable to support the weak remnant of his troops
in Hungary, Mansfeld sold his artillery and baggage train, and disbanded
his soldiers.  With a few followers, he proceeded through Bosnia and Dalmatia,
towards Venice.  New schemes swelled his bosom; but his career was ended.
Fate, which had so restlessly sported with him throughout,
now prepared for him a peaceful grave in Dalmatia.  Death overtook him
in the vicinity of Zara in 1626, and a short time before him
died the faithful companion of his fortunes, Christian, Duke of Brunswick --
two men worthy of immortality, had they but been as superior to their times
as they were to their adversities.

The King of Denmark, with his whole army, was unable to cope with Tilly alone;
much less, therefore, with a shattered force could he hold his ground
against the two imperial generals.  The Danes retired from all their posts
on the Weser, the Elbe, and the Havel, and the army of Wallenstein
poured like a torrent into Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein and Sleswick.
That general, too proud to act in conjunction with another,
had dispatched Tilly across the Elbe, to watch, as he gave out,
the motions of the Dutch in that quarter; but in reality
that he might terminate the war against the king, and reap for himself
the fruits of Tilly's conquests.  Christian had now lost
all his fortresses in the German States, with the exception of Gluckstadt;
his armies were defeated or dispersed; no assistance came from Germany;
from England, little consolation; while his confederates in Lower Saxony
were at the mercy of the conqueror.  The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel
had been forced by Tilly, soon after the battle of Lutter,
to renounce the Danish alliance.  Wallenstein's formidable appearance
before Berlin reduced the Elector of Brandenburgh to submission,
and compelled him to recognise, as legitimate, Maximilian's title
to the Palatine Electorate.  The greater part of Mecklenburgh was now overrun
by imperial troops; and both dukes, as adherents of the King of Denmark,
placed under the ban of the empire, and driven from their dominions.
The defence of the German liberties against illegal encroachments,
was punished as a crime deserving the loss of all dignities and territories;
and yet this was but the prelude to the still more crying enormities
which shortly followed.

The secret how Wallenstein had purposed to fulfil his extravagant designs
was now manifest.  He had learned the lesson from Count Mansfeld;
but the scholar surpassed his master.  On the principle
that war must support war, Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick
had subsisted their troops by contributions levied indiscriminately
on friend and enemy; but this predatory life was attended with
all the inconvenience and insecurity which accompany robbery.
Like a fugitive banditti, they were obliged to steal through
exasperated and vigilant enemies; to roam from one end of Germany to another;
to watch their opportunity with anxiety; and to abandon
the most fertile territories whenever they were defended by a superior army.
If Mansfeld and Duke Christian had done such great things
in the face of these difficulties, what might not be expected
if the obstacles were removed; when the army raised was numerous enough
to overawe in itself the most powerful states of the empire;
when the name of the Emperor insured impunity to every outrage; and when,
under the highest authority, and at the head of an overwhelming force,
the same system of warfare was pursued, which these two adventurers
had hitherto adopted at their own risk, and with only an untrained multitude?

Wallenstein had all this in view when he made his bold offer to the Emperor,
which now seemed extravagant to no one.  The more his army was augmented,
the less cause was there to fear for its subsistence, because it could
irresistibly bear down upon the refractory states; the more violent
its outrages, the more probable was impunity.  Towards hostile states
it had the plea of right; towards the favourably disposed
it could allege necessity.  The inequality, too, with which it dealt out
its oppressions, prevented any dangerous union among the states;
while the exhaustion of their territories deprived them of the power
of vengeance.  Thus the whole of Germany became a kind of magazine
for the imperial army, and the Emperor was enabled to deal with
the other states as absolutely as with his own hereditary dominions.
Universal was the clamour for redress before the imperial throne;
but there was nothing to fear from the revenge of the injured princes,
so long as they appealed for justice.  The general discontent was directed
equally against the Emperor, who had lent his name to these barbarities,
and the general who exceeded his power, and openly abused the authority
of his master.  They applied to the Emperor for protection against
the outrages of his general; but Wallenstein had no sooner felt himself
absolute in the army, than he threw off his obedience to his sovereign.

The exhaustion of the enemy made a speedy peace probable;
yet Wallenstein continued to augment the imperial armies until they were
at least 100,000 men strong.  Numberless commissions to colonelcies
and inferior commands, the regal pomp of the commander-in-chief,
immoderate largesses to his favourites, (for he never gave less
than a thousand florins,) enormous sums lavished in corrupting the court
at Vienna -- all this had been effected without burdening the Emperor.
These immense sums were raised by the contributions levied from the lower
German provinces, where no distinction was made between friend and foe;
and the territories of all princes were subjected to the same system
of marching and quartering, of extortion and outrage.
If credit is to be given to an extravagant contemporary statement,
Wallenstein, during his seven years command, had exacted not less
than sixty thousand millions of dollars from one half of Germany.
The greater his extortions, the greater the rewards of his soldiers,
and the greater the concourse to his standard, for the world
always follows fortune.  His armies flourished while all the states
through which they passed withered.  What cared he for the detestation
of the people, and the complaints of princes?  His army adored him,
and the very enormity of his guilt enabled him to bid defiance
to its consequences.

It would be unjust to Ferdinand, were we to lay all these irregularities
to his charge.  Had he foreseen that he was abandoning the German States
to the mercy of his officer, he would have been sensible how dangerous
to himself so absolute a general would prove.  The closer the connexion became
between the army, and the leader from whom flowed favour and fortune,
the more the ties which united both to the Emperor were relaxed.
Every thing, it is true, was done in the name of the latter;
but Wallenstein only availed himself of the supreme majesty of the Emperor
to crush the authority of other states.  His object was to depress
the princes of the empire, to destroy all gradation of rank between them
and the Emperor, and to elevate the power of the latter above all competition.
If the Emperor were absolute in Germany, who then would be equal
to the man intrusted with the execution of his will?  The height to which
Wallenstein had raised the imperial authority astonished even
the Emperor himself; but as the greatness of the master was entirely the work
of the servant, the creation of Wallenstein would necessarily sink again
into nothing upon the withdrawal of its creative hand.  Not without an object,
therefore, did Wallenstein labour to poison the minds of the German princes
against the Emperor.  The more violent their hatred of Ferdinand,
the more indispensable to the Emperor would become the man who alone
could render their ill-will powerless.  His design unquestionably was,
that his sovereign should stand in fear of no one in all Germany --
besides himself, the source and engine of this despotic power.