The History of the Thirty Years' War
by Friedrich Schiller, Translated by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

[Johann Cristoph Friedrich von Schiller:  German Writer -- 1759-1805.]





[This is Volume I.  Hopefully the rest will follow.]





The History of the Thirty Years' War
by Frederick Schiller



Translated from the German by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.





Preface



The present is the only collected edition of the principal works of Schiller
which is accessible to English readers.  Detached poems or dramas have been
translated at various times, and sometimes by men of eminence,
since the first publication of the original works;
and in several instances these versions have been incorporated,
after some revision or necessary correction, into the following collection;
but on the other hand a large proportion of the contents have been
specially translated for this edition, in which category are
the historical works which occupy this volume and a portion of the next.

Schiller was not less efficiently qualified by nature for an historian
than for a dramatist.  He was formed to excel in all departments
of literature, and the admirable lucidity of style and soundness
and impartiality of judgment displayed in his historical writings
will not easily by surpassed, and will always recommend them
as popular expositions of the periods of which they treat.

Since the first publication of this edition many corrections and improvements
have been made, with a view to rendering it as acceptable as possible
to English readers.






Contents

History of the Thirty Years' War



Book I.

Introduction. -- General effects of the Reformation. -- Revolt of Matthias. --
The Emperor cedes Austria and Hungary to him. -- Matthias acknowledged
King of Bohemia. -- The Elector of Cologne abjures the Catholic Religion. --
Consequences. -- The Elector Palatine. -- Dispute respecting the Succession
of Juliers. -- Designs of Henry IV. of France. -- Formation of the Union. --
The League. -- Death of the Emperor Rodolph. -- Matthias succeeds him. --
Troubles in Bohemia. -- Civil War. -- Ferdinand extirpates
the Protestant Religion from Styria. -- The Elector Palatine, Frederick V.,
is chosen King by the Bohemians. -- He accepts the Crown of Bohemia. --
Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, invades Austria. -- The Duke of Bavaria
and the Princes of the League embrace the cause of Ferdinand. -- The Union arm
for Frederick. -- The Battle of Prague and total subjection of Bohemia.


Book II.

State of the Empire. -- Of Europe. -- Mansfeld. -- Christian,
Duke of Brunswick. -- Wallenstein raises an Imperial Army at his own expense.
-- The King of Denmark defeated. -- Death of Mansfeld. -- Edict of Restitution
in 1628. -- Diet at Ratisbon. -- Negociations. -- Wallenstein deprived
of the Command. -- Gustavus Adolphus. -- Swedish Army. -- Gustavus Adolphus
takes his leave of the States at Stockholm. -- Invasion by the Swedes. --
Their progress in Germany. -- Count Tilly takes the Command
of the Imperial Troops. -- Treaty with France. -- Congress at Leipzig. --
Siege and cruel fate of Magdeburg. -- Firmness of the Landgrave of Cassel. --
Junction of the Saxons with the Swedes. -- Battle of Leipzig. --
Consequences of that Victory.


Book III.

Situation of Gustavus Adolphus after the Battle of Leipzig. --
Progress of Gustavus Adolphus. -- The French invade Lorraine. --
Frankfort taken. -- Capitulation of Mentz. -- Tilly ordered by Maximilian
to protect Bavaria. -- Gustavus Adolphus passes the Lech. --
Defeat and Death of Tilly. -- Gustavus takes Munich. -- The Saxon Army
invades Bohemia, and takes Prague. -- Distress of the Emperor. --
Secret Triumph of Wallenstein. -- He offers to Join Gustavus Adolphus. --
Wallenstein re-assumes the Command. -- Junction of Wallenstein
with the Bavarians. -- Gustavus Adolphus defends Nuremberg. --
Attacks Wallenstein's Intrenchments. -- Enters Saxony. --
Goes to the succour of the Elector of Saxony. -- Marches against Wallenstein.
-- Battle of Lutzen. -- Death of Gustavus Adolphus. -- Situation of Germany
after the Battle of Lutzen.


Book IV.

Closer Alliance between France and Sweden. -- Oxenstiern takes
the Direction of Affairs. -- Death of the Elector Palatine. --
Revolt of the Swedish Officers. -- Duke Bernhard takes Ratisbon. --
Wallenstein enters Silesia. -- Forms Treasonable Designs. --
Forsaken by the Army. -- Retires to Egra. -- His associates put to death. --
Wallenstein's death. -- His Character.


Book V.

Battle of Nordlingen. -- France enters into an Alliance against Austria. --
Treaty of Prague. -- Saxony joins the Emperor. -- Battle of Wistock gained
by the Swedes. -- Battle of Rheinfeld gained by Bernhard, Duke of Weimar. --
He takes Brisach. -- His death. -- Death of Ferdinand II. --
Ferdinand III. succeeds him. -- Celebrated Retreat of Banner in Pomerania. --
His Successes. -- Death. -- Torstensohn takes the Command. --
Death of Richelieu and Louis XIII. -- Swedish Victory at Jankowitz. --
French defeated at Freyburg. -- Battle of Nordlingen gained by Turenne
and Conde. -- Wrangel takes the Command of the Swedish Army. --
Melander made Commander of the Emperor's Army. -- The Elector of Bavaria
breaks the Armistice. -- He adopts the same Policy towards the Emperor
as France towards the Swedes. -- The Weimerian Cavalry go over to the Swedes.
-- Conquest of New Prague by Koenigsmark, and Termination of
the Thirty Years' War.






