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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Thirty Years War, by Schiller, Complete
+
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+Title: The Thirty Years War, Complete
+
+Author: Frederich Schiller
+
+Release Date: Oct, 2004  [EBook #6775]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 14, 2003]
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+Edition: 10a
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30 YEARS WAR, BY SCHILLER, COMPLETE ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
+
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+
+
+                               THE WORKS
+
+                                   OF
+
+                           FREDERICK SCHILLER
+
+
+
+                       Translated from the German
+
+
+
+                              Illustrated
+
+
+               HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
+
+
+
+The present is the best collected edition of the important  works of
+Schiller which is accessible to readers in the  English language.
+Detached poems or dramas have been  translated at various times since
+the first publication of  the original works; and in several instances
+these versions  have been incorporated into this collection.  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 be
+surpassed, and will always recommend them as popular expositions of the
+periods of which they treat.
+
+Since the publication of the first English edition many corrections and
+improvements have been made, with a view to rendering it as acceptable
+as possible to English readers; and, notwithstanding the disadvantages
+of a translation, the publishers feel sure that Schiller will be
+heartily acceptable to English readers, and that the influence of his
+writings will continue to increase.
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS was translated by Lieut.
+E. B. Eastwick, and originally published abroad for students' use.  But
+this translation was too strictly literal for general readers.  It has
+been carefully revised, and some portions have been entirely rewritten
+by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, who also has so ably translated the
+HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.
+
+THE CAMP OF WALLENSTEIN was translated by Mr. James Churchill, and first
+appeared in "Frazer's Magazine."  It is an exceedingly happy version of
+what has always been deemed the most untranslatable of Schiller's works.
+
+THE PICCOLOMINI and DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN are the admirable version of
+S. T. Coleridge, completed by the addition of all those passages which
+he has omitted, and by a restoration of Schiller's own arrangement of
+the acts and scenes.  It is said, in defence of the variations which
+exist between the German original and the version given by Coleridge,
+that he translated from a prompter's copy in manuscript, before the
+drama had been printed, and that Schiller himself subsequently altered
+it, by omitting some passages, adding others, and even engrafting
+several of Coleridge's adaptations.
+
+WILHELM TELL is translated by Theodore Martin, Esq., whose well-known
+position as a writer, and whose special acquaintance with German
+literature make any recommendation superfluous.
+
+DON CARLOS is translated by R. D. Boylan, Esq., and, in the opinion of
+competent judges, the version is eminently successful.  Mr. Theodore
+Martin kindly gave some assistance, and, it is but justice to state,
+has enhanced the value of the work by his judicious suggestions.
+
+The translation of MARY STUART is that by the late Joseph Mellish,
+who appears to have been on terms of intimate friendship with Schiller.
+His version was made from the prompter's copy, before the play was
+published, and, like Coleridge's Wallenstein, contains many passages not
+found in the printed edition.  These are distinguished by brackets.  On
+the other hand, Mr. Mellish omitted many passages which now form part of
+the printed drama, all of which are now added.  The translation, as a
+whole, stands out from similar works of the time (1800) in almost as
+marked a degree as Coleridge's Wallenstein, and some passages exhibit
+powers of a high order; a few, however, especially in the earlier
+scenes, seemed capable of improvement, and these have been revised,
+but, in deference to the translator, with a sparing hand.
+
+THE MAID OF ORLEANS is contributed by Miss Anna Swanwick, whose
+translation of Faust has since become well known.  It has been.
+carefully revised, and is now, for the first time, published complete.
+
+THE BRIDE OF MESSINA, which has been regarded as the poetical
+masterpiece of Schiller, and, perhaps of all his works, presents the
+greatest difficulties to the translator, is rendered by A. Lodge, Esq.,
+M. A.  This version, on its first publication in England, a few years
+ago, was received with deserved eulogy by distinguished critics.  To the
+present edition has been prefixed Schiller's Essay on the Use of the
+Chorus in Tragedy, in which the author's favorite theory of the "Ideal
+of Art" is enforced with great ingenuity and eloquence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+
+
+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.
+
+     [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.]
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+At this critical moment, when only a supple policy, united with a
+vigorous arm, could have maintained the tranquillity of the Empire, its
+evil genius gave it a Rodolph for Emperor.  At a more peaceful period
+the Germanic Union would have managed its own interests, and Rodolph,
+like so many others of his rank, might have hidden his deficiencies in a
+mysterious obscurity.  But the urgent demand for the qualities in which
+he was most deficient revealed his incapacity.  The position of Germany
+called for an emperor who, by his known energies, could give weight to
+his resolves; and the hereditary dominions of Rodolph, considerable as
+they were, were at present in a situation to occasion the greatest
+embarrassment to the governors.
+
+The Austrian princes, it is true were Roman Catholics, and in addition
+to that, the supporters of Popery, but their countries were far from
+being so.  The reformed opinions had penetrated even these, and favoured
+by Ferdinand's necessities and Maximilian's mildness, had met with a
+rapid success.  The Austrian provinces exhibited in miniature what
+Germany did on a larger scale.  The great nobles and the ritter class or
+knights were chiefly evangelical, and in the cities the Protestants had
+a decided preponderance.  If they succeeded in bringing a few of their
+party into the country, they contrived imperceptibly to fill all places
+of trust and the magistracy with their own adherents, and to exclude the
+Catholics.  Against the numerous order of the nobles and knights, and
+the deputies from the towns, the voice of a few prelates was powerless;
+and the unseemly ridicule and offensive contempt of the former soon
+drove them entirely from the provincial diets.  Thus the whole of the
+Austrian Diet had imperceptibly become Protestant, and the Reformation
+was making rapid strides towards its public recognition.  The prince was
+dependent on the Estates, who had it in their power to grant or refuse
+supplies.  Accordingly, they availed themselves of the financial
+necessities of Ferdinand and his son to extort one religious concession
+after another.  To the nobles and knights, Maximilian at last conceded
+the free exercise of their religion, but only within their own
+territories and castles.  The intemperate enthusiasm of the Protestant
+preachers overstepped the boundaries which prudence had prescribed.  In
+defiance of the express prohibition, several of them ventured to preach
+publicly, not only in the towns, but in Vienna itself, and the people
+flocked in crowds to this new doctrine, the best seasoning of which was
+personality and abuse.  Thus continued food was supplied to fanaticism,
+and the hatred of two churches, that were such near neighbours, was
+farther envenomed by the sting of an impure zeal.
+
+Among the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, Hungary and
+Transylvania were the most unstable, and the most difficult to retain.
+The impossibility of holding these two countries against the
+neighbouring and overwhelming power of the Turks, had already driven
+Ferdinand to the inglorious expedient of recognizing, by an annual
+tribute, the Porte's supremacy over Transylvania; a shameful confession
+of weakness, and a still more dangerous temptation to the turbulent
+nobility, when they fancied they had any reason to complain of their
+master.  Not without conditions had the Hungarians submitted to the
+House of Austria.  They asserted the elective freedom of their crown,
+and boldly contended for all those prerogatives of their order which are
+inseparable from this freedom of election.  The near neighbourhood of
+Turkey, the facility of changing masters with impunity, encouraged the
+magnates still more in their presumption; discontented with the Austrian
+government they threw themselves into the arms of the Turks;
+dissatisfied with these, they returned again to their German sovereigns.
+The frequency and rapidity of these transitions from one government to
+another, had communicated its influences also to their mode of thinking;
+and as their country wavered between the Turkish and Austrian rule, so
+their minds vacillated between revolt and submission.  The more
+unfortunate each nation felt itself in being degraded into a province of
+a foreign kingdom, the stronger desire did they feel to obey a monarch
+chosen from amongst themselves, and thus it was always easy for an
+enterprising noble to obtain their support.  The nearest Turkish pasha
+was always ready to bestow the Hungarian sceptre and crown on a rebel
+against Austria; just as ready was Austria to confirm to any adventurer
+the possession of provinces which he had wrested from the Porte,
+satisfied with preserving thereby the shadow of authority, and with
+erecting at the same time a barrier against the Turks.  In this way
+several of these magnates, Batbori, Boschkai, Ragoczi, and Bethlen
+succeeded in establishing themselves, one after another, as tributary
+sovereigns in Transylvania and Hungary; and they maintained their ground
+by no deeper policy than that of occasionally joining the enemy, in
+order to render themselves more formidable to their own prince.
+
+Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Rodolph, who were all sovereigns of Hungary
+and Transylvania, exhausted their other territories in endeavouring to
+defend these from the hostile inroads of the Turks, and to put down
+intestine rebellion.  In this quarter destructive wars were succeeded
+but by brief truces, which were scarcely less hurtful:  far and wide the
+land lay waste, while the injured serf had to complain equally of his
+enemy and his protector.  Into these countries also the Reformation had
+penetrated; and protected by the freedom of the States, and under the
+cover of the internal disorders, had made a noticeable progress.  Here
+too it was incautiously attacked, and party spirit thus became yet more
+dangerous from religious enthusiasm.  Headed by a bold rebel, Boschkai,
+the nobles of Hungary and Transylvania raised the standard of rebellion.
+The Hungarian insurgents were upon the point of making common cause with
+the discontented Protestants in Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia, and
+uniting all those countries in one fearful revolt.  The downfall of
+popery in these lands would then have been inevitable.
+
+Long had the Austrian archdukes, the brothers of the Emperor, beheld
+with silent indignation the impending ruin of their house; this last
+event hastened their decision.  The Archduke Matthias, Maximilian's
+second son, Viceroy in Hungary, and Rodolph's presumptive heir, now came
+forward as the stay of the falling house of Hapsburg.  In his youth,
+misled by a false ambition, this prince, disregarding the interests of
+his family, had listened to the overtures of the Flemish insurgents, who
+invited him into the Netherlands to conduct the defence of their
+liberties against the oppression of his own relative, Philip the Second.
+Mistaking the voice of an insulated faction for that of the entire
+nation, Matthias obeyed the call.  But the event answered the
+expectations of the men of Brabant as little as his own, and from this
+imprudent enterprise he retired with little credit.
+
+Far more honourable was his second appearance in the political world.
+Perceiving that his repeated remonstrances with the Emperor were
+unavailing, he assembled the archdukes, his brothers and cousins, at
+Presburg, and consulted with them on the growing perils of their house,
+when they unanimously assigned to him, as the oldest, the duty of
+defending that patrimony which a feeble brother was endangering.  In his
+hands they placed all their powers and rights, and vested him with
+sovereign authority, to act at his discretion for the common good.
+Matthias immediately opened a communication with the Porte and the
+Hungarian rebels, and through his skilful management succeeded in
+saving, by a peace with the Turks, the remainder of Hungary, and by a
+treaty with the rebels, preserved the claims of Austria to the lost
+provinces.  But Rodolph, as jealous as he had hitherto been careless of
+his sovereign authority, refused to ratify this treaty, which he
+regarded as a criminal encroachment on his sovereign rights.  He accused
+the Archduke of keeping up a secret understanding with the enemy, and of
+cherishing treasonable designs on the crown of Hungary.
+
+The activity of Matthias was, in truth, anything but disinterested; the
+conduct of the Emperor only accelerated the execution of his ambitious
+views.  Secure, from motives of gratitude, of the devotion of the
+Hungarians, for whom he had so lately obtained the blessings of peace;
+assured by his agents of the favourable disposition of the nobles, and
+certain of the support of a large party, even in Austria, he now
+ventured to assume a bolder attitude, and, sword in hand, to discuss his
+grievances with the Emperor.  The Protestants in Austria and Moravia,
+long ripe for revolt, and now won over to the Archduke by his promises
+of toleration, loudly and openly espoused his cause, and their
+long-menaced alliance with the Hungarian rebels was actually effected.
+Almost at once a formidable conspiracy was planned and matured against
+the Emperor.  Too late did he resolve to amend his past errors; in vain
+did he attempt to break up this fatal alliance.  Already the whole
+empire was in arms; Hungary, Austria, and Moravia had done homage to
+Matthias, who was already on his march to Bohemia to seize the Emperor
+in his palace, and to cut at once the sinews of his power.
+
+Bohemia was not a more peaceable possession for Austria than Hungary;
+with this difference only, that, in the latter, political
+considerations, in the former, religious dissensions, fomented
+disorders.  In Bohemia, a century before the days of Luther, the first
+spark of the religious war had been kindled; a century after Luther, the
+first flames of the thirty years' war burst out in Bohemia.  The sect
+which owed its rise to John Huss, still existed in that country;--it
+agreed with the Romish Church in ceremonies and doctrines, with the
+single exception of the administration of the Communion, in which the
+Hussites communicated in both kinds.  This privilege had been conceded
+to the followers of Huss by the Council of Basle, in an express treaty,
+(the Bohemian Compact); and though it was afterwards disavowed by the
+popes, they nevertheless continued to profit by it under the sanction of
+the government.  As the use of the cup formed the only important
+distinction of their body, they were usually designated by the name of
+Utraquists; and they readily adopted an appellation which reminded them
+of their dearly valued privilege.  But under this title lurked also the
+far stricter sects of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, who differed
+from the predominant church in more important particulars, and bore, in
+fact, a great resemblance to the German Protestants.  Among them both,
+the German and Swiss opinions on religion made rapid progress; while the
+name of Utraquists, under which they managed to disguise the change of
+their principles, shielded them from persecution.
+
+In truth, they had nothing in common with the Utraquists but the name;
+essentially, they were altogether Protestant.  Confident in the strength
+of their party, and the Emperor's toleration under Maximilian, they had
+openly avowed their tenets.  After the example of the Germans, they drew
+up a Confession of their own, in which Lutherans as well as Calvinists
+recognized their own doctrines, and they sought to transfer to the new
+Confession the privileges of the original Utraquists.  In this they were
+opposed by their Roman Catholic countrymen, and forced to rest content
+with the Emperor's verbal assurance of protection.
+
+As long as Maximilian lived, they enjoyed complete toleration, even
+under the new form they had taken.  Under his successor the scene
+changed.  An imperial edict appeared, which deprived the Bohemian
+Brethren of their religious freedom.  Now these differed in nothing from
+the other Utraquists.  The sentence, therefore, of their condemnation,
+obviously included all the partisans of the Bohemian Confession.
+Accordingly, they all combined to oppose the imperial mandate in the
+Diet, but without being able to procure its revocation.  The Emperor and
+the Roman Catholic Estates took their ground on the Compact and the
+Bohemian Constitution; in which nothing appeared in favour of a religion
+which had not then obtained the voice of the country.  Since that time,
+how completely had affairs changed! What then formed but an
+inconsiderable opinion, had now become the predominant religion of the
+country.  And what was it then, but a subterfuge to limit a newly
+spreading religion by the terms of obsolete treaties?  The Bohemian
+Protestants appealed to the verbal guarantee of Maximilian, and the
+religious freedom of the Germans, with whom they argued they ought to be
+on a footing of equality.  It was in vain--their appeal was dismissed.
+
+Such was the posture of affairs in Bohemia, when Matthias, already
+master of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia, appeared in Kolin, to raise the
+Bohemian Estates also against the Emperor.  The embarrassment of the
+latter was now at its height.  Abandoned by all his other subjects, he
+placed his last hopes on the Bohemians, who, it might be foreseen, would
+take advantage of his necessities to enforce their own demands.  After
+an interval of many years, he once more appeared publicly in the Diet at
+Prague; and to convince the people that he was really still in
+existence, orders were given that all the windows should be opened in
+the streets through which he was to pass--proof enough how far things
+had gone with him.  The event justified his fears.  The Estates,
+conscious of their own power, refused to take a single step until their
+privileges were confirmed, and religious toleration fully assured to
+them.  It was in vain to have recourse now to the old system of evasion.
+The Emperor's fate was in their hands, and he must yield to necessity.
+At present, however, he only granted their other demands--religious
+matters he reserved for consideration at the next Diet.
+
+The Bohemians now took up arms in defence of the Emperor, and a bloody
+war between the two brothers was on the point of breaking out.  But
+Rodolph, who feared nothing so much as remaining in this slavish
+dependence on the Estates, waited not for a warlike issue, but hastened
+to effect a reconciliation with his brother by more peaceable means.  By
+a formal act of abdication he resigned to Matthias, what indeed he had
+no chance of wresting from him, Austria and the kingdom of Hungary, and
+acknowledged him as his successor to the crown of Bohemia.
+
+Dearly enough had the Emperor extricated himself from one difficulty,
+only to get immediately involved in another.  The settlement of the
+religious affairs of Bohemia had been referred to the next Diet, which
+was held in 1609.  The reformed Bohemians demanded the free exercise of
+their faith, as under the former emperors; a Consistory of their own;
+the cession of the University of Prague; and the right of electing
+`Defenders', or `Protectors' of `Liberty', from their own body.  The
+answer was the same as before; for the timid Emperor was now entirely
+fettered by the unreformed party.  However often, and in however
+threatening language the Estates renewed their remonstrances, the
+Emperor persisted in his first declaration of granting nothing beyond
+the old compact.  The Diet broke up without coming to a decision; and
+the Estates, exasperated against the Emperor, arranged a general meeting
+at Prague, upon their own authority, to right themselves.
+
+They appeared at Prague in great force.  In defiance of the imperial
+prohibition, they carried on their deliberations almost under the very
+eyes of the Emperor.  The yielding compliance which he began to show,
+only proved how much they were feared, and increased their audacity.
+Yet on the main point he remained inflexible.  They fulfilled their
+threats, and at last resolved to establish, by their own power, the free
+and universal exercise of their religion, and to abandon the Emperor to
+his necessities until he should confirm this resolution.  They even went
+farther, and elected for themselves the DEFENDERS which the Emperor had
+refused them.  Ten were nominated by each of the three Estates; they
+also determined to raise, as soon as possible, an armed force, at the
+head of which Count Thurn, the chief organizer of the revolt, should be
+placed as general defender of the liberties of Bohemia.  Their
+determination brought the Emperor to submission, to which he was now
+counselled even by the Spaniards.  Apprehensive lest the exasperated
+Estates should throw themselves into the arms of the King of Hungary, he
+signed the memorable Letter of Majesty for Bohemia, by which, under the
+successors of the Emperor, that people justified their rebellion.
+
+The Bohemian Confession, which the States had laid before the Emperor
+Maximilian, was, by the Letter of Majesty, placed on a footing of
+equality with the olden profession.  The Utraquists, for by this title
+the Bohemian Protestants continued to designate themselves, were put in
+possession of the University of Prague, and allowed a Consistory of
+their own, entirely independent of the archiepiscopal see of that city.
+All the churches in the cities, villages, and market towns, which they
+held at the date of the letter, were secured to them; and if in addition
+they wished to erect others, it was permitted to the nobles, and
+knights, and the free cities to do so.  This last clause in the Letter
+of Majesty gave rise to the unfortunate disputes which subsequently
+rekindled the flames of war in Europe.
+
+The Letter of Majesty erected the Protestant part of Bohemia into a kind
+of republic.  The Estates had learned to feel the power which they
+gained by perseverance, unity, and harmony in their measures.  The
+Emperor now retained little more than the shadow of his sovereign
+authority; while by the new dignity of the so-called defenders of
+liberty, a dangerous stimulus was given to the spirit of revolt.  The
+example and success of Bohemia afforded a tempting seduction to the
+other hereditary dominions of Austria, and all attempted by similar
+means to extort similar privileges.  The spirit of liberty spread from
+one province to another; and as it was chiefly the disunion among the
+Austrian princes that had enabled the Protestants so materially to
+improve their advantages, they now hastened to effect a reconciliation
+between the Emperor and the King of Hungary.
+
+But the reconciliation could not be sincere.  The wrong was too great to
+be forgiven, and Rodolph continued to nourish at heart an
+unextinguishable hatred of Matthias.  With grief and indignation he
+brooded over the thought, that the Bohemian sceptre was finally to
+descend into the hands of his enemy; and the prospect was not more
+consoling, even if Matthias should die without issue.  In that case,
+Ferdinand, Archduke of Graetz, whom he equally disliked, was the head of
+the family.  To exclude the latter as well as Matthias from the
+succession to the throne of Bohemia, he fell upon the project of
+diverting that inheritance to Ferdinand's brother, the Archduke Leopold,
+Bishop of Passau, who among all his relatives had ever been the dearest
+and most deserving.  The prejudices of the Bohemians in favour of the
+elective freedom of their crown, and their attachment to Leopold's
+person, seemed to favour this scheme, in which Rodolph consulted rather
+his own partiality and vindictiveness than the good of his house.  But
+to carry out this project, a military force was requisite, and Rodolph
+actually assembled an army in the bishopric of Passau.  The object of
+this force was hidden from all.  An inroad, however, which, for want of
+pay it made suddenly and without the Emperor's knowledge into Bohemia,
+and the outrages which it there committed, stirred up the whole kingdom
+against him.  In vain he asserted his innocence to the Bohemian Estates;
+they would not believe his protestations; vainly did he attempt to
+restrain the violence of his soldiery; they disregarded his orders.
+Persuaded that the Emperor's object was to annul the Letter of Majesty,
+the Protectors of Liberty armed the whole of Protestant Bohemia, and
+invited Matthias into the country.  After the dispersion of the force he
+had collected at Passau, the Emperor remained helpless at Prague, where
+he was kept shut up like a prisoner in his palace, and separated from
+all his councillors.  In the meantime, Matthias entered Prague amidst
+universal rejoicings, where Rodolph was soon afterwards weak enough to
+acknowledge him King of Bohemia.  So hard a fate befell this Emperor; he
+was compelled, during his life, to abdicate in favour of his enemy that
+very throne, of which he had been endeavouring to deprive him after his
+own death.  To complete his degradation, he was obliged, by a personal
+act of renunciation, to release his subjects in Bohemia, Silesia, and
+Lusatia from their allegiance, and he did it with a broken heart.  All,
+even those he thought he had most attached to his person, had abandoned
+him.  When he had signed the instrument, he threw his hat upon the
+ground, and gnawed the pen which had rendered so shameful a service.
+
+While Rodolph thus lost one hereditary dominion after another, the
+imperial dignity was not much better maintained by him.  Each of the
+religious parties into which Germany was divided, continued its efforts
+to advance itself at the expense of the other, or to guard against its
+attacks.  The weaker the hand that held the sceptre, and the more the
+Protestants and Roman Catholics felt they were left to themselves, the
+more vigilant necessarily became their watchfulness, and the greater
+their distrust of each other.  It was enough that the Emperor was ruled
+by Jesuits, and was guided by Spanish counsels, to excite the
+apprehension of the Protestants, and to afford a pretext for hostility.
+The rash zeal of the Jesuits, which in the pulpit and by the press
+disputed the validity of the religious peace, increased this distrust,
+and caused their adversaries to see a dangerous design in the most
+indifferent measures of the Roman Catholics.  Every step taken in the
+hereditary dominions of the Emperor, for the repression of the reformed
+religion, was sure to draw the attention of all the Protestants of
+Germany; and this powerful support which the reformed subjects of
+Austria met, or expected to meet with from their religious confederates
+in the rest of Germany, was no small cause of their confidence, and of
+the rapid success of Matthias.  It was the general belief of the Empire,
+that they owed the long enjoyment of the religious peace merely to the
+difficulties in which the Emperor was placed by the internal troubles in
+his dominions, and consequently they were in no haste to relieve him
+from them.
+
+Almost all the affairs of the Diet were neglected, either through the
+procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant
+Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of
+the Empire till their own grievances were removed.  These grievances
+related principally to the misgovernment of the Emperor; the violation
+of the religious treaty, and the presumptuous usurpations of the Aulic
+Council, which in the present reign had begun to extend its jurisdiction
+at the expense of the Imperial Chamber.  Formerly, in all disputes
+between the Estates, which could not be settled by club law, the
+Emperors had in the last resort decided of themselves, if the case were
+trifling, and in conjunction with the princes, if it were important; or
+they determined them by the advice of imperial judges who followed the
+court.  This superior jurisdiction they had, in the end of the fifteenth
+century, assigned to a regular and permanent tribunal, the Imperial
+Chamber of Spires, in which the Estates of the Empire, that they might
+not be oppressed by the arbitrary appointment of the Emperor, had
+reserved to themselves the right of electing the assessors, and of
+periodically reviewing its decrees.  By the religious peace, these
+rights of the Estates, (called the rights of presentation and
+visitation,) were extended also to the Lutherans, so that Protestant
+judges had a voice in Protestant causes, and a seeming equality obtained
+for both religions in this supreme tribunal.
+
+But the enemies of the Reformation and of the freedom of the Estates,
+vigilant to take advantage of every incident that favoured their views,
+soon found means to neutralize the beneficial effects of this
+institution.  A supreme jurisdiction over the Imperial States was
+gradually and skilfully usurped by a private imperial tribunal, the
+Aulic Council in Vienna, a court at first intended merely to advise the
+Emperor in the exercise of his undoubted, imperial, and personal
+prerogatives; a court, whose members being appointed and paid by him,
+had no law but the interest of their master, and no standard of equity
+but the advancement of the unreformed religion of which they were
+partisans.  Before the Aulic Council were now brought several suits
+originating between Estates differing in religion, and which, therefore,
+properly belonged to the Imperial Chamber.  It was not surprising if the
+decrees of this tribunal bore traces of their origin; if the interests
+of the Roman Church and of the Emperor were preferred to justice by
+Roman Catholic judges, and the creatures of the Emperor.  Although all
+the Estates of Germany seemed to have equal cause for resisting so
+perilous an abuse, the Protestants alone, who most sensibly felt it, and
+even these not all at once and in a body, came forward as the defenders
+of German liberty, which the establishment of so arbitrary a tribunal
+had outraged in its most sacred point, the administration of justice.
+In fact, Germany would have had little cause to congratulate itself upon
+the abolition of club-law, and in the institution of the Imperial
+Chamber, if an arbitrary tribunal of the Emperor was allowed to
+interfere with the latter.  The Estates of the German Empire would
+indeed have improved little upon the days of barbarism, if the Chamber
+of Justice in which they sat along with the Emperor as judges, and for
+which they had abandoned their original princely prerogative, should
+cease to be a court of the last resort.  But the strangest
+contradictions were at this date to be found in the minds of men.  The
+name of Emperor, a remnant of Roman despotism, was still associated with
+an idea of autocracy, which, though it formed a ridiculous inconsistency
+with the privileges of the Estates, was nevertheless argued for by
+jurists, diffused by the partisans of despotism, and believed by the
+ignorant.
+
+To these general grievances was gradually added a chain of singular
+incidents, which at length converted the anxiety of the Protestants into
+utter distrust.  During the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands,
+several Protestant families had taken refuge in Aix-la-Chapelle, an
+imperial city, and attached to the Roman Catholic faith, where they
+settled and insensibly extended their adherents.  Having succeeded by
+stratagem in introducing some of their members into the municipal
+council, they demanded a church and the public exercise of their
+worship, and the demand being unfavourably received, they succeeded by
+violence in enforcing it, and also in usurping the entire government of
+the city.  To see so important a city in Protestant hands was too heavy
+a blow for the Emperor and the Roman Catholics.  After all the Emperor's
+requests and commands for the restoration of the olden government had
+proved ineffectual, the Aulic Council proclaimed the city under the ban
+of the Empire, which, however, was not put in force till the following
+reign.
+
+Of yet greater importance were two other attempts of the Protestants to
+extend their influence and their power.  The Elector Gebhard, of
+Cologne, (born Truchsess--[Grand-master of the kitchen.]--of Waldburg,)
+conceived for the young Countess Agnes, of Mansfield, Canoness of
+Gerresheim, a passion which was not unreturned.  As the eyes of all
+Germany were directed to this intercourse, the brothers of the Countess,
+two zealous Calvinists, demanded satisfaction for the injured honour of
+their house, which, as long as the elector remained a Roman Catholic
+prelate, could not be repaired by marriage.  They threatened the elector
+they would wash out this stain in his blood and their sister's, unless
+he either abandoned all further connexion with the countess, or
+consented to re-establish her reputation at the altar.  The elector,
+indifferent to all the consequences of this step, listened to nothing
+but the voice of love.  Whether it was in consequence of his previous
+inclination to the reformed doctrines, or that the charms of his
+mistress alone effected this wonder, he renounced the Roman Catholic
+faith, and led the beautiful Agnes to the altar.
+
+This event was of the greatest importance.  By the letter of the clause
+reserving the ecclesiastical states from the general operation of the
+religious peace, the elector had, by his apostacy, forfeited all right
+to the temporalities of his bishopric; and if, in any case, it was
+important for the Catholics to enforce the clause, it was so especially
+in the case of electorates.  On the other hand, the relinquishment of so
+high a dignity was a severe sacrifice, and peculiarly so in the case of
+a tender husband, who had wished to enhance the value of his heart and
+hand by the gift of a principality.  Moreover, the Reservatum
+Ecclesiasticum was a disputed article of the treaty of Augsburg; and all
+the German Protestants were aware of the extreme importance of wresting
+this fourth electorate from the opponents of their faith.--[Saxony,
+Brandenburg, and the Palatinate were already Protestant.]--The example
+had already been set in several of the ecclesiastical benefices of Lower
+Germany, and attended with success.  Several canons of Cologne had also
+already embraced the Protestant confession, and were on the elector's
+side, while, in the city itself, he could depend upon the support of a
+numerous Protestant party.  All these considerations, greatly
+strengthened by the persuasions of his friends and relations, and the
+promises of several German courts, determined the elector to retain his
+dominions, while he changed his religion.
+
+But it was soon apparent that he had entered upon a contest which he
+could not carry through.  Even the free toleration of the Protestant
+service within the territories of Cologne, had already occasioned a
+violent opposition on the part of the canons and Roman Catholic
+`Estates' of that province.  The intervention of the Emperor, and a
+papal ban from Rome, which anathematized the elector as an apostate, and
+deprived him of all his dignities, temporal and spiritual, armed his own
+subjects and chapter against him.  The Elector assembled a military
+force; the chapter did the same.  To ensure also the aid of a strong
+arm, they proceeded forthwith to a new election, and chose the Bishop of
+Liege, a prince of Bavaria.
+
+A civil war now commenced, which, from the strong interest which both
+religious parties in Germany necessarily felt in the conjuncture, was
+likely to terminate in a general breaking up of the religious peace.
+What most made the Protestants indignant, was that the Pope should have
+presumed, by a pretended apostolic power, to deprive a prince of the
+empire of his imperial dignities.  Even in the golden days of their
+spiritual domination, this prerogative of the Pope had been disputed;
+how much more likely was it to be questioned at a period when his
+authority was entirely disowned by one party, while even with the other
+it rested on a tottering foundation.  All the Protestant princes took up
+the affair warmly against the Emperor; and Henry IV.  of France, then
+King of Navarre, left no means of negotiation untried to urge the German
+princes to the vigorous assertion of their rights.  The issue would
+decide for ever the liberties of Germany.  Four Protestant against three
+Roman Catholic voices in the Electoral College must at once have given
+the preponderance to the former, and for ever excluded the House of
+Austria from the imperial throne.
+
+But the Elector Gebhard had embraced the Calvinist, not the Lutheran
+religion; and this circumstance alone was his ruin.  The mutual rancour
+of these two churches would not permit the Lutheran Estates to regard
+the Elector as one of their party, and as such to lend him their
+effectual support.  All indeed had encouraged, and promised him
+assistance; but only one appanaged prince of the Palatine House, the
+Palsgrave John Casimir, a zealous Calvinist, kept his word.  Despite of
+the imperial prohibition, he hastened with his little army into the
+territories of Cologne; but without being able to effect any thing,
+because the Elector, who was destitute even of the first necessaries,
+left him totally without help.  So much the more rapid was the progress
+of the newly-chosen elector, whom his Bavarian relations and the
+Spaniards from the Netherlands supported with the utmost vigour.  The
+troops of Gebhard, left by their master without pay, abandoned one place
+after another to the enemy; by whom others were compelled to surrender.
+In his Westphalian territories, Gebhard held out for some time longer,
+till here, too, he was at last obliged to yield to superior force.
+After several vain attempts in Holland and England to obtain means for
+his restoration, he retired into the Chapter of Strasburg, and died dean
+of that cathedral; the first sacrifice to the Ecclesiastical
+Reservation, or rather to the want of harmony among the German
+Protestants.
+
+To this dispute in Cologne was soon added another in Strasburg.  Several
+Protestant canons of Cologne, who had been included in the same papal
+ban with the elector, had taken refuge within this bishopric, where they
+likewise held prebends.  As the Roman Catholic canons of Strasburg
+hesitated to allow them, as being under the ban, the enjoyment of their
+prebends, they took violent possession of their benefices, and the
+support of a powerful Protestant party among the citizens soon gave them
+the preponderance in the chapter.  The other canons thereupon retired to
+Alsace-Saverne, where, under the protection of the bishop, they
+established themselves as the only lawful chapter, and denounced that
+which remained in Strasburg as illegal.  The latter, in the meantime,
+had so strengthened themselves by the reception of several Protestant
+colleagues of high rank, that they could venture, upon the death of the
+bishop, to nominate a new Protestant bishop in the person of John George
+of Brandenburg.  The Roman Catholic canons, far from allowing this
+election, nominated the Bishop of Metz, a prince of Lorraine, to that
+dignity, who announced his promotion by immediately commencing
+hostilities against the territories of Strasburg.
+
+That city now took up arms in defence of its Protestant chapter and the
+Prince of Brandenburg, while the other party, with the assistance of the
+troops of Lorraine, endeavoured to possess themselves of the
+temporalities of the chapter.  A tedious war was the consequence, which,
+according to the spirit of the times, was attended with barbarous
+devastations.  In vain did the Emperor interpose with his supreme
+authority to terminate the dispute; the ecclesiastical property remained
+for a long time divided between the two parties, till at last the
+Protestant prince, for a moderate pecuniary equivalent, renounced his
+claims; and thus, in this dispute also, the Roman Church came off
+victorious.
+
+An occurrence which, soon after the adjustment of this dispute, took
+place in Donauwerth, a free city of Suabia, was still more critical for
+the whole of Protestant Germany.  In this once Roman Catholic city, the
+Protestants, during the reigns of Ferdinand and his son, had, in the
+usual way, become so completely predominant, that the Roman Catholics
+were obliged to content themselves with a church in the Monastery of the
+Holy Cross, and for fear of offending the Protestants, were even forced
+to suppress the greater part of their religious rites.  At length a
+fanatical abbot of this monastery ventured to defy the popular
+prejudices, and to arrange a public procession, preceded by the cross
+and banners flying; but he was soon compelled to desist from the
+attempt.  When, a year afterwards, encouraged by a favourable imperial
+proclamation, the same abbot attempted to renew this procession, the
+citizens proceeded to open violence.  The inhabitants shut the gates
+against the monks on their return, trampled their colours under foot,
+and followed them home with clamour and abuse.  An imperial citation was
+the consequence of this act of violence; and as the exasperated populace
+even threatened to assault the imperial commissaries, and all attempts
+at an amicable adjustment were frustrated by the fanaticism of the
+multitude, the city was at last formally placed under the ban of the
+Empire, the execution of which was intrusted to Maximilian, Duke of
+Bavaria.  The citizens, formerly so insolent, were seized with terror at
+the approach of the Bavarian army; pusillanimity now possessed them,
+though once so full of defiance, and they laid down their arms without
+striking a blow.  The total abolition of the Protestant religion within
+the walls of the city was the punishment of their rebellion; it was
+deprived of its privileges, and, from a free city of Suabia, converted
+into a municipal town of Bavaria.
+
+Two circumstances connected with this proceeding must have strongly
+excited the attention of the Protestants, even if the interests of
+religion had been less powerful on their minds.  First of all, the
+sentence had been pronounced by the Aulic Council, an arbitrary and
+exclusively Roman Catholic tribunal, whose jurisdiction besides had been
+so warmly disputed by them; and secondly, its execution had been
+intrusted to the Duke of Bavaria, the head of another circle.  These
+unconstitutional steps seemed to be the harbingers of further violent
+measures on the Roman Catholic side, the result, probably, of secret
+conferences and dangerous designs, which might perhaps end in the entire
+subversion of their religious liberty.
+
+In circumstances where the law of force prevails, and security depends
+upon power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place
+itself in a posture of defence.  This was now the case in Germany.  If
+the Roman Catholics really meditated any evil against the Protestants in
+Germany, the probability was that the blow would fall on the south
+rather than the north, because, in Lower Germany, the Protestants were
+connected together through a long unbroken tract of country, and could
+therefore easily combine for their mutual support; while those in the
+south, detached from each other, and surrounded on all sides by Roman
+Catholic states, were exposed to every inroad.  If, moreover, as was to
+be expected, the Catholics availed themselves of the divisions amongst
+the Protestants, and levelled their attack against one of the religious
+parties, it was the Calvinists who, as the weaker, and as being besides
+excluded from the religious treaty, were apparently in the greatest
+danger, and upon them would probably fall the first attack.
+
+Both these circumstances took place in the dominions of the Elector
+Palatine, which possessed, in the Duke of Bavaria, a formidable
+neighbour, and which, by reason of their defection to Calvinism,
+received no protection from the Religious Peace, and had little hope of
+succour from the Lutheran states.  No country in Germany had experienced
+so many revolutions in religion in so short a time as the Palatinate.
+In the space of sixty years this country, an unfortunate toy in the
+hands of its rulers, had twice adopted the doctrines of Luther, and
+twice relinquished them for Calvinism.  The Elector Frederick III.
+first abandoned the confession of Augsburg, which his eldest son and
+successor, Lewis, immediately re-established.  The Calvinists throughout
+the whole country were deprived of their churches, their preachers and
+even their teachers banished beyond the frontiers; while the prince, in
+his Lutheran zeal, persecuted them even in his will, by appointing none
+but strict and orthodox Lutherans as the guardians of his son, a minor.
+But this illegal testament was disregarded by his brother the Count
+Palatine, John Casimir, who, by the regulations of the Golden Bull,
+assumed the guardianship and administration of the state.  Calvinistic
+teachers were given to the Elector Frederick IV., then only nine years
+of age, who were ordered, if necessary, to drive the Lutheran heresy out
+of the soul of their pupil with blows.  If such was the treatment of the
+sovereign, that of the subjects may be easily conceived.
+
+It was under this Frederick that the Palatine Court exerted itself so
+vigorously to unite the Protestant states of Germany in joint measures
+against the House of Austria, and, if possible, bring about the
+formation of a general confederacy.  Besides that this court had always
+been guided by the counsels of France, with whom hatred of the House of
+Austria was the ruling principle, a regard for his own safety urged him
+to secure in time the doubtful assistance of the Lutherans against a
+near and overwhelming enemy.  Great difficulties, however, opposed this
+union, because the Lutherans' dislike of the Reformed was scarcely less
+than the common aversion of both to the Romanists.  An attempt was first
+made to reconcile the two professions, in order to facilitate a
+political union; but all these attempts failed, and generally ended in
+both parties adhering the more strongly to their respective opinions.
+Nothing then remained but to increase the fear and the distrust of the
+Evangelicals, and in this way to impress upon them the necessity of this
+alliance.  The power of the Roman Catholics and the magnitude of the
+danger were exaggerated, accidental incidents were ascribed to
+deliberate plans, innocent actions misrepresented by invidious
+constructions, and the whole conduct of the professors of the olden
+religion was interpreted as the result of a well-weighed and systematic
+plan, which, in all probability, they were very far from having
+concerted.
+
+The Diet of Ratisbon, to which the Protestants had looked forward with
+the hope of obtaining a renewal of the Religious Peace, had broken up
+without coming to a decision, and to the former grievances of the
+Protestant party was now added the late oppression of Donauwerth.  With
+incredible speed, the union, so long attempted, was now brought to bear.
+A conference took place at Anhausen, in Franconia, at which were present
+the Elector Frederick IV., from the Palatinate, the Palsgrave of
+Neuburg, two Margraves of Brandenburg, the Margrave of Baden, and the
+Duke John Frederick of Wirtemburg,--Lutherans as well as Calvinists,--
+who for themselves and their heirs entered into a close confederacy
+under the title of the Evangelical Union.  The purport of this union
+was, that the allied princes should, in all matters relating to religion
+and their civil rights, support each other with arms and counsel against
+every aggressor, and should all stand as one man; that in case any
+member of the alliance should be attacked, he should be assisted by the
+rest with an armed force; that, if necessary, the territories, towns,
+and castles of the allied states should be open to his troops; and that,
+whatever conquests were made, should be divided among all the
+confederates, in proportion to the contingent furnished by each.
+
+The direction of the whole confederacy in time of peace was conferred
+upon the Elector Palatine, but with a limited power.  To meet the
+necessary expenses, subsidies were demanded, and a common fund
+established.  Differences of religion (betwixt the Lutherans and the
+Calvinists) were to have no effect on this alliance, which was to
+subsist for ten years, every member of the union engaged at the same
+time to procure new members to it.  The Electorate of Brandenburg
+adopted the alliance, that of Saxony rejected it.  Hesse-Cashel could
+not be prevailed upon to declare itself, the Dukes of Brunswick and
+Luneburg also hesitated.  But the three cities of the Empire, Strasburg,
+Nuremburg, and Ulm, were no unimportant acquisition for the league,
+which was in great want of their money, while their example, besides,
+might be followed by other imperial cities.
+
+After the formation of this alliance, the confederate states,
+dispirited, and singly, little feared, adopted a bolder language.
+Through Prince Christian of Anhalt, they laid their common grievances
+and demands before the Emperor; among which the principal were the
+restoration of Donauwerth, the abolition of the Imperial Court, the
+reformation of the Emperor's own administration and that of his
+counsellors.  For these remonstrances, they chose the moment when the
+Emperor had scarcely recovered breath from the troubles in his
+hereditary dominions,--when he had lost Hungary and Austria to Matthias,
+and had barely preserved his Bohemian throne by the concession of the
+Letter of Majesty, and finally, when through the succession of Juliers
+he was already threatened with the distant prospect of a new war.  No
+wonder, then, that this dilatory prince was more irresolute than ever in
+his decision, and that the confederates took up arms before he could
+bethink himself.
+
+The Roman Catholics regarded this confederacy with a jealous eye; the
+Union viewed them and the Emperor with the like distrust; the Emperor
+was equally suspicious of both; and thus, on all sides, alarm and
+animosity had reached their climax.  And, as if to crown the whole, at
+this critical conjuncture by the death of the Duke John William of
+Juliers, a highly disputable succession became vacant in the territories
+of Juliers and Cleves.
+
+Eight competitors laid claim to this territory, the indivisibility of
+which had been guaranteed by solemn treaties; and the Emperor, who
+seemed disposed to enter upon it as a vacant fief, might be considered
+as the ninth.  Four of these, the Elector of Brandenburg, the Count
+Palatine of Neuburg, the Count Palatine of Deux Ponts, and the Margrave
+of Burgau, an Austrian prince, claimed it as a female fief in name of
+four princesses, sisters of the late duke.  Two others, the Elector of
+Saxony, of the line of Albert, and the Duke of Saxony, of the line of
+Ernest, laid claim to it under a prior right of reversion granted to
+them by the Emperor Frederick III., and confirmed to both Saxon houses
+by Maximilian I.  The pretensions of some foreign princes were little
+regarded.  The best right was perhaps on the side of Brandenburg and
+Neuburg, and between the claims of these two it was not easy to decide.
+Both courts, as soon as the succession was vacant, proceeded to take
+possession; Brandenburg beginning, and Neuburg following the example.
+Both commenced their dispute with the pen, and would probably have ended
+it with the sword; but the interference of the Emperor, by proceeding to
+bring the cause before his own cognizance, and, during the progress of
+the suit, sequestrating the disputed countries, soon brought the
+contending parties to an agreement, in order to avert the common danger.
+They agreed to govern the duchy conjointly.  In vain did the Emperor
+prohibit the Estates from doing homage to their new masters; in vain did
+he send his own relation, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau and
+Strasburg, into the territory of Juliers, in order, by his presence, to
+strengthen the imperial party.  The whole country, with the exception of
+Juliers itself, had submitted to the Protestant princes, and in that
+capital the imperialists were besieged.
+
+The dispute about the succession of Juliers was an important one to the
+whole German empire, and also attracted the attention of several
+European courts.  It was not so much the question, who was or was not to
+possess the Duchy of Juliers;--the real question was, which of the two
+religious parties in Germany, the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, was
+to be strengthened by so important an accession--for which of the two
+RELIGIONS this territory was to be lost or won.  The question in short
+was, whether Austria was to be allowed to persevere in her usurpations,
+and to gratify her lust of dominion by another robbery; or whether the
+liberties of Germany, and the balance of power, were to be maintained
+against her encroachments.  The disputed succession of Juliers,
+therefore, was matter which interested all who were favourable to
+liberty, and hostile to Austria.  The Evangelical Union, Holland,
+England, and particularly Henry IV.  of France, were drawn into the
+strife.
+
+This monarch, the flower of whose life had been spent in opposing the
+House of Austria and Spain, and by persevering heroism alone had
+surmounted the obstacles which this house had thrown between him and the
+French throne, had been no idle spectator of the troubles in Germany.
+This contest of the Estates with the Emperor was the means of giving and
+securing peace to France.  The Protestants and the Turks were the two
+salutary weights which kept down the Austrian power in the East and
+West; but it would rise again in all its terrors, if once it were
+allowed to remove this pressure.  Henry the Fourth had before his eyes
+for half a lifetime, the uninterrupted spectacle of Austrian ambition
+and Austrian lust of dominion, which neither adversity nor poverty of
+talents, though generally they check all human passions, could
+extinguish in a bosom wherein flowed one drop of the blood of Ferdinand
+of Arragon.  Austrian ambition had destroyed for a century the peace of
+Europe, and effected the most violent changes in the heart of its most
+considerable states.  It had deprived the fields of husbandmen, the
+workshops of artisans, to fill the land with enormous armies, and to
+cover the commercial sea with hostile fleets.  It had imposed upon the
+princes of Europe the necessity of fettering the industry of their
+subjects by unheard-of imposts; and of wasting in self-defence the best
+strength of their states, which was thus lost to the prosperity of their
+inhabitants.  For Europe there was no peace, for its states no welfare,
+for the people's happiness no security or permanence, so long as this
+dangerous house was permitted to disturb at pleasure the repose of the
+world.
+
+Such considerations clouded the mind of Henry at the close of his
+glorious career.  What had it not cost him to reduce to order the
+troubled chaos into which France had been plunged by the tumult of civil
+war, fomented and supported by this very Austria! Every great mind
+labours for eternity; and what security had Henry for the endurance of
+that prosperity which he had gained for France, so long as Austria and
+Spain formed a single power, which did indeed lie exhausted for the
+present, but which required only one lucky chance to be speedily
+re-united, and to spring up again as formidable as ever.  If he would
+bequeath to his successors a firmly established throne, and a durable
+prosperity to his subjects, this dangerous power must be for ever
+disarmed.  This was the source of that irreconcileable enmity which
+Henry had sworn to the House of Austria, a hatred unextinguishable,
+ardent, and well-founded as that of Hannibal against the people of
+Romulus, but ennobled by a purer origin.
+
+The other European powers had the same inducements to action as Henry,
+but all of them had not that enlightened policy, nor that disinterested
+courage to act upon the impulse.  All men, without distinction, are
+allured by immediate advantages; great minds alone are excited by
+distant good.  So long as wisdom in its projects calculates upon wisdom,
+or relies upon its own strength, it forms none but chimerical schemes,
+and runs a risk of making itself the laughter of the world; but it is
+certain of success, and may reckon upon aid and admiration when it finds
+a place in its intellectual plans for barbarism, rapacity, and
+superstition, and can render the selfish passions of mankind the
+executors of its purposes.
+
+In the first point of view, Henry's well-known project of expelling the
+House of Austria from all its possessions, and dividing the spoil among
+the European powers, deserves the title of a chimera, which men have so
+liberally bestowed upon it; but did it merit that appellation in the
+second?  It had never entered into the head of that excellent monarch,
+in the choice of those who must be the instruments of his designs, to
+reckon on the sufficiency of such motives as animated himself and Sully
+to the enterprise.  All the states whose co-operation was necessary,
+were to be persuaded to the work by the strongest motives that can set a
+political power in action.  From the Protestants in Germany nothing more
+was required than that which, on other grounds, had been long their
+object,--their throwing off the Austrian yoke; from the Flemings, a
+similar revolt from the Spaniards.  To the Pope and all the Italian
+republics no inducement could be more powerful than the hope of driving
+the Spaniards for ever from their peninsula; for England, nothing more
+desirable than a revolution which should free it from its bitterest
+enemy.  By this division of the Austrian conquests, every power gained
+either land or freedom, new possessions or security for the old; and as
+all gained, the balance of power remained undisturbed.  France might
+magnanimously decline a share in the spoil, because by the ruin of
+Austria it doubly profited, and was most powerful if it did not become
+more powerful.  Finally, upon condition of ridding Europe of their
+presence, the posterity of Hapsburg were to be allowed the liberty of
+augmenting her territories in all the other known or yet undiscovered
+portions of the globe.  But the dagger of Ravaillac delivered Austria
+from her danger, to postpone for some centuries longer the tranquillity
+of Europe.
+
+With his view directed to this project, Henry felt the necessity of
+taking a prompt and active part in the important events of the
+Evangelical Union, and the disputed succession of Juliers.  His
+emissaries were busy in all the courts of Germany, and the little which
+they published or allowed to escape of the great political secrets of
+their master, was sufficient to win over minds inflamed by so ardent a
+hatred to Austria, and by so strong a desire of aggrandizement.  The
+prudent policy of Henry cemented the Union still more closely, and the
+powerful aid which he bound himself to furnish, raised the courage of
+the confederates into the firmest confidence.  A numerous French army,
+led by the king in person, was to meet the troops of the Union on the
+banks of the Rhine, and to assist in effecting the conquest of Juliers
+and Cleves; then, in conjunction with the Germans, it was to march into
+Italy, (where Savoy, Venice, and the Pope were even now ready with a
+powerful reinforcement,) and to overthrow the Spanish dominion in that
+quarter.  This victorious army was then to penetrate by Lombardy into
+the hereditary dominions of Hapsburg; and there, favoured by a general
+insurrection of the Protestants, destroy the power of Austria in all its
+German territories, in Bohemia, Hungary, and Transylvania.  The
+Brabanters and Hollanders, supported by French auxiliaries, would in the
+meantime shake off the Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands; and thus the
+mighty stream which, only a short time before, had so fearfully
+overflowed its banks, threatening to overwhelm in its troubled waters
+the liberties of Europe, would then roll silent and forgotten behind the
+Pyrenean mountains.
+
+At other times, the French had boasted of their rapidity of action, but
+upon this occasion they were outstripped by the Germans.  An army of the
+confederates entered Alsace before Henry made his appearance there, and
+an Austrian army, which the Bishop of Strasburg and Passau had assembled
+in that quarter for an expedition against Juliers, was dispersed.  Henry
+IV.  had formed his plan as a statesman and a king, but he had intrusted
+its execution to plunderers.  According to his design, no Roman Catholic
+state was to have cause to think this preparation aimed against itself,
+or to make the quarrel of Austria its own.  Religion was in nowise to be
+mixed up with the matter.  But how could the German princes forget their
+own purposes in furthering the plans of Henry?  Actuated as they were by
+the desire of aggrandizement and by religious hatred, was it to be
+supposed that they would not gratify, in every passing opportunity,
+their ruling passions to the utmost?  Like vultures, they stooped upon
+the territories of the ecclesiastical princes, and always chose those
+rich countries for their quarters, though to reach them they must make
+ever so wide a detour from their direct route.  They levied
+contributions as in an enemy's country, seized upon the revenues, and
+exacted, by violence, what they could not obtain of free-will.  Not to
+leave the Roman Catholics in doubt as to the true objects of their
+expedition, they announced, openly and intelligibly enough, the fate
+that awaited the property of the church.  So little had Henry IV.  and
+the German princes understood each other in their plan of operations, so
+much had the excellent king been mistaken in his instruments.  It is an
+unfailing maxim, that, if policy enjoins an act of violence, its
+execution ought never to be entrusted to the violent; and that he only
+ought to be trusted with the violation of order by whom order is held
+sacred.
+
+Both the past conduct of the Union, which was condemned even by several
+of the evangelical states, and the apprehension of even worse treatment,
+aroused the Roman Catholics to something beyond mere inactive
+indignation.  As to the Emperor, his authority had sunk too low to
+afford them any security against such an enemy.  It was their Union that
+rendered the confederates so formidable and so insolent; and another
+union must now be opposed to them.
+
+The Bishop of Wurtzburg formed the plan of the Catholic union, which was
+distinguished from the evangelical by the title of the League.  The
+objects agreed upon were nearly the same as those which constituted the
+groundwork of the Union.  Bishops formed its principal members, and at
+its head was placed Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria.  As the only
+influential secular member of the confederacy, he was entrusted with far
+more extensive powers than the Protestants had committed to their chief.
+In addition to the duke's being the sole head of the League's military
+power, whereby their operations acquired a speed and weight unattainable
+by the Union, they had also the advantage that supplies flowed in much
+more regularly from the rich prelates, than the latter could obtain them
+from the poor evangelical states.  Without offering to the Emperor, as
+the sovereign of a Roman Catholic state, any share in their confederacy,
+without even communicating its existence to him as emperor, the League
+arose at once formidable and threatening; with strength sufficient to
+crush the Protestant Union and to maintain itself under three emperors.
+It contended, indeed, for Austria, in so far as it fought against the
+Protestant princes; but Austria herself had soon cause to tremble before
+it.
+
+The arms of the Union had, in the meantime, been tolerably successful in
+Juliers and in Alsace; Juliers was closely blockaded, and the whole
+bishopric of Strasburg was in their power.  But here their splendid
+achievements came to an end.  No French army appeared upon the Rhine;
+for he who was to be its leader, he who was the animating soul of the
+whole enterprize, Henry IV., was no more! Their supplies were on the
+wane; the Estates refused to grant new subsidies; and the confederate
+free cities were offended that their money should be liberally, but
+their advice so sparingly called for.  Especially were they displeased
+at being put to expense for the expedition against Juliers, which had
+been expressly excluded from the affairs of the Union--at the united
+princes appropriating to themselves large pensions out of the common
+treasure--and, above all, at their refusing to give any account of its
+expenditure.
+
+The Union was thus verging to its fall, at the moment when the League
+started to oppose it in the vigour of its strength.  Want of supplies
+disabled the confederates from any longer keeping the field.  And yet it
+was dangerous to lay down their weapons in the sight of an armed enemy.
+To secure themselves at least on one side, they hastened to conclude a
+peace with their old enemy, the Archduke Leopold; and both parties
+agreed to withdraw their troops from Alsace, to exchange prisoners, and
+to bury all that had been done in oblivion.  Thus ended in nothing all
+these promising preparations.
+
+The same imperious tone with which the Union, in the confidence of its
+strength, had menaced the Roman Catholics of Germany, was now retorted
+by the League upon themselves and their troops.  The traces of their
+march were pointed out to them, and plainly branded with the hard
+epithets they had deserved.  The chapters of Wurtzburg, Bamberg,
+Strasburg, Mentz, Treves, Cologne, and several others, had experienced
+their destructive presence; to all these the damage done was to be made
+good, the free passage by land and by water restored, (for the
+Protestants had even seized on the navigation of the Rhine,) and
+everything replaced on its former footing.  Above all, the parties to
+the Union were called on to declare expressly and unequivocally its
+intentions.  It was now their turn to yield to superior strength.  They
+had not calculated on so formidable an opponent; but they themselves had
+taught the Roman Catholics the secret of their strength.  It was
+humiliating to their pride to sue for peace, but they might think
+themselves fortunate in obtaining it.  The one party promised
+restitution, the other forgiveness.  All laid down their arms.  The
+storm of war once more rolled by, and a temporary calm succeeded.  The
+insurrection in Bohemia then broke out, which deprived the Emperor of
+the last of his hereditary dominions, but in this dispute neither the
+Union nor the League took any share.
+
+At length the Emperor died in 1612, as little regretted in his coffin as
+noticed on the throne.  Long afterwards, when the miseries of succeeding
+reigns had made the misfortunes of his reign forgotten, a halo spread
+about his memory, and so fearful a night set in upon Germany, that, with
+tears of blood, people prayed for the return of such an emperor.
+
+Rodolph never could be prevailed upon to choose a successor in the
+empire, and all awaited with anxiety the approaching vacancy of the
+throne; but, beyond all hope, Matthias at once ascended it, and without
+opposition.  The Roman Catholics gave him their voices, because they
+hoped the best from his vigour and activity; the Protestants gave him
+theirs, because they hoped every thing from his weakness.  It is not
+difficult to reconcile this contradiction.  The one relied on what he
+had once appeared; the other judged him by what he seemed at present.
+
+The moment of a new accession is always a day of hope; and the first
+Diet of a king in elective monarchies is usually his severest trial.
+Every old grievance is brought forward, and new ones are sought out,
+that they may be included in the expected reform; quite a new world is
+expected to commence with the new reign.  The important services which,
+in his insurrection, their religious confederates in Austria had
+rendered to Matthias, were still fresh in the minds of the Protestant
+free cities, and, above all, the price which they had exacted for their
+services seemed now to serve them also as a model.
+
+It was by the favour of the Protestant Estates in Austria and Moravia
+that Matthias had sought and really found the way to his brother's
+throne; but, hurried on by his ambitious views, he never reflected that
+a way was thus opened for the States to give laws to their sovereign.
+This discovery soon awoke him from the intoxication of success.
+Scarcely had he shown himself in triumph to his Austrian subjects, after
+his victorious expedition to Bohemia, when a humble petition awaited him
+which was quite sufficient to poison his whole triumph.  They required,
+before doing homage, unlimited religious toleration in the cities and
+market towns, perfect equality of rights between Roman Catholics and
+Protestants, and a full and equal admissibility of the latter to all
+offices of state.  In several places, they of themselves assumed these
+privileges, and, reckoning on a change of administration, restored the
+Protestant religion where the late Emperor had suppressed it.  Matthias,
+it is true, had not scrupled to make use of the grievances of the
+Protestants for his own ends against the Emperor; but it was far from
+being his intention to relieve them.  By a firm and resolute tone he
+hoped to check, at once, these presumptuous demands.  He spoke of his
+hereditary title to these territories, and would hear of no stipulations
+before the act of homage.  A like unconditional submission had been
+rendered by their neighbours, the inhabitants of Styria, to the Archduke
+Ferdinand, who, however, had soon reason to repent of it.  Warned by
+this example, the Austrian States persisted in their refusal; and, to
+avoid being compelled by force to do homage, their deputies (after
+urging their Roman Catholic colleagues to a similar resistance)
+immediately left the capital, and began to levy troops.
+
+They took steps to renew their old alliance with Hungary, drew the
+Protestant princes into their interests, and set themselves seriously to
+work to accomplish their object by force of arms.
+
+With the more exorbitant demands of the Hungarians Matthias had not
+hesitated to comply.  For Hungary was an elective monarchy, and the
+republican constitution of the country justified to himself their
+demands, and to the Roman Catholic world his concessions.  In Austria,
+on the contrary, his predecessors had exercised far higher prerogatives,
+which he could not relinquish at the demand of the Estates without
+incurring the scorn of Roman Catholic Europe, the enmity of Spain and
+Rome, and the contempt of his own Roman Catholic subjects.  His
+exclusively Romish council, among which the Bishop of Vienna, Melchio
+Kiesel, had the chief influence, exhorted him to see all the churches
+extorted from him by the Protestants, rather than to concede one to them
+as a matter of right.
+
+But by ill luck this difficulty occurred at a time when the Emperor
+Rodolph was yet alive, and a spectator of this scene, and who might
+easily have been tempted to employ against his brother the same weapons
+which the latter had successfully directed against him--namely, an
+understanding with his rebellious subjects.  To avoid this blow,
+Matthias willingly availed himself of the offer made by Moravia, to act
+as mediator between him and the Estates of Austria.  Representatives of
+both parties met in Vienna, when the Austrian deputies held language
+which would have excited surprise even in the English Parliament.  "The
+Protestants," they said, "are determined to be not worse treated in
+their native country than the handful of Romanists.  By the help of his
+Protestant nobles had Matthias reduced the Emperor to submission; where
+80 Papists were to be found, 300 Protestant barons might be counted.
+The example of Rodolph should be a warning to Matthias.  He should take
+care that he did not lose the terrestrial, in attempting to make
+conquests for the celestial."  As the Moravian States, instead of using
+their powers as mediators for the Emperor's advantage, finally adopted
+the cause of their co-religionists of Austria; as the Union in Germany
+came forward to afford them its most active support, and as Matthias
+dreaded reprisals on the part of the Emperor, he was at length compelled
+to make the desired declaration in favour of the Evangelical Church.
+
+This behaviour of the Austrian Estates towards their Archduke was now
+imitated by the Protestant Estates of the Empire towards their Emperor,
+and they promised themselves the same favourable results.  At his first
+Diet at Ratisbon in 1613, when the most pressing affairs were waiting
+for decision--when a general contribution was indispensable for a war
+against Turkey, and against Bethlem Gabor in Transylvania, who by
+Turkish aid had forcibly usurped the sovereignty of that land, and even
+threatened Hungary--they surprised him with an entirely new demand.
+The Roman Catholic votes were still the most numerous in the Diet; and
+as every thing was decided by a plurality of voices, the Protestant
+party, however closely united, were entirely without consideration.  The
+advantage of this majority the Roman Catholics were now called on to
+relinquish; henceforward no one religious party was to be permitted to
+dictate to the other by means of its invariable superiority.  And in
+truth, if the evangelical religion was really to be represented in the
+Diet, it was self-evident that it must not be shut out from the
+possibility of making use of that privilege, merely from the
+constitution of the Diet itself.  Complaints of the judicial usurpations
+of the Aulic Council, and of the oppression of the Protestants,
+accompanied this demand, and the deputies of the Estates were instructed
+to take no part in any general deliberations till a favourable answer
+should be given on this preliminary point.
+
+The Diet was torn asunder by this dangerous division, which threatened
+to destroy for ever the unity of its deliberations.  Sincerely as the
+Emperor might have wished, after the example of his father Maximilian,
+to preserve a prudent balance between the two religions, the present
+conduct of the Protestants seemed to leave him nothing but a critical
+choice between the two.  In his present necessities a general
+contribution from the Estates was indispensable to him; and yet he could
+not conciliate the one party without sacrificing the support of the
+other.  Insecure as he felt his situation to be in his own hereditary
+dominions, he could not but tremble at the idea, however remote, of an
+open war with the Protestants.  But the eyes of the whole Roman Catholic
+world, which were attentively regarding his conduct, the remonstrances
+of the Roman Catholic Estates, and of the Courts of Rome and Spain, as
+little permitted him to favour the Protestant at the expense of the
+Romish religion.
+
+So critical a situation would have paralysed a greater mind than
+Matthias; and his own prudence would scarcely have extricated him from
+his dilemma.  But the interests of the Roman Catholics were closely
+interwoven with the imperial authority; if they suffered this to fall,
+the ecclesiastical princes in particular would be without a bulwark
+against the attacks of the Protestants.  Now, then, that they saw the
+Emperor wavering, they thought it high time to reassure his sinking
+courage.  They imparted to him the secret of their League, and
+acquainted him with its whole constitution, resources and power.  Little
+comforting as such a revelation must have been to the Emperor, the
+prospect of so powerful a support gave him greater boldness to oppose
+the Protestants.  Their demands were rejected, and the Diet broke up
+without coming to a decision.  But Matthias was the victim of this
+dispute.  The Protestants refused him their supplies, and made him alone
+suffer for the inflexibility of the Roman Catholics.
+
+The Turks, however, appeared willing to prolong the cessation of
+hostilities, and Bethlem Gabor was left in peaceable possession of
+Transylvania.  The empire was now free from foreign enemies; and even at
+home, in the midst of all these fearful disputes, peace still reigned.
+An unexpected accident had given a singular turn to the dispute as to
+the succession of Juliers.  This duchy was still ruled conjointly by the
+Electoral House of Brandenburg and the Palatine of Neuburg; and a
+marriage between the Prince of Neuburg and a Princess of Brandenburg was
+to have inseparably united the interests of the two houses.  But the
+whole scheme was upset by a box on the ear, which, in a drunken brawl,
+the Elector of Brandenburg unfortunately inflicted upon his intended
+son-in-law.  From this moment the good understanding between the two
+houses was at an end.  The Prince of Neuburg embraced popery.  The hand
+of a princess of Bavaria rewarded his apostacy, and the strong support
+of Bavaria and Spain was the natural result of both.  To secure to the
+Palatine the exclusive possession of Juliers, the Spanish troops from
+the Netherlands were marched into the Palatinate.  To rid himself of
+these guests, the Elector of Brandenburg called the Flemings to his
+assistance, whom he sought to propitiate by embracing the Calvinist
+religion.  Both Spanish and Dutch armies appeared, but, as it seemed,
+only to make conquests for themselves.
+
+The neighbouring war of the Netherlands seemed now about to be decided
+on German ground; and what an inexhaustible mine of combustibles lay
+here ready for it!  The Protestants saw with consternation the Spaniards
+establishing themselves upon the Lower Rhine; with still greater anxiety
+did the Roman Catholics see the Hollanders bursting through the
+frontiers of the empire.  It was in the west that the mine was expected
+to explode which had long been dug under the whole of Germany.  To the
+west, apprehension and anxiety turned; but the spark which kindled the
+flame came unexpectedly from the east.
+
+The tranquillity which Rodolph II.'s 'Letter of Majesty' had established
+in Bohemia lasted for some time, under the administration of Matthias,
+till the nomination of a new heir to this kingdom in the person of
+Ferdinand of Gratz.
+
+This prince, whom we shall afterwards become better acquainted with
+under the title of Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany, had, by the
+violent extirpation of the Protestant religion within his hereditary
+dominions, announced himself as an inexorable zealot for popery, and was
+consequently looked upon by the Roman Catholic part of Bohemia as the
+future pillar of their church.  The declining health of the Emperor
+brought on this hour rapidly; and, relying on so powerful a supporter,
+the Bohemian Papists began to treat the Protestants with little
+moderation.  The Protestant vassals of Roman Catholic nobles, in
+particular, experienced the harshest treatment.  At length several of
+the former were incautious enough to speak somewhat loudly of their
+hopes, and by threatening hints to awaken among the Protestants a
+suspicion of their future sovereign.  But this mistrust would never have
+broken out into actual violence, had the Roman Catholics confined
+themselves to general expressions, and not by attacks on individuals
+furnished the discontent of the people with enterprising leaders.
+
+Henry Matthias, Count Thurn, not a native of Bohemia, but proprietor of
+some estates in that kingdom, had, by his zeal for the Protestant cause,
+and an enthusiastic attachment to his newly adopted country, gained the
+entire confidence of the Utraquists, which opened him the way to the
+most important posts.  He had fought with great glory against the Turks,
+and won by a flattering address the hearts of the multitude.  Of a hot
+and impetuous disposition, which loved tumult because his talents shone
+in it--rash and thoughtless enough to undertake things which cold
+prudence and a calmer temper would not have ventured upon--unscrupulous
+enough, where the gratification of his passions was concerned, to sport
+with the fate of thousands, and at the same time politic enough to hold
+in leading-strings such a people as the Bohemians then were.  He had
+already taken an active part in the troubles under Rodolph's
+administration; and the Letter of Majesty which the States had extorted
+from that Emperor, was chiefly to be laid to his merit.  The court had
+intrusted to him, as burgrave or castellan of Calstein, the custody of
+the Bohemian crown, and of the national charter.  But the nation had
+placed in his hands something far more important--ITSELF--with the
+office of defender or protector of the faith.  The aristocracy by which
+the Emperor was ruled, imprudently deprived him of this harmless
+guardianship of the dead, to leave him his full influence over the
+living.  They took from him his office of burgrave, or constable of the
+castle, which had rendered him dependent on the court, thereby opening
+his eyes to the importance of the other which remained, and wounded his
+vanity, which yet was the thing that made his ambition harmless.  From
+this moment he was actuated solely by a desire of revenge; and the
+opportunity of gratifying it was not long wanting.
+
+In the Royal Letter which the Bohemians had extorted from Rodolph II.,
+as well as in the German religious treaty, one material article remained
+undetermined.  All the privileges granted by the latter to the
+Protestants, were conceived in favour of the Estates or governing
+bodies, not of the subjects; for only to those of the ecclesiastical
+states had a toleration, and that precarious, been conceded.  The
+Bohemian Letter of Majesty, in the same manner, spoke only of the
+Estates and imperial towns, the magistrates of which had contrived to
+obtain equal privileges with the former.  These alone were free to erect
+churches and schools, and openly to celebrate their Protestant worship;
+in all other towns, it was left entirely to the government to which they
+belonged, to determine the religion of the inhabitants.  The Estates of
+the Empire had availed themselves of this privilege in its fullest
+extent; the secular indeed without opposition; while the ecclesiastical,
+in whose case the declaration of Ferdinand had limited this privilege,
+disputed, not without reason, the validity of that limitation.  What was
+a disputed point in the religious treaty, was left still more doubtful
+in the Letter of Majesty; in the former, the construction was not
+doubtful, but it was a question how far obedience might be compulsory;
+in the latter, the interpretation was left to the states.  The subjects
+of the ecclesiastical Estates in Bohemia thought themselves entitled to
+the same rights which the declaration of Ferdinand secured to the
+subjects of German bishops, they considered themselves on an equality
+with the subjects of imperial towns, because they looked upon the
+ecclesiastical property as part of the royal demesnes.  In the little
+town of Klostergrab, subject to the Archbishop of Prague; and in
+Braunau, which belonged to the abbot of that monastery, churches were
+founded by the Protestants, and completed notwithstanding the opposition
+of their superiors, and the disapprobation of the Emperor.
+
+In the meantime, the vigilance of the defenders had somewhat relaxed,
+and the court thought it might venture on a decisive step.  By the
+Emperor's orders, the church at Klostergrab was pulled down; that at
+Braunau forcibly shut up, and the most turbulent of the citizens thrown
+into prison.  A general commotion among the Protestants was the
+consequence of this measure; a loud outcry was everywhere raised at this
+violation of the Letter of Majesty; and Count Thurn, animated by
+revenge, and particularly called upon by his office of defender, showed
+himself not a little busy in inflaming the minds of the people.  At his
+instigation deputies were summoned to Prague from every circle in the
+empire, to concert the necessary measures against the common danger.  It
+was resolved to petition the Emperor to press for the liberation of the
+prisoners.  The answer of the Emperor, already offensive to the states,
+from its being addressed, not to them, but to his viceroy, denounced
+their conduct as illegal and rebellious, justified what had been done at
+Klostergrab and Braunau as the result of an imperial mandate, and
+contained some passages that might be construed into threats.
+
+Count Thurn did not fail to augment the unfavourable impression which
+this imperial edict made upon the assembled Estates.  He pointed out to
+them the danger in which all who had signed the petition were involved,
+and sought by working on their resentment and fears to hurry them into
+violent resolutions.  To have caused their immediate revolt against the
+Emperor, would have been, as yet, too bold a measure.  It was only step
+by step that he would lead them on to this unavoidable result.  He held
+it, therefore, advisable first to direct their indignation against the
+Emperor's counsellors; and for that purpose circulated a report, that
+the imperial proclamation had been drawn up by the government at Prague,
+and only signed in Vienna.  Among the imperial delegates, the chief
+objects of the popular hatred, were the President of the Chamber,
+Slawata, and Baron Martinitz, who had been elected in place of Count
+Thurn, Burgrave of Calstein.  Both had long before evinced pretty openly
+their hostile feelings towards the Protestants, by alone refusing to be
+present at the sitting at which the Letter of Majesty had been inserted
+in the Bohemian constitution.  A threat was made at the time to make
+them responsible for every violation of the Letter of Majesty; and from
+this moment, whatever evil befell the Protestants was set down, and not
+without reason, to their account.  Of all the Roman Catholic nobles,
+these two had treated their Protestant vassals with the greatest
+harshness.  They were accused of hunting them with dogs to the mass, and
+of endeavouring to drive them to popery by a denial of the rites of
+baptism, marriage, and burial.  Against two characters so unpopular the
+public indignation was easily excited, and they were marked out for a
+sacrifice to the general indignation.
+
+On the 23rd of May, 1618, the deputies appeared armed, and in great
+numbers, at the royal palace, and forced their way into the hall where
+the Commissioners Sternberg, Martinitz, Lobkowitz, and Slawata were
+assembled.  In a threatening tone they demanded to know from each of
+them, whether he had taken any part, or had consented to, the imperial
+proclamation.  Sternberg received them with composure, Martinitz and
+Slawata with defiance.  This decided their fate; Sternberg and
+Lobkowitz, less hated, and more feared, were led by the arm out of the
+room; Martinitz and Slawata were seized, dragged to a window, and
+precipitated from a height of eighty feet, into the castle trench.
+Their creature, the secretary Fabricius, was thrown after them.  This
+singular mode of execution naturally excited the surprise of civilized
+nations.  The Bohemians justified it as a national custom, and saw
+nothing remarkable in the whole affair, excepting that any one should
+have got up again safe and sound after such a fall.  A dunghill, on
+which the imperial commissioners chanced to be deposited, had saved them
+from injury.
+
+It was not to be expected that this summary mode of proceeding would
+much increase the favour of the parties with the Emperor, but this was
+the very position to which Count Thurn wished to bring them.  If, from
+the fear of uncertain danger, they had permitted themselves such an act
+of violence, the certain expectation of punishment, and the now urgent
+necessity of making themselves secure, would plunge them still deeper
+into guilt.  By this brutal act of self-redress, no room was left for
+irresolution or repentance, and it seemed as if a single crime could be
+absolved only by a series of violences.  As the deed itself could not be
+undone, nothing was left but to disarm the hand of punishment.  Thirty
+directors were appointed to organise a regular insurrection.  They
+seized upon all the offices of state, and all the imperial revenues,
+took into their own service the royal functionaries and the soldiers,
+and summoned the whole Bohemian nation to avenge the common cause.  The
+Jesuits, whom the common hatred accused as the instigators of every
+previous oppression, were banished the kingdom, and this harsh measure
+the Estates found it necessary to justify in a formal manifesto.  These
+various steps were taken for the preservation of the royal authority and
+the laws--the language of all rebels till fortune has decided in their
+favour.
+
+The emotion which the news of the Bohemian insurrection excited at the
+imperial court, was much less lively than such intelligence deserved.
+The Emperor Matthias was no longer the resolute spirit that formerly
+sought out his king and master in the very bosom of his people, and
+hurled him from three thrones.  The confidence and courage which had
+animated him in an usurpation, deserted him in a legitimate
+self-defence.  The Bohemian rebels had first taken up arms, and the
+nature of circumstances drove him to join them.  But he could not hope
+to confine such a war to Bohemia.  In all the territories under his
+dominion, the Protestants were united by a dangerous sympathy--the
+common danger of their religion might suddenly combine them all into a
+formidable republic.  What could he oppose to such an enemy, if the
+Protestant portion of his subjects deserted him? And would not both
+parties exhaust themselves in so ruinous a civil war? How much was at
+stake if he lost; and if he won, whom else would he destroy but his own
+subjects?
+
+Considerations such as these inclined the Emperor and his council to
+concessions and pacific measures, but it was in this very spirit of
+concession that, as others would have it, lay the origin of the evil.
+The Archduke Ferdinand of Gratz congratulated the Emperor upon an event,
+which would justify in the eyes of all Europe the severest measures
+against the Bohemian Protestants.  "Disobedience, lawlessness, and
+insurrection," he said, "went always hand-in-hand with Protestantism.
+Every privilege which had been conceded to the Estates by himself and
+his predecessor, had had no other effect than to raise their demands.
+All the measures of the heretics were aimed against the imperial
+authority.  Step by step had they advanced from defiance to defiance up
+to this last aggression; in a short time they would assail all that
+remained to be assailed, in the person of the Emperor.  In arms alone
+was there any safety against such an enemy--peace and subordination
+could be only established upon the ruins of their dangerous privileges;
+security for the Catholic belief was to be found only in the total
+destruction of this sect.  Uncertain, it was true, might be the event of
+the war, but inevitable was the ruin if it were pretermitted.  The
+confiscation of the lands of the rebels would richly indemnify them for
+its expenses, while the terror of punishment would teach the other
+states the wisdom of a prompt obedience in future."  Were the Bohemian
+Protestants to blame, if they armed themselves in time against the
+enforcement of such maxims?  The insurrection in Bohemia, besides, was
+directed only against the successor of the Emperor, not against himself,
+who had done nothing to justify the alarm of the Protestants.  To
+exclude this prince from the Bohemian throne, arms had before been taken
+up under Matthias, though as long as this Emperor lived, his subjects
+had kept within the bounds of an apparent submission.
+
+But Bohemia was in arms, and unarmed, the Emperor dared not even offer
+them peace.  For this purpose, Spain supplied gold, and promised to send
+troops from Italy and the Netherlands.  Count Bucquoi, a native of the
+Netherlands, was named generalissimo, because no native could be
+trusted, and Count Dampierre, another foreigner, commanded under him.
+Before the army took the field, the Emperor endeavoured to bring about
+an amicable arrangement, by the publication of a manifesto.  In this he
+assured the Bohemians, "that he held sacred the Letter of Majesty--that
+he had not formed any resolutions inimical to their religion or their
+privileges, and that his present preparations were forced upon him by
+their own.  As soon as the nation laid down their arms, he also would
+disband his army." But this gracious letter failed of its effect,
+because the leaders of the insurrection contrived to hide from the
+people the Emperor's good intentions.  Instead of this, they circulated
+the most alarming reports from the pulpit, and by pamphlets, and
+terrified the deluded populace with threatened horrors of another Saint
+Bartholomew's that existed only in their own imagination.  All Bohemia,
+with the exception of three towns, Budweiss, Krummau, and Pilsen, took
+part in this insurrection.  These three towns, inhabited principally by
+Roman Catholics, alone had the courage, in this general revolt, to hold
+out for the Emperor, who promised them assistance.  But it could not
+escape Count Thurn, how dangerous it was to leave in hostile hands three
+places of such importance, which would at all times keep open for the
+imperial troops an entrance into the kingdom.  With prompt determination
+he appeared before Budweiss and Krummau, in the hope of terrifying them
+into a surrender.  Krummau surrendered, but all his attacks were
+steadfastly repulsed by Budweiss.
+
+And now, too, the Emperor began to show more earnestness and energy.
+Bucquoi and Dampierre, with two armies, fell upon the Bohemian
+territories, which they treated as a hostile country.  But the imperial
+generals found the march to Prague more difficult than they had
+expected.  Every pass, every position that was the least tenable, must
+be opened by the sword, and resistance increased at each fresh step they
+took, for the outrages of their troops, chiefly consisting of Hungarians
+and Walloons, drove their friends to revolt and their enemies to
+despair.  But even now that his troops had penetrated into Bohemia, the
+Emperor continued to offer the Estates peace, and to show himself ready
+for an amicable adjustment.  But the new prospects which opened upon
+them, raised the courage of the revolters.  Moravia espoused their
+party; and from Germany appeared to them a defender equally intrepid and
+unexpected, in the person of Count Mansfeld.
+
+The heads of the Evangelic Union had been silent but not inactive
+spectators of the movements in Bohemia.  Both were contending for the
+same cause, and against the same enemy.  In the fate of the Bohemians,
+their confederates in the faith might read their own; and the cause of
+this people was represented as of solemn concern to the whole German
+union.  True to these principles, the Unionists supported the courage of
+the insurgents by promises of assistance; and a fortunate accident now
+enabled them, beyond their hopes, to fulfil them.
+
+The instrument by which the House of Austria was humbled in Germany, was
+Peter Ernest, Count Mansfeld, the son of a distinguished Austrian
+officer, Ernest von Mansfeld, who for some time had commanded with
+repute the Spanish army in the Netherlands.  His first campaigns in
+Juliers and Alsace had been made in the service of this house, and under
+the banner of the Archduke Leopold, against the Protestant religion and
+the liberties of Germany.  But insensibly won by the principles of this
+religion, he abandoned a leader whose selfishness denied him the
+reimbursement of the monies expended in his cause, and he transferred
+his zeal and a victorious sword to the Evangelic Union.  It happened
+just then that the Duke of Savoy, an ally of the Union, demanded
+assistance in a war against Spain.  They assigned to him their newly
+acquired servant, and Mansfeld received instructions to raise an army of
+4000 men in Germany, in the cause and in the pay of the duke.  The army
+was ready to march at the very moment when the flames of war burst out
+in Bohemia, and the duke, who at the time did not stand in need of its
+services, placed it at the disposal of the Union.  Nothing could be more
+welcome to these troops than the prospect of aiding their confederates
+in Bohemia, at the cost of a third party.  Mansfeld received orders
+forthwith to march with these 4000 men into that kingdom; and a
+pretended Bohemian commission was given to blind the public as to the
+true author of this levy.
+
+This Mansfeld now appeared in Bohemia, and, by the occupation of Pilsen,
+strongly fortified and favourable to the Emperor, obtained a firm
+footing in the country.  The courage of the rebels was farther increased
+by succours which the Silesian States despatched to their assistance.
+Between these and the Imperialists, several battles were fought, far
+indeed from decisive, but only on that account the more destructive,
+which served as the prelude to a more serious war.  To check the vigour
+of his military operations, a negotiation was entered into with the
+Emperor, and a disposition was shown to accept the proffered mediation
+of Saxony.  But before the event could prove how little sincerity there
+was in these proposals, the Emperor was removed from the scene by death.
+
+What now had Matthias done to justify the expectations which he had
+excited by the overthrow of his predecessor?  Was it worth while to
+ascend a brother's throne through guilt, and then maintain it with so
+little dignity, and leave it with so little renown?  As long as Matthias
+sat on the throne, he had to atone for the imprudence by which he had
+gained it.  To enjoy the regal dignity a few years sooner, he had
+shackled the free exercise of its prerogatives.  The slender portion of
+independence left him by the growing power of the Estates, was still
+farther lessened by the encroachments of his relations.  Sickly and
+childless he saw the attention of the world turned to an ambitious heir
+who was impatiently anticipating his fate; and who, by his interference
+with the closing administration, was already opening his own.
+
+With Matthias, the reigning line of the German House of Austria was in a
+manner extinct; for of all the sons of Maximilian, one only was now
+alive, the weak and childless Archduke Albert, in the Netherlands, who
+had already renounced his claims to the inheritance in favour of the
+line of Gratz.  The Spanish House had also, in a secret bond, resigned
+its pretensions to the Austrian possessions in behalf of the Archduke
+Ferdinand of Styria, in whom the branch of Hapsburg was about to put
+forth new shoots, and the former greatness of Austria to experience a
+revival.
+
+The father of Ferdinand was the Archduke Charles of Carniola, Carinthia,
+and Styria, the youngest brother of the Emperor Maximilian II.; his
+mother a princess of Bavaria.  Having lost his father at twelve years of
+age, he was intrusted by the archduchess to the guardianship of her
+brother William, Duke of Bavaria, under whose eyes he was instructed and
+educated by Jesuits at the Academy of Ingolstadt.  What principles he
+was likely to imbibe by his intercourse with a prince, who from motives
+of devotion had abdicated his government, may be easily conceived.  Care
+was taken to point out to him, on the one hand, the weak indulgence of
+Maximilian's house towards the adherents of the new doctrines, and the
+consequent troubles of their dominions; on the other, the blessings of
+Bavaria, and the inflexible religious zeal of its rulers; between these
+two examples he was left to choose for himself.
+
+Formed in this school to be a stout champion of the faith, and a prompt
+instrument of the church, he left Bavaria, after a residence of five
+years, to assume the government of his hereditary dominions.  The
+Estates of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, who, before doing homage,
+demanded a guarantee for freedom of religion, were told that religious
+liberty has nothing to do with their allegiance.  The oath was put to
+them without conditions, and unconditionally taken.  Many years,
+however, elapsed, ere the designs which had been planned at Ingolstadt
+were ripe for execution.  Before attempting to carry them into effect,
+he sought in person at Loretto the favour of the Virgin, and received
+the apostolic benediction in Rome at the feet of Clement VIII.
+
+These designs were nothing less than the expulsion of Protestantism from
+a country where it had the advantage of numbers, and had been legally
+recognized by a formal act of toleration, granted by his father to the
+noble and knightly estates of the land.  A grant so formally ratified
+could not be revoked without danger; but no difficulties could deter the
+pious pupil of the Jesuits.  The example of other states, both Roman
+Catholic and Protestant, which within their own territories had
+exercised unquestioned a right of reformation, and the abuse which the
+Estates of Styria made of their religious liberties, would serve as a
+justification of this violent procedure.  Under the shelter of an absurd
+positive law, those of equity and prudence might, it was thought, be
+safely despised.  In the execution of these unrighteous designs,
+Ferdinand did, it must be owned, display no common courage and
+perseverance.  Without tumult, and we may add, without cruelty, he
+suppressed the Protestant service in one town after another, and in a
+few years, to the astonishment of Germany, this dangerous work was
+brought to a successful end.
+
+But, while the Roman Catholics admired him as a hero, and the champion
+of the church, the Protestants began to combine against him as against
+their most dangerous enemy.  And yet Matthias's intention to bequeath to
+him the succession, met with little or no opposition in the elective
+states of Austria.  Even the Bohemians agreed to receive him as their
+future king, on very favourable conditions.  It was not until
+afterwards, when they had experienced the pernicious influence of his
+councils on the administration of the Emperor, that their anxiety was
+first excited; and then several projects, in his handwriting, which an
+unlucky chance threw into their hands, as they plainly evinced his
+disposition towards them, carried their apprehension to the utmost
+pitch.  In particular, they were alarmed by a secret family compact with
+Spain, by which, in default of heirs-male of his own body, Ferdinand
+bequeathed to that crown the kingdom of Bohemia, without first
+consulting the wishes of that nation, and without regard to its right of
+free election.  The many enemies, too, which by his reforms in Styria
+that prince had provoked among the Protestants, were very prejudicial to
+his interests in Bohemia; and some Styrian emigrants, who had taken
+refuge there, bringing with them into their adopted country hearts
+overflowing with a desire of revenge, were particularly active in
+exciting the flame of revolt.  Thus ill-affected did Ferdinand find the
+Bohemians, when he succeeded Matthias.
+
+So bad an understanding between the nation and the candidate for the
+throne, would have raised a storm even in the most peaceable succession;
+how much more so at the present moment, before the ardour of
+insurrection had cooled; when the nation had just recovered its dignity,
+and reasserted its rights; when they still held arms in their hands, and
+the consciousness of unity had awakened an enthusiastic reliance on
+their own strength; when by past success, by the promises of foreign
+assistance, and by visionary expectations of the future, their courage
+had been raised to an undoubting confidence.  Disregarding the rights
+already conferred on Ferdinand, the Estates declared the throne vacant,
+and their right of election entirely unfettered.  All hopes of their
+peaceful submission were at an end, and if Ferdinand wished still to
+wear the crown of Bohemia, he must choose between purchasing it at the
+sacrifice of all that would make a crown desirable, or winning it sword
+in hand.
+
+But with what means was it to be won?  Turn his eyes where he would, the
+fire of revolt was burning.  Silesia had already joined the insurgents
+in Bohemia; Moravia was on the point of following its example.  In Upper
+and Lower Austria the spirit of liberty was awake, as it had been under
+Rodolph, and the Estates refused to do homage.  Hungary was menaced with
+an inroad by Prince Bethlen Gabor, on the side of Transylvania; a secret
+arming among the Turks spread consternation among the provinces to the
+eastward; and, to complete his perplexities, the Protestants also, in
+his hereditary dominions, stimulated by the general example, were again
+raising their heads.  In that quarter, their numbers were overwhelming;
+in most places they had possession of the revenues which Ferdinand would
+need for the maintenance of the war.  The neutral began to waver, the
+faithful to be discouraged, the turbulent alone to be animated and
+confident.  One half of Germany encouraged the rebels, the other
+inactively awaited the issue; Spanish assistance was still very remote.
+The moment which had brought him every thing, threatened also to deprive
+him of all.
+
+And when he now, yielding to the stern law of necessity, made overtures
+to the Bohemian rebels, all his proposals for peace were insolently
+rejected.  Count Thurn, at the head of an army, entered Moravia to bring
+this province, which alone continued to waver, to a decision.  The
+appearance of their friends is the signal of revolt for the Moravian
+Protestants.  Bruenn is taken, the remainder of the country yields with
+free will, throughout the province government and religion are changed.
+Swelling as it flows, the torrent of rebellion pours down upon Austria,
+where a party, holding similar sentiments, receives it with a joyful
+concurrence.  Henceforth, there should be no more distinctions of
+religion; equality of rights should be guaranteed to all Christian
+churches.  They hear that a foreign force has been invited into the
+country to oppress the Bohemians.  Let them be sought out, and the
+enemies of liberty pursued to the ends of the earth.  Not an arm is
+raised in defence of the Archduke, and the rebels, at length, encamp
+before Vienna to besiege their sovereign.
+
+Ferdinand had sent his children from Gratz, where they were no longer
+safe, to the Tyrol; he himself awaited the insurgents in his capital.  A
+handful of soldiers was all he could oppose to the enraged multitude;
+these few were without pay or provisions, and therefore little to be
+depended on.  Vienna was unprepared for a long siege.  The party of the
+Protestants, ready at any moment to join the Bohemians, had the
+preponderance in the city; those in the country had already begun to
+levy troops against him.  Already, in imagination, the Protestant
+populace saw the Emperor shut up in a monastery, his territories
+divided, and his children educated as Protestants.  Confiding in secret,
+and surrounded by public enemies, he saw the chasm every moment widening
+to engulf his hopes and even himself.  The Bohemian bullets were already
+falling upon the imperial palace, when sixteen Austrian barons forcibly
+entered his chamber, and inveighing against him with loud and bitter
+reproaches, endeavoured to force him into a confederation with the
+Bohemians.  One of them, seizing him by the button of his doublet,
+demanded, in a tone of menace, "Ferdinand, wilt thou sign it?"
+
+Who would not be pardoned had he wavered in this frightful situation?
+Yet Ferdinand still remembered the dignity of a Roman emperor.  No
+alternative seemed left to him but an immediate flight or submission;
+laymen urged him to the one, priests to the other.  If he abandoned the
+city, it would fall into the enemy's hands; with Vienna, Austria was
+lost; with Austria, the imperial throne.  Ferdinand abandoned not his
+capital, and as little would he hear of conditions.
+
+The Archduke is still engaged in altercation with the deputed barons,
+when all at once a sound of trumpets is heard in the palace square.
+Terror and astonishment take possession of all present; a fearful report
+pervades the palace; one deputy after another disappears.  Many of the
+nobility and the citizens hastily take refuge in the camp of Thurn.
+This sudden change is effected by a regiment of Dampierre's cuirassiers,
+who at that moment marched into the city to defend the Archduke.  A body
+of infantry soon followed; reassured by their appearance, several of the
+Roman Catholic citizens, and even the students themselves, take up arms.
+A report which arrived just at the same time from Bohemia made his
+deliverance complete.  The Flemish general, Bucquoi, had totally
+defeated Count Mansfeld at Budweiss, and was marching upon Prague.  The
+Bohemians hastily broke up their camp before Vienna to protect their own
+capital.
+
+And now also the passes were free which the enemy had taken possession
+of, in order to obstruct Ferdinand's progress to his coronation at
+Frankfort.  If the accession to the imperial throne was important for
+the plans of the King of Hungary, it was of still greater consequence at
+the present moment, when his nomination as Emperor would afford the most
+unsuspicious and decisive proof of the dignity of his person, and of the
+justice of his cause, while, at the same time, it would give him a hope
+of support from the Empire.  But the same cabal which opposed him in his
+hereditary dominions, laboured also to counteract him in his canvass for
+the imperial dignity.  No Austrian prince, they maintained, ought to
+ascend the throne; least of all Ferdinand, the bigoted persecutor of
+their religion, the slave of Spain and of the Jesuits.  To prevent this,
+the crown had been offered, even during the lifetime of Matthias, to the
+Duke of Bavaria, and on his refusal, to the Duke of Savoy.  As some
+difficulty was experienced in settling with the latter the conditions of
+acceptance, it was sought, at all events, to delay the election till
+some decisive blow in Austria or Bohemia should annihilate all the hopes
+of Ferdinand, and incapacitate him from any competition for this
+dignity.  The members of the Union left no stone unturned to gain over
+from Ferdinand the Electorate of Saxony, which was bound to Austrian
+interests; they represented to this court the dangers with which the
+Protestant religion, and even the constitution of the empire, were
+threatened by the principles of this prince and his Spanish alliance.
+By the elevation of Ferdinand to the imperial throne, Germany, they
+further asserted, would be involved in the private quarrels of this
+prince, and bring upon itself the arms of Bohemia.  But in spite of all
+opposing influences, the day of election was fixed, Ferdinand summoned
+to it as lawful king of Bohemia, and his electoral vote, after a
+fruitless resistance on the part of the Bohemian Estates, acknowledged
+to be good.  The votes of the three ecclesiastical electorates were for
+him, Saxony was favourable to him, Brandenburg made no opposition, and a
+decided majority declared him Emperor in 1619.  Thus he saw the most
+doubtful of his crowns placed first of all on his head; but a few days
+after he lost that which he had reckoned among the most certain of his
+possessions.  While he was thus elected Emperor in Frankfort, he was in
+Prague deprived of the Bohemian throne.
+
+Almost all of his German hereditary dominions had in the meantime
+entered into a formidable league with the Bohemians, whose insolence now
+exceeded all bounds.  In a general Diet, the latter, on the 17th of
+August, 1619, proclaimed the Emperor an enemy to the Bohemian religion
+and liberties, who by his pernicious counsels had alienated from them
+the affections of the late Emperor, had furnished troops to oppress
+them, had given their country as a prey to foreigners, and finally, in
+contravention of the national rights, had bequeathed the crown, by a
+secret compact, to Spain:  they therefore declared that he had forfeited
+whatever title he might otherwise have had to the crown, and immediately
+proceeded to a new election.  As this sentence was pronounced by
+Protestants, their choice could not well fall upon a Roman Catholic
+prince, though, to save appearances, some voices were raised for Bavaria
+and Savoy.  But the violent religious animosities which divided the
+evangelical and the reformed parties among the Protestants, impeded for
+some time the election even of a Protestant king; till at last the
+address and activity of the Calvinists carried the day from the
+numerical superiority of the Lutherans.
+
+Among all the princes who were competitors for this dignity, the Elector
+Palatine Frederick V.  had the best grounded claims on the confidence
+and gratitude of the Bohemians; and among them all, there was no one in
+whose case the private interests of particular Estates, and the
+attachment of the people, seemed to be justified by so many
+considerations of state.  Frederick V.  was of a free and lively spirit,
+of great goodness of heart, and regal liberality.  He was the head of
+the Calvinistic party in Germany, the leader of the Union, whose
+resources were at his disposal, a near relation of the Duke of Bavaria,
+and a son-in-law of the King of Great Britain, who might lend him his
+powerful support.  All these considerations were prominently and
+successfully brought forward by the Calvinists, and Frederick V.  was
+chosen king by the Assembly at Prague, amidst prayers and tears of joy.
+
+The whole proceedings of the Diet at Prague had been premeditated, and
+Frederick himself had taken too active a share in the matter to feel at
+all surprised at the offer made to him by the Bohemians.  But now the
+immediate glitter of this throne dazzled him, and the magnitude both of
+his elevation and his delinquency made his weak mind to tremble.  After
+the usual manner of pusillanimous spirits, he sought to confirm himself
+in his purpose by the opinions of others; but these opinions had no
+weight with him when they ran counter to his own cherished wishes.
+Saxony and Bavaria, of whom he sought advice, all his brother electors,
+all who compared the magnitude of the design with his capacities and
+resources, warned him of the danger into which he was about to rush.
+Even King James of England preferred to see his son-in-law deprived of
+this crown, than that the sacred majesty of kings should be outraged by
+so dangerous a precedent.  But of what avail was the voice of prudence
+against the seductive glitter of a crown? In the moment of boldest
+determination, when they are indignantly rejecting the consecrated
+branch of a race which had governed them for two centuries, a free
+people throws itself into his arms.  Confiding in his courage, they
+choose him as their leader in the dangerous career of glory and liberty.
+To him, as to its born champion, an oppressed religion looks for shelter
+and support against its persecutors.  Could he have the weakness to
+listen to his fears, and to betray the cause of religion and liberty?
+This religion proclaims to him its own preponderance, and the weakness
+of its rival,--two-thirds of the power of Austria are now in arms
+against Austria itself, while a formidable confederacy, already formed
+in Transylvania, would, by a hostile attack, further distract even the
+weak remnant of its power.  Could inducements such as these fail to
+awaken his ambition, or such hopes to animate and inflame his
+resolution?
+
+A few moments of calm consideration would have sufficed to show the
+danger of the undertaking, and the comparative worthlessness of the
+prize.  But the temptation spoke to his feelings; the warning only to
+his reason.  It was his misfortune that his nearest and most influential
+counsellors espoused the side of his passions.  The aggrandizement of
+their master's power opened to the ambition and avarice of his Palatine
+servants an unlimited field for their gratification; this anticipated
+triumph of their church kindled the ardour of the Calvinistic fanatic.
+Could a mind so weak as that of Ferdinand resist the delusions of his
+counsellors, who exaggerated his resources and his strength, as much as
+they underrated those of his enemies; or the exhortations of his
+preachers, who announced the effusions of their fanatical zeal as the
+immediate inspiration of heaven? The dreams of astrology filled his mind
+with visionary hopes; even love conspired, with its irresistible
+fascination, to complete the seduction.  "Had you," demanded the
+Electress, "confidence enough in yourself to accept the hand of a king's
+daughter, and have you misgivings about taking a crown which is
+voluntarily offered you? I would rather eat bread at thy kingly table,
+than feast at thy electoral board."
+
+Frederick accepted the Bohemian crown.  The coronation was celebrated
+with unexampled pomp at Prague, for the nation displayed all its riches
+in honour of its own work.  Silesia and Moravia, the adjoining provinces
+to Bohemia, followed their example, and did homage to Frederick.  The
+reformed faith was enthroned in all the churches of the kingdom; the
+rejoicings were unbounded, their attachment to their new king bordered
+on adoration.  Denmark and Sweden, Holland and Venice, and several of
+the Dutch states, acknowledged him as lawful sovereign, and Frederick
+now prepared to maintain his new acquisition.
+
+His principal hopes rested on Prince Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania.
+This formidable enemy of Austria, and of the Roman Catholic church, not
+content with the principality which, with the assistance of the Turks,
+he had wrested from his legitimate prince, Gabriel Bathori, gladly
+seized this opportunity of aggrandizing himself at the expense of
+Austria, which had hesitated to acknowledge him as sovereign of
+Transylvania.  An attack upon Hungary and Austria was concerted with the
+Bohemian rebels, and both armies were to unite before the capital.
+Meantime, Bethlen Gabor, under the mask of friendship, disguised the
+true object of his warlike preparations, artfully promising the Emperor
+to lure the Bohemians into the toils, by a pretended offer of
+assistance, and to deliver up to him alive the leaders of the
+insurrection.  All at once, however, he appeared in a hostile attitude
+in Upper Hungary.  Before him went terror, and devastation behind; all
+opposition yielded, and at Presburg he received the Hungarian crown.
+The Emperor's brother, who governed in Vienna, trembled for the capital.
+He hastily summoned General Bucquoi to his assistance, and the retreat
+of the Imperialists drew the Bohemians, a second time, before the walls
+of Vienna.  Reinforced by twelve thousand Transylvanians, and soon after
+joined by the victorious army of Bethlen Gabor, they again menaced the
+capital with assault; all the country round Vienna was laid waste, the
+navigation of the Danube closed, all supplies cut off, and the horrors
+of famine were threatened.  Ferdinand, hastily recalled to his capital
+by this urgent danger, saw himself a second time on the brink of ruin.
+But want of provisions, and the inclement weather, finally compelled the
+Bohemians to go into quarters, a defeat in Hungary recalled Bethlen
+Gabor, and thus once more had fortune rescued the Emperor.
+
+In a few weeks the scene was changed, and by his prudence and activity
+Ferdinand improved his position as rapidly as Frederick, by indolence
+and impolicy, ruined his.  The Estates of Lower Austria were regained to
+their allegiance by a confirmation of their privileges; and the few who
+still held out were declared guilty of `lese-majeste' and high treason.
+During the election of Frankfort, he had contrived, by personal
+representations, to win over to his cause the ecclesiastical electors,
+and also Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, at Munich.  The whole issue of the
+war, the fate of Frederick and the Emperor, were now dependent on the
+part which the Union and the League should take in the troubles of
+Bohemia.  It was evidently of importance to all the Protestants of
+Germany that the King of Bohemia should be supported, while it was
+equally the interest of the Roman Catholics to prevent the ruin of the
+Emperor.  If the Protestants succeeded in Bohemia, all the Roman
+Catholic princes in Germany might tremble for their possessions; if they
+failed, the Emperor would give laws to Protestant Germany.  Thus
+Ferdinand put the League, Frederick the Union, in motion.  The ties of
+relationship and a personal attachment to the Emperor, his
+brother-in-law, with whom he had been educated at Ingolstadt, zeal for
+the Roman Catholic religion, which seemed to be in the most imminent
+peril, and the suggestions of the Jesuits, combined with the suspicious
+movements of the Union, moved the Duke of Bavaria, and all the princes
+of the League, to make the cause of Ferdinand their own.
+
+According to the terms of a treaty with the Emperor, which assured to
+the Duke of Bavaria compensation for all the expenses of the war, or the
+losses he might sustain, Maximilian took, with full powers, the command
+of the troops of the League, which were ordered to march to the
+assistance of the Emperor against the Bohemian rebels.  The leaders of
+the Union, instead of delaying by every means this dangerous coalition
+of the League with the Emperor, did every thing in their power to
+accelerate it.  Could they, they thought, but once drive the Roman
+Catholic League to take an open part in the Bohemian war, they might
+reckon on similar measures from all the members and allies of the Union.
+Without some open step taken by the Roman Catholics against the Union,
+no effectual confederacy of the Protestant powers was to be looked for.
+They seized, therefore, the present emergency of the troubles in Bohemia
+to demand from the Roman Catholics the abolition of their past
+grievances, and full security for the future exercise of their religion.
+They addressed this demand, which was moreover couched in threatening
+language, to the Duke of Bavaria, as the head of the Roman Catholics,
+and they insisted on an immediate and categorical answer.  Maximilian
+might decide for or against them, still their point was gained; his
+concession, if he yielded, would deprive the Roman Catholic party of its
+most powerful protector; his refusal would arm the whole Protestant
+party, and render inevitable a war in which they hoped to be the
+conquerors.  Maximilian, firmly attached to the opposite party from so
+many other considerations, took the demands of the Union as a formal
+declaration of hostilities, and quickened his preparations.  While
+Bavaria and the League were thus arming in the Emperor's cause,
+negotiations for a subsidy were opened with the Spanish court.  All the
+difficulties with which the indolent policy of that ministry met this
+demand were happily surmounted by the imperial ambassador at Madrid,
+Count Khevenhuller.  In addition to a subsidy of a million of florins,
+which from time to time were doled out by this court, an attack upon the
+Lower Palatinate, from the side of the Spanish Netherlands, was at the
+same time agreed upon.
+
+During these attempts to draw all the Roman Catholic powers into the
+League, every exertion was made against the counter-league of the
+Protestants.  To this end, it was important to alarm the Elector of
+Saxony and the other Evangelical powers, and accordingly the Union were
+diligent in propagating a rumour that the preparations of the League had
+for their object to deprive them of the ecclesiastical foundations they
+had secularized.  A written assurance to the contrary calmed the fears
+of the Duke of Saxony, whom moreover private jealousy of the Palatine,
+and the insinuations of his chaplain, who was in the pay of Austria, and
+mortification at having been passed over by the Bohemians in the
+election to the throne, strongly inclined to the side of Austria.  The
+fanaticism of the Lutherans could never forgive the reformed party for
+having drawn, as they expressed it, so many fair provinces into the gulf
+of Calvinism, and rejecting the Roman Antichrist only to make way for an
+Helvetian one.
+
+While Ferdinand used every effort to improve the unfavourable situation
+of his affairs, Frederick was daily injuring his good cause.  By his
+close and questionable connexion with the Prince of Transylvania, the
+open ally of the Porte, he gave offence to weak minds; and a general
+rumour accused him of furthering his own ambition at the expense of
+Christendom, and arming the Turks against Germany.  His inconsiderate
+zeal for the Calvinistic scheme irritated the Lutherans of Bohemia, his
+attacks on image-worship incensed the Papists of this kingdom against
+him.  New and oppressive imposts alienated the affections of all his
+subjects.  The disappointed hopes of the Bohemian nobles cooled their
+zeal; the absence of foreign succours abated their confidence.  Instead
+of devoting himself with untiring energies to the affairs of his
+kingdom, Frederick wasted his time in amusements; instead of filling his
+treasury by a wise economy, he squandered his revenues by a needless
+theatrical pomp, and a misplaced munificence.  With a light-minded
+carelessness, he did but gaze at himself in his new dignity, and in the
+ill-timed desire to enjoy his crown, he forgot the more pressing duty of
+securing it on his head.
+
+But greatly as men had erred in their opinion of him, Frederick himself
+had not less miscalculated his foreign resources.  Most of the members
+of the Union considered the affairs of Bohemia as foreign to the real
+object of their confederacy; others, who were devoted to him, were
+overawed by fear of the Emperor.  Saxony and Hesse Darmstadt had already
+been gained over by Ferdinand; Lower Austria, on which side a powerful
+diversion had been looked for, had made its submission to the Emperor;
+and Bethlen Gabor had concluded a truce with him.  By its embassies, the
+court of Vienna had induced Denmark to remain inactive, and to occupy
+Sweden in a war with the Poles.  The republic of Holland had enough to
+do to defend itself against the arms of the Spaniards; Venice and Saxony
+remained inactive; King James of England was overreached by the artifice
+of Spain.  One friend after another withdrew; one hope vanished after
+another--so rapidly in a few months was every thing changed.
+
+In the mean time, the leaders of the Union assembled an army;--the
+Emperor and the League did the same.  The troops of the latter were
+assembled under the banners of Maximilian at Donauwerth, those of the
+Union at Ulm, under the Margrave of Anspach.  The decisive moment seemed
+at length to have arrived which was to end these long dissensions by a
+vigorous blow, and irrevocably to settle the relation of the two
+churches in Germany.  Anxiously on the stretch was the expectation of
+both parties.  How great then was their astonishment when suddenly the
+intelligence of peace arrived, and both armies separated without
+striking a blow!
+
+The intervention of France effected this peace, which was equally
+acceptable to both parties.  The French cabinet, no longer swayed by the
+counsels of Henry the Great, and whose maxims of state were perhaps not
+applicable to the present condition of that kingdom, was now far less
+alarmed at the preponderance of Austria, than of the increase which
+would accrue to the strength of the Calvinists, if the Palatine house
+should be able to retain the throne of Bohemia.  Involved at the time in
+a dangerous conflict with its own Calvinistic subjects, it was of the
+utmost importance to France that the Protestant faction in Bohemia
+should be suppressed before the Huguenots could copy their dangerous
+example.  In order therefore to facilitate the Emperor's operations
+against the Bohemians, she offered her mediation to the Union and the
+League, and effected this unexpected treaty, of which the main article
+was, "That the Union should abandon all interference in the affairs of
+Bohemia, and confine the aid which they might afford to Frederick the
+Fifth, to his Palatine territories."  To this disgraceful treaty, the
+Union were moved by the firmness of Maximilian, and the fear of being
+pressed at once by the troops of the League, and a new Imperial army
+which was on its march from the Netherlands.
+
+The whole force of Bavaria and the League was now at the disposal of the
+Emperor to be employed against the Bohemians, who by the pacification of
+Ulm were abandoned to their fate.  With a rapid movement, and before a
+rumour of the proceedings at Ulm could reach there, Maximilian appeared
+in Upper Austria, when the Estates, surprised and unprepared for an
+enemy, purchased the Emperor's pardon by an immediate and unconditional
+submission.  In Lower Austria, the duke formed a junction with the
+troops from the Low Countries under Bucquoi, and without loss of time
+the united Imperial and Bavarian forces, amounting to 50,000 men,
+entered Bohemia.  All the Bohemian troops, which were dispersed over
+Lower Austria and Moravia, were driven before them; every town which
+attempted resistance was quickly taken by storm; others, terrified by
+the report of the punishment inflicted on these, voluntarily opened
+their gates; nothing in short interrupted the impetuous career of
+Maximilian.  The Bohemian army, commanded by the brave Prince Christian
+of Anhalt, retreated to the neighbourhood of Prague; where, under the
+walls of the city, Maximilian offered him battle.
+
+The wretched condition in which he hoped to surprise the insurgents,
+justified the rapidity of the duke's movements, and secured him the
+victory.  Frederick's army did not amount to 30,000 men.  Eight thousand
+of these were furnished by the Prince of Anhalt; 10,000 were Hungarians,
+whom Bethlen Gabor had despatched to his assistance.  An inroad of the
+Elector of Saxony upon Lusatia, had cut off all succours from that
+country, and from Silesia; the pacification of Austria put an end to all
+his expectations from that quarter; Bethlen Gabor, his most powerful
+ally, remained inactive in Transylvania; the Union had betrayed his
+cause to the Emperor.  Nothing remained to him but his Bohemians; and
+they were without goodwill to his cause, and without unity and courage.
+The Bohemian magnates were indignant that German generals should be put
+over their heads; Count Mansfeld remained in Pilsen, at a distance from
+the camp, to avoid the mortification of serving under Anhalt and
+Hohenlohe.  The soldiers, in want of necessaries, became dispirited; and
+the little discipline that was observed, gave occasion to bitter
+complaints from the peasantry.  It was in vain that Frederick made his
+appearance in the camp, in the hope of reviving the courage of the
+soldiers by his presence, and of kindling the emulation of the nobles by
+his example.
+
+The Bohemians had begun to entrench themselves on the White Mountain
+near Prague, when they were attacked by the Imperial and Bavarian
+armies, on the 8th November, 1620.  In the beginning of the action, some
+advantages were gained by the cavalry of the Prince of Anhalt; but the
+superior numbers of the enemy soon neutralized them.  The charge of the
+Bavarians and Walloons was irresistible.  The Hungarian cavalry was the
+first to retreat.  The Bohemian infantry soon followed their example;
+and the Germans were at last carried along with them in the general
+flight.  Ten cannons, composing the whole of Frederick's artillery, were
+taken by the enemy; four thousand Bohemians fell in the flight and on
+the field; while of the Imperialists and soldiers of the League only a
+few hundred were killed.  In less than an hour this decisive action was
+over.
+
+Frederick was seated at table in Prague, while his army was thus cut to
+pieces.  It is probable that he had not expected the attack on this day,
+since he had ordered an entertainment for it.  A messenger summoned him
+from table, to show him from the walls the whole frightful scene.  He
+requested a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours for
+deliberation; but eight was all the Duke of Bavaria would allow him.
+Frederick availed himself of these to fly by night from the capital,
+with his wife, and the chief officers of his army.  This flight was so
+hurried, that the Prince of Anhalt left behind him his most private
+papers, and Frederick his crown.  "I know now what I am," said this
+unfortunate prince to those who endeavoured to comfort him; "there are
+virtues which misfortune only can teach us, and it is in adversity alone
+that princes learn to know themselves."
+
+Prague was not irretrievably lost when Frederick's pusillanimity
+abandoned it.  The light troops of Mansfeld were still in Pilsen, and
+were not engaged in the action.  Bethlen Gabor might at any moment have
+assumed an offensive attitude, and drawn off the Emperor's army to the
+Hungarian frontier.  The defeated Bohemians might rally.  Sickness,
+famine, and the inclement weather, might wear out the enemy; but all
+these hopes disappeared before the immediate alarm.  Frederick dreaded
+the fickleness of the Bohemians, who might probably yield to the
+temptation to purchase, by the surrender of his person, the pardon of
+the Emperor.
+
+Thurn, and those of this party who were in the same condemnation with
+him, found it equally inexpedient to await their destiny within the
+walls of Prague.  They retired towards Moravia, with a view of seeking
+refuge in Transylvania.  Frederick fled to Breslau, where, however, he
+only remained a short time.  He removed from thence to the court of the
+Elector of Brandenburg, and finally took shelter in Holland.
+
+The battle of Prague had decided the fate of Bohemia.  Prague
+surrendered the next day to the victors; the other towns followed the
+example of the capital.  The Estates did homage without conditions, and
+the same was done by those of Silesia and Moravia.  The Emperor allowed
+three months to elapse, before instituting any inquiry into the past.
+Reassured by this apparent clemency, many who, at first, had fled in
+terror appeared again in the capital.  All at once, however, the storm
+burst forth; forty-eight of the most active among the insurgents were
+arrested on the same day and hour, and tried by an extraordinary
+commission, composed of native Bohemians and Austrians.  Of these,
+twenty-seven, and of the common people an immense number, expired on the
+scaffold.  The absenting offenders were summoned to appear to their
+trial, and failing to do so, condemned to death, as traitors and
+offenders against his Catholic Majesty, their estates confiscated, and
+their names affixed to the gallows.  The property also of the rebels who
+had fallen in the field was seized.  This tyranny might have been borne,
+as it affected individuals only, and while the ruin of one enriched
+another; but more intolerable was the oppression which extended to the
+whole kingdom, without exception.  All the Protestant preachers were
+banished from the country; the Bohemians first, and afterwards those of
+Germany.  The `Letter of Majesty', Ferdinand tore with his own hand, and
+burnt the seal.  Seven years after the battle of Prague, the toleration
+of the Protestant religion within the kingdom was entirely revoked.  But
+whatever violence the Emperor allowed himself against the religious
+privileges of his subjects, he carefully abstained from interfering with
+their political constitution; and while he deprived them of the liberty
+of thought, he magnanimously left them the prerogative of taxing
+themselves.
+
+The victory of the White Mountain put Ferdinand in possession of all his
+dominions.  It even invested him with greater authority over them than
+his predecessors enjoyed, since their allegiance had been
+unconditionally pledged to him, and no Letter of Majesty now existed to
+limit his sovereignty.  All his wishes were now gratified, to a degree
+surpassing his most sanguine expectations.
+
+It was now in his power to dismiss his allies, and disband his army.  If
+he was just, there was an end of the war--if he was both magnanimous and
+just, punishment was also at an end.  The fate of Germany was in his
+hands; the happiness and misery of millions depended on the resolution
+he should take.  Never was so great a decision resting on a single mind;
+never did the blindness of one man produce so much ruin.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Book II.
+
+
+
+ The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new
+direction, a new scene, and new actors.  From a rebellion in Bohemia,
+and the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany, and
+afterwards to Europe.  It is, therefore, necessary to take a general
+survey of the state of affairs both in Germany and the rest of Europe.
+
+Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members
+were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, neither
+party could hope to maintain itself against the encroachments of its
+adversary otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages,
+and by a politic union among themselves.  If the Roman Catholics were
+the more numerous party, and more favoured by the constitution of the
+empire, the Protestants, on the other hand, had the advantage of
+possessing a more compact and populous line of territories, valiant
+princes, a warlike nobility, numerous armies, flourishing free towns,
+the command of the sea, and even at the worst, certainty of support from
+Roman Catholic states.  If the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy in
+their favour, the republics of Venice, Holland, and England, opened
+their treasures to the Protestants, while the states of the North and
+the formidable power of Turkey, stood ready to afford them prompt
+assistance.  Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatinate, opposed three
+Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes in the Electoral College; while
+to the Elector of Bohemia, as to the Archduke of Austria, the possession
+of the Imperial dignity was an important check, if the Protestants
+properly availed themselves of it.  The sword of the Union might keep
+within its sheath the sword of the League; or if matters actually came
+to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful.  But, unfortunately,
+private interests dissolved the band of union which should have held
+together the Protestant members of the empire.  This critical
+conjuncture found none but second-rate actors on the political stage,
+and the decisive moment was neglected because the courageous were
+deficient in power, and the powerful in sagacity, courage, and
+resolution.
+
+The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants,
+by the services of his ancestor Maurice, by the extent of his
+territories, and by the influence of his electoral vote.  Upon the
+resolution he might adopt, the fate of the contending parties seemed to
+depend; and John George was not insensible to the advantages which this
+important situation procured him.  Equally valuable as an ally, both to
+the Emperor and to the Protestant Union, he cautiously avoided
+committing himself to either party; neither trusting himself by any
+irrevocable declaration entirely to the gratitude of the Emperor, nor
+renouncing the advantages which were to be gained from his fears.
+Uninfected by the contagion of religious and romantic enthusiasm which
+hurried sovereign after sovereign to risk both crown and life on the
+hazard of war, John George aspired to the more solid renown of improving
+and advancing the interests of his territories.  His cotemporaries
+accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause in the very midst of the
+storm; of preferring the aggrandizement of his house to the emancipation
+of his country; of exposing the whole Evangelical or Lutheran church of
+Germany to ruin, rather than raise an arm in defence of the Reformed or
+Calvinists; of injuring the common cause by his suspicious friendship
+more seriously than the open enmity of its avowed opponents.  But it
+would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy of the
+Elector.  If, despite of the prudent policy, the Saxons, like all
+others, groaned at the cruelties which marked the Emperor's progress; if
+all Germany was a witness how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and
+trifled with his engagements; if even the Elector himself at last
+perceived this--the more shame to the Emperor who could so basely betray
+such implicit confidence.
+
+If an excessive reliance on the Emperor, and the hope of enlarging his
+territories, tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony, the weak George
+William, Elector of Brandenburg, was still more shamefully fettered by
+fear of Austria, and of the loss of his dominions.  What was made a
+reproach against these princes would have preserved to the Elector
+Palatine his fame and his kingdom.  A rash confidence in his untried
+strength, the influence of French counsels, and the temptation of a
+crown, had seduced that unfortunate prince into an enterprise for which
+he had neither adequate genius nor political capacity.  The partition of
+his territories among discordant princes, enfeebled the Palatinate,
+which, united, might have made a longer resistance.
+
+This partition of territory was equally injurious to the House of Hesse,
+in which, between Darmstadt and Cassel, religious dissensions had
+occasioned a fatal division.  The line of Darmstadt, adhering to the
+Confession of Augsburg, had placed itself under the Emperor's
+protection, who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel.
+While his religious confederates were shedding their blood for their
+faith and their liberties, the Landgrave of Darmstadt was won over by
+the Emperor's gold.  But William of Cassel, every way worthy of his
+ancestor who, a century before, had defended the freedom of Germany
+against the formidable Charles V., espoused the cause of danger and of
+honour.  Superior to that pusillanimity which made far more powerful
+princes bow before Ferdinand's might, the Landgrave William was the
+first to join the hero of Sweden, and to set an example to the princes
+of Germany which all had hesitated to begin.  The boldness of his
+resolve was equalled by the steadfastness of his perseverance and the
+valour of his exploits.  He placed himself with unshrinking resolution
+before his bleeding country, and boldly confronted the fearful enemy,
+whose hands were still reeking from the carnage of Magdeburg.
+
+The Landgrave William deserves to descend to immortality with the heroic
+race of Ernest.  Thy day of vengeance was long delayed, unfortunate John
+Frederick!  Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince! Slowly but brightly it
+broke.  Thy times returned, and thy heroic spirit descended on thy
+grandson.  An intrepid race of princes issues from the Thuringian
+forests, to shame, by immortal deeds, the unjust sentence which robbed
+thee of the electoral crown--to avenge thy offended shade by heaps of
+bloody sacrifice.  The sentence of the conqueror could deprive thee of
+thy territories, but not that spirit of patriotism which staked them,
+nor that chivalrous courage which, a century afterwards, was destined to
+shake the throne of his descendant.  Thy vengeance and that of Germany
+whetted the sacred sword, and one heroic hand after the other wielded
+the irresistible steel.  As men, they achieved what as sovereigns they
+dared not undertake; they met in a glorious cause as the valiant
+soldiers of liberty.  Too weak in territory to attack the enemy with
+their own forces, they directed foreign artillery against them, and led
+foreign banners to victory.
+
+The liberties of Germany, abandoned by the more powerful states, who,
+however, enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them, were
+defended by a few princes for whom they were almost without value.  The
+possession of territories and dignities deadened courage; the want of
+both made heroes.  While Saxony, Brandenburg, and the rest drew back in
+terror, Anhalt, Mansfeld, the Prince of Weimar and others were shedding
+their blood in the field.  The Dukes of Pomerania, Mecklenburg,
+Luneburg, and Wirtemberg, and the free cities of Upper Germany, to whom
+the name of EMPEROR was of course a formidable one, anxiously avoided a
+contest with such an opponent, and crouched murmuring beneath his mighty
+arm.
+
+Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria a
+champion as prudent as he was powerful.  Adhering throughout the war to
+one fixed plan, never divided between his religion and his political
+interests; not the slavish dependent of Austria, who was labouring for
+HIS advancement, and trembled before her powerful protector, Maximilian
+earned the territories and dignities that rewarded his exertions.  The
+other Roman Catholic states, which were chiefly Ecclesiastical, too
+unwarlike to resist the multitudes whom the prosperity of their
+territories allured, became the victims of the war one after another,
+and were contented to persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit, the
+enemy whom they could not openly oppose in the field.  All of them,
+slaves either to Austria or Bavaria, sunk into insignificance by the
+side of Maximilian; in his hand alone their united power could be
+rendered available.
+
+The formidable monarchy which Charles V.  and his son had unnaturally
+constructed of the Netherlands, Milan, and the two Sicilies, and their
+distant possessions in the East and West Indies, was under Philip III.
+and Philip IV.  fast verging to decay.  Swollen to a sudden greatness by
+unfruitful gold, this power was now sinking under a visible decline,
+neglecting, as it did, agriculture, the natural support of states.  The
+conquests in the West Indies had reduced Spain itself to poverty, while
+they enriched the markets of Europe; the bankers of Antwerp, Venice, and
+Genoa, were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the
+mines of Peru.  For the sake of India, Spain had been depopulated, while
+the treasures drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of
+Holland, in the chimerical project of changing the succession to the
+crown of France, and in an unfortunate attack upon England.  But the
+pride of this court had survived its greatness, as the hate of its
+enemies had outlived its power.  Distrust of the Protestants suggested
+to the ministry of Philip III.  the dangerous policy of his father; and
+the reliance of the Roman Catholics in Germany on Spanish assistance,
+was as firm as their belief in the wonder-working bones of the martyrs.
+External splendour concealed the inward wounds at which the life-blood
+of this monarchy was oozing; and the belief of its strength survived,
+because it still maintained the lofty tone of its golden days.  Slaves
+in their palaces, and strangers even upon their own thrones, the Spanish
+nominal kings still gave laws to their German relations; though it is
+very doubtful if the support they afforded was worth the dependence by
+which the emperors purchased it.  The fate of Europe was decided behind
+the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive favourites.  Yet, even in
+its debasement, a power must always be formidable, which yields to none
+in extent; which, from custom, if not from the steadfastness of its
+views, adhered faithfully to one system of policy; which possessed
+well-disciplined armies and consummate generals; which, where the sword
+failed, did not scruple to employ the dagger; and converted even its
+ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins.  What it had lost in three
+quarters of the globe, it now sought to regain to the eastward, and all
+Europe was at its mercy, if it could succeed in its long cherished
+design of uniting with the hereditary dominions of Austria all that lay
+between the Alps and the Adriatic.
+
+To the great alarm of the native states, this formidable power had
+gained a footing in Italy, where its continual encroachments made the
+neighbouring sovereigns to tremble for their own possessions.  The Pope
+himself was in the most dangerous situation; hemmed in on both sides by
+the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side, and that of Milan upon
+the other.  Venice was confined between the Austrian Tyrol and the
+Spanish territories in Milan.  Savoy was surrounded by the latter and
+France.  Hence the wavering and equivocal policy, which from the time of
+Charles V.  had been pursued by the Italian States.  The double
+character which pertained to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate
+between two contradictory systems of policy.  If the successors of St.
+Peter found in the Spanish princes their most obedient disciples, and
+the most steadfast supporters of the Papal See, yet the princes of the
+States of the Church had in these monarchs their most dangerous
+neighbours, and most formidable opponents.  If, in the one capacity,
+their dearest wish was the destruction of the Protestants, and the
+triumph of Austria, in the other, they had reason to bless the arms of
+the Protestants, which disabled a dangerous enemy.  The one or the other
+sentiment prevailed, according as the love of temporal dominion, or zeal
+for spiritual supremacy, predominated in the mind of the Pope.  But the
+policy of Rome was, on the whole, directed to immediate dangers; and it
+is well known how far more powerful is the apprehension of losing a
+present good, than anxiety to recover a long lost possession.  And thus
+it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with Austria
+for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very
+heretics for the destruction of Austria.  Strangely blended are the
+threads of human affairs!  What would have become of the Reformation,
+and of the liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of
+Rome had had but one interest?
+
+France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its
+weight in the political balance of Europe.  A turbulent minority had
+destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry.
+Incapable ministers, the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a
+few years the treasures which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had
+amassed.  Scarce able to maintain their ground against internal
+factions, they were compelled to resign to other hands the helm of
+European affairs.  The same civil war which armed Germany against
+itself, excited a similar commotion in France; and Louis XIII.  attained
+majority only to wage a war with his own mother and his Protestant
+subjects.  This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry's enlightened
+policy, now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under the
+command of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a
+party within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of
+Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom.  Too little of a
+statesman to suppress, by a prudent toleration, this civil commotion in
+its birth, and too little master of the resources of his kingdom to
+direct them with energy, Louis XIII.  was reduced to the degradation of
+purchasing the submission of the rebels by large sums of money.  Though
+policy might incline him, in one point of view, to assist the Bohemian
+insurgents against Austria, the son of Henry the Fourth was now
+compelled to be an inactive spectator of their destruction, happy enough
+if the Calvinists in his own dominions did not unseasonably bethink them
+of their confederates beyond the Rhine.  A great mind at the helm of
+state would have reduced the Protestants in France to obedience, while
+it employed them to fight for the independence of their German brethren.
+But Henry IV.  was no more, and Richelieu had not yet revived his system
+of policy.
+
+While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated
+republic of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness.  The
+enthusiastic courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the House
+of Orange, had converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes,
+and had enabled them to maintain their independence in a bloody war
+against the Spanish monarchy.  Aware how much they owed their own
+liberty to foreign support, these republicans were ready to assist their
+German brethren in a similar cause, and the more so, as both were
+opposed to the same enemy, and the liberty of Germany was the best
+warrant for that of Holland.  But a republic which had still to battle
+for its very existence, which, with all its wonderful exertions, was
+scarce a match for the formidable enemy within its own territories,
+could not be expected to withdraw its troops from the necessary work of
+self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous policy in protecting
+foreign states.
+
+England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed, under
+the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe which the
+governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it.  Convinced that the
+welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants,
+this politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting
+every enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian
+power.  Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend, than
+of vigour to execute, her views.  While the economical Elizabeth spared
+not her treasures to support the Flemings against Spain, and Henry IV.
+against the League, James abandoned his daughter, his son-in-law, and
+his grandchild, to the fury of their enemies.  While he exhausted his
+learning to establish the divine right of kings, he allowed his own
+dignity to sink into the dust; while he exerted his rhetoric to prove
+the absolute authority of kings, he reminded the people of theirs; and
+by a useless profusion, sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights--
+that of dispensing with his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of
+its organ.  An innate horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him
+from the most just of wars; while his favourite Buckingham practised on
+his weakness, and his own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of
+Spanish artifice.  While his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance
+of his grandson given to others, this weak prince was imbibing, with
+satisfaction, the incense which was offered to him by Austria and Spain.
+To divert his attention from the German war, he was amused with the
+proposal of a Spanish marriage for his son, and the ridiculous parent
+encouraged the romantic youth in the foolish project of paying his
+addresses in person to the Spanish princess.  But his son lost his
+bride, as his son-in-law lost the crown of Bohemia and the Palatine
+Electorate; and death alone saved him from the danger of closing his
+pacific reign by a war at home, which he never had courage to maintain,
+even at a distance.
+
+The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited
+burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some
+unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the
+German war, in order to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.
+
+Two illustrious monarchs, far unequal in personal reputation, but equal
+in power and desire of fame, made the North at this time to be
+respected.  Under the long and active reign of Christian IV., Denmark
+had risen into importance.  The personal qualifications of this prince,
+an excellent navy, a formidable army, well-ordered finances, and prudent
+alliances, had combined to give her prosperity at home and influence
+abroad.  Gustavus Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage, reformed it by
+wise laws, and had introduced, for the first time, this newly-organized
+state into the field of European politics.  What this great prince had
+merely sketched in rude outline, was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus, his
+still greater grandson.
+
+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.
+
+As a step towards this end, Wallenstein now demanded the cession of
+Mecklenburg, to be held in pledge till the repayment of his advances for
+the war.  Ferdinand had already created him Duke of Friedland,
+apparently with the view of exalting his own general over Bavaria; but
+an ordinary recompense would not satisfy Wallenstein's ambition.  In
+vain was this new demand, which could be granted only at the expense of
+two princes of the empire, actively resisted in the Imperial Council; in
+vain did the Spaniards, who had long been offended by his pride, oppose
+his elevation.  The powerful support which Wallenstein had purchased
+from the imperial councillors prevailed, and Ferdinand was determined,
+at whatever cost, to secure the devotion of so indispensable a minister.
+For a slight offence, one of the oldest German houses was expelled from
+their hereditary dominions, that a creature of the Emperor might be
+enriched by their spoils (1628).
+
+Wallenstein now began to assume the title of generalissimo of the
+Emperor by sea and land.  Wismar was taken, and a firm footing gained on
+the Baltic.  Ships were required from Poland and the Hanse towns to
+carry the war to the other side of the Baltic; to pursue the Danes into
+the heart of their own country, and to compel them to a peace which
+might prepare the way to more important conquests.  The communication
+between the Lower German States and the Northern powers would be broken,
+could the Emperor place himself between them, and encompass Germany,
+from the Adriatic to the Sound, (the intervening kingdom of Poland being
+already dependent on him,) with an unbroken line of territory.  If such
+was the Emperor's plan, Wallenstein had a peculiar interest in its
+execution.  These possessions on the Baltic should, he intended, form
+the first foundation of a power, which had long been the object of his
+ambition, and which should enable him to throw off his dependence on the
+Emperor.
+
+To effect this object, it was of extreme importance to gain possession
+of Stralsund, a town on the Baltic.  Its excellent harbour, and the
+short passage from it to the Swedish and Danish coasts, peculiarly
+fitted it for a naval station in a war with these powers.  This town,
+the sixth of the Hanseatic League, enjoyed great privileges under the
+Duke of Pomerania, and totally independent of Denmark, had taken no
+share in the war.  But neither its neutrality, nor its privileges, could
+protect it against the encroachments of Wallenstein, when he had once
+cast a longing look upon it.
+
+The request he made, that Stralsund should receive an imperial garrison,
+had been firmly and honourably rejected by the magistracy, who also
+refused his cunningly demanded permission to march his troops through
+the town, Wallenstein, therefore, now proposed to besiege it.
+
+The independence of Stralsund, as securing the free navigation of the
+Baltic, was equally important to the two Northern kings.  A common
+danger overcame at last the private jealousies which had long divided
+these princes.  In a treaty concluded at Copenhagen in 1628, they bound
+themselves to assist Stralsund with their combined force, and to oppose
+in common every foreign power which should appear in the Baltic with
+hostile views.  Christian IV.  also threw a sufficient garrison into
+Stralsund, and by his personal presence animated the courage of the
+citizens.  Some ships of war which Sigismund, King of Poland, had sent
+to the assistance of the imperial general, were sunk by the Danish
+fleet; and as Lubeck refused him the use of its shipping, this imperial
+generalissimo of the sea had not even ships enough to blockade this
+single harbour.
+
+Nothing could appear more adventurous than to attempt the conquest of a
+strongly fortified seaport without first blockading its harbour.
+Wallenstein, however, who as yet had never experienced a check, wished
+to conquer nature itself, and to perform impossibilities.  Stralsund,
+open to the sea, continued to be supplied with provisions and
+reinforcements; yet Wallenstein maintained his blockade on the land
+side, and endeavoured, by boasting menaces, to supply his want of real
+strength.  "I will take this town," said he, "though it were fastened by
+a chain to the heavens."  The Emperor himself, who might have cause to
+regret an enterprise which promised no very glorious result, joyfully
+availed himself of the apparent submission and acceptable propositions
+of the inhabitants, to order the general to retire from the town.
+Wallenstein despised the command, and continued to harass the besieged
+by incessant assaults.  As the Danish garrison, already much reduced,
+was unequal to the fatigues of this prolonged defence, and the king was
+unable to detach any further troops to their support, Stralsund, with
+Christian's consent, threw itself under the protection of the King of
+Sweden.  The Danish commander left the town to make way for a Swedish
+governor, who gloriously defended it.  Here Wallenstein's good fortune
+forsook him; and, for the first time, his pride experienced the
+humiliation of relinquishing his prey, after the loss of many months and
+of 12,000 men.  The necessity to which he reduced the town of applying
+for protection to Sweden, laid the foundation of a close alliance
+between Gustavus Adolphus and Stralsund, which greatly facilitated the
+entrance of the Swedes into Germany.
+
+Hitherto invariable success had attended the arms of the Emperor and the
+League, and Christian IV., defeated in Germany, had sought refuge in his
+own islands; but the Baltic checked the further progress of the
+conquerors.  The want of ships not only stopped the pursuit of the king,
+but endangered their previous acquisitions.  The union of the two
+northern monarchs was most to be dreaded, because, so long as it lasted,
+it effectually prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a
+footing on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden.  But if they
+could succeed in dissolving this union, and especially securing the
+friendship of the Danish king, they might hope to overpower the
+insulated force of Sweden.  The dread of the interference of foreign
+powers, the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states, and
+still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole of
+Protestant Germany, inclined the Emperor to peace, which his general,
+from opposite motives, was equally desirous to effect.  Far from wishing
+for a state of things which would reduce him from the meridian of
+greatness and glory to the obscurity of private life, he only wished to
+change the theatre of war, and by a partial peace to prolong the general
+confusion.  The friendship of Denmark, whose neighbour he had become as
+Duke of Mecklenburgh, was most important for the success of his
+ambitious views; and he resolved, even at the sacrifice of his
+sovereign's interests, to secure its alliance.
+
+By the treaty of Copenhagen, Christian IV.  had expressly engaged not to
+conclude a separate peace with the Emperor, without the consent of
+Sweden.  Notwithstanding, Wallenstein's proposition was readily received
+by him.  In a conference at Lubeck in 1629, from which Wallenstein, with
+studied contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors who came to intercede
+for Mecklenburgh, all the conquests taken by the imperialists were
+restored to the Danes.  The conditions imposed upon the king were, that
+he should interfere no farther with the affairs of Germany than was
+called for by his character of Duke of Holstein; that he should on no
+pretext harass the Chapters of Lower Germany, and should leave the Dukes
+of Mecklenburgh to their fate.  By Christian himself had these princes
+been involved in the war with the Emperor; he now sacrificed them, to
+gain the favour of the usurper of their territories.  Among the motives
+which had engaged him in a war with the Emperor, not the least was the
+restoration of his relation, the Elector Palatine--yet the name of that
+unfortunate prince was not even mentioned in the treaty; while in one of
+its articles the legitimacy of the Bavarian election was expressly
+recognised.  Thus meanly and ingloriously did Christian IV.  retire from
+the field.
+
+Ferdinand had it now in his power, for the second time, to secure the
+tranquillity of Germany; and it depended solely on his will whether the
+treaty with Denmark should or should not be the basis of a general
+peace.  From every quarter arose the cry of the unfortunate, petitioning
+for an end of their sufferings; the cruelties of his soldiers, and the
+rapacity of his generals, had exceeded all bounds.  Germany, laid waste
+by the desolating bands of Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick, and by
+the still more terrible hordes of Tilly and Wallenstein, lay exhausted,
+bleeding, wasted, and sighing for repose.  An anxious desire for peace
+was felt by all conditions, and by the Emperor himself; involved as he
+was in a war with France in Upper Italy, exhausted by his past warfare
+in Germany, and apprehensive of the day of reckoning which was
+approaching.  But, unfortunately, the conditions on which alone the two
+religious parties were willing respectively to sheath the sword, were
+irreconcileable.  The Roman Catholics wished to terminate the war to
+their own advantage; the Protestants advanced equal pretensions.  The
+Emperor, instead of uniting both parties by a prudent moderation, sided
+with one; and thus Germany was again plunged in the horrors of a bloody
+war.
+
+From the very close of the Bohemian troubles, Ferdinand had carried on a
+counter reformation in his hereditary dominions, in which, however, from
+regard to some of the Protestant Estates, he proceeded, at first, with
+moderation.  But the victories of his generals in Lower Germany
+encouraged him to throw off all reserve.  Accordingly he had it
+intimated to all the Protestants in these dominions, that they must
+either abandon their religion, or their native country,--a bitter and
+dreadful alternative, which excited the most violent commotions among
+his Austrian subjects.  In the Palatinate, immediately after the
+expulsion of Frederick, the Protestant religion had been suppressed, and
+its professors expelled from the University of Heidelberg.
+
+All this was but the prelude to greater changes.  In the Electoral
+Congress held at Muehlhausen, the Roman Catholics had demanded of the
+Emperor that all the archbishoprics, bishoprics, mediate and immediate,
+abbacies and monasteries, which, since the Diet of Augsburg, had been
+secularized by the Protestants, should be restored to the church, in
+order to indemnify them for the losses and sufferings in the war.  To a
+Roman Catholic prince so zealous as Ferdinand was, such a hint was not
+likely to be neglected; but he still thought it would be premature to
+arouse the whole Protestants of Germany by so decisive a step.  Not a
+single Protestant prince but would be deprived, by this revocation of
+the religious foundations, of a part of his lands; for where these
+revenues had not actually been diverted to secular purposes they had
+been made over to the Protestant church.  To this source, many princes
+owed the chief part of their revenues and importance.  All, without
+exception, would be irritated by this demand for restoration.  The
+religious treaty did not expressly deny their right to these chapters,
+although it did not allow it.  But a possession which had now been held
+for nearly a century, the silence of four preceding emperors, and the
+law of equity, which gave them an equal right with the Roman Catholics
+to the foundations of their common ancestors, might be strongly pleaded
+by them as a valid title.  Besides the actual loss of power and
+authority, which the surrender of these foundations would occasion,
+besides the inevitable confusion which would necessarily attend it, one
+important disadvantage to which it would lead, was, that the restoration
+of the Roman Catholic bishops would increase the strength of that party
+in the Diet by so many additional votes.  Such grievous sacrifices
+likely to fall on the Protestants, made the Emperor apprehensive of a
+formidable opposition; and until the military ardour should have cooled
+in Germany, he had no wish to provoke a party formidable by its union,
+and which in the Elector of Saxony had a powerful leader.  He resolved,
+therefore, to try the experiment at first on a small scale, in order to
+ascertain how it was likely to succeed on a larger one.  Accordingly,
+some of the free cities in Upper Germany, and the Duke of Wirtemberg,
+received orders to surrender to the Roman Catholics several of the
+confiscated chapters.
+
+The state of affairs in Saxony enabled the Emperor to make some bolder
+experiments in that quarter.  In the bishoprics of Magdeburg and
+Halberstadt, the Protestant canons had not hesitated to elect bishops of
+their own religion.  Both bishoprics, with the exception of the town of
+Magdeburg itself, were overrun by the troops of Wallenstein.  It
+happened, moreover, that by the death of the Administrator Duke
+Christian of Brunswick, Halberstadt was vacant, as was also the
+Archbishopric of Magdeburg by the deposition of Christian William, a
+prince of the House of Brandenburgh.  Ferdinand took advantage of the
+circumstance to restore the see of Halberstadt to a Roman Catholic
+bishop, and a prince of his own house.  To avoid a similar coercion, the
+Chapter of Magdeburg hastened to elect a son of the Elector of Saxony as
+archbishop.  But the pope, who with his arrogated authority interfered
+in this matter, conferred the Archbishopric of Magdeburg also on the
+Austrian prince.  Thus, with all his pious zeal for religion, Ferdinand
+never lost sight of the interests of his family.
+
+At length, when the peace of Lubeck had delivered the Emperor from all
+apprehensions on the side of Denmark, and the German Protestants seemed
+entirely powerless, the League becoming louder and more urgent in its
+demands, Ferdinand, in 1629, signed the Edict of Restitution, (so famous
+by its disastrous consequences,) which he had previously laid before the
+four Roman Catholic electors for their approbation.  In the preamble, he
+claimed the prerogative, in right of his imperial authority, to
+interpret the meaning of the religious treaty, the ambiguities of which
+had already caused so many disputes, and to decide as supreme arbiter
+and judge between the contending parties.  This prerogative he founded
+upon the practice of his ancestors, and its previous recognition even by
+Protestant states.  Saxony had actually acknowledged this right of the
+Emperor; and it now became evident how deeply this court had injured the
+Protestant cause by its dependence on the House of Austria.  But though
+the meaning of the religious treaty was really ambiguous, as a century
+of religious disputes sufficiently proved, yet for the Emperor, who must
+be either a Protestant or a Roman Catholic, and therefore an interested
+party, to assume the right of deciding between the disputants, was
+clearly a violation of an essential article of the pacification.  He
+could not be judge in his own cause, without reducing the liberties of
+the empire to an empty sound.
+
+And now, in virtue of this usurpation, Ferdinand decided, "That every
+secularization of a religious foundation, mediate or immediate, by the
+Protestants, subsequent to the date of the treaty, was contrary to its
+spirit, and must be revoked as a breach of it." He further decided,
+"That, by the religious peace, Catholic proprietors of estates were no
+further bound to their Protestant subjects than to allow them full
+liberty to quit their territories." In obedience to this decision, all
+unlawful possessors of benefices--the Protestant states in short
+without exception--were ordered, under pain of the ban of the empire,
+immediately to surrender their usurped possessions to the imperial
+commissioners.
+
+This sentence applied to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve
+bishoprics, besides innumerable abbacies.  The edict came like a
+thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany; dreadful even in its
+immediate consequences; but yet more so from the further calamities it
+seemed to threaten.  The Protestants were now convinced that the
+suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and
+the League, and that the overthrow of German liberty would soon follow.
+Their remonstrances were unheeded; the commissioners were named, and an
+army assembled to enforce obedience.  The edict was first put in force
+in Augsburg, where the treaty was concluded; the city was again placed
+under the government of its bishop, and six Protestant churches in the
+town were closed.  The Duke of Wirtemberg was, in like manner, compelled
+to surrender his abbacies.  These severe measures, though they alarmed
+the Protestant states, were yet insufficient to rouse them to an active
+resistance.  Their fear of the Emperor was too strong, and many were
+disposed to quiet submission.  The hope of attaining their end by gentle
+measures, induced the Roman Catholics likewise to delay for a year the
+execution of the edict, and this saved the Protestants; before the end
+of that period, the success of the Swedish arms had totally changed the
+state of affairs.
+
+In a Diet held at Ratisbon, at which Ferdinand was present in person (in
+1630), the necessity of taking some measures for the immediate
+restoration of a general peace to Germany, and for the removal of all
+grievances, was debated.  The complaints of the Roman Catholics were
+scarcely less numerous than those of the Protestants, although Ferdinand
+had flattered himself that by the Edict of Restitution he had secured
+the members of the League, and its leader by the gift of the electoral
+dignity, and the cession of great part of the Palatinate.  But the good
+understanding between the Emperor and the princes of the League had
+rapidly declined since the employment of Wallenstein.  Accustomed to
+give law to Germany, and even to sway the Emperor's own destiny, the
+haughty Elector of Bavaria now at once saw himself supplanted by the
+imperial general, and with that of the League, his own importance
+completely undermined.  Another had now stepped in to reap the fruits of
+his victories, and to bury his past services in oblivion.  Wallenstein's
+imperious character, whose dearest triumph was in degrading the
+authority of the princes, and giving an odious latitude to that of the
+Emperor, tended not a little to augment the irritation of the Elector.
+Discontented with the Emperor, and distrustful of his intentions, he had
+entered into an alliance with France, which the other members of the
+League were suspected of favouring.  A fear of the Emperor's plans of
+aggrandizement, and discontent with existing evils, had extinguished
+among them all feelings of gratitude.  Wallenstein's exactions had
+become altogether intolerable.  Brandenburg estimated its losses at
+twenty, Pomerania at ten, Hesse Cassel at seven millions of dollars, and
+the rest in proportion.  The cry for redress was loud, urgent, and
+universal; all prejudices were hushed; Roman Catholics and Protestants
+were united on this point.  The terrified Emperor was assailed on all
+sides by petitions against Wallenstein, and his ear filled with the most
+fearful descriptions of his outrages.  Ferdinand was not naturally
+cruel.  If not totally innocent of the atrocities which were practised
+in Germany under the shelter of his name, he was ignorant of their
+extent; and he was not long in yielding to the representation of the
+princes, and reduced his standing army by eighteen thousand cavalry.
+While this reduction took place, the Swedes were actively preparing an
+expedition into Germany, and the greater part of the disbanded
+Imperialists enlisted under their banners.
+
+The Emperor's concessions only encouraged the Elector of Bavaria to
+bolder demands.  So long as the Duke of Friedland retained the supreme
+command, his triumph over the Emperor was incomplete.  The princes of
+the League were meditating a severe revenge on Wallenstein for that
+haughtiness with which he had treated them all alike.  His dismissal was
+demanded by the whole college of electors, and even by Spain, with a
+degree of unanimity and urgency which astonished the Emperor.  The
+anxiety with which Wallenstein's enemies pressed for his dismissal,
+ought to have convinced the Emperor of the importance of his services.
+Wallenstein, informed of the cabals which were forming against him in
+Ratisbon, lost no time in opening the eyes of the Emperor to the real
+views of the Elector of Bavaria.  He himself appeared in Ratisbon, with
+a pomp which threw his master into the shade, and increased the hatred
+of his opponents.
+
+Long was the Emperor undecided.  The sacrifice demanded was a painful
+one.  To the Duke of Friedland alone he owed his preponderance; he felt
+how much he would lose in yielding him to the indignation of the
+princes.  But at this moment, unfortunately, he was under the necessity
+of conciliating the Electors.  His son Ferdinand had already been chosen
+King of Hungary, and he was endeavouring to procure his election as his
+successor in the empire.  For this purpose, the support of Maximilian
+was indispensable.  This consideration was the weightiest, and to oblige
+the Elector of Bavaria he scrupled not to sacrifice his most valuable
+servant.
+
+At the Diet at Ratisbon, there were present ambassadors from France,
+empowered to adjust the differences which seemed to menace a war in
+Italy between the Emperor and their sovereign.  Vincent, Duke of Mantua
+and Montferrat, dying without issue, his next relation, Charles, Duke of
+Nevers, had taken possession of this inheritance, without doing homage
+to the Emperor as liege lord of the principality.  Encouraged by the
+support of France and Venice, he refused to surrender these territories
+into the hands of the imperial commissioners, until his title to them
+should be decided.  On the other hand, Ferdinand had taken up arms at
+the instigation of the Spaniards, to whom, as possessors of Milan, the
+near neighbourhood of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming, and
+who welcomed this prospect of making, with the assistance of the
+Emperor, additional conquests in Italy.  In spite of all the exertions
+of Pope Urban VIII.  to avert a war in that country, Ferdinand marched a
+German army across the Alps, and threw the Italian states into a general
+consternation.  His arms had been successful throughout Germany, and
+exaggerated fears revived the olden apprehension of Austria's projects
+of universal monarchy.  All the horrors of the German war now spread
+like a deluge over those favoured countries which the Po waters; Mantua
+was taken by storm, and the surrounding districts given up to the
+ravages of a lawless soldiery.  The curse of Italy was thus added to the
+maledictions upon the Emperor which resounded through Germany; and even
+in the Roman Conclave, silent prayers were offered for the success of
+the Protestant arms.
+
+Alarmed by the universal hatred which this Italian campaign had drawn
+upon him, and wearied out by the urgent remonstrances of the Electors,
+who zealously supported the application of the French ambassador, the
+Emperor promised the investiture to the new Duke of Mantua.
+
+This important service on the part of Bavaria, of course, required an
+equivalent from France.  The adjustment of the treaty gave the envoys of
+Richelieu, during their residence in Ratisbon, the desired opportunity
+of entangling the Emperor in dangerous intrigues, of inflaming the
+discontented princes of the League still more strongly against him, and
+of turning to his disadvantage all the transactions of the Diet.  For
+this purpose Richelieu had chosen an admirable instrument in Father
+Joseph, a Capuchin friar, who accompanied the ambassadors without
+exciting the least suspicion.  One of his principal instructions was
+assiduously to bring about the dismissal of Wallenstein.  With the
+general who had led it to victory, the army of Austria would lose its
+principal strength; many armies could not compensate for the loss of
+this individual.  It would therefore be a masterstroke of policy, at the
+very moment when a victorious monarch, the absolute master of his
+operations, was arming against the Emperor, to remove from the head of
+the imperial armies the only general who, by ability and military
+experience, was able to cope with the French king.  Father Joseph, in
+the interests of Bavaria, undertook to overcome the irresolution of the
+Emperor, who was now in a manner besieged by the Spaniards and the
+Electoral Council.  "It would be expedient," he thought, "to gratify the
+Electors on this occasion, and thereby facilitate his son's election to
+the Roman Crown.  This object once gained, Wallenstein could at any time
+resume his former station."  The artful Capuchin was too sure of his man
+to touch upon this ground of consolation.
+
+The voice of a monk was to Ferdinand II.  the voice of God.  "Nothing on
+earth," writes his own confessor, "was more sacred in his eyes than a
+priest.  If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a Regular
+were to meet him at the same time and place, the Regular should receive
+his first, and the angel his second obeisance." Wallenstein's dismissal
+was determined upon.
+
+In return for this pious concession, the Capuchin dexterously
+counteracted the Emperor's scheme to procure for the King of Hungary the
+further dignity of King of the Romans.  In an express clause of the
+treaty just concluded, the French ministers engaged in the name of their
+sovereign to observe a complete neutrality between the Emperor and his
+enemies; while, at the same time, Richelieu was actually negociating
+with the King of Sweden to declare war, and pressing upon him the
+alliance of his master.  The latter, indeed, disavowed the lie as soon
+as it had served its purpose, and Father Joseph, confined to a convent,
+must atone for the alleged offence of exceeding his instructions.
+Ferdinand perceived, when too late, that he had been imposed upon.  "A
+wicked Capuchin," he was heard to say, "has disarmed me with his rosary,
+and thrust nothing less than six electoral crowns into his cowl."
+
+Artifice and trickery thus triumphed over the Emperor, at the moment
+when he was believed to be omnipotent in Germany, and actually was so in
+the field.  With the loss of 18,000 men, and of a general who alone was
+worth whole armies, he left Ratisbon without gaining the end for which
+he had made such sacrifices.  Before the Swedes had vanquished him in
+the field, Maximilian of Bavaria and Father Joseph had given him a
+mortal blow.  At this memorable Diet at Ratisbon the war with Sweden was
+resolved upon, and that of Mantua terminated.  Vainly had the princes
+present at it interceded for the Dukes of Mecklenburgh; and equally
+fruitless had been an application by the English ambassadors for a
+pension to the Palatine Frederick.
+
+Wallenstein was at the head of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men
+who adored him, when the sentence of his dismissal arrived.  Most of the
+officers were his creatures:--with the common soldiers his hint was
+law.  His ambition was boundless, his pride indomitable, his imperious
+spirit could not brook an injury unavenged.  One moment would now
+precipitate him from the height of grandeur into the obscurity of a
+private station.  To execute such a sentence upon such a delinquent
+seemed to require more address than it cost to obtain it from the judge.
+Accordingly, two of Wallenstein's most intimate friends were selected as
+heralds of these evil tidings, and instructed to soften them as much as
+possible, by flattering assurances of the continuance of the Emperor's
+favour.
+
+Wallenstein had ascertained the purport of their message before the
+imperial ambassadors arrived.  He had time to collect himself, and his
+countenance exhibited an external calmness, while grief and rage were
+storming in his bosom.  He had made up his mind to obey.  The Emperor's
+decision had taken him by surprise before circumstances were ripe, or
+his preparations complete, for the bold measures he had contemplated.
+His extensive estates were scattered over Bohemia and Moravia; and by
+their confiscation, the Emperor might at once destroy the sinews of his
+power.  He looked, therefore, to the future for revenge; and in this
+hope he was encouraged by the predictions of an Italian astrologer, who
+led his imperious spirit like a child in leading strings.  Seni had read
+in the stars, that his master's brilliant career was not yet ended; and
+that bright and glorious prospects still awaited him.  It was, indeed,
+unnecessary to consult the stars to foretell that an enemy, Gustavus
+Adolphus, would ere long render indispensable the services of such a
+general as Wallenstein.
+
+"The Emperor is betrayed," said Wallenstein to the messengers; "I pity
+but forgive him.  It is plain that the grasping spirit of the Bavarian
+dictates to him.  I grieve that, with so much weakness, he has
+sacrificed me, but I will obey."  He dismissed the emissaries with
+princely presents; and in a humble letter besought the continuance of
+the Emperor's favour, and of the dignities he had bestowed upon him.
+
+The murmurs of the army were universal, on hearing of the dismissal of
+their general; and the greater part of his officers immediately quitted
+the imperial service.  Many followed him to his estates in Bohemia and
+Moravia; others he attached to his interests by pensions, in order to
+command their services when the opportunity should offer.
+
+But repose was the last thing that Wallenstein contemplated when he
+returned to private life.  In his retreat, he surrounded himself with a
+regal pomp, which seemed to mock the sentence of degradation.  Six gates
+led to the palace he inhabited in Prague, and a hundred houses were
+pulled down to make way for his courtyard.  Similar palaces were built
+on his other numerous estates.  Gentlemen of the noblest houses
+contended for the honour of serving him, and even imperial chamberlains
+resigned the golden key to the Emperor, to fill a similar office under
+Wallenstein.  He maintained sixty pages, who were instructed by the
+ablest masters.  His antichamber was protected by fifty life guards.
+His table never consisted of less than 100 covers, and his seneschal was
+a person of distinction.  When he travelled, his baggage and suite
+accompanied him in a hundred wagons, drawn by six or four horses; his
+court followed in sixty carriages, attended by fifty led horses.  The
+pomp of his liveries, the splendour of his equipages, and the
+decorations of his apartments, were in keeping with all the rest.  Six
+barons and as many knights, were in constant attendance about his
+person, and ready to execute his slightest order.  Twelve patrols went
+their rounds about his palace, to prevent any disturbance.  His busy
+genius required silence.  The noise of coaches was to be kept away from
+his residence, and the streets leading to it were frequently blocked up
+with chains.  His own circle was as silent as the approaches to his
+palace; dark, reserved, and impenetrable, he was more sparing of his
+words than of his gifts; while the little that he spoke was harsh and
+imperious.  He never smiled, and the coldness of his temperament was
+proof against sensual seductions.  Ever occupied with grand schemes, he
+despised all those idle amusements in which so many waste their lives.
+The correspondence he kept up with the whole of Europe was chiefly
+managed by himself, and, that as little as possible might be trusted to
+the silence of others, most of the letters were written by his own hand.
+He was a man of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short
+red hair, and small sparkling eyes.  A gloomy and forbidding seriousness
+sat upon his brow; and his magnificent presents alone retained the
+trembling crowd of his dependents.
+
+In this stately obscurity did Wallenstein silently, but not inactively,
+await the hour of revenge.  The victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus
+soon gave him a presentiment of its approach.  Not one of his lofty
+schemes had been abandoned; and the Emperor's ingratitude had loosened
+the curb of his ambition.  The dazzling splendour of his private life
+bespoke high soaring projects; and, lavish as a king, he seemed already
+to reckon among his certain possessions those which he contemplated with
+hope.
+
+After Wallenstein's dismissal, and the invasion of Gustavus Adolphus, a
+new generalissimo was to be appointed; and it now appeared advisable to
+unite both the imperial army and that of the League under one general.
+Maximilian of Bavaria sought this appointment, which would have enabled
+him to dictate to the Emperor, who, from a conviction of this, wished to
+procure the command for his eldest son, the King of Hungary.  At last,
+in order to avoid offence to either of the competitors, the appointment
+was given to Tilly, who now exchanged the Bavarian for the Austrian
+service.  The imperial army in Germany, after the retirement of
+Wallenstein, amounted to about 40,000 men; that of the League to nearly
+the same number, both commanded by excellent officers, trained by the
+experience of several campaigns, and proud of a long series of
+victories.  With such a force, little apprehension was felt at the
+invasion of the King of Sweden, and the less so as it commanded both
+Pomerania and Mecklenburg, the only countries through which he could
+enter Germany.
+
+After the unsuccessful attempt of the King of Denmark to check the
+Emperor's progress, Gustavus Adolphus was the only prince in Europe from
+whom oppressed liberty could look for protection--the only one who,
+while he was personally qualified to conduct such an enterprise, had
+both political motives to recommend and wrongs to justify it.  Before
+the commencement of the war in Lower Saxony, important political
+interests induced him, as well as the King of Denmark, to offer his
+services and his army for the defence of Germany; but the offer of the
+latter had, to his own misfortune, been preferred.  Since that time,
+Wallenstein and the Emperor had adopted measures which must have been
+equally offensive to him as a man and as a king.  Imperial troops had
+been despatched to the aid of the Polish king, Sigismund, to defend
+Prussia against the Swedes.  When the king complained to Wallenstein of
+this act of hostility, he received for answer, "The Emperor has more
+soldiers than he wants for himself, he must help his friends." The
+Swedish ambassadors had been insolently ordered by Wallenstein to
+withdraw from the conference at Lubeck; and when, unawed by this
+command, they were courageous enough to remain, contrary to the law of
+nations, he had threatened them with violence.  Ferdinand had also
+insulted the Swedish flag, and intercepted the king's despatches to
+Transylvania.  He also threw every obstacle in the way of a peace
+betwixt Poland and Sweden, supported the pretensions of Sigismund to the
+Swedish throne, and denied the right of Gustavus to the title of king.
+Deigning no regard to the repeated remonstrances of Gustavus, he rather
+aggravated the offence by new grievances, than acceded the required
+satisfaction.
+
+So many personal motives, supported by important considerations, both of
+policy and religion, and seconded by pressing invitations from Germany,
+had their full weight with a prince, who was naturally the more jealous
+of his royal prerogative the more it was questioned, who was flattered
+by the glory he hoped to gain as Protector of the Oppressed, and
+passionately loved war as the element of his genius.  But, until a truce
+or peace with Poland should set his hands free, a new and dangerous war
+was not to be thought of.
+
+Cardinal Richelieu had the merit of effecting this truce with Poland.
+This great statesman, who guided the helm of Europe, while in France he
+repressed the rage of faction and the insolence of the nobles, pursued
+steadily, amidst the cares of a stormy administration, his plan of
+lowering the ascendancy of the House of Austria.  But circumstances
+opposed considerable obstacles to the execution of his designs; and even
+the greatest minds cannot, with impunity, defy the prejudices of the
+age.  The minister of a Roman Catholic king, and a Cardinal, he was
+prevented by the purple he bore from joining the enemies of that church
+in an open attack on a power which had the address to sanctify its
+ambitious encroachments under the name of religion.  The external
+deference which Richelieu was obliged to pay to the narrow views of his
+contemporaries limited his exertions to secret negociations, by which he
+endeavoured to gain the hand of others to accomplish the enlightened
+projects of his own mind.  After a fruitless attempt to prevent the
+peace between Denmark and the Emperor, he had recourse to Gustavus
+Adolphus, the hero of his age.  No exertion was spared to bring this
+monarch to a favourable decision, and at the same time to facilitate the
+execution of it.  Charnasse, an unsuspected agent of the Cardinal,
+proceeded to Polish Prussia, where Gustavus Adolphus was conducting the
+war against Sigismund, and alternately visited these princes, in order
+to persuade them to a truce or peace.  Gustavus had been long inclined
+to it, and the French minister succeeded at last in opening the eyes of
+Sigismund to his true interests, and to the deceitful policy of the
+Emperor.  A truce for six years was agreed on, Gustavus being allowed to
+retain all his conquests.  This treaty gave him also what he had so long
+desired, the liberty of directing his arms against the Emperor.  For
+this the French ambassador offered him the alliance of his sovereign and
+considerable subsidies.  But Gustavus Adolphus was justly apprehensive
+lest the acceptance of the assistance should make him dependent upon
+France, and fetter him in his career of conquest, while an alliance with
+a Roman Catholic power might excite distrust among the Protestants.
+
+If the war was just and necessary, the circumstances under which it was
+undertaken were not less promising.  The name of the Emperor, it is
+true, was formidable, his resources inexhaustible, his power hitherto
+invincible.  So dangerous a contest would have dismayed any other than
+Gustavus.  He saw all the obstacles and dangers which opposed his
+undertaking, but he knew also the means by which, as he hoped, they
+might be conquered.  His army, though not numerous, was well
+disciplined, inured to hardship by a severe climate and campaigns, and
+trained to victory in the war with Poland.  Sweden, though poor in men
+and money, and overtaxed by an eight years' war, was devoted to its
+monarch with an enthusiasm which assured him of the ready support of his
+subjects.  In Germany, the name of the Emperor was at least as much
+hated as feared.  The Protestant princes only awaited the arrival of a
+deliverer to throw off his intolerable yoke, and openly declare for the
+Swedes.  Even the Roman Catholic states would welcome an antagonist to
+the Emperor, whose opposition might control his overwhelming influence.
+The first victory gained on German ground would be decisive.  It would
+encourage those princes who still hesitated to declare themselves,
+strengthen the cause of his adherents, augment his troops, and open
+resources for the maintenance of the campaign.  If the greater part of
+the German states were impoverished by oppression, the flourishing Hanse
+towns had escaped, and they could not hesitate, by a small voluntary
+sacrifice, to avert the general ruin.  As the imperialists should be
+driven from the different provinces, their armies would diminish, since
+they were subsisting on the countries in which they were encamped.  The
+strength, too, of the Emperor had been lessened by ill-timed detachments
+to Italy and the Netherlands; while Spain, weakened by the loss of the
+Manilla galleons, and engaged in a serious war in the Netherlands, could
+afford him little support.  Great Britain, on the other hand, gave the
+King of Sweden hope of considerable subsidies; and France, now at peace
+with itself, came forward with the most favourable offers.
+
+But the strongest pledge for the success of his undertaking Gustavus
+found--in himself.  Prudence demanded that he should embrace all the
+foreign assistance he could, in order to guard his enterprise from the
+imputation of rashness; but all his confidence and courage were entirely
+derived from himself.  He was indisputably the greatest general of his
+age, and the bravest soldier in the army which he had formed.  Familiar
+with the tactics of Greece and Rome, he had discovered a more effective
+system of warfare, which was adopted as a model by the most eminent
+commanders of subsequent times.  He reduced the unwieldy squadrons of
+cavalry, and rendered their movements more light and rapid; and, with
+the same view, he widened the intervals between his battalions.  Instead
+of the usual array in a single line, he disposed his forces in two
+lines, that the second might advance in the event of the first giving
+way.
+
+He made up for his want of cavalry, by placing infantry among the horse;
+a practice which frequently decided the victory.  Europe first learned
+from him the importance of infantry.  All Germany was astonished at the
+strict discipline which, at the first, so creditably distinguished the
+Swedish army within their territories; all disorders were punished with
+the utmost severity, particularly impiety, theft, gambling, and
+duelling.  The Swedish articles of war enforced frugality.  In the camp,
+the King's tent not excepted, neither silver nor gold was to be seen.
+The general's eye looked as vigilantly to the morals as to the martial
+bravery of his soldiers; every regiment was ordered to form round its
+chaplain for morning and evening prayers.  In all these points the
+lawgiver was also an example.  A sincere and ardent piety exalted his
+courage.  Equally free from the coarse infidelity which leaves the
+passions of the barbarian without a control,--and from the grovelling
+superstition of Ferdinand, who humbled himself to the dust before the
+Supreme Being, while he haughtily trampled on his fellow-creature--in
+the height of his success he was ever a man and a Christian--in the
+height of his devotion, a king and a hero.  The hardships of war he
+shared with the meanest soldier in his army; maintained a calm serenity
+amidst the hottest fury of battle; his glance was omnipresent, and he
+intrepidly forgot the danger while he exposed himself to the greatest
+peril.  His natural courage, indeed, too often made him forget the duty
+of a general; and the life of a king ended in the death of a common
+soldier.  But such a leader was followed to victory alike by the coward
+and the brave, and his eagle glance marked every heroic deed which his
+example had inspired.  The fame of their sovereign excited in the nation
+an enthusiastic sense of their own importance; proud of their king, the
+peasant in Finland and Gothland joyfully contributed his pittance; the
+soldier willingly shed his blood; and the lofty energy which his single
+mind had imparted to the nation long survived its creator.
+
+The necessity of the war was acknowledged, but the best plan of
+conducting it was a matter of much question.  Even to the bold
+Chancellor Oxenstiern, an offensive war appeared too daring a measure;
+the resources of his poor and conscientious master, appeared to him too
+slender to compete with those of a despotic sovereign, who held all
+Germany at his command.  But the minister's timid scruples were
+overruled by the hero's penetrating prudence.  "If we await the enemy in
+Sweden," said Gustavus, "in the event of a defeat every thing would be
+lost, by a fortunate commencement in Germany everything would be gained.
+The sea is wide, and we have a long line of coast in Sweden to defend.
+If the enemy's fleet should escape us, or our own be defeated, it would,
+in either case, be impossible to prevent the enemy's landing.  Every
+thing depends on the retention of Stralsund.  So long as this harbour is
+open to us, we shall both command the Baltic, and secure a retreat from
+Germany.  But to protect this port, we must not remain in Sweden, but
+advance at once into Pomerania.  Let us talk no more, then, of a
+defensive war, by which we should sacrifice our greatest advantages.
+Sweden must not be doomed to behold a hostile banner; if we are
+vanquished in Germany, it will be time enough to follow your plan."
+
+Gustavus resolved to cross the Baltic and attack the Emperor.  His
+preparations were made with the utmost expedition, and his precautionary
+measures were not less prudent than the resolution itself was bold and
+magnanimous.  Before engaging in so distant a war, it was necessary to
+secure Sweden against its neighbours.  At a personal interview with the
+King of Denmark at Markaroed, Gustavus assured himself of the friendship
+of that monarch; his frontier on the side of Moscow was well guarded;
+Poland might be held in check from Germany, if it betrayed any design of
+infringing the truce.  Falkenberg, a Swedish ambassador, who visited the
+courts of Holland and Germany, obtained the most flattering promises
+from several Protestant princes, though none of them yet possessed
+courage or self-devotion enough to enter into a formal alliance with
+him.  Lubeck and Hamburg engaged to advance him money, and to accept
+Swedish copper in return.  Emissaries were also despatched to the Prince
+of Transylvania, to excite that implacable enemy of Austria to arms.
+
+In the mean time, Swedish levies were made in Germany and the
+Netherlands, the regiments increased to their full complement, new ones
+raised, transports provided, a fleet fitted out, provisions, military
+stores, and money collected.  Thirty ships of war were in a short time
+prepared, 15,000 men equipped, and 200 transports were ready to convey
+them across the Baltic.  A greater force Gustavus Adolphus was unwilling
+to carry into Germany, and even the maintenance of this exceeded the
+revenues of his kingdom.  But however small his army, it was admirable
+in all points of discipline, courage, and experience, and might serve as
+the nucleus of a more powerful armament, if it once gained the German
+frontier, and its first attempts were attended with success.
+Oxenstiern, at once general and chancellor, was posted with 10,000 men
+in Prussia, to protect that province against Poland.  Some regular
+troops, and a considerable body of militia, which served as a nursery
+for the main body, remained in Sweden, as a defence against a sudden
+invasion by any treacherous neighbour.
+
+These were the measures taken for the external defence of the kingdom.
+Its internal administration was provided for with equal care.  The
+government was intrusted to the Council of State, and the finances to
+the Palatine John Casimir, the brother-in-law of the King, while his
+wife, tenderly as he was attached to her, was excluded from all share in
+the government, for which her limited talents incapacitated her.  He set
+his house in order like a dying man.  On the 20th May, 1630, when all
+his measures were arranged, and all was ready for his departure, the
+King appeared in the Diet at Stockholm, to bid the States a solemn
+farewell.  Taking in his arms his daughter Christina, then only four
+years old, who, in the cradle, had been acknowledged as his successor,
+he presented her to the States as the future sovereign, exacted from
+them a renewal of the oath of allegiance to her, in case he should never
+more return; and then read the ordinances for the government of the
+kingdom during his absence, or the minority of his daughter.  The whole
+assembly was dissolved in tears, and the King himself was some time
+before he could attain sufficient composure to deliver his farewell
+address to the States.
+
+"Not lightly or wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and
+you in this new and dangerous war; God is my witness that _I_ do not
+fight to gratify my own ambition.  But the Emperor has wronged me most
+shamefully in the person of my ambassadors.  He has supported my
+enemies, persecuted my friends and brethren, trampled my religion in the
+dust, and even stretched his revengeful arm against my crown.  The
+oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by God's help,
+we will give them.
+
+"I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed.  I
+have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall escape
+them all.  Hitherto, Providence has wonderfully protected me, but I
+shall at last fall in defence of my country.  I commend you to the
+protection of Heaven.  Be just, be conscientious, act uprightly, and we
+shall meet again in eternity.
+
+"To you, my Counsellors of State, I address myself first.  May God
+enlighten you, and fill you with wisdom, to promote the welfare of my
+people.  You, too, my brave nobles, I commend to the divine protection.
+Continue to prove yourselves the worthy successors of those Gothic
+heroes, whose bravery humbled to the dust the pride of ancient Rome.  To
+you, ministers of religion, I recommend moderation and unity; be
+yourselves examples of the virtues which you preach, and abuse not your
+influence over the minds of my people.  On you, deputies of the
+burgesses, and the peasantry, I entreat the blessing of heaven; may your
+industry be rewarded by a prosperous harvest; your stores plenteously
+filled, and may you be crowned abundantly with all the blessings of this
+life.  For the prosperity of all my subjects, absent and present, I
+offer my warmest prayers to Heaven.  I bid you all a sincere--it may be
+--an eternal farewell."
+
+The embarkation of the troops took place at Elfsknaben, where the fleet
+lay at anchor.  An immense concourse flocked thither to witness this
+magnificent spectacle.  The hearts of the spectators were agitated by
+varied emotions, as they alternately considered the vastness of the
+enterprise, and the greatness of the leader.  Among the superior
+officers who commanded in this army were Gustavus Horn, the Rhinegrave
+Otto Lewis, Henry Matthias, Count Thurn, Ottenberg, Baudissen, Banner,
+Teufel, Tott, Mutsenfahl, Falkenberg, Kniphausen, and other
+distinguished names.  Detained by contrary winds, the fleet did not sail
+till June, and on the 24th of that month reached the Island of Rugen in
+Pomerania.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus was the first who landed.  In the presence of his
+suite, he knelt on the shore of Germany to return thanks to the Almighty
+for the safe arrival of his fleet and his army.  He landed his troops on
+the Islands of Wollin and Usedom; upon his approach, the imperial
+garrisons abandoned their entrenchments and fled.  He advanced rapidly
+on Stettin, to secure this important place before the appearance of the
+Imperialists.  Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, a feeble and
+superannuated prince, had been long tired out by the outrages committed
+by the latter within his territories; but too weak to resist, he had
+contented himself with murmurs.  The appearance of his deliverer,
+instead of animating his courage, increased his fear and anxiety.
+Severely as his country had suffered from the Imperialists, the risk of
+incurring the Emperor's vengeance prevented him from declaring openly
+for the Swedes.  Gustavus Adolphus, who was encamped under the walls of
+the town, summoned the city to receive a Swedish garrison.  Bogislaus
+appeared in person in the camp of Gustavus, to deprecate this condition.
+"I come to you," said Gustavus, "not as an enemy but a friend.  I wage
+no war against Pomerania, nor against the German empire, but against the
+enemies of both.  In my hands this duchy shall be sacred; and it shall
+be restored to you at the conclusion of the campaign, by me, with more
+certainty, than by any other.  Look to the traces of the imperial force
+within your territories, and to mine in Usedom; and decide whether you
+will have the Emperor or me as your friend.  What have you to expect, if
+the Emperor should make himself master of your capital?  Will he deal
+with you more leniently than I?  Or is it your intention to stop my
+progress?  The case is pressing:  decide at once, and do not compel me
+to have recourse to more violent measures."
+
+The alternative was a painful one.  On the one side, the King of Sweden
+was before his gates with a formidable army; on the other, he saw the
+inevitable vengeance of the Emperor, and the fearful example of so many
+German princes, who were now wandering in misery, the victims of that
+revenge.  The more immediate danger decided his resolution.  The gates
+of Stettin were opened to the king; the Swedish troops entered; and the
+Austrians, who were advancing by rapid marches, anticipated.  The
+capture of this place procured for the king a firm footing in Pomerania,
+the command of the Oder, and a magazine for his troops.  To prevent a
+charge of treachery, Bogislaus was careful to excuse this step to the
+Emperor on the plea of necessity; but aware of Ferdinand's implacable
+disposition, he entered into a close alliance with his new protector.
+By this league with Pomerania, Gustavus secured a powerful friend in
+Germany, who covered his rear, and maintained his communication with
+Sweden.
+
+As Ferdinand was already the aggressor in Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus
+thought himself absolved from the usual formalities, and commenced
+hostilities without any declaration of war.  To the other European
+powers, he justified his conduct in a manifesto, in which he detailed
+the grounds which had led him to take up arms.  Meanwhile he continued
+his progress in Pomerania, while he saw his army daily increasing.  The
+troops which had fought under Mansfeld, Duke Christian of Brunswick, the
+King of Denmark, and Wallenstein, came in crowds, both officers and
+soldiers, to join his victorious standard.
+
+At the Imperial court, the invasion of the king of Sweden at first
+excited far less attention than it merited.  The pride of Austria,
+extravagantly elated by its unheard-of successes, looked down with
+contempt upon a prince, who, with a handful of men, came from an obscure
+corner of Europe, and who owed his past successes, as they imagined,
+entirely to the incapacity of a weak opponent.  The depreciatory
+representation which Wallenstein had artfully given of the Swedish
+power, increased the Emperor's security; for what had he to fear from an
+enemy, whom his general undertook to drive with such ease from Germany?
+Even the rapid progress of Gustavus Adolphus in Pomerania, could not
+entirely dispel this prejudice, which the mockeries of the courtiers
+continued to feed.  He was called in Vienna the Snow King, whom the cold
+of the north kept together, but who would infallibly melt as he advanced
+southward.  Even the electors, assembled in Ratisbon, disregarded his
+representations; and, influenced by an abject complaisance to Ferdinand,
+refused him even the title of king.  But while they mocked him in
+Ratisbon and Vienna, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, one strong town after
+another fell into his hands.
+
+Notwithstanding this contempt, the Emperor thought it proper to offer to
+adjust his differences with Sweden by negociation, and for that purpose
+sent plenipotentiaries to Denmark.  But their instructions showed how
+little he was in earnest in these proposals, for he still continued to
+refuse to Gustavus the title of king.  He hoped by this means to throw
+on the king of Sweden the odium of being the aggressor, and thereby to
+ensure the support of the States of the empire.  The conference at
+Dantzic proved, as might be expected, fruitless, and the animosity of
+both parties was increased to its utmost by an intemperate
+correspondence.
+
+An imperial general, Torquato Conti, who commanded in Pomerania, had, in
+the mean time, made a vain attempt to wrest Stettin from the Swedes.
+The Imperialists were driven out from one place after another; Damm,
+Stargard, Camin, and Wolgast, soon fell into the hands of Gustavus.  To
+revenge himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general
+permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on
+the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but
+too severely from his avarice.  On pretence of cutting off the resources
+of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often
+when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was
+laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins.  But these
+barbarities only served to place in a more favourable light the opposite
+conduct of the Swedes, and to win all hearts to their humane monarch.
+The Swedish soldier paid for all he required; no private property was
+injured on his march.  The Swedes consequently were received with open
+arms both in town and country, whilst every Imperialist that fell into
+the hands of the Pomeranian peasantry was ruthlessly murdered.  Many
+Pomeranians entered into the service of Sweden, and the estates of this
+exhausted country willingly voted the king a contribution of 100,000
+florins.
+
+Torquato Conti, who, with all his severity of character, was a
+consummate general, endeavoured to render Stettin useless to the king of
+Sweden, as he could not deprive him of it.  He entrenched himself upon
+the Oder, at Gartz, above Stettin, in order, by commanding that river,
+to cut off the water communication of the town with the rest of Germany.
+Nothing could induce him to attack the King of Sweden, who was his
+superior in numbers, while the latter was equally cautious not to storm
+the strong entrenchments of the Imperialists.  Torquato, too deficient
+in troops and money to act upon the offensive against the king, hoped by
+this plan of operations to give time for Tilly to hasten to the defence
+of Pomerania, and then, in conjunction with that general, to attack the
+Swedes.  Seizing the opportunity of the temporary absence of Gustavus,
+he made a sudden attempt upon Stettin, but the Swedes were not
+unprepared for him.  A vigorous attack of the Imperialists was firmly
+repulsed, and Torquato was forced to retire with great loss.  For this
+auspicious commencement of the war, however, Gustavus was, it must be
+owned, as much indebted to his good fortune as to his military talents.
+The imperial troops in Pomerania had been greatly reduced since
+Wallenstein's dismissal; moreover, the outrages they had committed were
+now severely revenged upon them; wasted and exhausted, the country no
+longer afforded them a subsistence.  All discipline was at an end; the
+orders of the officers were disregarded, while their numbers daily
+decreased by desertion, and by a general mortality, which the piercing
+cold of a strange climate had produced among them.
+
+Under these circumstances, the imperial general was anxious to allow his
+troops the repose of winter quarters, but he had to do with an enemy to
+whom the climate of Germany had no winter.  Gustavus had taken the
+precaution of providing his soldiers with dresses of sheep-skin, to
+enable them to keep the field even in the most inclement season.  The
+imperial plenipotentiaries, who came to treat with him for a cessation
+of hostilities, received this discouraging answer:  "The Swedes are
+soldiers in winter as well as in summer, and not disposed to oppress the
+unfortunate peasantry.  The Imperialists may act as they think proper,
+but they need not expect to remain undisturbed."  Torquato Conti soon
+after resigned a command, in which neither riches nor reputation were to
+be gained.
+
+In this inequality of the two armies, the advantage was necessarily on
+the side of the Swedes.  The Imperialists were incessantly harassed in
+their winter quarters; Greifenhagan, an important place upon the Oder,
+taken by storm, and the towns of Gartz and Piritz were at last abandoned
+by the enemy.  In the whole of Pomerania, Greifswald, Demmin, and
+Colberg alone remained in their hands, and these the king made great
+preparations to besiege.  The enemy directed their retreat towards
+Brandenburg, in which much of their artillery and baggage, and many
+prisoners fell into the hands of the pursuers.
+
+By seizing the passes of Riebnitz and Damgarden, Gustavus had opened a
+passage into Mecklenburg, whose inhabitants were invited to return to
+their allegiance under their legitimate sovereigns, and to expel the
+adherents of Wallenstein.  The Imperialists, however, gained the
+important town of Rostock by stratagem, and thus prevented the farther
+advance of the king, who was unwilling to divide his forces.  The exiled
+dukes of Mecklenburg had ineffectually employed the princes assembled at
+Ratisbon to intercede with the Emperor: in vain they had endeavoured to
+soften Ferdinand, by renouncing the alliance of the king, and every idea
+of resistance.  But, driven to despair by the Emperor's inflexibility,
+they openly espoused the side of Sweden, and raising troops, gave the
+command of them to Francis Charles Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg.  That general
+made himself master of several strong places on the Elbe, but lost them
+afterwards to the Imperial General Pappenheim, who was despatched to
+oppose him.  Soon afterwards, besieged by the latter in the town of
+Ratzeburg, he was compelled to surrender with all his troops.  Thus
+ended the attempt which these unfortunate princes made to recover their
+territories; and it was reserved for the victorious arm of Gustavus
+Adolphus to render them that brilliant service.
+
+The Imperialists had thrown themselves into Brandenburg, which now
+became the theatre of the most barbarous atrocities.  These outrages
+were inflicted upon the subjects of a prince who had never injured the
+Emperor, and whom, moreover, he was at the very time inciting to take up
+arms against the King of Sweden.  The sight of the disorders of their
+soldiers, which want of money compelled them to wink at, and of
+authority over their troops, excited the disgust even of the imperial
+generals; and, from very shame, their commander-in-chief, Count
+Schaumburg, wished to resign.
+
+Without a sufficient force to protect his territories, and left by the
+Emperor, in spite of the most pressing remonstrances, without
+assistance, the Elector of Brandenburg at last issued an edict, ordering
+his subjects to repel force by force, and to put to death without mercy
+every Imperial soldier who should henceforth be detected in plundering.
+To such a height had the violence of outrage and the misery of the
+government risen, that nothing was left to the sovereign, but the
+desperate extremity of sanctioning private vengeance by a formal law.
+
+The Swedes had pursued the Imperialists into Brandenburg; and only the
+Elector's refusal to open to him the fortress of Custrin for his march,
+obliged the king to lay aside his design of besieging Frankfort on the
+Oder.  He therefore returned to complete the conquest of Pomerania, by
+the capture of Demmin and Colberg.  In the mean time, Field-Marshal
+Tilly was advancing to the defence of Brandenburg.
+
+This general, who could boast as yet of never having suffered a defeat,
+the conqueror of Mansfeld, of Duke Christian of Brunswick, of the
+Margrave of Baden, and the King of Denmark, was now in the Swedish
+monarch to meet an opponent worthy of his fame.  Descended of a noble
+family in Liege, Tilly had formed his military talents in the wars of
+the Netherlands, which was then the great school for generals.  He soon
+found an opportunity of distinguishing himself under Rodolph II.  in
+Hungary, where he rapidly rose from one step to another.  After the
+peace, he entered into the service of Maximilian of Bavaria, who made
+him commander-in-chief with absolute powers.  Here, by his excellent
+regulations, he was the founder of the Bavarian army; and to him,
+chiefly, Maximilian was indebted for his superiority in the field.  Upon
+the termination of the Bohemian war, he was appointed commander of the
+troops of the League; and, after Wallenstein's dismissal, generalissimo
+of the imperial armies.  Equally stern towards his soldiers and
+implacable towards his enemies, and as gloomy and impenetrable as
+Wallenstein, he was greatly his superior in probity and
+disinterestedness.  A bigoted zeal for religion, and a bloody spirit of
+persecution, co-operated, with the natural ferocity of his character, to
+make him the terror of the Protestants.  A strange and terrific aspect
+bespoke his character:  of low stature, thin, with hollow cheeks, a long
+nose, a broad and wrinkled forehead, large whiskers, and a pointed chin;
+he was generally attired in a Spanish doublet of green satin, with
+slashed sleeves, with a small high peaked hat upon his head, surmounted
+by a red feather which hung down to his back.  His whole aspect recalled
+to recollection the Duke of Alva, the scourge of the Flemings, and his
+actions were far from effacing the impression.  Such was the general who
+was now to be opposed to the hero of the north.
+
+Tilly was far from undervaluing his antagonist, "The King of Sweden,"
+said he in the Diet at Ratisbon, "is an enemy both prudent and brave,
+inured to war, and in the flower of his age.  His plans are excellent,
+his resources considerable; his subjects enthusiastically attached to
+him.  His army, composed of Swedes, Germans, Livonians, Finlanders,
+Scots and English, by its devoted obedience to their leader, is blended
+into one nation:  he is a gamester in playing with whom not to have lost
+is to have won a great deal."
+
+The progress of the King of Sweden in Brandenburg and Pomerania, left
+the new generalissimo no time to lose; and his presence was now urgently
+called for by those who commanded in that quarter.  With all expedition,
+he collected the imperial troops which were dispersed over the empire;
+but it required time to obtain from the exhausted and impoverished
+provinces the necessary supplies.  At last, about the middle of winter,
+he appeared at the head of 20,000 men, before Frankfort on the Oder,
+where he was joined by Schaumburg.  Leaving to this general the defence
+of Frankfort, with a sufficient garrison, he hastened to Pomerania, with
+a view of saving Demmin, and relieving Colberg, which was already hard
+pressed by the Swedes.  But even before he had left Brandenburg, Demmin,
+which was but poorly defended by the Duke of Savelli, had surrendered to
+the king, and Colberg, after a five months' siege, was starved into a
+capitulation.  As the passes in Upper Pomerania were well guarded, and
+the king's camp near Schwedt defied attack, Tilly abandoned his
+offensive plan of operations, and retreated towards the Elbe to besiege
+Magdeburg.
+
+The capture of Demmin opened to the king a free passage into
+Mecklenburg; but a more important enterprise drew his arms into another
+quarter.  Scarcely had Tilly commenced his retrograde movement, when
+suddenly breaking up his camp at Schwedt, the king marched his whole
+force against Frankfort on the Oder.  This town, badly fortified, was
+defended by a garrison of 8,000 men, mostly composed of those ferocious
+bands who had so cruelly ravaged Pomerania and Brandenburg.  It was now
+attacked with such impetuosity, that on the third day it was taken by
+storm.  The Swedes, assured of victory, rejected every offer of
+capitulation, as they were resolved to exercise the dreadful right of
+retaliation.  For Tilly, soon after his arrival, had surrounded a
+Swedish detachment, and, irritated by their obstinate resistance, had
+cut them in pieces to a man.  This cruelty was not forgotten by the
+Swedes.  "New Brandenburg Quarter", they replied to the Imperialists who
+begged their lives, and slaughtered them without mercy.  Several
+thousands were either killed or taken, and many were drowned in the
+Oder, the rest fled to Silesia.  All their artillery fell into the hands
+of the Swedes.  To satisfy the rage of his troops, Gustavus Adolphus was
+under the necessity of giving up the town for three hours to plunder.
+
+While the king was thus advancing from one conquest to another, and, by
+his success, encouraging the Protestants to active resistance, the
+Emperor proceeded to enforce the Edict of Restitution, and, by his
+exorbitant pretensions, to exhaust the patience of the states.
+Compelled by necessity, he continued the violent course which he had
+begun with such arrogant confidence; the difficulties into which his
+arbitrary conduct had plunged him, he could only extricate himself from
+by measures still more arbitrary.  But in so complicated a body as the
+German empire, despotism must always create the most dangerous
+convulsions.  With astonishment, the princes beheld the constitution of
+the empire overthrown, and the state of nature to which matters were
+again verging, suggested to them the idea of self-defence, the only
+means of protection in such a state of things.  The steps openly taken
+by the Emperor against the Lutheran church, had at last removed the veil
+from the eyes of John George, who had been so long the dupe of his
+artful policy.  Ferdinand, too, had personally offended him by the
+exclusion of his son from the archbishopric of Magdeburg; and
+field-marshal Arnheim, his new favourite and minister, spared no pains
+to increase the resentment of his master.  Arnheim had formerly been an
+imperial general under Wallenstein, and being still zealously attached
+to him, he was eager to avenge his old benefactor and himself on the
+Emperor, by detaching Saxony from the Austrian interests.  Gustavus
+Adolphus, supported by the Protestant states, would be invincible; a
+consideration which already filled the Emperor with alarm.  The example
+of Saxony would probably influence others, and the Emperor's fate seemed
+now in a manner to depend upon the Elector's decision.  The artful
+favourite impressed upon his master this idea of his own importance, and
+advised him to terrify the Emperor, by threatening an alliance with
+Sweden, and thus to extort from his fears, what he had sought in vain
+from his gratitude.  The favourite, however, was far from wishing him
+actually to enter into the Swedish alliance, but, by holding aloof from
+both parties, to maintain his own importance and independence.
+Accordingly, he laid before him a plan, which only wanted a more able
+hand to carry it into execution, and recommended him, by heading the
+Protestant party, to erect a third power in Germany, and thereby
+maintain the balance between Sweden and Austria.
+
+This project was peculiarly flattering to the Saxon Elector, to whom the
+idea of being dependent upon Sweden, or of longer submitting to the
+tyranny of the Emperor, was equally hateful.  He could not, with
+indifference, see the control of German affairs wrested from him by a
+foreign prince; and incapable as he was of taking a principal part, his
+vanity would not condescend to act a subordinate one.  He resolved,
+therefore, to draw every possible advantage from the progress of
+Gustavus, but to pursue, independently, his own separate plans.  With
+this view, he consulted with the Elector of Brandenburg, who, from
+similar causes, was ready to act against the Emperor, but, at the same
+time, was jealous of Sweden.  In a Diet at Torgau, having assured
+himself of the support of his Estates, he invited the Protestant States
+of the empire to a general convention, which took place at Leipzig, on
+the 6th February 1631.  Brandenburg, Hesse Cassel, with several princes,
+counts, estates of the empire, and Protestant bishops were present,
+either personally or by deputy, at this assembly, which the chaplain to
+the Saxon Court, Dr.  Hoe von Hohenegg, opened with a vehement discourse
+from the pulpit.  The Emperor had, in vain, endeavoured to prevent this
+self-appointed convention, whose object was evidently to provide for its
+own defence, and which the presence of the Swedes in the empire,
+rendered more than usually alarming.  Emboldened by the progress of
+Gustavus Adolphus, the assembled princes asserted their rights, and
+after a session of two months broke up, with adopting a resolution which
+placed the Emperor in no slight embarrassment.  Its import was to demand
+of the Emperor, in a general address, the revocation of the Edict of
+Restitution, the withdrawal of his troops from their capitals and
+fortresses, the suspension of all existing proceedings, and the
+abolition of abuses; and, in the mean time, to raise an army of 40,000
+men, to enable them to redress their own grievances, if the Emperor
+should still refuse satisfaction.
+
+A further incident contributed not a little to increase the firmness of
+the Protestant princes.  The King of Sweden had, at last, overcome the
+scruples which had deterred him from a closer alliance with France, and,
+on the 13th January 1631, concluded a formal treaty with this crown.
+After a serious dispute respecting the treatment of the Roman Catholic
+princes of the empire, whom France took under her protection, and
+against whom Gustavus claimed the right of retaliation, and after some
+less important differences with regard to the title of majesty, which
+the pride of France was loth to concede to the King of Sweden, Richelieu
+yielded the second, and Gustavus Adolphus the first point, and the
+treaty was signed at Beerwald in Neumark.  The contracting parties
+mutually covenanted to defend each other with a military force, to
+protect their common friends, to restore to their dominions the deposed
+princes of the empire, and to replace every thing, both on the frontier
+and in the interior of Germany, on the same footing on which it stood
+before the commencement of the war.  For this end, Sweden engaged to
+maintain an army of 30,000 men in Germany, and France agreed to furnish
+the Swedes with an annual subsidy of 400,000 dollars.  If the arms of
+Gustavus were successful, he was to respect the Roman Catholic religion
+and the constitution of the empire in all the conquered places, and to
+make no attempt against either.  All Estates and princes whether
+Protestant or Roman Catholic, either in Germany or in other countries,
+were to be invited to become parties to the treaty; neither France nor
+Sweden was to conclude a separate peace without the knowledge and
+consent of the other; and the treaty itself was to continue in force for
+five years.
+
+Great as was the struggle to the King of Sweden to receive subsidies
+from France, and sacrifice his independence in the conduct of the war,
+this alliance with France decided his cause in Germany.  Protected, as
+he now was, by the greatest power in Europe, the German states began to
+feel confidence in his undertaking, for the issue of which they had
+hitherto good reason to tremble.  He became truly formidable to the
+Emperor.  The Roman Catholic princes too, who, though they were anxious
+to humble Austria, had witnessed his progress with distrust, were less
+alarmed now that an alliance with a Roman Catholic power ensured his
+respect for their religion.  And thus, while Gustavus Adolphus protected
+the Protestant religion and the liberties of Germany against the
+aggression of Ferdinand, France secured those liberties, and the Roman
+Catholic religion, against Gustavus himself, if the intoxication of
+success should hurry him beyond the bounds of moderation.
+
+The King of Sweden lost no time in apprizing the members of the
+confederacy of Leipzig of the treaty concluded with France, and inviting
+them to a closer union with himself.  The application was seconded by
+France, who spared no pains to win over the Elector of Saxony.  Gustavus
+was willing to be content with secret support, if the princes should
+deem it too bold a step as yet to declare openly in his favour.  Several
+princes gave him hopes of his proposals being accepted on the first
+favourable opportunity; but the Saxon Elector, full of jealousy and
+distrust towards the King of Sweden, and true to the selfish policy he
+had pursued, could not be prevailed upon to give a decisive answer.
+
+The resolution of the confederacy of Leipzig, and the alliance betwixt
+France and Sweden, were news equally disagreeable to the Emperor.
+Against them he employed the thunder of imperial ordinances, and the
+want of an army saved France from the full weight of his displeasure.
+Remonstrances were addressed to all the members of the confederacy,
+strongly prohibiting them from enlisting troops.  They retorted with
+explanations equally vehement, justified their conduct upon the
+principles of natural right, and continued their preparations.
+
+Meantime, the imperial generals, deficient both in troops and money,
+found themselves reduced to the disagreeable alternative of losing sight
+either of the King of Sweden, or of the Estates of the empire, since
+with a divided force they were not a match for either.  The movements of
+the Protestants called their attention to the interior of the empire,
+while the progress of the king in Brandenburg, by threatening the
+hereditary possessions of Austria, required them to turn their arms to
+that quarter.  After the conquest of Frankfort, the king had advanced
+upon Landsberg on the Warta, and Tilly, after a fruitless attempt to
+relieve it, had again returned to Magdeburg, to prosecute with vigour
+the siege of that town.
+
+The rich archbishopric, of which Magdeburg was the capital, had long
+been in the possession of princes of the house of Brandenburg, who
+introduced the Protestant religion into the province.  Christian
+William, the last administrator, had, by his alliance with Denmark,
+incurred the ban of the empire, on which account the chapter, to avoid
+the Emperor's displeasure, had formally deposed him.  In his place they
+had elected Prince John Augustus, the second son of the Elector of
+Saxony, whom the Emperor rejected, in order to confer the archbishopric
+on his son Leopold.  The Elector of Saxony complained ineffectually to
+the imperial court; but Christian William of Brandenburg took more
+active measures.  Relying on the attachment of the magistracy and
+inhabitants of Brandenburg, and excited by chimerical hopes, he thought
+himself able to surmount all the obstacles which the vote of the
+chapter, the competition of two powerful rivals, and the Edict of
+Restitution opposed to his restoration.  He went to Sweden, and, by the
+promise of a diversion in Germany, sought to obtain assistance from
+Gustavus.  He was dismissed by that monarch not without hopes of
+effectual protection, but with the advice to act with caution.
+
+Scarcely had Christian William been informed of the landing of his
+protector in Pomerania, than he entered Magdeburg in disguise.
+Appearing suddenly in the town council, he reminded the magistrates of
+the ravages which both town and country had suffered from the imperial
+troops, of the pernicious designs of Ferdinand, and the danger of the
+Protestant church.  He then informed them that the moment of deliverance
+was at hand, and that Gustavus Adolphus offered them his alliance and
+assistance.  Magdeburg, one of the most flourishing towns in Germany,
+enjoyed under the government of its magistrates a republican freedom,
+which inspired its citizens with a brave heroism.  Of this they had
+already given proofs, in the bold defence of their rights against
+Wallenstein, who, tempted by their wealth, made on them the most
+extravagant demands.  Their territory had been given up to the fury of
+his troops, though Magdeburg itself had escaped his vengeance.  It was
+not difficult, therefore, for the Administrator to gain the concurrence
+of men in whose minds the rememberance of these outrages was still
+recent.  An alliance was formed between the city and the Swedish king,
+by which Magdeburg granted to the king a free passage through its gates
+and territories, with liberty of enlisting soldiers within its
+boundaries, and on the other hand, obtained promises of effectual
+protection for its religion and its privileges.
+
+The Administrator immediately collected troops and commenced
+hostilities, before Gustavus Adolphus was near enough to co-operate with
+him.  He defeated some imperial detachments in the neighbourhood, made a
+few conquests, and even surprised Halle.  But the approach of an
+imperial army obliged him to retreat hastily, and not without loss, to
+Magdeburg.  Gustavus Adolphus, though displeased with his premature
+measures, sent Dietrich Falkenberg, an experienced officer, to direct
+the Administrator's military operations, and to assist him with his
+counsel.  Falkenberg was named by the magistrates governor of the town
+during the war.  The Prince's army was daily augmented by recruits from
+the neighbouring towns; and he was able for some months to maintain a
+petty warfare with success.
+
+At length Count Pappenheim, having brought his expedition against the
+Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg to a close, approached the town.  Driving the
+troops of the Administrator from their entrenchments, he cut off his
+communication with Saxony, and closely invested the place.  He was soon
+followed by Tilly, who haughtily summoned the Elector forthwith to
+comply with the Edict of Restitution, to submit to the Emperor's orders,
+and surrender Magdeburg.  The Prince's answer was spirited and resolute,
+and obliged Tilly at once to have recourse to arms.
+
+In the meanwhile, the siege was prolonged, by the progress of the King
+of Sweden, which called the Austrian general from before the place; and
+the jealousy of the officers, who conducted the operations in his
+absence, delayed, for some months, the fall of Magdeburg.  On the 30th
+March 1631, Tilly returned, to push the siege with vigour.
+
+The outworks were soon carried, and Falkenberg, after withdrawing the
+garrisons from the points which he could no longer hold, destroyed the
+bridge over the Elbe.  As his troops were barely sufficient to defend
+the extensive fortifications, the suburbs of Sudenburg and Neustadt were
+abandoned to the enemy, who immediately laid them in ashes.  Pappenheim,
+now separated from Tilly, crossed the Elbe at Schonenbeck, and attacked
+the town from the opposite side.
+
+The garrison, reduced by the defence of the outworks, scarcely exceeded
+2000 infantry and a few hundred horse; a small number for so extensive
+and irregular a fortress.  To supply this deficiency, the citizens were
+armed--a desperate expedient, which produced more evils than those it
+prevented.  The citizens, at best but indifferent soldiers, by their
+disunion threw the town into confusion.  The poor complained that they
+were exposed to every hardship and danger, while the rich, by hiring
+substitutes, remained at home in safety.  These rumours broke out at
+last in an open mutiny; indifference succeeded to zeal; weariness and
+negligence took the place of vigilance and foresight.  Dissension,
+combined with growing scarcity, gradually produced a feeling of
+despondence, many began to tremble at the desperate nature of their
+undertaking, and the magnitude of the power to which they were opposed.
+But religious zeal, an ardent love of liberty, an invincible hatred to
+the Austrian yoke, and the expectation of speedy relief, banished as yet
+the idea of a surrender; and divided as they were in every thing else,
+they were united in the resolve to defend themselves to the last
+extremity.
+
+Their hopes of succour were apparently well founded.  They knew that the
+confederacy of Leipzig was arming; they were aware of the near approach
+of Gustavus Adolphus.  Both were alike interested in the preservation of
+Magdeburg; and a few days might bring the King of Sweden before its
+walls.  All this was also known to Tilly, who, therefore, was anxious to
+make himself speedily master of the place.  With this view, he had
+despatched a trumpeter with letters to the Administrator, the
+commandant, and the magistrates, offering terms of capitulation; but he
+received for answer, that they would rather die than surrender.  A
+spirited sally of the citizens, also convinced him that their courage
+was as earnest as their words, while the king's arrival at Potsdam, with
+the incursions of the Swedes as far as Zerbst, filled him with
+uneasiness, but raised the hopes of the garrison.  A second trumpeter
+was now despatched; but the more moderate tone of his demands increased
+the confidence of the besieged, and unfortunately their negligence also.
+
+The besiegers had now pushed their approaches as far as the ditch, and
+vigorously cannonaded the fortifications from the abandoned batteries.
+One tower was entirely overthrown, but this did not facilitate an
+assault, as it fell sidewise upon the wall, and not into the ditch.
+Notwithstanding the continual bombardment, the walls had not suffered
+much; and the fire balls, which were intended to set the town in flames,
+were deprived of their effect by the excellent precautions adopted
+against them.  But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly expended,
+and the cannon of the town gradually ceased to answer the fire of the
+Imperialists.  Before a new supply could be obtained, Magdeburg would be
+either relieved, or taken.  The hopes of the besieged were on the
+stretch, and all eyes anxiously directed towards the quarter in which
+the Swedish banners were expected to appear.  Gustavus Adolphus was near
+enough to reach Magdeburg within three days; security grew with hope,
+which all things contributed to augment.  On the 9th of May, the fire of
+the Imperialists was suddenly stopped, and the cannon withdrawn from
+several of the batteries.  A deathlike stillness reigned in the Imperial
+camp.  The besieged were convinced that deliverance was at hand.  Both
+citizens and soldiers left their posts upon the ramparts early in the
+morning, to indulge themselves, after their long toils, with the
+refreshment of sleep, but it was indeed a dear sleep, and a frightful
+awakening.
+
+Tilly had abandoned the hope of taking the town, before the arrival of
+the Swedes, by the means which he had hitherto adopted; he therefore
+determined to raise the siege, but first to hazard a general assault.
+This plan, however, was attended with great difficulties, as no breach
+had been effected, and the works were scarcely injured.  But the council
+of war assembled on this occasion, declared for an assault, citing the
+example of Maestricht, which had been taken early in the morning, while
+the citizens and soldiers were reposing themselves.  The attack was to
+be made simultaneously on four points; the night betwixt the 9th and
+10th of May, was employed in the necessary preparations.  Every thing
+was ready and awaiting the signal, which was to be given by cannon at
+five o'clock in the morning.  The signal, however, was not given for two
+hours later, during which Tilly, who was still doubtful of success,
+again consulted the council of war.  Pappenheim was ordered to attack
+the works of the new town, where the attempt was favoured by a sloping
+rampart, and a dry ditch of moderate depth.  The citizens and soldiers
+had mostly left the walls, and the few who remained were overcome with
+sleep.  This general, therefore, found little difficulty in mounting the
+wall at the head of his troops.
+
+Falkenberg, roused by the report of musketry, hastened from the
+town-house, where he was employed in despatching Tilly's second
+trumpeter, and hurried with all the force he could hastily assemble
+towards the gate of the new town, which was already in the possession of
+the enemy.  Beaten back, this intrepid general flew to another quarter,
+where a second party of the enemy were preparing to scale the walls.
+After an ineffectual resistance he fell in the commencement of the
+action.  The roaring of musketry, the pealing of the alarm-bells, and
+the growing tumult apprised the awakening citizens of their danger.
+Hastily arming themselves, they rushed in blind confusion against the
+enemy.  Still some hope of repulsing the besiegers remained; but the
+governor being killed, their efforts were without plan and co-operation,
+and at last their ammunition began to fail them.  In the meanwhile, two
+other gates, hitherto unattacked, were stripped of their defenders, to
+meet the urgent danger within the town.  The enemy quickly availed
+themselves of this confusion to attack these posts.  The resistance was
+nevertheless spirited and obstinate, until four imperial regiments, at
+length, masters of the ramparts, fell upon the garrison in the rear, and
+completed their rout.  Amidst the general tumult, a brave captain, named
+Schmidt, who still headed a few of the more resolute against the enemy,
+succeeded in driving them to the gates; here he fell mortally wounded,
+and with him expired the hopes of Magdeburg.  Before noon, all the works
+were carried, and the town was in the enemy's hands.
+
+Two gates were now opened by the storming party for the main body, and
+Tilly marched in with part of his infantry.  Immediately occupying the
+principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their
+dwellings, there to await their destiny.  They were not long held in
+suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg.
+
+Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such
+soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt.  Left by their general's
+silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke
+into the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites.  The prayers of
+innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none
+in the rude breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons.  Scarcely had the savage
+cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the
+cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the
+devoted inhabitants.
+
+Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language--
+poetry no pencil.  Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age;
+neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the
+conquerors.  Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters
+at the feet of their parents; and the defenceless sex exposed to the
+double sacrifice of virtue and life.  No situation, however obscure, or
+however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy.  In a single church
+fifty-three women were found beheaded.  The Croats amused themselves
+with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim's Walloons with
+stabbing infants at the mother's breast.  Some officers of the League,
+horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he
+had it in his power to stop the carnage.  "Return in an hour," was his
+answer; "I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for
+his danger and toils."  These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at
+last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers.  To augment
+the confusion and to divert the resistance of the inhabitants, the
+Imperialists had, in the commencement of the assault, fired the town in
+several places.  The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the
+blaze became universal.  Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of
+smoke, heaps of dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling
+ruins, and streams of blood.  The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable
+heat forced at last even the murderers to take refuge in their camp.  In
+less than twelve hours, this strong, populous, and flourishing city, one
+of the finest in Germany, was reduced to ashes, with the exception of
+two churches and a few houses.  The Administrator, Christian William,
+after receiving several wounds, was taken prisoner, with three of the
+burgomasters; most of the officers and magistrates had already met an
+enviable death.  The avarice of the officers had saved 400 of the
+richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an exorbitant
+ransom.  But this humanity was confined to the officers of the League,
+whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be regarded as
+guardian angels.
+
+Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists
+returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town.
+Many were suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars,
+where the citizens had concealed their more valuable effects.  On the
+13th of May, Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had
+been cleared of ashes and dead bodies.  Horrible and revolting to
+humanity was the scene that presented itself.  The living crawling from
+under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries,
+calling for their parents; and infants still sucking the breasts of
+their lifeless mothers.  More than 6,000 bodies were thrown into the
+Elbe to clear the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by
+the flames.  The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than
+30,000.
+
+The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to
+the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape.
+About a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had
+remained three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear
+of death.  Tilly promised them quarter, and commanded bread to be
+distributed among them.  The next day, a solemn mass was performed in
+the cathedral, and 'Te Deum' sung amidst the discharge of artillery.
+The imperial general rode through the streets, that he might be able, as
+an eyewitness, to inform his master that no such conquest had been made
+since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem.  Nor was this an
+exaggeration, whether we consider the greatness, importance, and
+prosperity of the city razed, or the fury of its ravagers.
+
+In Germany, the tidings of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg caused
+triumphant joy to the Roman Catholics, while it spread terror and
+consternation among the Protestants.  Loudly and generally they
+complained against the king of Sweden, who, with so strong a force, and
+in the very neighbourhood, had left an allied city to its fate.  Even
+the most reasonable deemed his inaction inexplicable; and lest he should
+lose irretrievably the good will of the people, for whose deliverance he
+had engaged in this war, Gustavus was under the necessity of publishing
+to the world a justification of his own conduct.
+
+He had attacked, and on the 16th April, carried Landsberg, when he was
+apprised of the danger of Magdeburg.  He resolved immediately to march
+to the relief of that town; and he moved with all his cavalry, and ten
+regiments of infantry towards the Spree.  But the position which he held
+in Germany, made it necessary that he should not move forward without
+securing his rear.  In traversing a country where he was surrounded by
+suspicious friends and dangerous enemies, and where a single premature
+movement might cut off his communication with his own kingdom, the
+utmost vigilance and caution were necessary.  The Elector of Brandenburg
+had already opened the fortress of Custrin to the flying Imperialists,
+and closed the gates against their pursuers.  If now Gustavus should
+fail in his attack upon Tilly, the Elector might again open his
+fortresses to the Imperialists, and the king, with an enemy both in
+front and rear, would be irrecoverably lost.  In order to prevent this
+contingency, he demanded that the Elector should allow him to hold the
+fortresses of Custrin and Spandau, till the siege of Magdeburg should be
+raised.
+
+Nothing could be more reasonable than this demand.  The services which
+Gustavus had lately rendered the Elector, by expelling the Imperialists
+from Brandenburg, claimed his gratitude, while the past conduct of the
+Swedes in Germany entitled them to confidence.  But by the surrender of
+his fortresses, the Elector would in some measure make the King of
+Sweden master of his country; besides that, by such a step, he must at
+once break with the Emperor, and expose his States to his future
+vengeance.  The Elector's struggle with himself was long and violent,
+but pusillanimity and self-interest for awhile prevailed.  Unmoved by
+the fate of Magdeburg, cold in the cause of religion and the liberties
+of Germany, he saw nothing but his own danger; and this anxiety was
+greatly stimulated by his minister Von Schwartzenburgh, who was secretly
+in the pay of Austria.  In the mean time, the Swedish troops approached
+Berlin, and the king took up his residence with the Elector.  When he
+witnessed the timorous hesitation of that prince, he could not restrain
+his indignation:  "My road is to Magdeburg," said he; "not for my own
+advantage, but for that of the Protestant religion.  If no one will
+stand by me, I shall immediately retreat, conclude a peace with the
+Emperor, and return to Stockholm.  I am convinced that Ferdinand will
+readily grant me whatever conditions I may require.  But if Magdeburg is
+once lost, and the Emperor relieved from all fear of me, then it is for
+you to look to yourselves and the consequences." This timely threat, and
+perhaps, too, the aspect of the Swedish army, which was strong enough to
+obtain by force what was refused to entreaty, brought at last the
+Elector to his senses, and Spandau was delivered into the hands of the
+Swedes.
+
+The king had now two routes to Magdeburg; one westward led through an
+exhausted country, and filled with the enemy's troops, who might dispute
+with him the passage of the Elbe; the other more to the southward, by
+Dessau and Wittenberg, where bridges were to be found for crossing the
+Elbe, and where supplies could easily be drawn from Saxony.  But he
+could not avail himself of the latter without the consent of the
+Elector, whom Gustavus had good reason to distrust.  Before setting out
+on his march, therefore, he demanded from that prince a free passage and
+liberty for purchasing provisions for his troops.  His application was
+refused, and no remonstrances could prevail on the Elector to abandon
+his system of neutrality.  While the point was still in dispute, the
+news of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg arrived.
+
+Tilly announced its fall to the Protestant princes in the tone of a
+conqueror, and lost no time in making the most of the general
+consternation.  The influence of the Emperor, which had sensibly
+declined during the rapid progress of Gustavus, after this decisive blow
+rose higher than ever; and the change was speedily visible in the
+imperious tone he adopted towards the Protestant states.  The decrees of
+the Confederation of Leipzig were annulled by a proclamation, the
+Convention itself suppressed by an imperial decree, and all the
+refractory states threatened with the fate of Magdeburg.  As the
+executor of this imperial mandate, Tilly immediately ordered troops to
+march against the Bishop of Bremen, who was a member of the Confederacy,
+and had himself enlisted soldiers.  The terrified bishop immediately
+gave up his forces to Tilly, and signed the revocation of the acts of
+the Confederation.  An imperial army, which had lately returned from
+Italy, under the command of Count Furstenberg, acted in the same manner
+towards the Administrator of Wirtemberg.  The duke was compelled to
+submit to the Edict of Restitution, and all the decrees of the Emperor,
+and even to pay a monthly subsidy of 100,000 dollars, for the
+maintenance of the imperial troops.  Similar burdens were inflicted upon
+Ulm and Nuremberg, and the entire circles of Franconia and Swabia.  The
+hand of the Emperor was stretched in terror over all Germany.  The
+sudden preponderance, more in appearance, perhaps, than in reality,
+which he had obtained by this blow, carried him beyond the bounds even
+of the moderation which he had hitherto observed, and misled him into
+hasty and violent measures, which at last turned the wavering resolution
+of the German princes in favour of Gustavus Adolphus.  Injurious as the
+immediate consequences of the fall of Magdeburg were to the Protestant
+cause, its remoter effects were most advantageous.  The past surprise
+made way for active resentment, despair inspired courage, and the German
+freedom rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of Magdeburg.
+
+Among the princes of the Leipzig Confederation, the Elector of Saxony
+and the Landgrave of Hesse were the most powerful; and, until they were
+disarmed, the universal authority of the Emperor was unconfirmed.
+Against the Landgrave, therefore, Tilly first directed his attack, and
+marched straight from Magdeburg into Thuringia.  During this march, the
+territories of Saxe Ernest and Schwartzburg were laid waste, and
+Frankenhausen plundered before the very eyes of Tilly, and laid in ashes
+with impunity.  The unfortunate peasant paid dear for his master's
+attachment to the interests of Sweden.  Erfurt, the key of Saxony and
+Franconia, was threatened with a siege, but redeemed itself by a
+voluntary contribution of money and provisions.  From thence, Tilly
+despatched his emissaries to the Landgrave, demanding of him the
+immediate disbanding of his army, a renunciation of the league of
+Leipzig, the reception of imperial garrisons into his territories and
+fortresses, with the necessary contributions, and the declaration of
+friendship or hostility.  Such was the treatment which a prince of the
+Empire was compelled to submit to from a servant of the Emperor.  But
+these extravagant demands acquired a formidable weight from the power
+which supported them; and the dreadful fate of Magdeburg, still fresh in
+the memory of the Landgrave, tended still farther to enforce them.
+Admirable, therefore, was the intrepidity of the Landgrave's answer:
+"To admit foreign troops into his capital and fortresses, the Landgrave
+is not disposed; his troops he requires for his own purposes; as for an
+attack, he can defend himself.  If General Tilly wants money or
+provisions, let him go to Munich, where there is plenty of both." The
+irruption of two bodies of imperial troops into Hesse Cassel was the
+immediate result of this spirited reply, but the Landgrave gave them so
+warm a reception that they could effect nothing; and just as Tilly was
+preparing to follow with his whole army, to punish the unfortunate
+country for the firmness of its sovereign, the movements of the King of
+Sweden recalled him to another quarter.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had learned the fall of Magdeburg with deep regret;
+and the demand now made by the Elector, George William, in terms of
+their agreement, for the restoration of Spandau, greatly increased this
+feeling.  The loss of Magdeburg had rather augmented than lessened the
+reasons which made the possession of this fortress so desirable; and the
+nearer became the necessity of a decisive battle between himself and
+Tilly, the more unwilling he felt to abandon the only place which, in
+the event of a defeat, could ensure him a refuge.  After a vain
+endeavour, by entreaties and representations, to bring over the Elector
+to his views, whose coldness and lukewarmness daily increased, he gave
+orders to his general to evacuate Spandau, but at the same time declared
+to the Elector that he would henceforth regard him as an enemy.
+
+To give weight to this declaration, he appeared with his whole force
+before Berlin.  "I will not be worse treated than the imperial
+generals," was his reply to the ambassadors whom the bewildered Elector
+despatched to his camp.  "Your master has received them into his
+territories, furnished them with all necessary supplies, ceded to them
+every place which they required, and yet, by all these concessions, he
+could not prevail upon them to treat his subjects with common humanity.
+All that I require of him is security, a moderate sum of money, and
+provisions for my troops; in return, I promise to protect his country,
+and to keep the war at a distance from him.  On these points, however, I
+must insist; and my brother, the Elector, must instantly determine to
+have me as a friend, or to see his capital plundered."  This decisive
+tone produced a due impression; and the cannon pointed against the town
+put an end to the doubts of George William.  In a few days, a treaty was
+signed, by which the Elector engaged to furnish a monthly subsidy of
+30,000 dollars, to leave Spandau in the king's hands, and to open
+Custrin at all times to the Swedish troops.  This now open alliance of
+the Elector of Brandenburg with the Swedes, excited no less displeasure
+at Vienna, than did formerly the similar procedure of the Duke of
+Pomerania; but the changed fortune which now attended his arms, obliged
+the Emperor to confine his resentment to words.
+
+The king's satisfaction, on this favourable event, was increased by the
+agreeable intelligence that Griefswald, the only fortress which the
+Imperialists still held in Pomerania, had surrendered, and that the
+whole country was now free of the enemy.  He appeared once more in this
+duchy, and was gratified at the sight of the general joy which he had
+caused to the people.  A year had elapsed since Gustavus first entered
+Germany, and this event was now celebrated by all Pomerania as a
+national festival.  Shortly before, the Czar of Moscow had sent
+ambassadors to congratulate him, to renew his alliance, and even to
+offer him troops.  He had great reason to rejoice at the friendly
+disposition of Russia, as it was indispensable to his interests that
+Sweden itself should remain undisturbed by any dangerous neighbour
+during the war in which he himself was engaged.  Soon after, his queen,
+Maria Eleonora, landed in Pomerania, with a reinforcement of 8000
+Swedes; and the arrival of 6000 English, under the Marquis of Hamilton,
+requires more particular notice because this is all that history
+mentions of the English during the Thirty Years' War.
+
+During Tilly's expedition into Thuringia, Pappenheim commanded in
+Magdeburg; but was unable to prevent the Swedes from crossing the Elbe
+at various points, routing some imperial detachments, and seizing
+several posts.  He himself, alarmed at the approach of the King of
+Sweden, anxiously recalled Tilly, and prevailed upon him to return by
+rapid marches to Magdeburg.  Tilly encamped on this side of the river at
+Wolmerstadt; Gustavus on the same side, near Werben, not far from the
+confluence of the Havel and the Elbe.  His very arrival portended no
+good to Tilly.  The Swedes routed three of his regiments, which were
+posted in villages at some distance from the main body, carried off half
+their baggage, and burned the remainder.  Tilly in vain advanced within
+cannon shot of the king's camp, and offered him battle.  Gustavus,
+weaker by one-half than his adversary, prudently declined it; and his
+position was too strong for an attack.  Nothing more ensued but a
+distant cannonade, and a few skirmishes, in which the Swedes had
+invariably the advantage.  In his retreat to Wolmerstadt, Tilly's army
+was weakened by numerous desertions.  Fortune seemed to have forsaken
+him since the carnage of Magdeburg.
+
+The King of Sweden, on the contrary, was followed by uninterrupted
+success.  While he himself was encamped in Werben, the whole of
+Mecklenburg, with the exception of a few towns, was conquered by his
+General Tott and the Duke Adolphus Frederick; and he enjoyed the
+satisfaction of reinstating both dukes in their dominions.  He proceeded
+in person to Gustrow, where the reinstatement was solemnly to take
+place, to give additional dignity to the ceremony by his presence.  The
+two dukes, with their deliverer between them, and attended by a splendid
+train of princes, made a public entry into the city, which the joy of
+their subjects converted into an affecting solemnity.  Soon after his
+return to Werben, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel appeared in his camp, to
+conclude an offensive and defensive alliance; the first sovereign prince
+in Germany, who voluntarily and openly declared against the Emperor,
+though not wholly uninfluenced by strong motives.  The Landgrave bound
+himself to act against the king's enemies as his own, to open to him his
+towns and territory, and to furnish his army with provisions and
+necessaries.  The king, on the other hand, declared himself his ally and
+protector; and engaged to conclude no peace with the Emperor without
+first obtaining for the Landgrave a full redress of grievances.  Both
+parties honourably performed their agreement.  Hesse Cassel adhered to
+the Swedish alliance during the whole of this tedious war; and at the
+peace of Westphalia had no reason to regret the friendship of Sweden.
+
+Tilly, from whom this bold step on the part of the Landgrave was not
+long concealed, despatched Count Fugger with several regiments against
+him; and at the same time endeavoured to excite his subjects to
+rebellion by inflammatory letters.  But these made as little impression
+as his troops, which subsequently failed him so decidedly at the battle
+of Breitenfield.  The Estates of Hesse could not for a moment hesitate
+between their oppressor and their protector.
+
+But the imperial general was far more disturbed by the equivocal conduct
+of the Elector of Saxony, who, in defiance of the imperial prohibition,
+continued his preparations, and adhered to the confederation of Leipzig.
+At this conjuncture, when the proximity of the King of Sweden made a
+decisive battle ere long inevitable, it appeared extremely dangerous to
+leave Saxony in arms, and ready in a moment to declare for the enemy.
+Tilly had just received a reinforcement of 25,000 veteran troops under
+Furstenberg, and, confident in his strength, he hoped either to disarm
+the Elector by the mere terror of his arrival, or at least to conquer
+him with little difficulty.  Before quitting his camp at Wolmerstadt, he
+commanded the Elector, by a special messenger, to open his territories
+to the imperial troops; either to disband his own, or to join them to
+the imperial army; and to assist, in conjunction with himself, in
+driving the King of Sweden out of Germany.  While he reminded him that,
+of all the German states, Saxony had hitherto been most respected, he
+threatened it, in case of refusal, with the most destructive ravages.
+
+But Tilly had chosen an unfavourable moment for so imperious a
+requisition.  The ill-treatment of his religious and political
+confederates, the destruction of Magdeburg, the excesses of the
+Imperialists in Lusatia, all combined to incense the Elector against the
+Emperor.  The approach, too, of Gustavus Adolphus, (however slender his
+claims were to the protection of that prince,) tended to fortify his
+resolution.  He accordingly forbade the quartering of the imperial
+soldiers in his territories, and announced his firm determination to
+persist in his warlike preparations.  However surprised he should be, he
+added, "to see an imperial army on its march against his territories,
+when that army had enough to do in watching the operations of the King
+of Sweden, nevertheless he did not expect, instead of the promised and
+well merited rewards, to be repaid with ingratitude and the ruin of his
+country."  To Tilly's deputies, who were entertained in a princely
+style, he gave a still plainer answer on the occasion.  "Gentlemen,"
+said he, "I perceive that the Saxon confectionery, which has been so
+long kept back, is at length to be set upon the table.  But as it is
+usual to mix with it nuts and garnish of all kinds, take care of your
+teeth."
+
+Tilly instantly broke up his camp, and, with the most frightful
+devastation, advanced upon Halle; from this place he renewed his demands
+on the Elector, in a tone still more urgent and threatening.  The
+previous policy of this prince, both from his own inclination, and the
+persuasions of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests
+of the Emperor, even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and
+but very little tact had hitherto kept him inactive.  All this but
+renders more astonishing the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers
+in abandoning, at so critical a moment, the policy they had hitherto
+adopted, and by extreme measures, incensing a prince so easily led.  Was
+this the very object which Tilly had in view?  Was it his purpose to
+convert an equivocal friend into an open enemy, and thus to relieve
+himself from the necessity of that indulgence in the treatment of this
+prince, which the secret instructions of the Emperor had hitherto
+imposed upon him? Or was it the Emperor's wish, by driving the Elector
+to open hostilities, to get quit of his obligations to him, and so
+cleverly to break off at once the difficulty of a reckoning?  In either
+case, we must be equally surprised at the daring presumption of Tilly,
+who hesitated not, in presence of one formidable enemy, to provoke
+another; and at his negligence in permitting, without opposition, the
+union of the two.
+
+The Saxon Elector, rendered desperate by the entrance of Tilly into his
+territories, threw himself, though not without a violent struggle, under
+the protection of Sweden.
+
+Immediately after dismissing Tilly's first embassy, he had despatched
+his field-marshal Arnheim in all haste to the camp of Gustavus, to
+solicit the prompt assistance of that monarch whom he had so long
+neglected.  The king concealed the inward satisfaction he felt at this
+long wished for result.  "I am sorry for the Elector," said he, with
+dissembled coldness, to the ambassador; "had he heeded my repeated
+remonstrances, his country would never have seen the face of an enemy,
+and Magdeburg would not have fallen.  Now, when necessity leaves him no
+alternative, he has recourse to my assistance.  But tell him, that I
+cannot, for the sake of the Elector of Saxony, ruin my own cause, and
+that of my confederates.  What pledge have I for the sincerity of a
+prince whose minister is in the pay of Austria, and who will abandon me
+as soon as the Emperor flatters him, and withdraws his troops from his
+frontiers?  Tilly, it is true, has received a strong reinforcement; but
+this shall not prevent me from meeting him with confidence, as soon as I
+have covered my rear."
+
+The Saxon minister could make no other reply to these reproaches, than
+that it was best to bury the past in oblivion.
+
+He pressed the king to name the conditions, on which he would afford
+assistance to Saxony, and offered to guarantee their acceptance.  "I
+require," said Gustavus, "that the Elector shall cede to me the fortress
+of Wittenberg, deliver to me his eldest sons as hostages, furnish my
+troops with three months' pay, and deliver up to me the traitors among
+his ministry."
+
+"Not Wittenberg alone," said the Elector, when he received this answer,
+and hurried back his minister to the Swedish camp, "not Wittenberg
+alone, but Torgau, and all Saxony, shall be open to him; my whole family
+shall be his hostages, and if that is insufficient, I will place myself
+in his hands.  Return and inform him I am ready to deliver to him any
+traitors he shall name, to furnish his army with the money he requires,
+and to venture my life and fortune in the good cause."
+
+The king had only desired to test the sincerity of the Elector's new
+sentiments.  Convinced of it, he now retracted these harsh demands.
+"The distrust," said he, "which was shown to myself when advancing to
+the relief of Magdeburg, had naturally excited mine; the Elector's
+present confidence demands a return.  I am satisfied, provided he grants
+my army one month's pay, and even for this advance I hope to indemnify
+him."
+
+Immediately upon the conclusion of the treaty, the king crossed the
+Elbe, and next day joined the Saxons.  Instead of preventing this
+junction, Tilly had advanced against Leipzig, which he summoned to
+receive an imperial garrison.  In hopes of speedy relief, Hans Von der
+Pforta, the commandant, made preparations for his defence, and laid the
+suburb towards Halle in ashes.  But the ill condition of the
+fortifications made resistance vain, and on the second day the gates
+were opened.  Tilly had fixed his head quarters in the house of a
+grave-digger, the only one still standing in the suburb of Halle:  here
+he signed the capitulation, and here, too, he arranged his attack on the
+King of Sweden.  Tilly grew pale at the representation of the death's
+head and cross bones, with which the proprietor had decorated his house;
+and, contrary to all expectation, Leipzig experienced moderate
+treatment.
+
+Meanwhile, a council of war was held at Torgau, between the King of
+Sweden and the Elector of Saxony, at which the Elector of Brandenburg
+was also present.  The resolution which should now be adopted, was to
+decide irrevocably the fate of Germany and the Protestant religion, the
+happiness of nations and the destiny of their princes.  The anxiety of
+suspense which, before every decisive resolve, oppresses even the hearts
+of heroes, appeared now for a moment to overshadow the great mind of
+Gustavus Adolphus.  "If we decide upon battle," said he, "the stake will
+be nothing less than a crown and two electorates.  Fortune is
+changeable, and the inscrutable decrees of Heaven may, for our sins,
+give the victory to our enemies.  My kingdom, it is true, even after the
+loss of my life and my army, would still have a hope left.  Far removed
+from the scene of action, defended by a powerful fleet, a well-guarded
+frontier, and a warlike population, it would at least be safe from the
+worst consequences of a defeat.  But what chances of escape are there
+for you, with an enemy so close at hand?"  Gustavus Adolphus displayed
+the modest diffidence of a hero, whom an overweening belief of his own
+strength did not blind to the greatness of his danger; John George, the
+confidence of a weak man, who knows that he has a hero by his side.
+Impatient to rid his territories as soon as possible of the oppressive
+presence of two armies, he burned for a battle, in which he had no
+former laurels to lose.  He was ready to march with his Saxons alone
+against Leipzig, and attack Tilly.  At last Gustavus acceded to his
+opinion; and it was resolved that the attack should be made without
+delay, before the arrival of the reinforcements, which were on their
+way, under Altringer and Tiefenbach.  The united Swedish and Saxon
+armies now crossed the Mulda, while the Elector returned homeward.
+
+Early on the morning of the 7th September, 1631, the hostile armies came
+in sight of each other.  Tilly, who, since he had neglected the
+opportunity of overpowering the Saxons before their union with the
+Swedes, was disposed to await the arrival of the reinforcements, had
+taken up a strong and advantageous position not far from Leipzig, where
+he expected he should be able to avoid the battle.  But the impetuosity
+of Pappenheim obliged him, as soon as the enemy were in motion, to alter
+his plans, and to move to the left, in the direction of the hills which
+run from the village of Wahren towards Lindenthal.  At the foot of these
+heights, his army was drawn up in a single line, and his artillery
+placed upon the heights behind, from which it could sweep the whole
+extensive plain of Breitenfeld.  The Swedish and Saxon army advanced in
+two columns, having to pass the Lober near Podelwitz, in Tilly's front.
+
+To defend the passage of this rivulet, Pappenheim advanced at the head
+of 2000 cuirassiers, though after great reluctance on the part of Tilly,
+and with express orders not to commence a battle.  But, in disobedience
+to this command, Pappenheim attacked the vanguard of the Swedes, and
+after a brief struggle was driven to retreat.  To check the progress of
+the enemy, he set fire to Podelwitz, which, however, did not prevent the
+two columns from advancing and forming in order of battle.
+
+On the right, the Swedes drew up in a double line, the infantry in the
+centre, divided into such small battalions as could be easily and
+rapidly manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry upon their
+wings, divided in the same manner into small squadrons, interspersed
+with bodies of musqueteers, so as both to give an appearance of greater
+numerical force, and to annoy the enemy's horse.  Colonel Teufel
+commanded the centre, Gustavus Horn the left, while the right was led by
+the king in person, opposed to Count Pappenheim.
+
+On the left, the Saxons formed at a considerable distance from the
+Swedes,--by the advice of Gustavus, which was justified by the event.
+The order of battle had been arranged between the Elector and his
+field-marshal, and the king was content with merely signifying his
+approval.  He was anxious apparently to separate the Swedish prowess
+from that of the Saxons, and fortune did not confound them.
+
+The enemy was drawn up under the heights towards the west, in one
+immense line, long enough to outflank the Swedish army,--the infantry
+being divided in large battalions, the cavalry in equally unwieldy
+squadrons.  The artillery being on the heights behind, the range of its
+fire was over the heads of his men.  From this position of his
+artillery, it was evident that Tilly's purpose was to await rather than
+to attack the enemy; since this arrangement rendered it impossible for
+him to do so without exposing his men to the fire of his own cannons.
+Tilly himself commanded the centre, Count Furstenberg the right wing,
+and Pappenheim the left.  The united troops of the Emperor and the
+League on this day did not amount to 34,000 or 35,000 men; the Swedes
+and Saxons were about the same number.  But had a million been
+confronted with a million it could only have rendered the action more
+bloody, certainly not more important and decisive.  For this day
+Gustavus had crossed the Baltic, to court danger in a distant country,
+and expose his crown and life to the caprice of fortune.  The two
+greatest generals of the time, both hitherto invincible, were now to be
+matched against each other in a contest which both had long avoided; and
+on this field of battle the hitherto untarnished laurels of one leader
+must droop for ever.  The two parties in Germany had beheld the approach
+of this day with fear and trembling; and the whole age awaited with deep
+anxiety its issue, and posterity was either to bless or deplore it for
+ever.
+
+Tilly's usual intrepidity and resolution seemed to forsake him on this
+eventful day.  He had formed no regular plan for giving battle to the
+King, and he displayed as little firmness in avoiding it.  Contrary to
+his own judgment, Pappenheim had forced him to action.  Doubts which he
+had never before felt, struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings
+clouded his ever-open brow; the shade of Magdeburg seemed to hover over
+him.
+
+A cannonade of two hours commenced the battle; the wind, which was from
+the west, blew thick clouds of smoke and dust from the newly-ploughed
+and parched fields into the faces of the Swedes.  This compelled the
+king insensibly to wheel northwards, and the rapidity with which this
+movement was executed left no time to the enemy to prevent it.
+
+Tilly at last left his heights, and began the first attack upon the
+Swedes; but to avoid their hot fire, he filed off towards the right, and
+fell upon the Saxons with such impetuosity that their line was broken,
+and the whole army thrown into confusion.  The Elector himself retired
+to Eilenburg, though a few regiments still maintained their ground upon
+the field, and by a bold stand saved the honour of Saxony.  Scarcely had
+the confusion began ere the Croats commenced plundering, and messengers
+were despatched to Munich and Vienna with the news of the victory.
+
+Pappenheim had thrown himself with the whole force of his cavalry upon
+the right wing of the Swedes, but without being able to make it waver.
+The king commanded here in person, and under him General Banner.  Seven
+times did Pappenheim renew the attack, and seven times was he repulsed.
+He fled at last with great loss, and abandoned the field to his
+conqueror.
+
+In the mean time, Tilly, having routed the remainder of the Saxons,
+attacked with his victorious troops the left wing of the Swedes.  To
+this wing the king, as soon as he perceived that the Saxons were thrown
+into disorder, had, with a ready foresight, detached a reinforcement of
+three regiments to cover its flank, which the flight of the Saxons had
+left exposed.  Gustavus Horn, who commanded here, showed the enemy's
+cuirassiers a spirited resistance, which the infantry, interspersed
+among the squadrons of horse, materially assisted.  The enemy were
+already beginning to relax the vigour of their attack, when Gustavus
+Adolphus appeared to terminate the contest.  The left wing of the
+Imperialists had been routed; and the king's division, having no longer
+any enemy to oppose, could now turn their arms wherever it would be to
+the most advantage.  Wheeling, therefore, with his right wing and main
+body to the left, he attacked the heights on which the enemy's artillery
+was planted.  Gaining possession of them in a short time, he turned upon
+the enemy the full fire of their own cannon.
+
+The play of artillery upon their flank, and the terrible onslaught of
+the Swedes in front, threw this hitherto invincible army into confusion.
+A sudden retreat was the only course left to Tilly, but even this was to
+be made through the midst of the enemy.  The whole army was in disorder,
+with the exception of four regiments of veteran soldiers, who never as
+yet had fled from the field, and were resolved not to do so now.
+Closing their ranks, they broke through the thickest of the victorious
+army, and gained a small thicket, where they opposed a new front to the
+Swedes, and maintained their resistance till night, when their number
+was reduced to six hundred men.  With them fled the wreck of Tilly's
+army, and the battle was decided.
+
+Amid the dead and the wounded, Gustavus Adolphus threw himself on his
+knees; and the first joy of his victory gushed forth in fervent prayer.
+He ordered his cavalry to pursue the enemy as long as the darkness of
+the night would permit.  The pealing of the alarm-bells set the
+inhabitants of all the neighbouring villages in motion, and utterly lost
+was the unhappy fugitive who fell into their hands.  The king encamped
+with the rest of his army between the field of battle and Leipzig, as it
+was impossible to attack the town the same night.  Seven thousand of the
+enemy were killed in the field, and more than 5,000 either wounded or
+taken prisoners.  Their whole artillery and camp fell into the hands of
+the Swedes, and more than a hundred standards and colours were taken.
+Of the Saxons about 2,000 had fallen, while the loss of the Swedes did
+not exceed 700.  The rout of the Imperialists was so complete, that
+Tilly, on his retreat to Halle and Halberstadt, could not rally above
+600 men, or Pappenheim more than 1,400--so rapidly was this formidable
+army dispersed, which so lately was the terror of Italy and Germany.
+
+Tilly himself owed his escape merely to chance.  Exhausted by his
+wounds, he still refused to surrender to a Swedish captain of horse, who
+summoned him to yield; but who, when he was on the point of putting him
+to death, was himself stretched on the ground by a timely pistol-shot.
+But more grievous than danger or wounds was the pain of surviving his
+reputation, and of losing in a single day the fruits of a long life.
+All former victories were as nothing, since he had failed in gaining the
+one that should have crowned them all.  Nothing remained of all his past
+exploits, but the general execration which had followed them.  From this
+period, he never recovered his cheerfulness or his good fortune.  Even
+his last consolation, the hope of revenge, was denied to him, by the
+express command of the Emperor not to risk a decisive battle.
+
+The disgrace of this day is to be ascribed principally to three
+mistakes; his planting the cannon on the hills behind him, his
+afterwards abandoning these heights, and his allowing the enemy, without
+opposition, to form in order of battle.  But how easily might those
+mistakes have been rectified, had it not been for the cool presence of
+mind and superior genius of his adversary!
+
+Tilly fled from Halle to Halberstadt, where he scarcely allowed time for
+the cure of his wounds, before he hurried towards the Weser to recruit
+his force by the imperial garrisons in Lower Saxony.
+
+The Elector of Saxony had not failed, after the danger was over, to
+appear in Gustavus's camp.  The king thanked him for having advised a
+battle; and the Elector, charmed at his friendly reception, promised
+him, in the first transports of joy, the Roman crown.  Gustavus set out
+next day for Merseburg, leaving the Elector to recover Leipzig.  Five
+thousand Imperialists, who had collected together after the defeat, and
+whom he met on his march, were either cut in pieces or taken prisoners,
+of whom again the greater part entered into his service.  Merseburg
+quickly surrendered; Halle was soon after taken, whither the Elector of
+Saxony, after making himself master of Leipzig, repaired to meet the
+king, and to concert their future plan of operations.
+
+The victory was gained, but only a prudent use of it could render it
+decisive.  The imperial armies were totally routed, Saxony free from the
+enemy, and Tilly had retired into Brunswick.  To have followed him
+thither would have been to renew the war in Lower Saxony, which had
+scarcely recovered from the ravages of the last.  It was therefore
+determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, which, open and
+defenceless as far as Vienna, invited attack.  On their right, they
+might fall upon the territories of the Roman Catholic princes, or
+penetrate, on the left, into the hereditary dominions of Austria, and
+make the Emperor tremble in his palace.  Both plans were resolved on;
+and the question that now remained was to assign its respective parts.
+Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of a victorious army, had little
+resistance to apprehend in his progress from Leipzig to Prague, Vienna,
+and Presburg.  As to Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary, they had
+been stripped of their defenders, while the oppressed Protestants in
+these countries were ripe for a revolt.  Ferdinand was no longer secure
+in his capital: Vienna, on the first terror of surprise, would at once
+open its gates.  The loss of his territories would deprive the enemy of
+the resources by which alone the war could be maintained; and Ferdinand
+would, in all probability, gladly accede, on the hardest conditions, to
+a peace which would remove a formidable enemy from the heart of his
+dominions.  This bold plan of operations was flattering to a conqueror,
+and success perhaps might have justified it.  But Gustavus Adolphus, as
+prudent as he was brave, and more a statesman than a conqueror, rejected
+it, because he had a higher end in view, and would not trust the issue
+either to bravery or good fortune alone.
+
+By marching towards Bohemia, Franconia and the Upper Rhine would be left
+to the Elector of Saxony.  But Tilly had already begun to recruit his
+shattered army from the garrisons in Lower Saxony, and was likely to be
+at the head of a formidable force upon the Weser, and to lose no time in
+marching against the enemy.  To so experienced a general, it would not
+do to oppose an Arnheim, of whose military skill the battle of Leipzig
+had afforded but equivocal proof; and of what avail would be the rapid
+and brilliant career of the king in Bohemia and Austria, if Tilly should
+recover his superiority in the Empire, animating the courage of the
+Roman Catholics, and disarming, by a new series of victories, the allies
+and confederates of the king? What would he gain by expelling the
+Emperor from his hereditary dominions, if Tilly succeeded in conquering
+for that Emperor the rest of Germany? Could he hope to reduce the
+Emperor more than had been done, twelve years before, by the
+insurrection of Bohemia, which had failed to shake the firmness or
+exhaust the resources of that prince, and from which he had risen more
+formidable than ever?
+
+Less brilliant, but more solid, were the advantages which he had to
+expect from an incursion into the territories of the League.  In this
+quarter, his appearance in arms would be decisive.  At this very
+conjuncture, the princes were assembled in a Diet at Frankfort, to
+deliberate upon the Edict of Restitution, where Ferdinand employed all
+his artful policy to persuade the intimidated Protestants to accede to a
+speedy and disadvantageous arrangement.  The advance of their protector
+could alone encourage them to a bold resistance, and disappoint the
+Emperor's designs.  Gustavus Adolphus hoped, by his presence, to unite
+the discontented princes, or by the terror of his arms to detach them
+from the Emperor's party.  Here, in the centre of Germany, he could
+paralyse the nerves of the imperial power, which, without the aid of the
+League, must soon fall--here, in the neighbourhood of France, he could
+watch the movements of a suspicious ally; and however important to his
+secret views it was to cultivate the friendship of the Roman Catholic
+electors, he saw the necessity of making himself first of all master of
+their fate, in order to establish, by his magnanimous forbearance, a
+claim to their gratitude.
+
+He accordingly chose the route to Franconia and the Rhine; and left the
+conquest of Bohemia to the Elector of Saxony.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Book III.
+
+
+
+ The glorious battle of Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct
+of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and
+foes entertained of him.  Successfully had he confronted the greatest
+general of the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the
+courage of his Swedes against the elite of the imperial army, the most
+experienced troops in Europe.  From this moment he felt a firm
+confidence in his own powers--self-confidence has always been the parent
+of great actions.  In all his subsequent operations more boldness and
+decision are observable; greater determination, even amidst the most
+unfavourable circumstances, a more lofty tone towards his adversaries, a
+more dignified bearing towards his allies, and even in his clemency,
+something of the forbearance of a conqueror.  His natural courage was
+farther heightened by the pious ardour of his imagination.  He saw in
+his own cause that of heaven, and in the defeat of Tilly beheld the
+decisive interference of Providence against his enemies, and in himself
+the instrument of divine vengeance.  Leaving his crown and his country
+far behind, he advanced on the wings of victory into the heart of
+Germany, which for centuries had seen no foreign conqueror within its
+bosom.  The warlike spirit of its inhabitants, the vigilance of its
+numerous princes, the artful confederation of its states, the number of
+its strong castles, its many and broad rivers, had long restrained the
+ambition of its neighbours; and frequently as its extensive frontier had
+been attacked, its interior had been free from hostile invasion.  The
+Empire had hitherto enjoyed the equivocal privilege of being its own
+enemy, though invincible from without.  Even now, it was merely the
+disunion of its members, and the intolerance of religious zeal, that
+paved the way for the Swedish invader.  The bond of union between the
+states, which alone had rendered the Empire invincible, was now
+dissolved; and Gustavus derived from Germany itself the power by which
+he subdued it.  With as much courage as prudence, he availed himself of
+all that the favourable moment afforded; and equally at home in the
+cabinet and the field, he tore asunder the web of the artful policy,
+with as much ease, as he shattered walls with the thunder of his cannon.
+Uninterruptedly he pursued his conquests from one end of Germany to the
+other, without breaking the line of posts which commanded a secure
+retreat at any moment; and whether on the banks of the Rhine, or at the
+mouth of the Lech, alike maintaining his communication with his
+hereditary dominions.
+
+The consternation of the Emperor and the League at Tilly's defeat at
+Leipzig, was scarcely greater than the surprise and embarrassment of the
+allies of the King of Sweden at his unexpected success.  It was beyond
+both their expectations and their wishes.  Annihilated in a moment was
+that formidable army which, while it checked his progress and set bounds
+to his ambition, rendered him in some measure dependent on themselves.
+He now stood in the heart of Germany, alone, without a rival or without
+an adversary who was a match for him.  Nothing could stop his progress,
+or check his pretensions, if the intoxication of success should tempt
+him to abuse his victory.  If formerly they had dreaded the Emperor's
+irresistible power, there was no less cause now to fear every thing for
+the Empire, from the violence of a foreign conqueror, and for the
+Catholic Church, from the religious zeal of a Protestant king.  The
+distrust and jealousy of some of the combined powers, which a stronger
+fear of the Emperor had for a time repressed, now revived; and scarcely
+had Gustavus Adolphus merited, by his courage and success, their
+confidence, when they began covertly to circumvent all his plans.
+Through a continual struggle with the arts of enemies, and the distrust
+of his own allies, must his victories henceforth be won; yet resolution,
+penetration, and prudence made their way through all impediments.  But
+while his success excited the jealousy of his more powerful allies,
+France and Saxony, it gave courage to the weaker, and emboldened them
+openly to declare their sentiments and join his party.  Those who could
+neither vie with Gustavus Adolphus in importance, nor suffer from his
+ambition, expected the more from the magnanimity of their powerful ally,
+who enriched them with the spoils of their enemies, and protected them
+against the oppression of their stronger neighbours.  His strength
+covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they acquired
+weight and influence from their union with the Swedish hero.  This was
+the case with most of the free cities, and particularly with the weaker
+Protestant states.  It was these that introduced the king into the heart
+of Germany; these covered his rear, supplied his troops with
+necessaries, received them into their fortresses, while they exposed
+their own lives in his battles.  His prudent regard to their national
+pride, his popular deportment, some brilliant acts of justice, and his
+respect for the laws, were so many ties by which he bound the German
+Protestants to his cause; while the crying atrocities of the
+Imperialists, the Spaniards, and the troops of Lorraine, powerfully
+contributed to set his own conduct and that of his army in a favourable
+light.
+
+If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at the
+same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favoured by fortune and by
+circumstances.  Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority over
+the enemy.  While he removed the scene of war into the lands of the
+League, drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty, and
+used the revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once took
+from the enemy the means of effectual resistance, and maintained an
+expensive war with little cost to himself.  And, moreover, while his
+opponents, the princes of the League, divided among themselves, and
+governed by different and often conflicting interests, acted without
+unanimity, and therefore without energy; while their generals were
+deficient in authority, their troops in obedience, the operations of
+their scattered armies without concert; while the general was separated
+from the lawgiver and the statesman; these several functions were united
+in Gustavus Adolphus, the only source from which authority flowed, the
+sole object to which the eye of the warrior turned; the soul of his
+party, the inventor as well as the executor of his plans.  In him,
+therefore, the Protestants had a centre of unity and harmony, which was
+altogether wanting to their opponents.  No wonder, then, if favoured by
+such advantages, at the head of such an army, with such a genius to
+direct it, and guided by such political prudence, Gustavus Adolphus was
+irresistible.