History of the Thirty Years' War in Germany.






Book I.




From the beginning of the religious wars in Germany, to the peace of Munster,
scarcely any thing great or remarkable occurred in the political world
of Europe in which the Reformation had not an important share.
All the events of this period, if they did not originate in,
soon became mixed up with, the question of religion,
and no state was either too great or too little to feel directly
or indirectly more or less of its influence.

Against the reformed doctrine and its adherents, the House of Austria
directed, almost exclusively, the whole of its immense political power.
In France, the Reformation had enkindled a civil war which,
under four stormy reigns, shook the kingdom to its foundations,
brought foreign armies into the heart of the country,
and for half a century rendered it the scene of the most mournful disorders.
It was the Reformation, too, that rendered the Spanish yoke intolerable
to the Flemings, and awakened in them both the desire and the courage
to throw off its fetters, while it also principally furnished them
with the means of their emancipation.  And as to England, all the evils
with which Philip the Second threatened Elizabeth, were mainly intended
in revenge for her having taken his Protestant subjects under her protection,
and placing herself at the head of a religious party which it was his aim
and endeavour to extirpate.  In Germany, the schisms in the church
produced also a lasting political schism, which made that country
for more than a century the theatre of confusion, but at the same time
threw up a firm barrier against political oppression.  It was, too,
the Reformation principally that first drew the northern powers,
Denmark and Sweden, into the political system of Europe; and while on
the one hand the Protestant League was strengthened by their adhesion,
it on the other was indispensable to their interests.  States which hitherto
scarcely concerned themselves with one another's existence,
acquired through the Reformation an attractive centre of interest,
and began to be united by new political sympathies.  And as through
its influence new relations sprang up between citizen and citizen,
and between rulers and subjects, so also entire states were forced by it
into new relative positions.  Thus, by a strange course of events,
religious disputes were the means of cementing a closer union
among the nations of Europe.

Fearful indeed, and destructive, was the first movement in which this
general political sympathy announced itself; a desolating war of thirty years,
which, from the interior of Bohemia to the mouth of the Scheldt,
and from the banks of the Po to the coasts of the Baltic,
devastated whole countries, destroyed harvests, and reduced towns and villages
to ashes; which opened a grave for many thousand combatants,
and for half a century smothered the glimmering sparks of civilization
in Germany, and threw back the improving manners of the country
into their pristine barbarity and wildness.  Yet out of this fearful war
Europe came forth free and independent.  In it she first learned
to recognize herself as a community of nations; and this intercommunion
of states, which originated in the thirty years' war, may alone be sufficient
to reconcile the philosopher to its horrors.  The hand of industry
has slowly but gradually effaced the traces of its ravages,
while its beneficent influence still survives; and this general sympathy
among the states of Europe, which grew out of the troubles in Bohemia,
is our guarantee for the continuance of that peace which was the result
of the war.  As the sparks of destruction found their way
from the interior of Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria, to kindle Germany,
France, and the half of Europe, so also will the torch of civilization
make a path for itself from the latter to enlighten the former countries.

All this was effected by religion.  Religion alone could have
rendered possible all that was accomplished, but it was far from being
the SOLE motive of the war.  Had not private advantages and state interests
been closely connected with it, vain and powerless would have been
the arguments of theologians; and the cry of the people would never have met
with princes so willing to espouse their cause, nor the new doctrines
have found such numerous, brave, and persevering champions.  The Reformation
is undoubtedly owing in a great measure to the invincible power of truth,
or of opinions which were held as such.  The abuses in the old church,
the absurdity of many of its dogmas, the extravagance of its requisitions,
necessarily revolted the tempers of men, already half-won with the promise
of a better light, and favourably disposed them towards the new doctrines.
The charm of independence, the rich plunder of monastic institutions,
made the Reformation attractive in the eyes of princes,
and tended not a little to strengthen their inward convictions.  Nothing,
however, but political considerations could have driven them to espouse it.
Had not Charles the Fifth, in the intoxication of success,
made an attempt on the independence of the German States, a Protestant league
would scarcely have rushed to arms in defence of freedom of belief;
but for the ambition of the Guises, the Calvinists in France
would never have beheld a Conde or a Coligny at their head.
Without the exaction of the tenth and the twentieth penny, the See of Rome
had never lost the United Netherlands.  Princes fought in self-defence
or for aggrandizement, while religious enthusiasm recruited their armies,
and opened to them the treasures of their subjects.  Of the multitude
who flocked to their standards, such as were not lured by the hope of plunder
imagined they were fighting for the truth, while in fact
they were shedding their blood for the personal objects of their princes.

And well was it for the people that, on this occasion, their interests
coincided with those of their princes.  To this coincidence alone
were they indebted for their deliverance from popery.  Well was it also
for the rulers, that the subject contended too for his own cause,
while he was fighting their battles.  Fortunately at this date
no European sovereign was so absolute as to be able, in the pursuit
of his political designs, to dispense with the goodwill of his subjects.
Yet how difficult was it to gain and to set to work this goodwill!
The most impressive arguments drawn from reasons of state
fall powerless on the ear of the subject, who seldom understands,
and still more rarely is interested in them.  In such circumstances,
the only course open to a prudent prince is to connect the interests
of the cabinet with some one that sits nearer to the people's heart,
if such exists, or if not, to create it.

In such a position stood the greater part of those princes who embraced
the cause of the Reformation.  By a strange concatenation of events,
the divisions of the Church were associated with two circumstances,
without which, in all probability, they would have had
a very different conclusion.  These were, the increasing power
of the House of Austria, which threatened the liberties of Europe,
and its active zeal for the old religion.  The first aroused the princes,
while the second armed the people.

The abolition of a foreign jurisdiction within their own territories,
the supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, the stopping of the treasure
which had so long flowed to Rome, the rich plunder of religious foundations,
were tempting advantages to every sovereign.  Why, then, it may be asked,
did they not operate with equal force upon the princes of the House
of Austria?  What prevented this house, particularly in its German branch,
from yielding to the pressing demands of so many of its subjects, and,
after the example of other princes, enriching itself at the expense
of a defenceless clergy?  It is difficult to credit that a belief
in the infallibility of the Romish Church had any greater influence
on the pious adherence of this house, than the opposite conviction had
on the revolt of the Protestant princes.  In fact, several circumstances
combined to make the Austrian princes zealous supporters of popery.
Spain and Italy, from which Austria derived its principal strength,
were still devoted to the See of Rome with that blind obedience which,
ever since the days of the Gothic dynasty, had been
the peculiar characteristic of the Spaniard.  The slightest approximation,
in a Spanish prince, to the obnoxious tenets of Luther and Calvin,
would have alienated for ever the affections of his subjects,
and a defection from the Pope would have cost him the kingdom.
A Spanish prince had no alternative but orthodoxy or abdication.
The same restraint was imposed upon Austria by her Italian dominions,
which she was obliged to treat, if possible, with even greater indulgence;
impatient as they naturally were of a foreign yoke, and possessing also
ready means of shaking it off.  In regard to the latter provinces, moreover,
the rival pretensions of France, and the neighbourhood of the Pope,
were motives sufficient to prevent the Emperor from declaring in favour
of a party which strove to annihilate the papal see, and also to induce him
to show the most active zeal in behalf of the old religion.
These general considerations, which must have been equally weighty
with every Spanish monarch, were, in the particular case of Charles V.,
still further enforced by peculiar and personal motives.
In Italy this monarch had a formidable rival in the King of France,
under whose protection that country might throw itself the instant
that Charles should incur the slightest suspicion of heresy.
Distrust on the part of the Roman Catholics, and a rupture with the church,
would have been fatal also to many of his most cherished designs.
Moreover, when Charles was first called upon to make his election
between the two parties, the new doctrine had not yet attained
to a full and commanding influence, and there still subsisted a prospect
of its reconciliation with the old.  In his son and successor,
Philip the Second, a monastic education combined with
a gloomy and despotic disposition to generate an unmitigated hostility
to all innovations in religion; a feeling which the thought that
his most formidable political opponents were also the enemies of his faith
was not calculated to weaken.  As his European possessions,
scattered as they were over so many countries, were on all sides exposed
to the seductions of foreign opinions, the progress of the Reformation
in other quarters could not well be a matter of indifference to him.
His immediate interests, therefore, urged him to attach himself devotedly to
the old church, in order to close up the sources of the heretical contagion.
Thus, circumstances naturally placed this prince at the head of the league
which the Roman Catholics formed against the Reformers.
The principles which had actuated the long and active reigns
of Charles V. and Philip the Second, remained a law for their successors;
and the more the breach in the church widened, the firmer became
the attachment of the Spaniards to Roman Catholicism.

The German line of the House of Austria was apparently more unfettered;
but, in reality, though free from many of these restraints,
it was yet confined by others.  The possession of the imperial throne --
a dignity it was impossible for a Protestant to hold,
(for with what consistency could an apostate from the Romish Church
wear the crown of a Roman emperor?) bound the successors of Ferdinand I.
to the See of Rome.  Ferdinand himself was, from conscientious motives,
heartily attached to it.  Besides, the German princes of the House of Austria
were not powerful enough to dispense with the support of Spain, which,
however, they would have forfeited by the least show of leaning towards
the new doctrines.  The imperial dignity, also, required them to preserve
the existing political system of Germany, with which the maintenance
of their own authority was closely bound up, but which it was the aim
of the Protestant League to destroy.  If to these grounds we add
the indifference of the Protestants to the Emperor's necessities
and to the common dangers of the empire, their encroachments on
the temporalities of the church, and their aggressive violence
when they became conscious of their own power, we can easily conceive
how so many concurring motives must have determined the emperors
to the side of popery, and how their own interests came to be
intimately interwoven with those of the Roman Church.  As its fate seemed
to depend altogether on the part taken by Austria, the princes of this house
came to be regarded by all Europe as the pillars of popery.  The hatred,
therefore, which the Protestants bore against the latter,
was turned exclusively upon Austria; and the cause became gradually confounded
with its protector.