+
+With the sword in one hand, and mercy in the other, he traversed Germany
+as a conqueror, a lawgiver, and a judge, in as short a time almost as
+the tourist of pleasure.  The keys of towns and fortresses were
+delivered to him, as if to the native sovereign.  No fortress was
+inaccessible; no river checked his victorious career.  He conquered by
+the very terror of his name.  The Swedish standards were planted along
+the whole stream of the Maine:  the Lower Palatinate was free, the
+troops of Spain and Lorraine had fled across the Rhine and the Moselle.
+The Swedes and Hessians poured like a torrent into the territories of
+Mentz, of Wurtzburg, and Bamberg, and three fugitive bishops, at a
+distance from their sees, suffered dearly for their unfortunate
+attachment to the Emperor.  It was now the turn for Maximilian, the
+leader of the League, to feel in his own dominions the miseries he had
+inflicted upon others.  Neither the terrible fate of his allies, nor the
+peaceful overtures of Gustavus, who, in the midst of conquest, ever held
+out the hand of friendship, could conquer the obstinacy of this prince.
+The torrent of war now poured into Bavaria.  Like the banks of the
+Rhine, those of the Lecke and the Donau were crowded with Swedish
+troops.  Creeping into his fortresses, the defeated Elector abandoned to
+the ravages of the foe his dominions, hitherto unscathed by war, and on
+which the bigoted violence of the Bavarians seemed to invite
+retaliation.  Munich itself opened its gates to the invincible monarch,
+and the fugitive Palatine, Frederick V., in the forsaken residence of
+his rival, consoled himself for a time for the loss of his dominions.
+
+While Gustavus Adolphus was extending his conquests in the south, his
+generals and allies were gaining similar triumphs in the other
+provinces.  Lower Saxony shook off the yoke of Austria, the enemy
+abandoned Mecklenburg, and the imperial garrisons retired from the banks
+of the Weser and the Elbe.  In Westphalia and the Upper Rhine, William,
+Landgrave of Hesse, rendered himself formidable; the Duke of Weimar in
+Thuringia, and the French in the Electorate of Treves; while to the
+eastward the whole kingdom of Bohemia was conquered by the Saxons.  The
+Turks were preparing to attack Hungary, and in the heart of Austria a
+dangerous insurrection was threatened.  In vain did the Emperor look
+around to the courts of Europe for support; in vain did he summon the
+Spaniards to his assistance, for the bravery of the Flemings afforded
+them ample employment beyond the Rhine; in vain did he call upon the
+Roman court and the whole church to come to his rescue.  The offended
+Pope sported, in pompous processions and idle anathemas, with the
+embarrassments of Ferdinand, and instead of the desired subsidy he was
+shown the devastation of Mantua.
+
+On all sides of his extensive monarchy hostile arms surrounded him.
+With the states of the League, now overrun by the enemy, those ramparts
+were thrown down, behind which Austria had so long defended herself, and
+the embers of war were now smouldering upon her unguarded frontiers.
+His most zealous allies were disarmed; Maximilian of Bavaria, his
+firmest support, was scarce able to defend himself.  His armies,
+weakened by desertion and repeated defeat, and dispirited by continued
+misfortunes had unlearnt, under beaten generals, that warlike
+impetuosity which, as it is the consequence, so it is the guarantee of
+success.  The danger was extreme, and extraordinary means alone could
+raise the imperial power from the degradation into which it was fallen.
+
+The most urgent want was that of a general; and the only one from whom
+he could hope for the revival of his former splendour, had been removed
+from his command by an envious cabal.  So low had the Emperor now
+fallen, that he was forced to make the most humiliating proposals to his
+injured subject and servant, and meanly to press upon the imperious Duke
+of Friedland the acceptance of the powers which no less meanly had been
+taken from him.  A new spirit began from this moment to animate the
+expiring body of Austria; and a sudden change in the aspect of affairs
+bespoke the firm hand which guided them.  To the absolute King of
+Sweden, a general equally absolute was now opposed; and one victorious
+hero was confronted with another.  Both armies were again to engage in
+the doubtful struggle; and the prize of victory, already almost secured
+in the hands of Gustavus Adolphus, was to be the object of another and a
+severer trial.  The storm of war gathered around Nuremberg; before its
+walls the hostile armies encamped; gazing on each other with dread and
+respect, longing for, and yet shrinking from, the moment that was to
+close them together in the shock of battle.  The eyes of Europe turned
+to the scene in curiosity and alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay,
+expected soon to lend its name to a more decisive battle than that of
+Leipzig.  Suddenly the clouds broke, and the storm rolled away from
+Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony.  Near Lutzen fell the
+thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the victory, half lost, was
+purchased by the death of the king.  Fortune, which had never forsaken
+him in his lifetime, favoured the King of Sweden even in his death, with
+the rare privilege of falling in the fulness of his glory and an
+untarnished fame.  By a timely death, his protecting genius rescued him
+from the inevitable fate of man--that of forgetting moderation in the
+intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power.  It may
+be doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved
+the tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to
+the admiration with which posterity regards him, as the first and only
+JUST conqueror that the world has produced.  The untimely fall of their
+great leader seemed to threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power
+which rules the world, no loss of a single man is irreparable.  As the
+helm of war dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by
+two great statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu.  Destiny still pursued
+its relentless course, and for full sixteen years longer the flames of
+war blazed over the ashes of the long-forgotten king and soldier.
+
+I may now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus
+in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the
+great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the
+successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters is driven to the
+most humiliating and desperate expedients, to return to the history of
+the Emperor.
+
+As soon as the plan of operations had been concerted at Halle, between
+the King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony; as soon as the alliance
+had been concluded with the neighbouring princes of Weimar and Anhalt,
+and preparations made for the recovery of the bishopric of Magdeburg,
+the king began his march into the empire.  He had here no despicable foe
+to contend with.  Within the empire, the Emperor was still powerful;
+throughout Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate, imperial garrisons
+were posted, with whom the possession of every place of importance must
+be disputed sword in hand.  On the Rhine he was opposed by the
+Spaniards, who had overrun the territory of the banished Elector
+Palatine, seized all its strong places, and would everywhere dispute
+with him the passage over that river.  On his rear was Tilly, who was
+fast recruiting his force, and would soon be joined by the auxiliaries
+from Lorraine.  Every Papist presented an inveterate foe, while his
+connexion with France did not leave him at liberty to act with freedom
+against the Roman Catholics.  Gustavus had foreseen all these obstacles,
+but at the same time the means by which they were to be overcome.  The
+strength of the Imperialists was broken and divided among different
+garrisons, while he would bring against them one by one his whole united
+force.  If he was to be opposed by the fanaticism of the Roman
+Catholics, and the awe in which the lesser states regarded the Emperor's
+power, he might depend on the active support of the Protestants, and
+their hatred to Austrian oppression.  The ravages of the Imperialist and
+Spanish troops also powerfully aided him in these quarters; where the
+ill-treated husbandman and citizen sighed alike for a deliverer, and
+where the mere change of yoke seemed to promise a relief.  Emissaries
+were despatched to gain over to the Swedish side the principal free
+cities, particularly Nuremberg and Frankfort.  The first that lay in the
+king's march, and which he could not leave unoccupied in his rear, was
+Erfurt.  Here the Protestant party among the citizens opened to him,
+without a blow, the gates of the town and the citadel.  From the
+inhabitants of this, as of every important place which afterwards
+submitted, he exacted an oath of allegiance, while he secured its
+possession by a sufficient garrison.  To his ally, Duke William of
+Weimar, he intrusted the command of an army to be raised in Thuringia.
+He also left his queen in Erfurt, and promised to increase its
+privileges.  The Swedish army now crossed the Thuringian forest in two
+columns, by Gotha and Arnstadt, and having delivered, in its march, the
+county of Henneberg from the Imperialists, formed a junction on the
+third day near Koenigshofen, on the frontiers of Franconia.
+
+Francis, Bishop of Wurtzburg, the bitter enemy of the Protestants, and
+the most zealous member of the League, was the first to feel the
+indignation of Gustavus Adolphus.  A few threats gained for the Swedes
+possession of his fortress of Koenigshofen, and with it the key of the
+whole province.  At the news of this rapid conquest, dismay seized all
+the Roman Catholic towns of the circle.  The Bishops of Wurtzburg and
+Bamberg trembled in their castles; they already saw their sees
+tottering, their churches profaned, and their religion degraded.  The
+malice of his enemies had circulated the most frightful representations
+of the persecuting spirit and the mode of warfare pursued by the Swedish
+king and his soldiers, which neither the repeated assurances of the
+king, nor the most splendid examples of humanity and toleration, ever
+entirely effaced.  Many feared to suffer at the hands of another what in
+similar circumstances they were conscious of inflicting themselves.
+Many of the richest Roman Catholics hastened to secure by flight their
+property, their religion, and their persons, from the sanguinary
+fanaticism of the Swedes.  The bishop himself set the example.  In the
+midst of the alarm, which his bigoted zeal had caused, he abandoned his
+dominions, and fled to Paris, to excite, if possible, the French
+ministry against the common enemy of religion.
+
+The further progress of Gustavus Adolphus in the ecclesiastical
+territories agreed with this brilliant commencement.  Schweinfurt, and
+soon afterwards Wurtzburg, abandoned by their Imperial garrisons,
+surrendered; but Marienberg he was obliged to carry by storm.  In this
+place, which was believed to be impregnable, the enemy had collected a
+large store of provisions and ammunition, all of which fell into the
+hands of the Swedes.  The king found a valuable prize in the library of
+the Jesuits, which he sent to Upsal, while his soldiers found a still
+more agreeable one in the prelate's well-filled cellars; his treasures
+the bishop had in good time removed.  The whole bishopric followed the
+example of the capital, and submitted to the Swedes.  The king compelled
+all the bishop's subjects to swear allegiance to himself; and, in the
+absence of the lawful sovereign, appointed a regency, one half of whose
+members were Protestants.  In every Roman Catholic town which Gustavus
+took, he opened the churches to the Protestant people, but without
+retaliating on the Papists the cruelties which they had practised on the
+former.  On such only as sword in hand refused to submit, were the
+fearful rights of war enforced; and for the occasional acts of violence
+committed by a few of the more lawless soldiers, in the blind rage of
+the first attack, their humane leader is not justly responsible.  Those
+who were peaceably disposed, or defenceless, were treated with mildness.
+It was a sacred principle of Gustavus to spare the blood of his enemies,
+as well as that of his own troops.
+
+On the first news of the Swedish irruption, the Bishop of Wurtzburg,
+without regarding the treaty which he had entered into with the King of
+Sweden, had earnestly pressed the general of the League to hasten to the
+assistance of the bishopric.  That defeated commander had, in the mean
+time, collected on the Weser the shattered remnant of his army,
+reinforced himself from the garrisons of Lower Saxony, and effected a
+junction in Hesse with Altringer and Fugger, who commanded under him.
+Again at the head of a considerable force, Tilly burned with impatience
+to wipe out the stain of his first defeat by a splendid victory.  From
+his camp at Fulda, whither he had marched with his army, he earnestly
+requested permission from the Duke of Bavaria to give battle to Gustavus
+Adolphus.  But, in the event of Tilly's defeat, the League had no second
+army to fall back upon, and Maximilian was too cautious to risk again
+the fate of his party on a single battle.  With tears in his eyes, Tilly
+read the commands of his superior, which compelled him to inactivity.
+Thus his march to Franconia was delayed, and Gustavus Adolphus gained
+time to overrun the whole bishopric.  It was in vain that Tilly,
+reinforced at Aschaffenburg by a body of 12,000 men from Lorraine,
+marched with an overwhelming force to the relief of Wurtzburg.  The town
+and citadel were already in the hands of the Swedes, and Maximilian of
+Bavaria was generally blamed (and not without cause, perhaps) for
+having, by his scruples, occasioned the loss of the bishopric.
+Commanded to avoid a battle, Tilly contented himself with checking the
+farther advance of the enemy; but he could save only a few of the towns
+from the impetuosity of the Swedes.  Baffled in an attempt to reinforce
+the weak garrison of Hanau, which it was highly important to the Swedes
+to gain, he crossed the Maine, near Seligenstadt, and took the direction
+of the Bergstrasse, to protect the Palatinate from the conqueror.
+
+Tilly, however, was not the sole enemy whom Gustavus Adolphus met in
+Franconia, and drove before him.  Charles, Duke of Lorraine, celebrated
+in the annals of the time for his unsteadiness of character, his vain
+projects, and his misfortunes, ventured to raise a weak arm against the
+Swedish hero, in the hope of obtaining from the Emperor the electoral
+dignity.  Deaf to the suggestions of a rational policy, he listened only
+to the dictates of heated ambition; by supporting the Emperor, he
+exasperated France, his formidable neighbour; and in the pursuit of a
+visionary phantom in another country, left undefended his own dominions,
+which were instantly overrun by a French army.  Austria willingly
+conceded to him, as well as to the other princes of the League, the
+honour of being ruined in her cause.  Intoxicated with vain hopes, this
+prince collected a force of 17,000 men, which he proposed to lead in
+person against the Swedes.  If these troops were deficient in discipline
+and courage, they were at least attractive by the splendour of their
+accoutrements; and however sparing they were of their prowess against
+the foe, they were liberal enough with it against the defenceless
+citizens and peasantry, whom they were summoned to defend.  Against the
+bravery, and the formidable discipline of the Swedes this splendidly
+attired army, however, made no long stand.  On the first advance of the
+Swedish cavalry a panic seized them, and they were driven without
+difficulty from their cantonments in Wurtzburg; the defeat of a few
+regiments occasioned a general rout, and the scattered remnant sought a
+covert from the Swedish valour in the towns beyond the Rhine.  Loaded
+with shame and ridicule, the duke hurried home by Strasburg, too
+fortunate in escaping, by a submissive written apology, the indignation
+of his conqueror, who had first beaten him out of the field, and then
+called upon him to account for his hostilities.  It is related upon this
+occasion that, in a village on the Rhine a peasant struck the horse of
+the duke as he rode past, exclaiming, "Haste, Sir, you must go quicker
+to escape the great King of Sweden!"
+
+The example of his neighbours' misfortunes had taught the Bishop of
+Bamberg prudence.  To avert the plundering of his territories, he made
+offers of peace, though these were intended only to delay the king's
+course till the arrival of assistance.  Gustavus Adolphus, too
+honourable himself to suspect dishonesty in another, readily accepted
+the bishop's proposals, and named the conditions on which he was willing
+to save his territories from hostile treatment.  He was the more
+inclined to peace, as he had no time to lose in the conquest of Bamberg,
+and his other designs called him to the Rhine.  The rapidity with which
+he followed up these plans, cost him the loss of those pecuniary
+supplies which, by a longer residence in Franconia, he might easily have
+extorted from the weak and terrified bishop.  This artful prelate broke
+off the negotiation the instant the storm of war passed away from his
+own territories.  No sooner had Gustavus marched onwards than he threw
+himself under the protection of Tilly, and received the troops of the
+Emperor into the very towns and fortresses, which shortly before he had
+shown himself ready to open to the Swedes.  By this stratagem, however,
+he only delayed for a brief interval the ruin of his bishopric.  A
+Swedish general who had been left in Franconia, undertook to punish the
+perfidy of the bishop; and the ecclesiastical territory became the seat
+of war, and was ravaged alike by friends and foes.
+
+The formidable presence of the Imperialists had hitherto been a check
+upon the Franconian States; but their retreat, and the humane conduct of
+the Swedish king, emboldened the nobility and other inhabitants of this
+circle to declare in his favour.  Nuremberg joyfully committed itself to
+his protection; and the Franconian nobles were won to his cause by
+flattering proclamations, in which he condescended to apologize for his
+hostile appearance in the dominions.  The fertility of Franconia, and
+the rigorous honesty of the Swedish soldiers in their dealings with the
+inhabitants, brought abundance to the camp of the king.  The high esteem
+which the nobility of the circle felt for Gustavus, the respect and
+admiration with which they regarded his brilliant exploits, the promises
+of rich booty which the service of this monarch held out, greatly
+facilitated the recruiting of his troops; a step which was made
+necessary by detaching so many garrisons from the main body.  At the
+sound of his drums, recruits flocked to his standard from all quarters.
+
+The king had scarcely spent more time in conquering Franconia, than he
+would have required to cross it.  He now left behind him Gustavus Horn,
+one of his best generals, with a force of 8,000 men, to complete and
+retain his conquest.  He himself with his main army, reinforced by the
+late recruits, hastened towards the Rhine in order to secure this
+frontier of the empire from the Spaniards; to disarm the ecclesiastical
+electors, and to obtain from their fertile territories new resources for
+the prosecution of the war.  Following the course of the Maine, he
+subjected, in the course of his march, Seligenstadt, Aschaffenburg,
+Steinheim, the whole territory on both sides of the river.  The imperial
+garrisons seldom awaited his approach, and never attempted resistance.
+In the meanwhile one of his colonels had been fortunate enough to take
+by surprise the town and citadel of Hanau, for whose preservation Tilly
+had shown such anxiety.  Eager to be free of the oppressive burden of
+the Imperialists, the Count of Hanau gladly placed himself under the
+milder yoke of the King of Sweden.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus now turned his whole attention to Frankfort, for it
+was his constant maxim to cover his rear by the friendship and
+possession of the more important towns.  Frankfort was among the free
+cities which, even from Saxony, he had endeavoured to prepare for his
+reception; and he now called upon it, by a summons from Offenbach, to
+allow him a free passage, and to admit a Swedish garrison.  Willingly
+would this city have dispensed with the necessity of choosing between
+the King of Sweden and the Emperor; for, whatever party they might
+embrace, the inhabitants had a like reason to fear for their privileges
+and trade.  The Emperor's vengeance would certainly fall heavily upon
+them, if they were in a hurry to submit to the King of Sweden, and
+afterwards he should prove unable to protect his adherents in Germany.
+But still more ruinous for them would be the displeasure of an
+irresistible conqueror, who, with a formidable army, was already before
+their gates, and who might punish their opposition by the ruin of their
+commerce and prosperity.  In vain did their deputies plead the danger
+which menaced their fairs, their privileges, perhaps their constitution
+itself, if, by espousing the party of the Swedes, they were to incur the
+Emperor's displeasure.  Gustavus Adolphus expressed to them his
+astonishment that, when the liberties of Germany and the Protestant
+religion were at stake, the citizens of Frankfort should talk of their
+annual fairs, and postpone for temporal interests the great cause of
+their country and their conscience.  He had, he continued, in a menacing
+tone, found the keys of every town and fortress, from the Isle of Rugen
+to the Maine, and knew also where to find a key to Frankfort; the safety
+of Germany, and the freedom of the Protestant Church, were, he assured
+them, the sole objects of his invasion; conscious of the justice of his
+cause, he was determined not to allow any obstacle to impede his
+progress.  "The inhabitants of Frankfort, he was well aware, wished to
+stretch out only a finger to him, but he must have the whole hand in
+order to have something to grasp." At the head of the army, he closely
+followed the deputies as they carried back his answer, and in order of
+battle awaited, near Saxenhausen, the decision of the council.
+
+If Frankfort hesitated to submit to the Swedes, it was solely from fear
+of the Emperor; their own inclinations did not allow them a moment to
+doubt between the oppressor of Germany and its protector.  The menacing
+preparations amidst which Gustavus Adolphus now compelled them to
+decide, would lessen the guilt of their revolt in the eyes of the
+Emperor, and by an appearance of compulsion justify the step which they
+willingly took.  The gates were therefore opened to the King of Sweden,
+who marched his army through this imperial town in magnificent
+procession, and in admirable order.  A garrison of 600 men was left in
+Saxenhausen; while the king himself advanced the same evening, with the
+rest of his army, against the town of Hoechst in Mentz, which
+surrendered to him before night.
+
+While Gustavus was thus extending his conquests along the Maine, fortune
+crowned also the efforts of his generals and allies in the north of
+Germany.  Rostock, Wismar, and Doemitz, the only strong places in the
+Duchy of Mecklenburg which still sighed under the yoke of the
+Imperialists, were recovered by their legitimate sovereign, the Duke
+John Albert, under the Swedish general, Achatius Tott.  In vain did the
+imperial general, Wolf Count von Mansfeld, endeavour to recover from the
+Swedes the territories of Halberstadt, of which they had taken
+possession immediately upon the victory of Leipzig; he was even
+compelled to leave Magdeburg itself in their hands.  The Swedish
+general, Banner, who with 8,000 men remained upon the Elbe, closely
+blockaded that city, and had defeated several imperial regiments which
+had been sent to its relief.  Count Mansfeld defended it in person with
+great resolution; but his garrison being too weak to oppose for any
+length of time the numerous force of the besiegers, he was already about
+to surrender on conditions, when Pappenheim advanced to his assistance,
+and gave employment elsewhere to the Swedish arms.  Magdeburg, however,
+or rather the wretched huts that peeped out miserably from among the
+ruins of that once great town, was afterwards voluntarily abandoned by
+the Imperialists, and immediately taken possession of by the Swedes.
+
+Even Lower Saxony, encouraged by the progress of the king, ventured to
+raise its head from the disasters of the unfortunate Danish war.  They
+held a congress at Hamburg, and resolved upon raising three regiments,
+which they hoped would be sufficient to free them from the oppressive
+garrisons of the Imperialists.  The Bishop of Bremen, a relation of
+Gustavus Adolphus, was not content even with this; but assembled troops
+of his own, and terrified the unfortunate monks and priests of the
+neighbourhood, but was quickly compelled by the imperial general, Count
+Gronsfeld, to lay down his arms.  Even George, Duke of Lunenburg,
+formerly a colonel in the Emperor's service, embraced the party of
+Gustavus, for whom he raised several regiments, and by occupying the
+attention of the Imperialists in Lower Saxony, materially assisted him.
+
+But more important service was rendered to the king by the Landgrave
+William of Hesse Cassel, whose victorious arms struck with terror the
+greater part of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the bishopric of Fulda, and
+even the Electorate of Cologne.  It has been already stated that
+immediately after the conclusion of the alliance between the Landgrave
+and Gustavus Adolphus at Werben, two imperial generals, Fugger and
+Altringer, were ordered by Tilly to march into Hesse, to punish the
+Landgrave for his revolt from the Emperor.  But this prince had as
+firmly withstood the arms of his enemies, as his subjects had the
+proclamations of Tilly inciting them to rebellion, and the battle of
+Leipzig presently relieved him of their presence.  He availed himself of
+their absence with courage and resolution; in a short time, Vach,
+Muenden and Hoexter surrendered to him, while his rapid advance alarmed
+the bishoprics of Fulda, Paderborn, and the ecclesiastical territories
+which bordered on Hesse.  The terrified states hastened by a speedy
+submission to set limits to his progress, and by considerable
+contributions to purchase exemption from plunder.  After these
+successful enterprises, the Landgrave united his victorious army with
+that of Gustavus Adolphus, and concerted with him at Frankfort their
+future plan of operations.
+
+In this city, a number of princes and ambassadors were assembled to
+congratulate Gustavus on his success, and either to conciliate his
+favour or to appease his indignation.  Among them was the fugitive King
+of Bohemia, the Palatine Frederick V., who had hastened from Holland to
+throw himself into the arms of his avenger and protector.  Gustavus gave
+him the unprofitable honour of greeting him as a crowned head, and
+endeavoured, by a respectful sympathy, to soften his sense of his
+misfortunes.  But great as the advantages were, which Frederick had
+promised himself from the power and good fortune of his protector; and
+high as were the expectations he had built on his justice and
+magnanimity, the chance of this unfortunate prince's reinstatement in
+his kingdom was as distant as ever.  The inactivity and contradictory
+politics of the English court had abated the zeal of Gustavus Adolphus,
+and an irritability which he could not always repress, made him on this
+occasion forget the glorious vocation of protector of the oppressed, in
+which, on his invasion of Germany, he had so loudly announced himself.
+
+The terrors of the king's irresistible strength, and the near prospect
+of his vengeance, had also compelled George, Landgrave of Hesse
+Darmstadt, to a timely submission.  His connection with the Emperor, and
+his indifference to the Protestant cause, were no secret to the king,
+but he was satisfied with laughing at so impotent an enemy.  As the
+Landgrave knew his own strength and the political situation of Germany
+so little, as to offer himself as mediator between the contending
+parties, Gustavus used jestingly to call him the peacemaker.  He was
+frequently heard to say, when at play he was winning from the Landgrave,
+"that the money afforded double satisfaction, as it was Imperial coin."
+To his affinity with the Elector of Saxony, whom Gustavus had cause to
+treat with forbearance, the Landgrave was indebted for the favourable
+terms he obtained from the king, who contented himself with the
+surrender of his fortress of Russelheim, and his promise of observing a
+strict neutrality during the war.  The Counts of Westerwald and Wetteran
+also visited the King in Frankfort, to offer him their assistance
+against the Spaniards, and to conclude an alliance, which was afterwards
+of great service to him.  The town of Frankfort itself had reason to
+rejoice at the presence of this monarch, who took their commerce under
+his protection, and by the most effectual measures restored the fairs,
+which had been greatly interrupted by the war.
+
+The Swedish army was now reinforced by ten thousand Hessians, which the
+Landgrave of Casse commanded.  Gustavus Adolphus had already invested
+Koenigstein; Kostheim and Floersheim surrendered after a short siege; he
+was in command of the Maine; and transports were preparing with all
+speed at Hoechst to carry his troops across the Rhine.  These
+preparations filled the Elector of Mentz, Anselm Casimir, with
+consternation; and he no longer doubted but that the storm of war would
+next fall upon him.  As a partisan of the Emperor, and one of the most
+active members of the League, he could expect no better treatment than
+his confederates, the Bishops of Wurtzburg and Bamberg, had already
+experienced.  The situation of his territories upon the Rhine made it
+necessary for the enemy to secure them, while the fertility afforded an
+irresistible temptation to a necessitous army.  Miscalculating his own
+strength and that of his adversaries, the Elector flattered himself that
+he was able to repel force by force, and weary out the valour of the
+Swedes by the strength of his fortresses.  He ordered the fortifications
+of his capital to be repaired with all diligence, provided it with every
+necessary for sustaining a long siege, and received into the town a
+garrison of 2,000 Spaniards, under Don Philip de Sylva.  To prevent the
+approach of the Swedish transports, he endeavoured to close the mouth of
+the Maine by driving piles, and sinking large heaps of stones and
+vessels.  He himself, however, accompanied by the Bishop of Worms, and
+carrying with him his most precious effects, took refuge in Cologne, and
+abandoned his capital and territories to the rapacity of a tyrannical
+garrison.  But these preparations, which bespoke less of true courage
+than of weak and overweening confidence, did not prevent the Swedes from
+marching against Mentz, and making serious preparations for an attack
+upon the city.  While one body of their troops poured into the Rheingau,
+routed the Spaniards who remained there, and levied contributions on the
+inhabitants, another laid the Roman Catholic towns in Westerwald and
+Wetterau under similar contributions.  The main army had encamped at
+Cassel, opposite Mentz; and Bernhard, Duke of Weimar, made himself
+master of the Maeusethurm and the Castle of Ehrenfels, on the other side
+of the Rhine.  Gustavus was now actively preparing to cross the river,
+and to blockade the town on the land side, when the movements of Tilly
+in Franconia suddenly called him from the siege, and obtained for the
+Elector a short repose.
+
+The danger of Nuremberg, which, during the absence of Gustavus Adolphus
+on the Rhine, Tilly had made a show of besieging, and, in the event of
+resistance, threatened with the cruel fate of Magdeburg, occasioned the
+king suddenly to retire from before Mentz.  Lest he should expose
+himself a second time to the reproaches of Germany, and the disgrace of
+abandoning a confederate city to a ferocious enemy, he hastened to its
+relief by forced marches.  On his arrival at Frankfort, however, he
+heard of its spirited resistance, and of the retreat of Tilly, and lost
+not a moment in prosecuting his designs against Mentz.  Failing in an
+attempt to cross the Rhine at Cassel, under the cannon of the besieged,
+he directed his march towards the Bergstrasse, with a view of
+approaching the town from an opposite quarter.  Here he quickly made
+himself master of all the places of importance, and at Stockstadt,
+between Gernsheim and Oppenheim, appeared a second time upon the banks
+of the Rhine.  The whole of the Bergstrasse was abandoned by the
+Spaniards, who endeavoured obstinately to defend the other bank of the
+river.  For this purpose, they had burned or sunk all the vessels in the
+neighbourhood, and arranged a formidable force on the banks, in case the
+king should attempt the passage at that place.
+
+On this occasion, the king's impetuosity exposed him to great danger of
+falling into the hands of the enemy.  In order to reconnoitre the
+opposite bank, he crossed the river in a small boat; he had scarcely
+landed when he was attacked by a party of Spanish horse, from whose
+hands he only saved himself by a precipitate retreat.  Having at last,
+with the assistance of the neighbouring fishermen, succeeded in
+procuring a few transports, he despatched two of them across the river,
+bearing Count Brahe and 300 Swedes.  Scarcely had this officer time to
+entrench himself on the opposite bank, when he was attacked by 14
+squadrons of Spanish dragoons and cuirassiers.  Superior as the enemy
+was in number, Count Brahe, with his small force, bravely defended
+himself, and gained time for the king to support him with fresh troops.
+The Spaniards at last retired with the loss of 600 men, some taking
+refuge in Oppenheim, and others in Mentz.  A lion of marble on a high
+pillar, holding a naked sword in his paw, and a helmet on his head, was
+erected seventy years after the event, to point out to the traveller the
+spot where the immortal monarch crossed the great river of Germany.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus now conveyed his artillery and the greater part of his
+troops over the river, and laid siege to Oppenheim, which, after a brave
+resistance, was, on the 8th December, 1631, carried by storm.  Five
+hundred Spaniards, who had so courageously defended the place, fell
+indiscriminately a sacrifice to the fury of the Swedes.  The crossing of
+the Rhine by Gustavus struck terror into the Spaniards and Lorrainers,
+who had thought themselves protected by the river from the vengeance of
+the Swedes.  Rapid flight was now their only security; every place
+incapable of an effectual defence was immediately abandoned.  After a
+long train of outrages on the defenceless citizens, the troops of
+Lorraine evacuated Worms, which, before their departure, they treated
+with wanton cruelty.  The Spaniards hastened to shut themselves up in
+Frankenthal, where they hoped to defy the victorious arms of Gustavus
+Adolphus.
+
+The king lost no time in prosecuting his designs against Mentz, into
+which the flower of the Spanish troops had thrown themselves.  While he
+advanced on the left bank of the Rhine, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel
+moved forward on the other, reducing several strong places on his march.
+The besieged Spaniards, though hemmed in on both sides, displayed at
+first a bold determination, and threw, for several days, a shower of
+bombs into the Swedish camp, which cost the king many of his bravest
+soldiers.  But notwithstanding, the Swedes continually gained ground,
+and had at last advanced so close to the ditch that they prepared
+seriously for storming the place.  The courage of the besieged now began
+to droop.  They trembled before the furious impetuosity of the Swedish
+soldiers, of which Marienberg, in Wurtzburg, had afforded so fearful an
+example.  The same dreadful fate awaited Mentz, if taken by storm; and
+the enemy might even be easily tempted to revenge the carnage of
+Magdeburg on this rich and magnificent residence of a Roman Catholic
+prince.  To save the town, rather than their own lives, the Spanish
+garrison capitulated on the fourth day, and obtained from the
+magnanimity of Gustavus a safe conduct to Luxembourg; the greater part
+of them, however, following the example of many others, enlisted in the
+service of Sweden.
+
+On the 13th December, 1631, the king made his entry into the conquered
+town, and fixed his quarters in the palace of the Elector.  Eighty
+pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and the citizens were obliged to
+redeem their property from pillage, by a payment of 80,000 florins.  The
+benefits of this redemption did not extend to the Jews and the clergy,
+who were obliged to make large and separate contributions for
+themselves.  The library of the Elector was seized by the king as his
+share, and presented by him to his chancellor, Oxenstiern, who intended
+it for the Academy of Westerrah, but the vessel in which it was shipped
+to Sweden foundered at sea.
+
+After the loss of Mentz, misfortune still pursued the Spaniards on the
+Rhine.  Shortly before the capture of that city, the Landgrave of Hesse
+Cassel had taken Falkenstein and Reifenberg, and the fortress of
+Koningstein surrendered to the Hessians.  The Rhinegrave, Otto Louis,
+one of the king's generals, defeated nine Spanish squadrons who were on
+their march for Frankenthal, and made himself master of the most
+important towns upon the Rhine, from Boppart to Bacharach.  After the
+capture of the fortress of Braunfels, which was effected by the Count of
+Wetterau, with the co-operation of the Swedes, the Spaniards quickly
+lost every place in Wetterau, while in the Palatinate they retained few
+places besides Frankenthal.  Landau and Kronweisenberg openly declared
+for the Swedes; Spires offered troops for the king's service; Manheim
+was gained through the prudence of the Duke Bernard of Weimar, and the
+negligence of its governor, who, for this misconduct, was tried before
+the council of war, at Heidelberg, and beheaded.
+
+The king had protracted the campaign into the depth of winter, and the
+severity of the season was perhaps one cause of the advantage his
+soldiers gained over those of the enemy.  But the exhausted troops now
+stood in need of the repose of winter quarters, which, after the
+surrender of Mentz, Gustavus assigned to them, in its neighbourhood.  He
+himself employed the interval of inactivity in the field, which the
+season of the year enjoined, in arranging, with his chancellor, the
+affairs of his cabinet, in treating for a neutrality with some of his
+enemies, and adjusting some political disputes which had sprung up with
+a neighbouring ally.  He chose the city of Mentz for his winter
+quarters, and the settlement of these state affairs, and showed a
+greater partiality for this town, than seemed consistent with the
+interests of the German princes, or the shortness of his visit to the
+Empire.  Not content with strongly fortifying it, he erected at the
+opposite angle which the Maine forms with the Rhine, a new citadel,
+which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, but which is better known
+under the title of Pfaffenraub or Pfaffenzwang.--[Priests' plunder;
+alluding to the means by which the expense of its erection had been
+defrayed.]
+
+While Gustavus Adolphus made himself master of the Rhine, and threatened
+the three neighbouring electorates with his victorious arms, his
+vigilant enemies in Paris and St.  Germain's made use of every artifice
+to deprive him of the support of France, and, if possible, to involve
+him in a war with that power.  By his sudden and equivocal march to the
+Rhine, he had surprised his friends, and furnished his enemies with the
+means of exciting a distrust of his intentions.  After the conquest of
+Wurtzburg, and of the greater part of Franconia, the road into Bavaria
+and Austria lay open to him through Bamberg and the Upper Palatinate;
+and the expectation was as general, as it was natural, that he would not
+delay to attack the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria in the very centre
+of their power, and, by the reduction of his two principal enemies,
+bring the war immediately to an end.  But to the surprise of both
+parties, Gustavus left the path which general expectation had thus
+marked out for him; and instead of advancing to the right, turned to the
+left, to make the less important and more innocent princes of the Rhine
+feel his power, while he gave time to his more formidable opponents to
+recruit their strength.  Nothing but the paramount design of reinstating
+the unfortunate Palatine, Frederick V., in the possession of his
+territories, by the expulsion of the Spaniards, could seem to account
+for this strange step; and the belief that Gustavus was about to effect
+that restoration, silenced for a while the suspicions of his friends and
+the calumnies of his enemies.  But the Lower Palatinate was now almost
+entirely cleared of the enemy; and yet Gustavus continued to form new
+schemes of conquest on the Rhine, and to withhold the reconquered
+country from the Palatine, its rightful owner.  In vain did the English
+ambassador remind him of what justice demanded, and what his own solemn
+engagement made a duty of honour; Gustavus replied to these demands with
+bitter complaints of the inactivity of the English court, and prepared
+to carry his victorious standard into Alsace, and even into Lorraine.
+
+A distrust of the Swedish monarch was now loud and open, while the
+malice of his enemies busily circulated the most injurious reports as to
+his intentions.  Richelieu, the minister of Louis XIII., had long
+witnessed with anxiety the king's progress towards the French frontier,
+and the suspicious temper of Louis rendered him but too accessible to
+the evil surmises which the occasion gave rise to.  France was at this
+time involved in a civil war with her Protestant subjects, and the fear
+was not altogether groundless, that the approach of a victorious monarch
+of their party might revive their drooping spirit, and encourage them to
+a more desperate resistance.  This might be the case, even if Gustavus
+Adolphus was far from showing a disposition to encourage them, or to act
+unfaithfully towards his ally, the King of France.  But the vindictive
+Bishop of Wurtzburg, who was anxious to avenge the loss of his
+dominions, the envenomed rhetoric of the Jesuits and the active zeal of
+the Bavarian minister, represented this dreaded alliance between the
+Huguenots and the Swedes as an undoubted fact, and filled the timid mind
+of Louis with the most alarming fears.  Not merely chimerical
+politicians, but many of the best informed Roman Catholics, fully
+believed that the king was on the point of breaking into the heart of
+France, to make common cause with the Huguenots, and to overturn the
+Catholic religion within the kingdom.  Fanatical zealots already saw
+him, with his army, crossing the Alps, and dethroning the Viceregent of
+Christ in Italy.  Such reports no doubt soon refute themselves; yet it
+cannot be denied that Gustavus, by his manoeuvres on the Rhine, gave a
+dangerous handle to the malice of his enemies, and in some measure
+justified the suspicion that he directed his arms, not so much against
+the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, as against the Roman Catholic
+religion itself.
+
+The general clamour of discontent which the Jesuits raised in all the
+Catholic courts, against the alliance between France and the enemy of
+the church, at last compelled Cardinal Richelieu to take a decisive step
+for the security of his religion, and at once to convince the Roman
+Catholic world of the zeal of France, and of the selfish policy of the
+ecclesiastical states of Germany.  Convinced that the views of the King
+of Sweden, like his own, aimed solely at the humiliation of the power of
+Austria, he hesitated not to promise to the princes of the League, on
+the part of Sweden, a complete neutrality, immediately they abandoned
+their alliance with the Emperor and withdrew their troops.  Whatever the
+resolution these princes should adopt, Richelieu would equally attain
+his object.  By their separation from the Austrian interest, Ferdinand
+would be exposed to the combined attack of France and Sweden; and
+Gustavus Adolphus, freed from his other enemies in Germany, would be
+able to direct his undivided force against the hereditary dominions of
+Austria.  In that event, the fall of Austria was inevitable, and this
+great object of Richelieu's policy would be gained without injury to the
+church.  If, on the other hand, the princes of the League persisted in
+their opposition, and adhered to the Austrian alliance, the result would
+indeed be more doubtful, but still France would have sufficiently proved
+to all Europe the sincerity of her attachment to the Catholic cause, and
+performed her duty as a member of the Roman Church.  The princes of the
+League would then appear the sole authors of those evils, which the
+continuance of the war would unavoidably bring upon the Roman Catholics
+of Germany; they alone, by their wilful and obstinate adherence to the
+Emperor, would frustrate the measures employed for their protection,
+involve the church in danger, and themselves in ruin.
+
+Richelieu pursued this plan with greater zeal, the more he was
+embarrassed by the repeated demands of the Elector of Bavaria for
+assistance from France; for this prince, as already stated, when he
+first began to entertain suspicions of the Emperor, entered immediately
+into a secret alliance with France, by which, in the event of any change
+in the Emperor's sentiments, he hoped to secure the possession of the
+Palatinate.  But though the origin of the treaty clearly showed against
+what enemy it was directed, Maximilian now thought proper to make use of
+it against the King of Sweden, and did not hesitate to demand from
+France that assistance against her ally, which she had simply promised
+against Austria.  Richelieu, embarrassed by this conflicting alliance
+with two hostile powers, had no resource left but to endeavour to put a
+speedy termination to their hostilities; and as little inclined to
+sacrifice Bavaria, as he was disabled, by his treaty with Sweden, from
+assisting it, he set himself, with all diligence, to bring about a
+neutrality, as the only means of fulfilling his obligations to both.
+For this purpose, the Marquis of Breze was sent, as his plenipotentiary,
+to the King of Sweden at Mentz, to learn his sentiments on this point,
+and to procure from him favourable conditions for the allied princes.
+But if Louis XIII.  had powerful motives for wishing for this
+neutrality, Gustavus Adolphus had as grave reasons for desiring the
+contrary.  Convinced by numerous proofs that the hatred of the princes
+of the League to the Protestant religion was invincible, their aversion
+to the foreign power of the Swedes inextinguishable, and their
+attachment to the House of Austria irrevocable, he apprehended less
+danger from their open hostility, than from a neutrality which was so
+little in unison with their real inclinations; and, moreover, as he was
+constrained to carry on the war in Germany at the expense of the enemy,
+he manifestly sustained great loss if he diminished their number without
+increasing that of his friends.  It was not surprising, therefore, if
+Gustavus evinced little inclination to purchase the neutrality of the
+League, by which he was likely to gain so little, at the expense of the
+advantages he had already obtained.
+
+The conditions, accordingly, upon which he offered to adopt the
+neutrality towards Bavaria were severe, and suited to these views.  He
+required of the whole League a full and entire cessation from all
+hostilities; the recall of their troops from the imperial army, from the
+conquered towns, and from all the Protestant countries; the reduction of
+their military force; the exclusion of the imperial armies from their
+territories, and from supplies either of men, provisions, or ammunition.
+Hard as the conditions were, which the victor thus imposed upon the
+vanquished, the French mediator flattered himself he should be able to
+induce the Elector of Bavaria to accept them.  In order to give time for
+an accommodation, Gustavus had agreed to a cessation of hostilities for
+a fortnight.  But at the very time when this monarch was receiving from
+the French agents repeated assurances of the favourable progress of the
+negociation, an intercepted letter from the Elector to Pappenheim, the
+imperial general in Westphalia, revealed the perfidy of that prince, as
+having no other object in view by the whole negociation, than to gain
+time for his measures of defence.  Far from intending to fetter his
+military operations by a truce with Sweden, the artful prince hastened
+his preparations, and employed the leisure which his enemy afforded him,
+in making the most active dispositions for resistance.  The negociation
+accordingly failed, and served only to increase the animosity of the
+Bavarians and the Swedes.
+
+Tilly's augmented force, with which he threatened to overrun Franconia,
+urgently required the king's presence in that circle; but it was
+necessary to expel previously the Spaniards from the Rhine, and to cut
+off their means of invading Germany from the Netherlands.  With this
+view, Gustavus Adolphus had made an offer of neutrality to the Elector
+of Treves, Philip von Zeltern, on condition that the fortress of
+Hermanstein should be delivered up to him, and a free passage granted to
+his troops through Coblentz.  But unwillingly as the Elector had beheld
+the Spaniards within his territories, he was still less disposed to
+commit his estates to the suspicious protection of a heretic, and to
+make the Swedish conqueror master of his destinies.  Too weak to
+maintain his independence between two such powerful competitors, he took
+refuge in the protection of France.  With his usual prudence, Richelieu
+profited by the embarrassments of this prince to augment the power of
+France, and to gain for her an important ally on the German frontier.  A
+numerous French army was despatched to protect the territory of Treves,
+and a French garrison was received into Ehrenbreitstein.  But the object
+which had moved the Elector to this bold step was not completely gained,
+for the offended pride of Gustavus Adolphus was not appeased till he had
+obtained a free passage for his troops through Treves.
+
+Pending these negociations with Treves and France, the king's generals
+had entirely cleared the territory of Mentz of the Spanish garrisons,
+and Gustavus himself completed the conquest of this district by the
+capture of Kreutznach.  To protect these conquests, the chancellor
+Oxenstiern was left with a division of the army upon the Middle Rhine,
+while the main body, under the king himself, began its march against the
+enemy in Franconia.
+
+The possession of this circle had, in the mean time, been disputed with
+variable success, between Count Tilly and the Swedish General Horn, whom
+Gustavus had left there with 8,000 men; and the Bishopric of Bamberg, in
+particular, was at once the prize and the scene of their struggle.
+Called away to the Rhine by his other projects, the king had left to his
+general the chastisement of the bishop, whose perfidy had excited his
+indignation, and the activity of Horn justified the choice.  In a short
+time, he subdued the greater part of the bishopric; and the capital
+itself, abandoned by its imperial garrison, was carried by storm.  The
+banished bishop urgently demanded assistance from the Elector of
+Bavaria, who was at length persuaded to put an end to Tilly's
+inactivity.  Fully empowered by his master's order to restore the bishop
+to his possessions, this general collected his troops, who were
+scattered over the Upper Palatinate, and with an army of 20,000 men
+advanced upon Bamberg.  Firmly resolved to maintain his conquest even
+against this overwhelming force, Horn awaited the enemy within the walls
+of Bamberg; but was obliged to yield to the vanguard of Tilly what he
+had thought to be able to dispute with his whole army.  A panic which
+suddenly seized his troops, and which no presence of mind of their
+general could check, opened the gates to the enemy, and it was with
+difficulty that the troops, baggage, and artillery, were saved.  The
+reconquest of Bamberg was the fruit of this victory; but Tilly, with all
+his activity, was unable to overtake the Swedish general, who retired in
+good order behind the Maine.  The king's appearance in Franconia, and
+his junction with Gustavus Horn at Kitzingen, put a stop to Tilly's
+conquests, and compelled him to provide for his own safety by a rapid
+retreat.
+
+The king made a general review of his troops at Aschaffenburg.  After
+his junction with Gustavus Horn, Banner, and Duke William of Weimar,
+they amounted to nearly 40,000 men.  His progress through Franconia was
+uninterrupted; for Tilly, far too weak to encounter an enemy so superior
+in numbers, had retreated, by rapid marches, towards the Danube.
+Bohemia and Bavaria were now equally near to the king, and, uncertain
+whither his victorious course might be directed, Maximilian could form
+no immediate resolution.  The choice of the king, and the fate of both
+provinces, now depended on the road that should be left open to Count
+Tilly.  It was dangerous, during the approach of so formidable an enemy,
+to leave Bavaria undefended, in order to protect Austria; still more
+dangerous, by receiving Tilly into Bavaria, to draw thither the enemy
+also, and to render it the seat of a destructive war.  The cares of the
+sovereign finally overcame the scruples of the statesman, and Tilly
+received orders, at all hazards, to cover the frontiers of Bavaria with
+his army.
+
+Nuremberg received with triumphant joy the protector of the Protestant
+religion and German freedom, and the enthusiasm of the citizens
+expressed itself on his arrival in loud transports of admiration and
+joy.  Even Gustavus could not contain his astonishment, to see himself
+in this city, which was the very centre of Germany, where he had never
+expected to be able to penetrate.  The noble appearance of his person,
+completed the impression produced by his glorious exploits, and the
+condescension with which he received the congratulations of this free
+city won all hearts.  He now confirmed the alliance he had concluded
+with it on the shores of the Baltic, and excited the citizens to zealous
+activity and fraternal unity against the common enemy.  After a short
+stay in Nuremberg, he followed his army to the Danube, and appeared
+unexpectedly before the frontier town of Donauwerth.  A numerous
+Bavarian garrison defended the place; and their commander, Rodolph
+Maximilian, Duke of Saxe Lauenburg, showed at first a resolute
+determination to defend it till the arrival of Tilly.  But the vigour
+with which Gustavus Adolphus prosecuted the siege, soon compelled him to
+take measures for a speedy and secure retreat, which amidst a tremendous
+fire from the Swedish artillery he successfully executed.
+
+The conquest of Donauwerth opened to the king the further side of the
+Danube, and now the small river Lech alone separated him from Bavaria.
+The immediate danger of his dominions aroused all Maximilian's activity;
+and however little he had hitherto disturbed the enemy's progress to his
+frontier, he now determined to dispute as resolutely the remainder of
+their course.  On the opposite bank of the Lech, near the small town of
+Rain, Tilly occupied a strongly fortified camp, which, surrounded by
+three rivers, bade defiance to all attack.  All the bridges over the
+Lech were destroyed; the whole course of the stream protected by strong
+garrisons as far as Augsburg; and that town itself, which had long
+betrayed its impatience to follow the example of Nuremberg and
+Frankfort, secured by a Bavarian garrison, and the disarming of its
+inhabitants.  The Elector himself, with all the troops he could collect,
+threw himself into Tilly's camp, as if all his hopes centred on this
+single point, and here the good fortune of the Swedes was to suffer
+shipwreck for ever.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, after subduing the whole territory of Augsburg, on
+his own side of the river, and opening to his troops a rich supply of
+necessaries from that quarter, soon appeared on the bank opposite the
+Bavarian entrenchments.  It was now the month of March, when the river,
+swollen by frequent rains, and the melting of the snow from the
+mountains of the Tyrol, flowed full and rapid between its steep banks.
+Its boiling current threatened the rash assailants with certain
+destruction, while from the opposite side the enemy's cannon showed
+their murderous mouths.  If, in despite of the fury both of fire and
+water, they should accomplish this almost impossible passage, a fresh
+and vigorous enemy awaited the exhausted troops in an impregnable camp;
+and when they needed repose and refreshment they must prepare for
+battle.  With exhausted powers they must ascend the hostile
+entrenchments, whose strength seemed to bid defiance to every assault.
+A defeat sustained upon this shore would be attended with inevitable
+destruction, since the same stream which impeded their advance would
+also cut off their retreat, if fortune should abandon them.
+
+The Swedish council of war, which the king now assembled, strongly urged
+upon him all these considerations, in order to deter him from this
+dangerous undertaking.  The most intrepid were appalled, and a troop of
+honourable warriors, who had grown gray in the field, did not hesitate
+to express their alarm.  But the king's resolution was fixed.  "What!"
+said he to Gustavus Horn, who spoke for the rest, "have we crossed the
+Baltic, and so many great rivers of Germany, and shall we now be checked
+by a brook like the Lech?"  Gustavus had already, at great personal
+risk, reconnoitred the whole country, and discovered that his own side
+of the river was higher than the other, and consequently gave a
+considerable advantage to the fire of the Swedish artillery over that of
+the enemy.  With great presence of mind he determined to profit by this
+circumstance.  At the point where the left bank of the Lech forms an
+angle with the right, he immediately caused three batteries to be
+erected, from which 72 field-pieces maintained a cross fire upon the
+enemy.  While this tremendous cannonade drove the Bavarians from the
+opposite bank, he caused to be erected a bridge over the river with all
+possible rapidity.  A thick smoke, kept up by burning wood and wet
+straw, concealed for some time the progress of the work from the enemy,
+while the continued thunder of the cannon overpowered the noise of the
+axes.  He kept alive by his own example the courage of his troops, and
+discharged more than 60 cannon with his own hand.  The cannonade was
+returned by the Bavarians with equal vivacity for two hours, though with
+less effect, as the Swedish batteries swept the lower opposite bank,
+while their height served as a breast-work to their own troops.  In
+vain, therefore, did the Bavarians attempt to destroy these works; the
+superior fire of the Swedes threw them into disorder, and the bridge was
+completed under their very eyes.  On this dreadful day, Tilly did every
+thing in his power to encourage his troops; and no danger could drive
+him from the bank.  At length he found the death which he sought, a
+cannon ball shattered his leg; and Altringer, his brave
+companion-in-arms, was, soon after, dangerously wounded in the head.
+Deprived of the animating presence of their two generals, the Bavarians
+gave way at last, and Maximilian, in spite of his own judgment, was
+driven to adopt a pusillanimous resolve.  Overcome by the persuasions of
+the dying Tilly, whose wonted firmness was overpowered by the near
+approach of death, he gave up his impregnable position for lost; and the
+discovery by the Swedes of a ford, by which their cavalry were on the
+point of passing, accelerated his inglorious retreat.  The same night,
+before a single soldier of the enemy had crossed the Lech, he broke up
+his camp, and, without giving time for the King to harass him in his
+march, retreated in good order to Neuburgh and Ingolstadt.  With
+astonishment did Gustavus Adolphus, who completed the passage of the
+river on the following day behold the hostile camp abandoned; and the
+Elector's flight surprised him still more, when he saw the strength of
+the position he had quitted.  "Had I been the Bavarian," said he,
+"though a cannon ball had carried away my beard and chin, never would I
+have abandoned a position like this, and laid open my territory to my
+enemies."
+
+Bavaria now lay exposed to the conqueror; and, for the first time, the
+tide of war, which had hitherto only beat against its frontier, now
+flowed over its long spared and fertile fields.  Before, however, the
+King proceeded to the conquest of these provinces, he delivered the town
+of Augsburg from the yoke of Bavaria; exacted an oath of allegiance from
+the citizens; and to secure its observance, left a garrison in the town.
+He then advanced, by rapid marches, against Ingolstadt, in order, by the
+capture of this important fortress, which the Elector covered with the
+greater part of his army, to secure his conquests in Bavaria, and obtain
+a firm footing on the Danube.
+
+Shortly after the appearance of the Swedish King before Ingolstadt, the
+wounded Tilly, after experiencing the caprice of unstable fortune,
+terminated his career within the walls of that town.  Conquered by the
+superior generalship of Gustavus Adolphus, he lost, at the close of his
+days, all the laurels of his earlier victories, and appeased, by a
+series of misfortunes, the demands of justice, and the avenging manes of
+Magdeburg.  In his death, the Imperial army and that of the League
+sustained an irreparable loss; the Roman Catholic religion was deprived
+of its most zealous defender, and Maximilian of Bavaria of the most
+faithful of his servants, who sealed his fidelity by his death, and even
+in his dying moments fulfilled the duties of a general.  His last
+message to the Elector was an urgent advice to take possession of
+Ratisbon, in order to maintain the command of the Danube, and to keep
+open the communication with Bohemia.
+
+With the confidence which was the natural fruit of so many victories,
+Gustavus Adolphus commenced the siege of Ingolstadt, hoping to gain the
+town by the fury of his first assault.  But the strength of its
+fortifications, and the bravery of its garrison, presented obstacles
+greater than any he had had to encounter since the battle of
+Breitenfeld, and the walls of Ingolstadt were near putting an end to his
+career.  While reconnoitring the works, a 24-pounder killed his horse
+under him, and he fell to the ground, while almost immediately
+afterwards another ball struck his favourite, the young Margrave of
+Baden, by his side.  With perfect self-possession the king rose, and
+quieted the fears of his troops by immediately mounting another horse.
+
+The occupation of Ratisbon by the Bavarians, who, by the advice of
+Tilly, had surprised this town by stratagem, and placed in it a strong
+garrison, quickly changed the king's plan of operations.  He had
+flattered himself with the hope of gaining this town, which favoured the
+Protestant cause, and to find in it an ally as devoted to him as
+Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Frankfort.  Its seizure by the Bavarians seemed
+to postpone for a long time the fulfilment of his favourite project of
+making himself master of the Danube, and cutting off his adversaries'
+supplies from Bohemia.  He suddenly raised the siege of Ingolstadt,
+before which he had wasted both his time and his troops, and penetrated
+into the interior of Bavaria, in order to draw the Elector into that
+quarter for the defence of his territories, and thus to strip the Danube
+of its defenders.
+
+The whole country, as far as Munich, now lay open to the conqueror.
+Mosburg, Landshut, and the whole territory of Freysingen, submitted;
+nothing could resist his arms.  But if he met with no regular force to
+oppose his progress, he had to contend against a still more implacable
+enemy in the heart of every Bavarian--religious fanaticism.  Soldiers
+who did not believe in the Pope were, in this country, a new and
+unheard-of phenomenon; the blind zeal of the priests represented them to
+the peasantry as monsters, the children of hell, and their leader as
+Antichrist.  No wonder, then, if they thought themselves released from
+all the ties of nature and humanity towards this brood of Satan, and
+justified in committing the most savage atrocities upon them.  Woe to
+the Swedish soldier who fell into their hands!  All the torments which
+inventive malice could devise were exercised upon these unhappy victims;
+and the sight of their mangled bodies exasperated the army to a fearful
+retaliation.  Gustavus Adolphus, alone, sullied the lustre of his heroic
+character by no act of revenge; and the aversion which the Bavarians
+felt towards his religion, far from making him depart from the
+obligations of humanity towards that unfortunate people, seemed to
+impose upon him the stricter duty to honour his religion by a more
+constant clemency.
+
+The approach of the king spread terror and consternation in the capital,
+which, stripped of its defenders, and abandoned by its principal
+inhabitants, placed all its hopes in the magnanimity of the conqueror.
+By an unconditional and voluntary surrender, it hoped to disarm his
+vengeance; and sent deputies even to Freysingen to lay at his feet the
+keys of the city.  Strongly as the king might have been tempted by the
+inhumanity of the Bavarians, and the hostility of their sovereign, to
+make a dreadful use of the rights of victory; pressed as he was by
+Germans to avenge the fate of Magdeburg on the capital of its destroyer,
+this great prince scorned this mean revenge; and the very helplessness
+of his enemies disarmed his severity.  Contented with the more noble
+triumph of conducting the Palatine Frederick with the pomp of a victor
+into the very palace of the prince who had been the chief instrument of
+his ruin, and the usurper of his territories, he heightened the
+brilliancy of his triumphal entry by the brighter splendour of
+moderation and clemency.
+
+The King found in Munich only a forsaken palace, for the Elector's
+treasures had been transported to Werfen.  The magnificence of the
+building astonished him; and he asked the guide who showed the
+apartments who was the architect.  "No other," replied he, "than the
+Elector himself."--"I wish," said the King, "I had this architect to
+send to Stockholm." "That," he was answered, "the architect will take
+care to prevent." When the arsenal was examined, they found nothing but
+carriages, stripped of their cannon.  The latter had been so artfully
+concealed under the floor, that no traces of them remained; and but for
+the treachery of a workman, the deceit would not have been detected.
+"Rise up from the dead," said the King, "and come to judgment." The
+floor was pulled up, and 140 pieces of cannon discovered, some of
+extraordinary calibre, which had been principally taken in the
+Palatinate and Bohemia.  A treasure of 30,000 gold ducats, concealed in
+one of the largest, completed the pleasure which the King received from
+this valuable acquisition.
+
+A far more welcome spectacle still would have been the Bavarian army
+itself; for his march into the heart of Bavaria had been undertaken
+chiefly with the view of luring them from their entrenchments.  In this
+expectation he was disappointed.  No enemy appeared; no entreaties,
+however urgent, on the part of his subjects, could induce the Elector to
+risk the remainder of his army to the chances of a battle.  Shut up in
+Ratisbon, he awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing
+from Bohemia; and endeavoured, in the mean time, to amuse his enemy and
+keep him inactive, by reviving the negociation for a neutrality.  But
+the King's distrust, too often and too justly excited by  his previous
+conduct, frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of
+Wallenstein abandoned Bavaria to the Swedes.
+
+Thus far had Gustavus advanced from victory to victory, without meeting
+with an enemy able to cope with him.  A part of Bavaria and Swabia, the
+Bishoprics of Franconia, the Lower Palatinate, and the Archbishopric of
+Mentz, lay conquered in his rear.  An uninterrupted career of conquest
+had conducted him to the threshold of Austria; and the most brilliant
+success had fully justified the plan of operations which he had formed
+after the battle of Breitenfeld.  If he had not succeeded to his wish in
+promoting a confederacy among the Protestant States, he had at least
+disarmed or weakened the League, carried on the war chiefly at its
+expense, lessened the Emperor's resources, emboldened the weaker States,
+and while he laid under contribution the allies of the Emperor, forced a
+way through their territories into Austria itself.  Where arms were
+unavailing, the greatest service was rendered by the friendship of the
+free cities, whose affections he had gained, by the double ties of
+policy and religion; and, as long as he should maintain his superiority
+in the field, he might reckon on every thing from their zeal.  By his
+conquests on the Rhine, the Spaniards were cut off from the Lower
+Palatinate, even if the state of the war in the Netherlands left them at
+liberty to interfere in the affairs of Germany.  The Duke of Lorraine,
+too, after his unfortunate campaign, had been glad to adopt a
+neutrality.  Even the numerous garrisons he had left behind him, in his
+progress through Germany, had not diminished his army; and, fresh and
+vigorous as when he first began his march, he now stood in the centre of
+Bavaria, determined and prepared to carry the war into the heart of
+Austria.
+
+While Gustavus Adolphus thus maintained his superiority within the
+empire, fortune, in another quarter, had been no less favourable to his
+ally, the Elector of Saxony.  By the arrangement concerted between these
+princes at Halle, after the battle of Leipzig, the conquest of Bohemia
+was intrusted to the Elector of Saxony, while the King reserved for
+himself the attack upon the territories of the League.  The first fruits
+which the Elector reaped from the battle of Breitenfeld, was the
+reconquest of Leipzig, which was shortly followed by the expulsion of
+the Austrian garrisons from the entire circle.  Reinforced by the troops
+who deserted to him from the hostile garrisons, the Saxon General,
+Arnheim, marched towards Lusatia, which had been overrun by an Imperial
+General, Rudolph von Tiefenbach, in order to chastise the Elector for
+embracing the cause of the enemy.  He had already commenced in this
+weakly defended province the usual course of devastation, taken several
+towns, and terrified Dresden itself by his approach, when his
+destructive progress was suddenly stopped, by an express mandate from
+the Emperor to spare the possessions of the King of Saxony.
+
+Ferdinand had perceived too late the errors of that policy, which
+reduced the Elector of Saxony to extremities, and forcibly driven this
+powerful monarch into an alliance with Sweden.  By moderation, equally
+ill-timed, he now wished to repair if possible the consequences of his
+haughtiness; and thus committed a second error in endeavouring to repair
+the first.  To deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had opened,
+through the intervention of Spain, a negociation with the Elector; and
+in order to facilitate an accommodation, Tiefenbach was ordered
+immediately to retire from Saxony.  But these concessions of the
+Emperor, far from producing the desired effect, only revealed to the
+Elector the embarrassment of his adversary and his own importance, and
+emboldened him the more to prosecute the advantages he had already
+obtained.  How could he, moreover, without becoming chargeable with the
+most shameful ingratitude, abandon an ally to whom he had given the most
+solemn assurances of fidelity, and to whom he was indebted for the
+preservation of his dominions, and even of his Electoral dignity?
+
+The Saxon army, now relieved from the necessity of marching into
+Lusatia, advanced towards Bohemia, where a combination of favourable
+circumstances seemed to ensure them an easy victory.  In this kingdom,
+the first scene of this fatal war, the flames of dissension still
+smouldered beneath the ashes, while the discontent of the inhabitants
+was fomented by daily acts of oppression and tyranny.  On every side,
+this unfortunate country showed signs of a mournful change.  Whole
+districts had changed their proprietors, and groaned under the hated
+yoke of Roman Catholic masters, whom the favour of the Emperor and the
+Jesuits had enriched with the plunder and possessions of the exiled
+Protestants.  Others, taking advantage themselves of the general
+distress, had purchased, at a low rate, the confiscated estates.  The
+blood of the most eminent champions of liberty had been shed upon the
+scaffold; and such as by a timely flight avoided that fate, were
+wandering in misery far from their native land, while the obsequious
+slaves of despotism enjoyed their patrimony.  Still more insupportable
+than the oppression of these petty tyrants, was the restraint of
+conscience which was imposed without distinction on all the Protestants
+of that kingdom.  No external danger, no opposition on the part of the
+nation, however steadfast, not even the fearful lessons of past
+experience could check in the Jesuits the rage of proselytism; where
+fair means were ineffectual, recourse was had to military force to bring
+the deluded wanderers within the pale of the church.  The inhabitants of
+Joachimsthal, on the frontiers between Bohemia and Meissen, were the
+chief sufferers from this violence.  Two imperial commissaries,
+accompanied by as many Jesuits, and supported by fifteen musketeers,
+made their appearance in this peaceful valley to preach the gospel to
+the heretics.  Where the rhetoric of the former was ineffectual, the
+forcibly quartering the latter upon the houses, and threats of
+banishment and fines were tried.  But on this occasion, the good cause
+prevailed, and the bold resistance of this small district compelled the
+Emperor disgracefully to recall his mandate of conversion.  The example
+of the court had, however, afforded a precedent to the Roman Catholics
+of the empire, and seemed to justify every act of oppression which their
+insolence tempted them to wreak upon the Protestants.  It is not
+surprising, then, if this persecuted party was favourable to a
+revolution, and saw with pleasure their deliverers on the frontiers.
+
+The Saxon army was already on its march towards Prague, the imperial
+garrisons everywhere retired before them.  Schloeckenau, Tetschen,
+Aussig, Leutmeritz, soon fell into the enemy's hands, and every Roman
+Catholic place was abandoned to plunder.  Consternation seized all the
+Papists of the Empire; and conscious of the outrages which they
+themselves had committed on the Protestants, they did not venture to
+abide the vengeful arrival of a Protestant army.  All the Roman
+Catholics, who had anything to lose, fled hastily from the country to
+the capital, which again they presently abandoned.  Prague was
+unprepared for an attack, and was too weakly garrisoned to sustain a
+long siege.  Too late had the Emperor resolved to despatch Field-Marshal
+Tiefenbach to the defence of this capital.  Before the imperial orders
+could reach the head-quarters of that general, in Silesia, the Saxons
+were already close to Prague, the Protestant inhabitants of which showed
+little zeal, while the weakness of the garrison left no room to hope a
+long resistance.  In this fearful state of embarrassment, the Roman
+Catholics of Prague looked for security to Wallenstein, who now lived in
+that city as a private individual.  But far from lending his military
+experience, and the weight of his name, towards its defence, he seized
+the favourable opportunity to satiate his thirst for revenge.  If he did
+not actually invite the Saxons to Prague, at least his conduct
+facilitated its capture.  Though unprepared, the town might still hold
+out until succours could arrive; and an imperial colonel, Count Maradas,
+showed serious intentions of undertaking its defence.  But without
+command and authority, and having no support but his own zeal and
+courage, he did not dare to venture upon such a step without the advice
+of a superior.  He therefore consulted the Duke of Friedland, whose
+approbation might supply the want of authority from the Emperor, and to
+whom the Bohemian generals were referred by an express edict of the
+court in the last extremity.  He, however, artfully excused himself, on
+the plea of holding no official appointment, and his long retirement
+from the political world; while he weakened the resolution of the
+subalterns by the scruples which he suggested, and painted in the
+strongest colours.  At last, to render the consternation general and
+complete, he quitted the capital with his whole court, however little he
+had to fear from its capture; and the city was lost, because, by his
+departure, he showed that he despaired of its safety.  His example was
+followed by all the Roman Catholic nobility, the generals with their
+troops, the clergy, and all the officers of the crown.  All night the
+people were employed in saving their persons and effects.  The roads to
+Vienna were crowded with fugitives, who scarcely recovered from their
+consternation till they reached the imperial city.  Maradas himself,
+despairing of the safety of Prague, followed the rest, and led his small
+detachment to Tabor, where he awaited the event.
+
+Profound silence reigned in Prague, when the Saxons next morning
+appeared before it; no preparations were made for defence; not a single
+shot from the walls announced an intention of resistance.  On the
+contrary, a crowd of spectators from the town, allured by curiosity,
+came flocking round, to behold the foreign army; and the peaceful
+confidence with which they advanced, resembled a friendly salutation,
+more than a hostile reception.  From the concurrent reports of these
+people, the Saxons learned that the town had been deserted by the
+troops, and that the government had fled to Budweiss.  This unexpected
+and inexplicable absence of resistance excited Arnheim's distrust the
+more, as the speedy approach of the Silesian succours was no secret to
+him, and as he knew that the Saxon army was too indifferently provided
+with materials for undertaking a siege, and by far too weak in numbers
+to attempt to take the place by storm.  Apprehensive of stratagem, he
+redoubled his vigilance; and he continued in this conviction until
+Wallenstein's house-steward, whom he discovered among the crowd,
+confirmed to him this intelligence.  "The town is ours without a blow!"
+exclaimed he in astonishment to his officers, and immediately summoned
+it by a trumpeter.
+
+The citizens of Prague, thus shamefully abandoned by their defenders,
+had long taken their resolution; all that they had to do was to secure
+their properties and liberties by an advantageous capitulation.  No
+sooner was the treaty signed by the Saxon general, in his master's name,
+than the gates were opened, without farther opposition; and upon the
+11th of November, 1631, the army made their triumphal entry.  The
+Elector soon after followed in person, to receive the homage of those
+whom he had newly taken under his protection; for it was only in the
+character of protector that the three towns of Prague had surrendered to
+him.  Their allegiance to the Austrian monarchy was not to be dissolved
+by the step they had taken.  In proportion as the Papists' apprehensions
+of reprisals on the part of the Protestants had been exaggerated, so was
+their surprise great at the moderation of the Elector, and the
+discipline of his troops.  Field-Marshal Arnheim plainly evinced, on
+this occasion, his respect for Wallenstein.  Not content with sparing
+his estates on his march, he now placed guards over his palace, in
+Prague, to prevent the plunder of any of his effects.  The Roman
+Catholics of the town were allowed the fullest liberty of conscience;
+and of all the churches they had wrested from the Protestants, four only
+were now taken back from them.  From this general indulgence, none were
+excluded but the Jesuits, who were generally considered as the authors
+of all past grievances, and thus banished the kingdom.
+
+John George belied not the submission and dependence with which the
+terror of the imperial name inspired him; nor did he indulge at Prague,
+in a course of conduct which would assuredly have been pursued against
+himself in Dresden, by imperial generals, such as Tilly or Wallenstein.
+He carefully distinguished between the enemy with whom he was at war,
+and the head of the Empire, to whom he owed obedience.  He did not
+venture to touch the household furniture of the latter, while, without
+scruple, he appropriated and transported to Dresden the cannon of the
+former.  He did not take up his residence in the imperial palace, but
+the house of Lichtenstein; too modest to use the apartments of one whom
+he had deprived of a kingdom.  Had this trait been related of a great
+man and a hero, it would irresistibly excite our admiration; but the
+character of this prince leaves us in doubt whether this moderation
+ought to be ascribed to a noble self-command, or to the littleness of a
+weak mind, which even good fortune could not embolden, and liberty
+itself could not strip of its habituated fetters.
+
+The surrender of Prague, which was quickly followed by that of most of
+the other towns, effected a great and sudden change in Bohemia.  Many of
+the Protestant nobility, who had hitherto been wandering about in
+misery, now returned to their native country; and Count Thurn, the
+famous author of the Bohemian insurrection, enjoyed the triumph of
+returning as a conqueror to the scene of his crime and his condemnation.
+Over the very bridge where the heads of his adherents, exposed to view,
+held out a fearful picture of the fate which had threatened himself, he
+now made his triumphal entry; and to remove these ghastly objects was
+his first care.  The exiles again took possession of their properties,
+without thinking of recompensing for the purchase money the present
+possessors, who had mostly taken to flight.  Even though they had
+received a price for their estates, they seized on every thing which had
+once been their own; and many had reason to rejoice at the economy of
+the late possessors.  The lands and cattle had greatly improved in their
+hands; the apartments were now decorated with the most costly furniture;
+the cellars, which had been left empty, were richly filled; the stables
+supplied; the magazines stored with provisions.  But distrusting the
+constancy of that good fortune, which had so unexpectedly smiled upon
+them, they hastened to get quit of these insecure possessions, and to
+convert their immoveable into transferable property.
+
+The presence of the Saxons inspired all the Protestants of the kingdom
+with courage; and, both in the country and the capital, crowds flocked
+to the newly opened Protestant churches.  Many, whom fear alone had
+retained in their adherence to Popery, now openly professed the new
+doctrine; and many of the late converts to Roman Catholicism gladly
+renounced a compulsory persuasion, to follow the earlier conviction of
+their conscience.  All the moderation of the new regency, could not
+restrain the manifestation of that just displeasure, which this
+persecuted people felt against their oppressors.  They made a fearful
+and cruel use of their newly recovered rights; and, in many parts of the
+kingdom, their hatred of the religion which they had been compelled to
+profess, could be satiated only by the blood of its adherents.
+
+Meantime the succours which the imperial generals, Goetz and Tiefenbach,
+were conducting from Silesia, had entered Bohemia, where they were
+joined by some of Tilly's regiments, from the Upper Palatinate.  In
+order to disperse them before they should receive any further
+reinforcement, Arnheim advanced with part of his army from Prague, and
+made a vigorous attack on their entrenchments near Limburg, on the Elbe.
+After a severe action, not without great loss, he drove the enemy from
+their fortified camp, and forced them, by his heavy fire, to recross the
+Elbe, and to destroy the bridge which they had built over that river.
+Nevertheless, the Imperialists obtained the advantage in several
+skirmishes, and the Croats pushed their incursions to the very gates of
+Prague.  Brilliant and promising as the opening of the Bohemian campaign
+had been, the issue by no means satisfied the expectations of Gustavus
+Adolphus.  Instead of vigorously following up their advantages, by
+forcing a passage to the Swedish army through the conquered country, and
+then, with it, attacking the imperial power in its centre, the Saxons
+weakened themselves in a war of skirmishes, in which they were not
+always successful, while they lost the time which should have been
+devoted to greater undertakings.  But the Elector's subsequent conduct
+betrayed the motives which had prevented him from pushing his advantage
+over the Emperor, and by consistent measures promoting the plans of the
+King of Sweden.
+
+The Emperor had now lost the greater part of Bohemia, and the Saxons
+were advancing against Austria, while the Swedish monarch was rapidly
+moving to the same point through Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria.  A long
+war had exhausted the strength of the Austrian monarchy, wasted the
+country, and diminished its armies.  The renown of its victories was no
+more, as well as the confidence inspired by constant success; its troops
+had lost the obedience and discipline to which those of the Swedish
+monarch owed all their superiority in the field.  The confederates of
+the Emperor were disarmed, or their fidelity shaken by the danger which
+threatened themselves.  Even Maximilian of Bavaria, Austria's most
+powerful ally, seemed disposed to yield to the seductive proposition of
+neutrality; while his suspicious alliance with France had long been a
+subject of apprehension to the Emperor.  The bishops of Wurtzburg and
+Bamberg, the Elector of Mentz, and the Duke of Lorraine, were either
+expelled from their territories, or threatened with immediate attack;
+Treves had placed itself under the protection of France.  The bravery of
+the Hollanders gave full employment to the Spanish arms in the
+Netherlands; while Gustavus had driven them from the Rhine.  Poland was
+still fettered by the truce which subsisted between that country and
+Sweden.  The Hungarian frontier was threatened by the Transylvanian
+Prince, Ragotsky, a successor of Bethlen Gabor, and the inheritor of his
+restless mind; while the Porte was making great preparation to profit by
+the favourable conjuncture for aggression.  Most of the Protestant
+states, encouraged by their protector's success, were openly and
+actively declaring against the Emperor.  All the resources which had
+been obtained by the violent and oppressive extortions of Tilly and
+Wallenstein were exhausted; all these depots, magazines, and
+rallying-points, were now lost to the Emperor; and the war could no
+longer be carried on as before at the cost of others.  To complete his
+embarrassment, a dangerous insurrection broke out in the territory of
+the Ens, where the ill-timed religious zeal of the government had
+provoked the Protestants to resistance; and thus fanaticism lit its
+torch within the empire, while a foreign enemy was already on its
+frontier.  After so long a continuance of good fortune, such brilliant
+victories and extensive conquests, such fruitless effusion of blood, the
+Emperor saw himself a second time on the brink of that abyss, into which
+he was so near falling at the commencement of his reign.  If Bavaria
+should embrace the neutrality; if Saxony should resist the tempting
+offers he had held out; and France resolve to attack the Spanish power
+at the same time in the Netherlands, in Italy and in Catalonia, the ruin
+of Austria would be complete; the allied powers would divide its spoils,
+and the political system of Germany would undergo a total change.
+
+The chain of these disasters began with the battle of Breitenfeld, the
+unfortunate issue of which plainly revealed the long decided decline of
+the Austrian power, whose weakness had hitherto been concealed under the
+dazzling glitter of a grand name.  The chief cause of the Swedes'
+superiority in the field, was evidently to be ascribed to the unlimited
+power of their leader, who concentrated in himself the whole strength of
+his party; and, unfettered in his enterprises by any higher authority,
+was complete master of every favourable opportunity, could control all
+his means to the accomplishment of his ends, and was responsible to none
+but himself.  But since Wallenstein's dismissal, and Tilly's defeat, the
+very reverse of this course was pursued by the Emperor and the League.
+The generals wanted authority over their troops, and liberty of acting
+at their discretion; the soldiers were deficient in discipline and
+obedience; the scattered corps in combined operation; the states in
+attachment to the cause; the leaders in harmony among themselves, in
+quickness to resolve, and firmness to execute.  What gave the Emperor's
+enemy so decided an advantage over him, was not so much their superior
+power, as their manner of using it.  The League and the Emperor did not
+want means, but a mind capable of directing them with energy and effect.
+Even had Count Tilly not lost his old renown, distrust of Bavaria would
+not allow the Emperor to place the fate of Austria in the hands of one
+who had never concealed his attachment to the Bavarian Elector.  The
+urgent want which Ferdinand felt, was for a general possessed of
+sufficient experience to form and to command an army, and willing at the
+same time to dedicate his services, with blind devotion, to the Austrian
+monarchy.
+
+This choice now occupied the attention of the Emperor's privy council,
+and divided the opinions of its members.  In order to oppose one monarch
+to another, and by the presence of their sovereign to animate the
+courage of the troops, Ferdinand, in the ardour of the moment, had
+offered himself to be the leader of his army; but little trouble was
+required to overturn a resolution which was the offspring of despair
+alone, and which yielded at once to calm reflection.  But the situation
+which his dignity, and the duties of administration, prevented the
+Emperor from holding, might be filled by his son, a youth of talents and
+bravery, and of whom the subjects of Austria had already formed great
+expectations.  Called by his birth to the defence of a monarchy, of
+whose crowns he wore two already, Ferdinand III., King of Hungary and
+Bohemia, united, with the natural dignity of heir to the throne, the
+respect of the army, and the attachment of the people, whose
+co-operation was indispensable to him in the conduct of the war.  None
+but the beloved heir to the crown could venture to impose new burdens on
+a people already severely oppressed; his personal presence with the army
+could alone suppress the pernicious jealousies of the several leaders,
+and by the influence of his name, restore the neglected discipline of
+the troops to its former rigour.  If so young a leader was devoid of the
+maturity of judgment, prudence, and military experience which practice
+alone could impart, this deficiency might be supplied by a judicious
+choice of counsellors and assistants, who, under the cover of his name,
+might be vested with supreme authority.
+
+But plausible as were the arguments with which a part of the ministry
+supported this plan, it was met by difficulties not less serious,
+arising from the distrust, perhaps even the jealousy, of the Emperor,
+and also from the desperate state of affairs.  How dangerous was it to
+entrust the fate of the monarchy to a youth, who was himself in need of
+counsel and support!  How hazardous to oppose to the greatest general of
+his age, a tyro, whose fitness for so important a post had never yet
+been tested by experience; whose name, as yet unknown to fame, was far
+too powerless to inspire a dispirited army with the assurance of future
+victory!  What a new burden on the country, to support the state a royal
+leader was required to maintain, and which the prejudices of the age
+considered as inseparable from his presence with the army! How serious a
+consideration for the prince himself, to commence his political career,
+with an office which must make him the scourge of his people, and the
+oppressor of the territories which he was hereafter to rule.
+
+But not only was a general to be found for the army; an army must also
+be found for the general.  Since the compulsory resignation of
+Wallenstein, the Emperor had defended himself more by the assistance of
+Bavaria and the League, than by his own armies; and it was this
+dependence on equivocal allies, which he was endeavouring to escape, by
+the appointment of a general of his own.  But what possibility was there
+of raising an army out of nothing, without the all-powerful aid of gold,
+and the inspiriting name of a victorious commander; above all, an army
+which, by its discipline, warlike spirit, and activity, should be fit to
+cope with the experienced troops of the northern conqueror? In all
+Europe, there was but one man equal to this, and that one had been
+mortally affronted.
+
+The moment had at last arrived, when more than ordinary satisfaction was
+to be done to the wounded pride of the Duke of Friedland.  Fate itself
+had been his avenger, and an unbroken chain of disasters, which had
+assailed Austria from the day of his dismissal, had wrung from the
+Emperor the humiliating confession, that with this general he had lost
+his right arm.  Every defeat of his troops opened afresh this wound;
+every town which he lost, revived in the mind of the deceived monarch
+the memory of his own weakness and ingratitude.  It would have been well
+for him, if, in the offended general, he had only lost a leader of his
+troops, and a defender of his dominions; but he was destined to find in
+him an enemy, and the most dangerous of all, since he was least armed
+against the stroke of treason.
+
+Removed from the theatre of war, and condemned to irksome inaction,
+while his rivals gathered laurels on the field of glory, the haughty
+duke had beheld these changes of fortune with affected composure, and
+concealed, under a glittering and theatrical pomp, the dark designs of
+his restless genius.  Torn by burning passions within, while all without
+bespoke calmness and indifference, he brooded over projects of ambition
+and revenge, and slowly, but surely, advanced towards his end.  All that
+he owed to the Emperor was effaced from his mind; what he himself had
+done for the Emperor was imprinted in burning characters on his memory.
+To his insatiable thirst for power, the Emperor's ingratitude was
+welcome, as it seemed to tear in pieces the record of past favours, to
+absolve him from every obligation towards his former benefactor.  In the
+disguise of a righteous retaliation, the projects dictated by his
+ambition now appeared to him just and pure.  In proportion as the
+external circle of his operations was narrowed, the world of hope
+expanded before him, and his dreamy imagination revelled in boundless
+projects, which, in any mind but such as his, madness alone could have
+given birth to.  His services had raised him to the proudest height
+which it was possible for a man, by his own efforts, to attain.  Fortune
+had denied him nothing which the subject and the citizen could lawfully
+enjoy.  Till the moment of his dismissal, his demands had met with no
+refusal, his ambition had met with no check; but the blow which, at the
+diet of Ratisbon, humbled him, showed him the difference between
+ORIGINAL and DEPUTED power, the distance between the subject and his
+sovereign.  Roused from the intoxication of his own greatness by this
+sudden reverse of fortune, he compared the authority which he had
+possessed, with that which had deprived him of it; and his ambition
+marked the steps which it had yet to surmount upon the ladder of
+fortune.  From the moment he had so bitterly experienced the weight of
+sovereign power, his efforts were directed to attain it for himself; the
+wrong which he himself had suffered made him a robber.  Had he not been
+outraged by injustice, he might have obediently moved in his orbit round
+the majesty of the throne, satisfied with the glory of being the
+brightest of its satellites.  It was only when violently forced from its
+sphere, that his wandering star threw in disorder the system to which it
+belonged, and came in destructive collision with its sun.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had overrun the north of Germany; one place after
+another was lost; and at Leipzig, the flower of the Austrian army had
+fallen.  The intelligence of this defeat soon reached the ears of
+Wallenstein, who, in the retired obscurity of a private station in
+Prague, contemplated from a calm distance the tumult of war.  The news,
+which filled the breasts of the Roman Catholics with dismay, announced
+to him the return of greatness and good fortune.  For him was Gustavus
+Adolphus labouring.  Scarce had the king begun to gain reputation by his
+exploits, when Wallenstein lost not a moment to court his friendship,
+and to make common cause with this successful enemy of Austria.  The
+banished Count Thurn, who had long entered the service of Sweden,
+undertook to convey Wallenstein's congratulations to the king, and to
+invite him to a close alliance with the duke.  Wallenstein required
+15,000 men from the king; and with these, and the troops he himself
+engaged to raise, he undertook to conquer Bohemia and Moravia, to
+surprise Vienna, and drive his master, the Emperor, before him into
+Italy.  Welcome as was this unexpected proposition, its extravagant
+promises were naturally calculated to excite suspicion.  Gustavus
+Adolphus was too good a judge of merit to reject with coldness the
+offers of one who might be so important a friend.  But when Wallenstein,
+encouraged by the favourable reception of his first message, renewed it
+after the battle of Breitenfeld, and pressed for a decisive answer, the
+prudent monarch hesitated to trust his reputation to the chimerical
+projects of so daring an adventurer, and to commit so large a force to
+the honesty of a man who felt no shame in openly avowing himself a
+traitor.  He excused himself, therefore, on the plea of the weakness of
+his army which, if diminished by so large a detachment, would certainly
+suffer in its march through the empire; and thus, perhaps, by excess of
+caution, lost an opportunity of putting an immediate end to the war.  He
+afterwards endeavoured to renew the negociation; but the favourable
+moment was past, and Wallenstein's offended pride never forgave the
+first neglect.
+
+But the king's hesitation, perhaps, only accelerated the breach, which
+their characters made inevitable sooner or later.  Both framed by nature
+to give laws, not to receive them, they could not long have co-operated
+in an enterprise, which eminently demanded mutual submission and
+sacrifices.  Wallenstein was NOTHING where he was not EVERYTHING; he
+must either act with unlimited power, or not at all.  So cordially, too,
+did Gustavus dislike control, that he had almost renounced his
+advantageous alliance with France, because it threatened to fetter his
+own independent judgment.  Wallenstein was lost to a party, if he could
+not lead; the latter was, if possible, still less disposed to obey the
+instructions of another.  If the pretensions of a rival would be so
+irksome to the Duke of Friedland, in the conduct of combined operations,
+in the division of the spoil they would be insupportable.  The proud
+monarch might condescend to accept the assistance of a rebellious
+subject against the Emperor, and to reward his valuable services with
+regal munificence; but he never could so far lose sight of his own
+dignity, and the majesty of royalty, as to bestow the recompense which
+the extravagant ambition of Wallenstein demanded; and requite an act of
+treason, however useful, with a crown.  In him, therefore, even if all
+Europe should tacitly acquiesce, Wallenstein had reason to expect the
+most decided and formidable opponent to his views on the Bohemian crown;
+and in all Europe he was the only one who could enforce his opposition.
+Constituted Dictator in Germany by Wallenstein himself, he might turn
+his arms against him, and consider himself bound by no obligations to
+one who was himself a traitor.  There was no room for a Wallenstein
+under such an ally; and it was, apparently, this conviction, and not any
+supposed designs upon the imperial throne, that he alluded to, when,
+after the death of the King of Sweden, he exclaimed, "It is well for him
+and me that he is gone.  The German Empire does not require two such
+leaders."
+
+His first scheme of revenge on the house of Austria had indeed failed;
+but the purpose itself remained unalterable; the choice of means alone
+was changed.  What he had failed in effecting with the King of Sweden,
+he hoped to obtain with less difficulty and more advantage from the
+Elector of Saxony.  Him he was as certain of being able to bend to his
+views, as he had always been doubtful of Gustavus Adolphus.  Having
+always maintained a good understanding with his old friend Arnheim, he
+now made use of him to bring about an alliance with Saxony, by which he
+hoped to render himself equally formidable to the Emperor and the King
+of Sweden.  He had reason to expect that a scheme, which, if successful,
+would deprive the Swedish monarch of his influence in Germany, would be
+welcomed by the Elector of Saxony, who he knew was jealous of the power
+and offended at the lofty pretensions of Gustavus Adolphus.  If he
+succeeded in separating Saxony from the Swedish alliance, and in
+establishing, conjointly with that power, a third party in the Empire,
+the fate of the war would be placed in his hand; and by this single step
+he would succeed in gratifying his revenge against the Emperor,
+revenging the neglect of the Swedish monarch, and on the ruin of both,
+raising the edifice of his own greatness.
+
+But whatever course he might follow in the prosecution of his designs,
+he could not carry them into effect without an army entirely devoted to
+him.  Such a force could not be secretly raised without its coming to
+the knowledge of the imperial court, where it would naturally excite
+suspicion, and thus frustrate his design in the very outset.  From the
+army, too, the rebellious purposes for which it was destined, must be
+concealed till the very moment of execution, since it could scarcely be
+expected that they would at once be prepared to listen to the voice of a
+traitor, and serve against their legitimate sovereign.  Wallenstein,
+therefore, must raise it publicly and in name of the Emperor, and be
+placed at its head, with unlimited authority, by the Emperor himself.
+But how could this be accomplished, otherwise than by his being
+appointed to the command of the army, and entrusted with full powers to
+conduct the war.  Yet neither his pride, nor his interest, permitted him
+to sue in person for this post, and as a suppliant to accept from the
+favour of the Emperor a limited power, when an unlimited authority might
+be extorted from his fears.  In order to make himself the master of the
+terms on which he would resume the command of the army, his course was
+to wait until the post should be forced upon him.  This was the advice
+he received from Arnheim, and this the end for which he laboured with
+profound policy and restless activity.
+
+Convinced that extreme necessity would alone conquer the Emperor's
+irresolution, and render powerless the opposition of his bitter enemies,
+Bavaria and Spain, he henceforth occupied himself in promoting the
+success of the enemy, and in increasing the embarrassments of his
+master.  It was apparently by his instigation and advice, that the
+Saxons, when on the route to Lusatia and Silesia, had turned their march
+towards Bohemia, and overrun that defenceless kingdom, where their rapid
+conquests was partly the result of his measures.  By the fears which he
+affected to entertain, he paralyzed every effort at resistance; and his
+precipitate retreat caused the delivery of the capital to the enemy.  At
+a conference with the Saxon general, which was held at Kaunitz under the
+pretext of negociating for a peace, the seal was put to the conspiracy,
+and the conquest of Bohemia was the first fruits of this mutual
+understanding.  While Wallenstein was thus personally endeavouring to
+heighten the perplexities of Austria, and while the rapid movements of
+the Swedes upon the Rhine effectually promoted his designs, his friends
+and bribed adherents in Vienna uttered loud complaints of the public
+calamities, and represented the dismissal of the general as the sole
+cause of all these misfortunes.  "Had Wallenstein commanded, matters
+would never have come to this," exclaimed a thousand voices; while their
+opinions found supporters, even in the Emperor's privy council.
+
+Their repeated remonstrances were not needed to convince the embarrassed
+Emperor of his general's merits, and of his own error.  His dependence
+on Bavaria and the League had soon become insupportable; but hitherto
+this dependence permitted him not to show his distrust, or irritate the
+Elector by the recall of Wallenstein.  But now when his necessities grew
+every day more pressing, and the weakness of Bavaria more apparent, he
+could no longer hesitate to listen to the friends of the duke, and to
+consider their overtures for his restoration to command.  The immense
+riches Wallenstein possessed, the universal reputation he enjoyed, the
+rapidity with which six years before he had assembled an army of 40,000
+men, the little expense at which he had maintained this formidable
+force, the actions he had performed at its head, and lastly, the zeal
+and fidelity he had displayed for his master's honour, still lived in
+the Emperor's recollection, and made Wallenstein seem to him the ablest
+instrument to restore the balance between the belligerent powers, to
+save Austria, and preserve the Catholic religion.  However sensibly the
+imperial pride might feel the humiliation, in being forced to make so
+unequivocal an admission of past errors and present necessity; however
+painful it was to descend to humble entreaties, from the height of
+imperial command; however doubtful the fidelity of so deeply injured and
+implacable a character; however loudly and urgently the Spanish minister
+and the Elector of Bavaria protested against this step, the immediate
+pressure of necessity finally overcame every other consideration, and
+the friends of the duke were empowered to consult him on the subject,
+and to hold out the prospect of his restoration.
+
+Informed of all that was transacted in the Emperor's cabinet to his
+advantage, Wallenstein possessed sufficient self-command to conceal his
+inward triumph and to assume the mask of indifference.  The moment of
+vengeance was at last come, and his proud heart exulted in the prospect
+of repaying with interest the injuries of the Emperor.  With artful
+eloquence, he expatiated upon the happy tranquillity of a private
+station, which had blessed him since his retirement from a political
+stage.  Too long, he said, had he tasted the pleasures of ease and
+independence, to sacrifice to the vain phantom of glory, the uncertain
+favour of princes.  All his desire of power and distinction were
+extinct:  tranquillity and repose were now the sole object of his
+wishes.  The better to conceal his real impatience, he declined the
+Emperor's invitation to the court, but at the same time, to facilitate
+the negociations, came to Znaim in Moravia.
+
+At first, it was proposed to limit the authority to be intrusted to him,
+by the presence of a superior, in order, by this expedient, to silence
+the objections of the Elector of Bavaria.  The imperial deputies,
+Questenberg and Werdenberg, who, as old friends of the duke, had been
+employed in this delicate mission, were instructed to propose that the
+King of Hungary should remain with the army, and learn the art of war
+under Wallenstein.  But the very mention of his name threatened to put a
+period to the whole negociation.  "No! never," exclaimed Wallenstein,
+"will I submit to a colleague in my office.  No--not even if it were God
+himself, with whom I should have to share my command." But even when
+this obnoxious point was given up, Prince Eggenberg, the Emperor's
+minister and favourite, who had always been the steady friend and
+zealous champion of Wallenstein, and was therefore expressly sent to
+him, exhausted his eloquence in vain to overcome the pretended
+reluctance of the duke.  "The Emperor," he admitted, "had, in
+Wallenstein, thrown away the most costly jewel in his crown:  but
+unwillingly and compulsorily only had he taken this step, which he had
+since deeply repented of; while his esteem for the duke had remained
+unaltered, his favour for him undiminished.  Of these sentiments he now
+gave the most decisive proof, by reposing unlimited confidence in his
+fidelity and capacity to repair the mistakes of his predecessors, and to
+change the whole aspect of affairs.  It would be great and noble to
+sacrifice his just indignation to the good of his country; dignified and
+worthy of him to refute the evil calumny of his enemies by the double
+warmth of his zeal.  This victory over himself," concluded the prince,
+"would crown his other unparalleled services to the empire, and render
+him the greatest man of his age."
+
+These humiliating confessions, and flattering assurances, seemed at last
+to disarm the anger of the duke; but not before he had disburdened his
+heart of his reproaches against the Emperor, pompously dwelt upon his
+own services, and humbled to the utmost the monarch who solicited his
+assistance, did he condescend to listen to the attractive proposals of
+the minister.  As if he yielded entirely to the force of their
+arguments, he condescended with a haughty reluctance to that which was
+the most ardent wish of his heart; and deigned to favour the ambassadors
+with a ray of hope.  But far from putting an end to the Emperor's
+embarrassments, by giving at once a full and unconditional consent, he
+only acceded to a part of his demands, that he might exalt the value of
+that which still remained, and was of most importance.  He accepted the
+command, but only for three months; merely for the purpose of raising,
+but not of leading, an army.  He wished only to show his power and
+ability in its organization, and to display before the eyes of the
+Emperor, the greatness of that assistance, which he still retained in
+his hands.  Convinced that an army raised by his name alone, would, if
+deprived of its creator, soon sink again into nothing, he intended it to
+serve only as a decoy to draw more important concessions from his
+master.  And yet Ferdinand congratulated himself, even in having gained
+so much as he had.
+
+Wallenstein did not long delay to fulfil those promises which all
+Germany regarded as chimerical, and which Gustavus Adolphus had
+considered as extravagant.  But the foundation for the present
+enterprise had been long laid, and he now only put in motion the
+machinery, which many years had been prepared for the purpose.  Scarcely
+had the news spread of Wallenstein's levies, when, from every quarter of
+the Austrian monarchy, crowds of soldiers repaired to try their fortunes
+under this experienced general.  Many, who had before fought under his
+standards, had been admiring eye-witnesses of his great actions, and
+experienced his magnanimity, came forward from their retirement, to
+share with him a second time both booty and glory.  The greatness of the
+pay he promised attracted thousands, and the plentiful supplies the
+soldier was likely to enjoy at the cost of the peasant, was to the
+latter an irresistible inducement to embrace the military life at once,
+rather than be the victim of its oppression.  All the Austrian provinces
+were compelled to assist in the equipment.  No class was exempt from
+taxation--no dignity or privilege from capitation.  The Spanish court,
+as well as the King of Hungary, agreed to contribute a considerable sum.
+The ministers made large presents, while Wallenstein himself advanced
+200,000 dollars from his own income to hasten the armament.  The poorer
+officers he supported out of his own revenues; and, by his own example,
+by brilliant promotions, and still more brilliant promises, he induced
+all, who were able, to raise troops at their own expense.  Whoever
+raised a corps at his own cost was to be its commander.  In the
+appointment of officers, religion made no difference.  Riches, bravery
+and experience were more regarded than creed.  By this uniform treatment
+of different religious sects, and still more by his express declaration,
+that his present levy had nothing to do with religion, the Protestant
+subjects of the empire were tranquillized, and reconciled to bear their
+share of the public burdens.  The duke, at the same time, did not omit
+to treat, in his own name, with foreign states for men and money.  He
+prevailed on the Duke of Lorraine, a second time, to espouse the cause
+of the Emperor.  Poland was urged to supply him with Cossacks, and Italy
+with warlike necessaries.  Before the three months were expired, the
+army which was assembled in Moravia, amounted to no less than 40,000
+men, chiefly drawn from the unconquered parts of Bohemia, from Moravia,
+Silesia, and the German provinces of the House of Austria.  What to
+every one had appeared impracticable, Wallenstein, to the astonishment
+of all Europe, had in a short time effected.  The charm of his name, his
+treasures, and his genius, had assembled thousands in arms, where before
+Austria had only looked for hundreds.  Furnished, even to superfluity,
+with all necessaries, commanded by experienced officers, and inflamed by
+enthusiasm which assured itself of victory, this newly created army only
+awaited the signal of their leader to show themselves, by the bravery of
+their deeds, worthy of his choice.
+
+The duke had fulfilled his promise, and the troops were ready to take
+the field; he then retired, and left to the Emperor to choose a
+commander.  But it would have been as easy to raise a second army like
+the first, as to find any other commander for it than Wallenstein.  This
+promising army, the last hope of the Emperor, was nothing but an
+illusion, as soon as the charm was dissolved which had called it into
+existence; by Wallenstein it had been raised, and, without him, it sank
+like a creation of magic into its original nothingness.  Its officers
+were either bound to him as his debtors, or, as his creditors, closely
+connected with his interests, and the preservation of his power.  The
+regiments he had entrusted to his own relations, creatures, and
+favourites.  He, and he alone, could discharge to the troops the
+extravagant promises by which they had been lured into his service.  His
+pledged word was the only security on which their bold expectations
+rested; a blind reliance on his omnipotence, the only tie which linked
+together in one common life and soul the various impulses of their zeal.
+There was an end of the good fortune of each individual, if he retired,
+who alone was the voucher of its fulfilment.
+
+However little Wallenstein was serious in his refusal, he successfully
+employed this means to terrify the Emperor into consenting to his
+extravagant conditions.  The progress of the enemy every day increased
+the pressure of the Emperor's difficulties, while the remedy was also
+close at hand; a word from him might terminate the general
+embarrassment.  Prince Eggenberg at length received orders, for the
+third and last time, at any cost and sacrifice, to induce his friend,
+Wallenstein, to accept the command.
+
+He found him at Znaim in Moravia, pompously surrounded by the troops,
+the possession of which he made the Emperor so earnestly to long for.
+As a suppliant did the haughty subject receive the deputy of his
+sovereign.  "He never could trust," he said, "to a restoration to
+command, which he owed to the Emperor's necessities, and not to his
+sense of justice.  He was now courted, because the danger had reached
+its height, and safety was hoped for from his arm only; but his
+successful services would soon cause the servant to be forgotten, and
+the return of security would bring back renewed ingratitude.  If he
+deceived the expectations formed of him, his long earned renown would be
+forfeited; even if he fulfilled them, his repose and happiness must be
+sacrificed.  Soon would envy be excited anew, and the dependent monarch
+would not hesitate, a second time, to make an offering of convenience to
+a servant whom he could now dispense with.  Better for him at once, and
+voluntarily, to resign a post from which sooner or later the intrigues
+of his enemies would expel him.  Security and content were to be found
+in the bosom of private life; and nothing but the wish to oblige the
+Emperor had induced him, reluctantly enough, to relinquish for a time
+his blissful repose."
+
+Tired of this long farce, the minister at last assumed a serious tone,
+and threatened the obstinate duke with the Emperor's resentment, if he
+persisted in his refusal.  "Low enough had the imperial dignity," he
+added, "stooped already; and yet, instead of exciting his magnanimity by
+its condescension, had only flattered his pride and increased his
+obstinacy.  If this sacrifice had been made in vain, he would not
+answer, but that the suppliant might be converted into the sovereign,
+and that the monarch might not avenge his injured dignity on his
+rebellious subject.  However greatly Ferdinand may have erred, the
+Emperor at least had a claim to obedience; the man might be mistaken,
+but the monarch could not confess his error.  If the Duke of Friedland
+had suffered by an unjust decree, he might yet be recompensed for all
+his losses; the wound which it had itself inflicted, the hand of Majesty
+might heal.  If he asked security for his person and his dignities, the
+Emperor's equity would refuse him no reasonable demand.  Majesty
+contemned, admitted not of any atonement; disobedience to its commands
+cancelled the most brilliant services.  The Emperor required his
+services, and as emperor he demanded them.  Whatever price Wallenstein
+might set upon them, the Emperor would readily agree to; but he demanded
+obedience, or the weight of his indignation should crush the refractory
+servant."
+
+Wallenstein, whose extensive possessions within the Austrian monarchy
+were momentarily exposed to the power of the Emperor, was keenly
+sensible that this was no idle threat; yet it was not fear that at last
+overcame his affected reluctance.  This imperious tone of itself, was to
+his mind a plain proof of the weakness and despair which dictated it,
+while the Emperor's readiness to yield all his demands, convinced him
+that he had attained the summit of his wishes.  He now made a show of
+yielding to the persuasions of Eggenberg; and left him, in order to
+write down the conditions on which he accepted the command.
+
+Not without apprehension, did the minister receive the writing, in which
+the proudest of subjects had prescribed laws to the proudest of
+sovereigns.  But however little confidence he had in the moderation of
+his friend, the extravagant contents of his writing surpassed even his
+worst expectations.  Wallenstein required the uncontrolled command over
+all the German armies of Austria and Spain, with unlimited powers to
+reward and punish.  Neither the King of Hungary, nor the Emperor
+himself, were to appear in the army, still less to exercise any act of
+authority over it.  No commission in the army, no pension or letter of
+grace, was to be granted by the Emperor without Wallenstein's approval.
+All the conquests and confiscations that should take place, were to be
+placed entirely at Wallenstein's disposal, to the exclusion of every
+other tribunal.  For his ordinary pay, an imperial hereditary estate was
+to be assigned him, with another of the conquered estates within the
+empire for his extraordinary expenses.  Every Austrian province was to
+be opened to him if he required it in case of retreat.  He farther
+demanded the assurance of the possession of the Duchy of Mecklenburg, in
+the event of a future peace; and a formal and timely intimation, if it
+should be deemed necessary a second time to deprive him of the command.
+
+In vain the minister entreated him to moderate his demands, which, if
+granted, would deprive the Emperor of all authority over his own troops,
+and make him absolutely dependent on his general.  The value placed on
+his services had been too plainly manifested to prevent him dictating
+the price at which they were to be purchased.  If the pressure of
+circumstances compelled the Emperor to grant these demands, it was more
+than a mere feeling of haughtiness and desire of revenge which induced
+the duke to make them.  His plans of rebellion were formed, to their
+success, every one of the conditions for which Wallenstein stipulated in
+this treaty with the court, was indispensable.  Those plans required
+that the Emperor should be deprived of all authority in Germany, and be
+placed at the mercy of his general; and this object would be attained,
+the moment Ferdinand subscribed the required conditions.  The use which
+Wallenstein intended to make of his army, (widely different indeed from
+that for which it was entrusted to him,) brooked not of a divided power,
+and still less of an authority superior to his own.  To be the sole
+master of the will of his troops, he must also be the sole master of
+their destinies; insensibly to supplant his sovereign, and to transfer
+permanently to his own person the rights of sovereignty, which were only
+lent to him for a time by a higher authority, he must cautiously keep
+the latter out of the view of the army.  Hence his obstinate refusal to
+allow any prince of the house of Austria to be present with the army.
+The liberty of free disposal of all the conquered and confiscated
+estates in the empire, would also afford him fearful means of purchasing
+dependents and instruments of his plans, and of acting the dictator in
+Germany more absolutely than ever any Emperor did in time of peace.  By
+the right to use any of the Austrian provinces as a place of refuge, in
+case of need, he had full power to hold the Emperor a prisoner by means
+of his own forces, and within his own dominions; to exhaust the strength
+and resources of these countries, and to undermine the power of Austria
+in its very foundation.
+
+Whatever might be the issue, he had equally secured his own advantage,
+by the conditions he had extorted from the Emperor.  If circumstances
+proved favourable to his daring project, this treaty with the Emperor
+facilitated its execution; if on the contrary, the course of things ran
+counter to it, it would at least afford him a brilliant compensation for
+the failure of his plans.  But how could he consider an agreement valid,
+which was extorted from his sovereign, and based upon treason? How could
+he hope to bind the Emperor by a written agreement, in the face of a law
+which condemned to death every one who should have the presumption to
+impose conditions upon him?  But this criminal was the most
+indispensable man in the empire, and Ferdinand, well practised in
+dissimulation, granted him for the present all he required.
+
+At last, then, the imperial army had found a commander-in-chief worthy
+of the name.  Every other authority in the army, even that of the
+Emperor himself, ceased from the moment Wallenstein assumed the
+commander's baton, and every act was invalid which did not proceed from
+him.  From the banks of the Danube, to those of the Weser and the Oder,
+was felt the life-giving dawning of this new star; a new spirit seemed
+to inspire the troops of the emperor, a new epoch of the war began.  The
+Papists form fresh hopes, the Protestant beholds with anxiety the
+changed course of affairs.
+
+The greater the price at which the services of the new general had been
+purchased, the greater justly were the expectations from those which the
+court of the Emperor entertained.  But the duke was in no hurry to
+fulfil these expectations.  Already in the vicinity of Bohemia, and at
+the head of a formidable force, he had but to show himself there, in
+order to overpower the exhausted force of the Saxons, and brilliantly to
+commence his new career by the reconquest of that kingdom.  But,
+contented with harassing the enemy with indecisive skirmishes of his
+Croats, he abandoned the best part of that kingdom to be plundered, and
+moved calmly forward in pursuit of his own selfish plans.  His design
+was, not to conquer the Saxons, but to unite with them.  Exclusively
+occupied with this important object, he remained inactive in the hope of
+conquering more surely by means of negociation.  He left no expedient
+untried, to detach this prince from the Swedish alliance; and Ferdinand
+himself, ever inclined to an accommodation with this prince, approved of
+this proceeding.  But the great debt which Saxony owed to Sweden, was as
+yet too freshly remembered to allow of such an act of perfidy; and even
+had the Elector been disposed to yield to the temptation, the equivocal
+character of Wallenstein, and the bad character of Austrian policy,
+precluded any reliance in the integrity of its promises.  Notorious
+already as a treacherous statesman, he met not with faith upon the very
+occasion when perhaps he intended to act honestly; and, moreover, was
+denied, by circumstances, the opportunity of proving the sincerity of
+his intentions, by the disclosure of his real motives.
+
+He, therefore, unwillingly resolved to extort, by force of arms, what he
+could not obtain by negociation.  Suddenly assembling his troops, he
+appeared before Prague ere the Saxons had time to advance to its relief.
+After a short resistance, the treachery of some Capuchins opens the
+gates to one of his regiments; and the garrison, who had taken refuge in
+the citadel, soon laid down their arms upon disgraceful conditions.
+Master of the capital, he hoped to carry on more successfully his
+negociations at the Saxon court; but even while he was renewing his
+proposals to Arnheim, he did not hesitate to give them weight by
+striking a decisive blow.  He hastened to seize the narrow passes
+between Aussig and Pirna, with a view of cutting off the retreat of the
+Saxons into their own country; but the rapidity of Arnheim's operations
+fortunately extricated them from the danger.  After the retreat of this
+general, Egra and Leutmeritz, the last strongholds of the Saxons,
+surrendered to the conqueror:  and the whole kingdom was restored to its
+legitimate sovereign, in less time than it had been lost.
+
+Wallenstein, less occupied with the interests of his master, than with
+the furtherance of his own plans, now purposed to carry the war into
+Saxony, and by ravaging his territories, compel the Elector to enter
+into a private treaty with the Emperor, or rather with himself.  But,
+however little accustomed he was to make his will bend to circumstances,
+he now perceived the necessity of postponing his favourite scheme for a
+time, to a more pressing emergency.  While he was driving the Saxons
+from Bohemia, Gustavus Adolphus had been gaining the victories, already
+detailed, on the Rhine and the Danube, and carried the war through
+Franconia and Swabia, to the frontiers of Bavaria.  Maximilian, defeated
+on the Lech, and deprived by death of Count Tilly, his best support,
+urgently solicited the Emperor to send with all speed the Duke of
+Friedland to his assistance, from Bohemia, and by the defence of
+Bavaria, to avert the danger from Austria itself.  He also made the same
+request to Wallenstein, and entreated him, till he could himself come
+with the main force, to despatch in the mean time a few regiments to his
+aid.  Ferdinand seconded the request with all his influence, and one
+messenger after another was sent to Wallenstein, urging him to move
+towards the Danube.
+
+It now appeared how completely the Emperor had sacrificed his authority,
+in surrendering to another the supreme command of his troops.
+Indifferent to Maximilian's entreaties, and deaf to the Emperor's
+repeated commands, Wallenstein remained inactive in Bohemia, and
+abandoned the Elector to his fate.  The remembrance of the evil service
+which Maximilian had rendered him with the Emperor, at the Diet at
+Ratisbon, was deeply engraved on the implacable mind of the duke, and
+the Elector's late attempts to prevent his reinstatement, were no secret
+to him.  The moment of revenging this affront had now arrived, and
+Maximilian was doomed to pay dearly for his folly, in provoking the most
+revengeful of men.  Wallenstein maintained, that Bohemia ought not to be
+left exposed, and that Austria could not be better protected, than by
+allowing the Swedish army to waste its strength before the Bavarian
+fortress.  Thus, by the arm of the Swedes, he chastised his enemy; and
+while one place after another fell into their hands, he allowed the
+Elector vainly to await his arrival in Ratisbon.  It was only when the
+complete subjugation of Bohemia left him without excuse, and the
+conquests of Gustavus Adolphus in Bavaria threatened Austria itself,
+that he yielded to the pressing entreaties of the Elector and the
+Emperor, and determined to effect the long-expected union with the
+former; an event, which, according to the general anticipation of the
+Roman Catholics, would decide the fate of the campaign.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, too weak in numbers to cope even with Wallenstein's
+force alone, naturally dreaded the junction of such powerful armies, and
+the little energy he used to prevent it, was the occasion of great
+surprise.  Apparently he reckoned too much on the hatred which alienated
+the leaders, and seemed to render their effectual co-operation
+improbable; when the event contradicted his views, it was too late to
+repair his error.  On the first certain intelligence he received of
+their designs, he hastened to the Upper Palatinate, for the purpose of
+intercepting the Elector:  but the latter had already arrived there, and
+the junction had been effected at Egra.
+
+This frontier town had been chosen by Wallenstein, for the scene of his
+triumph over his proud rival.  Not content with having seen him, as it
+were, a suppliant at his feet, he imposed upon him the hard condition of
+leaving his territories in his rear exposed to the enemy, and declaring
+by this long march to meet him, the necessity and distress to which he
+was reduced.  Even to this humiliation, the haughty prince patiently
+submitted.  It had cost him a severe struggle to ask for protection of
+the man who, if his own wishes had been consulted, would never have had
+the power of granting it:  but having once made up his mind to it, he
+was ready to bear all the annoyances which were inseparable from that
+resolve, and sufficiently master of himself to put up with petty
+grievances, when an important end was in view.
+
+But whatever pains it had cost to effect this junction, it was equally
+difficult to settle the conditions on which it was to be maintained.
+The united army must be placed under the command of one individual, if
+any object was to be gained by the union, and each general was equally
+averse to yield to the superior authority of the other.  If Maximilian
+rested his claim on his electoral dignity, the nobleness of his descent,
+and his influence in the empire, Wallenstein's military renown, and the
+unlimited command conferred on him by the Emperor, gave an equally
+strong title to it.  If it was deeply humiliating to the pride of the
+former to serve under an imperial subject, the idea of imposing laws on
+so imperious a spirit, flattered in the same degree the haughtiness of
+Wallenstein.  An obstinate dispute ensued, which, however, terminated in
+a mutual compromise to Wallenstein's advantage.  To him was assigned the
+unlimited command of both armies, particularly in battle, while the
+Elector was deprived of all power of altering the order of battle, or
+even the route of the army.  He retained only the bare right of
+punishing and rewarding his own troops, and the free use of these, when
+not acting in conjunction with the Imperialists.
+
+After these preliminaries were settled, the two generals at last
+ventured upon an interview; but not until they had mutually promised to
+bury the past in oblivion, and all the outward formalities of a
+reconciliation had been settled.  According to agreement, they publicly
+embraced in the sight of their troops, and made mutual professions of
+friendship, while in reality the hearts of both were overflowing with
+malice.  Maximilian, well versed in dissimulation, had sufficient
+command over himself, not to betray in a single feature his real
+feelings; but a malicious triumph sparkled in the eyes of Wallenstein,
+and the constraint which was visible in all his movements, betrayed the
+violence of the emotion which overpowered his proud soul.
+
+The combined Imperial and Bavarian armies amounted to nearly 60,000 men,
+chiefly veterans.  Before this force, the King of Sweden was not in a
+condition to keep the field.  As his attempt to prevent their junction
+had failed, he commenced a rapid retreat into Franconia, and awaited
+there for some decisive movement on the part of the enemy, in order to
+form his own plans.  The position of the combined armies between the
+frontiers of Saxony and Bavaria, left it for some time doubtful whether
+they would remove the war into the former, or endeavour to drive the
+Swedes from the Danube, and deliver Bavaria.  Saxony had been stripped
+of troops by Arnheim, who was pursuing his conquests in Silesia; not
+without a secret design, it was generally supposed, of favouring the
+entrance of the Duke of Friedland into that electorate, and of thus
+driving the irresolute John George into peace with the Emperor.
+Gustavus Adolphus himself, fully persuaded that Wallenstein's views were
+directed against Saxony, hastily despatched a strong reinforcement to
+the assistance of his confederate, with the intention, as soon as
+circumstances would allow, of following with the main body.  But the
+movements of Wallenstein's army soon led him to suspect that he himself
+was the object of attack; and the Duke's march through the Upper
+Palatinate, placed the matter beyond a doubt.  The question now was, how
+to provide for his own security, and the prize was no longer his
+supremacy, but his very existence.  His fertile genius must now supply
+the means, not of conquest, but of preservation.  The approach of the
+enemy had surprised him before he had time to concentrate his troops,
+which were scattered all over Germany, or to summon his allies to his
+aid.  Too weak to meet the enemy in the field, he had no choice left,
+but either to throw himself into Nuremberg, and run the risk of being
+shut up in its walls, or to sacrifice that city, and await a
+reinforcement under the cannon of Donauwerth.  Indifferent to danger or
+difficulty, while he obeyed the call of humanity or honour, he chose the
+first without hesitation, firmly resolved to bury himself with his whole
+army under the ruins of Nuremberg, rather than to purchase his own
+safety by the sacrifice of his confederates.
+
+Measures were immediately taken to surround the city and suburbs with
+redoubts, and to form an entrenched camp.  Several thousand workmen
+immediately commenced this extensive work, and an heroic determination
+to hazard life and property in the common cause, animated the
+inhabitants of Nuremberg.  A trench, eight feet deep and twelve broad,
+surrounded the whole fortification; the lines were defended by redoubts
+and batteries, the gates by half moons.  The river Pegnitz, which flows
+through Nuremberg, divided the whole camp into two semicircles, whose
+communication was secured by several bridges.  About three hundred
+pieces of cannon defended the town-walls and the intrenchments.  The
+peasantry from the neighbouring villages, and the inhabitants of
+Nuremberg, assisted the Swedish soldiers so zealously, that on the
+seventh day the army was able to enter the camp, and, in a fortnight,
+this great work was completed.
+
+While these operations were carried on without the walls, the
+magistrates of Nuremberg were busily occupied in filling the magazines
+with provisions and ammunition for a long siege.  Measures were taken,
+at the same time, to secure the health of the inhabitants, which was
+likely to be endangered by the conflux of so many people; cleanliness
+was enforced by the strictest regulations.  In order, if necessary, to
+support the King, the youth of the city were embodied and trained to
+arms, the militia of the town considerably reinforced, and a new
+regiment raised, consisting of four-and-twenty names, according to the
+letters of the alphabet.  Gustavus had, in the mean time, called to his
+assistance his allies, Duke William of Weimar, and the Landgrave of
+Hesse Cassel; and ordered his generals on the Rhine, in Thuringia and
+Lower Saxony, to commence their march immediately, and join him with
+their troops in Nuremberg.  His army, which was encamped within the
+lines, did not amount to more than 16,000 men, scarcely a third of the
+enemy.
+
+The Imperialists had, in the mean time, by slow marches, advanced to
+Neumark, where Wallenstein made a general review.  At the sight of this
+formidable force, he could not refrain from indulging in a childish
+boast: "In four days," said he, "it will be shown whether I or the King
+of Sweden is to be master of the world."  Yet, notwithstanding his
+superiority, he did nothing to fulfil his promise; and even let slip the
+opportunity of crushing his enemy, when the latter had the hardihood to
+leave his lines to meet him.  "Battles enough have been fought," was his
+answer to those who advised him to attack the King, "it is now time to
+try another method." Wallenstein's well-founded reputation required not
+any of those rash enterprises on which younger soldiers rush, in the
+hope of gaining a name.  Satisfied that the enemy's despair would dearly
+sell a victory, while a defeat would irretrievably ruin the Emperor's
+affairs, he resolved to wear out the ardour of his opponent by a tedious
+blockade, and by thus depriving him of every opportunity of availing
+himself of his impetuous bravery, take from him the very advantage which
+had hitherto rendered him invincible.  Without making any attack,
+therefore, he erected a strong fortified camp on the other side of the
+Pegnitz, and opposite Nuremberg; and, by this well chosen position, cut
+off from the city and the camp of Gustavus all supplies from Franconia,
+Swabia, and Thuringia.  Thus he held in siege at once the city and the
+King, and flattered himself with the hope of slowly, but surely, wearing
+out by famine and pestilence the courage of his opponent whom he had no
+wish to encounter in the field.
+
+Little aware, however, of the resources and the strength of his
+adversary, Wallenstein had not taken sufficient precautions to avert
+from himself the fate he was designing for others.  From the whole of
+the neighbouring country, the peasantry had fled with their property;
+and what little provision remained, must be obstinately contested with
+the Swedes.  The King spared the magazines within the town, as long as
+it was possible to provision his army from without; and these forays
+produced constant skirmishes between the Croats and the Swedish cavalry,
+of which the surrounding country exhibited the most melancholy traces.
+The necessaries of life must be obtained sword in hand; and the foraging
+parties could not venture out without a numerous escort.  And when this
+supply failed, the town opened its magazines to the King, but
+Wallenstein had to support his troops from a distance.  A large convoy
+from Bavaria was on its way to him, with an escort of a thousand men.
+Gustavus Adolphus having received intelligence of its approach,
+immediately sent out a regiment of cavalry to intercept it; and the
+darkness of the night favoured the enterprise.  The whole convoy, with
+the town in which it was, fell into the hands of the Swedes; the
+Imperial escort was cut to pieces; about 1,200 cattle carried off; and a
+thousand waggons, loaded with bread, which could not be brought away,
+were set on fire.  Seven regiments, which Wallenstein had sent forward
+to Altdorp to cover the entrance of the long and anxiously expected
+convoy, were attacked by the King, who had, in like manner, advanced to
+cover the retreat of his cavalry, and routed after an obstinate action,
+being driven back into the Imperial camp, with the loss of 400 men.  So
+many checks and difficulties, and so firm and unexpected a resistance on
+the part of the King, made the Duke of Friedland repent that he had
+declined to hazard a battle.  The strength of the Swedish camp rendered
+an attack impracticable; and the armed youth of Nuremberg served the
+King as a nursery from which he could supply his loss of troops.  The
+want of provisions, which began to be felt in the Imperial camp as
+strongly as in the Swedish, rendered it uncertain which party would be
+first compelled to give way.
+
+Fifteen days had the two armies now remained in view of each other,
+equally defended by inaccessible entrenchments, without attempting
+anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes.  On both
+sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequence of bad food, and a
+crowded population, had occasioned a greater loss than the sword.  And
+this evil daily increased.  But at length, the long expected succours
+arrived in the Swedish camp; and by this strong reinforcement, the King
+was now enabled to obey the dictates of his native courage, and to break
+the chains which had hitherto fettered him.
+
+In obedience to his requisitions, the Duke of Weimar had hastily drawn
+together a corps from the garrisons in Lower Saxony and Thuringia,
+which, at Schweinfurt in Franconia, was joined by four Saxon regiments,
+and at Kitzingen by the corps of the Rhine, which the Landgrave of
+Hesse, and the Palatine of Birkenfeld, despatched to the relief of the
+King.  The Chancellor, Oxenstiern, undertook to lead this force to its
+destination.  After being joined at Windsheim by the Duke of Weimar
+himself, and the Swedish General Banner, he advanced by rapid marches to
+Bruck and Eltersdorf, where he passed the Rednitz, and reached the
+Swedish camp in safety.  This reinforcement amounted to nearly 50,000
+men, and was attended by a train of 60 pieces of cannon, and 4,000
+baggage waggons.  Gustavus now saw himself at the head of an army of
+nearly 70,000 strong, without reckoning the militia of Nuremberg, which,
+in case of necessity, could bring into the field about 30,000 fighting
+men; a formidable force, opposed to another not less formidable.  The
+war seemed at length compressed to the point of a single battle, which
+was to decide its fearful issue.  With divided sympathies, Europe looked
+with anxiety to this scene, where the whole strength of the two
+contending parties was fearfully drawn, as it were, to a focus.