But this irreconcileable enemy of the Reformation -- the House of Austria --
by its ambitious projects and the overwhelming force which it could bring
to their support, endangered, in no small degree, the freedom of Europe,
and more especially of the German States.  This circumstance could not fail
to rouse the latter from their security, and to render them vigilant
in self-defence.  Their ordinary resources were quite insufficient
to resist so formidable a power.  Extraordinary exertions were required
from their subjects; and when even these proved far from adequate,
they had recourse to foreign assistance; and, by means of a common league,
they endeavoured to oppose a power which, singly, they were unable
to withstand.

But the strong political inducements which the German princes had
to resist the pretensions of the House of Austria, naturally did not extend
to their subjects.  It is only immediate advantages or immediate evils
that set the people in action, and for these a sound policy cannot wait.
Ill then would it have fared with these princes, if by good fortune
another effectual motive had not offered itself, which roused the passions
of the people, and kindled in them an enthusiasm which might be directed
against the political danger, as having with it a common cause of alarm.

This motive was their avowed hatred of the religion which Austria protected,
and their enthusiastic attachment to a doctrine which that House
was endeavouring to extirpate by fire and sword.  Their attachment was ardent,
their hatred invincible.  Religious fanaticism anticipates
even the remotest dangers.  Enthusiasm never calculates its sacrifices.
What the most pressing danger of the state could not gain from the citizens,
was effected by religious zeal.  For the state, or for the prince,
few would have drawn the sword; but for religion, the merchant, the artist,
the peasant, all cheerfully flew to arms.  For the state, or for the prince,
even the smallest additional impost would have been avoided; but for religion
the people readily staked at once life, fortune, and all earthly hopes.
It trebled the contributions which flowed into the exchequer of the princes,
and the armies which marched to the field; and, in the ardent excitement
produced in all minds by the peril to which their faith was exposed,
the subject felt not the pressure of those burdens and privations under which,
in cooler moments, he would have sunk exhausted.  The terrors of
the Spanish Inquisition, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, procured for
the Prince of Orange, the Admiral Coligny, the British Queen Elizabeth,
and the Protestant princes of Germany, supplies of men and money
from their subjects, to a degree which at present is inconceivable.

But, with all their exertions, they would have effected little against a power
which was an overmatch for any single adversary, however powerful.
At this period of imperfect policy, accidental circumstances alone
could determine distant states to afford one another a mutual support.
The differences of government, of laws, of language, of manners,
and of character, which hitherto had kept whole nations and countries
as it were insulated, and raised a lasting barrier between them,
rendered one state insensible to the distresses of another,
save where national jealousy could indulge a malicious joy at the reverses
of a rival.  This barrier the Reformation destroyed.  An interest
more intense and more immediate than national aggrandizement or patriotism,
and entirely independent of private utility, began to animate
whole states and individual citizens; an interest capable of uniting
numerous and distant nations, even while it frequently lost its force
among the subjects of the same government.  With the inhabitants of Geneva,
for instance, of England, of Germany, or of Holland, the French Calvinist
possessed a common point of union which he had not with his own countrymen.
Thus, in one important particular, he ceased to be the citizen
of a single state, and to confine his views and sympathies
to his own country alone.  The sphere of his views became enlarged.
He began to calculate his own fate from that of other nations of the same
religious profession, and to make their cause his own.  Now for the first time
did princes venture to bring the affairs of other countries
before their own councils; for the first time could they hope
for a willing ear to their own necessities, and prompt assistance from others.
Foreign affairs had now become a matter of domestic policy,
and that aid was readily granted to the religious confederate which would have
been denied to the mere neighbour, and still more to the distant stranger.
The inhabitant of the Palatinate leaves his native fields to fight
side by side with his religious associate of France, against the common enemy
of their faith.  The Huguenot draws his sword against the country which
persecutes him, and sheds his blood in defence of the liberties of Holland.
Swiss is arrayed against Swiss; German against German, to determine,
on the banks of the Loire and the Seine, the succession of the French crown.
The Dane crosses the Eider, and the Swede the Baltic, to break the chains
which are forged for Germany.

It is difficult to say what would have been the fate of the Reformation,
and the liberties of the Empire, had not the formidable power of Austria
declared against them.  This, however, appears certain,
that nothing so completely damped the Austrian hopes of universal monarchy,
as the obstinate war which they had to wage against
the new religious opinions.  Under no other circumstances could
the weaker princes have roused their subjects to such extraordinary exertions
against the ambition of Austria, or the States themselves
have united so closely against the common enemy.

The power of Austria never stood higher than after the victory
which Charles V. gained over the Germans at Muehlberg.
With the treaty of Smalcalde the freedom of Germany lay, as it seemed,
prostrate for ever; but it revived under Maurice of Saxony,
once its most formidable enemy.  All the fruits of the victory of Muehlberg
were lost again in the congress of Passau, and the diet of Augsburg;
and every scheme for civil and religious oppression terminated in
the concessions of an equitable peace.