+
+If, before the arrival of the Swedish succours, a want of provisions had
+been felt, the evil was now fearfully increased to a dreadful height in
+both camps, for Wallenstein had also received reinforcements from
+Bavaria.  Besides the 120,000 men confronted to each other, and more
+than 50,000 horses, in the two armies, and besides the inhabitants of
+Nuremberg, whose number far exceeded the Swedish army, there were in the
+camp of Wallenstein about 15,000 women, with as many drivers, and nearly
+the same number in that of the Swedes.  The custom of the time permitted
+the soldier to carry his family with him to the field.  A number of
+prostitutes followed the Imperialists; while, with the view of
+preventing such excesses, Gustavus's care for the morals of his soldiers
+promoted marriages.  For the rising generation, who had this camp for
+their home and country, regular military schools were established, which
+educated a race of excellent warriors, by which means the army might in
+a manner recruit itself in the course of a long campaign.  No wonder,
+then, if these wandering nations exhausted every territory in which they
+encamped, and by their immense consumption raised the necessaries of
+life to an exorbitant price.  All the mills of Nuremberg were
+insufficient to grind the corn required for each day; and 15,000 pounds
+of bread, which were daily delivered, by the town into the Swedish camp,
+excited, without allaying, the hunger of the soldiers.  The laudable
+exertions of the magistrates of Nuremberg could not prevent the greater
+part of the horses from dying for want of forage, while the increasing
+mortality in the camp consigned more than a hundred men daily to the
+grave.
+
+To put an end to these distresses, Gustavus Adolphus, relying on his
+numerical superiority, left his lines on the 25th day, forming before
+the enemy in order of battle, while he cannonaded the duke's camp from
+three batteries erected on the side of the Rednitz.  But the duke
+remained immoveable in his entrenchments, and contented himself with
+answering this challenge by a distant fire of cannon and musketry.  His
+plan was to wear out the king by his inactivity, and by the force of
+famine to overcome his resolute determination; and neither the
+remonstrances of Maximilian, and the impatience of his army, nor the
+ridicule of his opponent, could shake his purpose.  Gustavus, deceived
+in his hope of forcing a battle, and compelled by his increasing
+necessities, now attempted impossibilities, and resolved to storm a
+position which art and nature had combined to render impregnable.
+
+Intrusting his own camp to the militia of Nuremberg, on the fifty-eighth
+day of his encampment, (the festival of St.  Bartholomew,) he advanced
+in full order of battle, and passing the Rednitz at Furth, easily drove
+the enemy's outposts before him.  The main army of the Imperialists was
+posted on the steep heights between the Biber and the Rednitz, called
+the Old Fortress and Altenberg; while the camp itself, commanded by
+these eminences, spread out immeasurably along the plain.  On these
+heights, the whole of the artillery was placed.  Deep trenches
+surrounded inaccessible redoubts, while thick barricadoes, with pointed
+palisades, defended the approaches to the heights, from the summits of
+which, Wallenstein calmly and securely discharged the lightnings of his
+artillery from amid the dark thunder-clouds of smoke.  A destructive
+fire of musketry was maintained behind the breastworks, and a hundred
+pieces of cannon threatened the desperate assailant with certain
+destruction.  Against this dangerous post Gustavus now directed his
+attack; five hundred musketeers, supported by a few infantry, (for a
+greater number could not act in the narrow space,) enjoyed the unenvied
+privilege of first throwing themselves into the open jaws of death.  The
+assault was furious, the resistance obstinate.  Exposed to the whole
+fire of the enemy's artillery, and infuriate by the prospect of
+inevitable death, these determined warriors rushed forward to storm the
+heights; which, in an instant, converted into a flaming volcano,
+discharged on them a shower of shot.  At the same moment, the heavy
+cavalry rushed forward into the openings which the artillery had made in
+the close ranks of the assailants, and divided them; till the intrepid
+band, conquered by the strength of nature and of man, took to flight,
+leaving a hundred dead upon the field.  To Germans had Gustavus yielded
+this post of honour.  Exasperated at their retreat, he now led on his
+Finlanders to the attack, thinking, by their northern courage, to shame
+the cowardice of the Germans.  But they, also, after a similar hot
+reception, yielded to the superiority of the enemy; and a third regiment
+succeeded them to experience the same fate.  This was replaced by a
+fourth, a fifth, and a sixth; so that, during a ten hours' action, every
+regiment was brought to the attack to retire with bloody loss from the
+contest.  A thousand mangled bodies covered the field; yet Gustavus
+undauntedly maintained the attack, and Wallenstein held his position
+unshaken.
+
+In the mean time, a sharp contest had taken place between the imperial
+cavalry and the left wing of the Swedes, which was posted in a thicket
+on the Rednitz, with varying success, but with equal intrepidity and
+loss on both sides.  The Duke of Friedland and Prince Bernard of Weimar
+had each a horse shot under them; the king himself had the sole of his
+boot carried off by a cannon ball.  The combat was maintained with
+undiminished obstinacy, till the approach of night separated the
+combatants.  But the Swedes had advanced too far to retreat without
+hazard.  While the king was seeking an officer to convey to the
+regiments the order to retreat, he met Colonel Hepburn, a brave
+Scotchman, whose native courage alone had drawn him from the camp to
+share in the dangers of the day.  Offended with the king for having not
+long before preferred a younger officer for some post of danger, he had
+rashly vowed never again to draw his sword for the king.  To him
+Gustavus now addressed himself, praising his courage, and requesting him
+to order the regiments to retreat.  "Sire," replied the brave soldier,
+"it is the only service I cannot refuse to your Majesty; for it is a
+hazardous one,"--and immediately hastened to carry the command.  One of
+the heights above the old fortress had, in the heat of the action, been
+carried by the Duke of Weimar.  It commanded the hills and the whole
+camp.  But the heavy rain which fell during the night, rendered it
+impossible to draw up the cannon; and this post, which had been gained
+with so much bloodshed, was also voluntarily abandoned.  Diffident of
+fortune, which forsook him on this decisive day, the king did not
+venture the following morning to renew the attack with his exhausted
+troops; and vanquished for the first time, even because he was not
+victor, he led back his troops over the Rednitz.  Two thousand dead
+which he left behind him on the field, testified to the extent of his
+loss; and the Duke of Friedland remained unconquered within his lines.
+
+For fourteen days after this action, the two armies still continued in
+front of each other, each in the hope that the other would be the first
+to give way.  Every day reduced their provisions, and as scarcity became
+greater, the excesses of the soldiers rendered furious, exercised the
+wildest outrages on the peasantry.  The increasing distress broke up all
+discipline and order in the Swedish camp; and the German regiments, in
+particular, distinguished themselves for the ravages they practised
+indiscriminately on friend and foe.  The weak hand of a single
+individual could not check excesses, encouraged by the silence, if not
+the actual example, of the inferior officers.  These shameful breaches
+of discipline, on the maintenance of which he had hitherto justly prided
+himself, severely pained the king; and the vehemence with which he
+reproached the German officers for their negligence, bespoke the
+liveliness of his emotion.  "It is you yourselves, Germans," said he,
+"that rob your native country, and ruin your own confederates in the
+faith.  As God is my judge, I abhor you, I loathe you; my heart sinks
+within me whenever I look upon you.  Ye break my orders; ye are the
+cause that the world curses me, that the tears of poverty follow me,
+that complaints ring in my ear--'The king, our friend, does us more harm
+than even our worst enemies.'  On your account I have stripped my own
+kingdom of its treasures, and spent upon you more than 40 tons of gold;
+--[A ton of gold in Sweden amounts to 100,000 rix dollars.]--while from
+your German empire I have not received the least aid.  I gave you a
+share of all that God had given to me; and had ye regarded my orders, I
+would have gladly shared with you all my future acquisitions.  Your want
+of discipline convinces me of your evil intentions, whatever cause I
+might otherwise have to applaud your bravery."
+
+Nuremberg had exerted itself, almost beyond its power, to subsist for
+eleven weeks the vast crowd which was compressed within its boundaries;
+but its means were at length exhausted, and the king's more numerous
+party was obliged to determine on a retreat.  By the casualties of war
+and sickness, Nuremberg had lost more than 10,000 of its inhabitants,
+and Gustavus Adolphus nearly 20,000 of his soldiers.  The fields around
+the city were trampled down, the villages lay in ashes, the plundered
+peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways; foul odours infected the
+air, and bad food, the exhalations from so dense a population, and so
+many putrifying carcasses, together with the heat of the dog-days,
+produced a desolating pestilence which raged among men and beasts, and
+long after the retreat of both armies, continued to load the country
+with misery and distress.  Affected by the general distress, and
+despairing of conquering the steady determination of the Duke of
+Friedland, the king broke up his camp on the 8th September, leaving in
+Nuremberg a sufficient garrison.  He advanced in full order of battle
+before the enemy, who remained motionless, and did not attempt in the
+least to harass his retreat.  His route lay by the Aisch and Windsheim
+towards Neustadt, where he halted five days to refresh his troops, and
+also to be near to Nuremberg, in case the enemy should make an attempt
+upon the town.  But Wallenstein, as exhausted as himself, had only
+awaited the retreat of the Swedes to commence his own.  Five days
+afterwards, he broke up his camp at Zirndorf, and set it on fire.  A
+hundred columns of smoke, rising from all the burning villages in the
+neighbourhood, announced his retreat, and showed the city the fate it
+had escaped.  His march, which was directed on Forchheim, was marked by
+the most frightful ravages; but he was too far advanced to be overtaken
+by the king.  The latter now divided his army, which the exhausted
+country was unable to support, and leaving one division to protect
+Franconia, with the other he prosecuted in person his conquests in
+Bavaria.
+
+In the mean time, the imperial Bavarian army had marched into the
+Bishopric of Bamberg, where the Duke of Friedland a second time mustered
+his troops.  He found this force, which so lately had amounted to 60,000
+men, diminished by the sword, desertion, and disease, to about 24,000,
+and of these a fourth were Bavarians.  Thus had the encampments before
+Nuremberg weakened both parties more than two great battles would have
+done, apparently without advancing the termination of the war, or
+satisfying, by any decisive result, the expectations of Europe.  The
+king's conquests in Bavaria, were, it is true, checked for a time by
+this diversion before Nuremberg, and Austria itself secured against the
+danger of immediate invasion; but by the retreat of the king from that
+city, he was again left at full liberty to make Bavaria the seat of war.
+Indifferent towards the fate of that country, and weary of the restraint
+which his union with the Elector imposed upon him, the Duke of Friedland
+eagerly seized the opportunity of separating from this burdensome
+associate, and prosecuting, with renewed earnestness, his favourite
+plans.  Still adhering to his purpose of detaching Saxony from its
+Swedish alliance, he selected that country for his winter quarters,
+hoping by his destructive presence to force the Elector the more readily
+into his views.
+
+No conjuncture could be more favourable for his designs.  The Saxons had
+invaded Silesia, where, reinforced by troops from Brandenburgh and
+Sweden, they had gained several advantages over the Emperor's troops.
+Silesia would be saved by a diversion against the Elector in his own
+territories, and the attempt was the more easy, as Saxony, left
+undefended during the war in Silesia, lay open on every side to attack.
+The pretext of rescuing from the enemy an hereditary dominion of
+Austria, would silence the remonstrances of the Elector of Bavaria, and,
+under the mask of a patriotic zeal for the Emperor's interests,
+Maximilian might be sacrificed without much difficulty.  By giving up
+the rich country of Bavaria to the Swedes, he hoped to be left
+unmolested by them in his enterprise against Saxony, while the
+increasing coldness between Gustavus and the Saxon Court, gave him
+little reason to apprehend any extraordinary zeal for the deliverance of
+John George.  Thus a second time abandoned by his artful protector, the
+Elector separated from Wallenstein at Bamberg, to protect his
+defenceless territory with the small remains of his troops, while the
+imperial army, under Wallenstein, directed its march through Bayreuth
+and Coburg towards the Thuringian Forest.
+
+An imperial general, Holk, had previously been sent into Vogtland with
+6,000 men, to waste this defenceless province with fire and sword, he
+was soon followed by Gallas, another of the Duke's generals, and an
+equally faithful instrument of his inhuman orders.  Finally, Pappenheim,
+too, was recalled from Lower Saxony, to reinforce the diminished army of
+the duke, and to complete the miseries of the devoted country.  Ruined
+churches, villages in ashes, harvests wilfully destroyed, families
+plundered, and murdered peasants, marked the progress of these
+barbarians, under whose scourge the whole of Thuringia, Vogtland, and
+Meissen, lay defenceless.  Yet this was but the prelude to greater
+sufferings, with which Wallenstein himself, at the head of the main
+army, threatened Saxony.  After having left behind him fearful monuments
+of his fury, in his march through Franconia and Thuringia, he arrived
+with his whole army in the Circle of Leipzig, and compelled the city,
+after a short resistance, to surrender.  His design was to push on to
+Dresden, and by the conquest of the whole country, to prescribe laws to
+the Elector.  He had already approached the Mulda, threatening to
+overpower the Saxon army which had advanced as far as Torgau to meet
+him, when the King of Sweden's arrival at Erfurt gave an unexpected
+check to his operations.  Placed between the Saxon and Swedish armies,
+which were likely to be farther reinforced by the troops of George, Duke
+of Luneburg, from Lower Saxony, he hastily retired upon Meresberg, to
+form a junction there with Count Pappenheim, and to repel the further
+advance of the Swedes.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had witnessed, with great uneasiness, the arts
+employed by Spain and Austria to detach his allies from him.  The more
+important his alliance with Saxony, the more anxiety the inconstant
+temper of John George caused him.  Between himself and the Elector, a
+sincere friendship could never subsist.  A prince, proud of his
+political importance, and accustomed to consider himself as the head of
+his party, could not see without annoyance the interference of a foreign
+power in the affairs of the Empire; and nothing, but the extreme danger
+of his dominions, could overcome the aversion with which he had long
+witnessed the progress of this unwelcome intruder.  The increasing
+influence of the king in Germany, his authority with the Protestant
+states, the unambiguous proofs which he gave of his ambitious views,
+which were of a character calculated to excite the jealousies of all the
+states of the Empire, awakened in the Elector's breast a thousand
+anxieties, which the imperial emissaries did not fail skilfully to keep
+alive and cherish.  Every arbitrary step on the part of the King, every
+demand, however reasonable, which he addressed to the princes of the
+Empire, was followed by bitter complaints from the Elector, which seemed
+to announce an approaching rupture.  Even the generals of the two
+powers, whenever they were called upon to act in common, manifested the
+same jealousy as divided their leaders.  John George's natural aversion
+to war, and a lingering attachment to Austria, favoured the efforts of
+Arnheim; who, maintaining a constant correspondence with Wallenstein,
+laboured incessantly to effect a private treaty between his master and
+the Emperor; and if his representations were long disregarded, still the
+event proved that they were not altogether without effect.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, naturally apprehensive of the consequences which the
+defection of so powerful an ally would produce on his future prospects
+in Germany, spared no pains to avert so pernicious an event; and his
+remonstrances had hitherto had some effect upon the Elector.  But the
+formidable power with which the Emperor seconded his seductive
+proposals, and the miseries which, in the case of hesitation, he
+threatened to accumulate upon Saxony, might at length overcome the
+resolution of the Elector, should he be left exposed to the vengeance of
+his enemies; while an indifference to the fate of so powerful a
+confederate, would irreparably destroy the confidence of the other
+allies in their protector.  This consideration induced the king a second
+time to yield to the pressing entreaties of the Elector, and to
+sacrifice his own brilliant prospects to the safety of this ally.  He
+had already resolved upon a second attack on Ingoldstadt; and the
+weakness of the Elector of Bavaria gave him hopes of soon forcing this
+exhausted enemy to accede to a neutrality.  An insurrection of the
+peasantry in Upper Austria, opened to him a passage into that country,
+and the capital might be in his possession, before Wallenstein could
+have time to advance to its defence.  All these views he now gave up for
+the sake of an ally, who, neither by his services nor his fidelity, was
+worthy of the sacrifice; who, on the pressing occasions of common good,
+had steadily adhered to his own selfish projects; and who was important,
+not for the services he was expected to render, but merely for the
+injuries he had it in his power to inflict.  Is it possible, then, to
+refrain from indignation, when we know that, in this expedition,
+undertaken for the benefit of such an ally, the great king was destined
+to terminate his career?
+
+Rapidly assembling his troops in Franconia, he followed the route of
+Wallenstein through Thuringia.  Duke Bernard of Weimar, who had been
+despatched to act against Pappenheim, joined the king at Armstadt, who
+now saw himself at the head of 20,000 veterans.  At Erfurt he took leave
+of his queen, who was not to behold him, save in his coffin, at
+Weissenfels.  Their anxious adieus seemed to forbode an eternal
+separation.
+
+He reached Naumburg on the 1st November, 1632, before the corps, which
+the Duke of Friedland had despatched for that purpose, could make itself
+master of that place.  The inhabitants of the surrounding country
+flocked in crowds to look upon the hero, the avenger, the great king,
+who, a year before, had first appeared in that quarter, like a guardian
+angel.  Shouts of joy everywhere attended his progress; the people knelt
+before him, and struggled for the honour of touching the sheath of his
+sword, or the hem of his garment.  The modest hero disliked this
+innocent tribute which a sincerely grateful and admiring multitude paid
+him.  "Is it not," said he, "as if this people would make a God of me?
+Our affairs prosper, indeed; but I fear the vengeance of Heaven will
+punish me for this presumption, and soon enough reveal to this deluded
+multitude my human weakness and mortality!" How amiable does Gustavus
+appear before us at this moment, when about to leave us for ever!  Even
+in the plenitude of success, he honours an avenging Nemesis, declines
+that homage which is due only to the Immortal, and strengthens his title
+to our tears, the nearer the moment approaches that is to call them
+forth!
+
+In the mean time, the Duke of Friedland had determined to advance to
+meet the king, as far as Weissenfels, and even at the hazard of a
+battle, to secure his winter-quarters in Saxony.  His inactivity before
+Nuremberg had occasioned a suspicion that he was unwilling to measure
+his powers with those of the Hero of the North, and his hard-earned
+reputation would be at stake, if, a second time, he should decline a
+battle.  His present superiority in numbers, though much less than what
+it was at the beginning of the siege of Nuremberg, was still enough to
+give him hopes of victory, if he could compel the king to give battle
+before his junction with the Saxons.  But his present reliance was not
+so much in his numerical superiority, as in the predictions of his
+astrologer Seni, who had read in the stars that the good fortune of the
+Swedish monarch would decline in the month of November.  Besides,
+between Naumburg and Weissenfels there was also a range of narrow
+defiles, formed by a long mountainous ridge, and the river Saal, which
+ran at their foot, along which the Swedes could not advance without
+difficulty, and which might, with the assistance of a few troops, be
+rendered almost impassable.  If attacked there, the king would have no
+choice but either to penetrate with great danger through the defiles, or
+commence a laborious retreat through Thuringia, and to expose the
+greater part of his army to a march through a desert country, deficient
+in every necessary for their support.  But the rapidity with which
+Gustavus Adolphus had taken possession of Naumburg, disappointed this
+plan, and it was now Wallenstein himself who awaited the attack.
+
+But in this expectation he was disappointed; for the king, instead of
+advancing to meet him at Weissenfels, made preparations for entrenching
+himself near Naumburg, with the intention of awaiting there the
+reinforcements which the Duke of Lunenburg was bringing up.  Undecided
+whether to advance against the king through the narrow passes between
+Weissenfels and Naumburg, or to remain inactive in his camp, he called a
+council of war, in order to have the opinion of his most experienced
+generals.  None of these thought it prudent to attack the king in his
+advantageous position.  On the other hand, the preparations which the
+latter made to fortify his camp, plainly showed that it was not his
+intention soon to abandon it.  But the approach of winter rendered it
+impossible to prolong the campaign, and by a continued encampment to
+exhaust the strength of the army, already so much in need of repose.
+All voices were in favour of immediately terminating the campaign: and,
+the more so, as the important city of Cologne upon the Rhine was
+threatened by the Dutch, while the progress of the enemy in Westphalia
+and the Lower Rhine called for effective reinforcements in that quarter.
+Wallenstein yielded to the weight of these arguments, and almost
+convinced that, at this season, he had no reason to apprehend an attack
+from the King, he put his troops into winter-quarters, but so that, if
+necessary, they might be rapidly assembled.  Count Pappenheim was
+despatched, with great part of the army, to the assistance of Cologne,
+with orders to take possession, on his march, of the fortress of
+Moritzburg, in the territory of Halle.  Different corps took up their
+winter-quarters in the neighbouring towns, to watch, on all sides, the
+motions of the enemy.  Count Colloredo guarded the castle of
+Weissenfels, and Wallenstein himself encamped with the remainder not far
+from Merseburg, between Flotzgaben and the Saal, from whence he purposed
+to march to Leipzig, and to cut off the communication between the Saxons
+and the Swedish army.
+
+Scarcely had Gustavus Adolphus been informed of Pappenheim's departure,
+when suddenly breaking up his camp at Naumburg, he hastened with his
+whole force to attack the enemy, now weakened to one half.  He advanced,
+by rapid marches, towards Weissenfels, from whence the news of his
+arrival quickly reached the enemy, and greatly astonished the Duke of
+Friedland.  But a speedy resolution was now necessary; and the measures
+of Wallenstein were soon taken.  Though he had little more than 12,000
+men to oppose to the 20,000 of the enemy, he might hope to maintain his
+ground until the return of Pappenheim, who could not have advanced
+farther than Halle, five miles distant.  Messengers were hastily
+despatched to recall him, while Wallenstein moved forward into the wide
+plain between the Canal and Lutzen, where he awaited the King in full
+order of battle, and, by this position, cut off his communication with
+Leipzig and the Saxon auxiliaries.
+
+Three cannon shots, fired by Count Colloredo from the castle of
+Weissenfels, announced the king's approach; and at this concerted
+signal, the light troops of the Duke of Friedland, under the command of
+the Croatian General Isolani, moved forward to possess themselves of the
+villages lying upon the Rippach.  Their weak resistance did not impede
+the advance of the enemy, who crossed the Rippach, near the village of
+that name, and formed in line below Lutzen, opposite the Imperialists.
+The high road which goes from Weissenfels to Leipzig, is intersected
+between Lutzen and Markranstadt by the canal which extends from Zeitz to
+Merseburg, and unites the Elster with the Saal.  On this canal, rested
+the left wing of the Imperialists, and the right of the King of Sweden;
+but so that the cavalry of both extended themselves along the opposite
+side.  To the northward, behind Lutzen, was Wallenstein's right wing,
+and to the south of that town was posted the left wing of the Swedes;
+both armies fronted the high road, which ran between them, and divided
+their order of battle; but the evening before the battle, Wallenstein,
+to the great disadvantage of his opponent, had possessed himself of this
+highway, deepened the trenches which ran along its sides, and planted
+them with musketeers, so as to make the crossing of it both difficult
+and dangerous.  Behind these, again, was erected a battery of seven
+large pieces of cannon, to support the fire from the trenches; and at
+the windmills, close behind Lutzen, fourteen smaller field pieces were
+ranged on an eminence, from which they could sweep the greater part of
+the plain.  The infantry, divided into no more than five unwieldy
+brigades, was drawn up at the distance of 300 paces from the road, and
+the cavalry covered the flanks.  All the baggage was sent to Leipzig,
+that it might not impede the movements of the army; and the
+ammunition-waggons alone remained, which were placed in rear of the
+line.  To conceal the weakness of the Imperialists, all the
+camp-followers and sutlers were mounted, and posted on the left wing,
+but only until Pappenheim's troops arrived.  These arrangements were
+made during the darkness of the night; and when the morning dawned, all
+was ready for the reception of the enemy.
+
+On the evening of the same day, Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the
+opposite plain, and formed his troops in the order of attack.  His
+disposition was the same as that which had been so successful the year
+before at Leipzig.  Small squadrons of horse were interspersed among the
+divisions of the infantry, and troops of musketeers placed here and
+there among the cavalry.  The army was arranged in two lines, the canal
+on the right and in its rear, the high road in front, and the town on
+the left.  In the centre, the infantry was formed, under the command of
+Count Brahe; the cavalry on the wings; the artillery in front.  To the
+German hero, Bernard, Duke of Weimar, was intrusted the command of the
+German cavalry of the left wing; while, on the right, the king led on
+the Swedes in person, in order to excite the emulation of the two
+nations to a noble competition.  The second line was formed in the same
+manner; and behind these was placed the reserve, commanded by Henderson,
+a Scotchman.
+
+In this position, they awaited the eventful dawn of morning, to begin a
+contest, which long delay, rather than the probability of decisive
+consequences, and the picked body, rather than the number of the
+combatants, was to render so terrible and remarkable.  The strained
+expectation of Europe, so disappointed before Nuremberg, was now to be
+gratified on the plains of Lutzen.  During the whole course of the war,
+two such generals, so equally matched in renown and ability, had not
+before been pitted against each other.  Never, as yet, had daring been
+cooled by so awful a hazard, or hope animated by so glorious a prize.
+Europe was next day to learn who was her greatest general:--to-morrow,
+the leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must acknowledge a victor.
+This morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of
+Gustavus at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military
+genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of
+Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high
+price at which they had been purchased.  The victory was as yet
+doubtful, but certain were the labour and the bloodshed by which it must
+be earned.  Every private in both armies, felt a jealous share in their
+leader's reputation, and under every corslet beat the same emotions that
+inflamed the bosoms of the generals.  Each army knew the enemy to which
+it was to be opposed:  and the anxiety which each in vain attempted to
+repress, was a convincing proof of their opponent's strength.
+
+At last the fateful morning dawned; but an impenetrable fog, which
+spread over the plain, delayed the attack till noon.  Kneeling in front
+of his lines, the king offered up his devotions; and the whole army, at
+the same moment dropping on their knees, burst into a moving hymn,
+accompanied by the military music.  The king then mounted his horse, and
+clad only in a leathern doublet and surtout, (for a wound he had
+formerly received prevented his wearing armour,) rode along the ranks,
+to animate the courage of his troops with a joyful confidence, which,
+however, the forboding presentiment of his own bosom contradicted.  "God
+with us!" was the war-cry of the Swedes; "Jesus Maria!" that of the
+Imperialists.  About eleven the fog began to disperse, and the enemy
+became visible.  At the same moment Lutzen was seen in flames, having
+been set on fire by command of the duke, to prevent his being outflanked
+on that side.  The charge was now sounded; the cavalry rushed upon the
+enemy, and the infantry advanced against the trenches.
+
+Received by a tremendous fire of musketry and heavy artillery, these
+intrepid battalions maintained the attack with undaunted courage, till
+the enemy's musketeers abandoned their posts, the trenches were passed,
+the battery carried and turned against the enemy.  They pressed forward
+with irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five imperial brigades
+was immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third put to
+flight.  But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to their
+progress.  With the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to rally
+his discomfited troops; and his powerful word was itself sufficient to
+stop the flight of the fugitives.  Supported by three regiments of
+cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and
+pressed vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes.  A murderous
+conflict ensued.  The nearness of the enemy left no room for fire-arms,
+the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched to man, the
+useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and science gave way to
+desperation.  Overpowered by numbers, the wearied Swedes at last retire
+beyond the trenches; and the captured battery is again lost by the
+retreat.  A thousand mangled bodies already strewed the plain, and as
+yet not a single step of ground had been won.
+
+In the mean time, the king's right wing, led by himself, had fallen upon
+the enemy's left.  The first impetuous shock of the heavy Finland
+cuirassiers dispersed the lightly-mounted Poles and Croats, who were
+posted here, and their disorderly flight spread terror and confusion
+among the rest of the cavalry.  At this moment notice was brought the
+king, that his infantry were retreating over the trenches, and also that
+his left wing, exposed to a severe fire from the enemy's cannon posted
+at the windmills was beginning to give way.  With rapid decision he
+committed to General Horn the pursuit of the enemy's left, while he
+flew, at the head of the regiment of Steinbock, to repair the disorder
+of his right wing.  His noble charger bore him with the velocity of
+lightning across the trenches, but the squadrons that followed could not
+come on with the same speed, and only a few horsemen, among whom was
+Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe Lauenburg, were able to keep up with the
+king.  He rode directly to the place where his infantry were most
+closely pressed, and while he was reconnoitring the enemy's line for an
+exposed point of attack, the shortness of his sight unfortunately led
+him too close to their ranks.  An imperial Gefreyter,--[A person exempt
+from watching duty, nearly corresponding to the corporal.]--remarking
+that every one respectfully made way for him as he rode along,
+immediately ordered a musketeer to take aim at him.  "Fire at him
+yonder," said he, "that must be a man of consequence." The soldier
+fired, and the king's left arm was shattered.  At that moment his
+squadron came hurrying up, and a confused cry of "the king bleeds! the
+king is shot!" spread terror and consternation through all the ranks.
+"It is nothing--follow me," cried the king, collecting his whole
+strength; but overcome by pain, and nearly fainting, he requested the
+Duke of Lauenburg, in French, to lead him unobserved out of the tumult.
+While the duke proceeded towards the right wing with the king, making a
+long circuit to keep this discouraging sight from the disordered
+infantry, his majesty received a second shot through the back, which
+deprived him of his remaining strength.  "Brother," said he, with a
+dying voice, "I have enough! look only to your own life."  At the same
+moment he fell from his horse pierced by several more shots; and
+abandoned by all his attendants, he breathed his last amidst the
+plundering hands of the Croats.  His charger, flying without its rider,
+and covered with blood, soon made known to the Swedish cavalry the fall
+of their king.  They rushed madly forward to rescue his sacred remains
+from the hands of the enemy.  A murderous conflict ensued over the body,
+till his mangled remains were buried beneath a heap of slain.
+
+The mournful tidings soon ran through the Swedish army; but instead of
+destroying the courage of these brave troops, it but excited it into a
+new, a wild, and consuming flame.  Life had lessened in value, now that
+the most sacred life of all was gone; death had no terrors for the lowly
+since the anointed head was not spared.  With the fury of lions the
+Upland, Smaeland, Finland, East and West Gothland regiments rushed a
+second time upon the left wing of the enemy, which, already making but
+feeble resistance to General Horn, was now entirely beaten from the
+field.  Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, gave to the bereaved Swedes a
+noble leader in his own person; and the spirit of Gustavus led his
+victorious squadrons anew.  The left wing quickly formed again, and
+vigorously pressed the right of the Imperialists.  The artillery at the
+windmills, which had maintained so murderous a fire upon the Swedes, was
+captured and turned against the enemy.  The centre, also, of the Swedish
+infantry, commanded by the duke and Knyphausen, advanced a second time
+against the trenches, which they successfully passed, and retook the
+battery of seven cannons.  The attack was now renewed with redoubled
+fury upon the heavy battalions of the enemy's centre; their resistance
+became gradually less, and chance conspired with Swedish valour to
+complete the defeat.  The imperial powder-waggons took fire, and, with a
+tremendous explosion, grenades and bombs filled the air.  The enemy, now
+in confusion, thought they were attacked in the rear, while the Swedish
+brigades pressed them in front.  Their courage began to fail them.
+Their left wing was already beaten, their right wavering, and their
+artillery in the enemy's hands.  The battle seemed to be almost decided;
+another moment would decide the fate of the day, when Pappenheim
+appeared on the field, with his cuirassiers and dragoons; all the
+advantages already gained were lost, and the battle was to be fought
+anew.
+
+The order which recalled that general to Lutzen had reached him in
+Halle, while his troops were still plundering the town.  It was
+impossible to collect the scattered infantry with that rapidity, which
+the urgency of the order, and Pappenheim's impatience required.  Without
+waiting for it, therefore, he ordered eight regiments of cavalry to
+mount; and at their head he galloped at full speed for Lutzen, to share
+in the battle.  He arrived in time to witness the flight of the imperial
+right wing, which Gustavus Horn was driving from the field, and to be at
+first involved in their rout.  But with rapid presence of mind he
+rallied the flying troops, and led them once more against the enemy.
+Carried away by his wild bravery, and impatient to encounter the king,
+who he supposed was at the head of this wing, he burst furiously upon
+the Swedish ranks, which, exhausted by victory, and inferior in numbers,
+were, after a noble resistance, overpowered by this fresh body of
+enemies.  Pappenheim's unexpected appearance revived the drooping
+courage of the Imperialists, and the Duke of Friedland quickly availed
+himself of the favourable moment to re-form his line.  The closely
+serried battalions of the Swedes were, after a tremendous conflict,
+again driven across the trenches; and the battery, which had been twice
+lost, again rescued from their hands.  The whole yellow regiment, the
+finest of all that distinguished themselves in this dreadful day, lay
+dead on the field, covering the ground almost in the same excellent
+order which, when alive, they maintained with such unyielding courage.
+The same fate befel another regiment of Blues, which Count Piccolomini
+attacked with the imperial cavalry, and cut down after a desperate
+contest.  Seven times did this intrepid general renew the attack; seven
+horses were shot under him, and he himself was pierced with six musket
+balls; yet he would not leave the field, until he was carried along in
+the general rout of the whole army.  Wallenstein himself was seen riding
+through his ranks with cool intrepidity, amidst a shower of balls,
+assisting the distressed, encouraging the valiant with praise, and the
+wavering by his fearful glance.  Around and close by him his men were
+falling thick, and his own mantle was perforated by several shots.  But
+avenging destiny this day protected that breast, for which another
+weapon was reserved; on the same field where the noble Gustavus expired,
+Wallenstein was not allowed to terminate his guilty career.
+
+Less fortunate was Pappenheim, the Telamon of the army, the bravest
+soldier of Austria and the church.  An ardent desire to encounter the
+king in person, carried this daring leader into the thickest of the
+fight, where he thought his noble opponent was most surely to be met.
+Gustavus had also expressed a wish to meet his brave antagonist, but
+these hostile wishes remained ungratified; death first brought together
+these two great heroes.  Two musket-balls pierced the breast of
+Pappenheim; and his men forcibly carried him from the field.  While they
+were conveying him to the rear, a murmur reached him, that he whom he
+had sought, lay dead upon the plain.  When the truth of the report was
+confirmed to him, his look became brighter, his dying eye sparkled with
+a last gleam of joy.  "Tell the Duke of Friedland," said he, "that I lie
+without hope of life, but that I die happy, since I know that the
+implacable enemy of my religion has fallen on the same day."
+
+With Pappenheim, the good fortune of the Imperialists departed.  The
+cavalry of the left wing, already beaten, and only rallied by his
+exertions, no sooner missed their victorious leader, than they gave up
+everything for lost, and abandoned the field of battle in spiritless
+despair.  The right wing fell into the same confusion, with the
+exception of a few regiments, which the bravery of their colonels Gotz,
+Terzky, Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their ground.  The
+Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's
+confusion.  To fill up the gaps which death had made in the front line,
+they formed both lines into one, and with it made the final and decisive
+charge.  A third time they crossed the trenches, and a third time they
+captured the battery.  The sun was setting when the two lines closed.
+The strife grew hotter as it drew to an end; the last efforts of
+strength were mutually exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost
+to repair in these precious moments the fortune of the day.  It was in
+vain; despair endows every one with superhuman strength; no one can
+conquer, no one will give way.  The art of war seemed to exhaust its
+powers on one side, only to unfold some new and untried masterpiece of
+skill on the other.  Night and darkness at last put an end to the fight,
+before the fury of the combatants was exhausted; and the contest only
+ceased, when no one could any longer find an antagonist.  Both armies
+separated, as if by tacit agreement; the trumpets sounded, and each
+party claiming the victory, quitted the field.
+
+The artillery on both sides, as the horses could not be found, remained
+all night upon the field, at once the reward and the evidence of victory
+to him who should hold it.  Wallenstein, in his haste to leave Leipzig
+and Saxony, forgot to remove his part.  Not long after the battle was
+ended, Pappenheim's infantry, who had been unable to follow the rapid
+movements of their general, and who amounted to six regiments, marched
+on the field, but the work was done.  A few hours earlier, so
+considerable a reinforcement would perhaps have decided the day in
+favour of the Imperialists; and, even now, by remaining on the field,
+they might have saved the duke's artillery, and made a prize of that of
+the Swedes.  But they had received no orders to act; and, uncertain as
+to the issue of the battle, they retired to Leipzig, where they hoped to
+join the main body.
+
+The Duke of Friedland had retreated thither, and was followed on the
+morrow by the scattered remains of his army, without artillery, without
+colours, and almost without arms.  The Duke of Weimar, it appears, after
+the toils of this bloody day, allowed the Swedish army some repose,
+between Lutzen and Weissenfels, near enough to the field of battle to
+oppose any attempt the enemy might make to recover it.  Of the two
+armies, more than 9,000 men lay dead; a still greater number were
+wounded, and among the Imperialists, scarcely a man escaped from the
+field uninjured.  The entire plain from Lutzen to the Canal was strewed
+with the wounded, the dying, and the dead.  Many of the principal
+nobility had fallen on both sides.  Even the Abbot of Fulda, who had
+mingled in the combat as a spectator, paid for his curiosity and his
+ill-timed zeal with his life.  History says nothing of prisoners; a
+further proof of the animosity of the combatants, who neither gave nor
+took quarter.
+
+Pappenheim died the next day of his wounds at Leipzig; an irreparable
+loss to the imperial army, which this brave warrior had so often led on
+to victory.  The battle of Prague, where, together with Wallenstein, he
+was present as colonel, was the beginning of his heroic career.
+Dangerously wounded, with a few troops, he made an impetuous attack on a
+regiment of the enemy, and lay for several hours mixed with the dead
+upon the field, beneath the weight of his horse, till he was discovered
+by some of his own men in plundering.  With a small force he defeated,
+in three different engagements, the rebels in Upper Austria, though
+40,000 strong.  At the battle of Leipzig, he for a long time delayed the
+defeat of Tilly by his bravery, and led the arms of the Emperor on the
+Elbe and the Weser to victory.  The wild impetuous fire of his
+temperament, which no danger, however apparent, could cool, or
+impossibilities check, made him the most powerful arm of the imperial
+force, but unfitted him for acting at its head.  The battle of Leipzig,
+if Tilly may be believed, was lost through his rash ardour.  At the
+destruction of Magdeburg, his hands were deeply steeped in blood; war
+rendered savage and ferocious his disposition, which had been cultivated
+by youthful studies and various travels.  On his forehead, two red
+streaks, like swords, were perceptible, with which nature had marked him
+at his very birth.  Even in his later years, these became visible, as
+often as his blood was stirred by passion; and superstition easily
+persuaded itself, that the future destiny of the man was thus impressed
+upon the forehead of the child.  As a faithful servant of the House of
+Austria, he had the strongest claims on the gratitude of both its lines,
+but he did not survive to enjoy the most brilliant proof of their
+regard.  A messenger was already on his way from Madrid, bearing to him
+the order of the Golden Fleece, when death overtook him at Leipzig.
+
+Though Te Deum, in all Spanish and Austrian lands, was sung in honour of
+a victory, Wallenstein himself, by the haste with which he quitted
+Leipzig, and soon after all Saxony, and by renouncing his original
+design of fixing there his winter quarters, openly confessed his defeat.
+It is true he made one more feeble attempt to dispute, even in his
+flight, the honour of victory, by sending out his Croats next morning to
+the field; but the sight of the Swedish army drawn up in order of
+battle, immediately dispersed these flying bands, and Duke Bernard, by
+keeping possession of the field, and soon after by the capture of
+Leipzig, maintained indisputably his claim to the title of victor.
+
+But it was a dear conquest, a dearer triumph!  It was not till the fury
+of the contest was over, that the full weight of the loss sustained was
+felt, and the shout of triumph died away into a silent gloom of despair.
+He, who had led them to the charge, returned not with them; there he lay
+upon the field which he had won, mingled with the dead bodies of the
+common crowd.  After a long and almost fruitless search, the corpse of
+the king was discovered, not far from the great stone, which, for a
+hundred years before, had stood between Lutzen and the Canal, and which,
+from the memorable disaster of that day, still bears the name of the
+Stone of the Swede.  Covered with blood and wounds, so as scarcely to be
+recognised, trampled beneath the horses' hoofs, stripped by the rude
+hands of plunderers of its ornaments and clothes, his body was drawn
+from beneath a heap of dead, conveyed to Weissenfels, and there
+delivered up to the lamentations of his soldiers, and the last embraces
+of his queen.  The first tribute had been paid to revenge, and blood had
+atoned for the blood of the monarch; but now affection assumes its
+rights, and tears of grief must flow for the man.  The universal sorrow
+absorbs all individual woes.  The generals, still stupefied by the
+unexpected blow, stood speechless and motionless around his bier, and no
+one trusted himself enough to contemplate the full extent of their loss.
+
+The Emperor, we are told by Khevenhuller, showed symptoms of deep, and
+apparently sincere feeling, at the sight of the king's doublet stained
+with blood, which had been stripped from him during the battle, and
+carried to Vienna.  "Willingly," said he, "would I have granted to the
+unfortunate prince a longer life, and a safe return to his kingdom, had
+Germany been at peace."  But when a trait, which is nothing more than a
+proof of a yet lingering humanity, and which a mere regard to
+appearances and even self-love, would have extorted from the most
+insensible, and the absence of which could exist only in the most
+inhuman heart, has, by a Roman Catholic writer of modern times and
+acknowledged merit, been made the subject of the highest eulogium, and
+compared with the magnanimous tears of Alexander, for the fall of
+Darius, our distrust is excited of the other virtues of the writer's
+hero, and what is still worse, of his own ideas of moral dignity.  But
+even such praise, whatever its amount, is much for one, whose memory his
+biographer has to clear from the suspicion of being privy to the
+assassination of a king.
+
+It was scarcely to be expected, that the strong leaning of mankind to
+the marvellous, would leave to the common course of nature the glory of
+ending the career of Gustavus Adolphus.  The death of so formidable a
+rival was too important an event for the Emperor, not to excite in his
+bitter opponent a ready suspicion, that what was so much to his
+interests, was also the result of his instigation.  For the execution,
+however, of this dark deed, the Emperor would require the aid of a
+foreign arm, and this it was generally believed he had found in Francis
+Albert, Duke of Saxe Lauenburg.  The rank of the latter permitted him a
+free access to the king's person, while it at the same time seemed to
+place him above the suspicion of so foul a deed.  This prince, however,
+was in fact not incapable of this atrocity, and he had moreover
+sufficient motives for its commission.
+
+Francis Albert, the youngest of four sons of Francis II, Duke of
+Lauenburg, and related by the mother's side to the race of Vasa, had, in
+his early years, found a most friendly reception at the Swedish court.
+Some offence which he had committed against Gustavus Adolphus, in the
+queen's chamber, was, it is said, repaid by this fiery youth with a box
+on the ear; which, though immediately repented of, and amply apologized
+for, laid the foundation of an irreconcileable hate in the vindictive
+heart of the duke.  Francis Albert subsequently entered the imperial
+service, where he rose to the command of a regiment, and formed a close
+intimacy with Wallenstein, and condescended to be the instrument of a
+secret negociation with the Saxon court, which did little honour to his
+rank.  Without any sufficient cause being assigned, he suddenly quitted
+the Austrian service, and appeared in the king's camp at Nuremberg, to
+offer his services as a volunteer.  By his show of zeal for the
+Protestant cause, and prepossessing and flattering deportment, he gained
+the heart of the king, who, warned in vain by Oxenstiern, continued to
+lavish his favour and friendship on this suspicious new comer.  The
+battle of Lutzen soon followed, in which Francis Albert, like an evil
+genius, kept close to the king's side and did not leave him till he
+fell.  He owed, it was thought, his own safety amidst the fire of the
+enemy, to a green sash which he wore, the colour of the Imperialists.
+He was at any rate the first to convey to his friend Wallenstein the
+intelligence of the king's death.  After the battle, he exchanged the
+Swedish service for the Saxon; and, after the murder of Wallenstein,
+being charged with being an accomplice of that general, he only escaped
+the sword of justice by abjuring his faith.  His last appearance in life
+was as commander of an imperial army in Silesia, where he died of the
+wounds he had received before Schweidnitz.  It requires some effort to
+believe in the innocence of a man, who had run through a career like
+this, of the act charged against him; but, however great may be the
+moral and physical possibility of his committing such a crime, it must
+still be allowed that there are no certain grounds for imputing it to
+him.  Gustavus Adolphus, it is well known, exposed himself to danger,
+like the meanest soldier in his army, and where thousands fell, he, too,
+might naturally meet his death.  How it reached him, remains indeed
+buried in mystery; but here, more than anywhere, does the maxim apply,
+that where the ordinary course of things is fully sufficient to account
+for the fact, the honour of human nature ought not to be stained by any
+suspicion of moral atrocity.
+
+But by whatever hand he fell, his extraordinary destiny must appear a
+great interposition of Providence.  History, too often confined to the
+ungrateful task of analyzing the uniform play of human passions, is
+occasionally rewarded by the appearance of events, which strike like a
+hand from heaven, into the nicely adjusted machinery of human plans, and
+carry the contemplative mind to a higher order of things.  Of this kind,
+is the sudden retirement of Gustavus Adolphus from the scene;--stopping
+for a time the whole movement of the political machine, and
+disappointing all the calculations of human prudence.  Yesterday, the
+very soul, the great and animating principle of his own creation;
+to-day, struck unpitiably to the ground in the very midst of his eagle
+flight; untimely torn from a whole world of great designs, and from the
+ripening harvest of his expectations, he left his bereaved party
+disconsolate; and the proud edifice of his past greatness sunk into
+ruins.  The Protestant party had identified its hopes with its
+invincible leader, and scarcely can it now separate them from him; with
+him, they now fear all good fortune is buried.  But it was no longer the
+benefactor of Germany who fell at Lutzen:  the beneficent part of his
+career, Gustavus Adolphus had already terminated; and now the greatest
+service which he could render to the liberties of Germany was--to die.
+The all-engrossing power of an individual was at an end, but many came
+forward to essay their strength; the equivocal assistance of an
+over-powerful protector, gave place to a more noble self-exertion on the
+part of the Estates; and those who were formerly the mere instruments of
+his aggrandizement, now began to work for themselves.  They now looked
+to their own exertions for the emancipation, which could not be received
+without danger from the hand of the mighty; and the Swedish power, now
+incapable of sinking into the oppressor, was henceforth restricted to
+the more modest part of an ally.
+
+The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired unquestionably to establish
+a power within Germany, and to attain a firm footing in the centre of
+the empire, which was inconsistent with the liberties of the Estates.
+His aim was the imperial crown; and this dignity, supported by his
+power, and maintained by his energy and activity, would in his hands be
+liable to more abuse than had ever been feared from the House of
+Austria.  Born in a foreign country, educated in the maxims of arbitrary
+power, and by principles and enthusiasm a determined enemy to Popery, he
+was ill qualified to maintain inviolate the constitution of the German
+States, or to respect their liberties.  The coercive homage which
+Augsburg, with many other cities, was forced to pay to the Swedish
+crown, bespoke the conqueror, rather than the protector of the empire;
+and this town, prouder of the title of a royal city, than of the higher
+dignity of the freedom of the empire, flattered itself with the
+anticipation of becoming the capital of his future kingdom.  His
+ill-disguised attempts upon the Electorate of Mentz, which he first
+intended to bestow upon the Elector of Brandenburg, as the dower of his
+daughter Christina, and afterwards destined for his chancellor and
+friend Oxenstiern, evinced plainly what liberties he was disposed to
+take with the constitution of the empire.  His allies, the Protestant
+princes, had claims on his gratitude, which could be satisfied only at
+the expense of their Roman Catholic neighbours, and particularly of the
+immediate Ecclesiastical Chapters; and it seems probable a plan was
+early formed for dividing the conquered provinces, (after the precedent
+of the barbarian hordes who overran the German empire,) as a common
+spoil, among the German and Swedish confederates.  In his treatment of
+the Elector Palatine, he entirely belied the magnanimity of the hero,
+and forgot the sacred character of a protector.  The Palatinate was in
+his hands, and the obligations both of justice and honour demanded its
+full and immediate restoration to the legitimate sovereign.  But, by a
+subtlety unworthy of a great mind, and disgraceful to the honourable
+title of protector of the oppressed, he eluded that obligation.  He
+treated the Palatinate as a conquest wrested from the enemy, and thought
+that this circumstance gave him a right to deal with it as he pleased.
+He surrendered it to the Elector as a favour, not as a debt; and that,
+too, as a Swedish fief, fettered by conditions which diminished half its
+value, and degraded this unfortunate prince into a humble vassal of
+Sweden.  One of these conditions obliged the Elector, after the
+conclusion of the war, to furnish, along with the other princes, his
+contribution towards the maintenance of the Swedish army, a condition
+which plainly indicates the fate which, in the event of the ultimate
+success of the king, awaited Germany.  His sudden disappearance secured
+the liberties of Germany, and saved his reputation, while it probably
+spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in arms against
+him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by a
+disadvantageous peace.  Saxony was already disposed to abandon him,
+Denmark viewed his success with alarm and jealousy; and even France, the
+firmest and most potent of his allies, terrified at the rapid growth of
+his power and the imperious tone which he assumed, looked around at the
+very moment he past the Lech, for foreign alliances, in order to check
+the progress of the Goths, and restore to Europe the balance of power.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Book IV.
+
+
+
+ The weak bond of union, by which Gustavus Adolphus contrived to hold
+together the Protestant members of the empire, was dissolved by his
+death: the allies were now again at liberty, and their alliance, to
+last, must be formed anew.  By the former event, if unremedied, they
+would lose all the advantages they had gained at the cost of so much
+bloodshed, and expose themselves to the inevitable danger of becoming
+one after the other the prey of an enemy, whom, by their union alone,
+they had been able to oppose and to master.  Neither Sweden, nor any of
+the states of the empire, was singly a match with the Emperor and the
+League; and, by seeking a peace under the present state of things, they
+would necessarily be obliged to receive laws from the enemy.  Union was,
+therefore, equally indispensable, either for concluding a peace or
+continuing the war.  But a peace, sought under the present
+circumstances, could not fail to be disadvantageous to the allied
+powers.  With the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the enemy had formed new
+hopes; and however gloomy might be the situation of his affairs after
+the battle of Lutzen, still the death of his dreaded rival was an event
+too disastrous to the allies, and too favourable for the Emperor, not to
+justify him in entertaining the most brilliant expectations, and not to
+encourage him to the prosecution of the war.  Its inevitable
+consequence, for the moment at least, must be want of union among the
+allies, and what might not the Emperor and the League gain from such a
+division of their enemies?  He was not likely to sacrifice such
+prospects, as the present turn of affairs held out to him, for any
+peace, not highly beneficial to himself; and such a peace the allies
+would not be disposed to accept.  They naturally determined, therefore,
+to continue the war, and for this purpose, the maintenance of the
+existing union was acknowledged to be indispensable.
+
+But how was this union to be renewed? and whence were to be derived the
+necessary means for continuing the war?  It was not the power of Sweden,
+but the talents and personal influence of its late king, which had given
+him so overwhelming an influence in Germany, so great a command over the
+minds of men; and even he had innumerable difficulties to overcome,
+before he could establish among the states even a weak and wavering
+alliance.  With his death vanished all, which his personal qualities
+alone had rendered practicable; and the mutual obligation of the states
+seemed to cease with the hopes on which it had been founded.  Several
+impatiently threw off the yoke which had always been irksome; others
+hastened to seize the helm which they had unwillingly seen in the hands
+of Gustavus, but which, during his lifetime, they did not dare to
+dispute with him.  Some were tempted, by the seductive promises of the
+Emperor, to abandon the alliance; others, oppressed by the heavy burdens
+of a fourteen years' war, longed for the repose of peace, upon any
+conditions, however ruinous.  The generals of the army, partly German
+princes, acknowledged no common head, and no one would stoop to receive
+orders from another.  Unanimity vanished alike from the cabinet and the
+field, and their common weal was threatened with ruin, by the spirit of
+disunion.
+
+Gustavus had left no male heir to the crown of Sweden: his daughter
+Christina, then six years old, was the natural heir.  The unavoidable
+weakness of a regency, suited ill with that energy and resolution, which
+Sweden would be called upon to display in this trying conjuncture.  The
+wide reaching mind of Gustavus Adolphus had raised this unimportant, and
+hitherto unknown kingdom, to a rank among the powers of Europe, which it
+could not retain without the fortune and genius of its author, and from
+which it could not recede, without a humiliating confession of weakness.
+Though the German war had been conducted chiefly on the resources of
+Germany, yet even the small contribution of men and money, which Sweden
+furnished, had sufficed to exhaust the finances of that poor kingdom,
+and the peasantry groaned beneath the imposts necessarily laid upon
+them.  The plunder gained in Germany enriched only a few individuals,
+among the nobles and the soldiers, while Sweden itself remained poor as
+before.  For a time, it is true, the national glory reconciled the
+subject to these burdens, and the sums exacted, seemed but as a loan
+placed at interest, in the fortunate hand of Gustavus Adolphus, to be
+richly repaid by the grateful monarch at the conclusion of a glorious
+peace.  But with the king's death this hope vanished, and the deluded
+people now loudly demanded relief from their burdens.
+
+But the spirit of Gustavus Adolphus still lived in the men to whom he
+had confided the administration of the kingdom.  However dreadful to
+them, and unexpected, was the intelligence of his death, it did not
+deprive them of their manly courage; and the spirit of ancient Rome,
+under the invasion of Brennus and Hannibal, animated this noble
+assembly.  The greater the price, at which these hard-gained advantages
+had been purchased, the less readily could they reconcile themselves to
+renounce them:  not unrevenged was a king to be sacrificed.  Called on
+to choose between a doubtful and exhausting war, and a profitable but
+disgraceful peace, the Swedish council of state boldly espoused the side
+of danger and honour; and with agreeable surprise, men beheld this
+venerable senate acting with all the energy and enthusiasm of youth.
+Surrounded with watchful enemies, both within and without, and
+threatened on every side with danger, they armed themselves against them
+all, with equal prudence and heroism, and laboured to extend their
+kingdom, even at the moment when they had to struggle for its existence.
+
+The decease of the king, and the minority of his daughter Christina,
+renewed the claims of Poland to the Swedish throne; and King Ladislaus,
+the son of Sigismund, spared no intrigues to gain a party in Sweden.  On
+this ground, the regency lost no time in proclaiming the young queen,
+and arranging the administration of the regency.  All the officers of
+the kingdom were summoned to do homage to their new princess; all
+correspondence with Poland prohibited, and the edicts of previous
+monarchs against the heirs of Sigismund, confirmed by a solemn act of
+the nation.  The alliance with the Czar of Muscovy was carefully
+renewed, in order, by the arms of this prince, to keep the hostile Poles
+in check.  The death of Gustavus Adolphus had put an end to the jealousy
+of Denmark, and removed the grounds of alarm which had stood in the way
+of a good understanding between the two states.  The representations by
+which the enemy sought to stir up Christian IV.  against Sweden were no
+longer listened to; and the strong wish the Danish monarch entertained
+for the marriage of his son Ulrick with the young princess, combined,
+with the dictates of a sounder policy, to incline him to a neutrality.
+At the same time, England, Holland, and France came forward with the
+gratifying assurances to the regency of continued friendship and
+support, and encouraged them, with one voice, to prosecute with activity
+the war, which hitherto had been conducted with so much glory.  Whatever
+reason France might have to congratulate itself on the death of the
+Swedish conqueror, it was as fully sensible of the expediency of
+maintaining the alliance with Sweden.  Without exposing itself to great
+danger, it could not allow the power of Sweden to sink in Germany.  Want
+of resources of its own, would either drive Sweden to conclude a hasty
+and disadvantageous peace with Austria, and then all the past efforts to
+lower the ascendancy of this dangerous power would be thrown away; or
+necessity and despair would drive the armies to extort from the Roman
+Catholic states the means of support, and France would then be regarded
+as the betrayer of those very states, who had placed themselves under
+her powerful protection.  The death of Gustavus, far from breaking up
+the alliance between France and Sweden, had only rendered it more
+necessary for both, and more profitable for France.  Now, for the first
+time, since he was dead who had stretched his protecting arm over
+Germany, and guarded its frontiers against the encroaching designs of
+France, could the latter safely pursue its designs upon Alsace, and thus
+be enabled to sell its aid to the German Protestants at a dearer rate.
+
+Strengthened by these alliances, secured in its interior, and defended
+from without by strong frontier garrisons and fleets, the regency did
+not delay an instant to continue a war, by which Sweden had little of
+its own to lose, while, if success attended its arms, one or more of the
+German provinces might be won, either as a conquest, or indemnification
+of its expenses.  Secure amidst its seas, Sweden, even if driven out of
+Germany, would scarcely be exposed to greater peril, than if it
+voluntarily retired from the contest, while the former measure was as
+honourable, as the latter was disgraceful.  The more boldness the
+regency displayed, the more confidence would they inspire among their
+confederates, the more respect among their enemies, and the more
+favourable conditions might they anticipate in the event of peace.  If
+they found themselves too weak to execute the wide-ranging projects of
+Gustavus, they at least owed it to this lofty model to do their utmost,
+and to yield to no difficulty short of absolute necessity.  Alas, that
+motives of self-interest had too great a share in this noble
+determination, to demand our unqualified admiration! For those who had
+nothing themselves to suffer from the calamities of war, but were rather
+to be enriched by it, it was an easy matter to resolve upon its
+continuation; for the German empire was, in the end, to defray the
+expenses; and the provinces on which they reckoned, would be cheaply
+purchased with the few troops they sacrificed to them, and with the
+generals who were placed at the head of armies, composed for the most
+part of Germans, and with the honourable superintendence of all the
+operations, both military and political.
+
+But this superintendence was irreconcileable with the distance of the
+Swedish regency from the scene of action, and with the slowness which
+necessarily accompanies all the movements of a council.
+
+To one comprehensive mind must be intrusted the management of Swedish
+interests in Germany, and with full powers to determine at discretion
+all questions of war and peace, the necessary alliances, or the
+acquisitions made.  With dictatorial power, and with the whole influence
+of the crown which he was to represent, must this important magistrate
+be invested, in order to maintain its dignity, to enforce united and
+combined operations, to give effect to his orders, and to supply the
+place of the monarch whom he succeeded.  Such a man was found in the
+Chancellor Oxenstiern, the first minister, and what is more, the friend
+of the deceased king, who, acquainted with all the secrets of his
+master, versed in the politics of Germany, and in the relations of all
+the states of Europe, was unquestionably the fittest instrument to carry
+out the plans of Gustavus Adolphus in their full extent.
+
+Oxenstiern was on his way to Upper Germany, in order to assemble the
+four Upper Circles, when the news of the king's death reached him at
+Hanau.  This was a heavy blow, both to the friend and the statesman.
+Sweden, indeed, had lost but a king, Germany a protector; but
+Oxenstiern, the author of his fortunes, the friend of his soul, and the
+object of his admiration.  Though the greatest sufferer in the general
+loss, he was the first who by his energy rose from the blow, and the
+only one qualified to repair it.  His penetrating glance foresaw all the
+obstacles which would oppose the execution of his plans, the
+discouragement of the estates, the intrigues of hostile courts, the
+breaking up of the confederacy, the jealousy of the leaders, and the
+dislike of princes of the empire to submit to foreign authority.  But
+even this deep insight into the existing state of things, which revealed
+the whole extent of the evil, showed him also the means by which it
+might be overcome.  It was essential to revive the drooping courage of
+the weaker states, to meet the secret machinations of the enemy, to
+allay the jealousy of the more powerful allies, to rouse the friendly
+powers, and France in particular, to active assistance; but above all,
+to repair the ruined edifice of the German alliance, and to reunite the
+scattered strength of the party by a close and permanent bond of union.
+The dismay which the loss of their leader occasioned the German
+Protestants, might as readily dispose them to a closer alliance with
+Sweden, as to a hasty peace with the Emperor; and it depended entirely
+upon the course pursued, which of these alternatives they would adopt.
+Every thing might be lost by the slightest sign of despondency; nothing,
+but the confidence which Sweden showed in herself, could kindle among
+the Germans a noble feeling of self-confidence.  All the attempts of
+Austria, to detach these princes from the Swedish alliance, would be
+unavailing, the moment their eyes became opened to their true interests,
+and they were instigated to a public and formal breach with the Emperor.
+
+Before these measures could be taken, and the necessary points settled
+between the regency and their minister, a precious opportunity of action
+would, it is true, be lost to the Swedish army, of which the enemy would
+be sure to take the utmost advantage.  It was, in short, in the power of
+the Emperor totally to ruin the Swedish interest in Germany, and to this
+he was actually invited by the prudent councils of the Duke of
+Friedland.  Wallenstein advised him to proclaim a universal amnesty, and
+to meet the Protestant states with favourable conditions.  In the first
+consternation produced by the fall of Gustavus Adolphus, such a
+declaration would have had the most powerful effects, and probably would
+have brought the wavering states back to their allegiance.  But blinded
+by this unexpected turn of fortune, and infatuated by Spanish counsels,
+he anticipated a more brilliant issue from war, and, instead of
+listening to these propositions of an accommodation, he hastened to
+augment his forces.  Spain, enriched by the grant of the tenth of the
+ecclesiastical possessions, which the pope confirmed, sent him
+considerable supplies, negociated for him at the Saxon court, and
+hastily levied troops for him in Italy to be employed in Germany.  The
+Elector of Bavaria also considerably increased his military force; and
+the restless disposition of the Duke of Lorraine did not permit him to
+remain inactive in this favourable change of fortune.  But while the
+enemy were thus busy to profit by the disaster of Sweden, Oxenstiern was
+diligent to avert its most fatal consequences.
+
+Less apprehensive of open enemies, than of the jealousy of the friendly
+powers, he left Upper Germany, which he had secured by conquests and
+alliances, and set out in person to prevent a total defection of the
+Lower German states, or, what would have been almost equally ruinous to
+Sweden, a private alliance among themselves.  Offended at the boldness
+with which the chancellor assumed the direction of affairs, and inwardly
+exasperated at the thought of being dictated to by a Swedish nobleman,
+the Elector of Saxony again meditated a dangerous separation from
+Sweden; and the only question in his mind was, whether he should make
+full terms with the Emperor, or place himself at the head of the
+Protestants and form a third party in Germany.  Similar ideas were
+cherished by Duke Ulric of Brunswick, who, indeed, showed them openly
+enough by forbidding the Swedes from recruiting within his dominions,
+and inviting the Lower Saxon states to Luneburg, for the purpose of
+forming a confederacy among themselves.  The Elector of Brandenburg,
+jealous of the influence which Saxony was likely to attain in Lower
+Germany, alone manifested any zeal for the interests of the Swedish
+throne, which, in thought, he already destined for his son.  At the
+court of Saxony, Oxenstiern was no doubt honourably received; but,
+notwithstanding the personal efforts of the Elector of Brandenburg,
+empty promises of continued friendship were all which he could obtain.
+With the Duke of Brunswick he was more successful, for with him he
+ventured to assume a bolder tone.  Sweden was at the time in possession
+of the See of Magdeburg, the bishop of which had the power of assembling
+the Lower Saxon circle.  The chancellor now asserted the rights of the
+crown, and by this spirited proceeding, put a stop for the present to
+this dangerous assembly designed by the duke.  The main object, however,
+of his present journey and of his future endeavours, a general
+confederacy of the Protestants, miscarried entirely, and he was obliged
+to content himself with some unsteady alliances in the Saxon circles,
+and with the weaker assistance of Upper Germany.
+
+As the Bavarians were too powerful on the Danube, the assembly of the
+four Upper Circles, which should have been held at Ulm, was removed to
+Heilbronn, where deputies of more than twelve cities of the empire, with
+a brilliant crowd of doctors, counts, and princes, attended.  The
+ambassadors of foreign powers likewise, France, England, and Holland,
+attended this Congress, at which Oxenstiern appeared in person, with all
+the splendour of the crown whose representative he was.  He himself
+opened the proceedings, and conducted the deliberations.  After
+receiving from all the assembled estates assurances of unshaken
+fidelity, perseverance, and unity, he required of them solemnly and
+formally to declare the Emperor and the league as enemies.  But
+desirable as it was for Sweden to exasperate the ill-feeling between the
+emperor and the estates into a formal rupture, the latter, on the other
+hand, were equally indisposed to shut out the possibility of
+reconciliation, by so decided a step, and to place themselves entirely
+in the hands of the Swedes.  They maintained, that any formal
+declaration of war was useless and superfluous, where the act would
+speak for itself, and their firmness on this point silenced at last the
+chancellor.  Warmer disputes arose on the third and principal article of
+the treaty, concerning the means of prosecuting the war, and the quota
+which the several states ought to furnish for the support of the army.
+Oxenstiern's maxim, to throw as much as possible of the common burden on
+the states, did not suit very well with their determination to give as
+little as possible.  The Swedish chancellor now experienced, what had
+been felt by thirty emperors before him, to their cost, that of all
+difficult undertakings, the most difficult was to extort money from the
+Germans.  Instead of granting the necessary sums for the new armies to
+be raised, they eloquently dwelt upon the calamities occasioned by the
+former, and demanded relief from the old burdens, when they were
+required to submit to new.  The irritation which the chancellor's demand
+for money raised among the states, gave rise to a thousand complaints;
+and the outrages committed by the troops, in their marches and quarters,
+were dwelt upon with a startling minuteness and truth.
+
+In the service of two absolute monarchs, Oxenstiern had but little
+opportunity to become accustomed to the formalities and cautious
+proceedings of republican deliberations, or to bear opposition with
+patience.  Ready to act, the instant the necessity of action was
+apparent, and inflexible in his resolution, when he had once taken it,
+he was at a loss to comprehend the inconsistency of most men, who, while
+they desire the end, are yet averse to the means.  Prompt and impetuous
+by nature, he was so on this occasion from principle; for every thing
+depended on concealing the weakness of Sweden, under a firm and
+confident speech, and by assuming the tone of a lawgiver, really to
+become so.  It was nothing wonderful, therefore, if, amidst these
+interminable discussions with German doctors and deputies, he was
+entirely out of his sphere, and if the deliberateness which
+distinguishes the character of the Germans in their public
+deliberations, had driven him almost to despair.  Without respecting a
+custom, to which even the most powerful of the emperors had been obliged
+to conform, he rejected all written deliberations which suited so well
+with the national slowness of resolve.  He could not conceive how ten
+days could be spent in debating a measure, which with himself was
+decided upon its bare suggestion.  Harshly, however, as he treated the
+States, he found them ready enough to assent to his fourth motion, which
+concerned himself.  When he pointed out the necessity of giving a head
+and a director to the new confederation, that honour was unanimously
+assigned to Sweden, and he himself was humbly requested to give to the
+common cause the benefit of his enlightened experience, and to take upon
+himself the burden of the supreme command.  But in order to prevent his
+abusing the great powers thus conferred upon him, it was proposed, not
+without French influence, to appoint a number of overseers, in fact,
+under the name of assistants, to control the expenditure of the common
+treasure, and to consult with him as to the levies, marches, and
+quarterings of the troops.  Oxenstiern long and strenuously resisted
+this limitation of his authority, which could not fail to trammel him in
+the execution of every enterprise requiring promptitude or secrecy, and
+at last succeeded, with difficulty, in obtaining so far a modification
+of it, that his management in affairs of war was to be uncontrolled.
+The chancellor finally approached the delicate point of the
+indemnification which Sweden was to expect at the conclusion of the war,
+from the gratitude of the allies, and flattered himself with the hope
+that Pomerania, the main object of Sweden, would be assigned to her, and
+that he would obtain from the provinces, assurances of effectual
+cooperation in its acquisition.  But he could obtain nothing more than a
+vague assurance, that in a general peace the interests of all parties
+would be attended to.  That on this point, the caution of the estates
+was not owing to any regard for the constitution of the empire, became
+manifest from the liberality they evinced towards the chancellor, at the
+expense of the most sacred laws of the empire.  They were ready to grant
+him the archbishopric of Mentz, (which he already held as a conquest,)
+and only with difficulty did the French ambassador succeed in preventing
+a step, which was as impolitic as it was disgraceful.  Though on the
+whole, the result of the congress had fallen far short of Oxenstiern's
+expectations, he had at least gained for himself and his crown his main
+object, namely, the direction of the whole confederacy; he had also
+succeeded in strengthening the bond of union between the four upper
+circles, and obtained from the states a yearly contribution of two
+millions and a half of dollars, for the maintenance of the army.
+
+These concessions on the part of the States, demanded some return from
+Sweden.  A few weeks after the death of Gustavus Adolphus, sorrow ended
+the days of the unfortunate Elector Palatine.  For eight months he had
+swelled the pomp of his protector's court, and expended on it the small
+remainder of his patrimony.  He was, at last, approaching the goal of
+his wishes, and the prospect of a brighter future was opening, when
+death deprived him of his protector.  But what he regarded as the
+greatest calamity, was highly favourable to his heirs.  Gustavus might
+venture to delay the restoration of his dominions, or to load the gift
+with hard conditions; but Oxenstiern, to whom the friendship of England,
+Holland, and Brandenburg, and the good opinion of the Reformed States
+were indispensable, felt the necessity of immediately fulfilling the
+obligations of justice.  At this assembly, at Heilbronn, therefore, he
+engaged to surrender to Frederick's heirs the whole Palatinate, both the
+part already conquered, and that which remained to be conquered, with
+the exception of Manheim, which the Swedes were to hold, until they
+should be indemnified for their expenses.  The Chancellor did not
+confine his liberality to the family of the Palatine alone; the other
+allied princes received proofs, though at a later period, of the
+gratitude of Sweden, which, however, she dispensed at little cost to
+herself.
+
+Impartiality, the most sacred obligation of the historian, here compels
+us to an admission, not much to the honour of the champions of German
+liberty.  However the Protestant Princes might boast of the justice of
+their cause, and the sincerity of their conviction, still the motives
+from which they acted were selfish enough; and the desire of stripping
+others of their possessions, had at least as great a share in the
+commencement of hostilities, as the fear of being deprived of their own.
+Gustavus soon found that he might reckon much more on these selfish
+motives, than on their patriotic zeal, and did not fail to avail himself
+of them.  Each of his confederates received from him the promise of some
+possession, either already wrested, or to be afterwards taken from the
+enemy; and death alone prevented him from fulfilling these engagements.
+What prudence had suggested to the king, necessity now prescribed to his
+successor.  If it was his object to continue the war, he must be ready
+to divide the spoil among the allies, and promise them advantages from
+the confusion which it was his object to continue.  Thus he promised to
+the Landgrave of Hesse, the abbacies of Paderborn, Corvey, Munster, and
+Fulda; to Duke Bernard of Weimar, the Franconian Bishoprics; to the Duke
+of Wirtemberg, the Ecclesiastical domains, and the Austrian counties
+lying within his territories, all under the title of fiefs of Sweden.
+This spectacle, so strange and so dishonourable to the German character,
+surprised the Chancellor, who found it difficult to repress his
+contempt, and on one occasion exclaimed, "Let it be writ in our records,
+for an everlasting memorial, that a German prince made such a request of
+a Swedish nobleman, and that the Swedish nobleman granted it to the
+German upon German ground!"
+
+After these successful measures, he was in a condition to take the
+field, and prosecute the war with fresh vigour.  Soon after the victory
+at Lutzen, the troops of Saxony and Lunenburg united with the Swedish
+main body; and the Imperialists were, in a short time, totally driven
+from Saxony.  The united army again divided:  the Saxons marched towards
+Lusatia and Silesia, to act in conjunction with Count Thurn against the
+Austrians in that quarter; a part of the Swedish army was led by the
+Duke of Weimar into Franconia, and the other by George, Duke of
+Brunswick, into Westphalia and Lower Saxony.
+
+The conquests on the Lech and the Danube, during Gustavus's expedition
+into Saxony, had been maintained by the Palatine of Birkenfeld, and the
+Swedish General Banner, against the Bavarians; but unable to hold their
+ground against the victorious progress of the latter, supported as they
+were by the bravery and military experience of the Imperial General
+Altringer, they were under the necessity of summoning the Swedish
+General Horn to their assistance, from Alsace.  This experienced general
+having captured the towns of Benfeld, Schlettstadt, Colmar, and Hagenau,
+committed the defence of them to the Rhinegrave Otto Louis, and hastily
+crossed the Rhine to form a junction with Banner's army.  But although
+the combined force amounted to more than 16,000, they could not prevent
+the enemy from obtaining a strong position on the Swabian frontier,
+taking Kempten, and being joined by seven regiments from Bohemia.  In
+order to retain the command of the important banks of the Lech and the
+Danube, they were under the necessity of recalling the Rhinegrave Otto
+Louis from Alsace, where he had, after the departure of Horn, found it
+difficult to defend himself against the exasperated peasantry.  With his
+army, he was now summoned to strengthen the army on the Danube; and as
+even this reinforcement was insufficient, Duke Bernard of Weimar was
+earnestly pressed to turn his arms into this quarter.
+
+Duke Bernard, soon after the opening of the campaign of 1633, had made
+himself master of the town and territory of Bamberg, and was now
+threatening Wurtzburg.  But on receiving the summons of General Horn,
+without delay he began his march towards the Danube, defeated on his way
+a Bavarian army under John de Werth, and joined the Swedes near
+Donauwerth.  This numerous force, commanded by excellent generals, now
+threatened Bavaria with a fearful inroad.  The bishopric of Eichstadt
+was completely overrun, and Ingoldstadt was on the point of being
+delivered up by treachery to the Swedes.  Altringer, fettered in his
+movements by the express order of the Duke of Friedland, and left
+without assistance from Bohemia, was unable to check the progress of the
+enemy.  The most favourable circumstances combined to further the
+progress of the Swedish arms in this quarter, when the operations of the
+army were at once stopped by a mutiny among the officers.
+
+All the previous successes in Germany were owing altogether to arms; the
+greatness of Gustavus himself was the work of the army, the fruit of
+their discipline, their bravery, and their persevering courage under
+numberless dangers and privations.  However wisely his plans were laid
+in the cabinet, it was to the army ultimately that he was indebted for
+their execution; and the expanding designs of the general did but
+continually impose new burdens on the soldiers.  All the decisive
+advantages of the war, had been violently gained by a barbarous
+sacrifice of the soldiers' lives in winter campaigns, forced marches,
+stormings, and pitched battles; for it was Gustavus's maxim never to
+decline a battle, so long as it cost him nothing but men.  The soldiers
+could not long be kept ignorant of their own importance, and they justly
+demanded a share in the spoil which had been won by their own blood.
+Yet, frequently, they hardly received their pay; and the rapacity of
+individual generals, or the wants of the state, generally swallowed up
+the greater part of the sums raised by contributions, or levied upon the
+conquered provinces.  For all the privations he endured, the soldier had
+no other recompense than the doubtful chance either of plunder or
+promotion, in both of which he was often disappointed.  During the
+lifetime of Gustavus Adolphus, the combined influence of fear and hope
+had suppressed any open complaint, but after his death, the murmurs were
+loud and universal; and the soldiery seized the most dangerous moment to
+impress their superiors with a sense of their importance.  Two officers,
+Pfuhl and Mitschefal, notorious as restless characters, even during the
+King's life, set the example in the camp on the Danube, which in a few
+days was imitated by almost all the officers of the army.  They solemnly
+bound themselves to obey no orders, till these arrears, now outstanding
+for months, and even years, should be paid up, and a gratuity, either in
+money or lands, made to each man, according to his services.  "Immense
+sums," they said, "were daily raised by contributions, and all
+dissipated by a few.  They were called out to serve amidst frost and
+snow, and no reward requited their incessant labours.  The soldiers'
+excesses at Heilbronn had been blamed, but no one ever talked of their
+services.  The world rung with the tidings of conquests and victories,
+but it was by their hands that they had been fought and won."
+
+The number of the malcontents daily increased; and they even attempted
+by letters, (which were fortunately intercepted,) to seduce the armies
+on the Rhine and in Saxony.  Neither the representations of Bernard of
+Weimar, nor the stern reproaches of his harsher associate in command,
+could suppress this mutiny, while the vehemence of Horn seemed only to
+increase the insolence of the insurgents.  The conditions they insisted
+on, were that certain towns should be assigned to each regiment for the
+payment of arrears.  Four weeks were allowed to the Swedish Chancellor
+to comply with these demands; and in case of refusal, they announced
+that they would pay themselves, and never more draw a sword for Sweden.
+
+These pressing demands, made at the very time when the military chest
+was exhausted, and credit at a low ebb, greatly embarrassed the
+chancellor.  The remedy, he saw, must be found quickly, before the
+contagion should spread to the other troops, and he should be deserted
+by all his armies at once.  Among all the Swedish generals, there was
+only one of sufficient authority and influence with the soldiers to put
+an end to this dispute.  The Duke of Weimar was the favourite of the
+army, and his prudent moderation had won the good-will of the soldiers,
+while his military experience had excited their admiration.  He now
+undertook the task of appeasing the discontented troops; but, aware of
+his importance, he embraced the opportunity to make advantageous
+stipulations for himself, and to make the embarrassment of the
+chancellor subservient to his own views.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had flattered him with the promise of the Duchy of
+Franconia, to be formed out of the Bishoprics of Wurtzburg and Bamberg,
+and he now insisted on the performance of this pledge.  He at the same
+time demanded the chief command, as generalissimo of Sweden.  The abuse
+which the Duke of Weimar thus made of his influence, so irritated
+Oxenstiern, that, in the first moment of his displeasure, he gave him
+his dismissal from the Swedish service.  But he soon thought better of
+it, and determined, instead of sacrificing so important a leader, to
+attach him to the Swedish interests at any cost.  He therefore granted
+to him the Franconian bishoprics, as a fief of the Swedish crown,
+reserving, however, the two fortresses of Wurtzburg and Koenigshofen,
+which were to be garrisoned by the Swedes; and also engaged, in name of
+the Swedish crown, to secure these territories to the duke.  His demand
+of the supreme authority was evaded on some specious pretext.  The duke
+did not delay to display his gratitude for this valuable grant, and by
+his influence and activity soon restored tranquillity to the army.
+Large sums of money, and still more extensive estates, were divided
+among the officers, amounting in value to about five millions of
+dollars, and to which they had no other right but that of conquest.  In
+the mean time, however, the opportunity for a great undertaking had been
+lost, and the united generals divided their forces to oppose the enemy
+in other quarters.
+
+Gustavus Horn, after a short inroad into the Upper Palatinate, and the
+capture of Neumark, directed his march towards the Swabian frontier,
+where the Imperialists, strongly reinforced, threatened Wuertemberg.  At
+his approach, the enemy retired to the Lake of Constance, but only to
+show the Swedes the road into a district hitherto unvisited by war.  A
+post on the entrance to Switzerland, would be highly serviceable to the
+Swedes, and the town of Kostnitz seemed peculiarly well fitted to be a
+point of communication between him and the confederated cantons.
+Accordingly, Gustavus Horn immediately commenced the siege of it; but
+destitute of artillery, for which he was obliged to send to Wirtemberg,
+he could not press the attack with sufficient vigour, to prevent the
+enemy from throwing supplies into the town, which the lake afforded them
+convenient opportunity of doing.  He, therefore, after an ineffectual
+attempt, quitted the place and its neighbourhood, and hastened to meet a
+more threatening danger upon the Danube.
+
+At the Emperor's instigation, the Cardinal Infante, the brother of
+Philip IV.  of Spain, and the Viceroy of Milan, had raised an army of
+14,000 men, intended to act upon the Rhine, independently of
+Wallenstein, and to protect Alsace.  This force now appeared in Bavaria,
+under the command of the Duke of Feria, a Spaniard; and, that they might
+be directly employed against the Swedes, Altringer was ordered to join
+them with his corps.  Upon the first intelligence of their approach,
+Horn had summoned to his assistance the Palsgrave of Birkenfeld, from
+the Rhine; and being joined by him at Stockach, boldly advanced to meet
+the enemy's army of 30,000 men.
+
+The latter had taken the route across the Danube into Swabia, where
+Gustavus Horn came so close upon them, that the two armies were only
+separated from each other by half a German mile.  But, instead of
+accepting the offer of battle, the Imperialists moved by the Forest
+towns towards Briesgau and Alsace, where they arrived in time to relieve
+Breysack, and to arrest the victorious progress of the Rhinegrave, Otto
+Louis.  The latter had, shortly before, taken the Forest towns, and,
+supported by the Palatine of Birkenfeld, who had liberated the Lower
+Palatinate and beaten the Duke of Lorraine out of the field, had once
+more given the superiority to the Swedish arms in that quarter.  He was
+now forced to retire before the superior numbers of the enemy; but Horn
+and Birkenfeld quickly advanced to his support, and the Imperialists,
+after a brief triumph, were again expelled from Alsace.  The severity of
+the autumn, in which this hapless retreat had to be conducted, proved
+fatal to most of the Italians; and their leader, the Duke of Feria, died
+of grief at the failure of his enterprise.
+
+In the mean time, Duke Bernard of Weimar had taken up his position on
+the Danube, with eighteen regiments of infantry and 140 squadrons of
+horse, to cover Franconia, and to watch the movements of the
+Imperial-Bavarian army upon that river.  No sooner had Altringer
+departed, to join the Italians under Feria, than Bernard, profiting by
+his absence, hastened across the Danube, and with the rapidity of
+lightning appeared before Ratisbon.  The possession of this town would
+ensure the success of the Swedish designs upon Bavaria and Austria; it
+would establish them firmly on the Danube, and provide a safe refuge in
+case of defeat, while it alone could give permanence to their conquests
+in that quarter.  To defend Ratisbon, was the urgent advice which the
+dying Tilly left to the Elector; and Gustavus Adolphus had lamented it
+as an irreparable loss, that the Bavarians had anticipated him in taking
+possession of this place.  Indescribable, therefore, was the
+consternation of Maximilian, when Duke Bernard suddenly appeared before
+the town, and prepared in earnest to besiege it.
+
+The garrison consisted of not more than fifteen companies, mostly
+newly-raised soldiers; although that number was more than sufficient to
+weary out an enemy of far superior force, if supported by well-disposed
+and warlike inhabitants.  But this was not the greatest danger which the
+Bavarian garrison had to contend against.  The Protestant inhabitants of
+Ratisbon, equally jealous of their civil and religious freedom, had
+unwillingly submitted to the yoke of Bavaria, and had long looked with
+impatience for the appearance of a deliverer.  Bernard's arrival before
+the walls filled them with lively joy; and there was much reason to fear
+that they would support the attempts of the besiegers without, by
+exciting a tumult within.  In this perplexity, the Elector addressed the
+most pressing entreaties to the Emperor and the Duke of Friedland to
+assist him, were it only with 5,000 men.  Seven messengers in succession
+were despatched by Ferdinand to Wallenstein, who promised immediate
+succours, and even announced to the Elector the near advance of 12,000
+men under Gallas; but at the same time forbade that general, under pain
+of death, to march.  Meanwhile the Bavarian commandant of Ratisbon, in
+the hope of speedy assistance, made the best preparations for defence,
+armed the Roman Catholic peasants, disarmed and carefully watched the
+Protestant citizens, lest they should attempt any hostile design against
+the garrison.  But as no relief arrived, and the enemy's artillery
+incessantly battered the walls, he consulted his own safety, and that of
+the garrison, by an honourable capitulation, and abandoned the Bavarian
+officials and ecclesiastics to the conqueror's mercy.
+
+The possession of Ratisbon, enlarged the projects of the duke, and
+Bavaria itself now appeared too narrow a field for his bold designs.  He
+determined to penetrate to the frontiers of Austria, to arm the
+Protestant peasantry against the Emperor, and restore to them their
+religious liberty.  He had already taken Straubingen, while another
+Swedish army was advancing successfully along the northern bank of the
+Danube.  At the head of his Swedes, bidding defiance to the severity of
+the weather, he reached the mouth of the Iser, which he passed in the
+presence of the Bavarian General Werth, who was encamped on that river.
+Passau and Lintz trembled for their fate; the terrified Emperor
+redoubled his entreaties and commands to Wallenstein, to hasten with all
+speed to the relief of the hard-pressed Bavarians.  But here the
+victorious Bernard, of his own accord, checked his career of conquest.
+Having in front of him the river Inn, guarded by a number of strong
+fortresses, and behind him two hostile armies, a disaffected country,
+and the river Iser, while his rear was covered by no tenable position,
+and no entrenchment could be made in the frozen ground, and threatened
+by the whole force of Wallenstein, who had at last resolved to march to
+the Danube, by a timely retreat he escaped the danger of being cut off
+from Ratisbon, and surrounded by the enemy.  He hastened across the Iser
+to the Danube, to defend the conquests he had made in the Upper
+Palatinate against Wallenstein, and fully resolved not to decline a
+battle, if necessary, with that general.  But Wallenstein, who was not
+disposed for any great exploits on the Danube, did not wait for his
+approach; and before the Bavarians could congratulate themselves on his
+arrival, he suddenly withdrew again into Bohemia.  The duke thus ended
+his victorious campaign, and allowed his troops their well-earned repose
+in winter quarters upon an enemy's country.
+
+While in Swabia the war was thus successfully conducted by Gustavus
+Horn, and on the Upper and Lower Rhine by the Palatine of Birkenfeld,
+General Baudissen, and the Rhinegrave Otto Louis, and by Duke Bernard on
+the Danube; the reputation of the Swedish arms was as gloriously
+sustained in Lower Saxony and Westphalia by the Duke of Lunenburg and
+the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel.  The fortress of Hamel was taken by Duke
+George, after a brave defence, and a brilliant victory obtained over the
+imperial General Gronsfeld, by the united Swedish and Hessian armies,
+near Oldendorf.  Count Wasaburg, a natural son of Gustavus Adolphus,
+showed himself in this battle worthy of his descent.  Sixteen pieces of
+cannon, the whole baggage of the Imperialists, together with 74 colours,
+fell into the hands of the Swedes; 3,000 of the enemy perished on the
+field, and nearly the same number were taken prisoners.  The town of
+Osnaburg surrendered to the Swedish Colonel Knyphausen, and Paderborn to
+the Landgrave of Hesse; while, on the other hand, Bueckeburg, a very
+important place for the Swedes, fell into the hands of the Imperialists.
+The Swedish banners were victorious in almost every quarter of Germany;
+and the year after the death of Gustavus, left no trace of the loss
+which had been sustained in the person of that great leader.
+
+In a review of the important events which signalized the campaign of
+1633, the inactivity of a man, of whom the highest expectations had been
+formed, justly excites astonishment.  Among all the generals who
+distinguished themselves in this campaign, none could be compared with
+Wallenstein, in experience, talents, and reputation; and yet, after the
+battle of Lutzen, we lose sight of him entirely.  The fall of his great
+rival had left the whole theatre of glory open to him; all Europe was
+now attentively awaiting those exploits, which should efface the
+remembrance of his defeat, and still prove to the world his military
+superiority.  Nevertheless, he continued inactive in Bohemia, while the
+Emperor's losses in Bavaria, Lower Saxony, and the Rhine, pressingly
+called for his presence--a conduct equally unintelligible to friend and
+foe--the terror, and, at the same time, the last hope of the Emperor.
+After the defeat of Lutzen he had hastened into Bohemia, where he
+instituted the strictest inquiry into the conduct of his officers in
+that battle.  Those whom the council of war declared guilty of
+misconduct, were put to death without mercy, those who had behaved with
+bravery, rewarded with princely munificence, and the memory of the dead
+honoured by splendid monuments.  During the winter, he oppressed the
+imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and exhausted the Austrian
+territories by his winter quarters, which he purposely avoided taking up
+in an enemy's country.  And in the spring of 1633, instead of being the
+first to open the campaign, with this well-chosen and well-appointed
+army, and to make a worthy display of his great abilities, he was the
+last who appeared in the field; and even then, it was an hereditary
+province of Austria, which he selected as the seat of war.
+
+Of all the Austrian provinces, Silesia was most exposed to danger.
+Three different armies, a Swedish under Count Thurn, a Saxon under
+Arnheim and the Duke of Lauenburg, and one of Brandenburg under
+Borgsdorf, had at the same time carried the war into this country; they
+had already taken possession of the most important places, and even
+Breslau had embraced the cause of the allies.  But this crowd of
+commanders and armies was the very means of saving this province to the
+Emperor; for the jealousy of the generals, and the mutual hatred of the
+Saxons and the Swedes, never allowed them to act with unanimity.
+Arnheim and Thurn contended for the chief command; the troops of
+Brandenburg and Saxony combined against the Swedes, whom they looked
+upon as troublesome strangers who ought to be got rid of as soon as
+possible.  The Saxons, on the contrary, lived on a very intimate footing
+with the Imperialists, and the officers of both these hostile armies
+often visited and entertained each other.  The Imperialists were allowed
+to remove their property without hindrance, and many did not affect to
+conceal that they had received large sums from Vienna.  Among such
+equivocal allies, the Swedes saw themselves sold and betrayed; and any
+great enterprise was out of the question, while so bad an understanding
+prevailed between the troops.  General Arnheim, too, was absent the
+greater part of the time; and when he at last returned, Wallenstein was
+fast approaching the frontiers with a formidable force.
+
+His army amounted to 40,000 men, while to oppose him the allies had only
+24,000.  They nevertheless resolved to give him battle, and marched to
+Munsterberg, where he had formed an intrenched camp.  But Wallenstein
+remained inactive for eight days; he then left his intrenchments, and
+marched slowly and with composure to the enemy's camp.  But even after
+quitting his position, and when the enemy, emboldened by his past delay,
+manfully prepared to receive him, he declined the opportunity of
+fighting.  The caution with which he avoided a battle was imputed to
+fear; but the well-established reputation of Wallenstein enabled him to
+despise this suspicion.  The vanity of the allies allowed them not to
+see that he purposely saved them a defeat, because a victory at that
+time would not have served his own ends.  To convince them of his
+superior power, and that his inactivity proceeded not from any fear of
+them, he put to death the commander of a castle that fell into his
+hands, because he had refused at once to surrender an untenable place.
+
+For nine days, did the two armies remain within musket-shot of each
+other, when Count Terzky, from the camp of the Imperialists, appeared
+with a trumpeter in that of the allies, inviting General Arnheim to a
+conference.  The purport was, that Wallenstein, notwithstanding his
+superiority, was willing to agree to a cessation of arms for six weeks.
+"He was come," he said, "to conclude a lasting peace with the Swedes,
+and with the princes of the empire, to pay the soldiers, and to satisfy
+every one.  All this was in his power; and if the Austrian court
+hesitated to confirm his agreement, he would unite with the allies, and
+(as he privately whispered to Arnheim) hunt the Emperor to the devil."
+At the second conference, he expressed himself still more plainly to
+Count Thurn.  "All the privileges of the Bohemians," he engaged, "should
+be confirmed anew, the exiles recalled and restored to their estates,
+and he himself would be the first to resign his share of them.  The
+Jesuits, as the authors of all past grievances, should be banished, the
+Swedish crown indemnified by stated payments, and all the superfluous
+troops on both sides employed against the Turks."  The last article
+explained the whole mystery.  "If," he continued, "HE should obtain the
+crown of Bohemia, all the exiles would have reason to applaud his
+generosity; perfect toleration of religions should be established within
+the kingdom, the Palatine family be reinstated in its rights, and he
+would accept the Margraviate of Moravia as a compensation for
+Mecklenburg.  The allied armies would then, under his command, advance
+upon Vienna, and sword in hand, compel the Emperor to ratify the
+treaty."
+
+Thus was the veil at last removed from the schemes, over which he had
+brooded for years in mysterious silence.  Every circumstance now
+convinced him that not a moment was to be lost in its execution.
+Nothing but a blind confidence in the good fortune and military genius
+of the Duke of Friedland, had induced the Emperor, in the face of the
+remonstrances of Bavaria and Spain, and at the expense of his own
+reputation, to confer upon this imperious leader such an unlimited
+command.  But this belief in Wallenstein's being invincible, had been
+much weakened by his inaction, and almost entirely overthrown by the
+defeat at Lutzen.  His enemies at the imperial court now renewed their
+intrigues; and the Emperor's disappointment at the failure of his hopes,
+procured for their remonstrances a favourable reception.  Wallenstein's
+whole conduct was now reviewed with the most malicious criticism; his
+ambitious haughtiness, his disobedience to the Emperor's orders, were
+recalled to the recollection of that jealous prince, as well as the
+complaints of the Austrian subjects against his boundless oppression;
+his fidelity was questioned, and alarming hints thrown out as to his
+secret views.  These insinuations, which the conduct of the duke seemed
+but too well to justify, failed not to make a deep impression on
+Ferdinand; but the step had been taken, and the great power with which
+Wallenstein had been invested, could not be taken from him without
+danger.  Insensibly to diminish that power, was the only course that now
+remained, and, to effect this, it must in the first place be divided;
+but, above all, the Emperor's present dependence on the good will of his
+general put an end to.  But even this right had been resigned in his
+engagement with Wallenstein, and the Emperor's own handwriting secured
+him against every attempt to unite another general with him in the
+command, or to exercise any immediate act of authority over the troops.
+As this disadvantageous contract could neither be kept nor broken,
+recourse was had to artifice.  Wallenstein was Imperial Generalissimo in
+Germany, but his command extended no further, and he could not presume
+to exercise any authority over a foreign army.  A Spanish army was
+accordingly raised in Milan, and marched into Germany under a Spanish
+general.  Wallenstein now ceased to be indispensable because he was no
+longer supreme, and in case of necessity, the Emperor was now provided
+with the means of support even against him.
+
+The duke quickly and deeply felt whence this blow came, and whither it
+was aimed.  In vain did he protest against this violation of the
+compact, to the Cardinal Infante; the Italian army continued its march,
+and he was forced to detach General Altringer to join it with a
+reinforcement.  He took care, indeed, so closely to fetter the latter,
+as to prevent the Italian army from acquiring any great reputation in
+Alsace and Swabia; but this bold step of the court awakened him from his
+security, and warned him of the approach of danger.  That he might not a
+second time be deprived of his command, and lose the fruit of all his
+labours, he must accelerate the accomplishment of his long meditated
+designs.  He secured the attachment of his troops by removing the
+doubtful officers, and by his liberality to the rest.  He had sacrificed
+to the welfare of the army every other order in the state, every
+consideration of justice and humanity, and therefore he reckoned upon
+their gratitude.  At the very moment when he meditated an unparalleled
+act of ingratitude against the author of his own good fortune, he
+founded all his hopes upon the gratitude which was due to himself.
+
+The leaders of the Silesian armies had no authority from their
+principals to consent, on their own discretion, to such important
+proposals as those of Wallenstein, and they did not even feel themselves
+warranted in granting, for more than a fortnight, the cessation of
+hostilities which he demanded.  Before the duke disclosed his designs to
+Sweden and Saxony, he had deemed it advisable to secure the sanction of
+France to his bold undertaking.  For this purpose, a secret negociation
+had been carried on with the greatest possible caution and distrust, by
+Count Kinsky with Feuquieres, the French ambassador at Dresden, and had
+terminated according to his wishes.  Feuquieres received orders from his
+court to promise every assistance on the part of France, and to offer
+the duke a considerable pecuniary aid in case of need.
+
+But it was this excessive caution to secure himself on all sides, that
+led to his ruin.  The French ambassador with astonishment discovered
+that a plan, which, more than any other, required secrecy, had been
+communicated to the Swedes and the Saxons.  And yet it was generally
+known that the Saxon ministry was in the interests of the Emperor, and
+on the other hand, the conditions offered to the Swedes fell too far
+short of their expectations to be likely to be accepted.  Feuquieres,
+therefore, could not believe that the duke could be serious in
+calculating upon the aid of the latter, and the silence of the former.
+He communicated accordingly his doubts and anxieties to the Swedish
+chancellor, who equally distrusted the views of Wallenstein, and
+disliked his plans.  Although it was no secret to Oxenstiern, that the
+duke had formerly entered into a similar negociation with Gustavus
+Adolphus, he could not credit the possibility of inducing a whole army
+to revolt, and of his extravagant promises.  So daring a design, and
+such imprudent conduct, seemed not to be consistent with the duke's
+reserved and suspicious temper, and he was the more inclined to consider
+the whole as the result of dissimulation and treachery, because he had
+less reason to doubt his prudence than his honesty.
+
+Oxenstiern's doubts at last affected Arnheim himself, who, in full
+confidence in Wallenstein's sincerity, had repaired to the chancellor at
+Gelnhausen, to persuade him to lend some of his best regiments to the
+duke, to aid him in the execution of the plan.  They began to suspect
+that the whole proposal was only a snare to disarm the allies, and to
+betray the flower of their troops into the hands of the Emperor.
+Wallenstein's well-known character did not contradict the suspicion, and
+the inconsistencies in which he afterwards involved himself, entirely
+destroyed all confidence in his sincerity.  While he was endeavouring to
+draw the Swedes into this alliance, and requiring the help of their best
+troops, he declared to Arnheim that they must begin with expelling the
+Swedes from the empire; and while the Saxon officers, relying upon the
+security of the truce, repaired in great numbers to his camp, he made an
+unsuccessful attempt to seize them.  He was the first to break the
+truce, which some months afterwards he renewed, though not without great
+difficulty.  All confidence in his sincerity was lost; his whole conduct
+was regarded as a tissue of deceit and low cunning, devised to weaken
+the allies and repair his own strength.  This indeed he actually did
+effect, as his own army daily augmented, while that of the allies was
+reduced nearly one half by desertion and bad provisions.  But he did not
+make that use of his superiority which Vienna expected.  When all men
+were looking for a decisive blow to be struck, he suddenly renewed the
+negociations; and when the truce lulled the allies into security, he as
+suddenly recommenced hostilities.  All these contradictions arose out of
+the double and irreconcileable designs to ruin at once the Emperor and
+the Swedes, and to conclude a separate peace with the Saxons.
+
+Impatient at the ill success of his negociations, he at last determined
+to display his strength; the more so, as the pressing distress within
+the empire, and the growing dissatisfaction of the Imperial court,
+admitted not of his making any longer delay.  Before the last cessation
+of hostilities, General Holk, from Bohemia, had attacked the circle of
+Meissen, laid waste every thing on his route with fire and sword, driven
+the Elector into his fortresses, and taken the town of Leipzig.  But the
+truce in Silesia put a period to his ravages, and the consequences of
+his excesses brought him to the grave at Adorf.  As soon as hostilities
+were recommenced, Wallenstein made a movement, as if he designed to
+penetrate through Lusatia into Saxony, and circulated the report that
+Piccolomini had already invaded that country.  Arnheim immediately broke
+up his camp in Silesia, to follow him, and hastened to the assistance of
+the Electorate.  By this means the Swedes were left exposed, who were
+encamped in small force under Count Thurn, at Steinau, on the Oder, and
+this was exactly what Wallenstein desired.  He allowed the Saxon general
+to advance sixteen miles towards Meissen, and then suddenly turning
+towards the Oder, surprised the Swedish army in the most complete
+security.  Their cavalry were first beaten by General Schafgotsch, who
+was sent against them, and the infantry completely surrounded at Steinau
+by the duke's army which followed.  Wallenstein gave Count Thurn half an
+hour to deliberate whether he would defend himself with 2,500 men,
+against more than 20,000, or surrender at discretion.  But there was no
+room for deliberation.  The army surrendered, and the most complete
+victory was obtained without bloodshed.  Colours, baggage, and artillery
+all fell into the hands of the victors, the officers were taken into
+custody, the privates drafted into the army of Wallenstein.  And now at
+last, after a banishment of fourteen years, after numberless changes of
+fortune, the author of the Bohemian insurrection, and the remote origin
+of this destructive war, the notorious Count Thurn, was in the power of
+his enemies.  With blood-thirsty impatience, the arrival of this great
+criminal was looked for in Vienna, where they already anticipated the
+malicious triumph of sacrificing so distinguished a victim to public
+justice.  But to deprive the Jesuits of this pleasure, was a still
+sweeter triumph to Wallenstein, and Thurn was set at liberty.
+Fortunately for him, he knew more than it was prudent to have divulged
+in Vienna, and his enemies were also those of Wallenstein.  A defeat
+might have been forgiven in Vienna, but this disappointment of their
+hopes they could not pardon.  "What should I have done with this
+madman?" he writes, with a malicious sneer, to the minister who called
+him to account for this unseasonable magnanimity.  "Would to Heaven the
+enemy had no generals but such as he.  At the head of the Swedish army,
+he will render us much better service than in prison."
+
+The victory of Steinau was followed by the capture of Liegnitz,
+Grossglogau, and even of Frankfort on the Oder.  Schafgotsch, who
+remained in Silesia to complete the subjugation of that province,
+blockaded Brieg, and threatened Breslau, though in vain, as that free
+town was jealous of its privileges, and devoted to the Swedes.  Colonels
+Illo and Goetz were ordered by Wallenstein to the Warta, to push
+forwards into Pomerania, and to the coasts of the Baltic, and actually
+obtained possession of Landsberg, the key of Pomerania.  While thus the
+Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Pomerania were made to tremble
+for their dominions, Wallenstein himself, with the remainder of his
+army, burst suddenly into Lusatia, where he took Goerlitz by storm, and
+forced Bautzen to surrender.  But his object was merely to alarm the
+Elector of Saxony, not to follow up the advantages already obtained; and
+therefore, even with the sword in his hand, he continued his
+negociations for peace with Brandenburg and Saxony, but with no better
+success than before, as the inconsistencies of his conduct had destroyed
+all confidence in his sincerity.  He was therefore on the point of
+turning his whole force in earnest against the unfortunate Saxons, and
+effecting his object by force of arms, when circumstances compelled him
+to leave these territories.  The conquests of Duke Bernard upon the
+Danube, which threatened Austria itself with immediate danger, urgently
+demanded his presence in Bavaria; and the expulsion of the Saxons and
+Swedes from Silesia, deprived him of every pretext for longer resisting
+the Imperial orders, and leaving the Elector of Bavaria without
+assistance.  With his main body, therefore, he immediately set out for
+the Upper Palatinate, and his retreat freed Upper Saxony for ever of
+this formidable enemy.
+
+So long as was possible, he had delayed to move to the rescue of
+Bavaria, and on every pretext evaded the commands of the Emperor.  He
+had, indeed, after reiterated remonstrances, despatched from Bohemia a
+reinforcement of some regiments to Count Altringer, who was defending
+the Lech and the Danube against Horn and Bernard, but under the express
+condition of his acting merely on the defensive.  He referred the
+Emperor and the Elector, whenever they applied to him for aid, to
+Altringer, who, as he publicly gave out, had received unlimited powers;
+secretly, however, he tied up his hands by the strictest injunctions,
+and even threatened him with death, if he exceeded his orders.  When
+Duke Bernard had appeared before Ratisbon, and the Emperor as well as
+the Elector repeated still more urgently their demand for succour, he
+pretended he was about to despatch General Gallas with a considerable
+army to the Danube; but this movement also was delayed, and Ratisbon,
+Straubing, and Cham, as well as the bishopric of Eichstaedt, fell into
+the hands of the Swedes.  When at last he could no longer neglect the
+orders of the Court, he marched slowly toward the Bavarian frontier,
+where he invested the town of Cham, which had been taken by the Swedes.
+But no sooner did he learn that on the Swedish side a diversion was
+contemplated, by an inroad of the Saxons into Bohemia, than he availed
+himself of the report, as a pretext for immediately retreating into that
+kingdom.  Every consideration, he urged, must be postponed to the
+defence and preservation of the hereditary dominions of the Emperor; and
+on this plea, he remained firmly fixed in Bohemia, which he guarded as
+if it had been his own property.  And when the Emperor laid upon him his
+commands to move towards the Danube, and prevent the Duke of Weimar from
+establishing himself in so dangerous a position on the frontiers of
+Austria, Wallenstein thought proper to conclude the campaign a second
+time, and quartered his troops for the winter in this exhausted kingdom.
+
+Such continued insolence and unexampled contempt of the Imperial orders,
+as well as obvious neglect of the common cause, joined to his equivocal
+behaviour towards the enemy, tended at last to convince the Emperor of
+the truth of those unfavourable reports with regard to the Duke, which
+were current through Germany.  The latter had, for a long time,
+succeeded in glozing over his criminal correspondence with the enemy,
+and persuading the Emperor, still prepossessed in his favour, that the
+sole object of his secret conferences was to obtain peace for Germany.
+But impenetrable as he himself believed his proceedings to be, in the
+course of his conduct, enough transpired to justify the insinuations
+with which his rivals incessantly loaded the ear of the Emperor.  In
+order to satisfy himself of the truth or falsehood of these rumours,
+Ferdinand had already, at different times, sent spies into Wallenstein's
+camp; but as the Duke took the precaution never to commit anything to
+writing, they returned with nothing but conjectures.  But when, at last,
+those ministers who formerly had been his champions at the court, in
+consequence of their estates not being exempted by Wallenstein from the
+general exactions, joined his enemies; when the Elector of Bavaria
+threatened, in case of Wallenstein being any longer retained in the
+supreme command, to unite with the Swedes; when the Spanish ambassador
+insisted on his dismissal, and threatened, in case of refusal, to
+withdraw the subsidies furnished by his Crown, the Emperor found himself
+a second time compelled to deprive him of the command.
+
+The Emperor's authoritative and direct interference with the army, soon
+convinced the Duke that the compact with himself was regarded as at an
+end, and that his dismissal was inevitable.  One of his inferior
+generals in Austria, whom he had forbidden, under pain of death, to obey
+the orders of the court, received the positive commands of the Emperor
+to join the Elector of Bavaria; and Wallenstein himself was imperiously
+ordered to send some regiments to reinforce the army of the Cardinal
+Infante, who was on his march from Italy.  All these measures convinced
+him that the plan was finally arranged to disarm him by degrees, and at
+once, when he was weak and defenceless, to complete his ruin.
+
+In self-defence, must he now hasten to carry into execution the plans
+which he had originally formed only with the view to aggrandizement.  He
+had delayed too long, either because the favourable configuration of the
+stars had not yet presented itself, or, as he used to say, to check the
+impatience of his friends, because THE TIME WAS NOT YET COME.  The time,
+even now, was not come:  but the pressure of circumstances no longer
+allowed him to await the favour of the stars.  The first step was to
+assure himself of the sentiments of his principal officers, and then to
+try the attachment of the army, which he had so long confidently
+reckoned on.  Three of them, Colonels Kinsky, Terzky, and Illo, had long
+been in his secrets, and the two first were further united to his
+interests by the ties of relationship.  The same wild ambition, the same
+bitter hatred of the government, and the hope of enormous rewards, bound
+them in the closest manner to Wallenstein, who, to increase the number
+of his adherents, could stoop to the lowest means.  He had once advised
+Colonel Illo to solicit, in Vienna, the title of Count, and had promised
+to back his application with his powerful mediation.  But he secretly
+wrote to the ministry, advising them to refuse his request, as to grant
+it would give rise to similar demands from others, whose services and
+claims were equal to his.  On Illo's return to the camp, Wallenstein
+immediately demanded to know the success of his mission; and when
+informed by Illo of its failure, he broke out into the bitterest
+complaints against the court.  "Thus," said he, "are our faithful
+services rewarded.  My recommendation is disregarded, and your merit
+denied so trifling a reward!  Who would any longer devote his services
+to so ungrateful a master?  No, for my part, I am henceforth the
+determined foe of Austria."  Illo agreed with him, and a close alliance
+was cemented between them.
+
+But what was known to these three confidants of the duke, was long an
+impenetrable secret to the rest; and the confidence with which
+Wallenstein spoke of the devotion of his officers, was founded merely on
+the favours he had lavished on them, and on their known dissatisfaction
+with the Court.  But this vague presumption must be converted into
+certainty, before he could venture to lay aside the mask, or take any
+open step against the Emperor.  Count Piccolomini, who had distinguished
+himself by his unparalleled bravery at Lutzen, was the first whose
+fidelity he put to the proof.  He had, he thought, gained the attachment
+of this general by large presents, and preferred him to all others,
+because born under the same constellations with himself.  He disclosed
+to him, that, in consequence of the Emperor's ingratitude, and the near
+approach of his own danger, he had irrevocably determined entirely to
+abandon the party of Austria, to join the enemy with the best part of
+his army, and to make war upon the House of Austria, on all sides of its
+dominions, till he had wholly extirpated it.  In the execution of this
+plan, he principally reckoned on the services of Piccolomini, and had
+beforehand promised him the greatest rewards.  When the latter, to
+conceal his amazement at this extraordinary communication, spoke of the
+dangers and obstacles which would oppose so hazardous an enterprise,
+Wallenstein ridiculed his fears.  "In such enterprises," he maintained,
+"nothing was difficult but the commencement.  The stars were propitious
+to him, the opportunity the best that could be wished for, and something
+must always be trusted to fortune.  His resolution was taken, and if it
+could not be otherwise, he would encounter the hazard at the head of a
+thousand horse."  Piccolomini was careful not to excite Wallenstein's
+suspicions by longer opposition, and yielded apparently to the force of
+his reasoning.  Such was the infatuation of the Duke, that
+notwithstanding the warnings of Count Terzky, he never doubted the
+sincerity of this man, who lost not a moment in communicating to the
+court at Vienna this important conversation.
+
+Preparatory to taking the last decisive step, he, in January 1634,
+called a meeting of all the commanders of the army at Pilsen, whither he
+had marched after his retreat from Bavaria.  The Emperor's recent orders
+to spare his hereditary dominions from winter quarterings, to recover
+Ratisbon in the middle of winter, and to reduce the army by a detachment
+of six thousand horse to the Cardinal Infante, were matters sufficiently
+grave to be laid before a council of war; and this plausible pretext
+served to conceal from the curious the real object of the meeting.
+Sweden and Saxony received invitations to be present, in order to treat
+with the Duke of Friedland for a peace; to the leaders of more distant
+armies, written communications were made.  Of the commanders thus
+summoned, twenty appeared; but three most influential, Gallas,
+Colloredo, and Altringer, were absent.  The Duke reiterated his summons
+to them, and in the mean time, in expectation of their speedy arrival,
+proceeded to execute his designs.
+
+It was no light task that he had to perform:  a nobleman, proud, brave,
+and jealous of his honour, was to declare himself capable of the basest
+treachery, in the very presence of those who had been accustomed to
+regard him as the representative of majesty, the judge of their actions,
+and the supporter of their laws, and to show himself suddenly as a
+traitor, a cheat, and a rebel.  It was no easy task, either, to shake to
+its foundations a legitimate sovereignty, strengthened by time and
+consecrated by laws and religion; to dissolve all the charms of the
+senses and the imagination, those formidable guardians of an established
+throne, and to attempt forcibly to uproot those invincible feelings of
+duty, which plead so loudly and so powerfully in the breast of the
+subject, in favour of his sovereign.  But, blinded by the splendour of a
+crown, Wallenstein observed not the precipice that yawned beneath his
+feet; and in full reliance on his own strength, the common case with
+energetic and daring minds, he stopped not to consider the magnitude and
+the number of the difficulties that opposed him.  Wallenstein saw
+nothing but an army, partly indifferent and partly exasperated against
+the court, accustomed, with a blind submission, to do homage to his
+great name, to bow to him as their legislator and judge, and with
+trembling reverence to follow his orders as the decrees of fate.  In the
+extravagant flatteries which were paid to his omnipotence, in the bold
+abuse of the court government, in which a lawless soldiery indulged, and
+which the wild licence of the camp excused, he thought he read the
+sentiments of the army; and the boldness with which they were ready to
+censure the monarch's measures, passed with him for a readiness to
+renounce their allegiance to a sovereign so little respected.  But that
+which he had regarded as the lightest matter, proved the most formidable
+obstacle with which he had to contend; the soldiers' feelings of
+allegiance were the rock on which his hopes were wrecked.  Deceived by
+the profound respect in which he was held by these lawless bands, he
+ascribed the whole to his own personal greatness, without distinguishing
+how much he owed to himself, and how much to the dignity with which he
+was invested.  All trembled before him, while he exercised a legitimate
+authority, while obedience to him was a duty, and while his consequence
+was supported by the majesty of the sovereign.  Greatness, in and of
+itself, may excite terror and admiration; but legitimate greatness alone
+can inspire reverence and submission; and of this decisive advantage he
+deprived himself, the instant he avowed himself a traitor.
+
+Field-Marshal Illo undertook to learn the sentiments of the officers,
+and to prepare them for the step which was expected of them.  He began
+by laying before them the new orders of the court to the general and the
+army; and by the obnoxious turn he skilfully gave to them, he found it
+easy to excite the indignation of the assembly.  After this well chosen
+introduction, he expatiated with much eloquence upon the merits of the
+army and the general, and the ingratitude with which the Emperor was
+accustomed to requite them.  "Spanish influence," he maintained,
+"governed the court; the ministry were in the pay of Spain; the Duke of
+Friedland alone had hitherto opposed this tyranny, and had thus drawn
+down upon himself the deadly enmity of the Spaniards.  To remove him
+from the command, or to make away with him entirely," he continued, "had
+long been the end of their desires; and, until they could succeed in one
+or other, they endeavoured to abridge his power in the field.  The
+command was to be placed in the hands of the King of Hungary, for no
+other reason than the better to promote the Spanish power in Germany;
+because this prince, as the ready instrument of foreign counsels, might
+be led at pleasure.  It was merely with the view of weakening the army,
+that the six thousand troops were required for the Cardinal Infante; it
+was solely for the purpose of harassing it by a winter campaign, that
+they were now called on, in this inhospitable season, to undertake the
+recovery of Ratisbon.  The means of subsistence were everywhere rendered
+difficult, while the Jesuits and the ministry enriched themselves with
+the sweat of the provinces, and squandered the money intended for the
+pay of the troops.  The general, abandoned by the court, acknowledges
+his inability to keep his engagements to the army.  For all the services
+which, for two and twenty years, he had rendered the House of Austria;
+for all the difficulties with which he had struggled; for all the
+treasures of his own, which he had expended in the imperial service, a
+second disgraceful dismissal awaited him.  But he was resolved the
+matter should not come to this; he was determined voluntarily to resign
+the command, before it should be wrested from his hands; and this,"
+continued the orator, "is what, through me, he now makes known to his
+officers.  It was now for them to say whether it would be advisable to
+lose such a general.  Let each consider who was to refund him the sums
+he had expended in the Emperor's service, and where he was now to reap
+the reward of their bravery, when he who was their evidence removed from
+the scene."
+
+A universal cry, that they would not allow their general to be taken
+from them, interrupted the speaker.  Four of the principal officers were
+deputed to lay before him the wish of the assembly, and earnestly to
+request that he would not leave the army.  The duke made a show of
+resistance, and only yielded after the second deputation.  This
+concession on his side, seemed to demand a return on theirs; as he
+engaged not to quit the service without the knowledge and consent of the
+generals, he required of them, on the other hand, a written promise to
+truly and firmly adhere to him, neither to separate nor to allow
+themselves to be separated from him, and to shed their last drop of
+blood in his defence.  Whoever should break this covenant, was to be
+regarded as a perfidious traitor, and treated by the rest as a common
+enemy.  The express condition which was added, "AS LONG AS WALLENSTEIN
+SHALL EMPLOY THE ARMY IN THE EMPEROR'S SERVICE," seemed to exclude all
+misconception, and none of the assembled generals hesitated at once to
+accede to a demand, apparently so innocent and so reasonable.
+
+This document was publicly read before an entertainment, which
+Field-Marshal Illo had expressly prepared for the purpose; it was to be
+signed, after they rose from table.  The host did his utmost to stupify
+his guests by strong potations; and it was not until he saw them
+affected with the wine, that he produced the paper for signature.  Most
+of them wrote their names, without knowing what they were subscribing; a
+few only, more curious or more distrustful, read the paper over again,
+and discovered with astonishment that the clause "as long as Wallenstein
+shall employ the army for the Emperor's service" was omitted.  Illo had,
+in fact, artfully contrived to substitute for the first another copy, in
+which these words were wanting.  The trick was manifest, and many
+refused now to sign.  Piccolomini, who had seen through the whole cheat,
+and had been present at this scene merely with the view of giving
+information of the whole to the court, forgot himself so far in his cups
+as to drink the Emperor's health.  But Count Terzky now rose, and
+declared that all were perjured villains who should recede from their
+engagement.  His menaces, the idea of the inevitable danger to which
+they who resisted any longer would be exposed, the example of the rest,
+and Illo's rhetoric, at last overcame their scruples; and the paper was
+signed by all without exception.
+
+Wallenstein had now effected his purpose; but the unexpected resistance
+he had met with from the commanders roused him at last from the fond
+illusions in which he had hitherto indulged.  Besides, most of the names
+were scrawled so illegibly, that some deceit was evidently intended.
+But instead of being recalled to his discretion by this warning, he gave
+vent to his injured pride in undignified complaints and reproaches.  He
+assembled the generals the next day, and undertook personally to confirm
+the whole tenor of the agreement which Illo had submitted to them the
+day before.  After pouring out the bitterest reproaches and abuse
+against the court, he reminded them of their opposition to the
+proposition of the previous day, and declared that this circumstance had
+induced him to retract his own promise.  The generals withdrew in
+silence and confusion; but after a short consultation in the
+antichamber, they returned to apologize for their late conduct, and
+offered to sign the paper anew.
+
+Nothing now remained, but to obtain a similar assurance from the absent
+generals, or, on their refusal, to seize their persons.  Wallenstein
+renewed his invitation to them, and earnestly urged them to hasten their
+arrival.  But a rumour of the doings at Pilsen reached them on their
+journey, and suddenly stopped their further progress.  Altringer, on
+pretence of sickness, remained in the strong fortress of Frauenberg.
+Gallas made his appearance, but merely with the design of better
+qualifying himself as an eyewitness, to keep the Emperor informed of all
+Wallenstein's proceedings.  The intelligence which he and Piccolomini
+gave, at once converted the suspicions of the court into an alarming
+certainty.  Similar disclosures, which were at the same time made from
+other quarters, left no room for farther doubt; and the sudden change of
+the commanders in Austria and Silesia, appeared to be the prelude to
+some important enterprise.  The danger was pressing, and the remedy must
+be speedy, but the court was unwilling to proceed at once to the
+execution of the sentence, till the regular forms of justice were
+complied with.  Secret instructions were therefore issued to the
+principal officers, on whose fidelity reliance could be placed, to seize
+the persons of the Duke of Friedland and of his two associates, Illo and
+Terzky, and keep them in close confinement, till they should have an
+opportunity of being heard, and of answering for their conduct; but if
+this could not be accomplished quietly, the public danger required that
+they should be taken dead or live.  At the same time, General Gallas
+received a patent commission, by which these orders of the Emperor were
+made known to the colonels and officers, and the army was released from
+its obedience to the traitor, and placed under Lieutenant-General
+Gallas, till a new generalissimo could be appointed.  In order to bring
+back the seduced and deluded to their duty, and not to drive the guilty
+to despair, a general amnesty was proclaimed, in regard to all offences
+against the imperial majesty committed at Pilsen.
+
+General Gallas was not pleased with the honour which was done him.  He
+was at Pilsen, under the eye of the person whose fate he was to dispose
+of; in the power of an enemy, who had a hundred eyes to watch his
+motions.  If Wallenstein once discovered the secret of his commission,
+nothing could save him from the effects of his vengeance and despair.
+But if it was thus dangerous to be the secret depositary of such a
+commission, how much more so to execute it?  The sentiments of the
+generals were uncertain; and it was at least doubtful whether, after the
+step they had taken, they would be ready to trust the Emperor's
+promises, and at once to abandon the brilliant expectations they had
+built upon Wallenstein's enterprise.  It was also hazardous to attempt
+to lay hands on the person of a man who, till now, had been considered
+inviolable; who from long exercise of supreme power, and from habitual
+obedience, had become the object of deepest respect; who was invested
+with every attribute of outward majesty and inward greatness; whose very
+aspect inspired terror, and who by a nod disposed of life and death! To
+seize such a man, like a common criminal, in the midst of the guards by
+whom he was surrounded, and in a city apparently devoted to him; to
+convert the object of this deep and habitual veneration into a subject
+of compassion, or of contempt, was a commission calculated to make even
+the boldest hesitate.  So deeply was fear and veneration for their
+general engraven in the breasts of the soldiers, that even the atrocious
+crime of high treason could not wholly eradicate these sentiments.
+
+Gallas perceived the impossibility of executing his commission under the
+eyes of the duke; and his most anxious wish was, before venturing on any
+steps, to have an interview with Altringer.  As the long absence of the
+latter had already begun to excite the duke's suspicions, Gallas offered
+to repair in person to Frauenberg, and to prevail on Altringer, his
+relation, to return with him.  Wallenstein was so pleased with this
+proof of his zeal, that he even lent him his own equipage for the
+journey.  Rejoicing at the success of his stratagem, he left Pilsen
+without delay, leaving to Count Piccolomini the task of watching
+Wallenstein's further movements.  He did not fail, as he went along, to
+make use of the imperial patent, and the sentiments of the troops proved
+more favourable than he had expected.  Instead of taking back his friend
+to Pilsen, he despatched him to Vienna, to warn the Emperor against the
+intended attack, while he himself repaired to Upper Austria, of which
+the safety was threatened by the near approach of Duke Bernard.  In
+Bohemia, the towns of Budweiss and Tabor were again garrisoned for the
+Emperor, and every precaution taken to oppose with energy the designs of
+the traitor.
+
+As Gallas did not appear disposed to return, Piccolomini determined to
+put Wallenstein's credulity once more to the test.  He begged to be sent
+to bring back Gallas, and Wallenstein suffered himself a second time to
+be overreached.  This inconceivable blindness can only be accounted for
+as the result of his pride, which never retracted the opinion it had
+once formed of any person, and would not acknowledge, even to itself,
+the possibility of being deceived.  He conveyed Count Piccolomini in his
+own carriage to Lintz, where the latter immediately followed the example
+of Gallas, and even went a step farther.  He had promised the duke to
+return.  He did so, but it was at the head of an army, intending to
+surprise the duke in Pilsen.  Another army under General Suys hastened
+to Prague, to secure that capital in its allegiance, and to defend it
+against the rebels.  Gallas, at the same time, announced himself to the
+different imperial armies as the commander-in-chief, from whom they were
+henceforth to receive orders.  Placards were circulated through all the
+imperial camps, denouncing the duke and his four confidants, and
+absolving the soldiers from all obedience to him.
+
+The example which had been set at Lintz, was universally followed;
+imprecations were showered on the traitor, and he was forsaken by all
+the armies.  At last, when even Piccolomini returned no more, the mist
+fell from Wallenstein's eyes, and in consternation he awoke from his
+dream.  Yet his faith in the truth of astrology, and in the fidelity of
+the army was unshaken.  Immediately after the intelligence of
+Piccolomini's defection, he issued orders, that in future no commands
+were to be obeyed, which did not proceed directly from himself, or from
+Terzky, or Illo.  He prepared, in all haste, to advance upon Prague,
+where he intended to throw off the mask, and openly to declare against
+the Emperor.  All the troops were to assemble before that city, and from
+thence to pour down with rapidity upon Austria.  Duke Bernard, who had
+joined the conspiracy, was to support the operations of the duke, with
+the Swedish troops, and to effect a diversion upon the Danube.
+
+Terzky was already upon his march towards Prague; and nothing, but the
+want of horses, prevented the duke from following him with the regiments
+who still adhered faithfully to him.  But when, with the most anxious
+expectation, he awaited the intelligence from Prague, he suddenly
+received information of the loss of that town, the defection of his
+generals, the desertion of his troops, the discovery of his whole plot,
+and the rapid advance of Piccolomini, who was sworn to his destruction.
+Suddenly and fearfully had all his projects been ruined--all his hopes
+annihilated.  He stood alone, abandoned by all to whom he had been a
+benefactor, betrayed by all on whom he had depended.  But it is under
+such circumstances that great minds reveal themselves.  Though deceived
+in all his expectations, he refused to abandon one of his designs; he
+despaired of nothing, so long as life remained.  The time was now come,
+when he absolutely required that assistance, which he had so often
+solicited from the Swedes and the Saxons, and when all doubts of the
+sincerity of his purposes must be dispelled.  And now, when Oxenstiern
+and Arnheim were convinced of the sincerity of his intentions, and were
+aware of his necessities, they no longer hesitated to embrace the
+favourable opportunity, and to offer him their protection.  On the part
+of Saxony, the Duke Francis Albert of Saxe Lauenberg was to join him
+with 4,000 men; and Duke Bernard, and the Palatine Christian of
+Birkenfeld, with 6,000 from Sweden, all chosen troops.
+
+Wallenstein left Pilsen, with Terzky's regiment, and the few who either
+were, or pretended to be, faithful to him, and hastened to Egra, on the
+frontiers of the kingdom, in order to be near the Upper Palatinate, and
+to facilitate his junction with Duke Bernard.  He was not yet informed
+of the decree by which he was proclaimed a public enemy and traitor;
+this thunder-stroke awaited him at Egra.  He still reckoned on the army,
+which General Schafgotsch was preparing for him in Silesia, and
+flattered himself with the hope that many even of those who had forsaken
+him, would return with the first dawning of success.  Even during his
+flight to Egra (so little humility had he learned from melancholy
+experience) he was still occupied with the colossal scheme of dethroning
+the Emperor.  It was under these circumstances, that one of his suite
+asked leave to offer him his advice.  "Under the Emperor," said he,
+"your highness is certain of being a great and respected noble; with the
+enemy, you are at best but a precarious king.  It is unwise to risk
+certainty for uncertainty.  The enemy will avail themselves of your
+personal influence, while the opportunity lasts; but you will ever be
+regarded with suspicion, and they will always be fearful lest you should
+treat them as you have done the Emperor.  Return, then, to your
+allegiance, while there is yet time."--"And how is that to be done?"
+said Wallenstein, interrupting him:  "You have 40,000 men-at-arms,"
+rejoined he, (meaning ducats, which were stamped with the figure of an
+armed man,) "take them with you, and go straight to the Imperial Court;
+then declare that the steps you have hitherto taken were merely designed
+to test the fidelity of the Emperor's servants, and of distinguishing
+the loyal from the doubtful; and since most have shown a disposition to
+revolt, say you are come to warn his Imperial Majesty against those
+dangerous men.  Thus you will make those appear as traitors, who are
+labouring to represent you as a false villain.  At the Imperial Court, a
+man is sure to be welcome with 40,000 ducats, and Friedland will be
+again as he was at the first."--"The advice is good," said Wallenstein,
+after a pause, "but let the devil trust to it."
+
+While the duke, in his retirement in Egra, was energetically pushing his
+negociations with the enemy, consulting the stars, and indulging in new
+hopes, the dagger which was to put an end to his existence was
+unsheathed almost under his very eyes.  The imperial decree which
+proclaimed him an outlaw, had not failed of its effect; and an avenging
+Nemesis ordained that the ungrateful should fall beneath the blow of
+ingratitude.  Among his officers, Wallenstein had particularly
+distinguished one Leslie, an Irishman, and had made his fortune.
+
+     [Schiller is mistaken as to this point.  Leslie was a Scotchman,
+     and Buttler an Irishman and a papist.  He died a general in the
+     Emperor's service, and founded, at Prague, a convent of Irish
+     Franciscans which still exists.--Ed.]
+
+This was the man who now felt himself called on to execute the sentence
+against him, and to earn the price of blood.  No sooner had he reached
+Egra, in the suite of the duke, than he disclosed to the commandant of
+the town, Colonel Buttler, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, two
+Protestant Scotchmen, the treasonable designs of the duke, which the
+latter had imprudently enough communicated to him during the journey.
+In these two individuals, he had found men capable of a determined
+resolution.  They were now called on to choose between treason and duty,
+between their legitimate sovereign and a fugitive abandoned rebel; and
+though the latter was their common benefactor, the choice could not
+remain for a moment doubtful.  They were solemnly pledged to the
+allegiance of the Emperor, and this duty required them to take the most
+rapid measures against the public enemy.  The opportunity was
+favourable; his evil genius seemed to have delivered him into the hands
+of vengeance.  But not to encroach on the province of justice, they
+resolved to deliver up their victim alive; and they parted with the bold
+resolve to take their general prisoner.  This dark plot was buried in
+the deepest silence; and Wallenstein, far from suspecting his impending
+ruin, flattered himself that in the garrison of Egra he possessed his
+bravest and most faithful champions.
+
+At this time, he became acquainted with the Imperial proclamations
+containing his sentence, and which had been published in all the camps.
+He now became aware of the full extent of the danger which encompassed
+him, the utter impossibility of retracing his steps, his fearfully
+forlorn condition, and the absolute necessity of at once trusting
+himself to the faith and honour of the Emperor's enemies.  To Leslie he
+poured forth all the anguish of his wounded spirit, and the vehemence of
+his agitation extracted from him his last remaining secret.  He
+disclosed to this officer his intention to deliver up Egra and
+Ellenbogen, the passes of the kingdom, to the Palatine of Birkenfeld,
+and at the same time, informed him of the near approach of Duke Bernard,
+of whose arrival he hoped to receive tidings that very night.  These
+disclosures, which Leslie immediately communicated to the conspirators,
+made them change their original plan.  The urgency of the danger
+admitted not of half measures.  Egra might in a moment be in the enemy's
+hands, and a sudden revolution set their prisoner at liberty.  To
+anticipate this mischance, they resolved to assassinate him and his
+associates the following night.
+
+In order to execute this design with less noise, it was arranged that
+the fearful deed should be perpetrated at an entertainment which Colonel
+Buttler should give in the Castle of Egra.  All the guests, except
+Wallenstein, made their appearance, who being in too great anxiety of
+mind to enjoy company excused himself.  With regard to him, therefore,
+their plan must be again changed; but they resolved to execute their
+design against the others.  The three Colonels, Illo, Terzky, and
+William Kinsky, came in with careless confidence, and with them Captain
+Neumann, an officer of ability, whose advice Terzky sought in every
+intricate affair.  Previous to their arrival, trusty soldiers of the
+garrison, to whom the plot had been communicated, were admitted into the
+Castle, all the avenues leading from it guarded, and six of Buttler's
+dragoons concealed in an apartment close to the banqueting-room, who, on
+a concerted signal, were to rush in and kill the traitors.  Without
+suspecting the danger that hung over them, the guests gaily abandoned
+themselves to the pleasures of the table, and Wallenstein's health was
+drunk in full bumpers, not as a servant of the Emperor, but as a
+sovereign prince.  The wine opened their hearts, and Illo, with
+exultation, boasted that in three days an army would arrive, such as
+Wallenstein had never before been at the head of.  "Yes," cried Neumann,
+"and then he hopes to bathe his hands in Austrian blood." During this
+conversation, the dessert was brought in, and Leslie gave the concerted
+signal to raise the drawbridges, while he himself received the keys of
+the gates.  In an instant, the hall was filled with armed men, who, with
+the unexpected greeting of "Long live Ferdinand!" placed themselves
+behind the chairs of the marked guests.  Surprised, and with a
+presentiment of their fate, they sprang from the table.  Kinsky and
+Terzky were killed upon the spot, and before they could put themselves
+upon their guard.  Neumann, during the confusion in the hall, escaped
+into the court, where, however, he was instantly recognised and cut
+down.  Illo alone had the presence of mind to defend himself.  He placed
+his back against a window, from whence he poured the bitterest
+reproaches upon Gordon, and challenged him to fight him fairly and
+honourably.  After a gallant resistance, in which he slew two of his
+assailants, he fell to the ground overpowered by numbers, and pierced
+with ten wounds.  The deed was no sooner accomplished, than Leslie
+hastened into the town to prevent a tumult.  The sentinels at the castle
+gate, seeing him running and out of breath, and believing he belonged to
+the rebels, fired their muskets after him, but without effect.  The
+firing, however, aroused the town-guard, and all Leslie's presence of
+mind was requisite to allay the tumult.  He hastily detailed to them all
+the circumstances of Wallenstein's conspiracy, the measures which had
+been already taken to counteract it, the fate of the four rebels, as
+well as that which awaited their chief.  Finding the troops well
+disposed, he exacted from them a new oath of fidelity to the Emperor,
+and to live and die for the good cause.  A hundred of Buttler's dragoons
+were sent from the Castle into the town to patrol the streets, to
+overawe the partisans of the Duke, and to prevent tumult.  All the gates
+of Egra were at the same time seized, and every avenue to Wallenstein's
+residence, which adjoined the market-place, guarded by a numerous and
+trusty body of troops, sufficient to prevent either his escape or his
+receiving any assistance from without.
+
+But before they proceeded finally to execute the deed, a long conference
+was held among the conspirators in the Castle, whether they should kill
+him, or content themselves with making him prisoner.  Besprinkled as
+they were with the blood, and deliberating almost over the very corpses
+of his murdered associates, even these furious men yet shuddered at the
+horror of taking away so illustrious a life.  They saw before their
+mind's eye him their leader in battle, in the days of his good fortune,
+surrounded by his victorious army, clothed with all the pomp of military
+greatness, and long-accustomed awe again seized their minds.  But this
+transitory emotion was soon effaced by the thought of the immediate
+danger.  They remembered the hints which Neumann and Illo had thrown out
+at table, the near approach of a formidable army of Swedes and Saxons,
+and they clearly saw that the death of the traitor was their only chance
+of safety.  They adhered, therefore, to their first resolution, and
+Captain Deveroux, an Irishman, who had already been retained for the
+murderous purpose, received decisive orders to act.
+
+While these three officers were thus deciding upon his fate in the
+castle of Egra, Wallenstein was occupied in reading the stars with Seni.
+"The danger is not yet over," said the astrologer with prophetic spirit.
+"IT IS," replied the Duke, who would give the law even to heaven.
+"But," he continued with equally prophetic spirit, "that thou friend
+Seni thyself shall soon be thrown into prison, that also is written in
+the stars."  The astrologer had taken his leave, and Wallenstein had
+retired to bed, when Captain Deveroux appeared before his residence with
+six halberdiers, and was immediately admitted by the guard, who were
+accustomed to see him visit the general at all hours.  A page who met
+him upon the stairs, and attempted to raise an alarm, was run through
+the body with a pike.  In the antichamber, the assassins met a servant,
+who had just come out of the sleeping-room of his master, and had taken
+with him the key.  Putting his finger upon his mouth, the terrified
+domestic made a sign to them to make no noise, as the Duke was asleep.
+"Friend," cried Deveroux, "it is time to awake him;" and with these
+words he rushed against the door, which was also bolted from within, and
+burst it open.
+
+Wallenstein had been roused from his first sleep, by the report of a
+musket which had accidentally gone off, and had sprung to the window to
+call the guard.  At the same moment, he heard, from the adjoining
+building, the shrieks of the Countesses Terzky and Kinsky, who had just
+learnt the violent fate of their husbands.  Ere he had time to reflect
+on these terrible events, Deveroux, with the other murderers, was in his
+chamber.  The Duke was in his shirt, as he had leaped out of bed, and
+leaning on a table near the window.  "Art thou the villain," cried
+Deveroux to him, "who intends to deliver up the Emperor's troops to the
+enemy, and to tear the crown from the head of his Majesty? Now thou must
+die!"  He paused for a few moments, as if expecting an answer; but scorn
+and astonishment kept Wallenstein silent.  Throwing his arms wide open,
+he received in his breast, the deadly blow of the halberds, and without
+uttering a groan, fell weltering in his blood.
+
+The next day, an express arrived from the Duke of Lauenburg, announcing
+his approach.  The messenger was secured, and another in Wallenstein's
+livery despatched to the Duke, to decoy him into Egra.  The stratagem
+succeeded, and Francis Albert fell into the hands of the enemy.  Duke
+Bernard of Weimar, who was on his march towards Egra, was nearly sharing
+the same fate.  Fortunately, he heard of Wallenstein's death in time to
+save himself by a retreat.  Ferdinand shed a tear over the fate of his
+general, and ordered three thousand masses to be said for his soul at
+Vienna; but, at the same time, he did not forget to reward his assassins
+with gold chains, chamberlains' keys, dignities, and estates.
+
+Thus did Wallenstein, at the age of fifty, terminate his active and
+extraordinary life.  To ambition, he owed both his greatness and his
+ruin; with all his failings, he possessed great and admirable qualities,
+and had he kept himself within due bounds, he would have lived and died
+without an equal.  The virtues of the ruler and of the hero, prudence,
+justice, firmness, and courage, are strikingly prominent features in his
+character; but he wanted the gentler virtues of the man, which adorn the
+hero, and make the ruler beloved.  Terror was the talisman with which he
+worked; extreme in his punishments as in his rewards, he knew how to
+keep alive the zeal of his followers, while no general of ancient or
+modern times could boast of being obeyed with equal alacrity.
+Submission to his will was more prized by him than bravery; for, if the
+soldiers work by the latter, it is on the former that the general
+depends.  He continually kept up the obedience of his troops by
+capricious orders, and profusely rewarded the readiness to obey even in
+trifles; because he looked rather to the act itself, than its object.
+He once issued a decree, with the penalty of death on disobedience, that
+none but red sashes should be worn in the army.  A captain of horse no
+sooner heard the order, than pulling off his gold-embroidered sash, he
+trampled it under foot; Wallenstein, on being informed of the
+circumstance, promoted him on the spot to the rank of Colonel.  His
+comprehensive glance was always directed to the whole, and in all his
+apparent caprice, he steadily kept in view some general scope or
+bearing.  The robberies committed by the soldiers in a friendly country,
+had led to the severest orders against marauders; and all who should be
+caught thieving, were threatened with the halter.  Wallenstein himself
+having met a straggler in the open country upon the field, commanded him
+to be seized without trial, as a transgressor of the law, and in his
+usual voice of thunder, exclaimed, "Hang the fellow," against which no
+opposition ever availed.  The soldier pleaded and proved his innocence,
+but the irrevocable sentence had gone forth.  "Hang then innocent,"
+cried the inexorable Wallenstein, "the guilty will have then more reason
+to tremble."  Preparations were already making to execute the sentence,
+when the soldier, who gave himself up for lost, formed the desperate
+resolution of not dying without revenge.  He fell furiously upon his
+judge, but was overpowered by numbers, and disarmed before he could
+fulfil his design.  "Now let him go," said the Duke, "it will excite
+sufficient terror."
+
+His munificence was supported by an immense income, which was estimated
+at three millions of florins yearly, without reckoning the enormous sums
+which he raised under the name of contributions.  His liberality and
+clearness of understanding, raised him above the religious prejudices of
+his age; and the Jesuits never forgave him for having seen through their
+system, and for regarding the pope as nothing more than a bishop of
+Rome.
+
+But as no one ever yet came to a fortunate end who quarrelled with the
+Church, Wallenstein also must augment the number of its victims.
+Through the intrigues of monks, he lost at Ratisbon the command of the
+army, and at Egra his life; by the same arts, perhaps, he lost what was
+of more consequence, his honourable name and good repute with posterity.
+
+For in justice it must be admitted, that the pens which have traced the
+history of this extraordinary man are not untinged with partiality, and
+that the treachery of the duke, and his designs upon the throne of
+Bohemia, rest not so much upon proven facts, as upon probable
+conjecture.  No documents have yet been brought to light, which disclose
+with historical certainty the secret motives of his conduct; and among
+all his public and well attested actions, there is, perhaps, not one
+which could not have had an innocent end.  Many of his most obnoxious
+measures proved nothing but the earnest wish he entertained for peace;
+most of the others are explained and justified by the well-founded
+distrust he entertained of the Emperor, and the excusable wish of
+maintaining his own importance.  It is true, that his conduct towards
+the Elector of Bavaria looks too like an unworthy revenge, and the
+dictates of an implacable spirit; but still, none of his actions perhaps
+warrant us in holding his treason to be proved.  If necessity and
+despair at last forced him to deserve the sentence which had been
+pronounced against him while innocent, still this, if true, will not
+justify that sentence.  Thus Wallenstein fell, not because he was a
+rebel, but he became a rebel because he fell.  Unfortunate in life that
+he made a victorious party his enemy, and still more unfortunate in
+death, that the same party survived him and wrote his history.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Book V.
+
+
+
+ Wallenstein's death rendered necessary the appointment of a new
+generalissimo; and the Emperor yielded at last to the advice of the
+Spaniards, to raise his son Ferdinand, King of Hungary, to that dignity.
+Under him, Count Gallas commanded, who performed the functions of
+commander-in-chief, while the prince brought to this post nothing but
+his name and dignity.  A considerable force was soon assembled under
+Ferdinand; the Duke of Lorraine brought up a considerable body of
+auxiliaries in person, and the Cardinal Infante joined him from Italy
+with 10,000 men.  In order to drive the enemy from the Danube, the new
+general undertook the enterprise in which his predecessor had failed,
+the siege of Ratisbon.  In vain did Duke Bernard of Weimar penetrate
+into the interior of Bavaria, with a view to draw the enemy from the
+town; Ferdinand continued to press the siege with vigour, and the city,
+after a most obstinate resistance, was obliged to open its gates to him.
+Donauwerth soon shared the same fate, and Nordlingen in Swabia was now
+invested.  The loss of so many of the imperial cities was severely felt
+by the Swedish party; as the friendship of these towns had so largely
+contributed to the success of their arms, indifference to their fate
+would have been inexcusable.  It would have been an indelible disgrace,
+had they deserted their confederates in their need, and abandoned them
+to the revenge of an implacable conqueror.  Moved by these
+considerations, the Swedish army, under the command of Horn, and Bernard
+of Weimar, advanced upon Nordlingen, determined to relieve it even at
+the expense of a battle.
+
+The undertaking was a dangerous one, for in numbers the enemy was
+greatly superior to that of the Swedes.  There was also a further reason
+for avoiding a battle at present; the enemy's force was likely soon to
+divide, the Italian troops being destined for the Netherlands.  In the
+mean time, such a position might be taken up, as to cover Nordlingen,
+and cut off their supplies.  All these grounds were strongly urged by
+Gustavus Horn, in the Swedish council of war; but his remonstrances were
+disregarded by men who, intoxicated by a long career of success, mistook
+the suggestions of prudence for the voice of timidity.  Overborne by the
+superior influence of Duke Bernard, Gustavus Horn was compelled to risk
+a contest, whose unfavourable issue, a dark foreboding seemed already to
+announce.  The fate of the battle depended upon the possession of a
+height which commanded the imperial camp.  An attempt to occupy it
+during the night failed, as the tedious transport of the artillery
+through woods and hollow ways delayed the arrival of the troops.  When
+the Swedes arrived about midnight, they found the heights in possession
+of the enemy, strongly entrenched.  They waited, therefore, for
+daybreak, to carry them by storm.  Their impetuous courage surmounted
+every obstacle; the entrenchments, which were in the form of a crescent,
+were successfully scaled by each of the two brigades appointed to the
+service; but as they entered at the same moment from opposite sides,
+they met and threw each other into confusion.  At this unfortunate
+moment, a barrel of powder blew up, and created the greatest disorder
+among the Swedes.  The imperial cavalry charged upon their broken ranks,
+and the flight became universal.  No persuasion on the part of their
+general could induce the fugitives to renew the assault.
+
+He resolved, therefore, in order to carry this important post, to lead
+fresh troops to the attack.  But in the interim, some Spanish regiments
+had marched in, and every attempt to gain it was repulsed by their
+heroic intrepidity.  One of the duke's own regiments advanced seven
+times, and was as often driven back.  The disadvantage of not occupying
+this post in time, was quickly and sensibly felt.  The fire of the
+enemy's artillery from the heights, caused such slaughter in the
+adjacent wing of the Swedes, that Horn, who commanded there, was forced
+to give orders to retire.  Instead of being able to cover the retreat of
+his colleague, and to check the pursuit of the enemy, Duke Bernard,
+overpowered by numbers, was himself driven into the plain, where his
+routed cavalry spread confusion among Horn's brigade, and rendered the
+defeat complete.  Almost the entire infantry were killed or taken
+prisoners.  More than 12,000 men remained dead upon the field of battle;
+80 field pieces, about 4,000 waggons, and 300 standards and colours fell
+into the hands of the Imperialists.  Horn himself, with three other
+generals, were taken prisoners.  Duke Bernard with difficulty saved a
+feeble remnant of his army, which joined him at Frankfort.
+
+The defeat at Nordlingen, cost the Swedish Chancellor the second
+sleepless night he had passed in Germany.--[The first was occasioned by
+the death of Gustavus Adolphus.]--The consequences of this disaster were
+terrible.  The Swedes had lost by it at once their superiority in the
+field, and with it the confidence of their confederates, which they had
+gained solely by their previous military success.  A dangerous division
+threatened the Protestant Confederation with ruin.  Consternation and
+terror seized upon the whole party; while the Papists arose with
+exulting triumph from the deep humiliation into which they had sunk.
+Swabia and the adjacent circles first felt the consequences of the
+defeat of Nordlingen; and Wirtemberg, in particular, was overrun by the
+conquering army.  All the members of the League of Heilbronn trembled at
+the prospect of the Emperor's revenge; those who could, fled to
+Strasburg, while the helpless free cities awaited their fate with alarm.
+A little more of moderation towards the conquered, would have quickly
+reduced all the weaker states under the Emperor's authority; but the
+severity which was practised, even against those who voluntarily
+surrendered, drove the rest to despair, and roused them to a vigorous
+resistance.
+
+In this perplexity, all looked to Oxenstiern for counsel and assistance;
+Oxenstiern applied for both to the German States.  Troops were wanted;
+money likewise, to raise new levies, and to pay to the old the arrears
+which the men were clamorously demanding.  Oxenstiern addressed himself
+to the Elector of Saxony; but he shamefully abandoned the Swedish cause,
+to negociate for a separate peace with the Emperor at Pirna.  He
+solicited aid from the Lower Saxon States; but they, long wearied of the
+Swedish pretensions and demands for money, now thought only of
+themselves; and George, Duke of Lunenburg, in place of flying to the
+assistance of Upper Germany, laid siege to Minden, with the intention of
+keeping possession of it for himself.  Abandoned by his German allies,
+the chancellor exerted himself to obtain the assistance of foreign
+powers.  England, Holland, and Venice were applied to for troops and
+money; and, driven to the last extremity, the chancellor reluctantly
+resolved to take the disagreeable step which he had so long avoided, and
+to throw himself under the protection of France.
+
+The moment had at last arrived which Richelieu had long waited for with
+impatience.  Nothing, he was aware, but the impossibility of saving
+themselves by any other means, could induce the Protestant States in
+Germany to support the pretensions of France upon Alsace.  This extreme
+necessity had now arrived; the assistance of that power was
+indispensable, and she was resolved to be well paid for the active part
+which she was about to take in the German war.  Full of lustre and
+dignity, it now came upon the political stage.  Oxenstiern, who felt
+little reluctance in bestowing the rights and possessions of the empire,
+had already ceded the fortress of Philipsburg, and the other long
+coveted places.  The Protestants of Upper Germany now, in their own
+names, sent a special embassy to Richelieu, requesting him to take
+Alsace, the fortress of Breyssach, which was still to be recovered from
+the enemy, and all the places upon the Upper Rhine, which were the keys
+of Germany, under the protection of France.  What was implied by French
+protection had been seen in the conduct of France towards the bishoprics
+of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which it had held for centuries against the
+rightful owners.  Treves was already in the possession of French
+garrisons; Lorraine was in a manner conquered, as it might at any time
+be overrun by an army, and could not, alone, and with its own strength,
+withstand its formidable neighbour.  France now entertained the hope of
+adding Alsace to its large and numerous possessions, and,--since a
+treaty was soon to be concluded with the Dutch for the partition of the
+Spanish Netherlands--the prospect of making the Rhine its natural
+boundary towards Germany.  Thus shamefully were the rights of Germany
+sacrificed by the German States to this treacherous and grasping power,
+which, under the mask of a disinterested friendship, aimed only at its
+own aggrandizement; and while it boldly claimed the honourable title of
+a Protectress, was solely occupied with promoting its own schemes, and
+advancing its own interests amid the general confusion.
+
+In return for these important cessions, France engaged to effect a
+diversion in favour of the Swedes, by commencing hostilities against the
+Spaniards; and if this should lead to an open breach with the Emperor,
+to maintain an army upon the German side of the Rhine, which was to act
+in conjunction with the Swedes and Germans against Austria.  For a war
+with Spain, the Spaniards themselves soon afforded the desired pretext.
+Making an inroad from the Netherlands, upon the city of Treves, they cut
+in pieces the French garrison; and, in open violation of the law of
+nations, made prisoner the Elector, who had placed himself under the
+protection of France, and carried him into Flanders.  When the Cardinal
+Infante, as Viceroy of the Spanish Netherlands, refused satisfaction for
+these injuries, and delayed to restore the prince to liberty, Richelieu,
+after the old custom, formally proclaimed war at Brussels by a herald,
+and the war was at once opened by three different armies in Milan, in
+the Valteline, and in Flanders.  The French minister was less anxious to
+commence hostilities with the Emperor, which promised fewer advantages,
+and threatened greater difficulties.  A fourth army, however, was
+detached across the Rhine into Germany, under the command of Cardinal
+Lavalette, which was to act in conjunction with Duke Bernard, against
+the Emperor, without a previous declaration of war.
+
+A heavier blow for the Swedes, than even the defeat of Nordlingen, was
+the reconciliation of the Elector of Saxony with the Emperor.  After
+many fruitless attempts both to bring about and to prevent it, it was at
+last effected in 1634, at Pirna, and, the following year, reduced into a
+formal treaty of peace, at Prague.  The Elector of Saxony had always
+viewed with jealousy the pretensions of the Swedes in Germany; and his
+aversion to this foreign power, which now gave laws within the Empire,
+had grown with every fresh requisition that Oxenstiern was obliged to
+make upon the German states.  This ill feeling was kept alive by the
+Spanish court, who laboured earnestly to effect a peace between Saxony
+and the Emperor.  Wearied with the calamities of a long and destructive
+contest, which had selected Saxony above all others for its theatre;
+grieved by the miseries which both friend and foe inflicted upon his
+subjects, and seduced by the tempting propositions of the House of
+Austria, the Elector at last abandoned the common cause, and, caring
+little for the fate of his confederates, or the liberties of Germany,
+thought only of securing his own advantages, even at the expense of the
+whole body.
+
+In fact, the misery of Germany had risen to such a height, that all
+clamorously vociferated for peace; and even the most disadvantageous
+pacification would have been hailed as a blessing from heaven.  The
+plains, which formerly had been thronged with a happy and industrious
+population, where nature had lavished her choicest gifts, and plenty and
+prosperity had reigned, were now a wild and desolate wilderness.  The
+fields, abandoned by the industrious husbandman, lay waste and
+uncultivated; and no sooner had the young crops given the promise of a
+smiling harvest, than a single march destroyed the labours of a year,
+and blasted the last hope of an afflicted peasantry.  Burnt castles,
+wasted fields, villages in ashes, were to be seen extending far and wide
+on all sides, while the ruined peasantry had no resource left but to
+swell the horde of incendiaries, and fearfully to retaliate upon their
+fellows, who had hitherto been spared the miseries which they themselves
+had suffered.  The only safeguard against oppression was to become an
+oppressor.  The towns groaned under the licentiousness of undisciplined
+and plundering garrisons, who seized and wasted the property of the
+citizens, and, under the license of their position, committed the most
+remorseless devastation and cruelty.  If the march of an army converted
+whole provinces into deserts, if others were impoverished by winter
+quarters, or exhausted by contributions, these still were but passing
+evils, and the industry of a year might efface the miseries of a few
+months.  But there was no relief for those who had a garrison within
+their walls, or in the neighbourhood; even the change of fortune could
+not improve their unfortunate fate, since the victor trod in the steps
+of the vanquished, and friends were not more merciful than enemies.  The
+neglected farms, the destruction of the crops, and the numerous armies
+which overran the exhausted country, were inevitably followed by
+scarcity and the high price of provisions, which in the later years was
+still further increased by a general failure in the crops.  The crowding
+together of men in camps and quarters--want upon one side, and excess
+on the other, occasioned contagious distempers, which were more fatal
+than even the sword.  In this long and general confusion, all the bonds
+of social life were broken up;--respect for the rights of their fellow
+men, the fear of the laws, purity of morals, honour, and religion, were
+laid aside, where might ruled supreme with iron sceptre.  Under the
+shelter of anarchy and impunity, every vice flourished, and men became
+as wild as the country.  No station was too dignified for outrage, no
+property too holy for rapine and avarice.  In a word, the soldier
+reigned supreme; and that most brutal of despots often made his own
+officer feel his power.  The leader of an army was a far more important
+person within any country where he appeared, than its lawful governor,
+who was frequently obliged to fly before him into his own castles for
+safety.  Germany swarmed with these petty tyrants, and the country
+suffered equally from its enemies and its protectors.  These wounds
+rankled the deeper, when the unhappy victims recollected that Germany
+was sacrificed to the ambition of foreign powers, who, for their own
+ends, prolonged the miseries of war.  Germany bled under the scourge, to
+extend the conquests and influence of Sweden; and the torch of discord
+was kept alive within the Empire, that the services of Richelieu might
+be rendered indispensable in France.
+
+But, in truth, it was not merely interested voices which opposed a
+peace; and if both Sweden and the German states were anxious, from
+corrupt motives, to prolong the conflict, they were seconded in their
+views by sound policy.  After the defeat of Nordlingen, an equitable
+peace was not to be expected from the Emperor; and, this being the case,
+was it not too great a sacrifice, after seventeen years of war, with all
+its miseries, to abandon the contest, not only without advantage, but
+even with loss?  What would avail so much bloodshed, if all was to
+remain as it had been; if their rights and pretensions were neither
+larger nor safer; if all that had been won with so much difficulty was
+to be surrendered for a peace at any cost? Would it not be better to
+endure, for two or three years more, the burdens they had borne so long,
+and to reap at last some recompense for twenty years of suffering?
+Neither was it doubtful, that peace might at last be obtained on
+favourable terms, if only the Swedes and the German Protestants should
+continue united in the cabinet and in the field, and pursued their
+common interests with a reciprocal sympathy and zeal.  Their divisions
+alone, had rendered the enemy formidable, and protracted the acquisition
+of a lasting and general peace.  And this great evil the Elector of
+Saxony had brought upon the Protestant cause by concluding a separate
+treaty with Austria.
+
+He, indeed, had commenced his negociations with the Emperor, even before
+the battle of Nordlingen; and the unfortunate issue of that battle only
+accelerated their conclusion.  By it, all his confidence in the Swedes
+was lost; and it was even doubted whether they would ever recover from
+the blow.  The jealousies among their generals, the insubordination of
+the army, and the exhaustion of the Swedish kingdom, shut out any
+reasonable prospect of effective assistance on their part.  The Elector
+hastened, therefore, to profit by the Emperor's magnanimity, who, even
+after the battle of Nordlingen, did not recall the conditions previously
+offered.  While Oxenstiern, who had assembled the estates in Frankfort,
+made further demands upon them and him, the Emperor, on the contrary,
+made concessions; and therefore it required no long consideration to
+decide between them.
+
+In the mean time, however, he was anxious to escape the charge of
+sacrificing the common cause and attending only to his own interests.
+All the German states, and even the Swedes, were publicly invited to
+become parties to this peace, although Saxony and the Emperor were the
+only powers who deliberated upon it, and who assumed the right to give
+law to Germany.  By this self-appointed tribunal, the grievances of the
+Protestants were discussed, their rights and privileges decided, and
+even the fate of religions determined, without the presence of those who
+were most deeply interested in it.  Between them, a general peace was
+resolved on, and it was to be enforced by an imperial army of execution,
+as a formal decree of the Empire.  Whoever opposed it, was to be treated
+as a public enemy; and thus, contrary to their rights, the states were
+to be compelled to acknowledge a law, in the passing of which they had
+no share.  Thus, even in form, the pacification at Prague was an
+arbitrary measure; nor was it less so in its contents.  The Edict of
+Restitution had been the chief cause of dispute between the Elector and
+the Emperor; and therefore it was first considered in their
+deliberations.  Without formally annulling it, it was determined by the
+treaty of Prague, that all the ecclesiastical domains holding
+immediately of the Empire, and, among the mediate ones, those which had
+been seized by the Protestants subsequently to the treaty at Passau,
+should, for forty years, remain in the same position as they had been in
+before the Edict of Restitution, but without any formal decision of the
+diet to that effect.  Before the expiration of this term a commission,
+composed of equal numbers of both religions, should proceed to settle
+the matter peaceably and according to law; and if this commission should
+be unable to come to a decision, each party should remain in possession
+of the rights which it had exercised before the Edict of Restitution.
+This arrangement, therefore, far from removing the grounds of
+dissension, only suspended the dispute for a time; and this article of
+the treaty of Prague only covered the embers of a future war.
+
+The archbishopric of Magdeburg remained in possession of Prince Augustus
+of Saxony, and Halberstadt in that of the Archduke Leopold William.
+Four estates were taken from the territory of Magdeburg, and given to
+Saxony, for which the Administrator of Magdeburg, Christian William of
+Brandenburg, was otherwise to be indemnified.  The Dukes of Mecklenburg,
+upon acceding to this treaty, were to be acknowledged as rightful
+possessors of their territories, in which the magnanimity of Gustavus
+Adolphus had long ago reinstated them.  Donauwerth recovered its
+liberties.  The important claims of the heirs of the Palatine, however
+important it might be for the Protestant cause not to lose this
+electorate vote in the diet, were passed over in consequence of the
+animosity subsisting between the Lutherans and the Calvinists.  All the
+conquests which, in the course of the war, had been made by the German
+states, or by the League and the Emperor, were to be mutually restored;
+all which had been appropriated by the foreign powers of France and
+Sweden, was to be forcibly wrested from them by the united powers.  The
+troops of the contracting parties were to be formed into one imperial
+army, which, supported and paid by the Empire, was, by force of arms, to
+carry into execution the covenants of the treaty.
+
+As the peace of Prague was intended to serve as a general law of the
+Empire, those points, which did not immediately affect the latter,
+formed the subject of a separate treaty.  By it, Lusatia was ceded to
+the Elector of Saxony as a fief of Bohemia, and special articles
+guaranteed the freedom of religion of this country and of Silesia.
+
+All the Protestant states were invited to accede to the treaty of
+Prague, and on that condition were to benefit by the amnesty.  The
+princes of Wurtemberg and Baden, whose territories the Emperor was
+already in possession of, and which he was not disposed to restore
+unconditionally; and such vassals of Austria as had borne arms against
+their sovereign; and those states which, under the direction of
+Oxenstiern, composed the council of the Upper German Circle, were
+excluded from the treaty,--not so much with the view of continuing the
+war against them, as of compelling them to purchase peace at a dearer
+rate.  Their territories were to be retained in pledge, till every thing
+should be restored to its former footing.  Such was the treaty of
+Prague.  Equal justice, however, towards all, might perhaps have
+restored confidence between the head of the Empire and its members--
+between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics--between the Reformed
+and the Lutheran party; and the Swedes, abandoned by all their allies,
+would in all probability have been driven from Germany with disgrace.
+But this inequality strengthened, in those who were more severely
+treated, the spirit of mistrust and opposition, and made it an easier
+task for the Swedes to keep alive the flame of war, and to maintain a
+party in Germany.
+
+The peace of Prague, as might have been expected, was received with very
+various feelings throughout Germany.  The attempt to conciliate both
+parties, had rendered it obnoxious to both.  The Protestants complained
+of the restraints imposed upon them; the Roman Catholics thought that
+these hated sectaries had been favoured at the expense of the true
+church.  In the opinion of the latter, the church had been deprived of
+its inalienable rights, by the concession to the Protestants of forty
+years' undisturbed possession of the ecclesiastical benefices; while the
+former murmured that the interests of the Protestant church had been
+betrayed, because toleration had not been granted to their
+co-religionists in the Austrian dominions.  But no one was so bitterly
+reproached as the Elector of Saxony, who was publicly denounced as a
+deserter, a traitor to religion and the liberties of the Empire, and a
+confederate of the Emperor.
+
+In the mean time, he consoled himself with the triumph of seeing most of
+the Protestant states compelled by necessity to embrace this peace.  The
+Elector of Brandenburg, Duke William of Weimar, the princes of Anhalt,
+the dukes of Mecklenburg, the dukes of Brunswick Lunenburg, the Hanse
+towns, and most of the imperial cities, acceded to it.  The Landgrave
+William of Hesse long wavered, or affected to do so, in order to gain
+time, and to regulate his measures by the course of events.  He had
+conquered several fertile provinces of Westphalia, and derived from them
+principally the means of continuing the war; these, by the terms of the
+treaty, he was bound to restore.  Bernard, Duke of Weimar, whose states,
+as yet, existed only on paper, as a belligerent power was not affected
+by the treaty, but as a general was so materially; and, in either view,
+he must equally be disposed to reject it.  His whole riches consisted in
+his bravery, his possessions in his sword.  War alone gave him greatness
+and importance, and war alone could realize the projects which his
+ambition suggested.
+
+But of all who declaimed against the treaty of Prague, none were so loud
+in their clamours as the Swedes, and none had so much reason for their
+opposition.  Invited to Germany by the Germans themselves, the champions
+of the Protestant Church, and the freedom of the States, which they had
+defended with so much bloodshed, and with the sacred life of their king,
+they now saw themselves suddenly and shamefully abandoned, disappointed
+in all their hopes, without reward and without gratitude driven from the
+empire for which they had toiled and bled, and exposed to the ridicule
+of the enemy by the very princes who owed every thing to them.  No
+satisfaction, no indemnification for the expenses which they had
+incurred, no equivalent for the conquests which they were to leave
+behind them, was provided by the treaty of Prague.  They were to be
+dismissed poorer than they came, or, if they resisted, to be expelled by
+the very powers who had invited them.  The Elector of Saxony at last
+spoke of a pecuniary indemnification, and mentioned the small sum of two
+millions five hundred thousand florins; but the Swedes had already
+expended considerably more, and this disgraceful equivalent in money was
+both contrary to their true interests, and injurious to their pride.
+"The Electors of Bavaria and Saxony," replied Oxenstiern, "have been
+paid for their services, which, as vassals, they were bound to render
+the Emperor, with the possession of important provinces; and shall we,
+who have sacrificed our king for Germany, be dismissed with the
+miserable sum of 2,500,000 florins?"  The disappointment of their
+expectations was the more severe, because the Swedes had calculated upon
+being recompensed with the Duchy of Pomerania, the present possessor of
+which was old and without heirs.  But the succession of this territory
+was confirmed by the treaty of Prague to the Elector of Brandenburg; and
+all the neighbouring powers declared against allowing the Swedes to
+obtain a footing within the empire.
+
+Never, in the whole course of the war, had the prospects of the Swedes
+looked more gloomy, than in the year 1635, immediately after the
+conclusion of the treaty of Prague.  Many of their allies, particularly
+among the free cities, abandoned them to benefit by the peace; others
+were compelled to accede to it by the victorious arms of the Emperor.
+Augsburg, subdued by famine, surrendered under the severest conditions;
+Wurtzburg and Coburg were lost to the Austrians.  The League of
+Heilbronn was formally dissolved.  Nearly the whole of Upper Germany,
+the chief seat of the Swedish power, was reduced under the Emperor.
+Saxony, on the strength of the treaty of Prague, demanded the evacuation
+of Thuringia, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg.  Philipsburg, the military
+depot of France, was surprised by the Austrians, with all the stores it
+contained; and this severe loss checked the activity of France.  To
+complete the embarrassments of Sweden, the truce with Poland was drawing
+to a close.  To support a war at the same time with Poland and in
+Germany, was far beyond the power of Sweden; and all that remained was
+to choose between them.  Pride and ambition declared in favour of
+continuing the German war, at whatever sacrifice on the side of Poland.
+An army, however, was necessary to command the respect of Poland, and to
+give weight to Sweden in any negotiations for a truce or a peace.
+
+The mind of Oxenstiern, firm, and inexhaustible in expedients, set
+itself manfully to meet these calamities, which all combined to
+overwhelm Sweden; and his shrewd understanding taught him how to turn
+even misfortunes to his advantage.  The defection of so many German
+cities of the empire deprived him, it is true, of a great part of his
+former allies, but at the same time it freed him from the necessity of
+paying any regard to their interests.  The more the number of his
+enemies increased, the more provinces and magazines were opened to his
+troops.  The gross ingratitude of the States, and the haughty contempt
+with which the Emperor behaved, (who did not even condescend to treat
+directly with him about a peace,) excited in him the courage of despair,
+and a noble determination to maintain the struggle to the last.  The
+continuance of war, however unfortunate it might prove, could not render
+the situation of Sweden worse than it now was; and if Germany was to be
+evacuated, it was at least better and nobler to do so sword in hand, and
+to yield to force rather than to fear.
+
+In the extremity in which the Swedes were now placed by the desertion of
+their allies, they addressed themselves to France, who met them with the
+greatest encouragement.  The interests of the two crowns were closely
+united, and France would have injured herself by allowing the Swedish
+power in Germany to decline.  The helpless situation of the Swedes, was
+rather an additional motive with France to cement more closely their
+alliance, and to take a more active part in the German war.  Since the
+alliance with Sweden, at Beerwald, in 1632, France had maintained the
+war against the Emperor, by the arms of Gustavus Adolphus, without any
+open or formal breach, by furnishing subsidies and increasing the number
+of his enemies.  But alarmed at the unexpected rapidity and success of
+the Swedish arms, France, in anxiety to restore the balance of power,
+which was disturbed by the preponderance of the Swedes, seemed, for a
+time, to have lost sight of her original designs.  She endeavoured to
+protect the Roman Catholic princes of the empire against the Swedish
+conqueror, by the treaties of neutrality, and when this plan failed, she
+even meditated herself to declare war against him.  But no sooner had
+the death of Gustavus Adolphus, and the desperate situation of the
+Swedish affairs, dispelled this apprehension, than she returned with
+fresh zeal to her first design, and readily afforded in this misfortune
+the aid which in the hour of success she had refused.  Freed from the
+checks which the ambition and vigilance of Gustavus Adolphus placed upon
+her plans of aggrandizement, France availed herself of the favourable
+opportunity afforded by the defeat of Nordlingen, to obtain the entire
+direction of the war, and to prescribe laws to those who sued for her
+powerful protection.  The moment seemed to smile upon her boldest plans,
+and those which had formerly seemed chimerical, now appeared to be
+justified by circumstances.  She now turned her whole attention to the
+war in Germany; and, as soon as she had secured her own private ends by
+a treaty with the Germans, she suddenly entered the political arena as
+an active and a commanding power.  While the other belligerent states
+had been exhausting themselves in a tedious contest, France had been
+reserving her strength, and maintained the contest by money alone; but
+now, when the state of things called for more active measures, she
+seized the sword, and astonished Europe by the boldness and magnitude of
+her undertakings.  At the same moment, she fitted out two fleets, and
+sent six different armies into the field, while she subsidized a foreign
+crown and several of the German princes.  Animated by this powerful
+co-operation, the Swedes and Germans awoke from the consternation, and
+hoped, sword in hand, to obtain a more honourable peace than that of
+Prague.  Abandoned by their confederates, who had been reconciled to the
+Emperor, they formed a still closer alliance with France, which
+increased her support with their growing necessities, at the same time
+taking a more active, although secret share in the German war, until at
+last, she threw off the mask altogether, and in her own name made an
+unequivocal declaration of war against the Emperor.
+
+To leave Sweden at full liberty to act against Austria, France commenced
+her operations by liberating it from all fear of a Polish war.  By means
+of the Count d'Avaux, its minister, an agreement was concluded between
+the two powers at Stummsdorf in Prussia, by which the truce was
+prolonged for twenty-six years, though not without a great sacrifice on
+the part of the Swedes, who ceded by a single stroke of the pen almost
+the whole of Polish Prussia, the dear-bought conquest of Gustavus
+Adolphus.  The treaty of Beerwald was, with certain modifications, which
+circumstances rendered necessary, renewed at different times at
+Compiegne, and afterwards at Wismar and Hamburg.  France had already
+come to a rupture with Spain, in May, 1635, and the vigorous attack
+which it made upon that power, deprived the Emperor of his most valuable
+auxiliaries from the Netherlands.  By supporting the Landgrave William
+of Cassel, and Duke Bernard of Weimar, the Swedes were enabled to act
+with more vigour upon the Elbe and the Danube, and a diversion upon the
+Rhine compelled the Emperor to divide his force.
+
+The war was now prosecuted with increasing activity.  By the treaty of
+Prague, the Emperor had lessened the number of his adversaries within
+the Empire; though, at the same time, the zeal and activity of his
+foreign enemies had been augmented by it.  In Germany, his influence was
+almost unlimited, for, with the exception of a few states, he had
+rendered himself absolute master of the German body and its resources,
+and was again enabled to act in the character of emperor and sovereign.
+The first fruit of his power was the elevation of his son, Ferdinand
+III., to the dignity of King of the Romans, to which he was elected by a
+decided majority of votes, notwithstanding the opposition of Treves, and
+of the heirs of the Elector Palatine.  But, on the other hand, he had
+exasperated the Swedes to desperation, had armed the power of France
+against him, and drawn its troops into the heart of the kingdom.  France
+and Sweden, with their German allies, formed, from this moment, one firm
+and compactly united power; the Emperor, with the German states which
+adhered to him, were equally firm and united.  The Swedes, who no longer
+fought for Germany, but for their own lives, showed no more indulgence;
+relieved from the necessity of consulting their German allies, or
+accounting to them for the plans which they adopted, they acted with
+more precipitation, rapidity, and boldness.  Battles, though less
+decisive, became more obstinate and bloody; greater achievements, both
+in bravery and military skill, were performed; but they were but
+insulated efforts; and being neither dictated by any consistent plan,
+nor improved by any commanding spirit, had comparatively little
+influence upon the course of the war.
+
+Saxony had bound herself, by the treaty of Prague, to expel the Swedes
+from Germany.  From this moment, the banners of the Saxons and
+Imperialists were united:  the former confederates were converted into
+implacable enemies.  The archbishopric of Magdeburg which, by the
+treaty, was ceded to the prince of Saxony, was still held by the Swedes,
+and every attempt to acquire it by negociation had proved ineffectual.
+Hostilities commenced, by the Elector of Saxony recalling all his
+subjects from the army of Banner, which was encamped upon the Elbe.  The
+officers, long irritated by the accumulation of their arrears, obeyed
+the summons, and evacuated one quarter after another.  As the Saxons, at
+the same time, made a movement towards Mecklenburg, to take Doemitz, and
+to drive the Swedes from Pomerania and the Baltic, Banner suddenly
+marched thither, relieved Doemitz, and totally defeated the Saxon
+General Baudissin, with 7000 men, of whom 1000 were slain, and about the
+same number taken prisoners.  Reinforced by the troops and artillery,
+which had hitherto been employed in Polish Prussia, but which the treaty
+of Stummsdorf rendered unnecessary, this brave and impetuous general
+made, the following year (1636), a sudden inroad into the Electorate of
+Saxony, where he gratified his inveterate hatred of the Saxons by the
+most destructive ravages.  Irritated by the memory of old grievances
+which, during their common campaigns, he and the Swedes had suffered
+from the haughtiness of the Saxons, and now exasperated to the utmost by
+the late defection of the Elector, they wreaked upon the unfortunate
+inhabitants all their rancour.  Against Austria and Bavaria, the Swedish
+soldier had fought from a sense, as it were, of duty; but against the
+Saxons, they contended with all the energy of private animosity and
+personal revenge, detesting them as deserters and traitors; for the
+hatred of former friends is of all the most fierce and irreconcileable.
+The powerful diversion made by the Duke of Weimar, and the Landgrave of
+Hesse, upon the Rhine and in Westphalia, prevented the Emperor from
+affording the necessary assistance to Saxony, and left the whole
+Electorate exposed to the destructive ravages of Banner's army.
+
+At length, the Elector, having formed a junction with the Imperial
+General Hatzfeld, advanced against Magdeburg, which Banner in vain
+hastened to relieve.  The united army of the Imperialists and the Saxons
+now spread itself over Brandenburg, wrested several places from the
+Swedes, and almost drove them to the Baltic.  But, contrary to all
+expectation, Banner, who had been given up as lost, attacked the allies,
+on the 24th of September, 1636, at Wittstock, where a bloody battle took
+place.  The onset was terrific; and the whole force of the enemy was
+directed against the right wing of the Swedes, which was led by Banner
+in person.  The contest was long maintained with equal animosity and
+obstinacy on both sides.  There was not a squadron among the Swedes,
+which did not return ten times to the charge, to be as often repulsed;
+when at last, Banner was obliged to retire before the superior numbers
+of the enemy.  His left wing sustained the combat until night, and the
+second line of the Swedes, which had not as yet been engaged, was
+prepared to renew it the next morning.  But the Elector did not wait for
+a second attack.  His army was exhausted by the efforts of the preceding
+day; and, as the drivers had fled with the horses, his artillery was
+unserviceable.  He accordingly retreated in the night, with Count
+Hatzfeld, and relinquished the ground to the Swedes.  About 5000 of the
+allies fell upon the field, exclusive of those who were killed in the
+pursuit, or who fell into the hands of the exasperated peasantry.  One
+hundred and fifty standards and colours, twenty-three pieces of cannon,
+the whole baggage and silver plate of the Elector, were captured, and
+more than 2000 men taken prisoners.  This brilliant victory, achieved
+over an enemy far superior in numbers, and in a very advantageous
+position, restored the Swedes at once to their former reputation; their
+enemies were discouraged, and their friends inspired with new hopes.
+Banner instantly followed up this decisive success, and hastily crossing
+the Elbe, drove the Imperialists before him, through Thuringia and
+Hesse, into Westphalia.  He then returned, and took up his winter
+quarters in Saxony.
+
+But, without the material aid furnished by the diversion upon the Rhine,
+and the activity there of Duke Bernard and the French, these important
+successes would have been unattainable.  Duke Bernard, after the defeat
+of Nordlingen, reorganized his broken army at Wetterau; but, abandoned
+by the confederates of the League of Heilbronn, which had been dissolved
+by the peace of Prague, and receiving little support from the Swedes, he
+found himself unable to maintain an army, or to perform any enterprise
+of importance.  The defeat at Nordlingen had terminated all his hopes on
+the Duchy of Franconia, while the weakness of the Swedes, destroyed the
+chance of retrieving his fortunes through their assistance.  Tired, too,
+of the constraint imposed upon him by the imperious chancellor, he
+turned his attention to France, who could easily supply him with money,
+the only aid which he required, and France readily acceded to his
+proposals.  Richelieu desired nothing so much as to diminish the
+influence of the Swedes in the German war, and to obtain the direction
+of it for himself.  To secure this end, nothing appeared more effectual
+than to detach from the Swedes their bravest general, to win him to the
+interests of France, and to secure for the execution of its projects the
+services of his arm.  From a prince like Bernard, who could not maintain
+himself without foreign support, France had nothing to fear, since no
+success, however brilliant, could render him independent of that crown.
+Bernard himself came into France, and in October, 1635, concluded a
+treaty at St.  Germaine en Laye, not as a Swedish general, but in his
+own name, by which it was stipulated that he should receive for himself
+a yearly pension of one million five hundred thousand livres, and four
+millions for the support of his army, which he was to command under the
+orders of the French king.  To inflame his zeal, and to accelerate the
+conquest of Alsace, France did not hesitate, by a secret article, to
+promise him that province for his services; a promise which Richelieu
+had little intention of performing, and which the duke also estimated at
+its real worth.  But Bernard confided in his good fortune, and in his
+arms, and met artifice with dissimulation.  If he could once succeed in
+wresting Alsace from the enemy, he did not despair of being able, in
+case of need, to maintain it also against a friend.  He now raised an
+army at the expense of France, which he commanded nominally under the
+orders of that power, but in reality without any limitation whatever,
+and without having wholly abandoned his engagements with Sweden.  He
+began his operations upon the Rhine, where another French army, under
+Cardinal Lavalette, had already, in 1635, commenced hostilities against
+the Emperor.
+
+Against this force, the main body of the Imperialists, after the great
+victory of Nordlingen, and the reduction of Swabia and Franconia had
+advanced under the command of Gallas, had driven them as far as Metz,
+cleared the Rhine, and took from the Swedes the towns of Metz and
+Frankenthal, of which they were in possession.  But frustrated by the
+vigorous resistance of the French, in his main object, of taking up his
+winter quarters in France, he led back his exhausted troops into Alsace
+and Swabia.  At the opening of the next campaign, he passed the Rhine at
+Breysach, and prepared to carry the war into the interior of France.  He
+actually entered Burgundy, while the Spaniards from the Netherlands made
+progress in Picardy; and John De Werth, a formidable general of the
+League, and a celebrated partisan, pushed his march into Champagne, and
+spread consternation even to the gates of Paris.  But an insignificant
+fortress in Franche Comte completely checked the Imperialists, and they
+were obliged, a second time, to abandon their enterprise.
+
+The activity of Duke Bernard had hitherto been impeded by his dependence
+on a French general, more suited to the priestly robe, than to the baton
+of command; and although, in conjunction with him, he conquered Alsace
+Saverne, he found himself unable, in the years 1636 and 1637, to
+maintain his position upon the Rhine.  The ill success of the French
+arms in the Netherlands had cheated the activity of operations in Alsace
+and Breisgau; but in 1638, the war in that quarter took a more brilliant
+turn.  Relieved from his former restraint, and with unlimited command of
+his troops, Duke Bernard, in the beginning of February, left his winter
+quarters in the bishopric of Basle, and unexpectedly appeared upon the
+Rhine, where, at this rude season of the year, an attack was little
+anticipated.  The forest towns of Laufenburg, Waldshut, and Seckingen,
+were surprised, and Rhinefeldt besieged.  The Duke of Savelli, the
+Imperial general who commanded in that quarter, hastened by forced
+marches to the relief of this important place, succeeded in raising the
+siege, and compelled the Duke of Weimar, with great loss to retire.
+But, contrary to all human expectation, he appeared on the third day
+after, (21st February, 1638,) before the Imperialists, in order of
+battle, and defeated them in a bloody engagement, in which the four
+Imperial generals, Savelli, John De Werth, Enkeford, and Sperreuter,
+with 2000 men, were taken prisoners.  Two of these, De Werth and
+Enkeford, were afterwards sent by Richelieu's orders into France, in
+order to flatter the vanity of the French by the sight of such
+distinguished prisoners, and by the pomp of military trophies, to
+withdraw the attention of the populace from the public distress.  The
+captured standards and colours were, with the same view, carried in
+solemn procession to the church of Notre Dame, thrice exhibited before
+the altar, and committed to sacred custody.
+
+The taking of Rhinefeldt, Roeteln, and Fribourg, was the immediate
+consequence of the duke's victory.  His army now increased by
+considerable recruits, and his projects expanded in proportion as
+fortune favoured him.  The fortress of Breysach upon the Rhine was
+looked upon as holding the command of that river, and as the key of
+Alsace.  No place in this quarter was of more importance to the Emperor,
+and upon none had more care been bestowed.  To protect Breysach, was the
+principal destination of the Italian army, under the Duke of Feria; the
+strength of its works, and its natural defences, bade defiance to
+assault, while the Imperial generals who commanded in that quarter had
+orders to retain it at any cost.  But the duke, trusting to his good
+fortune, resolved to attempt the siege.  Its strength rendered it
+impregnable; it could, therefore, only be starved into a surrender; and
+this was facilitated by the carelessness of the commandant, who,
+expecting no attack, had been selling off his stores.  As under these
+circumstances the town could not long hold out, it must be immediately
+relieved or victualled.  Accordingly, the Imperial General Goetz rapidly
+advanced at the head of 12,000 men, accompanied by 3000 waggons loaded
+with provisions, which he intended to throw into the place.  But he was
+attacked with such vigour by Duke Bernard at Witteweyer, that he lost
+his whole force, except 3000 men, together with the entire transport.  A
+similar fate at Ochsenfeld, near Thann, overtook the Duke of Lorraine,
+who, with 5000 or 6000 men, advanced to relieve the fortress.  After a
+third attempt of general Goetz for the relief of Breysach had proved
+ineffectual, the fortress, reduced to the greatest extremity by famine,
+surrendered, after a blockade of four months, on the 17th December 1638,
+to its equally persevering and humane conqueror.
+
+The capture of Breysach opened a boundless field to the ambition of the
+Duke of Weimar, and the romance of his hopes was fast approaching to
+reality.  Far from intending to surrender his conquests to France, he
+destined Breysach for himself, and revealed this intention, by exacting
+allegiance from the vanquished, in his own name, and not in that of any
+other power.  Intoxicated by his past success, and excited by the
+boldest hopes, he believed that he should be able to maintain his
+conquests, even against France herself.  At a time when everything
+depended upon bravery, when even personal strength was of importance,
+when troops and generals were of more value than territories, it was
+natural for a hero like Bernard to place confidence in his own powers,
+and, at the head of an excellent army, who under his command had proved
+invincible, to believe himself capable of accomplishing the boldest and
+largest designs.  In order to secure himself one friend among the crowd
+of enemies whom he was about to provoke, he turned his eyes upon the
+Landgravine Amelia of Hesse, the widow of the lately deceased Landgrave
+William, a princess whose talents were equal to her courage, and who,
+along with her hand, would bestow valuable conquests, an extensive
+principality, and a well disciplined army.  By the union of the
+conquests of Hesse, with his own upon the Rhine, and the junction of
+their forces, a power of some importance, and perhaps a third party,
+might be formed in Germany, which might decide the fate of the war.  But
+a premature death put a period to these extensive schemes.
+
+"Courage, Father Joseph, Breysach is ours!" whispered Richelieu in the
+ear of the Capuchin, who had long held himself in readiness to be
+despatched into that quarter; so delighted was he with this joyful
+intelligence.  Already in imagination he held Alsace, Breisgau, and all
+the frontiers of Austria in that quarter, without regard to his promise
+to Duke Bernard.  But the firm determination which the latter had
+unequivocally shown, to keep Breysach for himself, greatly embarrassed
+the cardinal, and no efforts were spared to retain the victorious
+Bernard in the interests of France.  He was invited to court, to witness
+the honours by which his triumph was to be commemorated; but he
+perceived and shunned the seductive snare.  The cardinal even went so
+far as to offer him the hand of his niece in marriage; but the proud
+German prince declined the offer, and refused to sully the blood of
+Saxony by a misalliance.  He was now considered as a dangerous enemy,
+and treated as such.  His subsidies were withdrawn; and the Governor of
+Breysach and his principal officers were bribed, at least upon the event
+of the duke's death, to take possession of his conquests, and to secure
+his troops.  These intrigues were no secret to the duke, and the
+precautions he took in the conquered places, clearly bespoke the
+distrust of France.  But this misunderstanding with the French court had
+the most prejudicial influence upon his future operations.  The
+preparations he was obliged to make, in order to secure his conquests
+against an attack on the side of France, compelled him to divide his
+military strength, while the stoppage of his subsidies delayed his
+appearance in the field.  It had been his intention to cross the Rhine,
+to support the Swedes, and to act against the Emperor and Bavaria on the
+banks of the Danube.  He had already communicated his plan of operations
+to Banner, who was about to carry the war into the Austrian territories,
+and had promised to relieve him so, when a sudden death cut short his
+heroic career, in the 36th year of his age, at Neuburgh upon the Rhine
+(in July, 1639).
+
+He died of a pestilential disorder, which, in the course of two days,
+had carried off nearly 400 men in his camp.  The black spots which
+appeared upon his body, his own dying expressions, and the advantages
+which France was likely to reap from his sudden decease, gave rise to a
+suspicion that he had been removed by poison--a suspicion sufficiently
+refuted by the symptoms of his disorder.  In him, the allies lost their
+greatest general after Gustavus Adolphus, France a formidable competitor
+for Alsace, and the Emperor his most dangerous enemy.  Trained to the
+duties of a soldier and a general in the school of Gustavus Adolphus, he
+successfully imitated his eminent model, and wanted only a longer life
+to equal, if not to surpass it.  With the bravery of the soldier, he
+united the calm and cool penetration of the general and the persevering
+fortitude of the man, with the daring resolution of youth; with the wild
+ardour of the warrior, the sober dignity of the prince, the moderation
+of the sage, and the conscientiousness of the man of honour.
+Discouraged by no misfortune, he quickly rose again in full vigour from
+the severest defeats; no obstacles could check his enterprise, no
+disappointments conquer his indomitable perseverance.  His genius,
+perhaps, soared after unattainable objects; but the prudence of such
+men, is to be measured by a different standard from that of ordinary
+people.  Capable of accomplishing more, he might venture to form more
+daring plans.  Bernard affords, in modern history, a splendid example of
+those days of chivalry, when personal greatness had its full weight and
+influence, when individual bravery could conquer provinces, and the
+heroic exploits of a German knight raised him even to the Imperial
+throne.
+
+The best part of the duke's possessions were his army, which, together
+with Alsace, he bequeathed to his brother William.  But to this army,
+both France and Sweden thought that they had well-grounded claims; the
+latter, because it had been raised in name of that crown, and had done
+homage to it; the former, because it had been supported by its
+subsidies.  The Electoral Prince of the Palatinate also negociated for
+its services, and attempted, first by his agents, and latterly in his
+own person, to win it over to his interests, with the view of employing
+it in the reconquest of his territories.  Even the Emperor endeavoured
+to secure it, a circumstance the less surprising, when we reflect that
+at this time the justice of the cause was comparatively unimportant, and
+the extent of the recompense the main object to which the soldier
+looked; and when bravery, like every other commodity, was disposed of to
+the highest bidder.  But France, richer and more determined, outbade all
+competitors:  it bought over General Erlach, the commander of Breysach,
+and the other officers, who soon placed that fortress, with the whole
+army, in their hands.
+
+The young Palatine, Prince Charles Louis, who had already made an
+unsuccessful campaign against the Emperor, saw his hopes again deceived.
+Although intending to do France so ill a service, as to compete with her
+for Bernard's army, he had the imprudence to travel through that
+kingdom.  The cardinal, who dreaded the justice of the Palatine's cause,
+was glad to seize any opportunity to frustrate his views.  He
+accordingly caused him to be seized at Moulin, in violation of the law
+of nations, and did not set him at liberty, until he learned that the
+army of the Duke of Weimar had been secured.  France was now in
+possession of a numerous and well disciplined army in Germany, and from
+this moment began to make open war upon the Emperor.
+
+But it was no longer against Ferdinand II.  that its hostilities were to
+be conducted; for that prince had died in February, 1637, in the 59th
+year of his age.  The war which his ambition had kindled, however,
+survived him.  During a reign of eighteen years he had never once laid
+aside the sword, nor tasted the blessings of peace as long as his hand
+swayed the imperial sceptre.  Endowed with the qualities of a good
+sovereign, adorned with many of those virtues which ensure the happiness
+of a people, and by nature gentle and humane, we see him, from erroneous
+ideas of the monarch's duty, become at once the instrument and the
+victim of the evil passions of others; his benevolent intentions
+frustrated, and the friend of justice converted into the oppressor of
+mankind, the enemy of peace, and the scourge of his people.  Amiable in
+domestic life, and respectable as a sovereign, but in his policy ill
+advised, while he gained the love of his Roman Catholic subjects, he
+incurred the execration of the Protestants.  History exhibits many and
+greater despots than Ferdinand II., yet he alone has had the unfortunate
+celebrity of kindling a thirty years' war; but to produce its lamentable
+consequences, his ambition must have been seconded by a kindred spirit
+of the age, a congenial state of previous circumstances, and existing
+seeds of discord.  At a less turbulent period, the spark would have
+found no fuel; and the peacefulness of the age would have choked the
+voice of individual ambition; but now the flash fell upon a pile of
+accumulated combustibles, and Europe was in flames.
+
+His son, Ferdinand III., who, a few months before his father's death,
+had been raised to the dignity of King of the Romans, inherited his
+throne, his principles, and the war which he had caused.  But Ferdinand
+III.  had been a closer witness of the sufferings of the people, and the
+devastation of the country, and felt more keenly and ardently the
+necessity of peace.  Less influenced by the Jesuits and the Spaniards,
+and more moderate towards the religious views of others, he was more
+likely than his father to listen to the voice of reason.  He did so, and
+ultimately restored to Europe the blessing of peace, but not till after
+a contest of eleven years waged with sword and pen; not till after he
+had experienced the impossibility of resistance, and necessity had laid
+upon him its stern laws.
+
+Fortune favoured him at the commencement of his reign, and his arms were
+victorious against the Swedes.  The latter, under the command of the
+victorious Banner, had, after their success at Wittstock, taken up their
+winter quarters in Saxony; and the campaign of 1637 opened with the
+siege of Leipzig.  The vigorous resistance of the garrison, and the
+approach of the Electoral and Imperial armies, saved the town, and
+Banner, to prevent his communication with the Elbe being cut off, was
+compelled to retreat into Torgau.  But the superior number of the
+Imperialists drove him even from that quarter; and, surrounded by the
+enemy, hemmed in by rivers, and suffering from famine, he had no course
+open to him but to attempt a highly dangerous retreat into Pomerania, of
+which, the boldness and successful issue border upon romance.  The whole
+army crossed the Oder, at a ford near Furstenberg; and the soldiers,
+wading up to the neck in water, dragged the artillery across, when the
+horses refused to draw.  Banner had expected to be joined by General
+Wrangel, on the farther side of the Oder in Pomerania; and, in
+conjunction with him, to be able to make head against the enemy.  But
+Wrangel did not appear; and in his stead, he found an Imperial army
+posted at Landsberg, with a view to cut off the retreat of the Swedes.
+Banner now saw that he had fallen into a dangerous snare, from which
+escape appeared impossible.  In his rear lay an exhausted country, the
+Imperialists, and the Oder on his left; the Oder, too, guarded by the
+Imperial General Bucheim, offered no retreat; in front, Landsberg,
+Custrin, the Warta, and a hostile army; and on the right, Poland, in
+which, notwithstanding the truce, little confidence could be placed.  In
+these circumstances, his position seemed hopeless, and the Imperialists
+were already triumphing in the certainty of his fall.  Banner, with just
+indignation, accused the French as the authors of this misfortune.  They
+had neglected to make, according to their promise, a diversion upon the
+Rhine; and, by their inaction, allowed the Emperor to combine his whole
+force upon the Swedes.  "When the day comes," cried the incensed General
+to the French Commissioner, who followed the camp, "that the Swedes and
+Germans join their arms against France, we shall cross the Rhine with
+less ceremony."  But reproaches were now useless; what the emergency
+demanded was energy and resolution.  In the hope of drawing the enemy by
+stratagem from the Oder, Banner pretended to march towards Poland, and
+despatched the greater part of his baggage in this direction, with his
+own wife, and those of the other officers.  The Imperialists immediately
+broke up their camp, and hurried towards the Polish frontier to block up
+the route; Bucheim left his station, and the Oder was stripped of its
+defenders.  On a sudden, and under cloud of night, Banner turned towards
+that river, and crossed it about a mile above Custrin, with his troops,
+baggage, and artillery, without bridges or vessels, as he had done
+before at Furstenberg.  He reached Pomerania without loss, and prepared
+to share with Wrangel the defence of that province.
+
+But the Imperialists, under the command of Gallas, entered that duchy at
+Ribses, and overran it by their superior strength.  Usedom and Wolgast
+were taken by storm, Demmin capitulated, and the Swedes were driven far
+into Lower Pomerania.  It was, too, more important for them at this
+moment than ever, to maintain a footing in that country, for Bogislaus
+XIV.  had died that year, and Sweden must prepare to establish its title
+to Pomerania.  To prevent the Elector of Brandenburg from making good
+the title to that duchy, which the treaty of Prague had given him,
+Sweden exerted her utmost energies, and supported its generals to the
+extent of her ability, both with troops and money.  In other quarters of
+the kingdom, the affairs of the Swedes began to wear a more favourable
+aspect, and to recover from the humiliation into which they had been
+thrown by the inaction of France, and the desertion of their allies.
+For, after their hasty retreat into Pomerania, they had lost one place
+after another in Upper Saxony; the princes of Mecklenburg, closely
+pressed by the troops of the Emperor, began to lean to the side of
+Austria, and even George, Duke of Lunenburg, declared against them.
+Ehrenbreitstein was starved into a surrender by the Bavarian General de
+Werth, and the Austrians possessed themselves of all the works which had
+been thrown up on the Rhine.  France had been the sufferer in the
+contest with Spain; and the event had by no means justified the pompous
+expectations which had accompanied the opening of the campaign.  Every
+place which the Swedes had held in the interior of Germany was lost; and
+only the principal towns in Pomerania still remained in their hands.
+But a single campaign raised them from this state of humiliation; and
+the vigorous diversion, which the victorious Bernard had effected upon
+the Rhine, gave quite a new turn to affairs.
+
+The misunderstandings between France and Sweden were now at last
+adjusted, and the old treaty between these powers confirmed at Hamburg,
+with fresh advantages for Sweden.  In Hesse, the politic Landgravine
+Amelia had, with the approbation of the Estates, assumed the government
+after the death of her husband, and resolutely maintained her rights
+against the Emperor and the House of Darmstadt.  Already zealously
+attached to the Swedish Protestant party, on religious grounds, she only
+awaited a favourable opportunity openly to declare herself.  By artful
+delays, and by prolonging the negociations with the Emperor, she had
+succeeded in keeping him inactive, till she had concluded a secret
+compact with France, and the victories of Duke Bernard had given a
+favourable turn to the affairs of the Protestants.  She now at once
+threw off the mask, and renewed her former alliance with the Swedish
+crown.  The Electoral Prince of the Palatinate was also stimulated, by
+the success of Bernard, to try his fortune against the common enemy.
+Raising troops in Holland with English money, he formed a magazine at
+Meppen, and joined the Swedes in Westphalia.  His magazine was, however,
+quickly lost; his army defeated near Flotha, by Count Hatzfeld; but his
+attempt served to occupy for some time the attention of the enemy, and
+thereby facilitated the operations of the Swedes in other quarters.
+Other friends began to appear, as fortune declared in their favour, and
+the circumstance, that the States of Lower Saxony embraced a neutrality,
+was of itself no inconsiderable advantage.
+
+Under these advantages, and reinforced by 14,000 fresh troops from
+Sweden and Livonia.  Banner opened, with the most favourable prospects,
+the campaign of 1638.  The Imperialists who were in possession of Upper
+Pomerania and Mecklenburg, either abandoned their positions, or deserted
+in crowds to the Swedes, to avoid the horrors of famine, the most
+formidable enemy in this exhausted country.  The whole country betwixt
+the Elbe and the Oder was so desolated by the past marchings and
+quarterings of the troops, that, in order to support his army on its
+march into Saxony and Bohemia, Banner was obliged to take a circuitous
+route from Lower Pomerania into Lower Saxony, and then into the
+Electorate of Saxony through the territory of Halberstadt.  The
+impatience of the Lower Saxon States to get rid of such troublesome
+guests, procured him so plentiful a supply of provisions, that he was
+provided with bread in Magdeburg itself, where famine had even overcome
+the natural antipathy of men to human flesh.  His approach spread
+consternation among the Saxons; but his views were directed not against
+this exhausted country, but against the hereditary dominions of the
+Emperor.  The victories of Bernard encouraged him, while the prosperity
+of the Austrian provinces excited his hopes of booty.  After defeating
+the Imperial General Salis, at Elsterberg, totally routing the Saxon
+army at Chemnitz, and taking Pirna, he penetrated with irresistible
+impetuosity into Bohemia, crossed the Elbe, threatened Prague, took
+Brandeis and Leutmeritz, defeated General Hofkirchen with ten regiments,
+and spread terror and devastation through that defenceless kingdom.
+Booty was his sole object, and whatever he could not carry off he
+destroyed.  In order to remove more of the corn, the ears were cut from
+the stalks, and the latter burnt.  Above a thousand castles, hamlets,
+and villages were laid in ashes; sometimes more than a hundred were seen
+burning in one night.  From Bohemia he crossed into Silesia, and it was
+his intention to carry his ravages even into Moravia and Austria.  But
+to prevent this, Count Hatzfeld was summoned from Westphalia, and
+Piccolomini from the Netherlands, to hasten with all speed to this
+quarter.  The Archduke Leopold, brother to the Emperor, assumed the
+command, in order to repair the errors of his predecessor Gallas, and to
+raise the army from the low ebb to which it had fallen.
+
+The result justified the change, and the campaign of 1640 appeared to
+take a most unfortunate turn for the Swedes.  They were successively
+driven out of all their posts in Bohemia, and anxious only to secure
+their plunder, they precipitately crossed the heights of Meissen.  But
+being followed into Saxony by the pursuing enemy, and defeated at
+Plauen, they were obliged to take refuge in Thuringia.  Made masters of
+the field in a single summer, they were as rapidly dispossessed; but
+only to acquire it a second time, and to hurry from one extreme to
+another.  The army of Banner, weakened and on the brink of destruction
+in its camp at Erfurt, suddenly recovered itself.  The Duke of Lunenburg
+abandoned the treaty of Prague, and joined Banner with the very troops
+which, the year before, had fought against him.  Hesse Cassel sent
+reinforcements, and the Duke of Longueville came to his support with the
+army of the late Duke Bernard.  Once more numerically superior to the
+Imperialists, Banner offered them battle near Saalfeld; but their
+leader, Piccolomini, prudently declined an engagement, having chosen too
+strong a position to be forced.  When the Bavarians at length separated
+from the Imperialists, and marched towards Franconia, Banner attempted
+an attack upon this divided corps, but the attempt was frustrated by the
+skill of the Bavarian General Von Mercy, and the near approach of the
+main body of the Imperialists.  Both armies now moved into the exhausted
+territory of Hesse, where they formed intrenched camps near each other,
+till at last famine and the severity of the winter compelled them both
+to retire.  Piccolomini chose the fertile banks of the Weser for his
+winter quarters; but being outflanked by Banner, he was obliged to give
+way to the Swedes, and to impose on the Franconian sees the burden of
+maintaining his army.
+
+At this period, a diet was held in Ratisbon, where the complaints of the
+States were to be heard, measures taken for securing the repose of the
+Empire, and the question of peace or war finally settled.  The presence
+of the Emperor, the majority of the Roman Catholic voices in the
+Electoral College, the great number of bishops, and the withdrawal of
+several of the Protestant votes, gave the Emperor a complete command of
+the deliberations of the assembly, and rendered this diet any thing but
+a fair representative of the opinions of the German Empire.  The
+Protestants, with reason, considered it as a mere combination of Austria
+and its creatures against their party; and it seemed to them a laudable
+effort to interrupt its deliberations, and to dissolve the diet itself.
+
+Banner undertook this bold enterprise.  His military reputation had
+suffered by his last retreat from Bohemia, and it stood in need of some
+great exploit to restore its former lustre.  Without communicating his
+designs to any one, in the depth of the winter of 1641, as soon as the
+roads and rivers were frozen, he broke up from his quarters in
+Lunenburg.  Accompanied by Marshal Guebriant, who commanded the armies
+of France and Weimar, he took the route towards the Danube, through
+Thuringia and Vogtland, and appeared before Ratisbon, ere the Diet could
+be apprised of his approach.  The consternation of the assembly was
+indescribable; and, in the first alarm, the deputies prepared for
+flight.  The Emperor alone declared that he would not leave the town,
+and encouraged the rest by his example.  Unfortunately for the Swedes, a
+thaw came on, which broke up the ice upon the Danube, so that it was no
+longer passable on foot, while no boats could cross it, on account of
+the quantities of ice which were swept down by the current.  In order to
+perform something, and to humble the pride of the Emperor, Banner
+discourteously fired 500 cannon shots into the town, which, however, did
+little mischief.  Baffled in his designs, he resolved to penetrate
+farther into Bavaria, and the defenceless province of Moravia, where a
+rich booty and comfortable quarters awaited his troops.  Guebriant,
+however, began to fear that the purpose of the Swedes was to draw the
+army of Bernard away from the Rhine, and to cut off its communication
+with France, till it should be either entirely won over, or
+incapacitated from acting independently.  He therefore separated from
+Banner to return to the Maine; and the latter was exposed to the whole
+force of the Imperialists, which had been secretly drawn together
+between Ratisbon and Ingoldstadt, and was on its march against him.  It
+was now time to think of a rapid retreat, which, having to be effected
+in the face of an army superior in cavalry, and betwixt woods and
+rivers, through a country entirely hostile, appeared almost
+impracticable.  He hastily retired towards the Forest, intending to
+penetrate through Bohemia into Saxony; but he was obliged to sacrifice
+three regiments at Neuburg.  These with a truly Spartan courage,
+defended themselves for four days behind an old wall, and gained time
+for Banner to escape.  He retreated by Egra to Annaberg; Piccolomini
+took a shorter route in pursuit, by Schlakenwald; and Banner succeeded,
+only by a single half hour, in clearing the Pass of Prisnitz, and saving
+his whole army from the Imperialists.  At Zwickau he was again joined by
+Guebriant; and both generals directed their march towards Halberstadt,
+after in vain attempting to defend the Saal, and to prevent the passage
+of the Imperialists.
+
+Banner, at length, terminated his career at Halberstadt, in May 1641, a
+victim to vexation and disappointment.  He sustained with great renown,
+though with varying success, the reputation of the Swedish arms in
+Germany, and by a train of victories showed himself worthy of his great
+master in the art of war.  He was fertile in expedients, which he
+planned with secrecy, and executed with boldness; cautious in the midst
+of dangers, greater in adversity than in prosperity, and never more
+formidable than when upon the brink of destruction.  But the virtues of
+the hero were united with all the railings and vices which a military
+life creates, or at least fosters.  As imperious in private life as he
+was at the head of his army, rude as his profession, and proud as a
+conqueror; he oppressed the German princes no less by his haughtiness,
+than their country by his contributions.  He consoled himself for the
+toils of war in voluptuousness and the pleasures of the table, in which
+he indulged to excess, and was thus brought to an early grave.  But
+though as much addicted to pleasure as Alexander or Mahomet the Second,
+he hurried from the arms of luxury into the hardest fatigues, and placed
+himself in all his vigour at the head of his army, at the very moment
+his soldiers were murmuring at his luxurious excesses.  Nearly 80,000
+men fell in the numerous battles which he fought, and about 600 hostile
+standards and colours, which he sent to Stockholm, were the trophies of
+his victories.  The want of this great general was soon severely felt by
+the Swedes, who feared, with justice, that the loss would not readily be
+replaced.  The spirit of rebellion and insubordination, which had been
+overawed by the imperious demeanour of this dreaded commander, awoke
+upon his death.  The officers, with an alarming unanimity, demanded
+payment of their arrears; and none of the four generals who shared the
+command, possessed influence enough to satisfy these demands, or to
+silence the malcontents.  All discipline was at an end, increasing want,
+and the imperial citations were daily diminishing the number of the
+army; the troops of France and Weimar showed little zeal; those of
+Lunenburg forsook the Swedish colours; the Princes also of the House of
+Brunswick, after the death of Duke George, had formed a separate treaty
+with the Emperor; and at last even those of Hesse quitted them, to seek
+better quarters in Westphalia.  The enemy profited by these calamitous
+divisions; and although defeated with loss in two pitched battles,
+succeeded in making considerable progress in Lower Saxony.
+
+At length appeared the new Swedish generalissimo, with fresh troops and
+money.  This was Bernard Torstensohn, a pupil of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+his most successful imitator, who had been his page during the Polish
+war.  Though a martyr to the gout, and confined to a litter, he
+surpassed all his opponents in activity; and his enterprises had wings,
+while his body was held by the most frightful of fetters.  Under him,
+the scene of war was changed, and new maxims adopted, which necessity
+dictated, and the issue justified.  All the countries in which the
+contest had hitherto raged were exhausted; while the House of Austria,
+safe in its more distant territories, felt not the miseries of the war
+under which the rest of Germany groaned.  Torstensohn first furnished
+them with this bitter experience, glutted his Swedes on the fertile
+produce of Austria, and carried the torch of war to the very footsteps
+of the imperial throne.
+
+In Silesia, the enemy had gained considerable advantages over the
+Swedish general Stalhantsch, and driven him as far as Neumark.
+Torstensohn, who had joined the main body of the Swedes in Lunenburg,
+summoned him to unite with his force, and in the year 1642 hastily
+marched into Silesia through Brandenburg, which, under its great
+Elector, had begun to maintain an armed neutrality.  Glogau was carried,
+sword in hand, without a breach, or formal approaches; the Duke Francis
+Albert of Lauenburg defeated and killed at Schweidnitz; and Schweidnitz
+itself with almost all the towns on that side of the Oder, taken.  He
+now penetrated with irresistible violence into the interior of Moravia,
+where no enemy of Austria had hitherto appeared, took Olmutz, and threw
+Vienna itself into consternation.
+
+But, in the mean time, Piccolomini and the Archduke Leopold had
+collected a superior force, which speedily drove the Swedish conquerors
+from Moravia, and after a fruitless attempt upon Brieg, from Silesia.
+Reinforced by Wrangel, the Swedes again attempted to make head against
+the enemy, and relieved Grossglogau; but could neither bring the
+Imperialists to an engagement, nor carry into effect their own views
+upon Bohemia.  Overrunning Lusatia, they took Zittau, in presence of the
+enemy, and after a short stay in that country, directed their march
+towards the Elbe, which they passed at Torgau.  Torstensohn now
+threatened Leipzig with a siege, and hoped to raise a large supply of
+provisions and contributions from that prosperous town, which for ten
+years had been unvisited with the scourge of war.
+
+The Imperialists, under Leopold and Piccolomini, immediately hastened by
+Dresden to its relief, and Torstensohn, to avoid being inclosed between
+this army and the town, boldly advanced to meet them in order of battle.
+By a strange coincidence, the two armies met upon the very spot which,
+eleven years before, Gustavus Adolphus had rendered remarkable by a
+decisive victory; and the heroism of their predecessors, now kindled in
+the Swedes a noble emulation on this consecrated ground.  The Swedish
+generals, Stahlhantsch and Wellenberg, led their divisions with such
+impetuosity upon the left wing of the Imperialists, before it was
+completely formed, that the whole cavalry that covered it were dispersed
+and rendered unserviceable.  But the left of the Swedes was threatened
+with a similar fate, when the victorious right advanced to its
+assistance, took the enemy in flank and rear, and divided the Austrian
+line.  The infantry on both sides stood firm as a wall, and when their
+ammunition was exhausted, maintained the combat with the butt-ends of
+their muskets, till at last the Imperialists, completely surrounded,
+after a contest of three hours, were compelled to abandon the field.
+The generals on both sides had more than once to rally their flying
+troops; and the Archduke Leopold, with his regiment, was the first in
+the attack and last in flight.  But this bloody victory cost the Swedes
+more than 3000 men, and two of their best generals, Schlangen and
+Lilienhoeck.  More than 5000 of the Imperialists were left upon the
+field, and nearly as many taken prisoners.  Their whole artillery,
+consisting of 46 field-pieces, the silver plate and portfolio of the
+archduke, with the whole baggage of the army, fell into the hands of the
+victors.  Torstensohn, too greatly disabled by his victory to pursue the
+enemy, moved upon Leipzig.  The defeated army retired into Bohemia,
+where its shattered regiments reassembled.  The Archduke Leopold could
+not recover from the vexation caused by this defeat; and the regiment of
+cavalry which, by its premature flight, had occasioned the disaster,
+experienced the effects of his indignation.  At Raconitz in Bohemia, in
+presence of the whole army, he publicly declared it infamous, deprived
+it of its horses, arms, and ensigns, ordered its standards to be torn,
+condemned to death several of the officers, and decimated the privates.
+
+The surrender of Leipzig, three weeks after the battle, was its
+brilliant result.  The city was obliged to clothe the Swedish troops
+anew, and to purchase an exemption from plunder, by a contribution of
+300,000 rix-dollars, to which all the foreign merchants, who had
+warehouses in the city, were to furnish their quota.  In the middle of
+winter, Torstensohn advanced against Freyberg, and for several weeks
+defied the inclemency of the season, hoping by his perseverance to weary
+out the obstinacy of the besieged.  But he found that he was merely
+sacrificing the lives of his soldiers; and at last, the approach of the
+imperial general, Piccolomini, compelled him, with his weakened army, to
+retire.  He considered it, however, as equivalent to a victory, to have
+disturbed the repose of the enemy in their winter quarters, who, by the
+severity of the weather, sustained a loss of 3000 horses.  He now made a
+movement towards the Oder, as if with the view of reinforcing himself
+with the garrisons of Pomerania and Silesia; but, with the rapidity of
+lightning, he again appeared upon the Bohemian frontier, penetrated
+through that kingdom, and relieved Olmutz in Moravia, which was hard
+pressed by the Imperialists.  His camp at Dobitschau, two miles from
+Olmutz, commanded the whole of Moravia, on which he levied heavy
+contributions, and carried his ravages almost to the gates of Vienna.
+In vain did the Emperor attempt to arm the Hungarian nobility in defence
+of this province; they appealed to their privileges, and refused to
+serve beyond the limits of their own country.  Thus, the time that
+should have been spent in active resistance, was lost in fruitless
+negociation, and the entire province was abandoned to the ravages of the
+Swedes.
+
+While Torstensohn, by his marches and his victories, astonished friend
+and foe, the armies of the allies had not been inactive in other parts
+of the empire.  The troops of Hesse, under Count Eberstein, and those of
+Weimar, under Mareschal de Guebriant, had fallen into the Electorate of
+Cologne, in order to take up their winter quarters there.  To get rid of
+these troublesome guests, the Elector called to his assistance the
+imperial general Hatzfeldt, and assembled his own troops under General
+Lamboy.  The latter was attacked by the allies in January, 1642, and in
+a decisive action near Kempen, defeated, with the loss of about 2000 men
+killed, and about twice as many prisoners.  This important victory
+opened to them the whole Electorate and neighbouring territories, so
+that the allies were not only enabled to maintain their winter quarters
+there, but drew from the country large supplies of men and horses.
+
+Guebriant left the Hessians to defend their conquests on the Lower Rhine
+against Hatzfeldt, and advanced towards Thuringia, as if to second the
+operations of Torstensohn in Saxony.  But instead of joining the Swedes,
+he soon hurried back to the Rhine and the Maine, from which he seemed to
+think he had removed farther than was expedient.  But being anticipated
+in the Margraviate of Baden, by the Bavarians under Mercy and John de
+Werth, he was obliged to wander about for several weeks, exposed,
+without shelter, to the inclemency of the winter, and generally
+encamping upon the snow, till he found a miserable refuge in Breisgau.
+He at last took the field; and, in the next summer, by keeping the
+Bavarian army employed in Suabia, prevented it from relieving
+Thionville, which was besieged by Conde.  But the superiority of the
+enemy soon drove him back to Alsace, where he awaited a reinforcement.
+
+The death of Cardinal Richelieu took place in November, 1642, and the
+subsequent change in the throne and in the ministry, occasioned by the
+death of Louis XIII., had for some time withdrawn the attention of
+France from the German war, and was the cause of the inaction of its
+troops in the field.  But Mazarin, the inheritor, not only of
+Richelieu's power, but also of his principles and his projects, followed
+out with renewed zeal the plans of his predecessor, though the French
+subject was destined to pay dearly enough for the political greatness of
+his country.  The main strength of its armies, which Richelieu had
+employed against the Spaniards, was by Mazarin directed against the
+Emperor; and the anxiety with which he carried on the war in Germany,
+proved the sincerity of his opinion, that the German army was the right
+arm of his king, and a wall of safety around France.  Immediately upon
+the surrender of Thionville, he sent a considerable reinforcement to
+Field-Marshal Guebriant in Alsace; and to encourage the troops to bear
+the fatigues of the German war, the celebrated victor of Rocroi, the
+Duke of Enghien, afterwards Prince of Conde, was placed at their head.
+Guebriant now felt himself strong enough to appear again in Germany with
+repute.  He hastened across the Rhine with the view of procuring better
+winter quarters in Suabia, and actually made himself master of Rothweil,
+where a Bavarian magazine fell into his hands.  But the place was too
+dearly purchased for its worth, and was again lost even more speedily
+than it had been taken.  Guebriant received a wound in the arm, which
+the surgeon's unskilfulness rendered mortal, and the extent of his loss
+was felt on the very day of his death.
+
+The French army, sensibly weakened by an expedition undertaken at so
+severe a season of the year, had, after the taking of Rothweil,
+withdrawn into the neighbourhood of Duttlingen, where it lay in complete
+security, without expectation of a hostile attack.  In the mean time,
+the enemy collected a considerable force, with a view to prevent the
+French from establishing themselves beyond the Rhine and so near to
+Bavaria, and to protect that quarter from their ravages.  The
+Imperialists, under Hatzfeldt, had formed a junction with the Bavarians
+under Mercy; and the Duke of Lorraine, who, during the whole course of
+the war, was generally found everywhere except in his own duchy, joined
+their united forces.  It was resolved to force the quarters of the
+French in Duttlingen, and the neighbouring villages, by surprise; a
+favourite mode of proceeding in this war, and which, being commonly
+accompanied by confusion, occasioned more bloodshed than a regular
+battle.  On the present occasion, there was the more to justify it, as
+the French soldiers, unaccustomed to such enterprises, conceived
+themselves protected by the severity of the winter against any surprise.
+John de Werth, a master in this species of warfare, which he had often
+put in practice against Gustavus Horn, conducted the enterprise, and
+succeeded, contrary to all expectation.
+
+The attack was made on a side where it was least looked for, on account
+of the woods and narrow passes, and a heavy snow storm which fell upon
+the same day, (the 24th November, 1643,) concealed the approach of the
+vanguard till it halted before Duttlingen.  The whole of the artillery
+without the place, as well as the neighbouring Castle of Honberg, were
+taken without resistance, Duttlingen itself was gradually surrounded by
+the enemy, and all connexion with the other quarters in the adjacent
+villages silently and suddenly cut off.  The French were vanquished
+without firing a cannon.  The cavalry owed their escape to the swiftness
+of their horses, and the few minutes in advance, which they had gained
+upon their pursuers.  The infantry were cut to pieces, or voluntarily
+laid down their arms.  About 2,000 men were killed, and 7,000, with 25
+staff-officers and 90 captains, taken prisoners.  This was, perhaps, the
+only battle, in the whole course of the war, which produced nearly the
+same effect upon the party which gained, and that which lost;--both
+these parties were Germans; the French disgraced themselves.  The memory
+of this unfortunate day, which was renewed 100 years after at Rosbach,
+was indeed erased by the subsequent heroism of a Turenne and Conde; but
+the Germans may be pardoned, if they indemnified themselves for the
+miseries which the policy of France had heaped upon them, by these
+severe reflections upon her intrepidity.
+
+Meantime, this defeat of the French was calculated to prove highly
+disastrous to Sweden, as the whole power of the Emperor might now act
+against them, while the number of their enemies was increased by a
+formidable accession.  Torstensohn had, in September, 1643, suddenly
+left Moravia, and moved into Silesia.  The cause of this step was a
+secret, and the frequent changes which took place in the direction of
+his march, contributed to increase this perplexity.  From Silesia, after
+numberless circuits, he advanced towards the Elbe, while the
+Imperialists followed him into Lusatia.  Throwing a bridge across the
+Elbe at Torgau, he gave out that he intended to penetrate through
+Meissen into the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria; at Barby he also made a
+movement, as if to pass that river, but continued to move down the Elbe
+as far as Havelburg, where he astonished his troops by informing them
+that he was leading them against the Danes in Holstein.
+
+The partiality which Christian IV.  had displayed against the Swedes in
+his office of mediator, the jealousy which led him to do all in his
+power to hinder the progress of their arms, the restraints which he laid
+upon their navigation of the Sound, and the burdens which he imposed
+upon their commerce, had long roused the indignation of Sweden; and, at
+last, when these grievances increased daily, had determined the Regency
+to measures of retaliation.  Dangerous as it seemed, to involve the
+nation in a new war, when, even amidst its conquests, it was almost
+exhausted by the old, the desire of revenge, and the deep-rooted hatred
+which subsisted between Danes and Swedes, prevailed over all other
+considerations; and even the embarrassment in which hostilities with
+Germany had plunged it, only served as an additional motive to try its
+fortune against Denmark.
+
+Matters were, in fact, arrived at last to that extremity, that the war
+was prosecuted merely for the purpose of furnishing food and employment
+to the troops; that good winter quarters formed the chief subject of
+contention; and that success, in this point, was more valued than a
+decisive victory.  But now the provinces of Germany were almost all
+exhausted and laid waste.  They were wholly destitute of provisions,
+horses, and men, which in Holstein were to be found in profusion.  If by
+this movement, Torstensohn should succeed merely in recruiting his army,
+providing subsistence for his horses and soldiers, and remounting his
+cavalry, all the danger and difficulty would be well repaid.  Besides,
+it was highly important, on the eve of negotiations for peace, to
+diminish the injurious influence which Denmark might exercise upon these
+deliberations, to delay the treaty itself, which threatened to be
+prejudicial to the Swedish interests, by sowing confusion among the
+parties interested, and with a view to the amount of indemnification, to
+increase the number of her conquests, in order to be the more sure of
+securing those which alone she was anxious to retain.  Moreover, the
+present state of Denmark justified even greater hopes, if only the
+attempt were executed with rapidity and silence.  The secret was in fact
+so well kept in Stockholm, that the Danish minister had not the
+slightest suspicion of it; and neither France nor Holland were let into
+the scheme.  Actual hostilities commenced with the declaration of war;
+and Torstensohn was in Holstein, before even an attack was expected.
+The Swedish troops, meeting with no resistance, quickly overran this
+duchy, and made themselves masters of all its strong places, except
+Rensburg and Gluckstadt.  Another army penetrated into Schonen, which
+made as little opposition; and nothing but the severity of the season
+prevented the enemy from passing the Lesser Baltic, and carrying the war
+into Funen and Zealand.  The Danish fleet was unsuccessful at Femern;
+and Christian himself, who was on board, lost his right eye by a
+splinter.  Cut off from all communication with the distant force of the
+Emperor, his ally, this king was on the point of seeing his whole
+kingdom overrun by the Swedes; and all things threatened the speedy
+fulfilment of the old prophecy of the famous Tycho Brahe, that in the
+year 1644, Christian IV.  should wander in the greatest misery from his
+dominions.
+
+But the Emperor could not look on with indifference, while Denmark was
+sacrificed to Sweden, and the latter strengthened by so great an
+acquisition.  Notwithstanding great difficulties lay in the way of so
+long a march through desolated provinces, he did not hesitate to
+despatch an army into Holstein under Count Gallas, who, after
+Piccolomini's retirement, had resumed the supreme command of the troops.
+Gallas accordingly appeared in the duchy, took Keil, and hoped, by
+forming a junction with the Danes, to be able to shut up the Swedish
+army in Jutland.  Meantime, the Hessians, and the Swedish General
+Koenigsmark, were kept in check by Hatzfeldt, and the Archbishop of
+Bremen, the son of Christian IV.; and afterwards the Swedes drawn into
+Saxony by an attack upon Meissen.  But Torstensohn, with his augmented
+army, penetrated through the unoccupied pass betwixt Schleswig and
+Stapelholm, met Gallas, and drove him along the whole course of the
+Elbe, as far as Bernburg, where the Imperialists took up an entrenched
+position.  Torstensohn passed the Saal, and by posting himself in the
+rear of the enemy, cut off their communication with Saxony and Bohemia.
+Scarcity and famine began now to destroy them in great numbers, and
+forced them to retreat to Magdeburg, where, however, they were not much
+better off.  The cavalry, which endeavoured to escape into Silesia, was
+overtaken and routed by Torstensohn, near Juterbock; the rest of the
+army, after a vain attempt to fight its way through the Swedish lines,
+was almost wholly destroyed near Magdeburg.  From this expedition,
+Gallas brought back only a few thousand men of all his formidable force,
+and the reputation of being a consummate master in the art of ruining an
+army.  The King of Denmark, after this unsuccessful effort to relieve
+him, sued for peace, which he obtained at Bremsebor in the year 1645,
+under very unfavourable conditions.
+
+Torstensohn rapidly followed up his victory; and while Axel Lilienstern,
+one of the generals who commanded under him, overawed Saxony, and
+Koenigsmark subdued the whole of Bremen, he himself penetrated into
+Bohemia with 16,000 men and 80 pieces of artillery, and endeavoured a
+second time to remove the seat of war into the hereditary dominions of
+Austria.  Ferdinand, upon this intelligence, hastened in person to
+Prague, in order to animate the courage of the people by his presence;
+and as a skilful general was much required, and so little unanimity
+prevailed among the numerous leaders, he hoped in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the war to be able to give more energy and activity.
+In obedience to his orders, Hatzfeldt assembled the whole Austrian and
+Bavarian force, and contrary to his own inclination and advice, formed
+the Emperor's last army, and the last bulwark of his states, in order of
+battle, to meet the enemy, who were approaching, at Jankowitz, on the
+24th of February, 1645.  Ferdinand depended upon his cavalry, which
+outnumbered that of the enemy by 3000, and upon the promise of the
+Virgin Mary, who had appeared to him in a dream, and given him the
+strongest assurances of a complete victory.
+
+The superiority of the Imperialists did not intimidate Torstensohn, who
+was not accustomed to number his antagonists.  On the very first onset,
+the left wing, which Goetz, the general of the League, had entangled in
+a disadvantageous position among marshes and thickets, was totally
+routed; the general, with the greater part of his men, killed, and
+almost the whole ammunition of the army taken.  This unfortunate
+commencement decided the fate of the day.  The Swedes, constantly
+advancing, successively carried all the most commanding heights.  After
+a bloody engagement of eight hours, a desperate attack on the part of
+the Imperial cavalry, and a vigorous resistance by the Swedish infantry,
+the latter remained in possession of the field.  2,000 Austrians were
+killed upon the spot, and Hatzfeldt himself, with 3,000 men, taken
+prisoners.  Thus, on the same day, did the Emperor lose his best general
+and his last army.
+
+This decisive victory at Jancowitz, at once exposed all the Austrian
+territory to the enemy.  Ferdinand hastily fled to Vienna, to provide
+for its defence, and to save his family and his treasures.  In a very
+short time, the victorious Swedes poured, like an inundation, upon
+Moravia and Austria.  After they had subdued nearly the whole of
+Moravia, invested Brunn, and taken all the strongholds as far as the
+Danube, and carried the intrenchments at the Wolf's Bridge, near Vienna,
+they at last appeared in sight of that capital, while the care which
+they had taken to fortify their conquests, showed that their visit was
+not likely to be a short one.  After a long and destructive circuit
+through every province of Germany, the stream of war had at last rolled
+backwards to its source, and the roar of the Swedish artillery now
+reminded the terrified inhabitants of those balls which, twenty-seven
+years before, the Bohemian rebels had fired into Vienna.  The same
+theatre of war brought again similar actors on the scene.  Torstensohn
+invited Ragotsky, the successor of Bethlen Gabor, to his assistance, as
+the Bohemian rebels had solicited that of his predecessor; Upper Hungary
+was already inundated by his troops, and his union with the Swedes was
+daily apprehended.  The Elector of Saxony, driven to despair by the
+Swedes taking up their quarters within his territories, and abandoned by
+the Emperor, who, after the defeat at Jankowitz, was unable to defend
+himself, at length adopted the last and only expedient which remained,
+and concluded a truce with Sweden, which was renewed from year to year,
+till the general peace.  The Emperor thus lost a friend, while a new
+enemy was appearing at his very gates, his armies dispersed, and his
+allies in other quarters of Germany defeated.  The French army had
+effaced the disgrace of their defeat at Deutlingen by a brilliant
+campaign, and had kept the whole force of Bavaria employed upon the
+Rhine and in Suabia.  Reinforced with fresh troops from France, which
+the great Turenne, already distinguished by his victories in Italy,
+brought to the assistance of the Duke of Enghien, they appeared on the
+3rd of August, 1644, before Friburg, which Mercy had lately taken, and
+now covered, with his whole army strongly intrenched.  But against the
+steady firmness of the Bavarians, all the impetuous valour of the French
+was exerted in vain, and after a fruitless sacrifice of 6,000 men, the
+Duke of Enghien was compelled to retreat.  Mazarin shed tears over this
+great loss, which Conde, who had no feeling for anything but glory,
+disregarded.  "A single night in Paris," said he, "gives birth to more
+men than this action has destroyed."  The Bavarians, however, were so
+disabled by this murderous battle, that, far from being in a condition
+to relieve Austria from the menaced dangers, they were too weak even to
+defend the banks of the Rhine.  Spires, Worms, and Manheim capitulated;
+the strong fortress of Philipsburg was forced to surrender by famine;
+and, by a timely submission, Mentz hastened to disarm the conquerors.
+
+Austria and Moravia, however, were now freed from Torstensohn, by a
+similar means of deliverance, as in the beginning of the war had saved
+them from the Bohemians.  Ragotzky, at the head of 25,000 men, had
+advanced into the neighbourhood of the Swedish quarters upon the Danube.
+But these wild undisciplined hordes, instead of seconding the operations
+of Torstensohn by any vigorous enterprise, only ravaged the country, and
+increased the distress which, even before their arrival, had begun to be
+felt in the Swedish camp.  To extort tribute from the Emperor, and money
+and plunder from his subjects, was the sole object that had allured
+Ragotzky, or his predecessor, Bethlen Gabor, into the field; and both
+departed as soon as they had gained their end.  To get rid of him,
+Ferdinand granted the barbarian whatever he asked, and, by a small
+sacrifice, freed his states of this formidable enemy.
+
+In the mean time, the main body of the Swedes had been greatly weakened
+by a tedious encampment before Brunn.  Torstensohn, who commanded in
+person, for four entire months employed in vain all his knowledge of
+military tactics; the obstinacy of the resistance was equal to that of
+the assault; while despair roused the courage of Souches, the
+commandant, a Swedish deserter, who had no hope of pardon.  The ravages
+caused by pestilence, arising from famine, want of cleanliness, and the
+use of unripe fruit, during their tedious and unhealthy encampment, with
+the sudden retreat of the Prince of Transylvania, at last compelled the
+Swedish leader to raise the siege.  As all the passes upon the Danube
+were occupied, and his army greatly weakened by famine and sickness, he
+at last relinquished his intended plan of operations against Austria and
+Moravia, and contented himself with securing a key to these provinces,
+by leaving behind him Swedish garrisons in the conquered fortresses.  He
+then directed his march into Bohemia, whither he was followed by the
+Imperialists, under the Archduke Leopold.  Such of the lost places as
+had not been retaken by the latter, were recovered, after his departure,
+by the Austrian General Bucheim; so that, in the course of the following
+year, the Austrian frontier was again cleared of the enemy, and Vienna
+escaped with mere alarm.  In Bohemia and Silesia too, the Swedes
+maintained themselves only with a very variable fortune; they traversed
+both countries, without being able to hold their ground in either.  But
+if the designs of Torstensohn were not crowned with all the success
+which they were promised at the commencement, they were, nevertheless,
+productive of the most important consequences to the Swedish party.
+Denmark had been compelled to a peace, Saxony to a truce.  The Emperor,
+in the deliberations for a peace, offered greater concessions; France
+became more manageable; and Sweden itself bolder and more confident in
+its bearing towards these two crowns.  Having thus nobly performed his
+duty, the author of these advantages retired, adorned with laurels, into
+the tranquillity of private life, and endeavoured to restore his
+shattered health.
+
+By the retreat of Torstensohn, the Emperor was relieved from all fears
+of an irruption on the side of Bohemia.  But a new danger soon
+threatened the Austrian frontier from Suabia and Bavaria.  Turenne, who
+had separated from Conde, and taken the direction of Suabia, had, in the
+year 1645, been totally defeated by Mercy, near Mergentheim; and the
+victorious Bavarians, under their brave leader, poured into Hesse.  But
+the Duke of Enghien hastened with considerable succours from Alsace,
+Koenigsmark from Moravia, and the Hessians from the Rhine, to recruit
+the defeated army, and the Bavarians were in turn compelled to retire to
+the extreme limits of Suabia.  Here they posted themselves at the
+village of Allersheim, near Nordlingen, in order to cover the Bavarian
+frontier.  But no obstacle could check the impetuosity of the Duke of
+Enghien.  In person, he led on his troops against the enemy's
+entrenchments, and a battle took place, which the heroic resistance of
+the Bavarians rendered most obstinate and bloody; till at last the death
+of the great Mercy, the skill of Turenne, and the iron firmness of the
+Hessians, decided the day in favour of the allies.  But even this second
+barbarous sacrifice of life had little effect either on the course of
+the war, or on the negociations for peace.  The French army, exhausted
+by this bloody engagement, was still farther weakened by the departure
+of the Hessians, and the Bavarians being reinforced by the Archduke
+Leopold, Turenne was again obliged hastily to recross the Rhine.
+
+The retreat of the French, enabled the enemy to turn his whole force
+upon the Swedes in Bohemia.  Gustavus Wrangel, no unworthy successor of
+Banner and Torstensohn, had, in 1646, been appointed Commander-in-chief
+of the Swedish army, which, besides Koenigsmark's flying corps and the
+numerous garrisons disposed throughout the empire, amounted to about
+8,000 horse, and 15,000 foot.  The Archduke, after reinforcing his army,
+which already amounted to 24,000 men, with twelve Bavarian regiments of
+cavalry, and eighteen regiments of infantry, moved against Wrangel, in
+the hope of being able to overwhelm him by his superior force before
+Koenigsmark could join him, or the French effect a diversion in his
+favour.  Wrangel, however, did not await him, but hastened through Upper
+Saxony to the Weser, where he took Hoester and Paderborn.  From thence
+he marched into Hesse, in order to join Turenne, and at his camp at
+Wetzlar, was joined by the flying corps of Koenigsmark.  But Turenne,
+fettered by the instructions of Mazarin, who had seen with jealousy the
+warlike prowess and increasing power of the Swedes, excused himself on
+the plea of a pressing necessity to defend the frontier of France on the
+side of the Netherlands, in consequence of the Flemings having failed to
+make the promised diversion.  But as Wrangel continued to press his just
+demand, and a longer opposition might have excited distrust on the part
+of the Swedes, or induce them to conclude a private treaty with Austria,
+Turenne at last obtained the wished for permission to join the Swedish
+army.
+
+The junction took place at Giessen, and they now felt themselves strong
+enough to meet the enemy.  The latter had followed the Swedes into
+Hesse, in order to intercept their commissariat, and to prevent their
+union with Turenne.  In both designs they had been unsuccessful; and the
+Imperialists now saw themselves cut off from the Maine, and exposed to
+great scarcity and want from the loss of their magazines.  Wrangel took
+advantage of their weakness, to execute a plan by which he hoped to give
+a new turn to the war.  He, too, had adopted the maxim of his
+predecessor, to carry the war into the Austrian States.  But discouraged
+by the ill success of Torstensohn's enterprise, he hoped to gain his end
+with more certainty by another way.  He determined to follow the course
+of the Danube, and to break into the Austrian territories through the
+midst of Bavaria.  A similar design had been formerly conceived by
+Gustavus Adolphus, which he had been prevented carrying into effect by
+the approach of Wallenstein's army, and the danger of Saxony.  Duke
+Bernard moving in his footsteps, and more fortunate than Gustavus, had
+spread his victorious banners between the Iser and the Inn; but the near
+approach of the enemy, vastly superior in force, obliged him to halt in
+his victorious career, and lead back his troops.  Wrangel now hoped to
+accomplish the object in which his predecessors had failed, the more so,
+as the Imperial and Bavarian army was far in his rear upon the Lahn, and
+could only reach Bavaria by a long march through Franconia and the Upper
+Palatinate.  He moved hastily upon the Danube, defeated a Bavarian corps
+near Donauwerth, and passed that river, as well as the Lech, unopposed.
+But by wasting his time in the unsuccessful siege of Augsburg, he gave
+opportunity to the Imperialists, not only to relieve that city, but also
+to repulse him as far as Lauingen.  No sooner, however, had they turned
+towards Suabia, with a view to remove the war from Bavaria, than,
+seizing the opportunity, he repassed the Lech, and guarded the passage
+of it against the Imperialists themselves.  Bavaria now lay open and
+defenceless before him; the French and Swedes quickly overran it; and
+the soldiery indemnified themselves for all dangers by frightful
+outrages, robberies, and extortions.  The arrival of the Imperial
+troops, who at last succeeded in passing the Lech at Thierhaupten, only
+increased the misery of this country, which friend and foe
+indiscriminately plundered.
+
+And now, for the first time during the whole course of this war, the
+courage of Maximilian, which for eight-and-twenty years had stood
+unshaken amidst fearful dangers, began to waver.  Ferdinand II., his
+school-companion at Ingoldstadt, and the friend of his youth, was no
+more; and with the death of his friend and benefactor, the strong tie
+was dissolved which had linked the Elector to the House of Austria.  To
+the father, habit, inclination, and gratitude had attached him; the son
+was a stranger to his heart, and political interests alone could
+preserve his fidelity to the latter prince.
+
+Accordingly, the motives which the artifices of France now put in
+operation, in order to detach him from the Austrian alliance, and to
+induce him to lay down his arms, were drawn entirely from political
+considerations.  It was not without a selfish object that Mazarin had so
+far overcome his jealousy of the growing power of the Swedes, as to
+allow the French to accompany them into Bavaria.  His intention was to
+expose Bavaria to all the horrors of war, in the hope that the
+persevering fortitude of Maximilian might be subdued by necessity and
+despair, and the Emperor deprived of his first and last ally.
+Brandenburg had, under its great sovereign, embraced the neutrality;
+Saxony had been forced to accede to it; the war with France prevented
+the Spaniards from taking any part in that of Germany; the peace with
+Sweden had removed Denmark from the theatre of war; and Poland had been
+disarmed by a long truce.  If they could succeed in detaching the
+Elector of Bavaria also from the Austrian alliance, the Emperor would be
+without a friend in Germany and left to the mercy of the allied powers.
+
+Ferdinand III.  saw his danger, and left no means untried to avert it.
+But the Elector of Bavaria was unfortunately led to believe that the
+Spaniards alone were disinclined to peace, and that nothing, but Spanish
+influence, had induced the Emperor so long to resist a cessation of
+hostilities.  Maximilian detested the Spaniards, and could never forgive
+their having opposed his application for the Palatine Electorate.  Could
+it then be supposed that, in order to gratify this hated power, he would
+see his people sacrificed, his country laid waste, and himself ruined,
+when, by a cessation of hostilities, he could at once emancipate himself
+from all these distresses, procure for his people the repose of which
+they stood so much in need, and perhaps accelerate the arrival of a
+general peace? All doubts disappeared; and, convinced of the necessity
+of this step, he thought he should sufficiently discharge his
+obligations to the Emperor, if he invited him also to share in the
+benefit of the truce.
+
+The deputies of the three crowns, and of Bavaria, met at Ulm, to adjust
+the conditions.  But it was soon evident, from the instructions of the
+Austrian ambassadors that it was not the intention of the Emperor to
+second the conclusion of a truce, but if possible to prevent it.  It was
+obviously necessary to make the terms acceptable to the Swedes, who had
+the advantage, and had more to hope than to fear from the continuance of
+the war.  They were the conquerors; and yet the Emperor presumed to
+dictate to them.  In the first transports of their indignation, the
+Swedish ambassadors were on the point of leaving the congress, and the
+French were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to detain them.
+
+The good intentions of the Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in
+the benefit of the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt
+himself justified in providing for his own safety.  However hard were
+the conditions on which the truce was to be purchased, he did not
+hesitate to accept it on any terms.  He agreed to the Swedes extending
+their quarters in Suabia and Franconia, and to his own being restricted
+to Bavaria and the Palatinate.  The conquests which he had made in
+Suabia were ceded to the allies, who, on their part, restored to him
+what they had taken from Bavaria.  Cologne and Hesse Cassel were also
+included in the truce.  After the conclusion of this treaty, upon the
+14th March, 1647, the French and Swedes left Bavaria, and in order not
+to interfere with each other, took up different quarters; the former in
+Wuertemberg, the latter in Upper Suabia, in the neighbourhood of the
+Lake of Constance.  On the extreme north of this lake, and on the most
+southern frontier of Suabia, the Austrian town of Bregentz, by its steep
+and narrow passes, seemed to defy attack; and in this persuasion, the
+whole peasantry of the surrounding villages had with their property
+taken refuge in this natural fortress.  The rich booty, which the store
+of provisions it contained, gave reason to expect, and the advantage of
+possessing a pass into the Tyrol, Switzerland and Italy, induced the
+Swedish general to venture an attack upon this supposed impregnable post
+and town, in which he succeeded.  Meantime, Turenne, according to
+agreement, marched into Wuertemberg, where he forced the Landgrave of
+Darmstadt and the Elector of Mentz to imitate the example of Bavaria,
+and to embrace the neutrality.
+
+And now, at last, France seemed to have attained the great object of its
+policy, that of depriving the Emperor of the support of the League, and
+of his Protestant allies, and of dictating to him, sword in hand, the
+conditions of peace.  Of all his once formidable power, an army, not
+exceeding 12,000, was all that remained to him; and this force he was
+driven to the necessity of entrusting to the command of a Calvinist, the
+Hessian deserter Melander, as the casualties of war had stripped him of
+his best generals.  But as this war had been remarkable for the sudden
+changes of fortune it displayed; and as every calculation of state
+policy had been frequently baffled by some unforeseen event, in this
+case also the issue disappointed expectation; and after a brief crisis,
+the fallen power of Austria rose again to a formidable strength.  The
+jealousy which France entertained of Sweden, prevented it from
+permitting the total ruin of the Emperor, or allowing the Swedes to
+obtain such a preponderance in Germany, as might have been destructive
+to France herself.  Accordingly, the French minister declined to take
+advantage of the distresses of Austria; and the army of Turenne,
+separating from that of Wrangel, retired to the frontiers of the
+Netherlands.  Wrangel, indeed, after moving from Suabia into Franconia,
+taking Schweinfurt, and incorporating the imperial garrison of that
+place with his own army, attempted to make his way into Bohemia, and
+laid siege to Egra, the key of that kingdom.  To relieve this fortress,
+the Emperor put his last army in motion, and placed himself at its head.
+But obliged to take a long circuit, in order to spare the lands of Von
+Schlick, the president of the council of war, he protracted his march;
+and on his arrival, Egra was already taken.  Both armies were now in
+sight of each other; and a decisive battle was momentarily expected, as
+both were suffering from want, and the two camps were only separated
+from each other by the space of the entrenchments.  But the
+Imperialists, although superior in numbers, contented themselves with
+keeping close to the enemy, and harassing them by skirmishes, by
+fatiguing marches and famine, until the negociations which had been
+opened with Bavaria were brought to a bearing.
+
+The neutrality of Bavaria, was a wound under which the Imperial court
+writhed impatiently; and after in vain attempting to prevent it, Austria
+now determined, if possible, to turn it to advantage.  Several officers
+of the Bavarian army had been offended by this step of their master,
+which at once reduced them to inaction, and imposed a burdensome
+restraint on their restless disposition.  Even the brave John de Werth
+was at the head of the malcontents, and encouraged by the Emperor, he
+formed a plot to seduce the whole army from their allegiance to the
+Elector, and lead it over to the Emperor.  Ferdinand did not blush to
+patronize this act of treachery against his father's most trusty ally.
+He formally issued a proclamation to the Bavarian troops, in which he
+recalled them to himself, reminded them that they were the troops of the
+empire, which the Elector had merely commanded in name of the Emperor.
+Fortunately for Maximilian, he detected the conspiracy in time enough to
+anticipate and prevent it by the most rapid and effective measures.
+
+This disgraceful conduct of the Emperor might have justified a reprisal,
+but Maximilian was too old a statesman to listen to the voice of
+passion, where policy alone ought to be heard.  He had not derived from
+the truce the advantages he expected.  Far from tending to accelerate a
+general peace, it had a pernicious influence upon the negociations at
+Munster and Osnaburg, and had made the allies bolder in their demands.
+The French and Swedes had indeed removed from Bavaria; but, by the loss
+of his quarters in the Suabian circle, he found himself compelled either
+to exhaust his own territories by the subsistence of his troops, or at
+once to disband them, and to throw aside the shield and spear, at the
+very moment when the sword alone seemed to be the arbiter of right.
+Before embracing either of these certain evils, he determined to try a
+third step, the unfavourable issue of which was at least not so certain,
+viz., to renounce the truce and resume the war.
+
+This resolution, and the assistance which he immediately despatched to
+the Emperor in Bohemia, threatened materially to injure the Swedes, and
+Wrangel was compelled in haste to evacuate that kingdom.  He retired
+through Thuringia into Westphalia and Lunenburg, in the hope of forming
+a junction with the French army under Turenne, while the Imperial and
+Bavarian army followed him to the Weser, under Melander and Gronsfeld.
+His ruin was inevitable, if the enemy should overtake him before his
+junction with Turenne; but the same consideration which had just saved
+the Emperor, now proved the salvation of the Swedes.  Even amidst all
+the fury of the conquest, cold calculations of prudence guided the
+course of the war, and the vigilance of the different courts increased,
+as the prospect of peace approached.  The Elector of Bavaria could not
+allow the Emperor to obtain so decisive a preponderance as, by the
+sudden alteration of affairs, might delay the chances of a general
+peace.  Every change of fortune was important now, when a pacification
+was so ardently desired by all, and when the disturbance of the balance
+of power among the contracting parties might at once annihilate the work
+of years, destroy the fruit of long and tedious negociations, and
+indefinitely protract the repose of Europe.  If France sought to
+restrain the Swedish crown within due bounds, and measured out her
+assistance according to her successes and defeats, the Elector of
+Bavaria silently undertook the same task with the Emperor his ally, and
+determined, by prudently dealing out his aid, to hold the fate of
+Austria in his own hands.  And now that the power of the Emperor
+threatened once more to attain a dangerous superiority, Maximilian at
+once ceased to pursue the Swedes.  He was also afraid of reprisals from
+France, who had threatened to direct Turenne's whole force against him
+if he allowed his troops to cross the Weser.
+
+Melander, prevented by the Bavarians from further pursuing Wrangel,
+crossed by Jena and Erfurt into Hesse, and now appeared as a dangerous
+enemy in the country which he had formerly defended.  If it was the
+desire of revenge upon his former sovereign, which led him to choose
+Hesse for the scene of his ravage, he certainly had his full
+gratification.  Under this scourge, the miseries of that unfortunate
+state reached their height.  But he had soon reason to regret that, in
+the choice of his quarters, he had listened to the dictates of revenge
+rather than of prudence.  In this exhausted country, his army was
+oppressed by want, while Wrangel was recruiting his strength, and
+remounting his cavalry in Lunenburg.  Too weak to maintain his wretched
+quarters against the Swedish general, when he opened the campaign in the
+winter of 1648, and marched against Hesse, he was obliged to retire with
+disgrace, and take refuge on the banks of the Danube.
+
+France had once more disappointed the expectations of Sweden; and the
+army of Turenne, disregarding the remonstrances of Wrangel, had remained
+upon the Rhine.  The Swedish leader revenged himself, by drawing into
+his service the cavalry of Weimar, which had abandoned the standard of
+France, though, by this step, he farther increased the jealousy of that
+power.  Turenne received permission to join the Swedes; and the last
+campaign of this eventful war was now opened by the united armies.
+Driving Melander before them along the Danube, they threw supplies into
+Egra, which was besieged by the Imperialists, and defeated the Imperial
+and Bavarian armies on the Danube, which ventured to oppose them at
+Susmarshausen, where Melander was mortally wounded.  After this
+overthrow, the Bavarian general, Gronsfeld, placed himself on the
+farther side of the Lech, in order to guard Bavaria from the enemy.
+
+But Gronsfeld was not more fortunate than Tilly, who, in this same
+position, had sacrificed his life for Bavaria.  Wrangel and Turenne
+chose the same spot for passing the river, which was so gloriously
+marked by the victory of Gustavus Adolphus, and accomplished it by the
+same means, too, which had favoured their predecessor.  Bavaria was now
+a second time overrun, and the breach of the truce punished by the
+severest treatment of its inhabitants.  Maximilian sought shelter in
+Salzburgh, while the Swedes crossed the Iser, and forced their way as
+far as the Inn.  A violent and continued rain, which in a few days
+swelled this inconsiderable stream into a broad river, saved Austria
+once more from the threatened danger.  The enemy ten times attempted to
+form a bridge of boats over the Inn, and as often it was destroyed by
+the current.  Never, during the whole course of the war, had the
+Imperialists been in so great consternation as at present, when the
+enemy were in the centre of Bavaria, and when they had no longer a
+general left who could be matched against a Turenne, a Wrangel, and a
+Koenigsmark.  At last the brave Piccolomini arrived from the
+Netherlands, to assume the command of the feeble wreck of the
+Imperialists.  By their own ravages in Bohemia, the allies had rendered
+their subsistence in that country impracticable, and were at last driven
+by scarcity to retreat into the Upper Palatinate, where the news of the
+peace put a period to their activity.
+
+Koenigsmark, with his flying corps, advanced towards Bohemia, where
+Ernest Odowalsky, a disbanded captain, who, after being disabled in the
+imperial service, had been dismissed without a pension, laid before him
+a plan for surprising the lesser side of the city of Prague.
+Koenigsmark successfully accomplished the bold enterprise, and acquired
+the reputation of closing the thirty years' war by the last brilliant
+achievement.  This decisive stroke, which vanquished the Emperor's
+irresolution, cost the Swedes only the loss of a single man.  But the
+old town, the larger half of Prague, which is divided into two parts by
+the Moldau, by its vigorous resistance wearied out the efforts of the
+Palatine, Charles Gustavus, the successor of Christina on the throne,
+who had arrived from Sweden with fresh troops, and had assembled the
+whole Swedish force in Bohemia and Silesia before its walls.  The
+approach of winter at last drove the besiegers into their quarters, and
+in the mean time, the intelligence arrived that a peace had been signed
+at Munster, on the 24th October.