The diet of Augsburg divided Germany into two religious
and two political parties, by recognizing the independent rights and existence
of both.  Hitherto the Protestants had been looked on as rebels;
they were henceforth to be regarded as brethren -- not indeed
through affection, but necessity.  By the Interim*, the Confession of Augsburg
was allowed temporarily to take a sisterly place alongside of
the olden religion, though only as a tolerated neighbour.
To every secular state was conceded the right of establishing the religion
it acknowledged as supreme and exclusive within its own territories,
and of forbidding the open profession of its rival.  Subjects were to be free
to quit a country where their own religion was not tolerated.
The doctrines of Luther for the first time received a positive sanction;
and if they were trampled under foot in Bavaria and Austria,
they predominated in Saxony and Thuringia.  But the sovereigns alone were
to determine what form of religion should prevail within their territories;
the feelings of subjects who had no representatives in the diet were
little attended to in the pacification.  In the ecclesiastical territories,
indeed, where the unreformed religion enjoyed an undisputed supremacy,
the free exercise of their religion was obtained for all who had previously
embraced the Protestant doctrines; but this indulgence rested only
on the personal guarantee of Ferdinand, King of the Romans,
by whose endeavours chiefly this peace was effected; a guarantee, which,
being rejected by the Roman Catholic members of the Diet,
and only inserted in the treaty under their protest,
could not of course have the force of law.

* A system of Theology so called, prepared by order of the Emperor Charles V.
for the use of Germany, to reconcile the differences between
the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans, which, however, was rejected
by both parties -- Ed.

If it had been opinions only that thus divided the minds of men,
with what indifference would all have regarded the division!
But on these opinions depended riches, dignities, and rights;
and it was this which so deeply aggravated the evils of division.
Of two brothers, as it were, who had hitherto enjoyed a paternal inheritance
in common, one now remained, while the other was compelled to leave
his father's house, and hence arose the necessity of dividing the patrimony.
For this separation, which he could not have foreseen,
the father had made no provision.  By the beneficent donations
of pious ancestors the riches of the church had been accumulating
through a thousand years, and these benefactors were as much the progenitors
of the departing brother as of him who remained.  Was the right of inheritance
then to be limited to the paternal house, or to be extended to blood?
The gifts had been made to the church in communion with Rome,
because at that time no other existed, -- to the first-born, as it were,
because he was as yet the only son.  Was then a right of primogeniture
to be admitted in the church, as in noble families?  Were the pretensions
of one party to be favoured by a prescription from times when the claims
of the other could not have come into existence?  Could the Lutherans
be justly excluded from these possessions, to which the benevolence
of their forefathers had contributed, merely on the ground that,
at the date of their foundation, the differences between Lutheranism
and Romanism were unknown?  Both parties have disputed, and still dispute,
with equal plausibility, on these points.  Both alike have found it difficult
to prove their right.  Law can be applied only to conceivable cases,
and perhaps spiritual foundations are not among the number of these,
and still less where the conditions of the founders generally extended
to a system of doctrines; for how is it conceivable that a permanent endowment
should be made of opinions left open to change?

What law cannot decide, is usually determined by might,
and such was the case here.  The one party held firmly all that could
no longer be wrested from it -- the other defended what it still possessed.
All the bishoprics and abbeys which had been secularized BEFORE the peace,
remained with the Protestants; but, by an express clause,
the unreformed Catholics provided that none should thereafter be secularized.
Every impropriator of an ecclesiastical foundation,
who held immediately of the Empire, whether elector, bishop, or abbot,
forfeited his benefice and dignity the moment he embraced
the Protestant belief; he was obliged in that event instantly
to resign its emoluments, and the chapter was to proceed to a new election,
exactly as if his place had been vacated by death.  By this sacred anchor
of the Ecclesiastical Reservation, (`Reservatum Ecclesiasticum',)
which makes the temporal existence of a spiritual prince entirely dependent
on his fidelity to the olden religion, the Roman Catholic Church in Germany
is still held fast; and precarious, indeed, would be its situation
were this anchor to give way.  The principle of the Ecclesiastical Reservation
was strongly opposed by the Protestants; and though it was at last adopted
into the treaty of peace, its insertion was qualified with the declaration,
that parties had come to no final determination on the point.
Could it then be more binding on the Protestants than Ferdinand's guarantee
in favour of Protestant subjects of ecclesiastical states was upon
the Roman Catholics?  Thus were two important subjects of dispute
left unsettled in the treaty of peace, and by them the war was rekindled.

Such was the position of things with regard to religious toleration and
ecclesiastical property:  it was the same with regard to rights and dignities.
The existing German system provided only for one church, because one only
was in existence when that system was framed.  The church had now divided;
the Diet had broken into two religious parties; was the whole system
of the Empire still exclusively to follow the one?  The emperors had hitherto
been members of the Romish Church, because till now that religion
had no rival.  But was it his connexion with Rome which constituted
a German emperor, or was it not rather Germany which was to be represented
in its head?  The Protestants were now spread over the whole Empire,
and how could they justly still be represented by an unbroken line
of Roman Catholic emperors?  In the Imperial Chamber the German States
judge themselves, for they elect the judges; it was the very end
of its institution that they should do so, in order that equal justice
should be dispensed to all; but would this be still possible,
if the representatives of both professions were not equally admissible
to a seat in the Chamber?  That one religion only existed in Germany
at the time of its establishment, was accidental; that no one estate
should have the means of legally oppressing another, was the essential purpose
of the institution.  Now this object would be entirely frustrated
if one religious party were to have the exclusive power of deciding
for the other.  Must, then, the design be sacrificed, because that which
was merely accidental had changed?  With great difficulty the Protestants,
at last, obtained for the representatives of their religion
a place in the Supreme Council, but still there was far from being
a perfect equality of voices.  To this day no Protestant prince
has been raised to the imperial throne.