+
+The colossal labour of concluding this solemn, and ever memorable and
+sacred treaty, which is known by the name of the peace of Westphalia;
+the endless obstacles which were to be surmounted; the contending
+interests which it was necessary to reconcile; the concatenation of
+circumstances which must have co-operated to bring to a favourable
+termination this tedious, but precious and permanent work of policy; the
+difficulties which beset the very opening of the negociations, and
+maintaining them, when opened, during the ever-fluctuating vicissitudes
+of the war; finally, arranging the conditions of peace, and still more,
+the carrying them into effect; what were the conditions of this peace;
+what each contending power gained or lost, by the toils and sufferings
+of a thirty years' war; what modification it wrought upon the general
+system of European policy;--these are matters which must be relinquished
+to another pen.  The history of the peace of Westphalia constitutes a
+whole, as important as the history of the war itself.  A mere abridgment
+of it, would reduce to a mere skeleton one of the most interesting and
+characteristic monuments of human policy and passions, and deprive it of
+every feature calculated to fix the attention of the public, for which I
+write, and of which I now respectfully take my leave.
+
+
+
+
+[Note From the first PG etext of this work:
+Separate sources indicate that at the beginning of this war there were
+about 15 million people in Germany, and at the end of the war there were
+about 4 million.  If this is not surprising enough, war broke out again
+only 10 years after the conclusion of this war.]
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30 YEARS WAR, BY SCHILLER, COMPLETE ***
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+*********** This file should be named 1jcfs10a.txt or 1jcfs10a.zip ***********
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+
+Project Gutenberg's The Thirty Years War, Complete, by Friedrich Schiller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Thirty Years War, Complete
+
+Author: Friedrich Schiller
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2006 [EBook #6775]
+Last Updated: November 6, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTY YEARS WAR, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <h1>
+      THE WORKS
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      OF
+    </h3>
+    <h1>
+      FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
+    </h1>
+    <h4>
+      Translated from the German
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      Illustrated
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="TITLEPAGE" src="images/1titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="FRONTISPIECE" src="images/1frontpiece.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The present is the best collected edition of the important works of
+      Schiller which is accessible to readers in the English language. Detached
+      poems or dramas have been translated at various times since the first
+      publication of the original works; and in several instances these versions
+      have been incorporated into this collection. 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 be surpassed, and will always
+      recommend them as popular expositions of the periods of which they treat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the publication of the first English edition many corrections and
+      improvements have been made, with a view to rendering it as acceptable as
+      possible to English readers; and, notwithstanding the disadvantages of a
+      translation, the publishers feel sure that Schiller will be heartily
+      acceptable to English readers, and that the influence of his writings will
+      continue to increase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE HISTORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS was translated by Lieut. E.
+      B. Eastwick, and originally published abroad for students' use. But this
+      translation was too strictly literal for general readers. It has been
+      carefully revised, and some portions have been entirely rewritten by the
+      Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, who also has so ably translated the HISTORY OF THE
+      THIRTY YEARS WAR.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CAMP OF WALLENSTEIN was translated by Mr. James Churchill, and first
+      appeared in "Frazer's Magazine." It is an exceedingly happy version of
+      what has always been deemed the most untranslatable of Schiller's works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PICCOLOMINI and DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN are the admirable version of S.
+      T. Coleridge, completed by the addition of all those passages which he has
+      omitted, and by a restoration of Schiller's own arrangement of the acts
+      and scenes. It is said, in defence of the variations which exist between
+      the German original and the version given by Coleridge, that he translated
+      from a prompter's copy in manuscript, before the drama had been printed,
+      and that Schiller himself subsequently altered it, by omitting some
+      passages, adding others, and even engrafting several of Coleridge's
+      adaptations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WILHELM TELL is translated by Theodore Martin, Esq., whose well-known
+      position as a writer, and whose special acquaintance with German
+      literature make any recommendation superfluous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DON CARLOS is translated by R. D. Boylan, Esq., and, in the opinion of
+      competent judges, the version is eminently successful. Mr. Theodore Martin
+      kindly gave some assistance, and, it is but justice to state, has enhanced
+      the value of the work by his judicious suggestions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The translation of MARY STUART is that by the late Joseph Mellish, who
+      appears to have been on terms of intimate friendship with Schiller. His
+      version was made from the prompter's copy, before the play was published,
+      and, like Coleridge's Wallenstein, contains many passages not found in the
+      printed edition. These are distinguished by brackets. On the other hand,
+      Mr. Mellish omitted many passages which now form part of the printed
+      drama, all of which are now added. The translation, as a whole, stands out
+      from similar works of the time (1800) in almost as marked a degree as
+      Coleridge's Wallenstein, and some passages exhibit powers of a high order;
+      a few, however, especially in the earlier scenes, seemed capable of
+      improvement, and these have been revised, but, in deference to the
+      translator, with a sparing hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE MAID OF ORLEANS is contributed by Miss Anna Swanwick, whose
+      translation of Faust has since become well known. It has been. carefully
+      revised, and is now, for the first time, published complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE BRIDE OF MESSINA, which has been regarded as the poetical masterpiece
+      of Schiller, and, perhaps of all his works, presents the greatest
+      difficulties to the translator, is rendered by A. Lodge, Esq., M. A. This
+      version, on its first publication in England, a few years ago, was
+      received with deserved eulogy by distinguished critics. To the present
+      edition has been prefixed Schiller's Essay on the Use of the Chorus in
+      Tragedy, in which the author's favorite theory of the "Ideal of Art" is
+      enforced with great ingenuity and eloquence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY.
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOOK I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> BOOK II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> BOOK III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> BOOK IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> BOOK V. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Contents:
+    </h2>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        <br /><br />Book I. Introduction.&mdash;General effects of the
+        Reformation.&mdash;Revolt of Matthias. &mdash;The Emperor cedes Austria
+        and Hungary to him.&mdash;Matthias acknowledged King of Bohemia.&mdash;The
+        Elector of Cologne abjures the Catholic Religion. &mdash;Consequences.&mdash;The
+        Elector Palatine.&mdash;Dispute respecting the Succession of Juliers.&mdash;Designs
+        of Henry IV. of France.&mdash;Formation of the Union.&mdash;The League.&mdash;Death
+        of the Emperor Rodolph.&mdash;Matthias succeeds him.&mdash;Troubles in
+        Bohemia.&mdash;Civil War.&mdash;Ferdinand extirpates the Protestant
+        Religion from Styria.&mdash;The Elector Palatine, Frederick V., is
+        chosen King by the Bohemians.&mdash;He accepts the Crown of Bohemia.&mdash;
+        Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, invades Austria.&mdash;The Duke
+        of Bavaria and the Princes of the League embrace the cause of Ferdinand.&mdash;
+        The Union arm for Frederick.&mdash;The Battle of Prague and total
+        subjection of Bohemia. <br /> <br /><br />Book II. State of the Empire.&mdash;Of
+        Europe.&mdash;Mansfeld.&mdash;Christian, Duke of Brunswick.&mdash;Wallenstein
+        raises an Imperial Army at his own expense. &mdash;The King of Denmark
+        defeated.&mdash;Death of Mansfeld.&mdash;Edict of Restitution in 1628.&mdash;Diet
+        at Ratisbon.&mdash;Negociations.&mdash;Wallenstein deprived of the
+        Command.&mdash;Gustavus Adolphus.&mdash;Swedish Army.&mdash;Gustavus
+        Adolphus takes his leave of the States at Stockholm.&mdash;Invasion by
+        the Swedes.&mdash;Their progress in Germany.&mdash;Count Tilly takes the
+        Command of the Imperial Troops.&mdash;Treaty with France.&mdash;Congress
+        at Leipzig.&mdash;Siege and cruel fate of Magdeburg.&mdash;Firmness of
+        the Landgrave of Cassel.&mdash; Junction of the Saxons with the Swedes.&mdash;Battle
+        of Leipzig.&mdash; Consequences of that Victory. <br /> <br /><br />Book
+        III. Situation of Gustavus Adolphus after the Battle of Leipzig.&mdash;Progress
+        of Gustavus Adolphus.&mdash;The French invade Lorraine.&mdash;Frankfort
+        taken.&mdash; Capitulation of Mentz.&mdash;Tilly ordered by Maximilian
+        to protect Bavaria. &mdash;Gustavus Adolphus passes the Lech.&mdash;Defeat
+        and Death of Tilly.&mdash; Gustavus takes Munich.&mdash;The Saxon Army
+        invades Bohemia, and takes Prague.&mdash;Distress of the Emperor.&mdash;Secret
+        Triumph of Wallenstein.&mdash; He offers to Join Gustavus Adolphus.&mdash;Wallenstein
+        re-assumes the Command.&mdash;Junction of Wallenstein with the
+        Bavarians.&mdash;Gustavus Adolphus defends Nuremberg.&mdash;Attacks
+        Wallenstein's Intrenchments.&mdash;Enters Saxony.&mdash;Goes to the
+        succour of the Elector of Saxony.&mdash;Marches against Wallenstein.&mdash;Battle
+        of Lutzen.&mdash;Death of Gustavus Adolphus.&mdash;Situation of Germany
+        after the Battle of Lutzen. <br /> <br /><br />Book IV. Closer Alliance
+        between France and Sweden.&mdash;Oxenstiern takes the Direction of
+        Affairs.&mdash;Death of the Elector Palatine.&mdash;Revolt of the
+        Swedish Officers.&mdash;Duke Bernhard takes Ratisbon.&mdash;Wallenstein
+        enters Silesia.&mdash;Forms Treasonable Designs.&mdash;Forsaken by the
+        Army.&mdash;Retires to Egra.&mdash;His associates put to death.&mdash;Wallenstein's
+        death.&mdash;His Character. <br /> <br /><br />Book V. Battle of
+        Nordlingen.&mdash;France enters into an Alliance against Austria.&mdash;
+        Treaty of Prague.&mdash;Saxony joins the Emperor.&mdash;Battle of
+        Wistock gained by the Swedes.&mdash;Battle of Rheinfeld gained by
+        Bernhard, Duke of Weimar. &mdash;He takes Brisach.&mdash;His death.&mdash;Death
+        of Ferdinand II.&mdash;Ferdinand III. succeeds him.&mdash;Celebrated
+        Retreat of Banner in Pomerania.&mdash;His Successes.&mdash;Death.&mdash;Torstensohn
+        takes the Command.&mdash;Death of Richelieu and Louis XIII.&mdash;Swedish
+        Victory at Jankowitz.&mdash;French defeated at Freyburg.&mdash;Battle of
+        Nordlingen gained by Turenne and Conde.&mdash;Wrangel takes the Command
+        of the Swedish Army.&mdash;Melander made Commander of the Emperor's
+        Army.&mdash;The Elector of Bavaria breaks the Armistice.&mdash;He adopts
+        the same Policy towards the Emperor as France towards the Swedes.&mdash;The
+        Weimerian Cavalry go over to the Swedes.&mdash;Conquest of New Prague by
+        Koenigsmark, and Termination of the Thirty Years' War.
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this irreconcileable enemy of the Reformation&mdash;the House of
+      Austria &mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   [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&mdash;Ed.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?&mdash;if from Protestants they borrowed the weapons
+      against Protestants?&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But however divided on other points, they concurred in this&mdash;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&mdash;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;&mdash;their bitter hatred left no hope of magnanimity or
+      forbearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this critical moment, when only a supple policy, united with a vigorous
+      arm, could have maintained the tranquillity of the Empire, its evil genius
+      gave it a Rodolph for Emperor. At a more peaceful period the Germanic
+      Union would have managed its own interests, and Rodolph, like so many
+      others of his rank, might have hidden his deficiencies in a mysterious
+      obscurity. But the urgent demand for the qualities in which he was most
+      deficient revealed his incapacity. The position of Germany called for an
+      emperor who, by his known energies, could give weight to his resolves; and
+      the hereditary dominions of Rodolph, considerable as they were, were at
+      present in a situation to occasion the greatest embarrassment to the
+      governors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Austrian princes, it is true were Roman Catholics, and in addition to
+      that, the supporters of Popery, but their countries were far from being
+      so. The reformed opinions had penetrated even these, and favoured by
+      Ferdinand's necessities and Maximilian's mildness, had met with a rapid
+      success. The Austrian provinces exhibited in miniature what Germany did on
+      a larger scale. The great nobles and the ritter class or knights were
+      chiefly evangelical, and in the cities the Protestants had a decided
+      preponderance. If they succeeded in bringing a few of their party into the
+      country, they contrived imperceptibly to fill all places of trust and the
+      magistracy with their own adherents, and to exclude the Catholics. Against
+      the numerous order of the nobles and knights, and the deputies from the
+      towns, the voice of a few prelates was powerless; and the unseemly
+      ridicule and offensive contempt of the former soon drove them entirely
+      from the provincial diets. Thus the whole of the Austrian Diet had
+      imperceptibly become Protestant, and the Reformation was making rapid
+      strides towards its public recognition. The prince was dependent on the
+      Estates, who had it in their power to grant or refuse supplies.
+      Accordingly, they availed themselves of the financial necessities of
+      Ferdinand and his son to extort one religious concession after another. To
+      the nobles and knights, Maximilian at last conceded the free exercise of
+      their religion, but only within their own territories and castles. The
+      intemperate enthusiasm of the Protestant preachers overstepped the
+      boundaries which prudence had prescribed. In defiance of the express
+      prohibition, several of them ventured to preach publicly, not only in the
+      towns, but in Vienna itself, and the people flocked in crowds to this new
+      doctrine, the best seasoning of which was personality and abuse. Thus
+      continued food was supplied to fanaticism, and the hatred of two churches,
+      that were such near neighbours, was farther envenomed by the sting of an
+      impure zeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, Hungary and
+      Transylvania were the most unstable, and the most difficult to retain. The
+      impossibility of holding these two countries against the neighbouring and
+      overwhelming power of the Turks, had already driven Ferdinand to the
+      inglorious expedient of recognizing, by an annual tribute, the Porte's
+      supremacy over Transylvania; a shameful confession of weakness, and a
+      still more dangerous temptation to the turbulent nobility, when they
+      fancied they had any reason to complain of their master. Not without
+      conditions had the Hungarians submitted to the House of Austria. They
+      asserted the elective freedom of their crown, and boldly contended for all
+      those prerogatives of their order which are inseparable from this freedom
+      of election. The near neighbourhood of Turkey, the facility of changing
+      masters with impunity, encouraged the magnates still more in their
+      presumption; discontented with the Austrian government they threw
+      themselves into the arms of the Turks; dissatisfied with these, they
+      returned again to their German sovereigns. The frequency and rapidity of
+      these transitions from one government to another, had communicated its
+      influences also to their mode of thinking; and as their country wavered
+      between the Turkish and Austrian rule, so their minds vacillated between
+      revolt and submission. The more unfortunate each nation felt itself in
+      being degraded into a province of a foreign kingdom, the stronger desire
+      did they feel to obey a monarch chosen from amongst themselves, and thus
+      it was always easy for an enterprising noble to obtain their support. The
+      nearest Turkish pasha was always ready to bestow the Hungarian sceptre and
+      crown on a rebel against Austria; just as ready was Austria to confirm to
+      any adventurer the possession of provinces which he had wrested from the
+      Porte, satisfied with preserving thereby the shadow of authority, and with
+      erecting at the same time a barrier against the Turks. In this way several
+      of these magnates, Batbori, Boschkai, Ragoczi, and Bethlen succeeded in
+      establishing themselves, one after another, as tributary sovereigns in
+      Transylvania and Hungary; and they maintained their ground by no deeper
+      policy than that of occasionally joining the enemy, in order to render
+      themselves more formidable to their own prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Rodolph, who were all sovereigns of Hungary and
+      Transylvania, exhausted their other territories in endeavouring to defend
+      these from the hostile inroads of the Turks, and to put down intestine
+      rebellion. In this quarter destructive wars were succeeded but by brief
+      truces, which were scarcely less hurtful: far and wide the land lay waste,
+      while the injured serf had to complain equally of his enemy and his
+      protector. Into these countries also the Reformation had penetrated; and
+      protected by the freedom of the States, and under the cover of the
+      internal disorders, had made a noticeable progress. Here too it was
+      incautiously attacked, and party spirit thus became yet more dangerous
+      from religious enthusiasm. Headed by a bold rebel, Boschkai, the nobles of
+      Hungary and Transylvania raised the standard of rebellion. The Hungarian
+      insurgents were upon the point of making common cause with the
+      discontented Protestants in Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia, and uniting all
+      those countries in one fearful revolt. The downfall of popery in these
+      lands would then have been inevitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long had the Austrian archdukes, the brothers of the Emperor, beheld with
+      silent indignation the impending ruin of their house; this last event
+      hastened their decision. The Archduke Matthias, Maximilian's second son,
+      Viceroy in Hungary, and Rodolph's presumptive heir, now came forward as
+      the stay of the falling house of Hapsburg. In his youth, misled by a false
+      ambition, this prince, disregarding the interests of his family, had
+      listened to the overtures of the Flemish insurgents, who invited him into
+      the Netherlands to conduct the defence of their liberties against the
+      oppression of his own relative, Philip the Second. Mistaking the voice of
+      an insulated faction for that of the entire nation, Matthias obeyed the
+      call. But the event answered the expectations of the men of Brabant as
+      little as his own, and from this imprudent enterprise he retired with
+      little credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far more honourable was his second appearance in the political world.
+      Perceiving that his repeated remonstrances with the Emperor were
+      unavailing, he assembled the archdukes, his brothers and cousins, at
+      Presburg, and consulted with them on the growing perils of their house,
+      when they unanimously assigned to him, as the oldest, the duty of
+      defending that patrimony which a feeble brother was endangering. In his
+      hands they placed all their powers and rights, and vested him with
+      sovereign authority, to act at his discretion for the common good.
+      Matthias immediately opened a communication with the Porte and the
+      Hungarian rebels, and through his skilful management succeeded in saving,
+      by a peace with the Turks, the remainder of Hungary, and by a treaty with
+      the rebels, preserved the claims of Austria to the lost provinces. But
+      Rodolph, as jealous as he had hitherto been careless of his sovereign
+      authority, refused to ratify this treaty, which he regarded as a criminal
+      encroachment on his sovereign rights. He accused the Archduke of keeping
+      up a secret understanding with the enemy, and of cherishing treasonable
+      designs on the crown of Hungary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The activity of Matthias was, in truth, anything but disinterested; the
+      conduct of the Emperor only accelerated the execution of his ambitious
+      views. Secure, from motives of gratitude, of the devotion of the
+      Hungarians, for whom he had so lately obtained the blessings of peace;
+      assured by his agents of the favourable disposition of the nobles, and
+      certain of the support of a large party, even in Austria, he now ventured
+      to assume a bolder attitude, and, sword in hand, to discuss his grievances
+      with the Emperor. The Protestants in Austria and Moravia, long ripe for
+      revolt, and now won over to the Archduke by his promises of toleration,
+      loudly and openly espoused his cause, and their long-menaced alliance with
+      the Hungarian rebels was actually effected. Almost at once a formidable
+      conspiracy was planned and matured against the Emperor. Too late did he
+      resolve to amend his past errors; in vain did he attempt to break up this
+      fatal alliance. Already the whole empire was in arms; Hungary, Austria,
+      and Moravia had done homage to Matthias, who was already on his march to
+      Bohemia to seize the Emperor in his palace, and to cut at once the sinews
+      of his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bohemia was not a more peaceable possession for Austria than Hungary; with
+      this difference only, that, in the latter, political considerations, in
+      the former, religious dissensions, fomented disorders. In Bohemia, a
+      century before the days of Luther, the first spark of the religious war
+      had been kindled; a century after Luther, the first flames of the thirty
+      years' war burst out in Bohemia. The sect which owed its rise to John
+      Huss, still existed in that country;&mdash;it agreed with the Romish
+      Church in ceremonies and doctrines, with the single exception of the
+      administration of the Communion, in which the Hussites communicated in
+      both kinds. This privilege had been conceded to the followers of Huss by
+      the Council of Basle, in an express treaty, (the Bohemian Compact); and
+      though it was afterwards disavowed by the popes, they nevertheless
+      continued to profit by it under the sanction of the government. As the use
+      of the cup formed the only important distinction of their body, they were
+      usually designated by the name of Utraquists; and they readily adopted an
+      appellation which reminded them of their dearly valued privilege. But
+      under this title lurked also the far stricter sects of the Bohemian and
+      Moravian Brethren, who differed from the predominant church in more
+      important particulars, and bore, in fact, a great resemblance to the
+      German Protestants. Among them both, the German and Swiss opinions on
+      religion made rapid progress; while the name of Utraquists, under which
+      they managed to disguise the change of their principles, shielded them
+      from persecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth, they had nothing in common with the Utraquists but the name;
+      essentially, they were altogether Protestant. Confident in the strength of
+      their party, and the Emperor's toleration under Maximilian, they had
+      openly avowed their tenets. After the example of the Germans, they drew up
+      a Confession of their own, in which Lutherans as well as Calvinists
+      recognized their own doctrines, and they sought to transfer to the new
+      Confession the privileges of the original Utraquists. In this they were
+      opposed by their Roman Catholic countrymen, and forced to rest content
+      with the Emperor's verbal assurance of protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As long as Maximilian lived, they enjoyed complete toleration, even under
+      the new form they had taken. Under his successor the scene changed. An
+      imperial edict appeared, which deprived the Bohemian Brethren of their
+      religious freedom. Now these differed in nothing from the other
+      Utraquists. The sentence, therefore, of their condemnation, obviously
+      included all the partisans of the Bohemian Confession. Accordingly, they
+      all combined to oppose the imperial mandate in the Diet, but without being
+      able to procure its revocation. The Emperor and the Roman Catholic Estates
+      took their ground on the Compact and the Bohemian Constitution; in which
+      nothing appeared in favour of a religion which had not then obtained the
+      voice of the country. Since that time, how completely had affairs changed!
+      What then formed but an inconsiderable opinion, had now become the
+      predominant religion of the country. And what was it then, but a
+      subterfuge to limit a newly spreading religion by the terms of obsolete
+      treaties? The Bohemian Protestants appealed to the verbal guarantee of
+      Maximilian, and the religious freedom of the Germans, with whom they
+      argued they ought to be on a footing of equality. It was in vain&mdash;their
+      appeal was dismissed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the posture of affairs in Bohemia, when Matthias, already master
+      of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia, appeared in Kolin, to raise the Bohemian
+      Estates also against the Emperor. The embarrassment of the latter was now
+      at its height. Abandoned by all his other subjects, he placed his last
+      hopes on the Bohemians, who, it might be foreseen, would take advantage of
+      his necessities to enforce their own demands. After an interval of many
+      years, he once more appeared publicly in the Diet at Prague; and to
+      convince the people that he was really still in existence, orders were
+      given that all the windows should be opened in the streets through which
+      he was to pass&mdash;proof enough how far things had gone with him. The
+      event justified his fears. The Estates, conscious of their own power,
+      refused to take a single step until their privileges were confirmed, and
+      religious toleration fully assured to them. It was in vain to have
+      recourse now to the old system of evasion. The Emperor's fate was in their
+      hands, and he must yield to necessity. At present, however, he only
+      granted their other demands&mdash;religious matters he reserved for
+      consideration at the next Diet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bohemians now took up arms in defence of the Emperor, and a bloody war
+      between the two brothers was on the point of breaking out. But Rodolph,
+      who feared nothing so much as remaining in this slavish dependence on the
+      Estates, waited not for a warlike issue, but hastened to effect a
+      reconciliation with his brother by more peaceable means. By a formal act
+      of abdication he resigned to Matthias, what indeed he had no chance of
+      wresting from him, Austria and the kingdom of Hungary, and acknowledged
+      him as his successor to the crown of Bohemia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dearly enough had the Emperor extricated himself from one difficulty, only
+      to get immediately involved in another. The settlement of the religious
+      affairs of Bohemia had been referred to the next Diet, which was held in
+      1609. The reformed Bohemians demanded the free exercise of their faith, as
+      under the former emperors; a Consistory of their own; the cession of the
+      University of Prague; and the right of electing `Defenders', or
+      `Protectors' of `Liberty', from their own body. The answer was the same as
+      before; for the timid Emperor was now entirely fettered by the unreformed
+      party. However often, and in however threatening language the Estates
+      renewed their remonstrances, the Emperor persisted in his first
+      declaration of granting nothing beyond the old compact. The Diet broke up
+      without coming to a decision; and the Estates, exasperated against the
+      Emperor, arranged a general meeting at Prague, upon their own authority,
+      to right themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They appeared at Prague in great force. In defiance of the imperial
+      prohibition, they carried on their deliberations almost under the very
+      eyes of the Emperor. The yielding compliance which he began to show, only
+      proved how much they were feared, and increased their audacity. Yet on the
+      main point he remained inflexible. They fulfilled their threats, and at
+      last resolved to establish, by their own power, the free and universal
+      exercise of their religion, and to abandon the Emperor to his necessities
+      until he should confirm this resolution. They even went farther, and
+      elected for themselves the DEFENDERS which the Emperor had refused them.
+      Ten were nominated by each of the three Estates; they also determined to
+      raise, as soon as possible, an armed force, at the head of which Count
+      Thurn, the chief organizer of the revolt, should be placed as general
+      defender of the liberties of Bohemia. Their determination brought the
+      Emperor to submission, to which he was now counselled even by the
+      Spaniards. Apprehensive lest the exasperated Estates should throw
+      themselves into the arms of the King of Hungary, he signed the memorable
+      Letter of Majesty for Bohemia, by which, under the successors of the
+      Emperor, that people justified their rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bohemian Confession, which the States had laid before the Emperor
+      Maximilian, was, by the Letter of Majesty, placed on a footing of equality
+      with the olden profession. The Utraquists, for by this title the Bohemian
+      Protestants continued to designate themselves, were put in possession of
+      the University of Prague, and allowed a Consistory of their own, entirely
+      independent of the archiepiscopal see of that city. All the churches in
+      the cities, villages, and market towns, which they held at the date of the
+      letter, were secured to them; and if in addition they wished to erect
+      others, it was permitted to the nobles, and knights, and the free cities
+      to do so. This last clause in the Letter of Majesty gave rise to the
+      unfortunate disputes which subsequently rekindled the flames of war in
+      Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Letter of Majesty erected the Protestant part of Bohemia into a kind
+      of republic. The Estates had learned to feel the power which they gained
+      by perseverance, unity, and harmony in their measures. The Emperor now
+      retained little more than the shadow of his sovereign authority; while by
+      the new dignity of the so-called defenders of liberty, a dangerous
+      stimulus was given to the spirit of revolt. The example and success of
+      Bohemia afforded a tempting seduction to the other hereditary dominions of
+      Austria, and all attempted by similar means to extort similar privileges.
+      The spirit of liberty spread from one province to another; and as it was
+      chiefly the disunion among the Austrian princes that had enabled the
+      Protestants so materially to improve their advantages, they now hastened
+      to effect a reconciliation between the Emperor and the King of Hungary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the reconciliation could not be sincere. The wrong was too great to be
+      forgiven, and Rodolph continued to nourish at heart an unextinguishable
+      hatred of Matthias. With grief and indignation he brooded over the
+      thought, that the Bohemian sceptre was finally to descend into the hands
+      of his enemy; and the prospect was not more consoling, even if Matthias
+      should die without issue. In that case, Ferdinand, Archduke of Graetz,
+      whom he equally disliked, was the head of the family. To exclude the
+      latter as well as Matthias from the succession to the throne of Bohemia,
+      he fell upon the project of diverting that inheritance to Ferdinand's
+      brother, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau, who among all his
+      relatives had ever been the dearest and most deserving. The prejudices of
+      the Bohemians in favour of the elective freedom of their crown, and their
+      attachment to Leopold's person, seemed to favour this scheme, in which
+      Rodolph consulted rather his own partiality and vindictiveness than the
+      good of his house. But to carry out this project, a military force was
+      requisite, and Rodolph actually assembled an army in the bishopric of
+      Passau. The object of this force was hidden from all. An inroad, however,
+      which, for want of pay it made suddenly and without the Emperor's
+      knowledge into Bohemia, and the outrages which it there committed, stirred
+      up the whole kingdom against him. In vain he asserted his innocence to the
+      Bohemian Estates; they would not believe his protestations; vainly did he
+      attempt to restrain the violence of his soldiery; they disregarded his
+      orders. Persuaded that the Emperor's object was to annul the Letter of
+      Majesty, the Protectors of Liberty armed the whole of Protestant Bohemia,
+      and invited Matthias into the country. After the dispersion of the force
+      he had collected at Passau, the Emperor remained helpless at Prague, where
+      he was kept shut up like a prisoner in his palace, and separated from all
+      his councillors. In the meantime, Matthias entered Prague amidst universal
+      rejoicings, where Rodolph was soon afterwards weak enough to acknowledge
+      him King of Bohemia. So hard a fate befell this Emperor; he was compelled,
+      during his life, to abdicate in favour of his enemy that very throne, of
+      which he had been endeavouring to deprive him after his own death. To
+      complete his degradation, he was obliged, by a personal act of
+      renunciation, to release his subjects in Bohemia, Silesia, and Lusatia
+      from their allegiance, and he did it with a broken heart. All, even those
+      he thought he had most attached to his person, had abandoned him. When he
+      had signed the instrument, he threw his hat upon the ground, and gnawed
+      the pen which had rendered so shameful a service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Rodolph thus lost one hereditary dominion after another, the
+      imperial dignity was not much better maintained by him. Each of the
+      religious parties into which Germany was divided, continued its efforts to
+      advance itself at the expense of the other, or to guard against its
+      attacks. The weaker the hand that held the sceptre, and the more the
+      Protestants and Roman Catholics felt they were left to themselves, the
+      more vigilant necessarily became their watchfulness, and the greater their
+      distrust of each other. It was enough that the Emperor was ruled by
+      Jesuits, and was guided by Spanish counsels, to excite the apprehension of
+      the Protestants, and to afford a pretext for hostility. The rash zeal of
+      the Jesuits, which in the pulpit and by the press disputed the validity of
+      the religious peace, increased this distrust, and caused their adversaries
+      to see a dangerous design in the most indifferent measures of the Roman
+      Catholics. Every step taken in the hereditary dominions of the Emperor,
+      for the repression of the reformed religion, was sure to draw the
+      attention of all the Protestants of Germany; and this powerful support
+      which the reformed subjects of Austria met, or expected to meet with from
+      their religious confederates in the rest of Germany, was no small cause of
+      their confidence, and of the rapid success of Matthias. It was the general
+      belief of the Empire, that they owed the long enjoyment of the religious
+      peace merely to the difficulties in which the Emperor was placed by the
+      internal troubles in his dominions, and consequently they were in no haste
+      to relieve him from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost all the affairs of the Diet were neglected, either through the
+      procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant
+      Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of
+      the Empire till their own grievances were removed. These grievances
+      related principally to the misgovernment of the Emperor; the violation of
+      the religious treaty, and the presumptuous usurpations of the Aulic
+      Council, which in the present reign had begun to extend its jurisdiction
+      at the expense of the Imperial Chamber. Formerly, in all disputes between
+      the Estates, which could not be settled by club law, the Emperors had in
+      the last resort decided of themselves, if the case were trifling, and in
+      conjunction with the princes, if it were important; or they determined
+      them by the advice of imperial judges who followed the court. This
+      superior jurisdiction they had, in the end of the fifteenth century,
+      assigned to a regular and permanent tribunal, the Imperial Chamber of
+      Spires, in which the Estates of the Empire, that they might not be
+      oppressed by the arbitrary appointment of the Emperor, had reserved to
+      themselves the right of electing the assessors, and of periodically
+      reviewing its decrees. By the religious peace, these rights of the
+      Estates, (called the rights of presentation and visitation,) were extended
+      also to the Lutherans, so that Protestant judges had a voice in Protestant
+      causes, and a seeming equality obtained for both religions in this supreme
+      tribunal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the enemies of the Reformation and of the freedom of the Estates,
+      vigilant to take advantage of every incident that favoured their views,
+      soon found means to neutralize the beneficial effects of this institution.
+      A supreme jurisdiction over the Imperial States was gradually and
+      skilfully usurped by a private imperial tribunal, the Aulic Council in
+      Vienna, a court at first intended merely to advise the Emperor in the
+      exercise of his undoubted, imperial, and personal prerogatives; a court,
+      whose members being appointed and paid by him, had no law but the interest
+      of their master, and no standard of equity but the advancement of the
+      unreformed religion of which they were partisans. Before the Aulic Council
+      were now brought several suits originating between Estates differing in
+      religion, and which, therefore, properly belonged to the Imperial Chamber.
+      It was not surprising if the decrees of this tribunal bore traces of their
+      origin; if the interests of the Roman Church and of the Emperor were
+      preferred to justice by Roman Catholic judges, and the creatures of the
+      Emperor. Although all the Estates of Germany seemed to have equal cause
+      for resisting so perilous an abuse, the Protestants alone, who most
+      sensibly felt it, and even these not all at once and in a body, came
+      forward as the defenders of German liberty, which the establishment of so
+      arbitrary a tribunal had outraged in its most sacred point, the
+      administration of justice. In fact, Germany would have had little cause to
+      congratulate itself upon the abolition of club-law, and in the institution
+      of the Imperial Chamber, if an arbitrary tribunal of the Emperor was
+      allowed to interfere with the latter. The Estates of the German Empire
+      would indeed have improved little upon the days of barbarism, if the
+      Chamber of Justice in which they sat along with the Emperor as judges, and
+      for which they had abandoned their original princely prerogative, should
+      cease to be a court of the last resort. But the strangest contradictions
+      were at this date to be found in the minds of men. The name of Emperor, a
+      remnant of Roman despotism, was still associated with an idea of
+      autocracy, which, though it formed a ridiculous inconsistency with the
+      privileges of the Estates, was nevertheless argued for by jurists,
+      diffused by the partisans of despotism, and believed by the ignorant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these general grievances was gradually added a chain of singular
+      incidents, which at length converted the anxiety of the Protestants into
+      utter distrust. During the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands,
+      several Protestant families had taken refuge in Aix-la-Chapelle, an
+      imperial city, and attached to the Roman Catholic faith, where they
+      settled and insensibly extended their adherents. Having succeeded by
+      stratagem in introducing some of their members into the municipal council,
+      they demanded a church and the public exercise of their worship, and the
+      demand being unfavourably received, they succeeded by violence in
+      enforcing it, and also in usurping the entire government of the city. To
+      see so important a city in Protestant hands was too heavy a blow for the
+      Emperor and the Roman Catholics. After all the Emperor's requests and
+      commands for the restoration of the olden government had proved
+      ineffectual, the Aulic Council proclaimed the city under the ban of the
+      Empire, which, however, was not put in force till the following reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of yet greater importance were two other attempts of the Protestants to
+      extend their influence and their power. The Elector Gebhard, of Cologne,
+      (born Truchsess&mdash;[Grand-master of the kitchen.]&mdash;of Waldburg,)
+      conceived for the young Countess Agnes, of Mansfield, Canoness of
+      Gerresheim, a passion which was not unreturned. As the eyes of all Germany
+      were directed to this intercourse, the brothers of the Countess, two
+      zealous Calvinists, demanded satisfaction for the injured honour of their
+      house, which, as long as the elector remained a Roman Catholic prelate,
+      could not be repaired by marriage. They threatened the elector they would
+      wash out this stain in his blood and their sister's, unless he either
+      abandoned all further connexion with the countess, or consented to
+      re-establish her reputation at the altar. The elector, indifferent to all
+      the consequences of this step, listened to nothing but the voice of love.
+      Whether it was in consequence of his previous inclination to the reformed
+      doctrines, or that the charms of his mistress alone effected this wonder,
+      he renounced the Roman Catholic faith, and led the beautiful Agnes to the
+      altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This event was of the greatest importance. By the letter of the clause
+      reserving the ecclesiastical states from the general operation of the
+      religious peace, the elector had, by his apostacy, forfeited all right to
+      the temporalities of his bishopric; and if, in any case, it was important
+      for the Catholics to enforce the clause, it was so especially in the case
+      of electorates. On the other hand, the relinquishment of so high a dignity
+      was a severe sacrifice, and peculiarly so in the case of a tender husband,
+      who had wished to enhance the value of his heart and hand by the gift of a
+      principality. Moreover, the Reservatum Ecclesiasticum was a disputed
+      article of the treaty of Augsburg; and all the German Protestants were
+      aware of the extreme importance of wresting this fourth electorate from
+      the opponents of their faith.&mdash;[Saxony, Brandenburg, and the
+      Palatinate were already Protestant.]&mdash;The example had already been
+      set in several of the ecclesiastical benefices of Lower Germany, and
+      attended with success. Several canons of Cologne had also already embraced
+      the Protestant confession, and were on the elector's side, while, in the
+      city itself, he could depend upon the support of a numerous Protestant
+      party. All these considerations, greatly strengthened by the persuasions
+      of his friends and relations, and the promises of several German courts,
+      determined the elector to retain his dominions, while he changed his
+      religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was soon apparent that he had entered upon a contest which he could
+      not carry through. Even the free toleration of the Protestant service
+      within the territories of Cologne, had already occasioned a violent
+      opposition on the part of the canons and Roman Catholic `Estates' of that
+      province. The intervention of the Emperor, and a papal ban from Rome,
+      which anathematized the elector as an apostate, and deprived him of all
+      his dignities, temporal and spiritual, armed his own subjects and chapter
+      against him. The Elector assembled a military force; the chapter did the
+      same. To ensure also the aid of a strong arm, they proceeded forthwith to
+      a new election, and chose the Bishop of Liege, a prince of Bavaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A civil war now commenced, which, from the strong interest which both
+      religious parties in Germany necessarily felt in the conjuncture, was
+      likely to terminate in a general breaking up of the religious peace. What
+      most made the Protestants indignant, was that the Pope should have
+      presumed, by a pretended apostolic power, to deprive a prince of the
+      empire of his imperial dignities. Even in the golden days of their
+      spiritual domination, this prerogative of the Pope had been disputed; how
+      much more likely was it to be questioned at a period when his authority
+      was entirely disowned by one party, while even with the other it rested on
+      a tottering foundation. All the Protestant princes took up the affair
+      warmly against the Emperor; and Henry IV. of France, then King of Navarre,
+      left no means of negotiation untried to urge the German princes to the
+      vigorous assertion of their rights. The issue would decide for ever the
+      liberties of Germany. Four Protestant against three Roman Catholic voices
+      in the Electoral College must at once have given the preponderance to the
+      former, and for ever excluded the House of Austria from the imperial
+      throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Elector Gebhard had embraced the Calvinist, not the Lutheran
+      religion; and this circumstance alone was his ruin. The mutual rancour of
+      these two churches would not permit the Lutheran Estates to regard the
+      Elector as one of their party, and as such to lend him their effectual
+      support. All indeed had encouraged, and promised him assistance; but only
+      one appanaged prince of the Palatine House, the Palsgrave John Casimir, a
+      zealous Calvinist, kept his word. Despite of the imperial prohibition, he
+      hastened with his little army into the territories of Cologne; but without
+      being able to effect any thing, because the Elector, who was destitute
+      even of the first necessaries, left him totally without help. So much the
+      more rapid was the progress of the newly-chosen elector, whom his Bavarian
+      relations and the Spaniards from the Netherlands supported with the utmost
+      vigour. The troops of Gebhard, left by their master without pay, abandoned
+      one place after another to the enemy; by whom others were compelled to
+      surrender. In his Westphalian territories, Gebhard held out for some time
+      longer, till here, too, he was at last obliged to yield to superior force.
+      After several vain attempts in Holland and England to obtain means for his
+      restoration, he retired into the Chapter of Strasburg, and died dean of
+      that cathedral; the first sacrifice to the Ecclesiastical Reservation, or
+      rather to the want of harmony among the German Protestants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this dispute in Cologne was soon added another in Strasburg. Several
+      Protestant canons of Cologne, who had been included in the same papal ban
+      with the elector, had taken refuge within this bishopric, where they
+      likewise held prebends. As the Roman Catholic canons of Strasburg
+      hesitated to allow them, as being under the ban, the enjoyment of their
+      prebends, they took violent possession of their benefices, and the support
+      of a powerful Protestant party among the citizens soon gave them the
+      preponderance in the chapter. The other canons thereupon retired to
+      Alsace-Saverne, where, under the protection of the bishop, they
+      established themselves as the only lawful chapter, and denounced that
+      which remained in Strasburg as illegal. The latter, in the meantime, had
+      so strengthened themselves by the reception of several Protestant
+      colleagues of high rank, that they could venture, upon the death of the
+      bishop, to nominate a new Protestant bishop in the person of John George
+      of Brandenburg. The Roman Catholic canons, far from allowing this
+      election, nominated the Bishop of Metz, a prince of Lorraine, to that
+      dignity, who announced his promotion by immediately commencing hostilities
+      against the territories of Strasburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That city now took up arms in defence of its Protestant chapter and the
+      Prince of Brandenburg, while the other party, with the assistance of the
+      troops of Lorraine, endeavoured to possess themselves of the temporalities
+      of the chapter. A tedious war was the consequence, which, according to the
+      spirit of the times, was attended with barbarous devastations. In vain did
+      the Emperor interpose with his supreme authority to terminate the dispute;
+      the ecclesiastical property remained for a long time divided between the
+      two parties, till at last the Protestant prince, for a moderate pecuniary
+      equivalent, renounced his claims; and thus, in this dispute also, the
+      Roman Church came off victorious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An occurrence which, soon after the adjustment of this dispute, took place
+      in Donauwerth, a free city of Suabia, was still more critical for the
+      whole of Protestant Germany. In this once Roman Catholic city, the
+      Protestants, during the reigns of Ferdinand and his son, had, in the usual
+      way, become so completely predominant, that the Roman Catholics were
+      obliged to content themselves with a church in the Monastery of the Holy
+      Cross, and for fear of offending the Protestants, were even forced to
+      suppress the greater part of their religious rites. At length a fanatical
+      abbot of this monastery ventured to defy the popular prejudices, and to
+      arrange a public procession, preceded by the cross and banners flying; but
+      he was soon compelled to desist from the attempt. When, a year afterwards,
+      encouraged by a favourable imperial proclamation, the same abbot attempted
+      to renew this procession, the citizens proceeded to open violence. The
+      inhabitants shut the gates against the monks on their return, trampled
+      their colours under foot, and followed them home with clamour and abuse.
+      An imperial citation was the consequence of this act of violence; and as
+      the exasperated populace even threatened to assault the imperial
+      commissaries, and all attempts at an amicable adjustment were frustrated
+      by the fanaticism of the multitude, the city was at last formally placed
+      under the ban of the Empire, the execution of which was intrusted to
+      Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. The citizens, formerly so insolent, were
+      seized with terror at the approach of the Bavarian army; pusillanimity now
+      possessed them, though once so full of defiance, and they laid down their
+      arms without striking a blow. The total abolition of the Protestant
+      religion within the walls of the city was the punishment of their
+      rebellion; it was deprived of its privileges, and, from a free city of
+      Suabia, converted into a municipal town of Bavaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two circumstances connected with this proceeding must have strongly
+      excited the attention of the Protestants, even if the interests of
+      religion had been less powerful on their minds. First of all, the sentence
+      had been pronounced by the Aulic Council, an arbitrary and exclusively
+      Roman Catholic tribunal, whose jurisdiction besides had been so warmly
+      disputed by them; and secondly, its execution had been intrusted to the
+      Duke of Bavaria, the head of another circle. These unconstitutional steps
+      seemed to be the harbingers of further violent measures on the Roman
+      Catholic side, the result, probably, of secret conferences and dangerous
+      designs, which might perhaps end in the entire subversion of their
+      religious liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In circumstances where the law of force prevails, and security depends
+      upon power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place
+      itself in a posture of defence. This was now the case in Germany. If the
+      Roman Catholics really meditated any evil against the Protestants in
+      Germany, the probability was that the blow would fall on the south rather
+      than the north, because, in Lower Germany, the Protestants were connected
+      together through a long unbroken tract of country, and could therefore
+      easily combine for their mutual support; while those in the south,
+      detached from each other, and surrounded on all sides by Roman Catholic
+      states, were exposed to every inroad. If, moreover, as was to be expected,
+      the Catholics availed themselves of the divisions amongst the Protestants,
+      and levelled their attack against one of the religious parties, it was the
+      Calvinists who, as the weaker, and as being besides excluded from the
+      religious treaty, were apparently in the greatest danger, and upon them
+      would probably fall the first attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both these circumstances took place in the dominions of the Elector
+      Palatine, which possessed, in the Duke of Bavaria, a formidable neighbour,
+      and which, by reason of their defection to Calvinism, received no
+      protection from the Religious Peace, and had little hope of succour from
+      the Lutheran states. No country in Germany had experienced so many
+      revolutions in religion in so short a time as the Palatinate. In the space
+      of sixty years this country, an unfortunate toy in the hands of its
+      rulers, had twice adopted the doctrines of Luther, and twice relinquished
+      them for Calvinism. The Elector Frederick III. first abandoned the
+      confession of Augsburg, which his eldest son and successor, Lewis,
+      immediately re-established. The Calvinists throughout the whole country
+      were deprived of their churches, their preachers and even their teachers
+      banished beyond the frontiers; while the prince, in his Lutheran zeal,
+      persecuted them even in his will, by appointing none but strict and
+      orthodox Lutherans as the guardians of his son, a minor. But this illegal
+      testament was disregarded by his brother the Count Palatine, John Casimir,
+      who, by the regulations of the Golden Bull, assumed the guardianship and
+      administration of the state. Calvinistic teachers were given to the
+      Elector Frederick IV., then only nine years of age, who were ordered, if
+      necessary, to drive the Lutheran heresy out of the soul of their pupil
+      with blows. If such was the treatment of the sovereign, that of the
+      subjects may be easily conceived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was under this Frederick that the Palatine Court exerted itself so
+      vigorously to unite the Protestant states of Germany in joint measures
+      against the House of Austria, and, if possible, bring about the formation
+      of a general confederacy. Besides that this court had always been guided
+      by the counsels of France, with whom hatred of the House of Austria was
+      the ruling principle, a regard for his own safety urged him to secure in
+      time the doubtful assistance of the Lutherans against a near and
+      overwhelming enemy. Great difficulties, however, opposed this union,
+      because the Lutherans' dislike of the Reformed was scarcely less than the
+      common aversion of both to the Romanists. An attempt was first made to
+      reconcile the two professions, in order to facilitate a political union;
+      but all these attempts failed, and generally ended in both parties
+      adhering the more strongly to their respective opinions. Nothing then
+      remained but to increase the fear and the distrust of the Evangelicals,
+      and in this way to impress upon them the necessity of this alliance. The
+      power of the Roman Catholics and the magnitude of the danger were
+      exaggerated, accidental incidents were ascribed to deliberate plans,
+      innocent actions misrepresented by invidious constructions, and the whole
+      conduct of the professors of the olden religion was interpreted as the
+      result of a well-weighed and systematic plan, which, in all probability,
+      they were very far from having concerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Diet of Ratisbon, to which the Protestants had looked forward with the
+      hope of obtaining a renewal of the Religious Peace, had broken up without
+      coming to a decision, and to the former grievances of the Protestant party
+      was now added the late oppression of Donauwerth. With incredible speed,
+      the union, so long attempted, was now brought to bear. A conference took
+      place at Anhausen, in Franconia, at which were present the Elector
+      Frederick IV., from the Palatinate, the Palsgrave of Neuburg, two
+      Margraves of Brandenburg, the Margrave of Baden, and the Duke John
+      Frederick of Wirtemburg,&mdash;Lutherans as well as Calvinists,&mdash; who
+      for themselves and their heirs entered into a close confederacy under the
+      title of the Evangelical Union. The purport of this union was, that the
+      allied princes should, in all matters relating to religion and their civil
+      rights, support each other with arms and counsel against every aggressor,
+      and should all stand as one man; that in case any member of the alliance
+      should be attacked, he should be assisted by the rest with an armed force;
+      that, if necessary, the territories, towns, and castles of the allied
+      states should be open to his troops; and that, whatever conquests were
+      made, should be divided among all the confederates, in proportion to the
+      contingent furnished by each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The direction of the whole confederacy in time of peace was conferred upon
+      the Elector Palatine, but with a limited power. To meet the necessary
+      expenses, subsidies were demanded, and a common fund established.
+      Differences of religion (betwixt the Lutherans and the Calvinists) were to
+      have no effect on this alliance, which was to subsist for ten years, every
+      member of the union engaged at the same time to procure new members to it.
+      The Electorate of Brandenburg adopted the alliance, that of Saxony
+      rejected it. Hesse-Cashel could not be prevailed upon to declare itself,
+      the Dukes of Brunswick and Luneburg also hesitated. But the three cities
+      of the Empire, Strasburg, Nuremburg, and Ulm, were no unimportant
+      acquisition for the league, which was in great want of their money, while
+      their example, besides, might be followed by other imperial cities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the formation of this alliance, the confederate states, dispirited,
+      and singly, little feared, adopted a bolder language. Through Prince
+      Christian of Anhalt, they laid their common grievances and demands before
+      the Emperor; among which the principal were the restoration of Donauwerth,
+      the abolition of the Imperial Court, the reformation of the Emperor's own
+      administration and that of his counsellors. For these remonstrances, they
+      chose the moment when the Emperor had scarcely recovered breath from the
+      troubles in his hereditary dominions,&mdash;when he had lost Hungary and
+      Austria to Matthias, and had barely preserved his Bohemian throne by the
+      concession of the Letter of Majesty, and finally, when through the
+      succession of Juliers he was already threatened with the distant prospect
+      of a new war. No wonder, then, that this dilatory prince was more
+      irresolute than ever in his decision, and that the confederates took up
+      arms before he could bethink himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Roman Catholics regarded this confederacy with a jealous eye; the
+      Union viewed them and the Emperor with the like distrust; the Emperor was
+      equally suspicious of both; and thus, on all sides, alarm and animosity
+      had reached their climax. And, as if to crown the whole, at this critical
+      conjuncture by the death of the Duke John William of Juliers, a highly
+      disputable succession became vacant in the territories of Juliers and
+      Cleves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight competitors laid claim to this territory, the indivisibility of
+      which had been guaranteed by solemn treaties; and the Emperor, who seemed
+      disposed to enter upon it as a vacant fief, might be considered as the
+      ninth. Four of these, the Elector of Brandenburg, the Count Palatine of
+      Neuburg, the Count Palatine of Deux Ponts, and the Margrave of Burgau, an
+      Austrian prince, claimed it as a female fief in name of four princesses,
+      sisters of the late duke. Two others, the Elector of Saxony, of the line
+      of Albert, and the Duke of Saxony, of the line of Ernest, laid claim to it
+      under a prior right of reversion granted to them by the Emperor Frederick
+      III., and confirmed to both Saxon houses by Maximilian I. The pretensions
+      of some foreign princes were little regarded. The best right was perhaps
+      on the side of Brandenburg and Neuburg, and between the claims of these
+      two it was not easy to decide. Both courts, as soon as the succession was
+      vacant, proceeded to take possession; Brandenburg beginning, and Neuburg
+      following the example. Both commenced their dispute with the pen, and
+      would probably have ended it with the sword; but the interference of the
+      Emperor, by proceeding to bring the cause before his own cognizance, and,
+      during the progress of the suit, sequestrating the disputed countries,
+      soon brought the contending parties to an agreement, in order to avert the
+      common danger. They agreed to govern the duchy conjointly. In vain did the
+      Emperor prohibit the Estates from doing homage to their new masters; in
+      vain did he send his own relation, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau
+      and Strasburg, into the territory of Juliers, in order, by his presence,
+      to strengthen the imperial party. The whole country, with the exception of
+      Juliers itself, had submitted to the Protestant princes, and in that
+      capital the imperialists were besieged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dispute about the succession of Juliers was an important one to the
+      whole German empire, and also attracted the attention of several European
+      courts. It was not so much the question, who was or was not to possess the
+      Duchy of Juliers;&mdash;the real question was, which of the two religious
+      parties in Germany, the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, was to be
+      strengthened by so important an accession&mdash;for which of the two
+      RELIGIONS this territory was to be lost or won. The question in short was,
+      whether Austria was to be allowed to persevere in her usurpations, and to
+      gratify her lust of dominion by another robbery; or whether the liberties
+      of Germany, and the balance of power, were to be maintained against her
+      encroachments. The disputed succession of Juliers, therefore, was matter
+      which interested all who were favourable to liberty, and hostile to
+      Austria. The Evangelical Union, Holland, England, and particularly Henry
+      IV. of France, were drawn into the strife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This monarch, the flower of whose life had been spent in opposing the
+      House of Austria and Spain, and by persevering heroism alone had
+      surmounted the obstacles which this house had thrown between him and the
+      French throne, had been no idle spectator of the troubles in Germany. This
+      contest of the Estates with the Emperor was the means of giving and
+      securing peace to France. The Protestants and the Turks were the two
+      salutary weights which kept down the Austrian power in the East and West;
+      but it would rise again in all its terrors, if once it were allowed to
+      remove this pressure. Henry the Fourth had before his eyes for half a
+      lifetime, the uninterrupted spectacle of Austrian ambition and Austrian
+      lust of dominion, which neither adversity nor poverty of talents, though
+      generally they check all human passions, could extinguish in a bosom
+      wherein flowed one drop of the blood of Ferdinand of Arragon. Austrian
+      ambition had destroyed for a century the peace of Europe, and effected the
+      most violent changes in the heart of its most considerable states. It had
+      deprived the fields of husbandmen, the workshops of artisans, to fill the
+      land with enormous armies, and to cover the commercial sea with hostile
+      fleets. It had imposed upon the princes of Europe the necessity of
+      fettering the industry of their subjects by unheard-of imposts; and of
+      wasting in self-defence the best strength of their states, which was thus
+      lost to the prosperity of their inhabitants. For Europe there was no
+      peace, for its states no welfare, for the people's happiness no security
+      or permanence, so long as this dangerous house was permitted to disturb at
+      pleasure the repose of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such considerations clouded the mind of Henry at the close of his glorious
+      career. What had it not cost him to reduce to order the troubled chaos
+      into which France had been plunged by the tumult of civil war, fomented
+      and supported by this very Austria! Every great mind labours for eternity;
+      and what security had Henry for the endurance of that prosperity which he
+      had gained for France, so long as Austria and Spain formed a single power,
+      which did indeed lie exhausted for the present, but which required only
+      one lucky chance to be speedily re-united, and to spring up again as
+      formidable as ever. If he would bequeath to his successors a firmly
+      established throne, and a durable prosperity to his subjects, this
+      dangerous power must be for ever disarmed. This was the source of that
+      irreconcileable enmity which Henry had sworn to the House of Austria, a
+      hatred unextinguishable, ardent, and well-founded as that of Hannibal
+      against the people of Romulus, but ennobled by a purer origin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other European powers had the same inducements to action as Henry, but
+      all of them had not that enlightened policy, nor that disinterested
+      courage to act upon the impulse. All men, without distinction, are allured
+      by immediate advantages; great minds alone are excited by distant good. So
+      long as wisdom in its projects calculates upon wisdom, or relies upon its
+      own strength, it forms none but chimerical schemes, and runs a risk of
+      making itself the laughter of the world; but it is certain of success, and
+      may reckon upon aid and admiration when it finds a place in its
+      intellectual plans for barbarism, rapacity, and superstition, and can
+      render the selfish passions of mankind the executors of its purposes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first point of view, Henry's well-known project of expelling the
+      House of Austria from all its possessions, and dividing the spoil among
+      the European powers, deserves the title of a chimera, which men have so
+      liberally bestowed upon it; but did it merit that appellation in the
+      second? It had never entered into the head of that excellent monarch, in
+      the choice of those who must be the instruments of his designs, to reckon
+      on the sufficiency of such motives as animated himself and Sully to the
+      enterprise. All the states whose co-operation was necessary, were to be
+      persuaded to the work by the strongest motives that can set a political
+      power in action. From the Protestants in Germany nothing more was required
+      than that which, on other grounds, had been long their object,&mdash;their
+      throwing off the Austrian yoke; from the Flemings, a similar revolt from
+      the Spaniards. To the Pope and all the Italian republics no inducement
+      could be more powerful than the hope of driving the Spaniards for ever
+      from their peninsula; for England, nothing more desirable than a
+      revolution which should free it from its bitterest enemy. By this division
+      of the Austrian conquests, every power gained either land or freedom, new
+      possessions or security for the old; and as all gained, the balance of
+      power remained undisturbed. France might magnanimously decline a share in
+      the spoil, because by the ruin of Austria it doubly profited, and was most
+      powerful if it did not become more powerful. Finally, upon condition of
+      ridding Europe of their presence, the posterity of Hapsburg were to be
+      allowed the liberty of augmenting her territories in all the other known
+      or yet undiscovered portions of the globe. But the dagger of Ravaillac
+      delivered Austria from her danger, to postpone for some centuries longer
+      the tranquillity of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his view directed to this project, Henry felt the necessity of taking
+      a prompt and active part in the important events of the Evangelical Union,
+      and the disputed succession of Juliers. His emissaries were busy in all
+      the courts of Germany, and the little which they published or allowed to
+      escape of the great political secrets of their master, was sufficient to
+      win over minds inflamed by so ardent a hatred to Austria, and by so strong
+      a desire of aggrandizement. The prudent policy of Henry cemented the Union
+      still more closely, and the powerful aid which he bound himself to
+      furnish, raised the courage of the confederates into the firmest
+      confidence. A numerous French army, led by the king in person, was to meet
+      the troops of the Union on the banks of the Rhine, and to assist in
+      effecting the conquest of Juliers and Cleves; then, in conjunction with
+      the Germans, it was to march into Italy, (where Savoy, Venice, and the
+      Pope were even now ready with a powerful reinforcement,) and to overthrow
+      the Spanish dominion in that quarter. This victorious army was then to
+      penetrate by Lombardy into the hereditary dominions of Hapsburg; and
+      there, favoured by a general insurrection of the Protestants, destroy the
+      power of Austria in all its German territories, in Bohemia, Hungary, and
+      Transylvania. The Brabanters and Hollanders, supported by French
+      auxiliaries, would in the meantime shake off the Spanish tyranny in the
+      Netherlands; and thus the mighty stream which, only a short time before,
+      had so fearfully overflowed its banks, threatening to overwhelm in its
+      troubled waters the liberties of Europe, would then roll silent and
+      forgotten behind the Pyrenean mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At other times, the French had boasted of their rapidity of action, but
+      upon this occasion they were outstripped by the Germans. An army of the
+      confederates entered Alsace before Henry made his appearance there, and an
+      Austrian army, which the Bishop of Strasburg and Passau had assembled in
+      that quarter for an expedition against Juliers, was dispersed. Henry IV.
+      had formed his plan as a statesman and a king, but he had intrusted its
+      execution to plunderers. According to his design, no Roman Catholic state
+      was to have cause to think this preparation aimed against itself, or to
+      make the quarrel of Austria its own. Religion was in nowise to be mixed up
+      with the matter. But how could the German princes forget their own
+      purposes in furthering the plans of Henry? Actuated as they were by the
+      desire of aggrandizement and by religious hatred, was it to be supposed
+      that they would not gratify, in every passing opportunity, their ruling
+      passions to the utmost? Like vultures, they stooped upon the territories
+      of the ecclesiastical princes, and always chose those rich countries for
+      their quarters, though to reach them they must make ever so wide a detour
+      from their direct route. They levied contributions as in an enemy's
+      country, seized upon the revenues, and exacted, by violence, what they
+      could not obtain of free-will. Not to leave the Roman Catholics in doubt
+      as to the true objects of their expedition, they announced, openly and
+      intelligibly enough, the fate that awaited the property of the church. So
+      little had Henry IV. and the German princes understood each other in their
+      plan of operations, so much had the excellent king been mistaken in his
+      instruments. It is an unfailing maxim, that, if policy enjoins an act of
+      violence, its execution ought never to be entrusted to the violent; and
+      that he only ought to be trusted with the violation of order by whom order
+      is held sacred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both the past conduct of the Union, which was condemned even by several of
+      the evangelical states, and the apprehension of even worse treatment,
+      aroused the Roman Catholics to something beyond mere inactive indignation.
+      As to the Emperor, his authority had sunk too low to afford them any
+      security against such an enemy. It was their Union that rendered the
+      confederates so formidable and so insolent; and another union must now be
+      opposed to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bishop of Wurtzburg formed the plan of the Catholic union, which was
+      distinguished from the evangelical by the title of the League. The objects
+      agreed upon were nearly the same as those which constituted the groundwork
+      of the Union. Bishops formed its principal members, and at its head was
+      placed Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. As the only influential secular member
+      of the confederacy, he was entrusted with far more extensive powers than
+      the Protestants had committed to their chief. In addition to the duke's
+      being the sole head of the League's military power, whereby their
+      operations acquired a speed and weight unattainable by the Union, they had
+      also the advantage that supplies flowed in much more regularly from the
+      rich prelates, than the latter could obtain them from the poor evangelical
+      states. Without offering to the Emperor, as the sovereign of a Roman
+      Catholic state, any share in their confederacy, without even communicating
+      its existence to him as emperor, the League arose at once formidable and
+      threatening; with strength sufficient to crush the Protestant Union and to
+      maintain itself under three emperors. It contended, indeed, for Austria,
+      in so far as it fought against the Protestant princes; but Austria herself
+      had soon cause to tremble before it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arms of the Union had, in the meantime, been tolerably successful in
+      Juliers and in Alsace; Juliers was closely blockaded, and the whole
+      bishopric of Strasburg was in their power. But here their splendid
+      achievements came to an end. No French army appeared upon the Rhine; for
+      he who was to be its leader, he who was the animating soul of the whole
+      enterprize, Henry IV., was no more! Their supplies were on the wane; the
+      Estates refused to grant new subsidies; and the confederate free cities
+      were offended that their money should be liberally, but their advice so
+      sparingly called for. Especially were they displeased at being put to
+      expense for the expedition against Juliers, which had been expressly
+      excluded from the affairs of the Union&mdash;at the united princes
+      appropriating to themselves large pensions out of the common treasure&mdash;and,
+      above all, at their refusing to give any account of its expenditure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Union was thus verging to its fall, at the moment when the League
+      started to oppose it in the vigour of its strength. Want of supplies
+      disabled the confederates from any longer keeping the field. And yet it
+      was dangerous to lay down their weapons in the sight of an armed enemy. To
+      secure themselves at least on one side, they hastened to conclude a peace
+      with their old enemy, the Archduke Leopold; and both parties agreed to
+      withdraw their troops from Alsace, to exchange prisoners, and to bury all
+      that had been done in oblivion. Thus ended in nothing all these promising
+      preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same imperious tone with which the Union, in the confidence of its
+      strength, had menaced the Roman Catholics of Germany, was now retorted by
+      the League upon themselves and their troops. The traces of their march
+      were pointed out to them, and plainly branded with the hard epithets they
+      had deserved. The chapters of Wurtzburg, Bamberg, Strasburg, Mentz,
+      Treves, Cologne, and several others, had experienced their destructive
+      presence; to all these the damage done was to be made good, the free
+      passage by land and by water restored, (for the Protestants had even
+      seized on the navigation of the Rhine,) and everything replaced on its
+      former footing. Above all, the parties to the Union were called on to
+      declare expressly and unequivocally its intentions. It was now their turn
+      to yield to superior strength. They had not calculated on so formidable an
+      opponent; but they themselves had taught the Roman Catholics the secret of
+      their strength. It was humiliating to their pride to sue for peace, but
+      they might think themselves fortunate in obtaining it. The one party
+      promised restitution, the other forgiveness. All laid down their arms. The
+      storm of war once more rolled by, and a temporary calm succeeded. The
+      insurrection in Bohemia then broke out, which deprived the Emperor of the
+      last of his hereditary dominions, but in this dispute neither the Union
+      nor the League took any share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the Emperor died in 1612, as little regretted in his coffin as
+      noticed on the throne. Long afterwards, when the miseries of succeeding
+      reigns had made the misfortunes of his reign forgotten, a halo spread
+      about his memory, and so fearful a night set in upon Germany, that, with
+      tears of blood, people prayed for the return of such an emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rodolph never could be prevailed upon to choose a successor in the empire,
+      and all awaited with anxiety the approaching vacancy of the throne; but,
+      beyond all hope, Matthias at once ascended it, and without opposition. The
+      Roman Catholics gave him their voices, because they hoped the best from
+      his vigour and activity; the Protestants gave him theirs, because they
+      hoped every thing from his weakness. It is not difficult to reconcile this
+      contradiction. The one relied on what he had once appeared; the other
+      judged him by what he seemed at present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment of a new accession is always a day of hope; and the first Diet
+      of a king in elective monarchies is usually his severest trial. Every old
+      grievance is brought forward, and new ones are sought out, that they may
+      be included in the expected reform; quite a new world is expected to
+      commence with the new reign. The important services which, in his
+      insurrection, their religious confederates in Austria had rendered to
+      Matthias, were still fresh in the minds of the Protestant free cities,
+      and, above all, the price which they had exacted for their services seemed
+      now to serve them also as a model.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by the favour of the Protestant Estates in Austria and Moravia that
+      Matthias had sought and really found the way to his brother's throne; but,
+      hurried on by his ambitious views, he never reflected that a way was thus
+      opened for the States to give laws to their sovereign. This discovery soon
+      awoke him from the intoxication of success. Scarcely had he shown himself
+      in triumph to his Austrian subjects, after his victorious expedition to
+      Bohemia, when a humble petition awaited him which was quite sufficient to
+      poison his whole triumph. They required, before doing homage, unlimited
+      religious toleration in the cities and market towns, perfect equality of
+      rights between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and a full and equal
+      admissibility of the latter to all offices of state. In several places,
+      they of themselves assumed these privileges, and, reckoning on a change of
+      administration, restored the Protestant religion where the late Emperor
+      had suppressed it. Matthias, it is true, had not scrupled to make use of
+      the grievances of the Protestants for his own ends against the Emperor;
+      but it was far from being his intention to relieve them. By a firm and
+      resolute tone he hoped to check, at once, these presumptuous demands. He
+      spoke of his hereditary title to these territories, and would hear of no
+      stipulations before the act of homage. A like unconditional submission had
+      been rendered by their neighbours, the inhabitants of Styria, to the
+      Archduke Ferdinand, who, however, had soon reason to repent of it. Warned
+      by this example, the Austrian States persisted in their refusal; and, to
+      avoid being compelled by force to do homage, their deputies (after urging
+      their Roman Catholic colleagues to a similar resistance) immediately left
+      the capital, and began to levy troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took steps to renew their old alliance with Hungary, drew the
+      Protestant princes into their interests, and set themselves seriously to
+      work to accomplish their object by force of arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the more exorbitant demands of the Hungarians Matthias had not
+      hesitated to comply. For Hungary was an elective monarchy, and the
+      republican constitution of the country justified to himself their demands,
+      and to the Roman Catholic world his concessions. In Austria, on the
+      contrary, his predecessors had exercised far higher prerogatives, which he
+      could not relinquish at the demand of the Estates without incurring the
+      scorn of Roman Catholic Europe, the enmity of Spain and Rome, and the
+      contempt of his own Roman Catholic subjects. His exclusively Romish
+      council, among which the Bishop of Vienna, Melchio Kiesel, had the chief
+      influence, exhorted him to see all the churches extorted from him by the
+      Protestants, rather than to concede one to them as a matter of right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But by ill luck this difficulty occurred at a time when the Emperor
+      Rodolph was yet alive, and a spectator of this scene, and who might easily
+      have been tempted to employ against his brother the same weapons which the
+      latter had successfully directed against him&mdash;namely, an
+      understanding with his rebellious subjects. To avoid this blow, Matthias
+      willingly availed himself of the offer made by Moravia, to act as mediator
+      between him and the Estates of Austria. Representatives of both parties
+      met in Vienna, when the Austrian deputies held language which would have
+      excited surprise even in the English Parliament. "The Protestants," they
+      said, "are determined to be not worse treated in their native country than
+      the handful of Romanists. By the help of his Protestant nobles had
+      Matthias reduced the Emperor to submission; where 80 Papists were to be
+      found, 300 Protestant barons might be counted. The example of Rodolph
+      should be a warning to Matthias. He should take care that he did not lose
+      the terrestrial, in attempting to make conquests for the celestial." As
+      the Moravian States, instead of using their powers as mediators for the
+      Emperor's advantage, finally adopted the cause of their co-religionists of
+      Austria; as the Union in Germany came forward to afford them its most
+      active support, and as Matthias dreaded reprisals on the part of the
+      Emperor, he was at length compelled to make the desired declaration in
+      favour of the Evangelical Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This behaviour of the Austrian Estates towards their Archduke was now
+      imitated by the Protestant Estates of the Empire towards their Emperor,
+      and they promised themselves the same favourable results. At his first
+      Diet at Ratisbon in 1613, when the most pressing affairs were waiting for
+      decision&mdash;when a general contribution was indispensable for a war
+      against Turkey, and against Bethlem Gabor in Transylvania, who by Turkish
+      aid had forcibly usurped the sovereignty of that land, and even threatened
+      Hungary&mdash;they surprised him with an entirely new demand. The Roman
+      Catholic votes were still the most numerous in the Diet; and as every
+      thing was decided by a plurality of voices, the Protestant party, however
+      closely united, were entirely without consideration. The advantage of this
+      majority the Roman Catholics were now called on to relinquish;
+      henceforward no one religious party was to be permitted to dictate to the
+      other by means of its invariable superiority. And in truth, if the
+      evangelical religion was really to be represented in the Diet, it was
+      self-evident that it must not be shut out from the possibility of making
+      use of that privilege, merely from the constitution of the Diet itself.
+      Complaints of the judicial usurpations of the Aulic Council, and of the
+      oppression of the Protestants, accompanied this demand, and the deputies
+      of the Estates were instructed to take no part in any general
+      deliberations till a favourable answer should be given on this preliminary
+      point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Diet was torn asunder by this dangerous division, which threatened to
+      destroy for ever the unity of its deliberations. Sincerely as the Emperor
+      might have wished, after the example of his father Maximilian, to preserve
+      a prudent balance between the two religions, the present conduct of the
+      Protestants seemed to leave him nothing but a critical choice between the
+      two. In his present necessities a general contribution from the Estates
+      was indispensable to him; and yet he could not conciliate the one party
+      without sacrificing the support of the other. Insecure as he felt his
+      situation to be in his own hereditary dominions, he could not but tremble
+      at the idea, however remote, of an open war with the Protestants. But the
+      eyes of the whole Roman Catholic world, which were attentively regarding
+      his conduct, the remonstrances of the Roman Catholic Estates, and of the
+      Courts of Rome and Spain, as little permitted him to favour the Protestant
+      at the expense of the Romish religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So critical a situation would have paralysed a greater mind than Matthias;
+      and his own prudence would scarcely have extricated him from his dilemma.
+      But the interests of the Roman Catholics were closely interwoven with the
+      imperial authority; if they suffered this to fall, the ecclesiastical
+      princes in particular would be without a bulwark against the attacks of
+      the Protestants. Now, then, that they saw the Emperor wavering, they
+      thought it high time to reassure his sinking courage. They imparted to him
+      the secret of their League, and acquainted him with its whole
+      constitution, resources and power. Little comforting as such a revelation
+      must have been to the Emperor, the prospect of so powerful a support gave
+      him greater boldness to oppose the Protestants. Their demands were
+      rejected, and the Diet broke up without coming to a decision. But Matthias
+      was the victim of this dispute. The Protestants refused him their
+      supplies, and made him alone suffer for the inflexibility of the Roman
+      Catholics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Turks, however, appeared willing to prolong the cessation of
+      hostilities, and Bethlem Gabor was left in peaceable possession of
+      Transylvania. The empire was now free from foreign enemies; and even at
+      home, in the midst of all these fearful disputes, peace still reigned. An
+      unexpected accident had given a singular turn to the dispute as to the
+      succession of Juliers. This duchy was still ruled conjointly by the
+      Electoral House of Brandenburg and the Palatine of Neuburg; and a marriage
+      between the Prince of Neuburg and a Princess of Brandenburg was to have
+      inseparably united the interests of the two houses. But the whole scheme
+      was upset by a box on the ear, which, in a drunken brawl, the Elector of
+      Brandenburg unfortunately inflicted upon his intended son-in-law. From
+      this moment the good understanding between the two houses was at an end.
+      The Prince of Neuburg embraced popery. The hand of a princess of Bavaria
+      rewarded his apostacy, and the strong support of Bavaria and Spain was the
+      natural result of both. To secure to the Palatine the exclusive possession
+      of Juliers, the Spanish troops from the Netherlands were marched into the
+      Palatinate. To rid himself of these guests, the Elector of Brandenburg
+      called the Flemings to his assistance, whom he sought to propitiate by
+      embracing the Calvinist religion. Both Spanish and Dutch armies appeared,
+      but, as it seemed, only to make conquests for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neighbouring war of the Netherlands seemed now about to be decided on
+      German ground; and what an inexhaustible mine of combustibles lay here
+      ready for it! The Protestants saw with consternation the Spaniards
+      establishing themselves upon the Lower Rhine; with still greater anxiety
+      did the Roman Catholics see the Hollanders bursting through the frontiers
+      of the empire. It was in the west that the mine was expected to explode
+      which had long been dug under the whole of Germany. To the west,
+      apprehension and anxiety turned; but the spark which kindled the flame
+      came unexpectedly from the east.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tranquillity which Rodolph II.'s 'Letter of Majesty' had established
+      in Bohemia lasted for some time, under the administration of Matthias,
+      till the nomination of a new heir to this kingdom in the person of
+      Ferdinand of Gratz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This prince, whom we shall afterwards become better acquainted with under
+      the title of Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany, had, by the violent
+      extirpation of the Protestant religion within his hereditary dominions,
+      announced himself as an inexorable zealot for popery, and was consequently
+      looked upon by the Roman Catholic part of Bohemia as the future pillar of
+      their church. The declining health of the Emperor brought on this hour
+      rapidly; and, relying on so powerful a supporter, the Bohemian Papists
+      began to treat the Protestants with little moderation. The Protestant
+      vassals of Roman Catholic nobles, in particular, experienced the harshest
+      treatment. At length several of the former were incautious enough to speak
+      somewhat loudly of their hopes, and by threatening hints to awaken among
+      the Protestants a suspicion of their future sovereign. But this mistrust
+      would never have broken out into actual violence, had the Roman Catholics
+      confined themselves to general expressions, and not by attacks on
+      individuals furnished the discontent of the people with enterprising
+      leaders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry Matthias, Count Thurn, not a native of Bohemia, but proprietor of
+      some estates in that kingdom, had, by his zeal for the Protestant cause,
+      and an enthusiastic attachment to his newly adopted country, gained the
+      entire confidence of the Utraquists, which opened him the way to the most
+      important posts. He had fought with great glory against the Turks, and won
+      by a flattering address the hearts of the multitude. Of a hot and
+      impetuous disposition, which loved tumult because his talents shone in it&mdash;rash
+      and thoughtless enough to undertake things which cold prudence and a
+      calmer temper would not have ventured upon&mdash;unscrupulous enough,
+      where the gratification of his passions was concerned, to sport with the
+      fate of thousands, and at the same time politic enough to hold in
+      leading-strings such a people as the Bohemians then were. He had already
+      taken an active part in the troubles under Rodolph's administration; and
+      the Letter of Majesty which the States had extorted from that Emperor, was
+      chiefly to be laid to his merit. The court had intrusted to him, as
+      burgrave or castellan of Calstein, the custody of the Bohemian crown, and
+      of the national charter. But the nation had placed in his hands something
+      far more important&mdash;ITSELF&mdash;with the office of defender or
+      protector of the faith. The aristocracy by which the Emperor was ruled,
+      imprudently deprived him of this harmless guardianship of the dead, to
+      leave him his full influence over the living. They took from him his
+      office of burgrave, or constable of the castle, which had rendered him
+      dependent on the court, thereby opening his eyes to the importance of the
+      other which remained, and wounded his vanity, which yet was the thing that
+      made his ambition harmless. From this moment he was actuated solely by a
+      desire of revenge; and the opportunity of gratifying it was not long
+      wanting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Royal Letter which the Bohemians had extorted from Rodolph II., as
+      well as in the German religious treaty, one material article remained
+      undetermined. All the privileges granted by the latter to the Protestants,
+      were conceived in favour of the Estates or governing bodies, not of the
+      subjects; for only to those of the ecclesiastical states had a toleration,
+      and that precarious, been conceded. The Bohemian Letter of Majesty, in the
+      same manner, spoke only of the Estates and imperial towns, the magistrates
+      of which had contrived to obtain equal privileges with the former. These
+      alone were free to erect churches and schools, and openly to celebrate
+      their Protestant worship; in all other towns, it was left entirely to the
+      government to which they belonged, to determine the religion of the
+      inhabitants. The Estates of the Empire had availed themselves of this
+      privilege in its fullest extent; the secular indeed without opposition;
+      while the ecclesiastical, in whose case the declaration of Ferdinand had
+      limited this privilege, disputed, not without reason, the validity of that
+      limitation. What was a disputed point in the religious treaty, was left
+      still more doubtful in the Letter of Majesty; in the former, the
+      construction was not doubtful, but it was a question how far obedience
+      might be compulsory; in the latter, the interpretation was left to the
+      states. The subjects of the ecclesiastical Estates in Bohemia thought
+      themselves entitled to the same rights which the declaration of Ferdinand
+      secured to the subjects of German bishops, they considered themselves on
+      an equality with the subjects of imperial towns, because they looked upon
+      the ecclesiastical property as part of the royal demesnes. In the little
+      town of Klostergrab, subject to the Archbishop of Prague; and in Braunau,
+      which belonged to the abbot of that monastery, churches were founded by
+      the Protestants, and completed notwithstanding the opposition of their
+      superiors, and the disapprobation of the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, the vigilance of the defenders had somewhat relaxed, and
+      the court thought it might venture on a decisive step. By the Emperor's
+      orders, the church at Klostergrab was pulled down; that at Braunau
+      forcibly shut up, and the most turbulent of the citizens thrown into
+      prison. A general commotion among the Protestants was the consequence of
+      this measure; a loud outcry was everywhere raised at this violation of the
+      Letter of Majesty; and Count Thurn, animated by revenge, and particularly
+      called upon by his office of defender, showed himself not a little busy in
+      inflaming the minds of the people. At his instigation deputies were
+      summoned to Prague from every circle in the empire, to concert the
+      necessary measures against the common danger. It was resolved to petition
+      the Emperor to press for the liberation of the prisoners. The answer of
+      the Emperor, already offensive to the states, from its being addressed,
+      not to them, but to his viceroy, denounced their conduct as illegal and
+      rebellious, justified what had been done at Klostergrab and Braunau as the
+      result of an imperial mandate, and contained some passages that might be
+      construed into threats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Count Thurn did not fail to augment the unfavourable impression which this
+      imperial edict made upon the assembled Estates. He pointed out to them the
+      danger in which all who had signed the petition were involved, and sought
+      by working on their resentment and fears to hurry them into violent
+      resolutions. To have caused their immediate revolt against the Emperor,
+      would have been, as yet, too bold a measure. It was only step by step that
+      he would lead them on to this unavoidable result. He held it, therefore,
+      advisable first to direct their indignation against the Emperor's
+      counsellors; and for that purpose circulated a report, that the imperial
+      proclamation had been drawn up by the government at Prague, and only
+      signed in Vienna. Among the imperial delegates, the chief objects of the
+      popular hatred, were the President of the Chamber, Slawata, and Baron
+      Martinitz, who had been elected in place of Count Thurn, Burgrave of
+      Calstein. Both had long before evinced pretty openly their hostile
+      feelings towards the Protestants, by alone refusing to be present at the
+      sitting at which the Letter of Majesty had been inserted in the Bohemian
+      constitution. A threat was made at the time to make them responsible for
+      every violation of the Letter of Majesty; and from this moment, whatever
+      evil befell the Protestants was set down, and not without reason, to their
+      account. Of all the Roman Catholic nobles, these two had treated their
+      Protestant vassals with the greatest harshness. They were accused of
+      hunting them with dogs to the mass, and of endeavouring to drive them to
+      popery by a denial of the rites of baptism, marriage, and burial. Against
+      two characters so unpopular the public indignation was easily excited, and
+      they were marked out for a sacrifice to the general indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 23rd of May, 1618, the deputies appeared armed, and in great
+      numbers, at the royal palace, and forced their way into the hall where the
+      Commissioners Sternberg, Martinitz, Lobkowitz, and Slawata were assembled.
+      In a threatening tone they demanded to know from each of them, whether he
+      had taken any part, or had consented to, the imperial proclamation.
+      Sternberg received them with composure, Martinitz and Slawata with
+      defiance. This decided their fate; Sternberg and Lobkowitz, less hated,
+      and more feared, were led by the arm out of the room; Martinitz and
+      Slawata were seized, dragged to a window, and precipitated from a height
+      of eighty feet, into the castle trench. Their creature, the secretary
+      Fabricius, was thrown after them. This singular mode of execution
+      naturally excited the surprise of civilized nations. The Bohemians
+      justified it as a national custom, and saw nothing remarkable in the whole
+      affair, excepting that any one should have got up again safe and sound
+      after such a fall. A dunghill, on which the imperial commissioners chanced
+      to be deposited, had saved them from injury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not to be expected that this summary mode of proceeding would much
+      increase the favour of the parties with the Emperor, but this was the very
+      position to which Count Thurn wished to bring them. If, from the fear of
+      uncertain danger, they had permitted themselves such an act of violence,
+      the certain expectation of punishment, and the now urgent necessity of
+      making themselves secure, would plunge them still deeper into guilt. By
+      this brutal act of self-redress, no room was left for irresolution or
+      repentance, and it seemed as if a single crime could be absolved only by a
+      series of violences. As the deed itself could not be undone, nothing was
+      left but to disarm the hand of punishment. Thirty directors were appointed
+      to organise a regular insurrection. They seized upon all the offices of
+      state, and all the imperial revenues, took into their own service the
+      royal functionaries and the soldiers, and summoned the whole Bohemian
+      nation to avenge the common cause. The Jesuits, whom the common hatred
+      accused as the instigators of every previous oppression, were banished the
+      kingdom, and this harsh measure the Estates found it necessary to justify
+      in a formal manifesto. These various steps were taken for the preservation
+      of the royal authority and the laws&mdash;the language of all rebels till
+      fortune has decided in their favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emotion which the news of the Bohemian insurrection excited at the
+      imperial court, was much less lively than such intelligence deserved. The
+      Emperor Matthias was no longer the resolute spirit that formerly sought
+      out his king and master in the very bosom of his people, and hurled him
+      from three thrones. The confidence and courage which had animated him in
+      an usurpation, deserted him in a legitimate self-defence. The Bohemian
+      rebels had first taken up arms, and the nature of circumstances drove him
+      to join them. But he could not hope to confine such a war to Bohemia. In
+      all the territories under his dominion, the Protestants were united by a
+      dangerous sympathy&mdash;the common danger of their religion might
+      suddenly combine them all into a formidable republic. What could he oppose
+      to such an enemy, if the Protestant portion of his subjects deserted him?
+      And would not both parties exhaust themselves in so ruinous a civil war?
+      How much was at stake if he lost; and if he won, whom else would he
+      destroy but his own subjects?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considerations such as these inclined the Emperor and his council to
+      concessions and pacific measures, but it was in this very spirit of
+      concession that, as others would have it, lay the origin of the evil. The
+      Archduke Ferdinand of Gratz congratulated the Emperor upon an event, which
+      would justify in the eyes of all Europe the severest measures against the
+      Bohemian Protestants. "Disobedience, lawlessness, and insurrection," he
+      said, "went always hand-in-hand with Protestantism. Every privilege which
+      had been conceded to the Estates by himself and his predecessor, had had
+      no other effect than to raise their demands. All the measures of the
+      heretics were aimed against the imperial authority. Step by step had they
+      advanced from defiance to defiance up to this last aggression; in a short
+      time they would assail all that remained to be assailed, in the person of
+      the Emperor. In arms alone was there any safety against such an enemy&mdash;peace
+      and subordination could be only established upon the ruins of their
+      dangerous privileges; security for the Catholic belief was to be found
+      only in the total destruction of this sect. Uncertain, it was true, might
+      be the event of the war, but inevitable was the ruin if it were
+      pretermitted. The confiscation of the lands of the rebels would richly
+      indemnify them for its expenses, while the terror of punishment would
+      teach the other states the wisdom of a prompt obedience in future." Were
+      the Bohemian Protestants to blame, if they armed themselves in time
+      against the enforcement of such maxims? The insurrection in Bohemia,
+      besides, was directed only against the successor of the Emperor, not
+      against himself, who had done nothing to justify the alarm of the
+      Protestants. To exclude this prince from the Bohemian throne, arms had
+      before been taken up under Matthias, though as long as this Emperor lived,
+      his subjects had kept within the bounds of an apparent submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bohemia was in arms, and unarmed, the Emperor dared not even offer
+      them peace. For this purpose, Spain supplied gold, and promised to send
+      troops from Italy and the Netherlands. Count Bucquoi, a native of the
+      Netherlands, was named generalissimo, because no native could be trusted,
+      and Count Dampierre, another foreigner, commanded under him. Before the
+      army took the field, the Emperor endeavoured to bring about an amicable
+      arrangement, by the publication of a manifesto. In this he assured the
+      Bohemians, "that he held sacred the Letter of Majesty&mdash;that he had
+      not formed any resolutions inimical to their religion or their privileges,
+      and that his present preparations were forced upon him by their own. As
+      soon as the nation laid down their arms, he also would disband his army."
+      But this gracious letter failed of its effect, because the leaders of the
+      insurrection contrived to hide from the people the Emperor's good
+      intentions. Instead of this, they circulated the most alarming reports
+      from the pulpit, and by pamphlets, and terrified the deluded populace with
+      threatened horrors of another Saint Bartholomew's that existed only in
+      their own imagination. All Bohemia, with the exception of three towns,
+      Budweiss, Krummau, and Pilsen, took part in this insurrection. These three
+      towns, inhabited principally by Roman Catholics, alone had the courage, in
+      this general revolt, to hold out for the Emperor, who promised them
+      assistance. But it could not escape Count Thurn, how dangerous it was to
+      leave in hostile hands three places of such importance, which would at all
+      times keep open for the imperial troops an entrance into the kingdom. With
+      prompt determination he appeared before Budweiss and Krummau, in the hope
+      of terrifying them into a surrender. Krummau surrendered, but all his
+      attacks were steadfastly repulsed by Budweiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, too, the Emperor began to show more earnestness and energy.
+      Bucquoi and Dampierre, with two armies, fell upon the Bohemian
+      territories, which they treated as a hostile country. But the imperial
+      generals found the march to Prague more difficult than they had expected.
+      Every pass, every position that was the least tenable, must be opened by
+      the sword, and resistance increased at each fresh step they took, for the
+      outrages of their troops, chiefly consisting of Hungarians and Walloons,
+      drove their friends to revolt and their enemies to despair. But even now
+      that his troops had penetrated into Bohemia, the Emperor continued to
+      offer the Estates peace, and to show himself ready for an amicable
+      adjustment. But the new prospects which opened upon them, raised the
+      courage of the revolters. Moravia espoused their party; and from Germany
+      appeared to them a defender equally intrepid and unexpected, in the person
+      of Count Mansfeld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heads of the Evangelic Union had been silent but not inactive
+      spectators of the movements in Bohemia. Both were contending for the same
+      cause, and against the same enemy. In the fate of the Bohemians, their
+      confederates in the faith might read their own; and the cause of this
+      people was represented as of solemn concern to the whole German union.
+      True to these principles, the Unionists supported the courage of the
+      insurgents by promises of assistance; and a fortunate accident now enabled
+      them, beyond their hopes, to fulfil them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instrument by which the House of Austria was humbled in Germany, was
+      Peter Ernest, Count Mansfeld, the son of a distinguished Austrian officer,
+      Ernest von Mansfeld, who for some time had commanded with repute the
+      Spanish army in the Netherlands. His first campaigns in Juliers and Alsace
+      had been made in the service of this house, and under the banner of the
+      Archduke Leopold, against the Protestant religion and the liberties of
+      Germany. But insensibly won by the principles of this religion, he
+      abandoned a leader whose selfishness denied him the reimbursement of the
+      monies expended in his cause, and he transferred his zeal and a victorious
+      sword to the Evangelic Union. It happened just then that the Duke of
+      Savoy, an ally of the Union, demanded assistance in a war against Spain.
+      They assigned to him their newly acquired servant, and Mansfeld received
+      instructions to raise an army of 4000 men in Germany, in the cause and in
+      the pay of the duke. The army was ready to march at the very moment when
+      the flames of war burst out in Bohemia, and the duke, who at the time did
+      not stand in need of its services, placed it at the disposal of the Union.
+      Nothing could be more welcome to these troops than the prospect of aiding
+      their confederates in Bohemia, at the cost of a third party. Mansfeld
+      received orders forthwith to march with these 4000 men into that kingdom;
+      and a pretended Bohemian commission was given to blind the public as to
+      the true author of this levy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Mansfeld now appeared in Bohemia, and, by the occupation of Pilsen,
+      strongly fortified and favourable to the Emperor, obtained a firm footing
+      in the country. The courage of the rebels was farther increased by
+      succours which the Silesian States despatched to their assistance. Between
+      these and the Imperialists, several battles were fought, far indeed from
+      decisive, but only on that account the more destructive, which served as
+      the prelude to a more serious war. To check the vigour of his military
+      operations, a negotiation was entered into with the Emperor, and a
+      disposition was shown to accept the proffered mediation of Saxony. But
+      before the event could prove how little sincerity there was in these
+      proposals, the Emperor was removed from the scene by death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What now had Matthias done to justify the expectations which he had
+      excited by the overthrow of his predecessor? Was it worth while to ascend
+      a brother's throne through guilt, and then maintain it with so little
+      dignity, and leave it with so little renown? As long as Matthias sat on
+      the throne, he had to atone for the imprudence by which he had gained it.
+      To enjoy the regal dignity a few years sooner, he had shackled the free
+      exercise of its prerogatives. The slender portion of independence left him
+      by the growing power of the Estates, was still farther lessened by the
+      encroachments of his relations. Sickly and childless he saw the attention
+      of the world turned to an ambitious heir who was impatiently anticipating
+      his fate; and who, by his interference with the closing administration,
+      was already opening his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Matthias, the reigning line of the German House of Austria was in a
+      manner extinct; for of all the sons of Maximilian, one only was now alive,
+      the weak and childless Archduke Albert, in the Netherlands, who had
+      already renounced his claims to the inheritance in favour of the line of
+      Gratz. The Spanish House had also, in a secret bond, resigned its
+      pretensions to the Austrian possessions in behalf of the Archduke
+      Ferdinand of Styria, in whom the branch of Hapsburg was about to put forth
+      new shoots, and the former greatness of Austria to experience a revival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father of Ferdinand was the Archduke Charles of Carniola, Carinthia,
+      and Styria, the youngest brother of the Emperor Maximilian II.; his mother
+      a princess of Bavaria. Having lost his father at twelve years of age, he
+      was intrusted by the archduchess to the guardianship of her brother
+      William, Duke of Bavaria, under whose eyes he was instructed and educated
+      by Jesuits at the Academy of Ingolstadt. What principles he was likely to
+      imbibe by his intercourse with a prince, who from motives of devotion had
+      abdicated his government, may be easily conceived. Care was taken to point
+      out to him, on the one hand, the weak indulgence of Maximilian's house
+      towards the adherents of the new doctrines, and the consequent troubles of
+      their dominions; on the other, the blessings of Bavaria, and the
+      inflexible religious zeal of its rulers; between these two examples he was
+      left to choose for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formed in this school to be a stout champion of the faith, and a prompt
+      instrument of the church, he left Bavaria, after a residence of five
+      years, to assume the government of his hereditary dominions. The Estates
+      of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, who, before doing homage, demanded a
+      guarantee for freedom of religion, were told that religious liberty has
+      nothing to do with their allegiance. The oath was put to them without
+      conditions, and unconditionally taken. Many years, however, elapsed, ere
+      the designs which had been planned at Ingolstadt were ripe for execution.
+      Before attempting to carry them into effect, he sought in person at
+      Loretto the favour of the Virgin, and received the apostolic benediction
+      in Rome at the feet of Clement VIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These designs were nothing less than the expulsion of Protestantism from a
+      country where it had the advantage of numbers, and had been legally
+      recognized by a formal act of toleration, granted by his father to the
+      noble and knightly estates of the land. A grant so formally ratified could
+      not be revoked without danger; but no difficulties could deter the pious
+      pupil of the Jesuits. The example of other states, both Roman Catholic and
+      Protestant, which within their own territories had exercised unquestioned
+      a right of reformation, and the abuse which the Estates of Styria made of
+      their religious liberties, would serve as a justification of this violent
+      procedure. Under the shelter of an absurd positive law, those of equity
+      and prudence might, it was thought, be safely despised. In the execution
+      of these unrighteous designs, Ferdinand did, it must be owned, display no
+      common courage and perseverance. Without tumult, and we may add, without
+      cruelty, he suppressed the Protestant service in one town after another,
+      and in a few years, to the astonishment of Germany, this dangerous work
+      was brought to a successful end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, while the Roman Catholics admired him as a hero, and the champion of
+      the church, the Protestants began to combine against him as against their
+      most dangerous enemy. And yet Matthias's intention to bequeath to him the
+      succession, met with little or no opposition in the elective states of
+      Austria. Even the Bohemians agreed to receive him as their future king, on
+      very favourable conditions. It was not until afterwards, when they had
+      experienced the pernicious influence of his councils on the administration
+      of the Emperor, that their anxiety was first excited; and then several
+      projects, in his handwriting, which an unlucky chance threw into their
+      hands, as they plainly evinced his disposition towards them, carried their
+      apprehension to the utmost pitch. In particular, they were alarmed by a
+      secret family compact with Spain, by which, in default of heirs-male of
+      his own body, Ferdinand bequeathed to that crown the kingdom of Bohemia,
+      without first consulting the wishes of that nation, and without regard to
+      its right of free election. The many enemies, too, which by his reforms in
+      Styria that prince had provoked among the Protestants, were very
+      prejudicial to his interests in Bohemia; and some Styrian emigrants, who
+      had taken refuge there, bringing with them into their adopted country
+      hearts overflowing with a desire of revenge, were particularly active in
+      exciting the flame of revolt. Thus ill-affected did Ferdinand find the
+      Bohemians, when he succeeded Matthias.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So bad an understanding between the nation and the candidate for the
+      throne, would have raised a storm even in the most peaceable succession;
+      how much more so at the present moment, before the ardour of insurrection
+      had cooled; when the nation had just recovered its dignity, and reasserted
+      its rights; when they still held arms in their hands, and the
+      consciousness of unity had awakened an enthusiastic reliance on their own
+      strength; when by past success, by the promises of foreign assistance, and
+      by visionary expectations of the future, their courage had been raised to
+      an undoubting confidence. Disregarding the rights already conferred on
+      Ferdinand, the Estates declared the throne vacant, and their right of
+      election entirely unfettered. All hopes of their peaceful submission were
+      at an end, and if Ferdinand wished still to wear the crown of Bohemia, he
+      must choose between purchasing it at the sacrifice of all that would make
+      a crown desirable, or winning it sword in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But with what means was it to be won? Turn his eyes where he would, the
+      fire of revolt was burning. Silesia had already joined the insurgents in
+      Bohemia; Moravia was on the point of following its example. In Upper and
+      Lower Austria the spirit of liberty was awake, as it had been under
+      Rodolph, and the Estates refused to do homage. Hungary was menaced with an
+      inroad by Prince Bethlen Gabor, on the side of Transylvania; a secret
+      arming among the Turks spread consternation among the provinces to the
+      eastward; and, to complete his perplexities, the Protestants also, in his
+      hereditary dominions, stimulated by the general example, were again
+      raising their heads. In that quarter, their numbers were overwhelming; in
+      most places they had possession of the revenues which Ferdinand would need
+      for the maintenance of the war. The neutral began to waver, the faithful
+      to be discouraged, the turbulent alone to be animated and confident. One
+      half of Germany encouraged the rebels, the other inactively awaited the
+      issue; Spanish assistance was still very remote. The moment which had
+      brought him every thing, threatened also to deprive him of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when he now, yielding to the stern law of necessity, made overtures to
+      the Bohemian rebels, all his proposals for peace were insolently rejected.
+      Count Thurn, at the head of an army, entered Moravia to bring this
+      province, which alone continued to waver, to a decision. The appearance of
+      their friends is the signal of revolt for the Moravian Protestants. Bruenn
+      is taken, the remainder of the country yields with free will, throughout
+      the province government and religion are changed. Swelling as it flows,
+      the torrent of rebellion pours down upon Austria, where a party, holding
+      similar sentiments, receives it with a joyful concurrence. Henceforth,
+      there should be no more distinctions of religion; equality of rights
+      should be guaranteed to all Christian churches. They hear that a foreign
+      force has been invited into the country to oppress the Bohemians. Let them
+      be sought out, and the enemies of liberty pursued to the ends of the
+      earth. Not an arm is raised in defence of the Archduke, and the rebels, at
+      length, encamp before Vienna to besiege their sovereign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferdinand had sent his children from Gratz, where they were no longer
+      safe, to the Tyrol; he himself awaited the insurgents in his capital. A
+      handful of soldiers was all he could oppose to the enraged multitude;
+      these few were without pay or provisions, and therefore little to be
+      depended on. Vienna was unprepared for a long siege. The party of the
+      Protestants, ready at any moment to join the Bohemians, had the
+      preponderance in the city; those in the country had already begun to levy
+      troops against him. Already, in imagination, the Protestant populace saw
+      the Emperor shut up in a monastery, his territories divided, and his
+      children educated as Protestants. Confiding in secret, and surrounded by
+      public enemies, he saw the chasm every moment widening to engulf his hopes
+      and even himself. The Bohemian bullets were already falling upon the
+      imperial palace, when sixteen Austrian barons forcibly entered his
+      chamber, and inveighing against him with loud and bitter reproaches,
+      endeavoured to force him into a confederation with the Bohemians. One of
+      them, seizing him by the button of his doublet, demanded, in a tone of
+      menace, "Ferdinand, wilt thou sign it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who would not be pardoned had he wavered in this frightful situation? Yet
+      Ferdinand still remembered the dignity of a Roman emperor. No alternative
+      seemed left to him but an immediate flight or submission; laymen urged him
+      to the one, priests to the other. If he abandoned the city, it would fall
+      into the enemy's hands; with Vienna, Austria was lost; with Austria, the
+      imperial throne. Ferdinand abandoned not his capital, and as little would
+      he hear of conditions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Archduke is still engaged in altercation with the deputed barons, when
+      all at once a sound of trumpets is heard in the palace square. Terror and
+      astonishment take possession of all present; a fearful report pervades the
+      palace; one deputy after another disappears. Many of the nobility and the
+      citizens hastily take refuge in the camp of Thurn. This sudden change is
+      effected by a regiment of Dampierre's cuirassiers, who at that moment
+      marched into the city to defend the Archduke. A body of infantry soon
+      followed; reassured by their appearance, several of the Roman Catholic
+      citizens, and even the students themselves, take up arms. A report which
+      arrived just at the same time from Bohemia made his deliverance complete.
+      The Flemish general, Bucquoi, had totally defeated Count Mansfeld at
+      Budweiss, and was marching upon Prague. The Bohemians hastily broke up
+      their camp before Vienna to protect their own capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now also the passes were free which the enemy had taken possession of,
+      in order to obstruct Ferdinand's progress to his coronation at Frankfort.
+      If the accession to the imperial throne was important for the plans of the
+      King of Hungary, it was of still greater consequence at the present
+      moment, when his nomination as Emperor would afford the most unsuspicious
+      and decisive proof of the dignity of his person, and of the justice of his
+      cause, while, at the same time, it would give him a hope of support from
+      the Empire. But the same cabal which opposed him in his hereditary
+      dominions, laboured also to counteract him in his canvass for the imperial
+      dignity. No Austrian prince, they maintained, ought to ascend the throne;
+      least of all Ferdinand, the bigoted persecutor of their religion, the
+      slave of Spain and of the Jesuits. To prevent this, the crown had been
+      offered, even during the lifetime of Matthias, to the Duke of Bavaria, and
+      on his refusal, to the Duke of Savoy. As some difficulty was experienced
+      in settling with the latter the conditions of acceptance, it was sought,
+      at all events, to delay the election till some decisive blow in Austria or
+      Bohemia should annihilate all the hopes of Ferdinand, and incapacitate him
+      from any competition for this dignity. The members of the Union left no
+      stone unturned to gain over from Ferdinand the Electorate of Saxony, which
+      was bound to Austrian interests; they represented to this court the
+      dangers with which the Protestant religion, and even the constitution of
+      the empire, were threatened by the principles of this prince and his
+      Spanish alliance. By the elevation of Ferdinand to the imperial throne,
+      Germany, they further asserted, would be involved in the private quarrels
+      of this prince, and bring upon itself the arms of Bohemia. But in spite of
+      all opposing influences, the day of election was fixed, Ferdinand summoned
+      to it as lawful king of Bohemia, and his electoral vote, after a fruitless
+      resistance on the part of the Bohemian Estates, acknowledged to be good.
+      The votes of the three ecclesiastical electorates were for him, Saxony was
+      favourable to him, Brandenburg made no opposition, and a decided majority
+      declared him Emperor in 1619. Thus he saw the most doubtful of his crowns
+      placed first of all on his head; but a few days after he lost that which
+      he had reckoned among the most certain of his possessions. While he was
+      thus elected Emperor in Frankfort, he was in Prague deprived of the
+      Bohemian throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost all of his German hereditary dominions had in the meantime entered
+      into a formidable league with the Bohemians, whose insolence now exceeded
+      all bounds. In a general Diet, the latter, on the 17th of August, 1619,
+      proclaimed the Emperor an enemy to the Bohemian religion and liberties,
+      who by his pernicious counsels had alienated from them the affections of
+      the late Emperor, had furnished troops to oppress them, had given their
+      country as a prey to foreigners, and finally, in contravention of the
+      national rights, had bequeathed the crown, by a secret compact, to Spain:
+      they therefore declared that he had forfeited whatever title he might
+      otherwise have had to the crown, and immediately proceeded to a new
+      election. As this sentence was pronounced by Protestants, their choice
+      could not well fall upon a Roman Catholic prince, though, to save
+      appearances, some voices were raised for Bavaria and Savoy. But the
+      violent religious animosities which divided the evangelical and the
+      reformed parties among the Protestants, impeded for some time the election
+      even of a Protestant king; till at last the address and activity of the
+      Calvinists carried the day from the numerical superiority of the
+      Lutherans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among all the princes who were competitors for this dignity, the Elector
+      Palatine Frederick V. had the best grounded claims on the confidence and
+      gratitude of the Bohemians; and among them all, there was no one in whose
+      case the private interests of particular Estates, and the attachment of
+      the people, seemed to be justified by so many considerations of state.
+      Frederick V. was of a free and lively spirit, of great goodness of heart,
+      and regal liberality. He was the head of the Calvinistic party in Germany,
+      the leader of the Union, whose resources were at his disposal, a near
+      relation of the Duke of Bavaria, and a son-in-law of the King of Great
+      Britain, who might lend him his powerful support. All these considerations
+      were prominently and successfully brought forward by the Calvinists, and
+      Frederick V. was chosen king by the Assembly at Prague, amidst prayers and
+      tears of joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole proceedings of the Diet at Prague had been premeditated, and
+      Frederick himself had taken too active a share in the matter to feel at
+      all surprised at the offer made to him by the Bohemians. But now the
+      immediate glitter of this throne dazzled him, and the magnitude both of
+      his elevation and his delinquency made his weak mind to tremble. After the
+      usual manner of pusillanimous spirits, he sought to confirm himself in his
+      purpose by the opinions of others; but these opinions had no weight with
+      him when they ran counter to his own cherished wishes. Saxony and Bavaria,
+      of whom he sought advice, all his brother electors, all who compared the
+      magnitude of the design with his capacities and resources, warned him of
+      the danger into which he was about to rush. Even King James of England
+      preferred to see his son-in-law deprived of this crown, than that the
+      sacred majesty of kings should be outraged by so dangerous a precedent.
+      But of what avail was the voice of prudence against the seductive glitter
+      of a crown? In the moment of boldest determination, when they are
+      indignantly rejecting the consecrated branch of a race which had governed
+      them for two centuries, a free people throws itself into his arms.
+      Confiding in his courage, they choose him as their leader in the dangerous
+      career of glory and liberty. To him, as to its born champion, an oppressed
+      religion looks for shelter and support against its persecutors. Could he
+      have the weakness to listen to his fears, and to betray the cause of
+      religion and liberty? This religion proclaims to him its own
+      preponderance, and the weakness of its rival,&mdash;two-thirds of the
+      power of Austria are now in arms against Austria itself, while a
+      formidable confederacy, already formed in Transylvania, would, by a
+      hostile attack, further distract even the weak remnant of its power. Could
+      inducements such as these fail to awaken his ambition, or such hopes to
+      animate and inflame his resolution?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments of calm consideration would have sufficed to show the danger
+      of the undertaking, and the comparative worthlessness of the prize. But
+      the temptation spoke to his feelings; the warning only to his reason. It
+      was his misfortune that his nearest and most influential counsellors
+      espoused the side of his passions. The aggrandizement of their master's
+      power opened to the ambition and avarice of his Palatine servants an
+      unlimited field for their gratification; this anticipated triumph of their
+      church kindled the ardour of the Calvinistic fanatic. Could a mind so weak
+      as that of Ferdinand resist the delusions of his counsellors, who
+      exaggerated his resources and his strength, as much as they underrated
+      those of his enemies; or the exhortations of his preachers, who announced
+      the effusions of their fanatical zeal as the immediate inspiration of
+      heaven? The dreams of astrology filled his mind with visionary hopes; even
+      love conspired, with its irresistible fascination, to complete the
+      seduction. "Had you," demanded the Electress, "confidence enough in
+      yourself to accept the hand of a king's daughter, and have you misgivings
+      about taking a crown which is voluntarily offered you? I would rather eat
+      bread at thy kingly table, than feast at thy electoral board."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick accepted the Bohemian crown. The coronation was celebrated with
+      unexampled pomp at Prague, for the nation displayed all its riches in
+      honour of its own work. Silesia and Moravia, the adjoining provinces to
+      Bohemia, followed their example, and did homage to Frederick. The reformed
+      faith was enthroned in all the churches of the kingdom; the rejoicings
+      were unbounded, their attachment to their new king bordered on adoration.
+      Denmark and Sweden, Holland and Venice, and several of the Dutch states,
+      acknowledged him as lawful sovereign, and Frederick now prepared to
+      maintain his new acquisition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His principal hopes rested on Prince Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania. This
+      formidable enemy of Austria, and of the Roman Catholic church, not content
+      with the principality which, with the assistance of the Turks, he had
+      wrested from his legitimate prince, Gabriel Bathori, gladly seized this
+      opportunity of aggrandizing himself at the expense of Austria, which had
+      hesitated to acknowledge him as sovereign of Transylvania. An attack upon
+      Hungary and Austria was concerted with the Bohemian rebels, and both
+      armies were to unite before the capital. Meantime, Bethlen Gabor, under
+      the mask of friendship, disguised the true object of his warlike
+      preparations, artfully promising the Emperor to lure the Bohemians into
+      the toils, by a pretended offer of assistance, and to deliver up to him
+      alive the leaders of the insurrection. All at once, however, he appeared
+      in a hostile attitude in Upper Hungary. Before him went terror, and
+      devastation behind; all opposition yielded, and at Presburg he received
+      the Hungarian crown. The Emperor's brother, who governed in Vienna,
+      trembled for the capital. He hastily summoned General Bucquoi to his
+      assistance, and the retreat of the Imperialists drew the Bohemians, a
+      second time, before the walls of Vienna. Reinforced by twelve thousand
+      Transylvanians, and soon after joined by the victorious army of Bethlen
+      Gabor, they again menaced the capital with assault; all the country round
+      Vienna was laid waste, the navigation of the Danube closed, all supplies
+      cut off, and the horrors of famine were threatened. Ferdinand, hastily
+      recalled to his capital by this urgent danger, saw himself a second time
+      on the brink of ruin. But want of provisions, and the inclement weather,
+      finally compelled the Bohemians to go into quarters, a defeat in Hungary
+      recalled Bethlen Gabor, and thus once more had fortune rescued the
+      Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few weeks the scene was changed, and by his prudence and activity
+      Ferdinand improved his position as rapidly as Frederick, by indolence and
+      impolicy, ruined his. The Estates of Lower Austria were regained to their
+      allegiance by a confirmation of their privileges; and the few who still
+      held out were declared guilty of `lese-majeste' and high treason. During
+      the election of Frankfort, he had contrived, by personal representations,
+      to win over to his cause the ecclesiastical electors, and also Maximilian,
+      Duke of Bavaria, at Munich. The whole issue of the war, the fate of
+      Frederick and the Emperor, were now dependent on the part which the Union
+      and the League should take in the troubles of Bohemia. It was evidently of
+      importance to all the Protestants of Germany that the King of Bohemia
+      should be supported, while it was equally the interest of the Roman
+      Catholics to prevent the ruin of the Emperor. If the Protestants succeeded
+      in Bohemia, all the Roman Catholic princes in Germany might tremble for
+      their possessions; if they failed, the Emperor would give laws to
+      Protestant Germany. Thus Ferdinand put the League, Frederick the Union, in
+      motion. The ties of relationship and a personal attachment to the Emperor,
+      his brother-in-law, with whom he had been educated at Ingolstadt, zeal for
+      the Roman Catholic religion, which seemed to be in the most imminent
+      peril, and the suggestions of the Jesuits, combined with the suspicious
+      movements of the Union, moved the Duke of Bavaria, and all the princes of
+      the League, to make the cause of Ferdinand their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to the terms of a treaty with the Emperor, which assured to the
+      Duke of Bavaria compensation for all the expenses of the war, or the
+      losses he might sustain, Maximilian took, with full powers, the command of
+      the troops of the League, which were ordered to march to the assistance of
+      the Emperor against the Bohemian rebels. The leaders of the Union, instead
+      of delaying by every means this dangerous coalition of the League with the
+      Emperor, did every thing in their power to accelerate it. Could they, they
+      thought, but once drive the Roman Catholic League to take an open part in
+      the Bohemian war, they might reckon on similar measures from all the
+      members and allies of the Union. Without some open step taken by the Roman
+      Catholics against the Union, no effectual confederacy of the Protestant
+      powers was to be looked for. They seized, therefore, the present emergency
+      of the troubles in Bohemia to demand from the Roman Catholics the
+      abolition of their past grievances, and full security for the future
+      exercise of their religion. They addressed this demand, which was moreover
+      couched in threatening language, to the Duke of Bavaria, as the head of
+      the Roman Catholics, and they insisted on an immediate and categorical
+      answer. Maximilian might decide for or against them, still their point was
+      gained; his concession, if he yielded, would deprive the Roman Catholic
+      party of its most powerful protector; his refusal would arm the whole
+      Protestant party, and render inevitable a war in which they hoped to be
+      the conquerors. Maximilian, firmly attached to the opposite party from so
+      many other considerations, took the demands of the Union as a formal
+      declaration of hostilities, and quickened his preparations. While Bavaria
+      and the League were thus arming in the Emperor's cause, negotiations for a
+      subsidy were opened with the Spanish court. All the difficulties with
+      which the indolent policy of that ministry met this demand were happily
+      surmounted by the imperial ambassador at Madrid, Count Khevenhuller. In
+      addition to a subsidy of a million of florins, which from time to time
+      were doled out by this court, an attack upon the Lower Palatinate, from
+      the side of the Spanish Netherlands, was at the same time agreed upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these attempts to draw all the Roman Catholic powers into the
+      League, every exertion was made against the counter-league of the
+      Protestants. To this end, it was important to alarm the Elector of Saxony
+      and the other Evangelical powers, and accordingly the Union were diligent
+      in propagating a rumour that the preparations of the League had for their
+      object to deprive them of the ecclesiastical foundations they had
+      secularized. A written assurance to the contrary calmed the fears of the
+      Duke of Saxony, whom moreover private jealousy of the Palatine, and the
+      insinuations of his chaplain, who was in the pay of Austria, and
+      mortification at having been passed over by the Bohemians in the election
+      to the throne, strongly inclined to the side of Austria. The fanaticism of
+      the Lutherans could never forgive the reformed party for having drawn, as
+      they expressed it, so many fair provinces into the gulf of Calvinism, and
+      rejecting the Roman Antichrist only to make way for an Helvetian one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Ferdinand used every effort to improve the unfavourable situation of
+      his affairs, Frederick was daily injuring his good cause. By his close and
+      questionable connexion with the Prince of Transylvania, the open ally of
+      the Porte, he gave offence to weak minds; and a general rumour accused him
+      of furthering his own ambition at the expense of Christendom, and arming
+      the Turks against Germany. His inconsiderate zeal for the Calvinistic
+      scheme irritated the Lutherans of Bohemia, his attacks on image-worship
+      incensed the Papists of this kingdom against him. New and oppressive
+      imposts alienated the affections of all his subjects. The disappointed
+      hopes of the Bohemian nobles cooled their zeal; the absence of foreign
+      succours abated their confidence. Instead of devoting himself with
+      untiring energies to the affairs of his kingdom, Frederick wasted his time
+      in amusements; instead of filling his treasury by a wise economy, he
+      squandered his revenues by a needless theatrical pomp, and a misplaced
+      munificence. With a light-minded carelessness, he did but gaze at himself
+      in his new dignity, and in the ill-timed desire to enjoy his crown, he
+      forgot the more pressing duty of securing it on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But greatly as men had erred in their opinion of him, Frederick himself
+      had not less miscalculated his foreign resources. Most of the members of
+      the Union considered the affairs of Bohemia as foreign to the real object
+      of their confederacy; others, who were devoted to him, were overawed by
+      fear of the Emperor. Saxony and Hesse Darmstadt had already been gained
+      over by Ferdinand; Lower Austria, on which side a powerful diversion had
+      been looked for, had made its submission to the Emperor; and Bethlen Gabor
+      had concluded a truce with him. By its embassies, the court of Vienna had
+      induced Denmark to remain inactive, and to occupy Sweden in a war with the
+      Poles. The republic of Holland had enough to do to defend itself against
+      the arms of the Spaniards; Venice and Saxony remained inactive; King James
+      of England was overreached by the artifice of Spain. One friend after
+      another withdrew; one hope vanished after another&mdash;so rapidly in a
+      few months was every thing changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, the leaders of the Union assembled an army;&mdash;the
+      Emperor and the League did the same. The troops of the latter were
+      assembled under the banners of Maximilian at Donauwerth, those of the
+      Union at Ulm, under the Margrave of Anspach. The decisive moment seemed at
+      length to have arrived which was to end these long dissensions by a
+      vigorous blow, and irrevocably to settle the relation of the two churches
+      in Germany. Anxiously on the stretch was the expectation of both parties.
+      How great then was their astonishment when suddenly the intelligence of
+      peace arrived, and both armies separated without striking a blow!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intervention of France effected this peace, which was equally
+      acceptable to both parties. The French cabinet, no longer swayed by the
+      counsels of Henry the Great, and whose maxims of state were perhaps not
+      applicable to the present condition of that kingdom, was now far less
+      alarmed at the preponderance of Austria, than of the increase which would
+      accrue to the strength of the Calvinists, if the Palatine house should be
+      able to retain the throne of Bohemia. Involved at the time in a dangerous
+      conflict with its own Calvinistic subjects, it was of the utmost
+      importance to France that the Protestant faction in Bohemia should be
+      suppressed before the Huguenots could copy their dangerous example. In
+      order therefore to facilitate the Emperor's operations against the
+      Bohemians, she offered her mediation to the Union and the League, and
+      effected this unexpected treaty, of which the main article was, "That the
+      Union should abandon all interference in the affairs of Bohemia, and
+      confine the aid which they might afford to Frederick the Fifth, to his
+      Palatine territories." To this disgraceful treaty, the Union were moved by
+      the firmness of Maximilian, and the fear of being pressed at once by the
+      troops of the League, and a new Imperial army which was on its march from
+      the Netherlands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole force of Bavaria and the League was now at the disposal of the
+      Emperor to be employed against the Bohemians, who by the pacification of
+      Ulm were abandoned to their fate. With a rapid movement, and before a
+      rumour of the proceedings at Ulm could reach there, Maximilian appeared in
+      Upper Austria, when the Estates, surprised and unprepared for an enemy,
+      purchased the Emperor's pardon by an immediate and unconditional
+      submission. In Lower Austria, the duke formed a junction with the troops
+      from the Low Countries under Bucquoi, and without loss of time the united
+      Imperial and Bavarian forces, amounting to 50,000 men, entered Bohemia.
+      All the Bohemian troops, which were dispersed over Lower Austria and
+      Moravia, were driven before them; every town which attempted resistance
+      was quickly taken by storm; others, terrified by the report of the
+      punishment inflicted on these, voluntarily opened their gates; nothing in
+      short interrupted the impetuous career of Maximilian. The Bohemian army,
+      commanded by the brave Prince Christian of Anhalt, retreated to the
+      neighbourhood of Prague; where, under the walls of the city, Maximilian
+      offered him battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wretched condition in which he hoped to surprise the insurgents,
+      justified the rapidity of the duke's movements, and secured him the
+      victory. Frederick's army did not amount to 30,000 men. Eight thousand of
+      these were furnished by the Prince of Anhalt; 10,000 were Hungarians, whom
+      Bethlen Gabor had despatched to his assistance. An inroad of the Elector
+      of Saxony upon Lusatia, had cut off all succours from that country, and
+      from Silesia; the pacification of Austria put an end to all his
+      expectations from that quarter; Bethlen Gabor, his most powerful ally,
+      remained inactive in Transylvania; the Union had betrayed his cause to the
+      Emperor. Nothing remained to him but his Bohemians; and they were without
+      goodwill to his cause, and without unity and courage. The Bohemian
+      magnates were indignant that German generals should be put over their
+      heads; Count Mansfeld remained in Pilsen, at a distance from the camp, to
+      avoid the mortification of serving under Anhalt and Hohenlohe. The
+      soldiers, in want of necessaries, became dispirited; and the little
+      discipline that was observed, gave occasion to bitter complaints from the
+      peasantry. It was in vain that Frederick made his appearance in the camp,
+      in the hope of reviving the courage of the soldiers by his presence, and
+      of kindling the emulation of the nobles by his example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bohemians had begun to entrench themselves on the White Mountain near
+      Prague, when they were attacked by the Imperial and Bavarian armies, on
+      the 8th November, 1620. In the beginning of the action, some advantages
+      were gained by the cavalry of the Prince of Anhalt; but the superior
+      numbers of the enemy soon neutralized them. The charge of the Bavarians
+      and Walloons was irresistible. The Hungarian cavalry was the first to
+      retreat. The Bohemian infantry soon followed their example; and the
+      Germans were at last carried along with them in the general flight. Ten
+      cannons, composing the whole of Frederick's artillery, were taken by the
+      enemy; four thousand Bohemians fell in the flight and on the field; while
+      of the Imperialists and soldiers of the League only a few hundred were
+      killed. In less than an hour this decisive action was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frederick was seated at table in Prague, while his army was thus cut to
+      pieces. It is probable that he had not expected the attack on this day,
+      since he had ordered an entertainment for it. A messenger summoned him
+      from table, to show him from the walls the whole frightful scene. He
+      requested a cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours for
+      deliberation; but eight was all the Duke of Bavaria would allow him.