Whatever may be said of the equality which the peace of Augsburg
was to have established between the two German churches,
the Roman Catholic had unquestionably still the advantage.
All that the Lutheran Church gained by it was toleration;
all that the Romish Church conceded, was a sacrifice to necessity,
not an offering to justice.  Very far was it from being a peace between
two equal powers, but a truce between a sovereign and unconquered rebels.
From this principle all the proceedings of the Roman Catholics
against the Protestants seemed to flow, and still continue to do so.
To join the reformed faith was still a crime, since it was to be visited with
so severe a penalty as that which the Ecclesiastical Reservation
held suspended over the apostacy of the spiritual princes.
Even to the last, the Romish Church preferred to risk to loss of every thing
by force, than voluntarily to yield the smallest matter to justice.
The loss was accidental and might be repaired; but the abandonment
of its pretensions, the concession of a single point to the Protestants,
would shake the foundations of the church itself.  Even in the treaty of peace
this principle was not lost sight of.  Whatever in this peace was yielded
to the Protestants was always under condition.  It was expressly declared,
that affairs were to remain on the stipulated footing only till
the next general council, which was to be called with the view of effecting
an union between the two confessions.  Then only, when this last attempt
should have failed, was the religious treaty to become valid and conclusive.
However little hope there might be of such a reconciliation,
however little perhaps the Romanists themselves were in earnest with it,
still it was something to have clogged the peace with these stipulations.

Thus this religious treaty, which was to extinguish for ever
the flames of civil war, was, in fact, but a temporary truce,
extorted by force and necessity; not dictated by justice,
nor emanating from just notions either of religion or toleration.
A religious treaty of this kind the Roman Catholics were as incapable
of granting, to be candid, as in truth the Lutherans were unqualified
to receive.  Far from evincing a tolerant spirit towards the Roman Catholics,
when it was in their power, they even oppressed the Calvinists;
who indeed just as little deserved toleration, since they were unwilling
to practise it.  For such a peace the times were not yet ripe --
the minds of men not yet sufficiently enlightened.  How could one party
expect from another what itself was incapable of performing?
What each side saved or gained by the treaty of Augsburg,
it owed to the imposing attitude of strength which it maintained
at the time of its negociation.  What was won by force was to be
maintained also by force; if the peace was to be permanent,
the two parties to it must preserve the same relative positions.
The boundaries of the two churches had been marked out with the sword;
with the sword they must be preserved, or woe to that party
which should be first disarmed!  A sad and fearful prospect for
the tranquillity of Germany, when peace itself bore so threatening an aspect.

A momentary lull now pervaded the empire; a transitory bond of concord
appeared to unite its scattered limbs into one body, so that for a time
a feeling also for the common weal returned.  But the division had penetrated
its inmost being, and to restore its original harmony was impossible.
Carefully as the treaty of peace appeared to have defined the rights
of both parties, its interpretation was nevertheless the subject
of many disputes.  In the heat of conflict it had produced
a cessation of hostilities; it covered, not extinguished, the fire,
and unsatisfied claims remained on either side.  The Romanists imagined
they had lost too much, the Protestants that they had gained too little;
and the treaty which neither party could venture to violate,
was interpreted by each in its own favour.

The seizure of the ecclesiastical benefices, the motive which had
so strongly tempted the majority of the Protestant princes to embrace
the doctrines of Luther, was not less powerful after than before the peace;
of those whose founders had not held their fiefs immediately of the empire,
such as were not already in their possession would it was evident soon be so.
The whole of Lower Germany was already secularized; and if it were otherwise
in Upper Germany, it was owing to the vehement resistance of the Catholics,
who had there the preponderance.  Each party, where it was the most powerful,
oppressed the adherents of the other; the ecclesiastical princes
in particular, as the most defenceless members of the empire,
were incessantly tormented by the ambition of their Protestant neighbours.
Those who were too weak to repel force by force, took refuge
under the wings of justice; and the complaints of spoliation
were heaped up against the Protestants in the Imperial Chamber,
which was ready enough to pursue the accused with judgments,
but found too little support to carry them into effect.
The peace which stipulated for complete religious toleration for
the dignitaries of the Empire, had provided also for the subject,
by enabling him, without interruption, to leave the country in which
the exercise of his religion was prohibited.  But from the wrongs
which the violence of a sovereign might inflict on an obnoxious subject;
from the nameless oppressions by which he might harass and annoy the emigrant;
from the artful snares in which subtilty combined with power might enmesh him
-- from these, the dead letter of the treaty could afford him no protection.
The Catholic subject of Protestant princes complained loudly of violations
of the religious peace -- the Lutherans still more loudly of the oppression
they experienced under their Romanist suzerains.  The rancour and animosities
of theologians infused a poison into every occurrence, however inconsiderable,
and inflamed the minds of the people.  Happy would it have been
had this theological hatred exhausted its zeal upon the common enemy,
instead of venting its virus on the adherents of a kindred faith!