+      Frederick availed himself of these to fly by night from the capital, with
+      his wife, and the chief officers of his army. This flight was so hurried,
+      that the Prince of Anhalt left behind him his most private papers, and
+      Frederick his crown. "I know now what I am," said this unfortunate prince
+      to those who endeavoured to comfort him; "there are virtues which
+      misfortune only can teach us, and it is in adversity alone that princes
+      learn to know themselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prague was not irretrievably lost when Frederick's pusillanimity abandoned
+      it. The light troops of Mansfeld were still in Pilsen, and were not
+      engaged in the action. Bethlen Gabor might at any moment have assumed an
+      offensive attitude, and drawn off the Emperor's army to the Hungarian
+      frontier. The defeated Bohemians might rally. Sickness, famine, and the
+      inclement weather, might wear out the enemy; but all these hopes
+      disappeared before the immediate alarm. Frederick dreaded the fickleness
+      of the Bohemians, who might probably yield to the temptation to purchase,
+      by the surrender of his person, the pardon of the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thurn, and those of this party who were in the same condemnation with him,
+      found it equally inexpedient to await their destiny within the walls of
+      Prague. They retired towards Moravia, with a view of seeking refuge in
+      Transylvania. Frederick fled to Breslau, where, however, he only remained
+      a short time. He removed from thence to the court of the Elector of
+      Brandenburg, and finally took shelter in Holland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of Prague had decided the fate of Bohemia. Prague surrendered
+      the next day to the victors; the other towns followed the example of the
+      capital. The Estates did homage without conditions, and the same was done
+      by those of Silesia and Moravia. The Emperor allowed three months to
+      elapse, before instituting any inquiry into the past. Reassured by this
+      apparent clemency, many who, at first, had fled in terror appeared again
+      in the capital. All at once, however, the storm burst forth; forty-eight
+      of the most active among the insurgents were arrested on the same day and
+      hour, and tried by an extraordinary commission, composed of native
+      Bohemians and Austrians. Of these, twenty-seven, and of the common people
+      an immense number, expired on the scaffold. The absenting offenders were
+      summoned to appear to their trial, and failing to do so, condemned to
+      death, as traitors and offenders against his Catholic Majesty, their
+      estates confiscated, and their names affixed to the gallows. The property
+      also of the rebels who had fallen in the field was seized. This tyranny
+      might have been borne, as it affected individuals only, and while the ruin
+      of one enriched another; but more intolerable was the oppression which
+      extended to the whole kingdom, without exception. All the Protestant
+      preachers were banished from the country; the Bohemians first, and
+      afterwards those of Germany. The `Letter of Majesty', Ferdinand tore with
+      his own hand, and burnt the seal. Seven years after the battle of Prague,
+      the toleration of the Protestant religion within the kingdom was entirely
+      revoked. But whatever violence the Emperor allowed himself against the
+      religious privileges of his subjects, he carefully abstained from
+      interfering with their political constitution; and while he deprived them
+      of the liberty of thought, he magnanimously left them the prerogative of
+      taxing themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victory of the White Mountain put Ferdinand in possession of all his
+      dominions. It even invested him with greater authority over them than his
+      predecessors enjoyed, since their allegiance had been unconditionally
+      pledged to him, and no Letter of Majesty now existed to limit his
+      sovereignty. All his wishes were now gratified, to a degree surpassing his
+      most sanguine expectations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now in his power to dismiss his allies, and disband his army. If he
+      was just, there was an end of the war&mdash;if he was both magnanimous and
+      just, punishment was also at an end. The fate of Germany was in his hands;
+      the happiness and misery of millions depended on the resolution he should
+      take. Never was so great a decision resting on a single mind; never did
+      the blindness of one man produce so much ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The resolution which Ferdinand now adopted, gave to the war a new
+      direction, a new scene, and new actors. From a rebellion in Bohemia, and
+      the chastisement of rebels, a war extended first to Germany, and
+      afterwards to Europe. It is, therefore, necessary to take a general survey
+      of the state of affairs both in Germany and the rest of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unequally as the territory of Germany and the privileges of its members
+      were divided among the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, neither party
+      could hope to maintain itself against the encroachments of its adversary
+      otherwise than by a prudent use of its peculiar advantages, and by a
+      politic union among themselves. If the Roman Catholics were the more
+      numerous party, and more favoured by the constitution of the empire, the
+      Protestants, on the other hand, had the advantage of possessing a more
+      compact and populous line of territories, valiant princes, a warlike
+      nobility, numerous armies, flourishing free towns, the command of the sea,
+      and even at the worst, certainty of support from Roman Catholic states. If
+      the Catholics could arm Spain and Italy in their favour, the republics of
+      Venice, Holland, and England, opened their treasures to the Protestants,
+      while the states of the North and the formidable power of Turkey, stood
+      ready to afford them prompt assistance. Brandenburg, Saxony, and the
+      Palatinate, opposed three Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes in the
+      Electoral College; while to the Elector of Bohemia, as to the Archduke of
+      Austria, the possession of the Imperial dignity was an important check, if
+      the Protestants properly availed themselves of it. The sword of the Union
+      might keep within its sheath the sword of the League; or if matters
+      actually came to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful. But,
+      unfortunately, private interests dissolved the band of union which should
+      have held together the Protestant members of the empire. This critical
+      conjuncture found none but second-rate actors on the political stage, and
+      the decisive moment was neglected because the courageous were deficient in
+      power, and the powerful in sagacity, courage, and resolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Elector of Saxony was placed at the head of the German Protestants, by
+      the services of his ancestor Maurice, by the extent of his territories,
+      and by the influence of his electoral vote. Upon the resolution he might
+      adopt, the fate of the contending parties seemed to depend; and John
+      George was not insensible to the advantages which this important situation
+      procured him. Equally valuable as an ally, both to the Emperor and to the
+      Protestant Union, he cautiously avoided committing himself to either
+      party; neither trusting himself by any irrevocable declaration entirely to
+      the gratitude of the Emperor, nor renouncing the advantages which were to
+      be gained from his fears. Uninfected by the contagion of religious and
+      romantic enthusiasm which hurried sovereign after sovereign to risk both
+      crown and life on the hazard of war, John George aspired to the more solid
+      renown of improving and advancing the interests of his territories. His
+      cotemporaries accused him of forsaking the Protestant cause in the very
+      midst of the storm; of preferring the aggrandizement of his house to the
+      emancipation of his country; of exposing the whole Evangelical or Lutheran
+      church of Germany to ruin, rather than raise an arm in defence of the
+      Reformed or Calvinists; of injuring the common cause by his suspicious
+      friendship more seriously than the open enmity of its avowed opponents.
+      But it would have been well if his accusers had imitated the wise policy
+      of the Elector. If, despite of the prudent policy, the Saxons, like all
+      others, groaned at the cruelties which marked the Emperor's progress; if
+      all Germany was a witness how Ferdinand deceived his confederates and
+      trifled with his engagements; if even the Elector himself at last
+      perceived this&mdash;the more shame to the Emperor who could so basely
+      betray such implicit confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If an excessive reliance on the Emperor, and the hope of enlarging his
+      territories, tied the hands of the Elector of Saxony, the weak George
+      William, Elector of Brandenburg, was still more shamefully fettered by
+      fear of Austria, and of the loss of his dominions. What was made a
+      reproach against these princes would have preserved to the Elector
+      Palatine his fame and his kingdom. A rash confidence in his untried
+      strength, the influence of French counsels, and the temptation of a crown,
+      had seduced that unfortunate prince into an enterprise for which he had
+      neither adequate genius nor political capacity. The partition of his
+      territories among discordant princes, enfeebled the Palatinate, which,
+      united, might have made a longer resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This partition of territory was equally injurious to the House of Hesse,
+      in which, between Darmstadt and Cassel, religious dissensions had
+      occasioned a fatal division. The line of Darmstadt, adhering to the
+      Confession of Augsburg, had placed itself under the Emperor's protection,
+      who favoured it at the expense of the Calvinists of Cassel. While his
+      religious confederates were shedding their blood for their faith and their
+      liberties, the Landgrave of Darmstadt was won over by the Emperor's gold.
+      But William of Cassel, every way worthy of his ancestor who, a century
+      before, had defended the freedom of Germany against the formidable Charles
+      V., espoused the cause of danger and of honour. Superior to that
+      pusillanimity which made far more powerful princes bow before Ferdinand's
+      might, the Landgrave William was the first to join the hero of Sweden, and
+      to set an example to the princes of Germany which all had hesitated to
+      begin. The boldness of his resolve was equalled by the steadfastness of
+      his perseverance and the valour of his exploits. He placed himself with
+      unshrinking resolution before his bleeding country, and boldly confronted
+      the fearful enemy, whose hands were still reeking from the carnage of
+      Magdeburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Landgrave William deserves to descend to immortality with the heroic
+      race of Ernest. Thy day of vengeance was long delayed, unfortunate John
+      Frederick! Noble! never-to-be-forgotten prince! Slowly but brightly it
+      broke. Thy times returned, and thy heroic spirit descended on thy
+      grandson. An intrepid race of princes issues from the Thuringian forests,
+      to shame, by immortal deeds, the unjust sentence which robbed thee of the
+      electoral crown&mdash;to avenge thy offended shade by heaps of bloody
+      sacrifice. The sentence of the conqueror could deprive thee of thy
+      territories, but not that spirit of patriotism which staked them, nor that
+      chivalrous courage which, a century afterwards, was destined to shake the
+      throne of his descendant. Thy vengeance and that of Germany whetted the
+      sacred sword, and one heroic hand after the other wielded the irresistible
+      steel. As men, they achieved what as sovereigns they dared not undertake;
+      they met in a glorious cause as the valiant soldiers of liberty. Too weak
+      in territory to attack the enemy with their own forces, they directed
+      foreign artillery against them, and led foreign banners to victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The liberties of Germany, abandoned by the more powerful states, who,
+      however, enjoyed most of the prosperity accruing from them, were defended
+      by a few princes for whom they were almost without value. The possession
+      of territories and dignities deadened courage; the want of both made
+      heroes. While Saxony, Brandenburg, and the rest drew back in terror,
+      Anhalt, Mansfeld, the Prince of Weimar and others were shedding their
+      blood in the field. The Dukes of Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Luneburg, and
+      Wirtemberg, and the free cities of Upper Germany, to whom the name of
+      EMPEROR was of course a formidable one, anxiously avoided a contest with
+      such an opponent, and crouched murmuring beneath his mighty arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Austria and Roman Catholic Germany possessed in Maximilian of Bavaria a
+      champion as prudent as he was powerful. Adhering throughout the war to one
+      fixed plan, never divided between his religion and his political
+      interests; not the slavish dependent of Austria, who was labouring for HIS
+      advancement, and trembled before her powerful protector, Maximilian earned
+      the territories and dignities that rewarded his exertions. The other Roman
+      Catholic states, which were chiefly Ecclesiastical, too unwarlike to
+      resist the multitudes whom the prosperity of their territories allured,
+      became the victims of the war one after another, and were contented to
+      persecute in the cabinet and in the pulpit, the enemy whom they could not
+      openly oppose in the field. All of them, slaves either to Austria or
+      Bavaria, sunk into insignificance by the side of Maximilian; in his hand
+      alone their united power could be rendered available.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The formidable monarchy which Charles V. and his son had unnaturally
+      constructed of the Netherlands, Milan, and the two Sicilies, and their
+      distant possessions in the East and West Indies, was under Philip III. and
+      Philip IV. fast verging to decay. Swollen to a sudden greatness by
+      unfruitful gold, this power was now sinking under a visible decline,
+      neglecting, as it did, agriculture, the natural support of states. The
+      conquests in the West Indies had reduced Spain itself to poverty, while
+      they enriched the markets of Europe; the bankers of Antwerp, Venice, and
+      Genoa, were making profit on the gold which was still buried in the mines
+      of Peru. For the sake of India, Spain had been depopulated, while the
+      treasures drawn from thence were wasted in the re-conquest of Holland, in
+      the chimerical project of changing the succession to the crown of France,
+      and in an unfortunate attack upon England. But the pride of this court had
+      survived its greatness, as the hate of its enemies had outlived its power.
+      Distrust of the Protestants suggested to the ministry of Philip III. the
+      dangerous policy of his father; and the reliance of the Roman Catholics in
+      Germany on Spanish assistance, was as firm as their belief in the
+      wonder-working bones of the martyrs. External splendour concealed the
+      inward wounds at which the life-blood of this monarchy was oozing; and the
+      belief of its strength survived, because it still maintained the lofty
+      tone of its golden days. Slaves in their palaces, and strangers even upon
+      their own thrones, the Spanish nominal kings still gave laws to their
+      German relations; though it is very doubtful if the support they afforded
+      was worth the dependence by which the emperors purchased it. The fate of
+      Europe was decided behind the Pyrenees by ignorant monks or vindictive
+      favourites. Yet, even in its debasement, a power must always be
+      formidable, which yields to none in extent; which, from custom, if not
+      from the steadfastness of its views, adhered faithfully to one system of
+      policy; which possessed well-disciplined armies and consummate generals;
+      which, where the sword failed, did not scruple to employ the dagger; and
+      converted even its ambassadors into incendiaries and assassins. What it
+      had lost in three quarters of the globe, it now sought to regain to the
+      eastward, and all Europe was at its mercy, if it could succeed in its long
+      cherished design of uniting with the hereditary dominions of Austria all
+      that lay between the Alps and the Adriatic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the great alarm of the native states, this formidable power had gained
+      a footing in Italy, where its continual encroachments made the
+      neighbouring sovereigns to tremble for their own possessions. The Pope
+      himself was in the most dangerous situation; hemmed in on both sides by
+      the Spanish Viceroys of Naples on the one side, and that of Milan upon the
+      other. Venice was confined between the Austrian Tyrol and the Spanish
+      territories in Milan. Savoy was surrounded by the latter and France. Hence
+      the wavering and equivocal policy, which from the time of Charles V. had
+      been pursued by the Italian States. The double character which pertained
+      to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate between two contradictory
+      systems of policy. If the successors of St. Peter found in the Spanish
+      princes their most obedient disciples, and the most steadfast supporters
+      of the Papal See, yet the princes of the States of the Church had in these
+      monarchs their most dangerous neighbours, and most formidable opponents.
+      If, in the one capacity, their dearest wish was the destruction of the
+      Protestants, and the triumph of Austria, in the other, they had reason to
+      bless the arms of the Protestants, which disabled a dangerous enemy. The
+      one or the other sentiment prevailed, according as the love of temporal
+      dominion, or zeal for spiritual supremacy, predominated in the mind of the
+      Pope. But the policy of Rome was, on the whole, directed to immediate
+      dangers; and it is well known how far more powerful is the apprehension of
+      losing a present good, than anxiety to recover a long lost possession. And
+      thus it becomes intelligible how the Pope should first combine with
+      Austria for the destruction of heresy, and then conspire with these very
+      heretics for the destruction of Austria. Strangely blended are the threads
+      of human affairs! What would have become of the Reformation, and of the
+      liberties of Germany, if the Bishop of Rome and the Prince of Rome had had
+      but one interest?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France had lost with its great Henry all its importance and all its weight
+      in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had destroyed all
+      the benefits of the able administration of Henry. Incapable ministers, the
+      creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a few years the treasures which
+      Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had amassed. Scarce able to maintain
+      their ground against internal factions, they were compelled to resign to
+      other hands the helm of European affairs. The same civil war which armed
+      Germany against itself, excited a similar commotion in France; and Louis
+      XIII. attained majority only to wage a war with his own mother and his
+      Protestant subjects. This party, which had been kept quiet by Henry's
+      enlightened policy, now seized the opportunity to take up arms, and, under
+      the command of some adventurous leaders, began to form themselves into a
+      party within the state, and to fix on the strong and powerful town of
+      Rochelle as the capital of their intended kingdom. Too little of a
+      statesman to suppress, by a prudent toleration, this civil commotion in
+      its birth, and too little master of the resources of his kingdom to direct
+      them with energy, Louis XIII. was reduced to the degradation of purchasing
+      the submission of the rebels by large sums of money. Though policy might
+      incline him, in one point of view, to assist the Bohemian insurgents
+      against Austria, the son of Henry the Fourth was now compelled to be an
+      inactive spectator of their destruction, happy enough if the Calvinists in
+      his own dominions did not unseasonably bethink them of their confederates
+      beyond the Rhine. A great mind at the helm of state would have reduced the
+      Protestants in France to obedience, while it employed them to fight for
+      the independence of their German brethren. But Henry IV. was no more, and
+      Richelieu had not yet revived his system of policy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the glory of France was thus upon the wane, the emancipated republic
+      of Holland was completing the fabric of its greatness. The enthusiastic
+      courage had not yet died away which, enkindled by the House of Orange, had
+      converted this mercantile people into a nation of heroes, and had enabled
+      them to maintain their independence in a bloody war against the Spanish
+      monarchy. Aware how much they owed their own liberty to foreign support,
+      these republicans were ready to assist their German brethren in a similar
+      cause, and the more so, as both were opposed to the same enemy, and the
+      liberty of Germany was the best warrant for that of Holland. But a
+      republic which had still to battle for its very existence, which, with all
+      its wonderful exertions, was scarce a match for the formidable enemy
+      within its own territories, could not be expected to withdraw its troops
+      from the necessary work of self-defence to employ them with a magnanimous
+      policy in protecting foreign states.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      England too, though now united with Scotland, no longer possessed, under
+      the weak James, that influence in the affairs of Europe which the
+      governing mind of Elizabeth had procured for it. Convinced that the
+      welfare of her dominions depended on the security of the Protestants, this
+      politic princess had never swerved from the principle of promoting every
+      enterprise which had for its object the diminution of the Austrian power.
+      Her successor was no less devoid of capacity to comprehend, than of vigour
+      to execute, her views. While the economical Elizabeth spared not her
+      treasures to support the Flemings against Spain, and Henry IV. against the
+      League, James abandoned his daughter, his son-in-law, and his grandchild,
+      to the fury of their enemies. While he exhausted his learning to establish
+      the divine right of kings, he allowed his own dignity to sink into the
+      dust; while he exerted his rhetoric to prove the absolute authority of
+      kings, he reminded the people of theirs; and by a useless profusion,
+      sacrificed the chief of his sovereign rights&mdash; that of dispensing
+      with his parliament, and thus depriving liberty of its organ. An innate
+      horror at the sight of a naked sword averted him from the most just of
+      wars; while his favourite Buckingham practised on his weakness, and his
+      own complacent vanity rendered him an easy dupe of Spanish artifice. While
+      his son-in-law was ruined, and the inheritance of his grandson given to
+      others, this weak prince was imbibing, with satisfaction, the incense
+      which was offered to him by Austria and Spain. To divert his attention
+      from the German war, he was amused with the proposal of a Spanish marriage
+      for his son, and the ridiculous parent encouraged the romantic youth in
+      the foolish project of paying his addresses in person to the Spanish
+      princess. But his son lost his bride, as his son-in-law lost the crown of
+      Bohemia and the Palatine Electorate; and death alone saved him from the
+      danger of closing his pacific reign by a war at home, which he never had
+      courage to maintain, even at a distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The domestic disturbances which his misgovernment had gradually excited
+      burst forth under his unfortunate son, and forced him, after some
+      unimportant attempts, to renounce all further participation in the German
+      war, in order to stem within his own kingdom the rage of faction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two illustrious monarchs, far unequal in personal reputation, but equal in
+      power and desire of fame, made the North at this time to be respected.
+      Under the long and active reign of Christian IV., Denmark had risen into
+      importance. The personal qualifications of this prince, an excellent navy,
+      a formidable army, well-ordered finances, and prudent alliances, had
+      combined to give her prosperity at home and influence abroad. Gustavus
+      Vasa had rescued Sweden from vassalage, reformed it by wise laws, and had
+      introduced, for the first time, this newly-organized state into the field
+      of European politics. What this great prince had merely sketched in rude
+      outline, was filled up by Gustavus Adolphus, his still greater grandson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the magnanimity of Gustavus&mdash; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this necessary digression on the existing circumstances of Europe, I
+      now resume the thread of my history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a privilege which the law allows to the meanest
+      subject, and even to the most atrocious criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, therefore, for the first time in this war, an imperial army appeared
+      in Germany;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;two men
+      worthy of immortality, had they but been as superior to their times as
+      they were to their adversities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;besides
+      himself, the source and engine of this despotic power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a step towards this end, Wallenstein now demanded the cession of
+      Mecklenburg, to be held in pledge till the repayment of his advances for
+      the war. Ferdinand had already created him Duke of Friedland, apparently
+      with the view of exalting his own general over Bavaria; but an ordinary
+      recompense would not satisfy Wallenstein's ambition. In vain was this new
+      demand, which could be granted only at the expense of two princes of the
+      empire, actively resisted in the Imperial Council; in vain did the
+      Spaniards, who had long been offended by his pride, oppose his elevation.
+      The powerful support which Wallenstein had purchased from the imperial
+      councillors prevailed, and Ferdinand was determined, at whatever cost, to
+      secure the devotion of so indispensable a minister. For a slight offence,
+      one of the oldest German houses was expelled from their hereditary
+      dominions, that a creature of the Emperor might be enriched by their
+      spoils (1628).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein now began to assume the title of generalissimo of the Emperor
+      by sea and land. Wismar was taken, and a firm footing gained on the
+      Baltic. Ships were required from Poland and the Hanse towns to carry the
+      war to the other side of the Baltic; to pursue the Danes into the heart of
+      their own country, and to compel them to a peace which might prepare the
+      way to more important conquests. The communication between the Lower
+      German States and the Northern powers would be broken, could the Emperor
+      place himself between them, and encompass Germany, from the Adriatic to
+      the Sound, (the intervening kingdom of Poland being already dependent on
+      him,) with an unbroken line of territory. If such was the Emperor's plan,
+      Wallenstein had a peculiar interest in its execution. These possessions on
+      the Baltic should, he intended, form the first foundation of a power,
+      which had long been the object of his ambition, and which should enable
+      him to throw off his dependence on the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To effect this object, it was of extreme importance to gain possession of
+      Stralsund, a town on the Baltic. Its excellent harbour, and the short
+      passage from it to the Swedish and Danish coasts, peculiarly fitted it for
+      a naval station in a war with these powers. This town, the sixth of the
+      Hanseatic League, enjoyed great privileges under the Duke of Pomerania,
+      and totally independent of Denmark, had taken no share in the war. But
+      neither its neutrality, nor its privileges, could protect it against the
+      encroachments of Wallenstein, when he had once cast a longing look upon
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The request he made, that Stralsund should receive an imperial garrison,
+      had been firmly and honourably rejected by the magistracy, who also
+      refused his cunningly demanded permission to march his troops through the
+      town, Wallenstein, therefore, now proposed to besiege it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The independence of Stralsund, as securing the free navigation of the
+      Baltic, was equally important to the two Northern kings. A common danger
+      overcame at last the private jealousies which had long divided these
+      princes. In a treaty concluded at Copenhagen in 1628, they bound
+      themselves to assist Stralsund with their combined force, and to oppose in
+      common every foreign power which should appear in the Baltic with hostile
+      views. Christian IV. also threw a sufficient garrison into Stralsund, and
+      by his personal presence animated the courage of the citizens. Some ships
+      of war which Sigismund, King of Poland, had sent to the assistance of the
+      imperial general, were sunk by the Danish fleet; and as Lubeck refused him
+      the use of its shipping, this imperial generalissimo of the sea had not
+      even ships enough to blockade this single harbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could appear more adventurous than to attempt the conquest of a
+      strongly fortified seaport without first blockading its harbour.
+      Wallenstein, however, who as yet had never experienced a check, wished to
+      conquer nature itself, and to perform impossibilities. Stralsund, open to
+      the sea, continued to be supplied with provisions and reinforcements; yet
+      Wallenstein maintained his blockade on the land side, and endeavoured, by
+      boasting menaces, to supply his want of real strength. "I will take this
+      town," said he, "though it were fastened by a chain to the heavens." The
+      Emperor himself, who might have cause to regret an enterprise which
+      promised no very glorious result, joyfully availed himself of the apparent
+      submission and acceptable propositions of the inhabitants, to order the
+      general to retire from the town. Wallenstein despised the command, and
+      continued to harass the besieged by incessant assaults. As the Danish
+      garrison, already much reduced, was unequal to the fatigues of this
+      prolonged defence, and the king was unable to detach any further troops to
+      their support, Stralsund, with Christian's consent, threw itself under the
+      protection of the King of Sweden. The Danish commander left the town to
+      make way for a Swedish governor, who gloriously defended it. Here
+      Wallenstein's good fortune forsook him; and, for the first time, his pride
+      experienced the humiliation of relinquishing his prey, after the loss of
+      many months and of 12,000 men. The necessity to which he reduced the town
+      of applying for protection to Sweden, laid the foundation of a close
+      alliance between Gustavus Adolphus and Stralsund, which greatly
+      facilitated the entrance of the Swedes into Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto invariable success had attended the arms of the Emperor and the
+      League, and Christian IV., defeated in Germany, had sought refuge in his
+      own islands; but the Baltic checked the further progress of the
+      conquerors. The want of ships not only stopped the pursuit of the king,
+      but endangered their previous acquisitions. The union of the two northern
+      monarchs was most to be dreaded, because, so long as it lasted, it
+      effectually prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a footing
+      on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden. But if they could succeed
+      in dissolving this union, and especially securing the friendship of the
+      Danish king, they might hope to overpower the insulated force of Sweden.
+      The dread of the interference of foreign powers, the insubordination of
+      the Protestants in his own states, and still more the storm which was
+      gradually darkening along the whole of Protestant Germany, inclined the
+      Emperor to peace, which his general, from opposite motives, was equally
+      desirous to effect. Far from wishing for a state of things which would
+      reduce him from the meridian of greatness and glory to the obscurity of
+      private life, he only wished to change the theatre of war, and by a
+      partial peace to prolong the general confusion. The friendship of Denmark,
+      whose neighbour he had become as Duke of Mecklenburgh, was most important
+      for the success of his ambitious views; and he resolved, even at the
+      sacrifice of his sovereign's interests, to secure its alliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the treaty of Copenhagen, Christian IV. had expressly engaged not to
+      conclude a separate peace with the Emperor, without the consent of Sweden.
+      Notwithstanding, Wallenstein's proposition was readily received by him. In
+      a conference at Lubeck in 1629, from which Wallenstein, with studied
+      contempt, excluded the Swedish ambassadors who came to intercede for
+      Mecklenburgh, all the conquests taken by the imperialists were restored to
+      the Danes. The conditions imposed upon the king were, that he should
+      interfere no farther with the affairs of Germany than was called for by
+      his character of Duke of Holstein; that he should on no pretext harass the
+      Chapters of Lower Germany, and should leave the Dukes of Mecklenburgh to
+      their fate. By Christian himself had these princes been involved in the
+      war with the Emperor; he now sacrificed them, to gain the favour of the
+      usurper of their territories. Among the motives which had engaged him in a
+      war with the Emperor, not the least was the restoration of his relation,
+      the Elector Palatine&mdash;yet the name of that unfortunate prince was not
+      even mentioned in the treaty; while in one of its articles the legitimacy
+      of the Bavarian election was expressly recognised. Thus meanly and
+      ingloriously did Christian IV. retire from the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferdinand had it now in his power, for the second time, to secure the
+      tranquillity of Germany; and it depended solely on his will whether the
+      treaty with Denmark should or should not be the basis of a general peace.
+      From every quarter arose the cry of the unfortunate, petitioning for an
+      end of their sufferings; the cruelties of his soldiers, and the rapacity
+      of his generals, had exceeded all bounds. Germany, laid waste by the
+      desolating bands of Mansfeld and the Duke of Brunswick, and by the still
+      more terrible hordes of Tilly and Wallenstein, lay exhausted, bleeding,
+      wasted, and sighing for repose. An anxious desire for peace was felt by
+      all conditions, and by the Emperor himself; involved as he was in a war
+      with France in Upper Italy, exhausted by his past warfare in Germany, and
+      apprehensive of the day of reckoning which was approaching. But,
+      unfortunately, the conditions on which alone the two religious parties
+      were willing respectively to sheath the sword, were irreconcileable. The
+      Roman Catholics wished to terminate the war to their own advantage; the
+      Protestants advanced equal pretensions. The Emperor, instead of uniting
+      both parties by a prudent moderation, sided with one; and thus Germany was
+      again plunged in the horrors of a bloody war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the very close of the Bohemian troubles, Ferdinand had carried on a
+      counter reformation in his hereditary dominions, in which, however, from
+      regard to some of the Protestant Estates, he proceeded, at first, with
+      moderation. But the victories of his generals in Lower Germany encouraged
+      him to throw off all reserve. Accordingly he had it intimated to all the
+      Protestants in these dominions, that they must either abandon their
+      religion, or their native country,&mdash;a bitter and dreadful
+      alternative, which excited the most violent commotions among his Austrian
+      subjects. In the Palatinate, immediately after the expulsion of Frederick,
+      the Protestant religion had been suppressed, and its professors expelled
+      from the University of Heidelberg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was but the prelude to greater changes. In the Electoral Congress
+      held at Muehlhausen, the Roman Catholics had demanded of the Emperor that
+      all the archbishoprics, bishoprics, mediate and immediate, abbacies and
+      monasteries, which, since the Diet of Augsburg, had been secularized by
+      the Protestants, should be restored to the church, in order to indemnify
+      them for the losses and sufferings in the war. To a Roman Catholic prince
+      so zealous as Ferdinand was, such a hint was not likely to be neglected;
+      but he still thought it would be premature to arouse the whole Protestants
+      of Germany by so decisive a step. Not a single Protestant prince but would
+      be deprived, by this revocation of the religious foundations, of a part of
+      his lands; for where these revenues had not actually been diverted to
+      secular purposes they had been made over to the Protestant church. To this
+      source, many princes owed the chief part of their revenues and importance.
+      All, without exception, would be irritated by this demand for restoration.
+      The religious treaty did not expressly deny their right to these chapters,
+      although it did not allow it. But a possession which had now been held for
+      nearly a century, the silence of four preceding emperors, and the law of
+      equity, which gave them an equal right with the Roman Catholics to the
+      foundations of their common ancestors, might be strongly pleaded by them
+      as a valid title. Besides the actual loss of power and authority, which
+      the surrender of these foundations would occasion, besides the inevitable
+      confusion which would necessarily attend it, one important disadvantage to
+      which it would lead, was, that the restoration of the Roman Catholic
+      bishops would increase the strength of that party in the Diet by so many
+      additional votes. Such grievous sacrifices likely to fall on the
+      Protestants, made the Emperor apprehensive of a formidable opposition; and
+      until the military ardour should have cooled in Germany, he had no wish to
+      provoke a party formidable by its union, and which in the Elector of
+      Saxony had a powerful leader. He resolved, therefore, to try the
+      experiment at first on a small scale, in order to ascertain how it was
+      likely to succeed on a larger one. Accordingly, some of the free cities in
+      Upper Germany, and the Duke of Wirtemberg, received orders to surrender to
+      the Roman Catholics several of the confiscated chapters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The state of affairs in Saxony enabled the Emperor to make some bolder
+      experiments in that quarter. In the bishoprics of Magdeburg and
+      Halberstadt, the Protestant canons had not hesitated to elect bishops of
+      their own religion. Both bishoprics, with the exception of the town of
+      Magdeburg itself, were overrun by the troops of Wallenstein. It happened,
+      moreover, that by the death of the Administrator Duke Christian of
+      Brunswick, Halberstadt was vacant, as was also the Archbishopric of
+      Magdeburg by the deposition of Christian William, a prince of the House of
+      Brandenburgh. Ferdinand took advantage of the circumstance to restore the
+      see of Halberstadt to a Roman Catholic bishop, and a prince of his own
+      house. To avoid a similar coercion, the Chapter of Magdeburg hastened to
+      elect a son of the Elector of Saxony as archbishop. But the pope, who with
+      his arrogated authority interfered in this matter, conferred the
+      Archbishopric of Magdeburg also on the Austrian prince. Thus, with all his
+      pious zeal for religion, Ferdinand never lost sight of the interests of
+      his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, when the peace of Lubeck had delivered the Emperor from all
+      apprehensions on the side of Denmark, and the German Protestants seemed
+      entirely powerless, the League becoming louder and more urgent in its
+      demands, Ferdinand, in 1629, signed the Edict of Restitution, (so famous
+      by its disastrous consequences,) which he had previously laid before the
+      four Roman Catholic electors for their approbation. In the preamble, he
+      claimed the prerogative, in right of his imperial authority, to interpret
+      the meaning of the religious treaty, the ambiguities of which had already
+      caused so many disputes, and to decide as supreme arbiter and judge
+      between the contending parties. This prerogative he founded upon the
+      practice of his ancestors, and its previous recognition even by Protestant
+      states. Saxony had actually acknowledged this right of the Emperor; and it
+      now became evident how deeply this court had injured the Protestant cause
+      by its dependence on the House of Austria. But though the meaning of the
+      religious treaty was really ambiguous, as a century of religious disputes
+      sufficiently proved, yet for the Emperor, who must be either a Protestant
+      or a Roman Catholic, and therefore an interested party, to assume the
+      right of deciding between the disputants, was clearly a violation of an
+      essential article of the pacification. He could not be judge in his own
+      cause, without reducing the liberties of the empire to an empty sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, in virtue of this usurpation, Ferdinand decided, "That every
+      secularization of a religious foundation, mediate or immediate, by the
+      Protestants, subsequent to the date of the treaty, was contrary to its
+      spirit, and must be revoked as a breach of it." He further decided, "That,
+      by the religious peace, Catholic proprietors of estates were no further
+      bound to their Protestant subjects than to allow them full liberty to quit
+      their territories." In obedience to this decision, all unlawful possessors
+      of benefices&mdash;the Protestant states in short without exception&mdash;were
+      ordered, under pain of the ban of the empire, immediately to surrender
+      their usurped possessions to the imperial commissioners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This sentence applied to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve
+      bishoprics, besides innumerable abbacies. The edict came like a
+      thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany; dreadful even in its
+      immediate consequences; but yet more so from the further calamities it
+      seemed to threaten. The Protestants were now convinced that the
+      suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and the
+      League, and that the overthrow of German liberty would soon follow. Their
+      remonstrances were unheeded; the commissioners were named, and an army
+      assembled to enforce obedience. The edict was first put in force in
+      Augsburg, where the treaty was concluded; the city was again placed under
+      the government of its bishop, and six Protestant churches in the town were
+      closed. The Duke of Wirtemberg was, in like manner, compelled to surrender
+      his abbacies. These severe measures, though they alarmed the Protestant
+      states, were yet insufficient to rouse them to an active resistance. Their
+      fear of the Emperor was too strong, and many were disposed to quiet
+      submission. The hope of attaining their end by gentle measures, induced
+      the Roman Catholics likewise to delay for a year the execution of the
+      edict, and this saved the Protestants; before the end of that period, the
+      success of the Swedish arms had totally changed the state of affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a Diet held at Ratisbon, at which Ferdinand was present in person (in
+      1630), the necessity of taking some measures for the immediate restoration
+      of a general peace to Germany, and for the removal of all grievances, was
+      debated. The complaints of the Roman Catholics were scarcely less numerous
+      than those of the Protestants, although Ferdinand had flattered himself
+      that by the Edict of Restitution he had secured the members of the League,
+      and its leader by the gift of the electoral dignity, and the cession of
+      great part of the Palatinate. But the good understanding between the
+      Emperor and the princes of the League had rapidly declined since the
+      employment of Wallenstein. Accustomed to give law to Germany, and even to
+      sway the Emperor's own destiny, the haughty Elector of Bavaria now at once
+      saw himself supplanted by the imperial general, and with that of the
+      League, his own importance completely undermined. Another had now stepped
+      in to reap the fruits of his victories, and to bury his past services in
+      oblivion. Wallenstein's imperious character, whose dearest triumph was in
+      degrading the authority of the princes, and giving an odious latitude to
+      that of the Emperor, tended not a little to augment the irritation of the
+      Elector. Discontented with the Emperor, and distrustful of his intentions,
+      he had entered into an alliance with France, which the other members of
+      the League were suspected of favouring. A fear of the Emperor's plans of
+      aggrandizement, and discontent with existing evils, had extinguished among
+      them all feelings of gratitude. Wallenstein's exactions had become
+      altogether intolerable. Brandenburg estimated its losses at twenty,
+      Pomerania at ten, Hesse Cassel at seven millions of dollars, and the rest
+      in proportion. The cry for redress was loud, urgent, and universal; all
+      prejudices were hushed; Roman Catholics and Protestants were united on
+      this point. The terrified Emperor was assailed on all sides by petitions
+      against Wallenstein, and his ear filled with the most fearful descriptions
+      of his outrages. Ferdinand was not naturally cruel. If not totally
+      innocent of the atrocities which were practised in Germany under the
+      shelter of his name, he was ignorant of their extent; and he was not long
+      in yielding to the representation of the princes, and reduced his standing
+      army by eighteen thousand cavalry. While this reduction took place, the
+      Swedes were actively preparing an expedition into Germany, and the greater
+      part of the disbanded Imperialists enlisted under their banners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor's concessions only encouraged the Elector of Bavaria to bolder
+      demands. So long as the Duke of Friedland retained the supreme command,
+      his triumph over the Emperor was incomplete. The princes of the League
+      were meditating a severe revenge on Wallenstein for that haughtiness with
+      which he had treated them all alike. His dismissal was demanded by the
+      whole college of electors, and even by Spain, with a degree of unanimity
+      and urgency which astonished the Emperor. The anxiety with which
+      Wallenstein's enemies pressed for his dismissal, ought to have convinced
+      the Emperor of the importance of his services. Wallenstein, informed of
+      the cabals which were forming against him in Ratisbon, lost no time in
+      opening the eyes of the Emperor to the real views of the Elector of
+      Bavaria. He himself appeared in Ratisbon, with a pomp which threw his
+      master into the shade, and increased the hatred of his opponents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long was the Emperor undecided. The sacrifice demanded was a painful one.
+      To the Duke of Friedland alone he owed his preponderance; he felt how much
+      he would lose in yielding him to the indignation of the princes. But at
+      this moment, unfortunately, he was under the necessity of conciliating the
+      Electors. His son Ferdinand had already been chosen King of Hungary, and
+      he was endeavouring to procure his election as his successor in the
+      empire. For this purpose, the support of Maximilian was indispensable.
+      This consideration was the weightiest, and to oblige the Elector of
+      Bavaria he scrupled not to sacrifice his most valuable servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Diet at Ratisbon, there were present ambassadors from France,
+      empowered to adjust the differences which seemed to menace a war in Italy
+      between the Emperor and their sovereign. Vincent, Duke of Mantua and
+      Montferrat, dying without issue, his next relation, Charles, Duke of
+      Nevers, had taken possession of this inheritance, without doing homage to
+      the Emperor as liege lord of the principality. Encouraged by the support
+      of France and Venice, he refused to surrender these territories into the
+      hands of the imperial commissioners, until his title to them should be
+      decided. On the other hand, Ferdinand had taken up arms at the instigation
+      of the Spaniards, to whom, as possessors of Milan, the near neighbourhood
+      of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming, and who welcomed this
+      prospect of making, with the assistance of the Emperor, additional
+      conquests in Italy. In spite of all the exertions of Pope Urban VIII. to
+      avert a war in that country, Ferdinand marched a German army across the
+      Alps, and threw the Italian states into a general consternation. His arms
+      had been successful throughout Germany, and exaggerated fears revived the
+      olden apprehension of Austria's projects of universal monarchy. All the
+      horrors of the German war now spread like a deluge over those favoured
+      countries which the Po waters; Mantua was taken by storm, and the
+      surrounding districts given up to the ravages of a lawless soldiery. The
+      curse of Italy was thus added to the maledictions upon the Emperor which
+      resounded through Germany; and even in the Roman Conclave, silent prayers
+      were offered for the success of the Protestant arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alarmed by the universal hatred which this Italian campaign had drawn upon
+      him, and wearied out by the urgent remonstrances of the Electors, who
+      zealously supported the application of the French ambassador, the Emperor
+      promised the investiture to the new Duke of Mantua.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This important service on the part of Bavaria, of course, required an
+      equivalent from France. The adjustment of the treaty gave the envoys of
+      Richelieu, during their residence in Ratisbon, the desired opportunity of
+      entangling the Emperor in dangerous intrigues, of inflaming the
+      discontented princes of the League still more strongly against him, and of
+      turning to his disadvantage all the transactions of the Diet. For this
+      purpose Richelieu had chosen an admirable instrument in Father Joseph, a
+      Capuchin friar, who accompanied the ambassadors without exciting the least
+      suspicion. One of his principal instructions was assiduously to bring
+      about the dismissal of Wallenstein. With the general who had led it to
+      victory, the army of Austria would lose its principal strength; many
+      armies could not compensate for the loss of this individual. It would
+      therefore be a masterstroke of policy, at the very moment when a
+      victorious monarch, the absolute master of his operations, was arming
+      against the Emperor, to remove from the head of the imperial armies the
+      only general who, by ability and military experience, was able to cope
+      with the French king. Father Joseph, in the interests of Bavaria,
+      undertook to overcome the irresolution of the Emperor, who was now in a
+      manner besieged by the Spaniards and the Electoral Council. "It would be
+      expedient," he thought, "to gratify the Electors on this occasion, and
+      thereby facilitate his son's election to the Roman Crown. This object once
+      gained, Wallenstein could at any time resume his former station." The
+      artful Capuchin was too sure of his man to touch upon this ground of
+      consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice of a monk was to Ferdinand II. the voice of God. "Nothing on
+      earth," writes his own confessor, "was more sacred in his eyes than a
+      priest. If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a Regular
+      were to meet him at the same time and place, the Regular should receive
+      his first, and the angel his second obeisance." Wallenstein's dismissal
+      was determined upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In return for this pious concession, the Capuchin dexterously counteracted
+      the Emperor's scheme to procure for the King of Hungary the further
+      dignity of King of the Romans. In an express clause of the treaty just
+      concluded, the French ministers engaged in the name of their sovereign to
+      observe a complete neutrality between the Emperor and his enemies; while,
+      at the same time, Richelieu was actually negociating with the King of
+      Sweden to declare war, and pressing upon him the alliance of his master.
+      The latter, indeed, disavowed the lie as soon as it had served its
+      purpose, and Father Joseph, confined to a convent, must atone for the
+      alleged offence of exceeding his instructions. Ferdinand perceived, when
+      too late, that he had been imposed upon. "A wicked Capuchin," he was heard
+      to say, "has disarmed me with his rosary, and thrust nothing less than six
+      electoral crowns into his cowl."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artifice and trickery thus triumphed over the Emperor, at the moment when
+      he was believed to be omnipotent in Germany, and actually was so in the
+      field. With the loss of 18,000 men, and of a general who alone was worth
+      whole armies, he left Ratisbon without gaining the end for which he had
+      made such sacrifices. Before the Swedes had vanquished him in the field,
+      Maximilian of Bavaria and Father Joseph had given him a mortal blow. At
+      this memorable Diet at Ratisbon the war with Sweden was resolved upon, and
+      that of Mantua terminated. Vainly had the princes present at it interceded
+      for the Dukes of Mecklenburgh; and equally fruitless had been an
+      application by the English ambassadors for a pension to the Palatine
+      Frederick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein was at the head of an army of nearly a hundred thousand men
+      who adored him, when the sentence of his dismissal arrived. Most of the
+      officers were his creatures:&mdash;with the common soldiers his hint was
+      law. His ambition was boundless, his pride indomitable, his imperious
+      spirit could not brook an injury unavenged. One moment would now
+      precipitate him from the height of grandeur into the obscurity of a
+      private station. To execute such a sentence upon such a delinquent seemed
+      to require more address than it cost to obtain it from the judge.
+      Accordingly, two of Wallenstein's most intimate friends were selected as
+      heralds of these evil tidings, and instructed to soften them as much as
+      possible, by flattering assurances of the continuance of the Emperor's
+      favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein had ascertained the purport of their message before the
+      imperial ambassadors arrived. He had time to collect himself, and his
+      countenance exhibited an external calmness, while grief and rage were
+      storming in his bosom. He had made up his mind to obey. The Emperor's
+      decision had taken him by surprise before circumstances were ripe, or his
+      preparations complete, for the bold measures he had contemplated. His
+      extensive estates were scattered over Bohemia and Moravia; and by their
+      confiscation, the Emperor might at once destroy the sinews of his power.
+      He looked, therefore, to the future for revenge; and in this hope he was
+      encouraged by the predictions of an Italian astrologer, who led his
+      imperious spirit like a child in leading strings. Seni had read in the
+      stars, that his master's brilliant career was not yet ended; and that
+      bright and glorious prospects still awaited him. It was, indeed,
+      unnecessary to consult the stars to foretell that an enemy, Gustavus
+      Adolphus, would ere long render indispensable the services of such a
+      general as Wallenstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Emperor is betrayed," said Wallenstein to the messengers; "I pity but
+      forgive him. It is plain that the grasping spirit of the Bavarian dictates
+      to him. I grieve that, with so much weakness, he has sacrificed me, but I
+      will obey." He dismissed the emissaries with princely presents; and in a
+      humble letter besought the continuance of the Emperor's favour, and of the
+      dignities he had bestowed upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The murmurs of the army were universal, on hearing of the dismissal of
+      their general; and the greater part of his officers immediately quitted
+      the imperial service. Many followed him to his estates in Bohemia and
+      Moravia; others he attached to his interests by pensions, in order to
+      command their services when the opportunity should offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But repose was the last thing that Wallenstein contemplated when he
+      returned to private life. In his retreat, he surrounded himself with a
+      regal pomp, which seemed to mock the sentence of degradation. Six gates
+      led to the palace he inhabited in Prague, and a hundred houses were pulled
+      down to make way for his courtyard. Similar palaces were built on his
+      other numerous estates. Gentlemen of the noblest houses contended for the
+      honour of serving him, and even imperial chamberlains resigned the golden
+      key to the Emperor, to fill a similar office under Wallenstein. He
+      maintained sixty pages, who were instructed by the ablest masters. His
+      antichamber was protected by fifty life guards. His table never consisted
+      of less than 100 covers, and his seneschal was a person of distinction.
+      When he travelled, his baggage and suite accompanied him in a hundred
+      wagons, drawn by six or four horses; his court followed in sixty
+      carriages, attended by fifty led horses. The pomp of his liveries, the
+      splendour of his equipages, and the decorations of his apartments, were in
+      keeping with all the rest. Six barons and as many knights, were in
+      constant attendance about his person, and ready to execute his slightest
+      order. Twelve patrols went their rounds about his palace, to prevent any
+      disturbance. His busy genius required silence. The noise of coaches was to
+      be kept away from his residence, and the streets leading to it were
+      frequently blocked up with chains. His own circle was as silent as the
+      approaches to his palace; dark, reserved, and impenetrable, he was more
+      sparing of his words than of his gifts; while the little that he spoke was
+      harsh and imperious. He never smiled, and the coldness of his temperament
+      was proof against sensual seductions. Ever occupied with grand schemes, he
+      despised all those idle amusements in which so many waste their lives. The
+      correspondence he kept up with the whole of Europe was chiefly managed by
+      himself, and, that as little as possible might be trusted to the silence
+      of others, most of the letters were written by his own hand. He was a man
+      of large stature, thin, of a sallow complexion, with short red hair, and
+      small sparkling eyes. A gloomy and forbidding seriousness sat upon his
+      brow; and his magnificent presents alone retained the trembling crowd of
+      his dependents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this stately obscurity did Wallenstein silently, but not inactively,
+      await the hour of revenge. The victorious career of Gustavus Adolphus soon
+      gave him a presentiment of its approach. Not one of his lofty schemes had
+      been abandoned; and the Emperor's ingratitude had loosened the curb of his
+      ambition. The dazzling splendour of his private life bespoke high soaring
+      projects; and, lavish as a king, he seemed already to reckon among his
+      certain possessions those which he contemplated with hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Wallenstein's dismissal, and the invasion of Gustavus Adolphus, a
+      new generalissimo was to be appointed; and it now appeared advisable to
+      unite both the imperial army and that of the League under one general.
+      Maximilian of Bavaria sought this appointment, which would have enabled
+      him to dictate to the Emperor, who, from a conviction of this, wished to
+      procure the command for his eldest son, the King of Hungary. At last, in
+      order to avoid offence to either of the competitors, the appointment was
+      given to Tilly, who now exchanged the Bavarian for the Austrian service.
+      The imperial army in Germany, after the retirement of Wallenstein,
+      amounted to about 40,000 men; that of the League to nearly the same
+      number, both commanded by excellent officers, trained by the experience of
+      several campaigns, and proud of a long series of victories. With such a
+      force, little apprehension was felt at the invasion of the King of Sweden,
+      and the less so as it commanded both Pomerania and Mecklenburg, the only
+      countries through which he could enter Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the unsuccessful attempt of the King of Denmark to check the
+      Emperor's progress, Gustavus Adolphus was the only prince in Europe from
+      whom oppressed liberty could look for protection&mdash;the only one who,
+      while he was personally qualified to conduct such an enterprise, had both
+      political motives to recommend and wrongs to justify it. Before the
+      commencement of the war in Lower Saxony, important political interests
+      induced him, as well as the King of Denmark, to offer his services and his
+      army for the defence of Germany; but the offer of the latter had, to his
+      own misfortune, been preferred. Since that time, Wallenstein and the
+      Emperor had adopted measures which must have been equally offensive to him
+      as a man and as a king. Imperial troops had been despatched to the aid of
+      the Polish king, Sigismund, to defend Prussia against the Swedes. When the
+      king complained to Wallenstein of this act of hostility, he received for
+      answer, "The Emperor has more soldiers than he wants for himself, he must
+      help his friends." The Swedish ambassadors had been insolently ordered by
+      Wallenstein to withdraw from the conference at Lubeck; and when, unawed by
+      this command, they were courageous enough to remain, contrary to the law
+      of nations, he had threatened them with violence. Ferdinand had also
+      insulted the Swedish flag, and intercepted the king's despatches to
+      Transylvania. He also threw every obstacle in the way of a peace betwixt
+      Poland and Sweden, supported the pretensions of Sigismund to the Swedish
+      throne, and denied the right of Gustavus to the title of king. Deigning no
+      regard to the repeated remonstrances of Gustavus, he rather aggravated the
+      offence by new grievances, than acceded the required satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So many personal motives, supported by important considerations, both of
+      policy and religion, and seconded by pressing invitations from Germany,
+      had their full weight with a prince, who was naturally the more jealous of
+      his royal prerogative the more it was questioned, who was flattered by the
+      glory he hoped to gain as Protector of the Oppressed, and passionately
+      loved war as the element of his genius. But, until a truce or peace with
+      Poland should set his hands free, a new and dangerous war was not to be
+      thought of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cardinal Richelieu had the merit of effecting this truce with Poland. This
+      great statesman, who guided the helm of Europe, while in France he
+      repressed the rage of faction and the insolence of the nobles, pursued
+      steadily, amidst the cares of a stormy administration, his plan of
+      lowering the ascendancy of the House of Austria. But circumstances opposed
+      considerable obstacles to the execution of his designs; and even the
+      greatest minds cannot, with impunity, defy the prejudices of the age. The
+      minister of a Roman Catholic king, and a Cardinal, he was prevented by the
+      purple he bore from joining the enemies of that church in an open attack
+      on a power which had the address to sanctify its ambitious encroachments
+      under the name of religion. The external deference which Richelieu was
+      obliged to pay to the narrow views of his contemporaries limited his
+      exertions to secret negociations, by which he endeavoured to gain the hand
+      of others to accomplish the enlightened projects of his own mind. After a
+      fruitless attempt to prevent the peace between Denmark and the Emperor, he
+      had recourse to Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of his age. No exertion was
+      spared to bring this monarch to a favourable decision, and at the same
+      time to facilitate the execution of it. Charnasse, an unsuspected agent of
+      the Cardinal, proceeded to Polish Prussia, where Gustavus Adolphus was
+      conducting the war against Sigismund, and alternately visited these
+      princes, in order to persuade them to a truce or peace. Gustavus had been
+      long inclined to it, and the French minister succeeded at last in opening
+      the eyes of Sigismund to his true interests, and to the deceitful policy
+      of the Emperor. A truce for six years was agreed on, Gustavus being
+      allowed to retain all his conquests. This treaty gave him also what he had
+      so long desired, the liberty of directing his arms against the Emperor.
+      For this the French ambassador offered him the alliance of his sovereign
+      and considerable subsidies. But Gustavus Adolphus was justly apprehensive
+      lest the acceptance of the assistance should make him dependent upon
+      France, and fetter him in his career of conquest, while an alliance with a
+      Roman Catholic power might excite distrust among the Protestants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the war was just and necessary, the circumstances under which it was
+      undertaken were not less promising. The name of the Emperor, it is true,
+      was formidable, his resources inexhaustible, his power hitherto
+      invincible. So dangerous a contest would have dismayed any other than
+      Gustavus. He saw all the obstacles and dangers which opposed his
+      undertaking, but he knew also the means by which, as he hoped, they might
+      be conquered. His army, though not numerous, was well disciplined, inured
+      to hardship by a severe climate and campaigns, and trained to victory in
+      the war with Poland. Sweden, though poor in men and money, and overtaxed
+      by an eight years' war, was devoted to its monarch with an enthusiasm
+      which assured him of the ready support of his subjects. In Germany, the
+      name of the Emperor was at least as much hated as feared. The Protestant
+      princes only awaited the arrival of a deliverer to throw off his
+      intolerable yoke, and openly declare for the Swedes. Even the Roman
+      Catholic states would welcome an antagonist to the Emperor, whose
+      opposition might control his overwhelming influence. The first victory
+      gained on German ground would be decisive. It would encourage those
+      princes who still hesitated to declare themselves, strengthen the cause of
+      his adherents, augment his troops, and open resources for the maintenance
+      of the campaign. If the greater part of the German states were
+      impoverished by oppression, the flourishing Hanse towns had escaped, and
+      they could not hesitate, by a small voluntary sacrifice, to avert the
+      general ruin. As the imperialists should be driven from the different
+      provinces, their armies would diminish, since they were subsisting on the
+      countries in which they were encamped. The strength, too, of the Emperor
+      had been lessened by ill-timed detachments to Italy and the Netherlands;
+      while Spain, weakened by the loss of the Manilla galleons, and engaged in
+      a serious war in the Netherlands, could afford him little support. Great
+      Britain, on the other hand, gave the King of Sweden hope of considerable
+      subsidies; and France, now at peace with itself, came forward with the
+      most favourable offers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the strongest pledge for the success of his undertaking Gustavus found&mdash;in
+      himself. Prudence demanded that he should embrace all the foreign
+      assistance he could, in order to guard his enterprise from the imputation
+      of rashness; but all his confidence and courage were entirely derived from
+      himself. He was indisputably the greatest general of his age, and the
+      bravest soldier in the army which he had formed. Familiar with the tactics
+      of Greece and Rome, he had discovered a more effective system of warfare,
+      which was adopted as a model by the most eminent commanders of subsequent
+      times. He reduced the unwieldy squadrons of cavalry, and rendered their
+      movements more light and rapid; and, with the same view, he widened the
+      intervals between his battalions. Instead of the usual array in a single
+      line, he disposed his forces in two lines, that the second might advance
+      in the event of the first giving way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made up for his want of cavalry, by placing infantry among the horse; a
+      practice which frequently decided the victory. Europe first learned from
+      him the importance of infantry. All Germany was astonished at the strict
+      discipline which, at the first, so creditably distinguished the Swedish
+      army within their territories; all disorders were punished with the utmost
+      severity, particularly impiety, theft, gambling, and duelling. The Swedish
+      articles of war enforced frugality. In the camp, the King's tent not
+      excepted, neither silver nor gold was to be seen. The general's eye looked
+      as vigilantly to the morals as to the martial bravery of his soldiers;
+      every regiment was ordered to form round its chaplain for morning and
+      evening prayers. In all these points the lawgiver was also an example. A
+      sincere and ardent piety exalted his courage. Equally free from the coarse
+      infidelity which leaves the passions of the barbarian without a control,&mdash;and
+      from the grovelling superstition of Ferdinand, who humbled himself to the
+      dust before the Supreme Being, while he haughtily trampled on his
+      fellow-creature&mdash;in the height of his success he was ever a man and a
+      Christian&mdash;in the height of his devotion, a king and a hero. The
+      hardships of war he shared with the meanest soldier in his army;
+      maintained a calm serenity amidst the hottest fury of battle; his glance
+      was omnipresent, and he intrepidly forgot the danger while he exposed
+      himself to the greatest peril. His natural courage, indeed, too often made
+      him forget the duty of a general; and the life of a king ended in the
+      death of a common soldier. But such a leader was followed to victory alike
+      by the coward and the brave, and his eagle glance marked every heroic deed
+      which his example had inspired. The fame of their sovereign excited in the
+      nation an enthusiastic sense of their own importance; proud of their king,
+      the peasant in Finland and Gothland joyfully contributed his pittance; the
+      soldier willingly shed his blood; and the lofty energy which his single
+      mind had imparted to the nation long survived its creator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The necessity of the war was acknowledged, but the best plan of conducting
+      it was a matter of much question. Even to the bold Chancellor Oxenstiern,
+      an offensive war appeared too daring a measure; the resources of his poor
+      and conscientious master, appeared to him too slender to compete with
+      those of a despotic sovereign, who held all Germany at his command. But
+      the minister's timid scruples were overruled by the hero's penetrating
+      prudence. "If we await the enemy in Sweden," said Gustavus, "in the event
+      of a defeat every thing would be lost, by a fortunate commencement in
+      Germany everything would be gained. The sea is wide, and we have a long
+      line of coast in Sweden to defend. If the enemy's fleet should escape us,
+      or our own be defeated, it would, in either case, be impossible to prevent
+      the enemy's landing. Every thing depends on the retention of Stralsund. So
+      long as this harbour is open to us, we shall both command the Baltic, and
+      secure a retreat from Germany. But to protect this port, we must not
+      remain in Sweden, but advance at once into Pomerania. Let us talk no more,
+      then, of a defensive war, by which we should sacrifice our greatest
+      advantages. Sweden must not be doomed to behold a hostile banner; if we
+      are vanquished in Germany, it will be time enough to follow your plan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus resolved to cross the Baltic and attack the Emperor. His
+      preparations were made with the utmost expedition, and his precautionary
+      measures were not less prudent than the resolution itself was bold and
+      magnanimous. Before engaging in so distant a war, it was necessary to
+      secure Sweden against its neighbours. At a personal interview with the
+      King of Denmark at Markaroed, Gustavus assured himself of the friendship
+      of that monarch; his frontier on the side of Moscow was well guarded;
+      Poland might be held in check from Germany, if it betrayed any design of
+      infringing the truce. Falkenberg, a Swedish ambassador, who visited the
+      courts of Holland and Germany, obtained the most flattering promises from
+      several Protestant princes, though none of them yet possessed courage or
+      self-devotion enough to enter into a formal alliance with him. Lubeck and
+      Hamburg engaged to advance him money, and to accept Swedish copper in
+      return. Emissaries were also despatched to the Prince of Transylvania, to
+      excite that implacable enemy of Austria to arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Swedish levies were made in Germany and the Netherlands,
+      the regiments increased to their full complement, new ones raised,
+      transports provided, a fleet fitted out, provisions, military stores, and
+      money collected. Thirty ships of war were in a short time prepared, 15,000
+      men equipped, and 200 transports were ready to convey them across the
+      Baltic. A greater force Gustavus Adolphus was unwilling to carry into
+      Germany, and even the maintenance of this exceeded the revenues of his
+      kingdom. But however small his army, it was admirable in all points of
+      discipline, courage, and experience, and might serve as the nucleus of a
+      more powerful armament, if it once gained the German frontier, and its
+      first attempts were attended with success. Oxenstiern, at once general and
+      chancellor, was posted with 10,000 men in Prussia, to protect that
+      province against Poland. Some regular troops, and a considerable body of
+      militia, which served as a nursery for the main body, remained in Sweden,
+      as a defence against a sudden invasion by any treacherous neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the measures taken for the external defence of the kingdom. Its
+      internal administration was provided for with equal care. The government
+      was intrusted to the Council of State, and the finances to the Palatine
+      John Casimir, the brother-in-law of the King, while his wife, tenderly as
+      he was attached to her, was excluded from all share in the government, for
+      which her limited talents incapacitated her. He set his house in order
+      like a dying man. On the 20th May, 1630, when all his measures were
+      arranged, and all was ready for his departure, the King appeared in the
+      Diet at Stockholm, to bid the States a solemn farewell. Taking in his arms
+      his daughter Christina, then only four years old, who, in the cradle, had
+      been acknowledged as his successor, he presented her to the States as the
+      future sovereign, exacted from them a renewal of the oath of allegiance to
+      her, in case he should never more return; and then read the ordinances for
+      the government of the kingdom during his absence, or the minority of his
+      daughter. The whole assembly was dissolved in tears, and the King himself
+      was some time before he could attain sufficient composure to deliver his
+      farewell address to the States.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not lightly or wantonly," said he, "am I about to involve myself and you
+      in this new and dangerous war; God is my witness that <i>I</i> do not
+      fight to gratify my own ambition. But the Emperor has wronged me most
+      shamefully in the person of my ambassadors. He has supported my enemies,
+      persecuted my friends and brethren, trampled my religion in the dust, and
+      even stretched his revengeful arm against my crown. The oppressed states
+      of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by God's help, we will give them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be exposed. I
+      have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that I shall escape them
+      all. Hitherto, Providence has wonderfully protected me, but I shall at
+      last fall in defence of my country. I commend you to the protection of
+      Heaven. Be just, be conscientious, act uprightly, and we shall meet again
+      in eternity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To you, my Counsellors of State, I address myself first. May God
+      enlighten you, and fill you with wisdom, to promote the welfare of my
+      people. You, too, my brave nobles, I commend to the divine protection.
+      Continue to prove yourselves the worthy successors of those Gothic heroes,
+      whose bravery humbled to the dust the pride of ancient Rome. To you,
+      ministers of religion, I recommend moderation and unity; be yourselves
+      examples of the virtues which you preach, and abuse not your influence
+      over the minds of my people. On you, deputies of the burgesses, and the
+      peasantry, I entreat the blessing of heaven; may your industry be rewarded
+      by a prosperous harvest; your stores plenteously filled, and may you be
+      crowned abundantly with all the blessings of this life. For the prosperity
+      of all my subjects, absent and present, I offer my warmest prayers to
+      Heaven. I bid you all a sincere&mdash;it may be &mdash;an eternal
+      farewell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The embarkation of the troops took place at Elfsknaben, where the fleet
+      lay at anchor. An immense concourse flocked thither to witness this
+      magnificent spectacle. The hearts of the spectators were agitated by
+      varied emotions, as they alternately considered the vastness of the
+      enterprise, and the greatness of the leader. Among the superior officers
+      who commanded in this army were Gustavus Horn, the Rhinegrave Otto Lewis,
+      Henry Matthias, Count Thurn, Ottenberg, Baudissen, Banner, Teufel, Tott,
+      Mutsenfahl, Falkenberg, Kniphausen, and other distinguished names.
+      Detained by contrary winds, the fleet did not sail till June, and on the
+      24th of that month reached the Island of Rugen in Pomerania.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="1p140 (149K)" src="images/1p140.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus was the first who landed. In the presence of his suite,
+      he knelt on the shore of Germany to return thanks to the Almighty for the
+      safe arrival of his fleet and his army. He landed his troops on the
+      Islands of Wollin and Usedom; upon his approach, the imperial garrisons
+      abandoned their entrenchments and fled. He advanced rapidly on Stettin, to
+      secure this important place before the appearance of the Imperialists.
+      Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania, a feeble and superannuated prince, had
+      been long tired out by the outrages committed by the latter within his
+      territories; but too weak to resist, he had contented himself with
+      murmurs. The appearance of his deliverer, instead of animating his
+      courage, increased his fear and anxiety. Severely as his country had
+      suffered from the Imperialists, the risk of incurring the Emperor's
+      vengeance prevented him from declaring openly for the Swedes. Gustavus
+      Adolphus, who was encamped under the walls of the town, summoned the city
+      to receive a Swedish garrison. Bogislaus appeared in person in the camp of
+      Gustavus, to deprecate this condition. "I come to you," said Gustavus,
+      "not as an enemy but a friend. I wage no war against Pomerania, nor
+      against the German empire, but against the enemies of both. In my hands
+      this duchy shall be sacred; and it shall be restored to you at the
+      conclusion of the campaign, by me, with more certainty, than by any other.
+      Look to the traces of the imperial force within your territories, and to
+      mine in Usedom; and decide whether you will have the Emperor or me as your
+      friend. What have you to expect, if the Emperor should make himself master
+      of your capital? Will he deal with you more leniently than I? Or is it
+      your intention to stop my progress? The case is pressing: decide at once,
+      and do not compel me to have recourse to more violent measures."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alternative was a painful one. On the one side, the King of Sweden was
+      before his gates with a formidable army; on the other, he saw the
+      inevitable vengeance of the Emperor, and the fearful example of so many
+      German princes, who were now wandering in misery, the victims of that
+      revenge. The more immediate danger decided his resolution. The gates of
+      Stettin were opened to the king; the Swedish troops entered; and the
+      Austrians, who were advancing by rapid marches, anticipated. The capture
+      of this place procured for the king a firm footing in Pomerania, the
+      command of the Oder, and a magazine for his troops. To prevent a charge of
+      treachery, Bogislaus was careful to excuse this step to the Emperor on the
+      plea of necessity; but aware of Ferdinand's implacable disposition, he
+      entered into a close alliance with his new protector. By this league with
+      Pomerania, Gustavus secured a powerful friend in Germany, who covered his
+      rear, and maintained his communication with Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Ferdinand was already the aggressor in Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus
+      thought himself absolved from the usual formalities, and commenced
+      hostilities without any declaration of war. To the other European powers,
+      he justified his conduct in a manifesto, in which he detailed the grounds
+      which had led him to take up arms. Meanwhile he continued his progress in
+      Pomerania, while he saw his army daily increasing. The troops which had
+      fought under Mansfeld, Duke Christian of Brunswick, the King of Denmark,
+      and Wallenstein, came in crowds, both officers and soldiers, to join his
+      victorious standard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Imperial court, the invasion of the king of Sweden at first excited
+      far less attention than it merited. The pride of Austria, extravagantly
+      elated by its unheard-of successes, looked down with contempt upon a
+      prince, who, with a handful of men, came from an obscure corner of Europe,
+      and who owed his past successes, as they imagined, entirely to the
+      incapacity of a weak opponent. The depreciatory representation which
+      Wallenstein had artfully given of the Swedish power, increased the
+      Emperor's security; for what had he to fear from an enemy, whom his
+      general undertook to drive with such ease from Germany? Even the rapid
+      progress of Gustavus Adolphus in Pomerania, could not entirely dispel this
+      prejudice, which the mockeries of the courtiers continued to feed. He was
+      called in Vienna the Snow King, whom the cold of the north kept together,
+      but who would infallibly melt as he advanced southward. Even the electors,
+      assembled in Ratisbon, disregarded his representations; and, influenced by
+      an abject complaisance to Ferdinand, refused him even the title of king.
+      But while they mocked him in Ratisbon and Vienna, in Mecklenburg and
+      Pomerania, one strong town after another fell into his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding this contempt, the Emperor thought it proper to offer to
+      adjust his differences with Sweden by negociation, and for that purpose
+      sent plenipotentiaries to Denmark. But their instructions showed how
+      little he was in earnest in these proposals, for he still continued to
+      refuse to Gustavus the title of king. He hoped by this means to throw on
+      the king of Sweden the odium of being the aggressor, and thereby to ensure
+      the support of the States of the empire. The conference at Dantzic proved,
+      as might be expected, fruitless, and the animosity of both parties was
+      increased to its utmost by an intemperate correspondence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An imperial general, Torquato Conti, who commanded in Pomerania, had, in
+      the mean time, made a vain attempt to wrest Stettin from the Swedes. The
+      Imperialists were driven out from one place after another; Damm, Stargard,
+      Camin, and Wolgast, soon fell into the hands of Gustavus. To revenge
+      himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general permitted his
+      troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on the unfortunate
+      inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but too severely from
+      his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the
+      whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often when the
+      Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was laid in
+      ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins. But these
+      barbarities only served to place in a more favourable light the opposite
+      conduct of the Swedes, and to win all hearts to their humane monarch. The
+      Swedish soldier paid for all he required; no private property was injured
+      on his march. The Swedes consequently were received with open arms both in
+      town and country, whilst every Imperialist that fell into the hands of the
+      Pomeranian peasantry was ruthlessly murdered. Many Pomeranians entered
+      into the service of Sweden, and the estates of this exhausted country
+      willingly voted the king a contribution of 100,000 florins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Torquato Conti, who, with all his severity of character, was a consummate
+      general, endeavoured to render Stettin useless to the king of Sweden, as
+      he could not deprive him of it. He entrenched himself upon the Oder, at
+      Gartz, above Stettin, in order, by commanding that river, to cut off the
+      water communication of the town with the rest of Germany. Nothing could
+      induce him to attack the King of Sweden, who was his superior in numbers,
+      while the latter was equally cautious not to storm the strong
+      entrenchments of the Imperialists. Torquato, too deficient in troops and
+      money to act upon the offensive against the king, hoped by this plan of
+      operations to give time for Tilly to hasten to the defence of Pomerania,
+      and then, in conjunction with that general, to attack the Swedes. Seizing
+      the opportunity of the temporary absence of Gustavus, he made a sudden
+      attempt upon Stettin, but the Swedes were not unprepared for him. A
+      vigorous attack of the Imperialists was firmly repulsed, and Torquato was
+      forced to retire with great loss. For this auspicious commencement of the
+      war, however, Gustavus was, it must be owned, as much indebted to his good
+      fortune as to his military talents. The imperial troops in Pomerania had
+      been greatly reduced since Wallenstein's dismissal; moreover, the outrages
+      they had committed were now severely revenged upon them; wasted and
+      exhausted, the country no longer afforded them a subsistence. All
+      discipline was at an end; the orders of the officers were disregarded,
+      while their numbers daily decreased by desertion, and by a general
+      mortality, which the piercing cold of a strange climate had produced among
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under these circumstances, the imperial general was anxious to allow his
+      troops the repose of winter quarters, but he had to do with an enemy to
+      whom the climate of Germany had no winter. Gustavus had taken the
+      precaution of providing his soldiers with dresses of sheep-skin, to enable
+      them to keep the field even in the most inclement season. The imperial
+      plenipotentiaries, who came to treat with him for a cessation of
+      hostilities, received this discouraging answer: "The Swedes are soldiers
+      in winter as well as in summer, and not disposed to oppress the
+      unfortunate peasantry. The Imperialists may act as they think proper, but
+      they need not expect to remain undisturbed." Torquato Conti soon after
+      resigned a command, in which neither riches nor reputation were to be
+      gained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this inequality of the two armies, the advantage was necessarily on the
+      side of the Swedes. The Imperialists were incessantly harassed in their
+      winter quarters; Greifenhagan, an important place upon the Oder, taken by
+      storm, and the towns of Gartz and Piritz were at last abandoned by the
+      enemy. In the whole of Pomerania, Greifswald, Demmin, and Colberg alone
+      remained in their hands, and these the king made great preparations to
+      besiege. The enemy directed their retreat towards Brandenburg, in which
+      much of their artillery and baggage, and many prisoners fell into the
+      hands of the pursuers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By seizing the passes of Riebnitz and Damgarden, Gustavus had opened a
+      passage into Mecklenburg, whose inhabitants were invited to return to
+      their allegiance under their legitimate sovereigns, and to expel the
+      adherents of Wallenstein. The Imperialists, however, gained the important
+      town of Rostock by stratagem, and thus prevented the farther advance of
+      the king, who was unwilling to divide his forces. The exiled dukes of
+      Mecklenburg had ineffectually employed the princes assembled at Ratisbon
+      to intercede with the Emperor: in vain they had endeavoured to soften
+      Ferdinand, by renouncing the alliance of the king, and every idea of
+      resistance. But, driven to despair by the Emperor's inflexibility, they
+      openly espoused the side of Sweden, and raising troops, gave the command
+      of them to Francis Charles Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. That general made
+      himself master of several strong places on the Elbe, but lost them
+      afterwards to the Imperial General Pappenheim, who was despatched to
+      oppose him. Soon afterwards, besieged by the latter in the town of
+      Ratzeburg, he was compelled to surrender with all his troops. Thus ended
+      the attempt which these unfortunate princes made to recover their
+      territories; and it was reserved for the victorious arm of Gustavus
+      Adolphus to render them that brilliant service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Imperialists had thrown themselves into Brandenburg, which now became
+      the theatre of the most barbarous atrocities. These outrages were
+      inflicted upon the subjects of a prince who had never injured the Emperor,
+      and whom, moreover, he was at the very time inciting to take up arms
+      against the King of Sweden. The sight of the disorders of their soldiers,
+      which want of money compelled them to wink at, and of authority over their
+      troops, excited the disgust even of the imperial generals; and, from very
+      shame, their commander-in-chief, Count Schaumburg, wished to resign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a sufficient force to protect his territories, and left by the
+      Emperor, in spite of the most pressing remonstrances, without assistance,
+      the Elector of Brandenburg at last issued an edict, ordering his subjects
+      to repel force by force, and to put to death without mercy every Imperial
+      soldier who should henceforth be detected in plundering. To such a height
+      had the violence of outrage and the misery of the government risen, that
+      nothing was left to the sovereign, but the desperate extremity of
+      sanctioning private vengeance by a formal law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Swedes had pursued the Imperialists into Brandenburg; and only the
+      Elector's refusal to open to him the fortress of Custrin for his march,
+      obliged the king to lay aside his design of besieging Frankfort on the
+      Oder. He therefore returned to complete the conquest of Pomerania, by the
+      capture of Demmin and Colberg. In the mean time, Field-Marshal Tilly was
+      advancing to the defence of Brandenburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This general, who could boast as yet of never having suffered a defeat,
+      the conqueror of Mansfeld, of Duke Christian of Brunswick, of the Margrave
+      of Baden, and the King of Denmark, was now in the Swedish monarch to meet
+      an opponent worthy of his fame. Descended of a noble family in Liege,
+      Tilly had formed his military talents in the wars of the Netherlands,
+      which was then the great school for generals. He soon found an opportunity
+      of distinguishing himself under Rodolph II. in Hungary, where he rapidly
+      rose from one step to another. After the peace, he entered into the
+      service of Maximilian of Bavaria, who made him commander-in-chief with
+      absolute powers. Here, by his excellent regulations, he was the founder of
+      the Bavarian army; and to him, chiefly, Maximilian was indebted for his
+      superiority in the field. Upon the termination of the Bohemian war, he was
+      appointed commander of the troops of the League; and, after Wallenstein's
+      dismissal, generalissimo of the imperial armies. Equally stern towards his
+      soldiers and implacable towards his enemies, and as gloomy and
+      impenetrable as Wallenstein, he was greatly his superior in probity and
+      disinterestedness. A bigoted zeal for religion, and a bloody spirit of
+      persecution, co-operated, with the natural ferocity of his character, to
+      make him the terror of the Protestants. A strange and terrific aspect
+      bespoke his character: of low stature, thin, with hollow cheeks, a long
+      nose, a broad and wrinkled forehead, large whiskers, and a pointed chin;
+      he was generally attired in a Spanish doublet of green satin, with slashed
+      sleeves, with a small high peaked hat upon his head, surmounted by a red
+      feather which hung down to his back. His whole aspect recalled to
+      recollection the Duke of Alva, the scourge of the Flemings, and his
+      actions were far from effacing the impression. Such was the general who
+      was now to be opposed to the hero of the north.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly was far from undervaluing his antagonist, "The King of Sweden," said
+      he in the Diet at Ratisbon, "is an enemy both prudent and brave, inured to
+      war, and in the flower of his age. His plans are excellent, his resources
+      considerable; his subjects enthusiastically attached to him. His army,
+      composed of Swedes, Germans, Livonians, Finlanders, Scots and English, by
+      its devoted obedience to their leader, is blended into one nation: he is a
+      gamester in playing with whom not to have lost is to have won a great
+      deal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The progress of the King of Sweden in Brandenburg and Pomerania, left the
+      new generalissimo no time to lose; and his presence was now urgently
+      called for by those who commanded in that quarter. With all expedition, he
+      collected the imperial troops which were dispersed over the empire; but it
+      required time to obtain from the exhausted and impoverished provinces the
+      necessary supplies. At last, about the middle of winter, he appeared at
+      the head of 20,000 men, before Frankfort on the Oder, where he was joined
+      by Schaumburg. Leaving to this general the defence of Frankfort, with a
+      sufficient garrison, he hastened to Pomerania, with a view of saving
+      Demmin, and relieving Colberg, which was already hard pressed by the
+      Swedes. But even before he had left Brandenburg, Demmin, which was but
+      poorly defended by the Duke of Savelli, had surrendered to the king, and
+      Colberg, after a five months' siege, was starved into a capitulation. As
+      the passes in Upper Pomerania were well guarded, and the king's camp near
+      Schwedt defied attack, Tilly abandoned his offensive plan of operations,
+      and retreated towards the Elbe to besiege Magdeburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The capture of Demmin opened to the king a free passage into Mecklenburg;
+      but a more important enterprise drew his arms into another quarter.
+      Scarcely had Tilly commenced his retrograde movement, when suddenly
+      breaking up his camp at Schwedt, the king marched his whole force against
+      Frankfort on the Oder. This town, badly fortified, was defended by a
+      garrison of 8,000 men, mostly composed of those ferocious bands who had so
+      cruelly ravaged Pomerania and Brandenburg. It was now attacked with such
+      impetuosity, that on the third day it was taken by storm. The Swedes,
+      assured of victory, rejected every offer of capitulation, as they were
+      resolved to exercise the dreadful right of retaliation. For Tilly, soon
+      after his arrival, had surrounded a Swedish detachment, and, irritated by
+      their obstinate resistance, had cut them in pieces to a man. This cruelty
+      was not forgotten by the Swedes. "New Brandenburg Quarter", they replied
+      to the Imperialists who begged their lives, and slaughtered them without
+      mercy. Several thousands were either killed or taken, and many were
+      drowned in the Oder, the rest fled to Silesia. All their artillery fell
+      into the hands of the Swedes. To satisfy the rage of his troops, Gustavus
+      Adolphus was under the necessity of giving up the town for three hours to
+      plunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the king was thus advancing from one conquest to another, and, by
+      his success, encouraging the Protestants to active resistance, the Emperor
+      proceeded to enforce the Edict of Restitution, and, by his exorbitant
+      pretensions, to exhaust the patience of the states. Compelled by
+      necessity, he continued the violent course which he had begun with such
+      arrogant confidence; the difficulties into which his arbitrary conduct had
+      plunged him, he could only extricate himself from by measures still more
+      arbitrary. But in so complicated a body as the German empire, despotism
+      must always create the most dangerous convulsions. With astonishment, the
+      princes beheld the constitution of the empire overthrown, and the state of
+      nature to which matters were again verging, suggested to them the idea of
+      self-defence, the only means of protection in such a state of things. The
+      steps openly taken by the Emperor against the Lutheran church, had at last
+      removed the veil from the eyes of John George, who had been so long the
+      dupe of his artful policy. Ferdinand, too, had personally offended him by
+      the exclusion of his son from the archbishopric of Magdeburg; and
+      field-marshal Arnheim, his new favourite and minister, spared no pains to
+      increase the resentment of his master. Arnheim had formerly been an
+      imperial general under Wallenstein, and being still zealously attached to
+      him, he was eager to avenge his old benefactor and himself on the Emperor,
+      by detaching Saxony from the Austrian interests. Gustavus Adolphus,
+      supported by the Protestant states, would be invincible; a consideration
+      which already filled the Emperor with alarm. The example of Saxony would
+      probably influence others, and the Emperor's fate seemed now in a manner
+      to depend upon the Elector's decision. The artful favourite impressed upon
+      his master this idea of his own importance, and advised him to terrify the
+      Emperor, by threatening an alliance with Sweden, and thus to extort from
+      his fears, what he had sought in vain from his gratitude. The favourite,
+      however, was far from wishing him actually to enter into the Swedish
+      alliance, but, by holding aloof from both parties, to maintain his own
+      importance and independence. Accordingly, he laid before him a plan, which
+      only wanted a more able hand to carry it into execution, and recommended
+      him, by heading the Protestant party, to erect a third power in Germany,
+      and thereby maintain the balance between Sweden and Austria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This project was peculiarly flattering to the Saxon Elector, to whom the
+      idea of being dependent upon Sweden, or of longer submitting to the
+      tyranny of the Emperor, was equally hateful. He could not, with
+      indifference, see the control of German affairs wrested from him by a
+      foreign prince; and incapable as he was of taking a principal part, his
+      vanity would not condescend to act a subordinate one. He resolved,
+      therefore, to draw every possible advantage from the progress of Gustavus,
+      but to pursue, independently, his own separate plans. With this view, he
+      consulted with the Elector of Brandenburg, who, from similar causes, was
+      ready to act against the Emperor, but, at the same time, was jealous of
+      Sweden. In a Diet at Torgau, having assured himself of the support of his
+      Estates, he invited the Protestant States of the empire to a general
+      convention, which took place at Leipzig, on the 6th February 1631.
+      Brandenburg, Hesse Cassel, with several princes, counts, estates of the
+      empire, and Protestant bishops were present, either personally or by
+      deputy, at this assembly, which the chaplain to the Saxon Court, Dr. Hoe
+      von Hohenegg, opened with a vehement discourse from the pulpit. The
+      Emperor had, in vain, endeavoured to prevent this self-appointed
+      convention, whose object was evidently to provide for its own defence, and
+      which the presence of the Swedes in the empire, rendered more than usually
+      alarming. Emboldened by the progress of Gustavus Adolphus, the assembled
+      princes asserted their rights, and after a session of two months broke up,
+      with adopting a resolution which placed the Emperor in no slight
+      embarrassment. Its import was to demand of the Emperor, in a general
+      address, the revocation of the Edict of Restitution, the withdrawal of his
+      troops from their capitals and fortresses, the suspension of all existing
+      proceedings, and the abolition of abuses; and, in the mean time, to raise
+      an army of 40,000 men, to enable them to redress their own grievances, if
+      the Emperor should still refuse satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A further incident contributed not a little to increase the firmness of
+      the Protestant princes. The King of Sweden had, at last, overcome the
+      scruples which had deterred him from a closer alliance with France, and,
+      on the 13th January 1631, concluded a formal treaty with this crown. After
+      a serious dispute respecting the treatment of the Roman Catholic princes
+      of the empire, whom France took under her protection, and against whom
+      Gustavus claimed the right of retaliation, and after some less important
+      differences with regard to the title of majesty, which the pride of France
+      was loth to concede to the King of Sweden, Richelieu yielded the second,
+      and Gustavus Adolphus the first point, and the treaty was signed at
+      Beerwald in Neumark. The contracting parties mutually covenanted to defend
+      each other with a military force, to protect their common friends, to
+      restore to their dominions the deposed princes of the empire, and to
+      replace every thing, both on the frontier and in the interior of Germany,
+      on the same footing on which it stood before the commencement of the war.
+      For this end, Sweden engaged to maintain an army of 30,000 men in Germany,
+      and France agreed to furnish the Swedes with an annual subsidy of 400,000
+      dollars. If the arms of Gustavus were successful, he was to respect the
+      Roman Catholic religion and the constitution of the empire in all the
+      conquered places, and to make no attempt against either. All Estates and
+      princes whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, either in Germany or in
+      other countries, were to be invited to become parties to the treaty;
+      neither France nor Sweden was to conclude a separate peace without the
+      knowledge and consent of the other; and the treaty itself was to continue
+      in force for five years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great as was the struggle to the King of Sweden to receive subsidies from
+      France, and sacrifice his independence in the conduct of the war, this
+      alliance with France decided his cause in Germany. Protected, as he now
+      was, by the greatest power in Europe, the German states began to feel
+      confidence in his undertaking, for the issue of which they had hitherto
+      good reason to tremble. He became truly formidable to the Emperor. The
+      Roman Catholic princes too, who, though they were anxious to humble
+      Austria, had witnessed his progress with distrust, were less alarmed now
+      that an alliance with a Roman Catholic power ensured his respect for their
+      religion. And thus, while Gustavus Adolphus protected the Protestant
+      religion and the liberties of Germany against the aggression of Ferdinand,
+      France secured those liberties, and the Roman Catholic religion, against
+      Gustavus himself, if the intoxication of success should hurry him beyond
+      the bounds of moderation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King of Sweden lost no time in apprizing the members of the
+      confederacy of Leipzig of the treaty concluded with France, and inviting
+      them to a closer union with himself. The application was seconded by
+      France, who spared no pains to win over the Elector of Saxony. Gustavus
+      was willing to be content with secret support, if the princes should deem
+      it too bold a step as yet to declare openly in his favour. Several princes
+      gave him hopes of his proposals being accepted on the first favourable
+      opportunity; but the Saxon Elector, full of jealousy and distrust towards
+      the King of Sweden, and true to the selfish policy he had pursued, could
+      not be prevailed upon to give a decisive answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The resolution of the confederacy of Leipzig, and the alliance betwixt
+      France and Sweden, were news equally disagreeable to the Emperor. Against
+      them he employed the thunder of imperial ordinances, and the want of an
+      army saved France from the full weight of his displeasure. Remonstrances
+      were addressed to all the members of the confederacy, strongly prohibiting
+      them from enlisting troops. They retorted with explanations equally
+      vehement, justified their conduct upon the principles of natural right,
+      and continued their preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, the imperial generals, deficient both in troops and money, found
+      themselves reduced to the disagreeable alternative of losing sight either
+      of the King of Sweden, or of the Estates of the empire, since with a
+      divided force they were not a match for either. The movements of the
+      Protestants called their attention to the interior of the empire, while
+      the progress of the king in Brandenburg, by threatening the hereditary
+      possessions of Austria, required them to turn their arms to that quarter.
+      After the conquest of Frankfort, the king had advanced upon Landsberg on
+      the Warta, and Tilly, after a fruitless attempt to relieve it, had again
+      returned to Magdeburg, to prosecute with vigour the siege of that town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rich archbishopric, of which Magdeburg was the capital, had long been
+      in the possession of princes of the house of Brandenburg, who introduced
+      the Protestant religion into the province. Christian William, the last
+      administrator, had, by his alliance with Denmark, incurred the ban of the
+      empire, on which account the chapter, to avoid the Emperor's displeasure,
+      had formally deposed him. In his place they had elected Prince John
+      Augustus, the second son of the Elector of Saxony, whom the Emperor
+      rejected, in order to confer the archbishopric on his son Leopold. The
+      Elector of Saxony complained ineffectually to the imperial court; but
+      Christian William of Brandenburg took more active measures. Relying on the
+      attachment of the magistracy and inhabitants of Brandenburg, and excited
+      by chimerical hopes, he thought himself able to surmount all the obstacles
+      which the vote of the chapter, the competition of two powerful rivals, and
+      the Edict of Restitution opposed to his restoration. He went to Sweden,
+      and, by the promise of a diversion in Germany, sought to obtain assistance
+      from Gustavus. He was dismissed by that monarch not without hopes of
+      effectual protection, but with the advice to act with caution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had Christian William been informed of the landing of his
+      protector in Pomerania, than he entered Magdeburg in disguise. Appearing
+      suddenly in the town council, he reminded the magistrates of the ravages
+      which both town and country had suffered from the imperial troops, of the
+      pernicious designs of Ferdinand, and the danger of the Protestant church.
+      He then informed them that the moment of deliverance was at hand, and that
+      Gustavus Adolphus offered them his alliance and assistance. Magdeburg, one
+      of the most flourishing towns in Germany, enjoyed under the government of
+      its magistrates a republican freedom, which inspired its citizens with a
+      brave heroism. Of this they had already given proofs, in the bold defence
+      of their rights against Wallenstein, who, tempted by their wealth, made on
+      them the most extravagant demands. Their territory had been given up to
+      the fury of his troops, though Magdeburg itself had escaped his vengeance.
+      It was not difficult, therefore, for the Administrator to gain the
+      concurrence of men in whose minds the rememberance of these outrages was
+      still recent. An alliance was formed between the city and the Swedish
+      king, by which Magdeburg granted to the king a free passage through its
+      gates and territories, with liberty of enlisting soldiers within its
+      boundaries, and on the other hand, obtained promises of effectual
+      protection for its religion and its privileges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Administrator immediately collected troops and commenced hostilities,
+      before Gustavus Adolphus was near enough to co-operate with him. He
+      defeated some imperial detachments in the neighbourhood, made a few
+      conquests, and even surprised Halle. But the approach of an imperial army
+      obliged him to retreat hastily, and not without loss, to Magdeburg.
+      Gustavus Adolphus, though displeased with his premature measures, sent
+      Dietrich Falkenberg, an experienced officer, to direct the Administrator's
+      military operations, and to assist him with his counsel. Falkenberg was
+      named by the magistrates governor of the town during the war. The Prince's
+      army was daily augmented by recruits from the neighbouring towns; and he
+      was able for some months to maintain a petty warfare with success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length Count Pappenheim, having brought his expedition against the Duke
+      of Saxe-Lauenburg to a close, approached the town. Driving the troops of
+      the Administrator from their entrenchments, he cut off his communication
+      with Saxony, and closely invested the place. He was soon followed by
+      Tilly, who haughtily summoned the Elector forthwith to comply with the
+      Edict of Restitution, to submit to the Emperor's orders, and surrender
+      Magdeburg. The Prince's answer was spirited and resolute, and obliged
+      Tilly at once to have recourse to arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile, the siege was prolonged, by the progress of the King of
+      Sweden, which called the Austrian general from before the place; and the
+      jealousy of the officers, who conducted the operations in his absence,
+      delayed, for some months, the fall of Magdeburg. On the 30th March 1631,
+      Tilly returned, to push the siege with vigour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The outworks were soon carried, and Falkenberg, after withdrawing the
+      garrisons from the points which he could no longer hold, destroyed the
+      bridge over the Elbe. As his troops were barely sufficient to defend the
+      extensive fortifications, the suburbs of Sudenburg and Neustadt were
+      abandoned to the enemy, who immediately laid them in ashes. Pappenheim,
+      now separated from Tilly, crossed the Elbe at Schonenbeck, and attacked
+      the town from the opposite side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The garrison, reduced by the defence of the outworks, scarcely exceeded
+      2000 infantry and a few hundred horse; a small number for so extensive and
+      irregular a fortress. To supply this deficiency, the citizens were armed&mdash;a
+      desperate expedient, which produced more evils than those it prevented.
+      The citizens, at best but indifferent soldiers, by their disunion threw
+      the town into confusion. The poor complained that they were exposed to
+      every hardship and danger, while the rich, by hiring substitutes, remained
+      at home in safety. These rumours broke out at last in an open mutiny;
+      indifference succeeded to zeal; weariness and negligence took the place of
+      vigilance and foresight. Dissension, combined with growing scarcity,
+      gradually produced a feeling of despondence, many began to tremble at the
+      desperate nature of their undertaking, and the magnitude of the power to
+      which they were opposed. But religious zeal, an ardent love of liberty, an
+      invincible hatred to the Austrian yoke, and the expectation of speedy
+      relief, banished as yet the idea of a surrender; and divided as they were
+      in every thing else, they were united in the resolve to defend themselves
+      to the last extremity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their hopes of succour were apparently well founded. They knew that the
+      confederacy of Leipzig was arming; they were aware of the near approach of
+      Gustavus Adolphus. Both were alike interested in the preservation of
+      Magdeburg; and a few days might bring the King of Sweden before its walls.
+      All this was also known to Tilly, who, therefore, was anxious to make
+      himself speedily master of the place. With this view, he had despatched a
+      trumpeter with letters to the Administrator, the commandant, and the
+      magistrates, offering terms of capitulation; but he received for answer,
+      that they would rather die than surrender. A spirited sally of the
+      citizens, also convinced him that their courage was as earnest as their
+      words, while the king's arrival at Potsdam, with the incursions of the
+      Swedes as far as Zerbst, filled him with uneasiness, but raised the hopes
+      of the garrison. A second trumpeter was now despatched; but the more
+      moderate tone of his demands increased the confidence of the besieged, and
+      unfortunately their negligence also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The besiegers had now pushed their approaches as far as the ditch, and
+      vigorously cannonaded the fortifications from the abandoned batteries. One
+      tower was entirely overthrown, but this did not facilitate an assault, as
+      it fell sidewise upon the wall, and not into the ditch. Notwithstanding
+      the continual bombardment, the walls had not suffered much; and the fire
+      balls, which were intended to set the town in flames, were deprived of
+      their effect by the excellent precautions adopted against them. But the
+      ammunition of the besieged was nearly expended, and the cannon of the town
+      gradually ceased to answer the fire of the Imperialists. Before a new
+      supply could be obtained, Magdeburg would be either relieved, or taken.
+      The hopes of the besieged were on the stretch, and all eyes anxiously
+      directed towards the quarter in which the Swedish banners were expected to
+      appear. Gustavus Adolphus was near enough to reach Magdeburg within three
+      days; security grew with hope, which all things contributed to augment. On
+      the 9th of May, the fire of the Imperialists was suddenly stopped, and the
+      cannon withdrawn from several of the batteries. A deathlike stillness
+      reigned in the Imperial camp. The besieged were convinced that deliverance
+      was at hand. Both citizens and soldiers left their posts upon the ramparts
+      early in the morning, to indulge themselves, after their long toils, with
+      the refreshment of sleep, but it was indeed a dear sleep, and a frightful
+      awakening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly had abandoned the hope of taking the town, before the arrival of the
+      Swedes, by the means which he had hitherto adopted; he therefore
+      determined to raise the siege, but first to hazard a general assault. This
+      plan, however, was attended with great difficulties, as no breach had been
+      effected, and the works were scarcely injured. But the council of war
+      assembled on this occasion, declared for an assault, citing the example of
+      Maestricht, which had been taken early in the morning, while the citizens
+      and soldiers were reposing themselves. The attack was to be made
+      simultaneously on four points; the night betwixt the 9th and 10th of May,
+      was employed in the necessary preparations. Every thing was ready and
+      awaiting the signal, which was to be given by cannon at five o'clock in
+      the morning. The signal, however, was not given for two hours later,
+      during which Tilly, who was still doubtful of success, again consulted the
+      council of war. Pappenheim was ordered to attack the works of the new
+      town, where the attempt was favoured by a sloping rampart, and a dry ditch
+      of moderate depth. The citizens and soldiers had mostly left the walls,
+      and the few who remained were overcome with sleep. This general,
+      therefore, found little difficulty in mounting the wall at the head of his
+      troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Falkenberg, roused by the report of musketry, hastened from the
+      town-house, where he was employed in despatching Tilly's second trumpeter,
+      and hurried with all the force he could hastily assemble towards the gate
+      of the new town, which was already in the possession of the enemy. Beaten
+      back, this intrepid general flew to another quarter, where a second party
+      of the enemy were preparing to scale the walls. After an ineffectual
+      resistance he fell in the commencement of the action. The roaring of
+      musketry, the pealing of the alarm-bells, and the growing tumult apprised
+      the awakening citizens of their danger. Hastily arming themselves, they
+      rushed in blind confusion against the enemy. Still some hope of repulsing
+      the besiegers remained; but the governor being killed, their efforts were
+      without plan and co-operation, and at last their ammunition began to fail
+      them. In the meanwhile, two other gates, hitherto unattacked, were
+      stripped of their defenders, to meet the urgent danger within the town.
+      The enemy quickly availed themselves of this confusion to attack these
+      posts. The resistance was nevertheless spirited and obstinate, until four
+      imperial regiments, at length, masters of the ramparts, fell upon the
+      garrison in the rear, and completed their rout. Amidst the general tumult,
+      a brave captain, named Schmidt, who still headed a few of the more
+      resolute against the enemy, succeeded in driving them to the gates; here
+      he fell mortally wounded, and with him expired the hopes of Magdeburg.
+      Before noon, all the works were carried, and the town was in the enemy's
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two gates were now opened by the storming party for the main body, and
+      Tilly marched in with part of his infantry. Immediately occupying the
+      principal streets, he drove the citizens with pointed cannon into their
+      dwellings, there to await their destiny. They were not long held in
+      suspense; a word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even a more humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such
+      soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their general's
+      silence masters of the lives of all the citizens, the soldiery broke into
+      the houses to satiate their most brutal appetites. The prayers of
+      innocence excited some compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none
+      in the rude breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons. Scarcely had the savage
+      cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and the cavalry,
+      with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in upon the devoted
+      inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language&mdash;
+      poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age;
+      neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the
+      conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at
+      the feet of their parents; and the defenceless sex exposed to the double
+      sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or however
+      sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church fifty-three
+      women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with throwing
+      children into the flames; Pappenheim's Walloons with stabbing infants at
+      the mother's breast. Some officers of the League, horror-struck at this
+      dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he had it in his power to
+      stop the carnage. "Return in an hour," was his answer; "I will see what I
+      can do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and toils." These
+      horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last the smoke and flames
+      proved a check to the plunderers. To augment the confusion and to divert
+      the resistance of the inhabitants, the Imperialists had, in the
+      commencement of the assault, fired the town in several places. The wind
+      rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the blaze became universal.
+      Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of smoke, heaps of dead
+      bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling ruins, and streams of
+      blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the intolerable heat forced at last even
+      the murderers to take refuge in their camp. In less than twelve hours,
+      this strong, populous, and flourishing city, one of the finest in Germany,
+      was reduced to ashes, with the exception of two churches and a few houses.
+      The Administrator, Christian William, after receiving several wounds, was
+      taken prisoner, with three of the burgomasters; most of the officers and
+      magistrates had already met an enviable death. The avarice of the officers
+      had saved 400 of the richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them
+      an exorbitant ransom. But this humanity was confined to the officers of
+      the League, whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be
+      regarded as guardian angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists returned
+      to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town. Many were
+      suffocated by the smoke; many found rich booty in the cellars, where the
+      citizens had concealed their more valuable effects. On the 13th of May,
+      Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had been cleared of
+      ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to humanity was the scene
+      that presented itself. The living crawling from under the dead, children
+      wandering about with heart-rending cries, calling for their parents; and
+      infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers. More than
+      6,000 bodies were thrown into the Elbe to clear the streets; a much
+      greater number had been consumed by the flames. The whole number of the
+      slain was reckoned at not less than 30,000.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a stop to
+      the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto contrived to escape. About
+      a thousand people were taken out of the cathedral, where they had remained
+      three days and two nights, without food, and in momentary fear of death.
+      Tilly promised them quarter, and commanded bread to be distributed among
+      them. The next day, a solemn mass was performed in the cathedral, and 'Te
+      Deum' sung amidst the discharge of artillery. The imperial general rode
+      through the streets, that he might be able, as an eyewitness, to inform
+      his master that no such conquest had been made since the destruction of
+      Troy and Jerusalem. Nor was this an exaggeration, whether we consider the
+      greatness, importance, and prosperity of the city razed, or the fury of
+      its ravagers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Germany, the tidings of the dreadful fate of Magdeburg caused
+      triumphant joy to the Roman Catholics, while it spread terror and
+      consternation among the Protestants. Loudly and generally they complained
+      against the king of Sweden, who, with so strong a force, and in the very
+      neighbourhood, had left an allied city to its fate. Even the most
+      reasonable deemed his inaction inexplicable; and lest he should lose
+      irretrievably the good will of the people, for whose deliverance he had
+      engaged in this war, Gustavus was under the necessity of publishing to the
+      world a justification of his own conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had attacked, and on the 16th April, carried Landsberg, when he was
+      apprised of the danger of Magdeburg. He resolved immediately to march to
+      the relief of that town; and he moved with all his cavalry, and ten
+      regiments of infantry towards the Spree. But the position which he held in
+      Germany, made it necessary that he should not move forward without
+      securing his rear. In traversing a country where he was surrounded by
+      suspicious friends and dangerous enemies, and where a single premature
+      movement might cut off his communication with his own kingdom, the utmost
+      vigilance and caution were necessary. The Elector of Brandenburg had
+      already opened the fortress of Custrin to the flying Imperialists, and
+      closed the gates against their pursuers. If now Gustavus should fail in
+      his attack upon Tilly, the Elector might again open his fortresses to the
+      Imperialists, and the king, with an enemy both in front and rear, would be
+      irrecoverably lost. In order to prevent this contingency, he demanded that
+      the Elector should allow him to hold the fortresses of Custrin and
+      Spandau, till the siege of Magdeburg should be raised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could be more reasonable than this demand. The services which
+      Gustavus had lately rendered the Elector, by expelling the Imperialists
+      from Brandenburg, claimed his gratitude, while the past conduct of the
+      Swedes in Germany entitled them to confidence. But by the surrender of his
+      fortresses, the Elector would in some measure make the King of Sweden
+      master of his country; besides that, by such a step, he must at once break
+      with the Emperor, and expose his States to his future vengeance. The
+      Elector's struggle with himself was long and violent, but pusillanimity
+      and self-interest for awhile prevailed. Unmoved by the fate of Magdeburg,
+      cold in the cause of religion and the liberties of Germany, he saw nothing
+      but his own danger; and this anxiety was greatly stimulated by his
+      minister Von Schwartzenburgh, who was secretly in the pay of Austria. In
+      the mean time, the Swedish troops approached Berlin, and the king took up
+      his residence with the Elector. When he witnessed the timorous hesitation
+      of that prince, he could not restrain his indignation: "My road is to
+      Magdeburg," said he; "not for my own advantage, but for that of the
+      Protestant religion. If no one will stand by me, I shall immediately
+      retreat, conclude a peace with the Emperor, and return to Stockholm. I am
+      convinced that Ferdinand will readily grant me whatever conditions I may
+      require. But if Magdeburg is once lost, and the Emperor relieved from all
+      fear of me, then it is for you to look to yourselves and the
+      consequences." This timely threat, and perhaps, too, the aspect of the
+      Swedish army, which was strong enough to obtain by force what was refused
+      to entreaty, brought at last the Elector to his senses, and Spandau was
+      delivered into the hands of the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had now two routes to Magdeburg; one westward led through an
+      exhausted country, and filled with the enemy's troops, who might dispute
+      with him the passage of the Elbe; the other more to the southward, by
+      Dessau and Wittenberg, where bridges were to be found for crossing the
+      Elbe, and where supplies could easily be drawn from Saxony. But he could
+      not avail himself of the latter without the consent of the Elector, whom
+      Gustavus had good reason to distrust. Before setting out on his march,
+      therefore, he demanded from that prince a free passage and liberty for
+      purchasing provisions for his troops. His application was refused, and no
+      remonstrances could prevail on the Elector to abandon his system of
+      neutrality. While the point was still in dispute, the news of the dreadful
+      fate of Magdeburg arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly announced its fall to the Protestant princes in the tone of a
+      conqueror, and lost no time in making the most of the general
+      consternation. The influence of the Emperor, which had sensibly declined
+      during the rapid progress of Gustavus, after this decisive blow rose
+      higher than ever; and the change was speedily visible in the imperious
+      tone he adopted towards the Protestant states. The decrees of the
+      Confederation of Leipzig were annulled by a proclamation, the Convention
+      itself suppressed by an imperial decree, and all the refractory states
+      threatened with the fate of Magdeburg. As the executor of this imperial
+      mandate, Tilly immediately ordered troops to march against the Bishop of
+      Bremen, who was a member of the Confederacy, and had himself enlisted
+      soldiers. The terrified bishop immediately gave up his forces to Tilly,
+      and signed the revocation of the acts of the Confederation. An imperial
+      army, which had lately returned from Italy, under the command of Count
+      Furstenberg, acted in the same manner towards the Administrator of
+      Wirtemberg. The duke was compelled to submit to the Edict of Restitution,
+      and all the decrees of the Emperor, and even to pay a monthly subsidy of
+      100,000 dollars, for the maintenance of the imperial troops. Similar
+      burdens were inflicted upon Ulm and Nuremberg, and the entire circles of
+      Franconia and Swabia. The hand of the Emperor was stretched in terror over
+      all Germany. The sudden preponderance, more in appearance, perhaps, than
+      in reality, which he had obtained by this blow, carried him beyond the
+      bounds even of the moderation which he had hitherto observed, and misled
+      him into hasty and violent measures, which at last turned the wavering
+      resolution of the German princes in favour of Gustavus Adolphus. Injurious
+      as the immediate consequences of the fall of Magdeburg were to the
+      Protestant cause, its remoter effects were most advantageous. The past
+      surprise made way for active resentment, despair inspired courage, and the
+      German freedom rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of Magdeburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the princes of the Leipzig Confederation, the Elector of Saxony and
+      the Landgrave of Hesse were the most powerful; and, until they were
+      disarmed, the universal authority of the Emperor was unconfirmed. Against
+      the Landgrave, therefore, Tilly first directed his attack, and marched
+      straight from Magdeburg into Thuringia. During this march, the territories
+      of Saxe Ernest and Schwartzburg were laid waste, and Frankenhausen
+      plundered before the very eyes of Tilly, and laid in ashes with impunity.
+      The unfortunate peasant paid dear for his master's attachment to the
+      interests of Sweden. Erfurt, the key of Saxony and Franconia, was
+      threatened with a siege, but redeemed itself by a voluntary contribution
+      of money and provisions. From thence, Tilly despatched his emissaries to
+      the Landgrave, demanding of him the immediate disbanding of his army, a
+      renunciation of the league of Leipzig, the reception of imperial garrisons
+      into his territories and fortresses, with the necessary contributions, and
+      the declaration of friendship or hostility. Such was the treatment which a
+      prince of the Empire was compelled to submit to from a servant of the
+      Emperor. But these extravagant demands acquired a formidable weight from
+      the power which supported them; and the dreadful fate of Magdeburg, still
+      fresh in the memory of the Landgrave, tended still farther to enforce
+      them. Admirable, therefore, was the intrepidity of the Landgrave's answer:
+      "To admit foreign troops into his capital and fortresses, the Landgrave is
+      not disposed; his troops he requires for his own purposes; as for an
+      attack, he can defend himself. If General Tilly wants money or provisions,
+      let him go to Munich, where there is plenty of both." The irruption of two
+      bodies of imperial troops into Hesse Cassel was the immediate result of
+      this spirited reply, but the Landgrave gave them so warm a reception that
+      they could effect nothing; and just as Tilly was preparing to follow with
+      his whole army, to punish the unfortunate country for the firmness of its
+      sovereign, the movements of the King of Sweden recalled him to another
+      quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus had learned the fall of Magdeburg with deep regret; and
+      the demand now made by the Elector, George William, in terms of their
+      agreement, for the restoration of Spandau, greatly increased this feeling.
+      The loss of Magdeburg had rather augmented than lessened the reasons which
+      made the possession of this fortress so desirable; and the nearer became
+      the necessity of a decisive battle between himself and Tilly, the more
+      unwilling he felt to abandon the only place which, in the event of a
+      defeat, could ensure him a refuge. After a vain endeavour, by entreaties
+      and representations, to bring over the Elector to his views, whose
+      coldness and lukewarmness daily increased, he gave orders to his general
+      to evacuate Spandau, but at the same time declared to the Elector that he
+      would henceforth regard him as an enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To give weight to this declaration, he appeared with his whole force
+      before Berlin. "I will not be worse treated than the imperial generals,"
+      was his reply to the ambassadors whom the bewildered Elector despatched to
+      his camp. "Your master has received them into his territories, furnished
+      them with all necessary supplies, ceded to them every place which they
+      required, and yet, by all these concessions, he could not prevail upon
+      them to treat his subjects with common humanity. All that I require of him
+      is security, a moderate sum of money, and provisions for my troops; in
+      return, I promise to protect his country, and to keep the war at a
+      distance from him. On these points, however, I must insist; and my
+      brother, the Elector, must instantly determine to have me as a friend, or
+      to see his capital plundered." This decisive tone produced a due
+      impression; and the cannon pointed against the town put an end to the
+      doubts of George William. In a few days, a treaty was signed, by which the
+      Elector engaged to furnish a monthly subsidy of 30,000 dollars, to leave
+      Spandau in the king's hands, and to open Custrin at all times to the
+      Swedish troops. This now open alliance of the Elector of Brandenburg with
+      the Swedes, excited no less displeasure at Vienna, than did formerly the
+      similar procedure of the Duke of Pomerania; but the changed fortune which
+      now attended his arms, obliged the Emperor to confine his resentment to
+      words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king's satisfaction, on this favourable event, was increased by the
+      agreeable intelligence that Griefswald, the only fortress which the
+      Imperialists still held in Pomerania, had surrendered, and that the whole
+      country was now free of the enemy. He appeared once more in this duchy,
+      and was gratified at the sight of the general joy which he had caused to
+      the people. A year had elapsed since Gustavus first entered Germany, and
+      this event was now celebrated by all Pomerania as a national festival.
+      Shortly before, the Czar of Moscow had sent ambassadors to congratulate
+      him, to renew his alliance, and even to offer him troops. He had great
+      reason to rejoice at the friendly disposition of Russia, as it was
+      indispensable to his interests that Sweden itself should remain
+      undisturbed by any dangerous neighbour during the war in which he himself
+      was engaged. Soon after, his queen, Maria Eleonora, landed in Pomerania,
+      with a reinforcement of 8000 Swedes; and the arrival of 6000 English,
+      under the Marquis of Hamilton, requires more particular notice because
+      this is all that history mentions of the English during the Thirty Years'
+      War.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During Tilly's expedition into Thuringia, Pappenheim commanded in
+      Magdeburg; but was unable to prevent the Swedes from crossing the Elbe at
+      various points, routing some imperial detachments, and seizing several
+      posts. He himself, alarmed at the approach of the King of Sweden,
+      anxiously recalled Tilly, and prevailed upon him to return by rapid
+      marches to Magdeburg. Tilly encamped on this side of the river at
+      Wolmerstadt; Gustavus on the same side, near Werben, not far from the
+      confluence of the Havel and the Elbe. His very arrival portended no good
+      to Tilly. The Swedes routed three of his regiments, which were posted in
+      villages at some distance from the main body, carried off half their
+      baggage, and burned the remainder. Tilly in vain advanced within cannon
+      shot of the king's camp, and offered him battle. Gustavus, weaker by
+      one-half than his adversary, prudently declined it; and his position was
+      too strong for an attack. Nothing more ensued but a distant cannonade, and
+      a few skirmishes, in which the Swedes had invariably the advantage. In his
+      retreat to Wolmerstadt, Tilly's army was weakened by numerous desertions.
+      Fortune seemed to have forsaken him since the carnage of Magdeburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King of Sweden, on the contrary, was followed by uninterrupted
+      success. While he himself was encamped in Werben, the whole of
+      Mecklenburg, with the exception of a few towns, was conquered by his
+      General Tott and the Duke Adolphus Frederick; and he enjoyed the
+      satisfaction of reinstating both dukes in their dominions. He proceeded in
+      person to Gustrow, where the reinstatement was solemnly to take place, to
+      give additional dignity to the ceremony by his presence. The two dukes,
+      with their deliverer between them, and attended by a splendid train of
+      princes, made a public entry into the city, which the joy of their
+      subjects converted into an affecting solemnity. Soon after his return to
+      Werben, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel appeared in his camp, to conclude an
+      offensive and defensive alliance; the first sovereign prince in Germany,
+      who voluntarily and openly declared against the Emperor, though not wholly
+      uninfluenced by strong motives. The Landgrave bound himself to act against
+      the king's enemies as his own, to open to him his towns and territory, and
+      to furnish his army with provisions and necessaries. The king, on the
+      other hand, declared himself his ally and protector; and engaged to
+      conclude no peace with the Emperor without first obtaining for the
+      Landgrave a full redress of grievances. Both parties honourably performed
+      their agreement. Hesse Cassel adhered to the Swedish alliance during the
+      whole of this tedious war; and at the peace of Westphalia had no reason to
+      regret the friendship of Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly, from whom this bold step on the part of the Landgrave was not long
+      concealed, despatched Count Fugger with several regiments against him; and
+      at the same time endeavoured to excite his subjects to rebellion by
+      inflammatory letters. But these made as little impression as his troops,
+      which subsequently failed him so decidedly at the battle of Breitenfield.
+      The Estates of Hesse could not for a moment hesitate between their
+      oppressor and their protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the imperial general was far more disturbed by the equivocal conduct
+      of the Elector of Saxony, who, in defiance of the imperial prohibition,
+      continued his preparations, and adhered to the confederation of Leipzig.
+      At this conjuncture, when the proximity of the King of Sweden made a
+      decisive battle ere long inevitable, it appeared extremely dangerous to
+      leave Saxony in arms, and ready in a moment to declare for the enemy.
+      Tilly had just received a reinforcement of 25,000 veteran troops under
+      Furstenberg, and, confident in his strength, he hoped either to disarm the
+      Elector by the mere terror of his arrival, or at least to conquer him with
+      little difficulty. Before quitting his camp at Wolmerstadt, he commanded
+      the Elector, by a special messenger, to open his territories to the
+      imperial troops; either to disband his own, or to join them to the
+      imperial army; and to assist, in conjunction with himself, in driving the
+      King of Sweden out of Germany. While he reminded him that, of all the
+      German states, Saxony had hitherto been most respected, he threatened it,
+      in case of refusal, with the most destructive ravages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Tilly had chosen an unfavourable moment for so imperious a
+      requisition. The ill-treatment of his religious and political
+      confederates, the destruction of Magdeburg, the excesses of the
+      Imperialists in Lusatia, all combined to incense the Elector against the
+      Emperor. The approach, too, of Gustavus Adolphus, (however slender his
+      claims were to the protection of that prince,) tended to fortify his
+      resolution. He accordingly forbade the quartering of the imperial soldiers
+      in his territories, and announced his firm determination to persist in his
+      warlike preparations. However surprised he should be, he added, "to see an
+      imperial army on its march against his territories, when that army had
+      enough to do in watching the operations of the King of Sweden,
+      nevertheless he did not expect, instead of the promised and well merited
+      rewards, to be repaid with ingratitude and the ruin of his country." To
+      Tilly's deputies, who were entertained in a princely style, he gave a
+      still plainer answer on the occasion. "Gentlemen," said he, "I perceive
+      that the Saxon confectionery, which has been so long kept back, is at
+      length to be set upon the table. But as it is usual to mix with it nuts
+      and garnish of all kinds, take care of your teeth."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly instantly broke up his camp, and, with the most frightful
+      devastation, advanced upon Halle; from this place he renewed his demands
+      on the Elector, in a tone still more urgent and threatening. The previous
+      policy of this prince, both from his own inclination, and the persuasions
+      of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests of the Emperor,
+      even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and but very little
+      tact had hitherto kept him inactive. All this but renders more astonishing
+      the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers in abandoning, at so
+      critical a moment, the policy they had hitherto adopted, and by extreme
+      measures, incensing a prince so easily led. Was this the very object which
+      Tilly had in view? Was it his purpose to convert an equivocal friend into
+      an open enemy, and thus to relieve himself from the necessity of that
+      indulgence in the treatment of this prince, which the secret instructions
+      of the Emperor had hitherto imposed upon him? Or was it the Emperor's
+      wish, by driving the Elector to open hostilities, to get quit of his
+      obligations to him, and so cleverly to break off at once the difficulty of
+      a reckoning? In either case, we must be equally surprised at the daring
+      presumption of Tilly, who hesitated not, in presence of one formidable
+      enemy, to provoke another; and at his negligence in permitting, without
+      opposition, the union of the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saxon Elector, rendered desperate by the entrance of Tilly into his
+      territories, threw himself, though not without a violent struggle, under
+      the protection of Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately after dismissing Tilly's first embassy, he had despatched his
+      field-marshal Arnheim in all haste to the camp of Gustavus, to solicit the
+      prompt assistance of that monarch whom he had so long neglected. The king
+      concealed the inward satisfaction he felt at this long wished for result.
+      "I am sorry for the Elector," said he, with dissembled coldness, to the
+      ambassador; "had he heeded my repeated remonstrances, his country would
+      never have seen the face of an enemy, and Magdeburg would not have fallen.
+      Now, when necessity leaves him no alternative, he has recourse to my
+      assistance. But tell him, that I cannot, for the sake of the Elector of
+      Saxony, ruin my own cause, and that of my confederates. What pledge have I
+      for the sincerity of a prince whose minister is in the pay of Austria, and
+      who will abandon me as soon as the Emperor flatters him, and withdraws his
+      troops from his frontiers? Tilly, it is true, has received a strong
+      reinforcement; but this shall not prevent me from meeting him with
+      confidence, as soon as I have covered my rear."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saxon minister could make no other reply to these reproaches, than
+      that it was best to bury the past in oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pressed the king to name the conditions, on which he would afford
+      assistance to Saxony, and offered to guarantee their acceptance. "I
+      require," said Gustavus, "that the Elector shall cede to me the fortress
+      of Wittenberg, deliver to me his eldest sons as hostages, furnish my
+      troops with three months' pay, and deliver up to me the traitors among his
+      ministry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Wittenberg alone," said the Elector, when he received this answer,
+      and hurried back his minister to the Swedish camp, "not Wittenberg alone,
+      but Torgau, and all Saxony, shall be open to him; my whole family shall be
+      his hostages, and if that is insufficient, I will place myself in his
+      hands. Return and inform him I am ready to deliver to him any traitors he
+      shall name, to furnish his army with the money he requires, and to venture
+      my life and fortune in the good cause."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had only desired to test the sincerity of the Elector's new
+      sentiments. Convinced of it, he now retracted these harsh demands. "The
+      distrust," said he, "which was shown to myself when advancing to the
+      relief of Magdeburg, had naturally excited mine; the Elector's present
+      confidence demands a return. I am satisfied, provided he grants my army
+      one month's pay, and even for this advance I hope to indemnify him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately upon the conclusion of the treaty, the king crossed the Elbe,
+      and next day joined the Saxons. Instead of preventing this junction, Tilly
+      had advanced against Leipzig, which he summoned to receive an imperial
+      garrison. In hopes of speedy relief, Hans Von der Pforta, the commandant,
+      made preparations for his defence, and laid the suburb towards Halle in
+      ashes. But the ill condition of the fortifications made resistance vain,
+      and on the second day the gates were opened. Tilly had fixed his head
+      quarters in the house of a grave-digger, the only one still standing in
+      the suburb of Halle: here he signed the capitulation, and here, too, he
+      arranged his attack on the King of Sweden. Tilly grew pale at the
+      representation of the death's head and cross bones, with which the
+      proprietor had decorated his house; and, contrary to all expectation,
+      Leipzig experienced moderate treatment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, a council of war was held at Torgau, between the King of Sweden
+      and the Elector of Saxony, at which the Elector of Brandenburg was also
+      present. The resolution which should now be adopted, was to decide
+      irrevocably the fate of Germany and the Protestant religion, the happiness
+      of nations and the destiny of their princes. The anxiety of suspense
+      which, before every decisive resolve, oppresses even the hearts of heroes,
+      appeared now for a moment to overshadow the great mind of Gustavus
+      Adolphus. "If we decide upon battle," said he, "the stake will be nothing
+      less than a crown and two electorates. Fortune is changeable, and the
+      inscrutable decrees of Heaven may, for our sins, give the victory to our
+      enemies. My kingdom, it is true, even after the loss of my life and my
+      army, would still have a hope left. Far removed from the scene of action,
+      defended by a powerful fleet, a well-guarded frontier, and a warlike
+      population, it would at least be safe from the worst consequences of a
+      defeat. But what chances of escape are there for you, with an enemy so
+      close at hand?" Gustavus Adolphus displayed the modest diffidence of a
+      hero, whom an overweening belief of his own strength did not blind to the
+      greatness of his danger; John George, the confidence of a weak man, who
+      knows that he has a hero by his side. Impatient to rid his territories as
+      soon as possible of the oppressive presence of two armies, he burned for a
+      battle, in which he had no former laurels to lose. He was ready to march
+      with his Saxons alone against Leipzig, and attack Tilly. At last Gustavus
+      acceded to his opinion; and it was resolved that the attack should be made
+      without delay, before the arrival of the reinforcements, which were on
+      their way, under Altringer and Tiefenbach. The united Swedish and Saxon
+      armies now crossed the Mulda, while the Elector returned homeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early on the morning of the 7th September, 1631, the hostile armies came
+      in sight of each other. Tilly, who, since he had neglected the opportunity
+      of overpowering the Saxons before their union with the Swedes, was
+      disposed to await the arrival of the reinforcements, had taken up a strong
+      and advantageous position not far from Leipzig, where he expected he
+      should be able to avoid the battle. But the impetuosity of Pappenheim
+      obliged him, as soon as the enemy were in motion, to alter his plans, and
+      to move to the left, in the direction of the hills which run from the
+      village of Wahren towards Lindenthal. At the foot of these heights, his
+      army was drawn up in a single line, and his artillery placed upon the
+      heights behind, from which it could sweep the whole extensive plain of
+      Breitenfeld. The Swedish and Saxon army advanced in two columns, having to
+      pass the Lober near Podelwitz, in Tilly's front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To defend the passage of this rivulet, Pappenheim advanced at the head of
+      2000 cuirassiers, though after great reluctance on the part of Tilly, and
+      with express orders not to commence a battle. But, in disobedience to this
+      command, Pappenheim attacked the vanguard of the Swedes, and after a brief
+      struggle was driven to retreat. To check the progress of the enemy, he set
+      fire to Podelwitz, which, however, did not prevent the two columns from
+      advancing and forming in order of battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the right, the Swedes drew up in a double line, the infantry in the
+      centre, divided into such small battalions as could be easily and rapidly
+      manoeuvred without breaking their order; the cavalry upon their wings,
+      divided in the same manner into small squadrons, interspersed with bodies
+      of musqueteers, so as both to give an appearance of greater numerical
+      force, and to annoy the enemy's horse. Colonel Teufel commanded the
+      centre, Gustavus Horn the left, while the right was led by the king in
+      person, opposed to Count Pappenheim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the left, the Saxons formed at a considerable distance from the Swedes,&mdash;by
+      the advice of Gustavus, which was justified by the event. The order of
+      battle had been arranged between the Elector and his field-marshal, and
+      the king was content with merely signifying his approval. He was anxious
+      apparently to separate the Swedish prowess from that of the Saxons, and
+      fortune did not confound them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy was drawn up under the heights towards the west, in one immense
+      line, long enough to outflank the Swedish army,&mdash;the infantry being
+      divided in large battalions, the cavalry in equally unwieldy squadrons.
+      The artillery being on the heights behind, the range of its fire was over
+      the heads of his men. From this position of his artillery, it was evident
+      that Tilly's purpose was to await rather than to attack the enemy; since
+      this arrangement rendered it impossible for him to do so without exposing
+      his men to the fire of his own cannons. Tilly himself commanded the
+      centre, Count Furstenberg the right wing, and Pappenheim the left. The
+      united troops of the Emperor and the League on this day did not amount to
+      34,000 or 35,000 men; the Swedes and Saxons were about the same number.