Unanimity amongst the Protestants might, by preserving the balance
between the contending parties, have prolonged the peace;
but as if to complete the confusion, all concord was quickly broken.
The doctrines which had been propagated by Zuingli in Zurich,
and by Calvin in Geneva, soon spread to Germany, and divided the Protestants
among themselves, with little in unison save their common hatred to popery.
The Protestants of this date bore but slight resemblance to those who,
fifty years before, drew up the Confession of Augsburg;
and the cause of the change is to be sought in that Confession itself.
It had prescribed a positive boundary to the Protestant faith,
before the newly awakened spirit of inquiry had satisfied itself as to
the limits it ought to set; and the Protestants seemed unwittingly to have
thrown away much of the advantage acquired by their rejection of popery.
Common complaints of the Romish hierarchy, and of ecclesiastical abuses,
and a common disapprobation of its dogmas, formed a sufficient centre of union
for the Protestants; but not content with this, they sought a rallying point
in the promulgation of a new and positive creed, in which they sought
to embody the distinctions, the privileges, and the essence of the church,
and to this they referred the convention entered into with their opponents.
It was as professors of this creed that they had acceded to the treaty;
and in the benefits of this peace the advocates of the confession
were alone entitled to participate.  In any case, therefore,
the situation of its adherents was embarrassing.  If a blind obedience
were yielded to the dicta of the Confession, a lasting bound would be set
to the spirit of inquiry; if, on the other hand, they dissented from
the formulae agreed upon, the point of union would be lost.
Unfortunately both incidents occurred, and the evil results of both were
quickly felt.  One party rigorously adhered to the original symbol of faith,
and the other abandoned it, only to adopt another with equal exclusiveness.

Nothing could have furnished the common enemy a more plausible defence
of his cause than this dissension; no spectacle could have been
more gratifying to him than the rancour with which the Protestants alternately
persecuted each other.  Who could condemn the Roman Catholics,
if they laughed at the audacity with which the Reformers had presumed
to announce the only true belief? -- if from Protestants they borrowed
the weapons against Protestants? -- if, in the midst of this
clashing of opinions, they held fast to the authority of their own church,
for which, in part, there spoke an honourable antiquity,
and a yet more honourable plurality of voices.  But this division
placed the Protestants in still more serious embarrassments.
As the covenants of the treaty applied only to the partisans
of the Confession, their opponents, with some reason, called upon them
to explain who were to be recognized as the adherents of that creed.
The Lutherans could not, without offending conscience,
include the Calvinists in their communion, except at the risk of converting
a useful friend into a dangerous enemy, could they exclude them.
This unfortunate difference opened a way for the machinations of the Jesuits
to sow distrust between both parties, and to destroy the unity
of their measures.  Fettered by the double fear of their direct adversaries,
and of their opponents among themselves, the Protestants lost for ever
the opportunity of placing their church on a perfect equality
with the Catholic.  All these difficulties would have been avoided,
and the defection of the Calvinists would not have prejudiced
the common cause, if the point of union had been placed simply
in the abandonment of Romanism, instead of in the Confession of Augsburg.

But however divided on other points, they concurred in this --
that the security which had resulted from equality of power
could only be maintained by the preservation of that balance.
In the meanwhile, the continual reforms of one party,
and the opposing measures of the other, kept both upon the watch,
while the interpretation of the religious treaty was a never-ending
subject of dispute.  Each party maintained that every step taken
by its opponent was an infraction of the peace, while of every movement
of its own it was asserted that it was essential to its maintenance.
Yet all the measures of the Catholics did not, as their opponents alleged,
proceed from a spirit of encroachment -- many of them were
the necessary precautions of self-defence.  The Protestants had shown
unequivocally enough what the Romanists might expect if they were
unfortunate enough to become the weaker party.  The greediness of the former
for the property of the church, gave no reason to expect indulgence; --
their bitter hatred left no hope of magnanimity or forbearance.

But the Protestants, likewise, were excusable if they too
placed little confidence in the sincerity of the Roman Catholics.
By the treacherous and inhuman treatment which their brethren in Spain,
France, and the Netherlands, had suffered; by the disgraceful subterfuge
of the Romish princes, who held that the Pope had power to relieve them
from the obligation of the most solemn oaths; and above all,
by the detestable maxim, that faith was not to be kept with heretics,
the Roman Church, in the eyes of all honest men, had lost its honour.
No engagement, no oath, however sacred, from a Roman Catholic, could satisfy
a Protestant.  What security then could the religious peace afford, when,
throughout Germany, the Jesuits represented it as a measure of
mere temporary convenience, and in Rome itself it was solemnly repudiated.

The General Council, to which reference had been made in the treaty,
had already been held in the city of Trent; but, as might have been foreseen,
without accommodating the religious differences, or taking a single step to
effect such accommodation, and even without being attended by the Protestants.
The latter, indeed, were now solemnly excommunicated by it in the name
of the church, whose representative the Council gave itself out to be.
Could, then, a secular treaty, extorted moreover by force of arms,
afford them adequate protection against the ban of the church; a treaty, too,
based on a condition which the decision of the Council seemed entirely
to abolish?  There was then a show of right for violating the peace,
if only the Romanists possessed the power; and henceforward the Protestants
were protected by nothing but the respect for their formidable array.

Other circumstances combined to augment this distrust.  Spain,
on whose support the Romanists in Germany chiefly relied, was engaged in
a bloody conflict with the Flemings.  By it, the flower of the Spanish troops
were drawn to the confines of Germany.  With what ease might they be
introduced within the empire, if a decisive stroke should render
their presence necessary?  Germany was at that time a magazine of war
for nearly all the powers of Europe.  The religious war had crowded it
with soldiers, whom the peace left destitute; its many independent princes
found it easy to assemble armies, and afterwards, for the sake of gain,
or the interests of party, hire them out to other powers.  With German troops,
Philip the Second waged war against the Netherlands, and with German troops
they defended themselves.  Every such levy in Germany was a subject of alarm
to the one party or the other, since it might be intended
for their oppression.  The arrival of an ambassador, an extraordinary legate
of the Pope, a conference of princes, every unusual incident, must,
it was thought, be pregnant with destruction to some party.  Thus,
for nearly half a century, stood Germany, her hand upon the sword;
every rustle of a leaf alarmed her.

Ferdinand the First, King of Hungary, and his excellent son,
Maximilian the Second, held at this memorable epoch the reins of government.
With a heart full of sincerity, with a truly heroic patience,
had Ferdinand brought about the religious peace of Augsburg, and afterwards,
in the Council of Trent, laboured assiduously, though vainly,
at the ungrateful task of reconciling the two religions.
Abandoned by his nephew, Philip of Spain, and hard pressed
both in Hungary and Transylvania by the victorious armies of the Turks,
it was not likely that this emperor would entertain the idea
of violating the religious peace, and thereby destroying his own painful work.
The heavy expenses of the perpetually recurring war with Turkey
could not be defrayed by the meagre contributions of his exhausted
hereditary dominions.  He stood, therefore, in need of the assistance
of the whole empire; and the religious peace alone preserved in one body
the otherwise divided empire.  Financial necessities made the Protestant
as needful to him as the Romanist, and imposed upon him the obligation
of treating both parties with equal justice, which, amidst so many
contradictory claims, was truly a colossal task.  Very far, however,
was the result from answering his expectations.  His indulgence of
the Protestants served only to bring upon his successors a war,
which death saved himself the mortification of witnessing.
Scarcely more fortunate was his son Maximilian, with whom perhaps
the pressure of circumstances was the only obstacle, and a longer life
perhaps the only want, to his establishing the new religion
upon the imperial throne.  Necessity had taught the father
forbearance towards the Protestants -- necessity and justice dictated
the same course to the son.  The grandson had reason to repent
that he neither listened to justice, nor yielded to necessity.

Maximilian left six sons, of whom the eldest, the Archduke Rodolph,
inherited his dominions, and ascended the imperial throne.
The other brothers were put off with petty appanages.  A few mesne fiefs
were held by a collateral branch, which had their uncle, Charles of Styria,
at its head; and even these were afterwards, under his son,
Ferdinand the Second, incorporated with the rest of the family dominions.
With this exception, the whole of the imposing power of Austria
was now wielded by a single, but unfortunately weak hand.

Rodolph the Second was not devoid of those virtues which might have gained him
the esteem of mankind, had the lot of a private station fallen to him.
His character was mild, he loved peace and the sciences,
particularly astronomy, natural history, chemistry, and the study
of antiquities.  To these he applied with a passionate zeal, which,
at the very time when the critical posture of affairs demanded
all his attention, and his exhausted finances the most rigid economy,
diverted his attention from state affairs, and involved him in
pernicious expenses.  His taste for astronomy soon lost itself in those
astrological reveries to which timid and melancholy temperaments like his
are but too disposed.  This, together with a youth passed in Spain,
opened his ears to the evil counsels of the Jesuits, and the influence
of the Spanish court, by which at last he was wholly governed.
Ruled by tastes so little in accordance with the dignity of his station,
and alarmed by ridiculous prophecies, he withdrew, after the Spanish custom,
from the eyes of his subjects, to bury himself amidst his gems and antiques,
or to make experiments in his laboratory, while the most fatal discords
loosened all the bands of the empire, and the flames of rebellion
began to burst out at the very footsteps of his throne.
All access to his person was denied, the most urgent matters were neglected.
The prospect of the rich inheritance of Spain was closed against him,
while he was trying to make up his mind to offer his hand
to the Infanta Isabella.  A fearful anarchy threatened the Empire,
for though without an heir of his own body, he could not be persuaded
to allow the election of a King of the Romans.  The Austrian States
renounced their allegiance, Hungary and Transylvania threw off his supremacy,
and Bohemia was not slow in following their example.  The descendant of
the once so formidable Charles the Fifth was in perpetual danger,
either of losing one part of his possessions to the Turks,
or another to the Protestants, and of sinking, beyond redemption,
under the formidable coalition which a great monarch of Europe had formed
against him.  The events which now took place in the interior of Germany
were such as usually happened when either the throne was without an emperor,
or the Emperor without a sense of his imperial dignity.  Outraged or abandoned
by their head, the States of the Empire were left to help themselves;
and alliances among themselves must supply the defective authority
of the Emperor.  Germany was divided into two leagues,
which stood in arms arrayed against each other:  between both, Rodolph,
the despised opponent of the one, and the impotent protector of the other,
remained irresolute and useless, equally unable to destroy the former
or to command the latter.  What had the Empire to look for
from a prince incapable even of defending his hereditary dominions against
its domestic enemies?  To prevent the utter ruin of the House of Austria,
his own family combined against him; and a powerful party threw itself
into the arms of his brother.  Driven from his hereditary dominions,
nothing was now left him to lose but the imperial dignity;
and he was only spared this last disgrace by a timely death.