+      But had a million been confronted with a million it could only have
+      rendered the action more bloody, certainly not more important and
+      decisive. For this day Gustavus had crossed the Baltic, to court danger in
+      a distant country, and expose his crown and life to the caprice of
+      fortune. The two greatest generals of the time, both hitherto invincible,
+      were now to be matched against each other in a contest which both had long
+      avoided; and on this field of battle the hitherto untarnished laurels of
+      one leader must droop for ever. The two parties in Germany had beheld the
+      approach of this day with fear and trembling; and the whole age awaited
+      with deep anxiety its issue, and posterity was either to bless or deplore
+      it for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="1p172 (147K)" src="images/1p172.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly's usual intrepidity and resolution seemed to forsake him on this
+      eventful day. He had formed no regular plan for giving battle to the King,
+      and he displayed as little firmness in avoiding it. Contrary to his own
+      judgment, Pappenheim had forced him to action. Doubts which he had never
+      before felt, struggled in his bosom; gloomy forebodings clouded his
+      ever-open brow; the shade of Magdeburg seemed to hover over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A cannonade of two hours commenced the battle; the wind, which was from
+      the west, blew thick clouds of smoke and dust from the newly-ploughed and
+      parched fields into the faces of the Swedes. This compelled the king
+      insensibly to wheel northwards, and the rapidity with which this movement
+      was executed left no time to the enemy to prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly at last left his heights, and began the first attack upon the
+      Swedes; but to avoid their hot fire, he filed off towards the right, and
+      fell upon the Saxons with such impetuosity that their line was broken, and
+      the whole army thrown into confusion. The Elector himself retired to
+      Eilenburg, though a few regiments still maintained their ground upon the
+      field, and by a bold stand saved the honour of Saxony. Scarcely had the
+      confusion began ere the Croats commenced plundering, and messengers were
+      despatched to Munich and Vienna with the news of the victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pappenheim had thrown himself with the whole force of his cavalry upon the
+      right wing of the Swedes, but without being able to make it waver. The
+      king commanded here in person, and under him General Banner. Seven times
+      did Pappenheim renew the attack, and seven times was he repulsed. He fled
+      at last with great loss, and abandoned the field to his conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Tilly, having routed the remainder of the Saxons,
+      attacked with his victorious troops the left wing of the Swedes. To this
+      wing the king, as soon as he perceived that the Saxons were thrown into
+      disorder, had, with a ready foresight, detached a reinforcement of three
+      regiments to cover its flank, which the flight of the Saxons had left
+      exposed. Gustavus Horn, who commanded here, showed the enemy's cuirassiers
+      a spirited resistance, which the infantry, interspersed among the
+      squadrons of horse, materially assisted. The enemy were already beginning
+      to relax the vigour of their attack, when Gustavus Adolphus appeared to
+      terminate the contest. The left wing of the Imperialists had been routed;
+      and the king's division, having no longer any enemy to oppose, could now
+      turn their arms wherever it would be to the most advantage. Wheeling,
+      therefore, with his right wing and main body to the left, he attacked the
+      heights on which the enemy's artillery was planted. Gaining possession of
+      them in a short time, he turned upon the enemy the full fire of their own
+      cannon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The play of artillery upon their flank, and the terrible onslaught of the
+      Swedes in front, threw this hitherto invincible army into confusion. A
+      sudden retreat was the only course left to Tilly, but even this was to be
+      made through the midst of the enemy. The whole army was in disorder, with
+      the exception of four regiments of veteran soldiers, who never as yet had
+      fled from the field, and were resolved not to do so now. Closing their
+      ranks, they broke through the thickest of the victorious army, and gained
+      a small thicket, where they opposed a new front to the Swedes, and
+      maintained their resistance till night, when their number was reduced to
+      six hundred men. With them fled the wreck of Tilly's army, and the battle
+      was decided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the dead and the wounded, Gustavus Adolphus threw himself on his
+      knees; and the first joy of his victory gushed forth in fervent prayer. He
+      ordered his cavalry to pursue the enemy as long as the darkness of the
+      night would permit. The pealing of the alarm-bells set the inhabitants of
+      all the neighbouring villages in motion, and utterly lost was the unhappy
+      fugitive who fell into their hands. The king encamped with the rest of his
+      army between the field of battle and Leipzig, as it was impossible to
+      attack the town the same night. Seven thousand of the enemy were killed in
+      the field, and more than 5,000 either wounded or taken prisoners. Their
+      whole artillery and camp fell into the hands of the Swedes, and more than
+      a hundred standards and colours were taken. Of the Saxons about 2,000 had
+      fallen, while the loss of the Swedes did not exceed 700. The rout of the
+      Imperialists was so complete, that Tilly, on his retreat to Halle and
+      Halberstadt, could not rally above 600 men, or Pappenheim more than 1,400&mdash;so
+      rapidly was this formidable army dispersed, which so lately was the terror
+      of Italy and Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly himself owed his escape merely to chance. Exhausted by his wounds,
+      he still refused to surrender to a Swedish captain of horse, who summoned
+      him to yield; but who, when he was on the point of putting him to death,
+      was himself stretched on the ground by a timely pistol-shot. But more
+      grievous than danger or wounds was the pain of surviving his reputation,
+      and of losing in a single day the fruits of a long life. All former
+      victories were as nothing, since he had failed in gaining the one that
+      should have crowned them all. Nothing remained of all his past exploits,
+      but the general execration which had followed them. From this period, he
+      never recovered his cheerfulness or his good fortune. Even his last
+      consolation, the hope of revenge, was denied to him, by the express
+      command of the Emperor not to risk a decisive battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disgrace of this day is to be ascribed principally to three mistakes;
+      his planting the cannon on the hills behind him, his afterwards abandoning
+      these heights, and his allowing the enemy, without opposition, to form in
+      order of battle. But how easily might those mistakes have been rectified,
+      had it not been for the cool presence of mind and superior genius of his
+      adversary!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly fled from Halle to Halberstadt, where he scarcely allowed time for
+      the cure of his wounds, before he hurried towards the Weser to recruit his
+      force by the imperial garrisons in Lower Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Elector of Saxony had not failed, after the danger was over, to appear
+      in Gustavus's camp. The king thanked him for having advised a battle; and
+      the Elector, charmed at his friendly reception, promised him, in the first
+      transports of joy, the Roman crown. Gustavus set out next day for
+      Merseburg, leaving the Elector to recover Leipzig. Five thousand
+      Imperialists, who had collected together after the defeat, and whom he met
+      on his march, were either cut in pieces or taken prisoners, of whom again
+      the greater part entered into his service. Merseburg quickly surrendered;
+      Halle was soon after taken, whither the Elector of Saxony, after making
+      himself master of Leipzig, repaired to meet the king, and to concert their
+      future plan of operations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victory was gained, but only a prudent use of it could render it
+      decisive. The imperial armies were totally routed, Saxony free from the
+      enemy, and Tilly had retired into Brunswick. To have followed him thither
+      would have been to renew the war in Lower Saxony, which had scarcely
+      recovered from the ravages of the last. It was therefore determined to
+      carry the war into the enemy's country, which, open and defenceless as far
+      as Vienna, invited attack. On their right, they might fall upon the
+      territories of the Roman Catholic princes, or penetrate, on the left, into
+      the hereditary dominions of Austria, and make the Emperor tremble in his
+      palace. Both plans were resolved on; and the question that now remained
+      was to assign its respective parts. Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of a
+      victorious army, had little resistance to apprehend in his progress from
+      Leipzig to Prague, Vienna, and Presburg. As to Bohemia, Moravia, Austria,
+      and Hungary, they had been stripped of their defenders, while the
+      oppressed Protestants in these countries were ripe for a revolt. Ferdinand
+      was no longer secure in his capital: Vienna, on the first terror of
+      surprise, would at once open its gates. The loss of his territories would
+      deprive the enemy of the resources by which alone the war could be
+      maintained; and Ferdinand would, in all probability, gladly accede, on the
+      hardest conditions, to a peace which would remove a formidable enemy from
+      the heart of his dominions. This bold plan of operations was flattering to
+      a conqueror, and success perhaps might have justified it. But Gustavus
+      Adolphus, as prudent as he was brave, and more a statesman than a
+      conqueror, rejected it, because he had a higher end in view, and would not
+      trust the issue either to bravery or good fortune alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By marching towards Bohemia, Franconia and the Upper Rhine would be left
+      to the Elector of Saxony. But Tilly had already begun to recruit his
+      shattered army from the garrisons in Lower Saxony, and was likely to be at
+      the head of a formidable force upon the Weser, and to lose no time in
+      marching against the enemy. To so experienced a general, it would not do
+      to oppose an Arnheim, of whose military skill the battle of Leipzig had
+      afforded but equivocal proof; and of what avail would be the rapid and
+      brilliant career of the king in Bohemia and Austria, if Tilly should
+      recover his superiority in the Empire, animating the courage of the Roman
+      Catholics, and disarming, by a new series of victories, the allies and
+      confederates of the king? What would he gain by expelling the Emperor from
+      his hereditary dominions, if Tilly succeeded in conquering for that
+      Emperor the rest of Germany? Could he hope to reduce the Emperor more than
+      had been done, twelve years before, by the insurrection of Bohemia, which
+      had failed to shake the firmness or exhaust the resources of that prince,
+      and from which he had risen more formidable than ever?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Less brilliant, but more solid, were the advantages which he had to expect
+      from an incursion into the territories of the League. In this quarter, his
+      appearance in arms would be decisive. At this very conjuncture, the
+      princes were assembled in a Diet at Frankfort, to deliberate upon the
+      Edict of Restitution, where Ferdinand employed all his artful policy to
+      persuade the intimidated Protestants to accede to a speedy and
+      disadvantageous arrangement. The advance of their protector could alone
+      encourage them to a bold resistance, and disappoint the Emperor's designs.
+      Gustavus Adolphus hoped, by his presence, to unite the discontented
+      princes, or by the terror of his arms to detach them from the Emperor's
+      party. Here, in the centre of Germany, he could paralyse the nerves of the
+      imperial power, which, without the aid of the League, must soon fall&mdash;here,
+      in the neighbourhood of France, he could watch the movements of a
+      suspicious ally; and however important to his secret views it was to
+      cultivate the friendship of the Roman Catholic electors, he saw the
+      necessity of making himself first of all master of their fate, in order to
+      establish, by his magnanimous forbearance, a claim to their gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He accordingly chose the route to Franconia and the Rhine; and left the
+      conquest of Bohemia to the Elector of Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The glorious battle of Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct of
+      Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and foes
+      entertained of him. Successfully had he confronted the greatest general of
+      the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the courage of
+      his Swedes against the elite of the imperial army, the most experienced
+      troops in Europe. From this moment he felt a firm confidence in his own
+      powers&mdash;self-confidence has always been the parent of great actions.
+      In all his subsequent operations more boldness and decision are
+      observable; greater determination, even amidst the most unfavourable
+      circumstances, a more lofty tone towards his adversaries, a more dignified
+      bearing towards his allies, and even in his clemency, something of the
+      forbearance of a conqueror. His natural courage was farther heightened by
+      the pious ardour of his imagination. He saw in his own cause that of
+      heaven, and in the defeat of Tilly beheld the decisive interference of
+      Providence against his enemies, and in himself the instrument of divine
+      vengeance. Leaving his crown and his country far behind, he advanced on
+      the wings of victory into the heart of Germany, which for centuries had
+      seen no foreign conqueror within its bosom. The warlike spirit of its
+      inhabitants, the vigilance of its numerous princes, the artful
+      confederation of its states, the number of its strong castles, its many
+      and broad rivers, had long restrained the ambition of its neighbours; and
+      frequently as its extensive frontier had been attacked, its interior had
+      been free from hostile invasion. The Empire had hitherto enjoyed the
+      equivocal privilege of being its own enemy, though invincible from
+      without. Even now, it was merely the disunion of its members, and the
+      intolerance of religious zeal, that paved the way for the Swedish invader.
+      The bond of union between the states, which alone had rendered the Empire
+      invincible, was now dissolved; and Gustavus derived from Germany itself
+      the power by which he subdued it. With as much courage as prudence, he
+      availed himself of all that the favourable moment afforded; and equally at
+      home in the cabinet and the field, he tore asunder the web of the artful
+      policy, with as much ease, as he shattered walls with the thunder of his
+      cannon. Uninterruptedly he pursued his conquests from one end of Germany
+      to the other, without breaking the line of posts which commanded a secure
+      retreat at any moment; and whether on the banks of the Rhine, or at the
+      mouth of the Lech, alike maintaining his communication with his hereditary
+      dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consternation of the Emperor and the League at Tilly's defeat at
+      Leipzig, was scarcely greater than the surprise and embarrassment of the
+      allies of the King of Sweden at his unexpected success. It was beyond both
+      their expectations and their wishes. Annihilated in a moment was that
+      formidable army which, while it checked his progress and set bounds to his
+      ambition, rendered him in some measure dependent on themselves. He now
+      stood in the heart of Germany, alone, without a rival or without an
+      adversary who was a match for him. Nothing could stop his progress, or
+      check his pretensions, if the intoxication of success should tempt him to
+      abuse his victory. If formerly they had dreaded the Emperor's irresistible
+      power, there was no less cause now to fear every thing for the Empire,
+      from the violence of a foreign conqueror, and for the Catholic Church,
+      from the religious zeal of a Protestant king. The distrust and jealousy of
+      some of the combined powers, which a stronger fear of the Emperor had for
+      a time repressed, now revived; and scarcely had Gustavus Adolphus merited,
+      by his courage and success, their confidence, when they began covertly to
+      circumvent all his plans. Through a continual struggle with the arts of
+      enemies, and the distrust of his own allies, must his victories henceforth
+      be won; yet resolution, penetration, and prudence made their way through
+      all impediments. But while his success excited the jealousy of his more
+      powerful allies, France and Saxony, it gave courage to the weaker, and
+      emboldened them openly to declare their sentiments and join his party.
+      Those who could neither vie with Gustavus Adolphus in importance, nor
+      suffer from his ambition, expected the more from the magnanimity of their
+      powerful ally, who enriched them with the spoils of their enemies, and
+      protected them against the oppression of their stronger neighbours. His
+      strength covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they
+      acquired weight and influence from their union with the Swedish hero. This
+      was the case with most of the free cities, and particularly with the
+      weaker Protestant states. It was these that introduced the king into the
+      heart of Germany; these covered his rear, supplied his troops with
+      necessaries, received them into their fortresses, while they exposed their
+      own lives in his battles. His prudent regard to their national pride, his
+      popular deportment, some brilliant acts of justice, and his respect for
+      the laws, were so many ties by which he bound the German Protestants to
+      his cause; while the crying atrocities of the Imperialists, the Spaniards,
+      and the troops of Lorraine, powerfully contributed to set his own conduct
+      and that of his army in a favourable light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at the
+      same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favoured by fortune and by
+      circumstances. Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority over
+      the enemy. While he removed the scene of war into the lands of the League,
+      drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty, and used the
+      revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once took from the
+      enemy the means of effectual resistance, and maintained an expensive war
+      with little cost to himself. And, moreover, while his opponents, the
+      princes of the League, divided among themselves, and governed by different
+      and often conflicting interests, acted without unanimity, and therefore
+      without energy; while their generals were deficient in authority, their
+      troops in obedience, the operations of their scattered armies without
+      concert; while the general was separated from the lawgiver and the
+      statesman; these several functions were united in Gustavus Adolphus, the
+      only source from which authority flowed, the sole object to which the eye
+      of the warrior turned; the soul of his party, the inventor as well as the
+      executor of his plans. In him, therefore, the Protestants had a centre of
+      unity and harmony, which was altogether wanting to their opponents. No
+      wonder, then, if favoured by such advantages, at the head of such an army,
+      with such a genius to direct it, and guided by such political prudence,
+      Gustavus Adolphus was irresistible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the sword in one hand, and mercy in the other, he traversed Germany
+      as a conqueror, a lawgiver, and a judge, in as short a time almost as the
+      tourist of pleasure. The keys of towns and fortresses were delivered to
+      him, as if to the native sovereign. No fortress was inaccessible; no river
+      checked his victorious career. He conquered by the very terror of his
+      name. The Swedish standards were planted along the whole stream of the
+      Maine: the Lower Palatinate was free, the troops of Spain and Lorraine had
+      fled across the Rhine and the Moselle. The Swedes and Hessians poured like
+      a torrent into the territories of Mentz, of Wurtzburg, and Bamberg, and
+      three fugitive bishops, at a distance from their sees, suffered dearly for
+      their unfortunate attachment to the Emperor. It was now the turn for
+      Maximilian, the leader of the League, to feel in his own dominions the
+      miseries he had inflicted upon others. Neither the terrible fate of his
+      allies, nor the peaceful overtures of Gustavus, who, in the midst of
+      conquest, ever held out the hand of friendship, could conquer the
+      obstinacy of this prince. The torrent of war now poured into Bavaria. Like
+      the banks of the Rhine, those of the Lecke and the Donau were crowded with
+      Swedish troops. Creeping into his fortresses, the defeated Elector
+      abandoned to the ravages of the foe his dominions, hitherto unscathed by
+      war, and on which the bigoted violence of the Bavarians seemed to invite
+      retaliation. Munich itself opened its gates to the invincible monarch, and
+      the fugitive Palatine, Frederick V., in the forsaken residence of his
+      rival, consoled himself for a time for the loss of his dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Gustavus Adolphus was extending his conquests in the south, his
+      generals and allies were gaining similar triumphs in the other provinces.
+      Lower Saxony shook off the yoke of Austria, the enemy abandoned
+      Mecklenburg, and the imperial garrisons retired from the banks of the
+      Weser and the Elbe. In Westphalia and the Upper Rhine, William, Landgrave
+      of Hesse, rendered himself formidable; the Duke of Weimar in Thuringia,
+      and the French in the Electorate of Treves; while to the eastward the
+      whole kingdom of Bohemia was conquered by the Saxons. The Turks were
+      preparing to attack Hungary, and in the heart of Austria a dangerous
+      insurrection was threatened. In vain did the Emperor look around to the
+      courts of Europe for support; in vain did he summon the Spaniards to his
+      assistance, for the bravery of the Flemings afforded them ample employment
+      beyond the Rhine; in vain did he call upon the Roman court and the whole
+      church to come to his rescue. The offended Pope sported, in pompous
+      processions and idle anathemas, with the embarrassments of Ferdinand, and
+      instead of the desired subsidy he was shown the devastation of Mantua.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On all sides of his extensive monarchy hostile arms surrounded him. With
+      the states of the League, now overrun by the enemy, those ramparts were
+      thrown down, behind which Austria had so long defended herself, and the
+      embers of war were now smouldering upon her unguarded frontiers. His most
+      zealous allies were disarmed; Maximilian of Bavaria, his firmest support,
+      was scarce able to defend himself. His armies, weakened by desertion and
+      repeated defeat, and dispirited by continued misfortunes had unlearnt,
+      under beaten generals, that warlike impetuosity which, as it is the
+      consequence, so it is the guarantee of success. The danger was extreme,
+      and extraordinary means alone could raise the imperial power from the
+      degradation into which it was fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most urgent want was that of a general; and the only one from whom he
+      could hope for the revival of his former splendour, had been removed from
+      his command by an envious cabal. So low had the Emperor now fallen, that
+      he was forced to make the most humiliating proposals to his injured
+      subject and servant, and meanly to press upon the imperious Duke of
+      Friedland the acceptance of the powers which no less meanly had been taken
+      from him. A new spirit began from this moment to animate the expiring body
+      of Austria; and a sudden change in the aspect of affairs bespoke the firm
+      hand which guided them. To the absolute King of Sweden, a general equally
+      absolute was now opposed; and one victorious hero was confronted with
+      another. Both armies were again to engage in the doubtful struggle; and
+      the prize of victory, already almost secured in the hands of Gustavus
+      Adolphus, was to be the object of another and a severer trial. The storm
+      of war gathered around Nuremberg; before its walls the hostile armies
+      encamped; gazing on each other with dread and respect, longing for, and
+      yet shrinking from, the moment that was to close them together in the
+      shock of battle. The eyes of Europe turned to the scene in curiosity and
+      alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay, expected soon to lend its name to a
+      more decisive battle than that of Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and
+      the storm rolled away from Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony.
+      Near Lutzen fell the thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the victory, half
+      lost, was purchased by the death of the king. Fortune, which had never
+      forsaken him in his lifetime, favoured the King of Sweden even in his
+      death, with the rare privilege of falling in the fulness of his glory and
+      an untarnished fame. By a timely death, his protecting genius rescued him
+      from the inevitable fate of man&mdash;that of forgetting moderation in the
+      intoxication of success, and justice in the plenitude of power. It may be
+      doubted whether, had he lived longer, he would still have deserved the
+      tears which Germany shed over his grave, or maintained his title to the
+      admiration with which posterity regards him, as the first and only JUST
+      conqueror that the world has produced. The untimely fall of their great
+      leader seemed to threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power which
+      rules the world, no loss of a single man is irreparable. As the helm of
+      war dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by two great
+      statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu. Destiny still pursued its relentless
+      course, and for full sixteen years longer the flames of war blazed over
+      the ashes of the long-forgotten king and soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I may now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus Adolphus
+      in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he alone was the
+      great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to extremity by the
+      successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters is driven to the
+      most humiliating and desperate expedients, to return to the history of the
+      Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the plan of operations had been concerted at Halle, between the
+      King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony; as soon as the alliance had been
+      concluded with the neighbouring princes of Weimar and Anhalt, and
+      preparations made for the recovery of the bishopric of Magdeburg, the king
+      began his march into the empire. He had here no despicable foe to contend
+      with. Within the empire, the Emperor was still powerful; throughout
+      Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate, imperial garrisons were posted,
+      with whom the possession of every place of importance must be disputed
+      sword in hand. On the Rhine he was opposed by the Spaniards, who had
+      overrun the territory of the banished Elector Palatine, seized all its
+      strong places, and would everywhere dispute with him the passage over that
+      river. On his rear was Tilly, who was fast recruiting his force, and would
+      soon be joined by the auxiliaries from Lorraine. Every Papist presented an
+      inveterate foe, while his connexion with France did not leave him at
+      liberty to act with freedom against the Roman Catholics. Gustavus had
+      foreseen all these obstacles, but at the same time the means by which they
+      were to be overcome. The strength of the Imperialists was broken and
+      divided among different garrisons, while he would bring against them one
+      by one his whole united force. If he was to be opposed by the fanaticism
+      of the Roman Catholics, and the awe in which the lesser states regarded
+      the Emperor's power, he might depend on the active support of the
+      Protestants, and their hatred to Austrian oppression. The ravages of the
+      Imperialist and Spanish troops also powerfully aided him in these
+      quarters; where the ill-treated husbandman and citizen sighed alike for a
+      deliverer, and where the mere change of yoke seemed to promise a relief.
+      Emissaries were despatched to gain over to the Swedish side the principal
+      free cities, particularly Nuremberg and Frankfort. The first that lay in
+      the king's march, and which he could not leave unoccupied in his rear, was
+      Erfurt. Here the Protestant party among the citizens opened to him,
+      without a blow, the gates of the town and the citadel. From the
+      inhabitants of this, as of every important place which afterwards
+      submitted, he exacted an oath of allegiance, while he secured its
+      possession by a sufficient garrison. To his ally, Duke William of Weimar,
+      he intrusted the command of an army to be raised in Thuringia. He also
+      left his queen in Erfurt, and promised to increase its privileges. The
+      Swedish army now crossed the Thuringian forest in two columns, by Gotha
+      and Arnstadt, and having delivered, in its march, the county of Henneberg
+      from the Imperialists, formed a junction on the third day near
+      Koenigshofen, on the frontiers of Franconia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis, Bishop of Wurtzburg, the bitter enemy of the Protestants, and the
+      most zealous member of the League, was the first to feel the indignation
+      of Gustavus Adolphus. A few threats gained for the Swedes possession of
+      his fortress of Koenigshofen, and with it the key of the whole province.
+      At the news of this rapid conquest, dismay seized all the Roman Catholic
+      towns of the circle. The Bishops of Wurtzburg and Bamberg trembled in
+      their castles; they already saw their sees tottering, their churches
+      profaned, and their religion degraded. The malice of his enemies had
+      circulated the most frightful representations of the persecuting spirit
+      and the mode of warfare pursued by the Swedish king and his soldiers,
+      which neither the repeated assurances of the king, nor the most splendid
+      examples of humanity and toleration, ever entirely effaced. Many feared to
+      suffer at the hands of another what in similar circumstances they were
+      conscious of inflicting themselves. Many of the richest Roman Catholics
+      hastened to secure by flight their property, their religion, and their
+      persons, from the sanguinary fanaticism of the Swedes. The bishop himself
+      set the example. In the midst of the alarm, which his bigoted zeal had
+      caused, he abandoned his dominions, and fled to Paris, to excite, if
+      possible, the French ministry against the common enemy of religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The further progress of Gustavus Adolphus in the ecclesiastical
+      territories agreed with this brilliant commencement. Schweinfurt, and soon
+      afterwards Wurtzburg, abandoned by their Imperial garrisons, surrendered;
+      but Marienberg he was obliged to carry by storm. In this place, which was
+      believed to be impregnable, the enemy had collected a large store of
+      provisions and ammunition, all of which fell into the hands of the Swedes.
+      The king found a valuable prize in the library of the Jesuits, which he
+      sent to Upsal, while his soldiers found a still more agreeable one in the
+      prelate's well-filled cellars; his treasures the bishop had in good time
+      removed. The whole bishopric followed the example of the capital, and
+      submitted to the Swedes. The king compelled all the bishop's subjects to
+      swear allegiance to himself; and, in the absence of the lawful sovereign,
+      appointed a regency, one half of whose members were Protestants. In every
+      Roman Catholic town which Gustavus took, he opened the churches to the
+      Protestant people, but without retaliating on the Papists the cruelties
+      which they had practised on the former. On such only as sword in hand
+      refused to submit, were the fearful rights of war enforced; and for the
+      occasional acts of violence committed by a few of the more lawless
+      soldiers, in the blind rage of the first attack, their humane leader is
+      not justly responsible. Those who were peaceably disposed, or defenceless,
+      were treated with mildness. It was a sacred principle of Gustavus to spare
+      the blood of his enemies, as well as that of his own troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the first news of the Swedish irruption, the Bishop of Wurtzburg,
+      without regarding the treaty which he had entered into with the King of
+      Sweden, had earnestly pressed the general of the League to hasten to the
+      assistance of the bishopric. That defeated commander had, in the mean
+      time, collected on the Weser the shattered remnant of his army, reinforced
+      himself from the garrisons of Lower Saxony, and effected a junction in
+      Hesse with Altringer and Fugger, who commanded under him. Again at the
+      head of a considerable force, Tilly burned with impatience to wipe out the
+      stain of his first defeat by a splendid victory. From his camp at Fulda,
+      whither he had marched with his army, he earnestly requested permission
+      from the Duke of Bavaria to give battle to Gustavus Adolphus. But, in the
+      event of Tilly's defeat, the League had no second army to fall back upon,
+      and Maximilian was too cautious to risk again the fate of his party on a
+      single battle. With tears in his eyes, Tilly read the commands of his
+      superior, which compelled him to inactivity. Thus his march to Franconia
+      was delayed, and Gustavus Adolphus gained time to overrun the whole
+      bishopric. It was in vain that Tilly, reinforced at Aschaffenburg by a
+      body of 12,000 men from Lorraine, marched with an overwhelming force to
+      the relief of Wurtzburg. The town and citadel were already in the hands of
+      the Swedes, and Maximilian of Bavaria was generally blamed (and not
+      without cause, perhaps) for having, by his scruples, occasioned the loss
+      of the bishopric. Commanded to avoid a battle, Tilly contented himself
+      with checking the farther advance of the enemy; but he could save only a
+      few of the towns from the impetuosity of the Swedes. Baffled in an attempt
+      to reinforce the weak garrison of Hanau, which it was highly important to
+      the Swedes to gain, he crossed the Maine, near Seligenstadt, and took the
+      direction of the Bergstrasse, to protect the Palatinate from the
+      conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly, however, was not the sole enemy whom Gustavus Adolphus met in
+      Franconia, and drove before him. Charles, Duke of Lorraine, celebrated in
+      the annals of the time for his unsteadiness of character, his vain
+      projects, and his misfortunes, ventured to raise a weak arm against the
+      Swedish hero, in the hope of obtaining from the Emperor the electoral
+      dignity. Deaf to the suggestions of a rational policy, he listened only to
+      the dictates of heated ambition; by supporting the Emperor, he exasperated
+      France, his formidable neighbour; and in the pursuit of a visionary
+      phantom in another country, left undefended his own dominions, which were
+      instantly overrun by a French army. Austria willingly conceded to him, as
+      well as to the other princes of the League, the honour of being ruined in
+      her cause. Intoxicated with vain hopes, this prince collected a force of
+      17,000 men, which he proposed to lead in person against the Swedes. If
+      these troops were deficient in discipline and courage, they were at least
+      attractive by the splendour of their accoutrements; and however sparing
+      they were of their prowess against the foe, they were liberal enough with
+      it against the defenceless citizens and peasantry, whom they were summoned
+      to defend. Against the bravery, and the formidable discipline of the
+      Swedes this splendidly attired army, however, made no long stand. On the
+      first advance of the Swedish cavalry a panic seized them, and they were
+      driven without difficulty from their cantonments in Wurtzburg; the defeat
+      of a few regiments occasioned a general rout, and the scattered remnant
+      sought a covert from the Swedish valour in the towns beyond the Rhine.
+      Loaded with shame and ridicule, the duke hurried home by Strasburg, too
+      fortunate in escaping, by a submissive written apology, the indignation of
+      his conqueror, who had first beaten him out of the field, and then called
+      upon him to account for his hostilities. It is related upon this occasion
+      that, in a village on the Rhine a peasant struck the horse of the duke as
+      he rode past, exclaiming, "Haste, Sir, you must go quicker to escape the
+      great King of Sweden!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The example of his neighbours' misfortunes had taught the Bishop of
+      Bamberg prudence. To avert the plundering of his territories, he made
+      offers of peace, though these were intended only to delay the king's
+      course till the arrival of assistance. Gustavus Adolphus, too honourable
+      himself to suspect dishonesty in another, readily accepted the bishop's
+      proposals, and named the conditions on which he was willing to save his
+      territories from hostile treatment. He was the more inclined to peace, as
+      he had no time to lose in the conquest of Bamberg, and his other designs
+      called him to the Rhine. The rapidity with which he followed up these
+      plans, cost him the loss of those pecuniary supplies which, by a longer
+      residence in Franconia, he might easily have extorted from the weak and
+      terrified bishop. This artful prelate broke off the negotiation the
+      instant the storm of war passed away from his own territories. No sooner
+      had Gustavus marched onwards than he threw himself under the protection of
+      Tilly, and received the troops of the Emperor into the very towns and
+      fortresses, which shortly before he had shown himself ready to open to the
+      Swedes. By this stratagem, however, he only delayed for a brief interval
+      the ruin of his bishopric. A Swedish general who had been left in
+      Franconia, undertook to punish the perfidy of the bishop; and the
+      ecclesiastical territory became the seat of war, and was ravaged alike by
+      friends and foes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The formidable presence of the Imperialists had hitherto been a check upon
+      the Franconian States; but their retreat, and the humane conduct of the
+      Swedish king, emboldened the nobility and other inhabitants of this circle
+      to declare in his favour. Nuremberg joyfully committed itself to his
+      protection; and the Franconian nobles were won to his cause by flattering
+      proclamations, in which he condescended to apologize for his hostile
+      appearance in the dominions. The fertility of Franconia, and the rigorous
+      honesty of the Swedish soldiers in their dealings with the inhabitants,
+      brought abundance to the camp of the king. The high esteem which the
+      nobility of the circle felt for Gustavus, the respect and admiration with
+      which they regarded his brilliant exploits, the promises of rich booty
+      which the service of this monarch held out, greatly facilitated the
+      recruiting of his troops; a step which was made necessary by detaching so
+      many garrisons from the main body. At the sound of his drums, recruits
+      flocked to his standard from all quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had scarcely spent more time in conquering Franconia, than he
+      would have required to cross it. He now left behind him Gustavus Horn, one
+      of his best generals, with a force of 8,000 men, to complete and retain
+      his conquest. He himself with his main army, reinforced by the late
+      recruits, hastened towards the Rhine in order to secure this frontier of
+      the empire from the Spaniards; to disarm the ecclesiastical electors, and
+      to obtain from their fertile territories new resources for the prosecution
+      of the war. Following the course of the Maine, he subjected, in the course
+      of his march, Seligenstadt, Aschaffenburg, Steinheim, the whole territory
+      on both sides of the river. The imperial garrisons seldom awaited his
+      approach, and never attempted resistance. In the meanwhile one of his
+      colonels had been fortunate enough to take by surprise the town and
+      citadel of Hanau, for whose preservation Tilly had shown such anxiety.
+      Eager to be free of the oppressive burden of the Imperialists, the Count
+      of Hanau gladly placed himself under the milder yoke of the King of
+      Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus now turned his whole attention to Frankfort, for it was
+      his constant maxim to cover his rear by the friendship and possession of
+      the more important towns. Frankfort was among the free cities which, even
+      from Saxony, he had endeavoured to prepare for his reception; and he now
+      called upon it, by a summons from Offenbach, to allow him a free passage,
+      and to admit a Swedish garrison. Willingly would this city have dispensed
+      with the necessity of choosing between the King of Sweden and the Emperor;
+      for, whatever party they might embrace, the inhabitants had a like reason
+      to fear for their privileges and trade. The Emperor's vengeance would
+      certainly fall heavily upon them, if they were in a hurry to submit to the
+      King of Sweden, and afterwards he should prove unable to protect his
+      adherents in Germany. But still more ruinous for them would be the
+      displeasure of an irresistible conqueror, who, with a formidable army, was
+      already before their gates, and who might punish their opposition by the
+      ruin of their commerce and prosperity. In vain did their deputies plead
+      the danger which menaced their fairs, their privileges, perhaps their
+      constitution itself, if, by espousing the party of the Swedes, they were
+      to incur the Emperor's displeasure. Gustavus Adolphus expressed to them
+      his astonishment that, when the liberties of Germany and the Protestant
+      religion were at stake, the citizens of Frankfort should talk of their
+      annual fairs, and postpone for temporal interests the great cause of their
+      country and their conscience. He had, he continued, in a menacing tone,
+      found the keys of every town and fortress, from the Isle of Rugen to the
+      Maine, and knew also where to find a key to Frankfort; the safety of
+      Germany, and the freedom of the Protestant Church, were, he assured them,
+      the sole objects of his invasion; conscious of the justice of his cause,
+      he was determined not to allow any obstacle to impede his progress. "The
+      inhabitants of Frankfort, he was well aware, wished to stretch out only a
+      finger to him, but he must have the whole hand in order to have something
+      to grasp." At the head of the army, he closely followed the deputies as
+      they carried back his answer, and in order of battle awaited, near
+      Saxenhausen, the decision of the council.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Frankfort hesitated to submit to the Swedes, it was solely from fear of
+      the Emperor; their own inclinations did not allow them a moment to doubt
+      between the oppressor of Germany and its protector. The menacing
+      preparations amidst which Gustavus Adolphus now compelled them to decide,
+      would lessen the guilt of their revolt in the eyes of the Emperor, and by
+      an appearance of compulsion justify the step which they willingly took.
+      The gates were therefore opened to the King of Sweden, who marched his
+      army through this imperial town in magnificent procession, and in
+      admirable order. A garrison of 600 men was left in Saxenhausen; while the
+      king himself advanced the same evening, with the rest of his army, against
+      the town of Hoechst in Mentz, which surrendered to him before night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Gustavus was thus extending his conquests along the Maine, fortune
+      crowned also the efforts of his generals and allies in the north of
+      Germany. Rostock, Wismar, and Doemitz, the only strong places in the Duchy
+      of Mecklenburg which still sighed under the yoke of the Imperialists, were
+      recovered by their legitimate sovereign, the Duke John Albert, under the
+      Swedish general, Achatius Tott. In vain did the imperial general, Wolf
+      Count von Mansfeld, endeavour to recover from the Swedes the territories
+      of Halberstadt, of which they had taken possession immediately upon the
+      victory of Leipzig; he was even compelled to leave Magdeburg itself in
+      their hands. The Swedish general, Banner, who with 8,000 men remained upon
+      the Elbe, closely blockaded that city, and had defeated several imperial
+      regiments which had been sent to its relief. Count Mansfeld defended it in
+      person with great resolution; but his garrison being too weak to oppose
+      for any length of time the numerous force of the besiegers, he was already
+      about to surrender on conditions, when Pappenheim advanced to his
+      assistance, and gave employment elsewhere to the Swedish arms. Magdeburg,
+      however, or rather the wretched huts that peeped out miserably from among
+      the ruins of that once great town, was afterwards voluntarily abandoned by
+      the Imperialists, and immediately taken possession of by the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even Lower Saxony, encouraged by the progress of the king, ventured to
+      raise its head from the disasters of the unfortunate Danish war. They held
+      a congress at Hamburg, and resolved upon raising three regiments, which
+      they hoped would be sufficient to free them from the oppressive garrisons
+      of the Imperialists. The Bishop of Bremen, a relation of Gustavus
+      Adolphus, was not content even with this; but assembled troops of his own,
+      and terrified the unfortunate monks and priests of the neighbourhood, but
+      was quickly compelled by the imperial general, Count Gronsfeld, to lay
+      down his arms. Even George, Duke of Lunenburg, formerly a colonel in the
+      Emperor's service, embraced the party of Gustavus, for whom he raised
+      several regiments, and by occupying the attention of the Imperialists in
+      Lower Saxony, materially assisted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But more important service was rendered to the king by the Landgrave
+      William of Hesse Cassel, whose victorious arms struck with terror the
+      greater part of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the bishopric of Fulda, and
+      even the Electorate of Cologne. It has been already stated that
+      immediately after the conclusion of the alliance between the Landgrave and
+      Gustavus Adolphus at Werben, two imperial generals, Fugger and Altringer,
+      were ordered by Tilly to march into Hesse, to punish the Landgrave for his
+      revolt from the Emperor. But this prince had as firmly withstood the arms
+      of his enemies, as his subjects had the proclamations of Tilly inciting
+      them to rebellion, and the battle of Leipzig presently relieved him of
+      their presence. He availed himself of their absence with courage and
+      resolution; in a short time, Vach, Muenden and Hoexter surrendered to him,
+      while his rapid advance alarmed the bishoprics of Fulda, Paderborn, and
+      the ecclesiastical territories which bordered on Hesse. The terrified
+      states hastened by a speedy submission to set limits to his progress, and
+      by considerable contributions to purchase exemption from plunder. After
+      these successful enterprises, the Landgrave united his victorious army
+      with that of Gustavus Adolphus, and concerted with him at Frankfort their
+      future plan of operations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this city, a number of princes and ambassadors were assembled to
+      congratulate Gustavus on his success, and either to conciliate his favour
+      or to appease his indignation. Among them was the fugitive King of
+      Bohemia, the Palatine Frederick V., who had hastened from Holland to throw
+      himself into the arms of his avenger and protector. Gustavus gave him the
+      unprofitable honour of greeting him as a crowned head, and endeavoured, by
+      a respectful sympathy, to soften his sense of his misfortunes. But great
+      as the advantages were, which Frederick had promised himself from the
+      power and good fortune of his protector; and high as were the expectations
+      he had built on his justice and magnanimity, the chance of this
+      unfortunate prince's reinstatement in his kingdom was as distant as ever.
+      The inactivity and contradictory politics of the English court had abated
+      the zeal of Gustavus Adolphus, and an irritability which he could not
+      always repress, made him on this occasion forget the glorious vocation of
+      protector of the oppressed, in which, on his invasion of Germany, he had
+      so loudly announced himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The terrors of the king's irresistible strength, and the near prospect of
+      his vengeance, had also compelled George, Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, to
+      a timely submission. His connection with the Emperor, and his indifference
+      to the Protestant cause, were no secret to the king, but he was satisfied
+      with laughing at so impotent an enemy. As the Landgrave knew his own
+      strength and the political situation of Germany so little, as to offer
+      himself as mediator between the contending parties, Gustavus used
+      jestingly to call him the peacemaker. He was frequently heard to say, when
+      at play he was winning from the Landgrave, "that the money afforded double
+      satisfaction, as it was Imperial coin." To his affinity with the Elector
+      of Saxony, whom Gustavus had cause to treat with forbearance, the
+      Landgrave was indebted for the favourable terms he obtained from the king,
+      who contented himself with the surrender of his fortress of Russelheim,
+      and his promise of observing a strict neutrality during the war. The
+      Counts of Westerwald and Wetteran also visited the King in Frankfort, to
+      offer him their assistance against the Spaniards, and to conclude an
+      alliance, which was afterwards of great service to him. The town of
+      Frankfort itself had reason to rejoice at the presence of this monarch,
+      who took their commerce under his protection, and by the most effectual
+      measures restored the fairs, which had been greatly interrupted by the
+      war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Swedish army was now reinforced by ten thousand Hessians, which the
+      Landgrave of Casse commanded. Gustavus Adolphus had already invested
+      Koenigstein; Kostheim and Floersheim surrendered after a short siege; he
+      was in command of the Maine; and transports were preparing with all speed
+      at Hoechst to carry his troops across the Rhine. These preparations filled
+      the Elector of Mentz, Anselm Casimir, with consternation; and he no longer
+      doubted but that the storm of war would next fall upon him. As a partisan
+      of the Emperor, and one of the most active members of the League, he could
+      expect no better treatment than his confederates, the Bishops of Wurtzburg
+      and Bamberg, had already experienced. The situation of his territories
+      upon the Rhine made it necessary for the enemy to secure them, while the
+      fertility afforded an irresistible temptation to a necessitous army.
+      Miscalculating his own strength and that of his adversaries, the Elector
+      flattered himself that he was able to repel force by force, and weary out
+      the valour of the Swedes by the strength of his fortresses. He ordered the
+      fortifications of his capital to be repaired with all diligence, provided
+      it with every necessary for sustaining a long siege, and received into the
+      town a garrison of 2,000 Spaniards, under Don Philip de Sylva. To prevent
+      the approach of the Swedish transports, he endeavoured to close the mouth
+      of the Maine by driving piles, and sinking large heaps of stones and
+      vessels. He himself, however, accompanied by the Bishop of Worms, and
+      carrying with him his most precious effects, took refuge in Cologne, and
+      abandoned his capital and territories to the rapacity of a tyrannical
+      garrison. But these preparations, which bespoke less of true courage than
+      of weak and overweening confidence, did not prevent the Swedes from
+      marching against Mentz, and making serious preparations for an attack upon
+      the city. While one body of their troops poured into the Rheingau, routed
+      the Spaniards who remained there, and levied contributions on the
+      inhabitants, another laid the Roman Catholic towns in Westerwald and
+      Wetterau under similar contributions. The main army had encamped at
+      Cassel, opposite Mentz; and Bernhard, Duke of Weimar, made himself master
+      of the Maeusethurm and the Castle of Ehrenfels, on the other side of the
+      Rhine. Gustavus was now actively preparing to cross the river, and to
+      blockade the town on the land side, when the movements of Tilly in
+      Franconia suddenly called him from the siege, and obtained for the Elector
+      a short repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The danger of Nuremberg, which, during the absence of Gustavus Adolphus on
+      the Rhine, Tilly had made a show of besieging, and, in the event of
+      resistance, threatened with the cruel fate of Magdeburg, occasioned the
+      king suddenly to retire from before Mentz. Lest he should expose himself a
+      second time to the reproaches of Germany, and the disgrace of abandoning a
+      confederate city to a ferocious enemy, he hastened to its relief by forced
+      marches. On his arrival at Frankfort, however, he heard of its spirited
+      resistance, and of the retreat of Tilly, and lost not a moment in
+      prosecuting his designs against Mentz. Failing in an attempt to cross the
+      Rhine at Cassel, under the cannon of the besieged, he directed his march
+      towards the Bergstrasse, with a view of approaching the town from an
+      opposite quarter. Here he quickly made himself master of all the places of
+      importance, and at Stockstadt, between Gernsheim and Oppenheim, appeared a
+      second time upon the banks of the Rhine. The whole of the Bergstrasse was
+      abandoned by the Spaniards, who endeavoured obstinately to defend the
+      other bank of the river. For this purpose, they had burned or sunk all the
+      vessels in the neighbourhood, and arranged a formidable force on the
+      banks, in case the king should attempt the passage at that place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, the king's impetuosity exposed him to great danger of
+      falling into the hands of the enemy. In order to reconnoitre the opposite
+      bank, he crossed the river in a small boat; he had scarcely landed when he
+      was attacked by a party of Spanish horse, from whose hands he only saved
+      himself by a precipitate retreat. Having at last, with the assistance of
+      the neighbouring fishermen, succeeded in procuring a few transports, he
+      despatched two of them across the river, bearing Count Brahe and 300
+      Swedes. Scarcely had this officer time to entrench himself on the opposite
+      bank, when he was attacked by 14 squadrons of Spanish dragoons and
+      cuirassiers. Superior as the enemy was in number, Count Brahe, with his
+      small force, bravely defended himself, and gained time for the king to
+      support him with fresh troops. The Spaniards at last retired with the loss
+      of 600 men, some taking refuge in Oppenheim, and others in Mentz. A lion
+      of marble on a high pillar, holding a naked sword in his paw, and a helmet
+      on his head, was erected seventy years after the event, to point out to
+      the traveller the spot where the immortal monarch crossed the great river
+      of Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus now conveyed his artillery and the greater part of his
+      troops over the river, and laid siege to Oppenheim, which, after a brave
+      resistance, was, on the 8th December, 1631, carried by storm. Five hundred
+      Spaniards, who had so courageously defended the place, fell
+      indiscriminately a sacrifice to the fury of the Swedes. The crossing of
+      the Rhine by Gustavus struck terror into the Spaniards and Lorrainers, who
+      had thought themselves protected by the river from the vengeance of the
+      Swedes. Rapid flight was now their only security; every place incapable of
+      an effectual defence was immediately abandoned. After a long train of
+      outrages on the defenceless citizens, the troops of Lorraine evacuated
+      Worms, which, before their departure, they treated with wanton cruelty.
+      The Spaniards hastened to shut themselves up in Frankenthal, where they
+      hoped to defy the victorious arms of Gustavus Adolphus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king lost no time in prosecuting his designs against Mentz, into which
+      the flower of the Spanish troops had thrown themselves. While he advanced
+      on the left bank of the Rhine, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel moved forward
+      on the other, reducing several strong places on his march. The besieged
+      Spaniards, though hemmed in on both sides, displayed at first a bold
+      determination, and threw, for several days, a shower of bombs into the
+      Swedish camp, which cost the king many of his bravest soldiers. But
+      notwithstanding, the Swedes continually gained ground, and had at last
+      advanced so close to the ditch that they prepared seriously for storming
+      the place. The courage of the besieged now began to droop. They trembled
+      before the furious impetuosity of the Swedish soldiers, of which
+      Marienberg, in Wurtzburg, had afforded so fearful an example. The same
+      dreadful fate awaited Mentz, if taken by storm; and the enemy might even
+      be easily tempted to revenge the carnage of Magdeburg on this rich and
+      magnificent residence of a Roman Catholic prince. To save the town, rather
+      than their own lives, the Spanish garrison capitulated on the fourth day,
+      and obtained from the magnanimity of Gustavus a safe conduct to
+      Luxembourg; the greater part of them, however, following the example of
+      many others, enlisted in the service of Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 13th December, 1631, the king made his entry into the conquered
+      town, and fixed his quarters in the palace of the Elector. Eighty pieces
+      of cannon fell into his hands, and the citizens were obliged to redeem
+      their property from pillage, by a payment of 80,000 florins. The benefits
+      of this redemption did not extend to the Jews and the clergy, who were
+      obliged to make large and separate contributions for themselves. The
+      library of the Elector was seized by the king as his share, and presented
+      by him to his chancellor, Oxenstiern, who intended it for the Academy of
+      Westerrah, but the vessel in which it was shipped to Sweden foundered at
+      sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the loss of Mentz, misfortune still pursued the Spaniards on the
+      Rhine. Shortly before the capture of that city, the Landgrave of Hesse
+      Cassel had taken Falkenstein and Reifenberg, and the fortress of
+      Koningstein surrendered to the Hessians. The Rhinegrave, Otto Louis, one
+      of the king's generals, defeated nine Spanish squadrons who were on their
+      march for Frankenthal, and made himself master of the most important towns
+      upon the Rhine, from Boppart to Bacharach. After the capture of the
+      fortress of Braunfels, which was effected by the Count of Wetterau, with
+      the co-operation of the Swedes, the Spaniards quickly lost every place in
+      Wetterau, while in the Palatinate they retained few places besides
+      Frankenthal. Landau and Kronweisenberg openly declared for the Swedes;
+      Spires offered troops for the king's service; Manheim was gained through
+      the prudence of the Duke Bernard of Weimar, and the negligence of its
+      governor, who, for this misconduct, was tried before the council of war,
+      at Heidelberg, and beheaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king had protracted the campaign into the depth of winter, and the
+      severity of the season was perhaps one cause of the advantage his soldiers
+      gained over those of the enemy. But the exhausted troops now stood in need
+      of the repose of winter quarters, which, after the surrender of Mentz,
+      Gustavus assigned to them, in its neighbourhood. He himself employed the
+      interval of inactivity in the field, which the season of the year
+      enjoined, in arranging, with his chancellor, the affairs of his cabinet,
+      in treating for a neutrality with some of his enemies, and adjusting some
+      political disputes which had sprung up with a neighbouring ally. He chose
+      the city of Mentz for his winter quarters, and the settlement of these
+      state affairs, and showed a greater partiality for this town, than seemed
+      consistent with the interests of the German princes, or the shortness of
+      his visit to the Empire. Not content with strongly fortifying it, he
+      erected at the opposite angle which the Maine forms with the Rhine, a new
+      citadel, which was named Gustavusburg from its founder, but which is
+      better known under the title of Pfaffenraub or Pfaffenzwang.&mdash;[Priests'
+      plunder; alluding to the means by which the expense of its erection had
+      been defrayed.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Gustavus Adolphus made himself master of the Rhine, and threatened
+      the three neighbouring electorates with his victorious arms, his vigilant
+      enemies in Paris and St. Germain's made use of every artifice to deprive
+      him of the support of France, and, if possible, to involve him in a war
+      with that power. By his sudden and equivocal march to the Rhine, he had
+      surprised his friends, and furnished his enemies with the means of
+      exciting a distrust of his intentions. After the conquest of Wurtzburg,
+      and of the greater part of Franconia, the road into Bavaria and Austria
+      lay open to him through Bamberg and the Upper Palatinate; and the
+      expectation was as general, as it was natural, that he would not delay to
+      attack the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria in the very centre of their
+      power, and, by the reduction of his two principal enemies, bring the war
+      immediately to an end. But to the surprise of both parties, Gustavus left
+      the path which general expectation had thus marked out for him; and
+      instead of advancing to the right, turned to the left, to make the less
+      important and more innocent princes of the Rhine feel his power, while he
+      gave time to his more formidable opponents to recruit their strength.
+      Nothing but the paramount design of reinstating the unfortunate Palatine,
+      Frederick V., in the possession of his territories, by the expulsion of
+      the Spaniards, could seem to account for this strange step; and the belief
+      that Gustavus was about to effect that restoration, silenced for a while
+      the suspicions of his friends and the calumnies of his enemies. But the
+      Lower Palatinate was now almost entirely cleared of the enemy; and yet
+      Gustavus continued to form new schemes of conquest on the Rhine, and to
+      withhold the reconquered country from the Palatine, its rightful owner. In
+      vain did the English ambassador remind him of what justice demanded, and
+      what his own solemn engagement made a duty of honour; Gustavus replied to
+      these demands with bitter complaints of the inactivity of the English
+      court, and prepared to carry his victorious standard into Alsace, and even
+      into Lorraine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A distrust of the Swedish monarch was now loud and open, while the malice
+      of his enemies busily circulated the most injurious reports as to his
+      intentions. Richelieu, the minister of Louis XIII., had long witnessed
+      with anxiety the king's progress towards the French frontier, and the
+      suspicious temper of Louis rendered him but too accessible to the evil
+      surmises which the occasion gave rise to. France was at this time involved
+      in a civil war with her Protestant subjects, and the fear was not
+      altogether groundless, that the approach of a victorious monarch of their
+      party might revive their drooping spirit, and encourage them to a more
+      desperate resistance. This might be the case, even if Gustavus Adolphus
+      was far from showing a disposition to encourage them, or to act
+      unfaithfully towards his ally, the King of France. But the vindictive
+      Bishop of Wurtzburg, who was anxious to avenge the loss of his dominions,
+      the envenomed rhetoric of the Jesuits and the active zeal of the Bavarian
+      minister, represented this dreaded alliance between the Huguenots and the
+      Swedes as an undoubted fact, and filled the timid mind of Louis with the
+      most alarming fears. Not merely chimerical politicians, but many of the
+      best informed Roman Catholics, fully believed that the king was on the
+      point of breaking into the heart of France, to make common cause with the
+      Huguenots, and to overturn the Catholic religion within the kingdom.
+      Fanatical zealots already saw him, with his army, crossing the Alps, and
+      dethroning the Viceregent of Christ in Italy. Such reports no doubt soon
+      refute themselves; yet it cannot be denied that Gustavus, by his
+      manoeuvres on the Rhine, gave a dangerous handle to the malice of his
+      enemies, and in some measure justified the suspicion that he directed his
+      arms, not so much against the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, as against
+      the Roman Catholic religion itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general clamour of discontent which the Jesuits raised in all the
+      Catholic courts, against the alliance between France and the enemy of the
+      church, at last compelled Cardinal Richelieu to take a decisive step for
+      the security of his religion, and at once to convince the Roman Catholic
+      world of the zeal of France, and of the selfish policy of the
+      ecclesiastical states of Germany. Convinced that the views of the King of
+      Sweden, like his own, aimed solely at the humiliation of the power of
+      Austria, he hesitated not to promise to the princes of the League, on the
+      part of Sweden, a complete neutrality, immediately they abandoned their
+      alliance with the Emperor and withdrew their troops. Whatever the
+      resolution these princes should adopt, Richelieu would equally attain his
+      object. By their separation from the Austrian interest, Ferdinand would be
+      exposed to the combined attack of France and Sweden; and Gustavus
+      Adolphus, freed from his other enemies in Germany, would be able to direct
+      his undivided force against the hereditary dominions of Austria. In that
+      event, the fall of Austria was inevitable, and this great object of
+      Richelieu's policy would be gained without injury to the church. If, on
+      the other hand, the princes of the League persisted in their opposition,
+      and adhered to the Austrian alliance, the result would indeed be more
+      doubtful, but still France would have sufficiently proved to all Europe
+      the sincerity of her attachment to the Catholic cause, and performed her
+      duty as a member of the Roman Church. The princes of the League would then
+      appear the sole authors of those evils, which the continuance of the war
+      would unavoidably bring upon the Roman Catholics of Germany; they alone,
+      by their wilful and obstinate adherence to the Emperor, would frustrate
+      the measures employed for their protection, involve the church in danger,
+      and themselves in ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richelieu pursued this plan with greater zeal, the more he was embarrassed
+      by the repeated demands of the Elector of Bavaria for assistance from
+      France; for this prince, as already stated, when he first began to
+      entertain suspicions of the Emperor, entered immediately into a secret
+      alliance with France, by which, in the event of any change in the
+      Emperor's sentiments, he hoped to secure the possession of the Palatinate.
+      But though the origin of the treaty clearly showed against what enemy it
+      was directed, Maximilian now thought proper to make use of it against the
+      King of Sweden, and did not hesitate to demand from France that assistance
+      against her ally, which she had simply promised against Austria.
+      Richelieu, embarrassed by this conflicting alliance with two hostile
+      powers, had no resource left but to endeavour to put a speedy termination
+      to their hostilities; and as little inclined to sacrifice Bavaria, as he
+      was disabled, by his treaty with Sweden, from assisting it, he set
+      himself, with all diligence, to bring about a neutrality, as the only
+      means of fulfilling his obligations to both. For this purpose, the Marquis
+      of Breze was sent, as his plenipotentiary, to the King of Sweden at Mentz,
+      to learn his sentiments on this point, and to procure from him favourable
+      conditions for the allied princes. But if Louis XIII. had powerful motives
+      for wishing for this neutrality, Gustavus Adolphus had as grave reasons
+      for desiring the contrary. Convinced by numerous proofs that the hatred of
+      the princes of the League to the Protestant religion was invincible, their
+      aversion to the foreign power of the Swedes inextinguishable, and their
+      attachment to the House of Austria irrevocable, he apprehended less danger
+      from their open hostility, than from a neutrality which was so little in
+      unison with their real inclinations; and, moreover, as he was constrained
+      to carry on the war in Germany at the expense of the enemy, he manifestly
+      sustained great loss if he diminished their number without increasing that
+      of his friends. It was not surprising, therefore, if Gustavus evinced
+      little inclination to purchase the neutrality of the League, by which he
+      was likely to gain so little, at the expense of the advantages he had
+      already obtained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conditions, accordingly, upon which he offered to adopt the neutrality
+      towards Bavaria were severe, and suited to these views. He required of the
+      whole League a full and entire cessation from all hostilities; the recall
+      of their troops from the imperial army, from the conquered towns, and from
+      all the Protestant countries; the reduction of their military force; the
+      exclusion of the imperial armies from their territories, and from supplies
+      either of men, provisions, or ammunition. Hard as the conditions were,
+      which the victor thus imposed upon the vanquished, the French mediator
+      flattered himself he should be able to induce the Elector of Bavaria to
+      accept them. In order to give time for an accommodation, Gustavus had
+      agreed to a cessation of hostilities for a fortnight. But at the very time
+      when this monarch was receiving from the French agents repeated assurances
+      of the favourable progress of the negociation, an intercepted letter from
+      the Elector to Pappenheim, the imperial general in Westphalia, revealed
+      the perfidy of that prince, as having no other object in view by the whole
+      negociation, than to gain time for his measures of defence. Far from
+      intending to fetter his military operations by a truce with Sweden, the
+      artful prince hastened his preparations, and employed the leisure which
+      his enemy afforded him, in making the most active dispositions for
+      resistance. The negociation accordingly failed, and served only to
+      increase the animosity of the Bavarians and the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tilly's augmented force, with which he threatened to overrun Franconia,
+      urgently required the king's presence in that circle; but it was necessary
+      to expel previously the Spaniards from the Rhine, and to cut off their
+      means of invading Germany from the Netherlands. With this view, Gustavus
+      Adolphus had made an offer of neutrality to the Elector of Treves, Philip
+      von Zeltern, on condition that the fortress of Hermanstein should be
+      delivered up to him, and a free passage granted to his troops through
+      Coblentz. But unwillingly as the Elector had beheld the Spaniards within
+      his territories, he was still less disposed to commit his estates to the
+      suspicious protection of a heretic, and to make the Swedish conqueror
+      master of his destinies. Too weak to maintain his independence between two
+      such powerful competitors, he took refuge in the protection of France.
+      With his usual prudence, Richelieu profited by the embarrassments of this
+      prince to augment the power of France, and to gain for her an important
+      ally on the German frontier. A numerous French army was despatched to
+      protect the territory of Treves, and a French garrison was received into
+      Ehrenbreitstein. But the object which had moved the Elector to this bold
+      step was not completely gained, for the offended pride of Gustavus
+      Adolphus was not appeased till he had obtained a free passage for his
+      troops through Treves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pending these negociations with Treves and France, the king's generals had
+      entirely cleared the territory of Mentz of the Spanish garrisons, and
+      Gustavus himself completed the conquest of this district by the capture of
+      Kreutznach. To protect these conquests, the chancellor Oxenstiern was left
+      with a division of the army upon the Middle Rhine, while the main body,
+      under the king himself, began its march against the enemy in Franconia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possession of this circle had, in the mean time, been disputed with
+      variable success, between Count Tilly and the Swedish General Horn, whom
+      Gustavus had left there with 8,000 men; and the Bishopric of Bamberg, in
+      particular, was at once the prize and the scene of their struggle. Called
+      away to the Rhine by his other projects, the king had left to his general
+      the chastisement of the bishop, whose perfidy had excited his indignation,
+      and the activity of Horn justified the choice. In a short time, he subdued
+      the greater part of the bishopric; and the capital itself, abandoned by
+      its imperial garrison, was carried by storm. The banished bishop urgently
+      demanded assistance from the Elector of Bavaria, who was at length
+      persuaded to put an end to Tilly's inactivity. Fully empowered by his
+      master's order to restore the bishop to his possessions, this general
+      collected his troops, who were scattered over the Upper Palatinate, and
+      with an army of 20,000 men advanced upon Bamberg. Firmly resolved to
+      maintain his conquest even against this overwhelming force, Horn awaited
+      the enemy within the walls of Bamberg; but was obliged to yield to the
+      vanguard of Tilly what he had thought to be able to dispute with his whole
+      army. A panic which suddenly seized his troops, and which no presence of
+      mind of their general could check, opened the gates to the enemy, and it
+      was with difficulty that the troops, baggage, and artillery, were saved.
+      The reconquest of Bamberg was the fruit of this victory; but Tilly, with
+      all his activity, was unable to overtake the Swedish general, who retired
+      in good order behind the Maine. The king's appearance in Franconia, and
+      his junction with Gustavus Horn at Kitzingen, put a stop to Tilly's
+      conquests, and compelled him to provide for his own safety by a rapid
+      retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king made a general review of his troops at Aschaffenburg. After his
+      junction with Gustavus Horn, Banner, and Duke William of Weimar, they
+      amounted to nearly 40,000 men. His progress through Franconia was
+      uninterrupted; for Tilly, far too weak to encounter an enemy so superior
+      in numbers, had retreated, by rapid marches, towards the Danube. Bohemia
+      and Bavaria were now equally near to the king, and, uncertain whither his
+      victorious course might be directed, Maximilian could form no immediate
+      resolution. The choice of the king, and the fate of both provinces, now
+      depended on the road that should be left open to Count Tilly. It was
+      dangerous, during the approach of so formidable an enemy, to leave Bavaria
+      undefended, in order to protect Austria; still more dangerous, by
+      receiving Tilly into Bavaria, to draw thither the enemy also, and to
+      render it the seat of a destructive war. The cares of the sovereign
+      finally overcame the scruples of the statesman, and Tilly received orders,
+      at all hazards, to cover the frontiers of Bavaria with his army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nuremberg received with triumphant joy the protector of the Protestant
+      religion and German freedom, and the enthusiasm of the citizens expressed
+      itself on his arrival in loud transports of admiration and joy. Even
+      Gustavus could not contain his astonishment, to see himself in this city,
+      which was the very centre of Germany, where he had never expected to be
+      able to penetrate. The noble appearance of his person, completed the
+      impression produced by his glorious exploits, and the condescension with
+      which he received the congratulations of this free city won all hearts. He
+      now confirmed the alliance he had concluded with it on the shores of the
+      Baltic, and excited the citizens to zealous activity and fraternal unity
+      against the common enemy. After a short stay in Nuremberg, he followed his
+      army to the Danube, and appeared unexpectedly before the frontier town of
+      Donauwerth. A numerous Bavarian garrison defended the place; and their
+      commander, Rodolph Maximilian, Duke of Saxe Lauenburg, showed at first a
+      resolute determination to defend it till the arrival of Tilly. But the
+      vigour with which Gustavus Adolphus prosecuted the siege, soon compelled
+      him to take measures for a speedy and secure retreat, which amidst a
+      tremendous fire from the Swedish artillery he successfully executed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest of Donauwerth opened to the king the further side of the
+      Danube, and now the small river Lech alone separated him from Bavaria. The
+      immediate danger of his dominions aroused all Maximilian's activity; and
+      however little he had hitherto disturbed the enemy's progress to his
+      frontier, he now determined to dispute as resolutely the remainder of
+      their course. On the opposite bank of the Lech, near the small town of
+      Rain, Tilly occupied a strongly fortified camp, which, surrounded by three
+      rivers, bade defiance to all attack. All the bridges over the Lech were
+      destroyed; the whole course of the stream protected by strong garrisons as
+      far as Augsburg; and that town itself, which had long betrayed its
+      impatience to follow the example of Nuremberg and Frankfort, secured by a
+      Bavarian garrison, and the disarming of its inhabitants. The Elector
+      himself, with all the troops he could collect, threw himself into Tilly's
+      camp, as if all his hopes centred on this single point, and here the good
+      fortune of the Swedes was to suffer shipwreck for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus, after subduing the whole territory of Augsburg, on his
+      own side of the river, and opening to his troops a rich supply of
+      necessaries from that quarter, soon appeared on the bank opposite the
+      Bavarian entrenchments. It was now the month of March, when the river,
+      swollen by frequent rains, and the melting of the snow from the mountains
+      of the Tyrol, flowed full and rapid between its steep banks. Its boiling
+      current threatened the rash assailants with certain destruction, while
+      from the opposite side the enemy's cannon showed their murderous mouths.
+      If, in despite of the fury both of fire and water, they should accomplish
+      this almost impossible passage, a fresh and vigorous enemy awaited the
+      exhausted troops in an impregnable camp; and when they needed repose and
+      refreshment they must prepare for battle. With exhausted powers they must
+      ascend the hostile entrenchments, whose strength seemed to bid defiance to
+      every assault. A defeat sustained upon this shore would be attended with
+      inevitable destruction, since the same stream which impeded their advance
+      would also cut off their retreat, if fortune should abandon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Swedish council of war, which the king now assembled, strongly urged
+      upon him all these considerations, in order to deter him from this
+      dangerous undertaking. The most intrepid were appalled, and a troop of
+      honourable warriors, who had grown gray in the field, did not hesitate to
+      express their alarm. But the king's resolution was fixed. "What!" said he
+      to Gustavus Horn, who spoke for the rest, "have we crossed the Baltic, and
+      so many great rivers of Germany, and shall we now be checked by a brook
+      like the Lech?" Gustavus had already, at great personal risk, reconnoitred
+      the whole country, and discovered that his own side of the river was
+      higher than the other, and consequently gave a considerable advantage to
+      the fire of the Swedish artillery over that of the enemy. With great
+      presence of mind he determined to profit by this circumstance. At the
+      point where the left bank of the Lech forms an angle with the right, he
+      immediately caused three batteries to be erected, from which 72
+      field-pieces maintained a cross fire upon the enemy. While this tremendous
+      cannonade drove the Bavarians from the opposite bank, he caused to be
+      erected a bridge over the river with all possible rapidity. A thick smoke,
+      kept up by burning wood and wet straw, concealed for some time the
+      progress of the work from the enemy, while the continued thunder of the
+      cannon overpowered the noise of the axes. He kept alive by his own example
+      the courage of his troops, and discharged more than 60 cannon with his own
+      hand. The cannonade was returned by the Bavarians with equal vivacity for
+      two hours, though with less effect, as the Swedish batteries swept the
+      lower opposite bank, while their height served as a breast-work to their
+      own troops. In vain, therefore, did the Bavarians attempt to destroy these
+      works; the superior fire of the Swedes threw them into disorder, and the
+      bridge was completed under their very eyes. On this dreadful day, Tilly
+      did every thing in his power to encourage his troops; and no danger could
+      drive him from the bank. At length he found the death which he sought, a
+      cannon ball shattered his leg; and Altringer, his brave companion-in-arms,
+      was, soon after, dangerously wounded in the head. Deprived of the
+      animating presence of their two generals, the Bavarians gave way at last,
+      and Maximilian, in spite of his own judgment, was driven to adopt a
+      pusillanimous resolve. Overcome by the persuasions of the dying Tilly,
+      whose wonted firmness was overpowered by the near approach of death, he
+      gave up his impregnable position for lost; and the discovery by the Swedes
+      of a ford, by which their cavalry were on the point of passing,
+      accelerated his inglorious retreat. The same night, before a single
+      soldier of the enemy had crossed the Lech, he broke up his camp, and,
+      without giving time for the King to harass him in his march, retreated in
+      good order to Neuburgh and Ingolstadt. With astonishment did Gustavus
+      Adolphus, who completed the passage of the river on the following day
+      behold the hostile camp abandoned; and the Elector's flight surprised him
+      still more, when he saw the strength of the position he had quitted. "Had
+      I been the Bavarian," said he, "though a cannon ball had carried away my
+      beard and chin, never would I have abandoned a position like this, and
+      laid open my territory to my enemies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bavaria now lay exposed to the conqueror; and, for the first time, the
+      tide of war, which had hitherto only beat against its frontier, now flowed
+      over its long spared and fertile fields. Before, however, the King
+      proceeded to the conquest of these provinces, he delivered the town of
+      Augsburg from the yoke of Bavaria; exacted an oath of allegiance from the
+      citizens; and to secure its observance, left a garrison in the town. He
+      then advanced, by rapid marches, against Ingolstadt, in order, by the
+      capture of this important fortress, which the Elector covered with the
+      greater part of his army, to secure his conquests in Bavaria, and obtain a
+      firm footing on the Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after the appearance of the Swedish King before Ingolstadt, the
+      wounded Tilly, after experiencing the caprice of unstable fortune,
+      terminated his career within the walls of that town. Conquered by the
+      superior generalship of Gustavus Adolphus, he lost, at the close of his
+      days, all the laurels of his earlier victories, and appeased, by a series
+      of misfortunes, the demands of justice, and the avenging manes of
+      Magdeburg. In his death, the Imperial army and that of the League
+      sustained an irreparable loss; the Roman Catholic religion was deprived of
+      its most zealous defender, and Maximilian of Bavaria of the most faithful
+      of his servants, who sealed his fidelity by his death, and even in his
+      dying moments fulfilled the duties of a general. His last message to the
+      Elector was an urgent advice to take possession of Ratisbon, in order to
+      maintain the command of the Danube, and to keep open the communication
+      with Bohemia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the confidence which was the natural fruit of so many victories,
+      Gustavus Adolphus commenced the siege of Ingolstadt, hoping to gain the
+      town by the fury of his first assault. But the strength of its
+      fortifications, and the bravery of its garrison, presented obstacles
+      greater than any he had had to encounter since the battle of Breitenfeld,
+      and the walls of Ingolstadt were near putting an end to his career. While
+      reconnoitring the works, a 24-pounder killed his horse under him, and he
+      fell to the ground, while almost immediately afterwards another ball
+      struck his favourite, the young Margrave of Baden, by his side. With
+      perfect self-possession the king rose, and quieted the fears of his troops
+      by immediately mounting another horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The occupation of Ratisbon by the Bavarians, who, by the advice of Tilly,
+      had surprised this town by stratagem, and placed in it a strong garrison,
+      quickly changed the king's plan of operations. He had flattered himself
+      with the hope of gaining this town, which favoured the Protestant cause,
+      and to find in it an ally as devoted to him as Nuremberg, Augsburg, and
+      Frankfort. Its seizure by the Bavarians seemed to postpone for a long time
+      the fulfilment of his favourite project of making himself master of the
+      Danube, and cutting off his adversaries' supplies from Bohemia. He
+      suddenly raised the siege of Ingolstadt, before which he had wasted both
+      his time and his troops, and penetrated into the interior of Bavaria, in
+      order to draw the Elector into that quarter for the defence of his
+      territories, and thus to strip the Danube of its defenders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole country, as far as Munich, now lay open to the conqueror.
+      Mosburg, Landshut, and the whole territory of Freysingen, submitted;
+      nothing could resist his arms. But if he met with no regular force to
+      oppose his progress, he had to contend against a still more implacable
+      enemy in the heart of every Bavarian&mdash;religious fanaticism. Soldiers
+      who did not believe in the Pope were, in this country, a new and
+      unheard-of phenomenon; the blind zeal of the priests represented them to
+      the peasantry as monsters, the children of hell, and their leader as
+      Antichrist. No wonder, then, if they thought themselves released from all
+      the ties of nature and humanity towards this brood of Satan, and justified
+      in committing the most savage atrocities upon them. Woe to the Swedish
+      soldier who fell into their hands! All the torments which inventive malice
+      could devise were exercised upon these unhappy victims; and the sight of
+      their mangled bodies exasperated the army to a fearful retaliation.
+      Gustavus Adolphus, alone, sullied the lustre of his heroic character by no
+      act of revenge; and the aversion which the Bavarians felt towards his
+      religion, far from making him depart from the obligations of humanity
+      towards that unfortunate people, seemed to impose upon him the stricter
+      duty to honour his religion by a more constant clemency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The approach of the king spread terror and consternation in the capital,
+      which, stripped of its defenders, and abandoned by its principal
+      inhabitants, placed all its hopes in the magnanimity of the conqueror. By
+      an unconditional and voluntary surrender, it hoped to disarm his
+      vengeance; and sent deputies even to Freysingen to lay at his feet the
+      keys of the city. Strongly as the king might have been tempted by the
+      inhumanity of the Bavarians, and the hostility of their sovereign, to make
+      a dreadful use of the rights of victory; pressed as he was by Germans to
+      avenge the fate of Magdeburg on the capital of its destroyer, this great
+      prince scorned this mean revenge; and the very helplessness of his enemies
+      disarmed his severity. Contented with the more noble triumph of conducting
+      the Palatine Frederick with the pomp of a victor into the very palace of
+      the prince who had been the chief instrument of his ruin, and the usurper
+      of his territories, he heightened the brilliancy of his triumphal entry by
+      the brighter splendour of moderation and clemency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King found in Munich only a forsaken palace, for the Elector's
+      treasures had been transported to Werfen. The magnificence of the building
+      astonished him; and he asked the guide who showed the apartments who was
+      the architect. "No other," replied he, "than the Elector himself."&mdash;"I
+      wish," said the King, "I had this architect to send to Stockholm." "That,"
+      he was answered, "the architect will take care to prevent." When the
+      arsenal was examined, they found nothing but carriages, stripped of their
+      cannon. The latter had been so artfully concealed under the floor, that no
+      traces of them remained; and but for the treachery of a workman, the
+      deceit would not have been detected. "Rise up from the dead," said the
+      King, "and come to judgment." The floor was pulled up, and 140 pieces of
+      cannon discovered, some of extraordinary calibre, which had been
+      principally taken in the Palatinate and Bohemia. A treasure of 30,000 gold
+      ducats, concealed in one of the largest, completed the pleasure which the
+      King received from this valuable acquisition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A far more welcome spectacle still would have been the Bavarian army
+      itself; for his march into the heart of Bavaria had been undertaken
+      chiefly with the view of luring them from their entrenchments. In this
+      expectation he was disappointed. No enemy appeared; no entreaties, however
+      urgent, on the part of his subjects, could induce the Elector to risk the
+      remainder of his army to the chances of a battle. Shut up in Ratisbon, he
+      awaited the reinforcements which Wallenstein was bringing from Bohemia;
+      and endeavoured, in the mean time, to amuse his enemy and keep him
+      inactive, by reviving the negociation for a neutrality. But the King's
+      distrust, too often and too justly excited by his previous conduct,
+      frustrated this design; and the intentional delay of Wallenstein abandoned
+      Bavaria to the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far had Gustavus advanced from victory to victory, without meeting
+      with an enemy able to cope with him. A part of Bavaria and Swabia, the
+      Bishoprics of Franconia, the Lower Palatinate, and the Archbishopric of
+      Mentz, lay conquered in his rear. An uninterrupted career of conquest had
+      conducted him to the threshold of Austria; and the most brilliant success
+      had fully justified the plan of operations which he had formed after the
+      battle of Breitenfeld. If he had not succeeded to his wish in promoting a
+      confederacy among the Protestant States, he had at least disarmed or
+      weakened the League, carried on the war chiefly at its expense, lessened
+      the Emperor's resources, emboldened the weaker States, and while he laid
+      under contribution the allies of the Emperor, forced a way through their
+      territories into Austria itself. Where arms were unavailing, the greatest
+      service was rendered by the friendship of the free cities, whose
+      affections he had gained, by the double ties of policy and religion; and,
+      as long as he should maintain his superiority in the field, he might
+      reckon on every thing from their zeal. By his conquests on the Rhine, the
+      Spaniards were cut off from the Lower Palatinate, even if the state of the
+      war in the Netherlands left them at liberty to interfere in the affairs of
+      Germany. The Duke of Lorraine, too, after his unfortunate campaign, had
+      been glad to adopt a neutrality. Even the numerous garrisons he had left
+      behind him, in his progress through Germany, had not diminished his army;
+      and, fresh and vigorous as when he first began his march, he now stood in
+      the centre of Bavaria, determined and prepared to carry the war into the
+      heart of Austria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Gustavus Adolphus thus maintained his superiority within the empire,
+      fortune, in another quarter, had been no less favourable to his ally, the
+      Elector of Saxony. By the arrangement concerted between these princes at
+      Halle, after the battle of Leipzig, the conquest of Bohemia was intrusted
+      to the Elector of Saxony, while the King reserved for himself the attack
+      upon the territories of the League. The first fruits which the Elector
+      reaped from the battle of Breitenfeld, was the reconquest of Leipzig,
+      which was shortly followed by the expulsion of the Austrian garrisons from
+      the entire circle. Reinforced by the troops who deserted to him from the
+      hostile garrisons, the Saxon General, Arnheim, marched towards Lusatia,
+      which had been overrun by an Imperial General, Rudolph von Tiefenbach, in
+      order to chastise the Elector for embracing the cause of the enemy. He had
+      already commenced in this weakly defended province the usual course of
+      devastation, taken several towns, and terrified Dresden itself by his
+      approach, when his destructive progress was suddenly stopped, by an
+      express mandate from the Emperor to spare the possessions of the King of
+      Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferdinand had perceived too late the errors of that policy, which reduced
+      the Elector of Saxony to extremities, and forcibly driven this powerful
+      monarch into an alliance with Sweden. By moderation, equally ill-timed, he
+      now wished to repair if possible the consequences of his haughtiness; and
+      thus committed a second error in endeavouring to repair the first. To
+      deprive his enemy of so powerful an ally, he had opened, through the
+      intervention of Spain, a negociation with the Elector; and in order to
+      facilitate an accommodation, Tiefenbach was ordered immediately to retire
+      from Saxony. But these concessions of the Emperor, far from producing the
+      desired effect, only revealed to the Elector the embarrassment of his
+      adversary and his own importance, and emboldened him the more to prosecute
+      the advantages he had already obtained. How could he, moreover, without
+      becoming chargeable with the most shameful ingratitude, abandon an ally to
+      whom he had given the most solemn assurances of fidelity, and to whom he
+      was indebted for the preservation of his dominions, and even of his
+      Electoral dignity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saxon army, now relieved from the necessity of marching into Lusatia,
+      advanced towards Bohemia, where a combination of favourable circumstances
+      seemed to ensure them an easy victory. In this kingdom, the first scene of
+      this fatal war, the flames of dissension still smouldered beneath the
+      ashes, while the discontent of the inhabitants was fomented by daily acts
+      of oppression and tyranny. On every side, this unfortunate country showed
+      signs of a mournful change. Whole districts had changed their proprietors,
+      and groaned under the hated yoke of Roman Catholic masters, whom the
+      favour of the Emperor and the Jesuits had enriched with the plunder and
+      possessions of the exiled Protestants. Others, taking advantage themselves
+      of the general distress, had purchased, at a low rate, the confiscated
+      estates. The blood of the most eminent champions of liberty had been shed
+      upon the scaffold; and such as by a timely flight avoided that fate, were
+      wandering in misery far from their native land, while the obsequious
+      slaves of despotism enjoyed their patrimony. Still more insupportable than
+      the oppression of these petty tyrants, was the restraint of conscience
+      which was imposed without distinction on all the Protestants of that
+      kingdom. No external danger, no opposition on the part of the nation,
+      however steadfast, not even the fearful lessons of past experience could
+      check in the Jesuits the rage of proselytism; where fair means were
+      ineffectual, recourse was had to military force to bring the deluded
+      wanderers within the pale of the church. The inhabitants of Joachimsthal,
+      on the frontiers between Bohemia and Meissen, were the chief sufferers
+      from this violence. Two imperial commissaries, accompanied by as many
+      Jesuits, and supported by fifteen musketeers, made their appearance in
+      this peaceful valley to preach the gospel to the heretics. Where the
+      rhetoric of the former was ineffectual, the forcibly quartering the latter
+      upon the houses, and threats of banishment and fines were tried. But on
+      this occasion, the good cause prevailed, and the bold resistance of this
+      small district compelled the Emperor disgracefully to recall his mandate
+      of conversion. The example of the court had, however, afforded a precedent
+      to the Roman Catholics of the empire, and seemed to justify every act of
+      oppression which their insolence tempted them to wreak upon the
+      Protestants. It is not surprising, then, if this persecuted party was
+      favourable to a revolution, and saw with pleasure their deliverers on the
+      frontiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saxon army was already on its march towards Prague, the imperial
+      garrisons everywhere retired before them. Schloeckenau, Tetschen, Aussig,
+      Leutmeritz, soon fell into the enemy's hands, and every Roman Catholic
+      place was abandoned to plunder. Consternation seized all the Papists of
+      the Empire; and conscious of the outrages which they themselves had
+      committed on the Protestants, they did not venture to abide the vengeful
+      arrival of a Protestant army. All the Roman Catholics, who had anything to
+      lose, fled hastily from the country to the capital, which again they
+      presently abandoned. Prague was unprepared for an attack, and was too
+      weakly garrisoned to sustain a long siege. Too late had the Emperor
+      resolved to despatch Field-Marshal Tiefenbach to the defence of this
+      capital. Before the imperial orders could reach the head-quarters of that
+      general, in Silesia, the Saxons were already close to Prague, the
+      Protestant inhabitants of which showed little zeal, while the weakness of
+      the garrison left no room to hope a long resistance. In this fearful state
+      of embarrassment, the Roman Catholics of Prague looked for security to
+      Wallenstein, who now lived in that city as a private individual. But far
+      from lending his military experience, and the weight of his name, towards
+      its defence, he seized the favourable opportunity to satiate his thirst
+      for revenge. If he did not actually invite the Saxons to Prague, at least
+      his conduct facilitated its capture. Though unprepared, the town might
+      still hold out until succours could arrive; and an imperial colonel, Count
+      Maradas, showed serious intentions of undertaking its defence. But without
+      command and authority, and having no support but his own zeal and courage,
+      he did not dare to venture upon such a step without the advice of a
+      superior. He therefore consulted the Duke of Friedland, whose approbation
+      might supply the want of authority from the Emperor, and to whom the
+      Bohemian generals were referred by an express edict of the court in the
+      last extremity. He, however, artfully excused himself, on the plea of
+      holding no official appointment, and his long retirement from the
+      political world; while he weakened the resolution of the subalterns by the
+      scruples which he suggested, and painted in the strongest colours. At
+      last, to render the consternation general and complete, he quitted the
+      capital with his whole court, however little he had to fear from its
+      capture; and the city was lost, because, by his departure, he showed that
+      he despaired of its safety. His example was followed by all the Roman
+      Catholic nobility, the generals with their troops, the clergy, and all the
+      officers of the crown. All night the people were employed in saving their
+      persons and effects. The roads to Vienna were crowded with fugitives, who
+      scarcely recovered from their consternation till they reached the imperial
+      city. Maradas himself, despairing of the safety of Prague, followed the
+      rest, and led his small detachment to Tabor, where he awaited the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Profound silence reigned in Prague, when the Saxons next morning appeared
+      before it; no preparations were made for defence; not a single shot from
+      the walls announced an intention of resistance. On the contrary, a crowd
+      of spectators from the town, allured by curiosity, came flocking round, to
+      behold the foreign army; and the peaceful confidence with which they
+      advanced, resembled a friendly salutation, more than a hostile reception.
+      From the concurrent reports of these people, the Saxons learned that the
+      town had been deserted by the troops, and that the government had fled to
+      Budweiss. This unexpected and inexplicable absence of resistance excited
+      Arnheim's distrust the more, as the speedy approach of the Silesian
+      succours was no secret to him, and as he knew that the Saxon army was too
+      indifferently provided with materials for undertaking a siege, and by far
+      too weak in numbers to attempt to take the place by storm. Apprehensive of
+      stratagem, he redoubled his vigilance; and he continued in this conviction
+      until Wallenstein's house-steward, whom he discovered among the crowd,
+      confirmed to him this intelligence. "The town is ours without a blow!"
+      exclaimed he in astonishment to his officers, and immediately summoned it
+      by a trumpeter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The citizens of Prague, thus shamefully abandoned by their defenders, had
+      long taken their resolution; all that they had to do was to secure their
+      properties and liberties by an advantageous capitulation. No sooner was
+      the treaty signed by the Saxon general, in his master's name, than the
+      gates were opened, without farther opposition; and upon the 11th of
+      November, 1631, the army made their triumphal entry. The Elector soon
+      after followed in person, to receive the homage of those whom he had newly
+      taken under his protection; for it was only in the character of protector
+      that the three towns of Prague had surrendered to him. Their allegiance to
+      the Austrian monarchy was not to be dissolved by the step they had taken.
+      In proportion as the Papists' apprehensions of reprisals on the part of
+      the Protestants had been exaggerated, so was their surprise great at the
+      moderation of the Elector, and the discipline of his troops. Field-Marshal
+      Arnheim plainly evinced, on this occasion, his respect for Wallenstein.
+      Not content with sparing his estates on his march, he now placed guards
+      over his palace, in Prague, to prevent the plunder of any of his effects.
+      The Roman Catholics of the town were allowed the fullest liberty of
+      conscience; and of all the churches they had wrested from the Protestants,
+      four only were now taken back from them. From this general indulgence,
+      none were excluded but the Jesuits, who were generally considered as the
+      authors of all past grievances, and thus banished the kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John George belied not the submission and dependence with which the terror
+      of the imperial name inspired him; nor did he indulge at Prague, in a
+      course of conduct which would assuredly have been pursued against himself
+      in Dresden, by imperial generals, such as Tilly or Wallenstein. He
+      carefully distinguished between the enemy with whom he was at war, and the
+      head of the Empire, to whom he owed obedience. He did not venture to touch
+      the household furniture of the latter, while, without scruple, he appropriated
+      and transported to Dresden the cannon of the former. He did not take up
+      his residence in the imperial palace, but the house of Lichtenstein; too
+      modest to use the apartments of one whom he had deprived of a kingdom. Had
+      this trait been related of a great man and a hero, it would irresistibly
+      excite our admiration; but the character of this prince leaves us in doubt
+      whether this moderation ought to be ascribed to a noble self-command, or
+      to the littleness of a weak mind, which even good fortune could not
+      embolden, and liberty itself could not strip of its habituated fetters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surrender of Prague, which was quickly followed by that of most of the
+      other towns, effected a great and sudden change in Bohemia. Many of the
+      Protestant nobility, who had hitherto been wandering about in misery, now
+      returned to their native country; and Count Thurn, the famous author of
+      the Bohemian insurrection, enjoyed the triumph of returning as a conqueror
+      to the scene of his crime and his condemnation. Over the very bridge where
+      the heads of his adherents, exposed to view, held out a fearful picture of
+      the fate which had threatened himself, he now made his triumphal entry;
+      and to remove these ghastly objects was his first care. The exiles again
+      took possession of their properties, without thinking of recompensing for
+      the purchase money the present possessors, who had mostly taken to flight.
+      Even though they had received a price for their estates, they seized on
+      every thing which had once been their own; and many had reason to rejoice
+      at the economy of the late possessors. The lands and cattle had greatly
+      improved in their hands; the apartments were now decorated with the most
+      costly furniture; the cellars, which had been left empty, were richly
+      filled; the stables supplied; the magazines stored with provisions. But
+      distrusting the constancy of that good fortune, which had so unexpectedly
+      smiled upon them, they hastened to get quit of these insecure possessions,
+      and to convert their immoveable into transferable property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of the Saxons inspired all the Protestants of the kingdom
+      with courage; and, both in the country and the capital, crowds flocked to
+      the newly opened Protestant churches. Many, whom fear alone had retained
+      in their adherence to Popery, now openly professed the new doctrine; and
+      many of the late converts to Roman Catholicism gladly renounced a
+      compulsory persuasion, to follow the earlier conviction of their
+      conscience. All the moderation of the new regency, could not restrain the
+      manifestation of that just displeasure, which this persecuted people felt
+      against their oppressors. They made a fearful and cruel use of their newly
+      recovered rights; and, in many parts of the kingdom, their hatred of the
+      religion which they had been compelled to profess, could be satiated only
+      by the blood of its adherents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the succours which the imperial generals, Goetz and Tiefenbach,
+      were conducting from Silesia, had entered Bohemia, where they were joined
+      by some of Tilly's regiments, from the Upper Palatinate. In order to
+      disperse them before they should receive any further reinforcement,
+      Arnheim advanced with part of his army from Prague, and made a vigorous
+      attack on their entrenchments near Limburg, on the Elbe. After a severe
+      action, not without great loss, he drove the enemy from their fortified
+      camp, and forced them, by his heavy fire, to recross the Elbe, and to
+      destroy the bridge which they had built over that river. Nevertheless, the
+      Imperialists obtained the advantage in several skirmishes, and the Croats
+      pushed their incursions to the very gates of Prague. Brilliant and
+      promising as the opening of the Bohemian campaign had been, the issue by
+      no means satisfied the expectations of Gustavus Adolphus. Instead of
+      vigorously following up their advantages, by forcing a passage to the
+      Swedish army through the conquered country, and then, with it, attacking
+      the imperial power in its centre, the Saxons weakened themselves in a war
+      of skirmishes, in which they were not always successful, while they lost
+      the time which should have been devoted to greater undertakings. But the
+      Elector's subsequent conduct betrayed the motives which had prevented him
+      from pushing his advantage over the Emperor, and by consistent measures
+      promoting the plans of the King of Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor had now lost the greater part of Bohemia, and the Saxons were
+      advancing against Austria, while the Swedish monarch was rapidly moving to
+      the same point through Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. A long war had
+      exhausted the strength of the Austrian monarchy, wasted the country, and
+      diminished its armies. The renown of its victories was no more, as well as
+      the confidence inspired by constant success; its troops had lost the
+      obedience and discipline to which those of the Swedish monarch owed all
+      their superiority in the field. The confederates of the Emperor were
+      disarmed, or their fidelity shaken by the danger which threatened
+      themselves. Even Maximilian of Bavaria, Austria's most powerful ally,
+      seemed disposed to yield to the seductive proposition of neutrality; while
+      his suspicious alliance with France had long been a subject of
+      apprehension to the Emperor. The bishops of Wurtzburg and Bamberg, the
+      Elector of Mentz, and the Duke of Lorraine, were either expelled from
+      their territories, or threatened with immediate attack; Treves had placed
+      itself under the protection of France. The bravery of the Hollanders gave
+      full employment to the Spanish arms in the Netherlands; while Gustavus had
+      driven them from the Rhine. Poland was still fettered by the truce which
+      subsisted between that country and Sweden. The Hungarian frontier was
+      threatened by the Transylvanian Prince, Ragotsky, a successor of Bethlen
+      Gabor, and the inheritor of his restless mind; while the Porte was making
+      great preparation to profit by the favourable conjuncture for aggression.
+      Most of the Protestant states, encouraged by their protector's success,
+      were openly and actively declaring against the Emperor. All the resources
+      which had been obtained by the violent and oppressive extortions of Tilly
+      and Wallenstein were exhausted; all these depots, magazines, and
+      rallying-points, were now lost to the Emperor; and the war could no longer
+      be carried on as before at the cost of others. To complete his
+      embarrassment, a dangerous insurrection broke out in the territory of the
+      Ens, where the ill-timed religious zeal of the government had provoked the
+      Protestants to resistance; and thus fanaticism lit its torch within the
+      empire, while a foreign enemy was already on its frontier. After so long a
+      continuance of good fortune, such brilliant victories and extensive
+      conquests, such fruitless effusion of blood, the Emperor saw himself a
+      second time on the brink of that abyss, into which he was so near falling
+      at the commencement of his reign. If Bavaria should embrace the
+      neutrality; if Saxony should resist the tempting offers he had held out;
+      and France resolve to attack the Spanish power at the same time in the
+      Netherlands, in Italy and in Catalonia, the ruin of Austria would be
+      complete; the allied powers would divide its spoils, and the political
+      system of Germany would undergo a total change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chain of these disasters began with the battle of Breitenfeld, the
+      unfortunate issue of which plainly revealed the long decided decline of
+      the Austrian power, whose weakness had hitherto been concealed under the
+      dazzling glitter of a grand name. The chief cause of the Swedes'
+      superiority in the field, was evidently to be ascribed to the unlimited
+      power of their leader, who concentrated in himself the whole strength of
+      his party; and, unfettered in his enterprises by any higher authority, was
+      complete master of every favourable opportunity, could control all his
+      means to the accomplishment of his ends, and was responsible to none but
+      himself. But since Wallenstein's dismissal, and Tilly's defeat, the very
+      reverse of this course was pursued by the Emperor and the League. The
+      generals wanted authority over their troops, and liberty of acting at
+      their discretion; the soldiers were deficient in discipline and obedience;
+      the scattered corps in combined operation; the states in attachment to the
+      cause; the leaders in harmony among themselves, in quickness to resolve,
+      and firmness to execute. What gave the Emperor's enemy so decided an
+      advantage over him, was not so much their superior power, as their manner
+      of using it. The League and the Emperor did not want means, but a mind
+      capable of directing them with energy and effect. Even had Count Tilly not
+      lost his old renown, distrust of Bavaria would not allow the Emperor to
+      place the fate of Austria in the hands of one who had never concealed his
+      attachment to the Bavarian Elector. The urgent want which Ferdinand felt,
+      was for a general possessed of sufficient experience to form and to
+      command an army, and willing at the same time to dedicate his services,
+      with blind devotion, to the Austrian monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This choice now occupied the attention of the Emperor's privy council, and
+      divided the opinions of its members. In order to oppose one monarch to
+      another, and by the presence of their sovereign to animate the courage of
+      the troops, Ferdinand, in the ardour of the moment, had offered himself to
+      be the leader of his army; but little trouble was required to overturn a
+      resolution which was the offspring of despair alone, and which yielded at
+      once to calm reflection. But the situation which his dignity, and the
+      duties of administration, prevented the Emperor from holding, might be
+      filled by his son, a youth of talents and bravery, and of whom the
+      subjects of Austria had already formed great expectations. Called by his
+      birth to the defence of a monarchy, of whose crowns he wore two already,
+      Ferdinand III., King of Hungary and Bohemia, united, with the natural
+      dignity of heir to the throne, the respect of the army, and the attachment
+      of the people, whose co-operation was indispensable to him in the conduct
+      of the war. None but the beloved heir to the crown could venture to impose
+      new burdens on a people already severely oppressed; his personal presence
+      with the army could alone suppress the pernicious jealousies of the
+      several leaders, and by the influence of his name, restore the neglected
+      discipline of the troops to its former rigour. If so young a leader was
+      devoid of the maturity of judgment, prudence, and military experience
+      which practice alone could impart, this deficiency might be supplied by a
+      judicious choice of counsellors and assistants, who, under the cover of
+      his name, might be vested with supreme authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But plausible as were the arguments with which a part of the ministry
+      supported this plan, it was met by difficulties not less serious, arising
+      from the distrust, perhaps even the jealousy, of the Emperor, and also
+      from the desperate state of affairs. How dangerous was it to entrust the
+      fate of the monarchy to a youth, who was himself in need of counsel and
+      support! How hazardous to oppose to the greatest general of his age, a
+      tyro, whose fitness for so important a post had never yet been tested by
+      experience; whose name, as yet unknown to fame, was far too powerless to
+      inspire a dispirited army with the assurance of future victory! What a new
+      burden on the country, to support the state a royal leader was required to
+      maintain, and which the prejudices of the age considered as inseparable
+      from his presence with the army! How serious a consideration for the
+      prince himself, to commence his political career, with an office which
+      must make him the scourge of his people, and the oppressor of the
+      territories which he was hereafter to rule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But not only was a general to be found for the army; an army must also be
+      found for the general. Since the compulsory resignation of Wallenstein,
+      the Emperor had defended himself more by the assistance of Bavaria and the
+      League, than by his own armies; and it was this dependence on equivocal
+      allies, which he was endeavouring to escape, by the appointment of a
+      general of his own. But what possibility was there of raising an army out
+      of nothing, without the all-powerful aid of gold, and the inspiriting name
+      of a victorious commander; above all, an army which, by its discipline,
+      warlike spirit, and activity, should be fit to cope with the experienced
+      troops of the northern conqueror? In all Europe, there was but one man
+      equal to this, and that one had been mortally affronted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment had at last arrived, when more than ordinary satisfaction was
+      to be done to the wounded pride of the Duke of Friedland. Fate itself had
+      been his avenger, and an unbroken chain of disasters, which had assailed
+      Austria from the day of his dismissal, had wrung from the Emperor the
+      humiliating confession, that with this general he had lost his right arm.
+      Every defeat of his troops opened afresh this wound; every town which he
+      lost, revived in the mind of the deceived monarch the memory of his own
+      weakness and ingratitude. It would have been well for him, if, in the
+      offended general, he had only lost a leader of his troops, and a defender
+      of his dominions; but he was destined to find in him an enemy, and the
+      most dangerous of all, since he was least armed against the stroke of
+      treason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Removed from the theatre of war, and condemned to irksome inaction, while
+      his rivals gathered laurels on the field of glory, the haughty duke had
+      beheld these changes of fortune with affected composure, and concealed,
+      under a glittering and theatrical pomp, the dark designs of his restless
+      genius. Torn by burning passions within, while all without bespoke
+      calmness and indifference, he brooded over projects of ambition and
+      revenge, and slowly, but surely, advanced towards his end. All that he
+      owed to the Emperor was effaced from his mind; what he himself had done
+      for the Emperor was imprinted in burning characters on his memory. To his
+      insatiable thirst for power, the Emperor's ingratitude was welcome, as it
+      seemed to tear in pieces the record of past favours, to absolve him from
+      every obligation towards his former benefactor. In the disguise of a
+      righteous retaliation, the projects dictated by his ambition now appeared
+      to him just and pure. In proportion as the external circle of his
+      operations was narrowed, the world of hope expanded before him, and his
+      dreamy imagination revelled in boundless projects, which, in any mind but
+      such as his, madness alone could have given birth to. His services had
+      raised him to the proudest height which it was possible for a man, by his
+      own efforts, to attain. Fortune had denied him nothing which the subject
+      and the citizen could lawfully enjoy. Till the moment of his dismissal,
+      his demands had met with no refusal, his ambition had met with no check;
+      but the blow which, at the diet of Ratisbon, humbled him, showed him the
+      difference between ORIGINAL and DEPUTED power, the distance between the
+      subject and his sovereign. Roused from the intoxication of his own
+      greatness by this sudden reverse of fortune, he compared the authority
+      which he had possessed, with that which had deprived him of it; and his
+      ambition marked the steps which it had yet to surmount upon the ladder of
+      fortune. From the moment he had so bitterly experienced the weight of
+      sovereign power, his efforts were directed to attain it for himself; the
+      wrong which he himself had suffered made him a robber. Had he not been
+      outraged by injustice, he might have obediently moved in his orbit round
+      the majesty of the throne, satisfied with the glory of being the brightest
+      of its satellites. It was only when violently forced from its sphere, that
+      his wandering star threw in disorder the system to which it belonged, and
+      came in destructive collision with its sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus had overrun the north of Germany; one place after
+      another was lost; and at Leipzig, the flower of the Austrian army had
+      fallen. The intelligence of this defeat soon reached the ears of
+      Wallenstein, who, in the retired obscurity of a private station in Prague,
+      contemplated from a calm distance the tumult of war. The news, which
+      filled the breasts of the Roman Catholics with dismay, announced to him
+      the return of greatness and good fortune. For him was Gustavus Adolphus
+      labouring. Scarce had the king begun to gain reputation by his exploits,
+      when Wallenstein lost not a moment to court his friendship, and to make
+      common cause with this successful enemy of Austria. The banished Count
+      Thurn, who had long entered the service of Sweden, undertook to convey
+      Wallenstein's congratulations to the king, and to invite him to a close
+      alliance with the duke. Wallenstein required 15,000 men from the king; and
+      with these, and the troops he himself engaged to raise, he undertook to
+      conquer Bohemia and Moravia, to surprise Vienna, and drive his master, the
+      Emperor, before him into Italy. Welcome as was this unexpected
+      proposition, its extravagant promises were naturally calculated to excite
+      suspicion. Gustavus Adolphus was too good a judge of merit to reject with
+      coldness the offers of one who might be so important a friend. But when
+      Wallenstein, encouraged by the favourable reception of his first message,
+      renewed it after the battle of Breitenfeld, and pressed for a decisive
+      answer, the prudent monarch hesitated to trust his reputation to the
+      chimerical projects of so daring an adventurer, and to commit so large a
+      force to the honesty of a man who felt no shame in openly avowing himself
+      a traitor. He excused himself, therefore, on the plea of the weakness of
+      his army which, if diminished by so large a detachment, would certainly
+      suffer in its march through the empire; and thus, perhaps, by excess of
+      caution, lost an opportunity of putting an immediate end to the war. He
+      afterwards endeavoured to renew the negociation; but the favourable moment
+      was past, and Wallenstein's offended pride never forgave the first
+      neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the king's hesitation, perhaps, only accelerated the breach, which
+      their characters made inevitable sooner or later. Both framed by nature to
+      give laws, not to receive them, they could not long have co-operated in an
+      enterprise, which eminently demanded mutual submission and sacrifices.
+      Wallenstein was NOTHING where he was not EVERYTHING; he must either act
+      with unlimited power, or not at all. So cordially, too, did Gustavus
+      dislike control, that he had almost renounced his advantageous alliance
+      with France, because it threatened to fetter his own independent judgment.
+      Wallenstein was lost to a party, if he could not lead; the latter was, if
+      possible, still less disposed to obey the instructions of another. If the
+      pretensions of a rival would be so irksome to the Duke of Friedland, in
+      the conduct of combined operations, in the division of the spoil they
+      would be insupportable. The proud monarch might condescend to accept the
+      assistance of a rebellious subject against the Emperor, and to reward his
+      valuable services with regal munificence; but he never could so far lose
+      sight of his own dignity, and the majesty of royalty, as to bestow the
+      recompense which the extravagant ambition of Wallenstein demanded; and
+      requite an act of treason, however useful, with a crown. In him,
+      therefore, even if all Europe should tacitly acquiesce, Wallenstein had
+      reason to expect the most decided and formidable opponent to his views on
+      the Bohemian crown; and in all Europe he was the only one who could
+      enforce his opposition. Constituted Dictator in Germany by Wallenstein
+      himself, he might turn his arms against him, and consider himself bound by
+      no obligations to one who was himself a traitor. There was no room for a
+      Wallenstein under such an ally; and it was, apparently, this conviction,
+      and not any supposed designs upon the imperial throne, that he alluded to,
+      when, after the death of the King of Sweden, he exclaimed, "It is well for
+      him and me that he is gone. The German Empire does not require two such
+      leaders."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first scheme of revenge on the house of Austria had indeed failed; but
+      the purpose itself remained unalterable; the choice of means alone was
+      changed. What he had failed in effecting with the King of Sweden, he hoped
+      to obtain with less difficulty and more advantage from the Elector of
+      Saxony. Him he was as certain of being able to bend to his views, as he
+      had always been doubtful of Gustavus Adolphus. Having always maintained a
+      good understanding with his old friend Arnheim, he now made use of him to
+      bring about an alliance with Saxony, by which he hoped to render himself
+      equally formidable to the Emperor and the King of Sweden. He had reason to
+      expect that a scheme, which, if successful, would deprive the Swedish
+      monarch of his influence in Germany, would be welcomed by the Elector of
+      Saxony, who he knew was jealous of the power and offended at the lofty
+      pretensions of Gustavus Adolphus. If he succeeded in separating Saxony
+      from the Swedish alliance, and in establishing, conjointly with that
+      power, a third party in the Empire, the fate of the war would be placed in
+      his hand; and by this single step he would succeed in gratifying his
+      revenge against the Emperor, revenging the neglect of the Swedish monarch,
+      and on the ruin of both, raising the edifice of his own greatness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever course he might follow in the prosecution of his designs, he
+      could not carry them into effect without an army entirely devoted to him.
+      Such a force could not be secretly raised without its coming to the
+      knowledge of the imperial court, where it would naturally excite
+      suspicion, and thus frustrate his design in the very outset. From the
+      army, too, the rebellious purposes for which it was destined, must be
+      concealed till the very moment of execution, since it could scarcely be
+      expected that they would at once be prepared to listen to the voice of a
+      traitor, and serve against their legitimate sovereign. Wallenstein,
+      therefore, must raise it publicly and in name of the Emperor, and be
+      placed at its head, with unlimited authority, by the Emperor himself. But
+      how could this be accomplished, otherwise than by his being appointed to
+      the command of the army, and entrusted with full powers to conduct the
+      war. Yet neither his pride, nor his interest, permitted him to sue in
+      person for this post, and as a suppliant to accept from the favour of the
+      Emperor a limited power, when an unlimited authority might be extorted
+      from his fears. In order to make himself the master of the terms on which
+      he would resume the command of the army, his course was to wait until the
+      post should be forced upon him. This was the advice he received from
+      Arnheim, and this the end for which he laboured with profound policy and
+      restless activity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Convinced that extreme necessity would alone conquer the Emperor's
+      irresolution, and render powerless the opposition of his bitter enemies,
+      Bavaria and Spain, he henceforth occupied himself in promoting the success
+      of the enemy, and in increasing the embarrassments of his master. It was
+      apparently by his instigation and advice, that the Saxons, when on the
+      route to Lusatia and Silesia, had turned their march towards Bohemia, and
+      overrun that defenceless kingdom, where their rapid conquests was partly
+      the result of his measures. By the fears which he affected to entertain,
+      he paralyzed every effort at resistance; and his precipitate retreat
+      caused the delivery of the capital to the enemy. At a conference with the
+      Saxon general, which was held at Kaunitz under the pretext of negociating
+      for a peace, the seal was put to the conspiracy, and the conquest of
+      Bohemia was the first fruits of this mutual understanding. While
+      Wallenstein was thus personally endeavouring to heighten the perplexities
+      of Austria, and while the rapid movements of the Swedes upon the Rhine
+      effectually promoted his designs, his friends and bribed adherents in
+      Vienna uttered loud complaints of the public calamities, and represented
+      the dismissal of the general as the sole cause of all these misfortunes.
+      "Had Wallenstein commanded, matters would never have come to this,"
+      exclaimed a thousand voices; while their opinions found supporters, even
+      in the Emperor's privy council.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their repeated remonstrances were not needed to convince the embarrassed
+      Emperor of his general's merits, and of his own error. His dependence on
+      Bavaria and the League had soon become insupportable; but hitherto this
+      dependence permitted him not to show his distrust, or irritate the Elector
+      by the recall of Wallenstein. But now when his necessities grew every day
+      more pressing, and the weakness of Bavaria more apparent, he could no
+      longer hesitate to listen to the friends of the duke, and to consider
+      their overtures for his restoration to command. The immense riches
+      Wallenstein possessed, the universal reputation he enjoyed, the rapidity
+      with which six years before he had assembled an army of 40,000 men, the
+      little expense at which he had maintained this formidable force, the
+      actions he had performed at its head, and lastly, the zeal and fidelity he
+      had displayed for his master's honour, still lived in the Emperor's
+      recollection, and made Wallenstein seem to him the ablest instrument to
+      restore the balance between the belligerent powers, to save Austria, and
+      preserve the Catholic religion. However sensibly the imperial pride might
+      feel the humiliation, in being forced to make so unequivocal an admission
+      of past errors and present necessity; however painful it was to descend to
+      humble entreaties, from the height of imperial command; however doubtful
+      the fidelity of so deeply injured and implacable a character; however
+      loudly and urgently the Spanish minister and the Elector of Bavaria
+      protested against this step, the immediate pressure of necessity finally
+      overcame every other consideration, and the friends of the duke were
+      empowered to consult him on the subject, and to hold out the prospect of
+      his restoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Informed of all that was transacted in the Emperor's cabinet to his
+      advantage, Wallenstein possessed sufficient self-command to conceal his
+      inward triumph and to assume the mask of indifference. The moment of
+      vengeance was at last come, and his proud heart exulted in the prospect of
+      repaying with interest the injuries of the Emperor. With artful eloquence,
+      he expatiated upon the happy tranquillity of a private station, which had
+      blessed him since his retirement from a political stage. Too long, he
+      said, had he tasted the pleasures of ease and independence, to sacrifice
+      to the vain phantom of glory, the uncertain favour of princes. All his
+      desire of power and distinction were extinct: tranquillity and repose were
+      now the sole object of his wishes. The better to conceal his real
+      impatience, he declined the Emperor's invitation to the court, but at the
+      same time, to facilitate the negociations, came to Znaim in Moravia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, it was proposed to limit the authority to be intrusted to him,
+      by the presence of a superior, in order, by this expedient, to silence the
+      objections of the Elector of Bavaria. The imperial deputies, Questenberg
+      and Werdenberg, who, as old friends of the duke, had been employed in this
+      delicate mission, were instructed to propose that the King of Hungary
+      should remain with the army, and learn the art of war under Wallenstein.
+      But the very mention of his name threatened to put a period to the whole
+      negociation. "No! never," exclaimed Wallenstein, "will I submit to a
+      colleague in my office. No&mdash;not even if it were God himself, with
+      whom I should have to share my command." But even when this obnoxious
+      point was given up, Prince Eggenberg, the Emperor's minister and
+      favourite, who had always been the steady friend and zealous champion of
+      Wallenstein, and was therefore expressly sent to him, exhausted his
+      eloquence in vain to overcome the pretended reluctance of the duke. "The
+      Emperor," he admitted, "had, in Wallenstein, thrown away the most costly
+      jewel in his crown: but unwillingly and compulsorily only had he taken
+      this step, which he had since deeply repented of; while his esteem for the
+      duke had remained unaltered, his favour for him undiminished. Of these
+      sentiments he now gave the most decisive proof, by reposing unlimited
+      confidence in his fidelity and capacity to repair the mistakes of his
+      predecessors, and to change the whole aspect of affairs. It would be great
+      and noble to sacrifice his just indignation to the good of his country;
+      dignified and worthy of him to refute the evil calumny of his enemies by
+      the double warmth of his zeal. This victory over himself," concluded the
+      prince, "would crown his other unparalleled services to the empire, and
+      render him the greatest man of his age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These humiliating confessions, and flattering assurances, seemed at last
+      to disarm the anger of the duke; but not before he had disburdened his
+      heart of his reproaches against the Emperor, pompously dwelt upon his own
+      services, and humbled to the utmost the monarch who solicited his
+      assistance, did he condescend to listen to the attractive proposals of the
+      minister. As if he yielded entirely to the force of their arguments, he
+      condescended with a haughty reluctance to that which was the most ardent
+      wish of his heart; and deigned to favour the ambassadors with a ray of
+      hope. But far from putting an end to the Emperor's embarrassments, by
+      giving at once a full and unconditional consent, he only acceded to a part
+      of his demands, that he might exalt the value of that which still
+      remained, and was of most importance. He accepted the command, but only
+      for three months; merely for the purpose of raising, but not of leading,
+      an army. He wished only to show his power and ability in its organization,
+      and to display before the eyes of the Emperor, the greatness of that
+      assistance, which he still retained in his hands. Convinced that an army
+      raised by his name alone, would, if deprived of its creator, soon sink
+      again into nothing, he intended it to serve only as a decoy to draw more
+      important concessions from his master. And yet Ferdinand congratulated
+      himself, even in having gained so much as he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein did not long delay to fulfil those promises which all Germany
+      regarded as chimerical, and which Gustavus Adolphus had considered as
+      extravagant. But the foundation for the present enterprise had been long
+      laid, and he now only put in motion the machinery, which many years had
+      been prepared for the purpose. Scarcely had the news spread of
+      Wallenstein's levies, when, from every quarter of the Austrian monarchy,
+      crowds of soldiers repaired to try their fortunes under this experienced
+      general. Many, who had before fought under his standards, had been
+      admiring eye-witnesses of his great actions, and experienced his
+      magnanimity, came forward from their retirement, to share with him a
+      second time both booty and glory. The greatness of the pay he promised
+      attracted thousands, and the plentiful supplies the soldier was likely to
+      enjoy at the cost of the peasant, was to the latter an irresistible
+      inducement to embrace the military life at once, rather than be the victim
+      of its oppression. All the Austrian provinces were compelled to assist in
+      the equipment. No class was exempt from taxation&mdash;no dignity or
+      privilege from capitation. The Spanish court, as well as the King of
+      Hungary, agreed to contribute a considerable sum. The ministers made large
+      presents, while Wallenstein himself advanced 200,000 dollars from his own
+      income to hasten the armament. The poorer officers he supported out of his
+      own revenues; and, by his own example, by brilliant promotions, and still
+      more brilliant promises, he induced all, who were able, to raise troops at
+      their own expense. Whoever raised a corps at his own cost was to be its
+      commander. In the appointment of officers, religion made no difference.
+      Riches, bravery and experience were more regarded than creed. By this
+      uniform treatment of different religious sects, and still more by his
+      express declaration, that his present levy had nothing to do with
+      religion, the Protestant subjects of the empire were tranquillized, and
+      reconciled to bear their share of the public burdens. The duke, at the
+      same time, did not omit to treat, in his own name, with foreign states for
+      men and money. He prevailed on the Duke of Lorraine, a second time, to
+      espouse the cause of the Emperor. Poland was urged to supply him with
+      Cossacks, and Italy with warlike necessaries. Before the three months were
+      expired, the army which was assembled in Moravia, amounted to no less than
+      40,000 men, chiefly drawn from the unconquered parts of Bohemia, from
+      Moravia, Silesia, and the German provinces of the House of Austria. What
+      to every one had appeared impracticable, Wallenstein, to the astonishment
+      of all Europe, had in a short time effected. The charm of his name, his
+      treasures, and his genius, had assembled thousands in arms, where before
+      Austria had only looked for hundreds. Furnished, even to superfluity, with
+      all necessaries, commanded by experienced officers, and inflamed by
+      enthusiasm which assured itself of victory, this newly created army only
+      awaited the signal of their leader to show themselves, by the bravery of
+      their deeds, worthy of his choice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The duke had fulfilled his promise, and the troops were ready to take the
+      field; he then retired, and left to the Emperor to choose a commander. But
+      it would have been as easy to raise a second army like the first, as to
+      find any other commander for it than Wallenstein. This promising army, the
+      last hope of the Emperor, was nothing but an illusion, as soon as the
+      charm was dissolved which had called it into existence; by Wallenstein it
+      had been raised, and, without him, it sank like a creation of magic into
+      its original nothingness. Its officers were either bound to him as his
+      debtors, or, as his creditors, closely connected with his interests, and
+      the preservation of his power. The regiments he had entrusted to his own
+      relations, creatures, and favourites. He, and he alone, could discharge to
+      the troops the extravagant promises by which they had been lured into his
+      service. His pledged word was the only security on which their bold
+      expectations rested; a blind reliance on his omnipotence, the only tie
+      which linked together in one common life and soul the various impulses of
+      their zeal. There was an end of the good fortune of each individual, if he
+      retired, who alone was the voucher of its fulfilment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However little Wallenstein was serious in his refusal, he successfully
+      employed this means to terrify the Emperor into consenting to his
+      extravagant conditions. The progress of the enemy every day increased the
+      pressure of the Emperor's difficulties, while the remedy was also close at
+      hand; a word from him might terminate the general embarrassment. Prince
+      Eggenberg at length received orders, for the third and last time, at any
+      cost and sacrifice, to induce his friend, Wallenstein, to accept the
+      command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found him at Znaim in Moravia, pompously surrounded by the troops, the
+      possession of which he made the Emperor so earnestly to long for. As a
+      suppliant did the haughty subject receive the deputy of his sovereign. "He
+      never could trust," he said, "to a restoration to command, which he owed
+      to the Emperor's necessities, and not to his sense of justice. He was now
+      courted, because the danger had reached its height, and safety was hoped
+      for from his arm only; but his successful services would soon cause the
+      servant to be forgotten, and the return of security would bring back
+      renewed ingratitude. If he deceived the expectations formed of him, his
+      long earned renown would be forfeited; even if he fulfilled them, his
+      repose and happiness must be sacrificed. Soon would envy be excited anew,
+      and the dependent monarch would not hesitate, a second time, to make an
+      offering of convenience to a servant whom he could now dispense with.
+      Better for him at once, and voluntarily, to resign a post from which
+      sooner or later the intrigues of his enemies would expel him. Security and
+      content were to be found in the bosom of private life; and nothing but the
+      wish to oblige the Emperor had induced him, reluctantly enough, to
+      relinquish for a time his blissful repose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tired of this long farce, the minister at last assumed a serious tone, and
+      threatened the obstinate duke with the Emperor's resentment, if he
+      persisted in his refusal. "Low enough had the imperial dignity," he added,
+      "stooped already; and yet, instead of exciting his magnanimity by its
+      condescension, had only flattered his pride and increased his obstinacy.
+      If this sacrifice had been made in vain, he would not answer, but that the
+      suppliant might be converted into the sovereign, and that the monarch
+      might not avenge his injured dignity on his rebellious subject. However
+      greatly Ferdinand may have erred, the Emperor at least had a claim to
+      obedience; the man might be mistaken, but the monarch could not confess
+      his error. If the Duke of Friedland had suffered by an unjust decree, he
+      might yet be recompensed for all his losses; the wound which it had itself
+      inflicted, the hand of Majesty might heal. If he asked security for his
+      person and his dignities, the Emperor's equity would refuse him no
+      reasonable demand. Majesty contemned, admitted not of any atonement;
+      disobedience to its commands cancelled the most brilliant services. The
+      Emperor required his services, and as emperor he demanded them. Whatever
+      price Wallenstein might set upon them, the Emperor would readily agree to;
+      but he demanded obedience, or the weight of his indignation should crush
+      the refractory servant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein, whose extensive possessions within the Austrian monarchy were
+      momentarily exposed to the power of the Emperor, was keenly sensible that
+      this was no idle threat; yet it was not fear that at last overcame his
+      affected reluctance. This imperious tone of itself, was to his mind a
+      plain proof of the weakness and despair which dictated it, while the
+      Emperor's readiness to yield all his demands, convinced him that he had
+      attained the summit of his wishes. He now made a show of yielding to the
+      persuasions of Eggenberg; and left him, in order to write down the
+      conditions on which he accepted the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not without apprehension, did the minister receive the writing, in which
+      the proudest of subjects had prescribed laws to the proudest of
+      sovereigns. But however little confidence he had in the moderation of his
+      friend, the extravagant contents of his writing surpassed even his worst
+      expectations. Wallenstein required the uncontrolled command over all the
+      German armies of Austria and Spain, with unlimited powers to reward and
+      punish. Neither the King of Hungary, nor the Emperor himself, were to
+      appear in the army, still less to exercise any act of authority over it.
+      No commission in the army, no pension or letter of grace, was to be
+      granted by the Emperor without Wallenstein's approval. All the conquests
+      and confiscations that should take place, were to be placed entirely at
+      Wallenstein's disposal, to the exclusion of every other tribunal. For his
+      ordinary pay, an imperial hereditary estate was to be assigned him, with
+      another of the conquered estates within the empire for his extraordinary
+      expenses. Every Austrian province was to be opened to him if he required
+      it in case of retreat. He farther demanded the assurance of the possession
+      of the Duchy of Mecklenburg, in the event of a future peace; and a formal
+      and timely intimation, if it should be deemed necessary a second time to
+      deprive him of the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain the minister entreated him to moderate his demands, which, if
+      granted, would deprive the Emperor of all authority over his own troops,
+      and make him absolutely dependent on his general. The value placed on his
+      services had been too plainly manifested to prevent him dictating the
+      price at which they were to be purchased. If the pressure of circumstances
+      compelled the Emperor to grant these demands, it was more than a mere
+      feeling of haughtiness and desire of revenge which induced the duke to
+      make them. His plans of rebellion were formed, to their success, every one
+      of the conditions for which Wallenstein stipulated in this treaty with the
+      court, was indispensable. Those plans required that the Emperor should be
+      deprived of all authority in Germany, and be placed at the mercy of his
+      general; and this object would be attained, the moment Ferdinand
+      subscribed the required conditions. The use which Wallenstein intended to
+      make of his army, (widely different indeed from that for which it was
+      entrusted to him,) brooked not of a divided power, and still less of an
+      authority superior to his own. To be the sole master of the will of his
+      troops, he must also be the sole master of their destinies; insensibly to
+      supplant his sovereign, and to transfer permanently to his own person the
+      rights of sovereignty, which were only lent to him for a time by a higher
+      authority, he must cautiously keep the latter out of the view of the army.
+      Hence his obstinate refusal to allow any prince of the house of Austria to
+      be present with the army. The liberty of free disposal of all the
+      conquered and confiscated estates in the empire, would also afford him
+      fearful means of purchasing dependents and instruments of his plans, and
+      of acting the dictator in Germany more absolutely than ever any Emperor
+      did in time of peace. By the right to use any of the Austrian provinces as
+      a place of refuge, in case of need, he had full power to hold the Emperor
+      a prisoner by means of his own forces, and within his own dominions; to
+      exhaust the strength and resources of these countries, and to undermine
+      the power of Austria in its very foundation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever might be the issue, he had equally secured his own advantage, by
+      the conditions he had extorted from the Emperor. If circumstances proved
+      favourable to his daring project, this treaty with the Emperor facilitated
+      its execution; if on the contrary, the course of things ran counter to it,
+      it would at least afford him a brilliant compensation for the failure of
+      his plans. But how could he consider an agreement valid, which was
+      extorted from his sovereign, and based upon treason? How could he hope to
+      bind the Emperor by a written agreement, in the face of a law which
+      condemned to death every one who should have the presumption to impose
+      conditions upon him? But this criminal was the most indispensable man in
+      the empire, and Ferdinand, well practised in dissimulation, granted him
+      for the present all he required.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, then, the imperial army had found a commander-in-chief worthy of
+      the name. Every other authority in the army, even that of the Emperor
+      himself, ceased from the moment Wallenstein assumed the commander's baton,
+      and every act was invalid which did not proceed from him. From the banks
+      of the Danube, to those of the Weser and the Oder, was felt the
+      life-giving dawning of this new star; a new spirit seemed to inspire the
+      troops of the emperor, a new epoch of the war began. The Papists form
+      fresh hopes, the Protestant beholds with anxiety the changed course of
+      affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greater the price at which the services of the new general had been
+      purchased, the greater justly were the expectations from those which the
+      court of the Emperor entertained. But the duke was in no hurry to fulfil
+      these expectations. Already in the vicinity of Bohemia, and at the head of
+      a formidable force, he had but to show himself there, in order to
+      overpower the exhausted force of the Saxons, and brilliantly to commence
+      his new career by the reconquest of that kingdom. But, contented with
+      harassing the enemy with indecisive skirmishes of his Croats, he abandoned
+      the best part of that kingdom to be plundered, and moved calmly forward in
+      pursuit of his own selfish plans. His design was, not to conquer the
+      Saxons, but to unite with them. Exclusively occupied with this important
+      object, he remained inactive in the hope of conquering more surely by
+      means of negociation. He left no expedient untried, to detach this prince
+      from the Swedish alliance; and Ferdinand himself, ever inclined to an
+      accommodation with this prince, approved of this proceeding. But the great
+      debt which Saxony owed to Sweden, was as yet too freshly remembered to
+      allow of such an act of perfidy; and even had the Elector been disposed to
+      yield to the temptation, the equivocal character of Wallenstein, and the
+      bad character of Austrian policy, precluded any reliance in the integrity
+      of its promises. Notorious already as a treacherous statesman, he met not
+      with faith upon the very occasion when perhaps he intended to act
+      honestly; and, moreover, was denied, by circumstances, the opportunity of
+      proving the sincerity of his intentions, by the disclosure of his real
+      motives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, therefore, unwillingly resolved to extort, by force of arms, what he
+      could not obtain by negociation. Suddenly assembling his troops, he
+      appeared before Prague ere the Saxons had time to advance to its relief.
+      After a short resistance, the treachery of some Capuchins opens the gates
+      to one of his regiments; and the garrison, who had taken refuge in the
+      citadel, soon laid down their arms upon disgraceful conditions. Master of
+      the capital, he hoped to carry on more successfully his negociations at
+      the Saxon court; but even while he was renewing his proposals to Arnheim,
+      he did not hesitate to give them weight by striking a decisive blow. He
+      hastened to seize the narrow passes between Aussig and Pirna, with a view
+      of cutting off the retreat of the Saxons into their own country; but the
+      rapidity of Arnheim's operations fortunately extricated them from the
+      danger. After the retreat of this general, Egra and Leutmeritz, the last
+      strongholds of the Saxons, surrendered to the conqueror: and the whole
+      kingdom was restored to its legitimate sovereign, in less time than it had
+      been lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein, less occupied with the interests of his master, than with the
+      furtherance of his own plans, now purposed to carry the war into Saxony,
+      and by ravaging his territories, compel the Elector to enter into a
+      private treaty with the Emperor, or rather with himself. But, however
+      little accustomed he was to make his will bend to circumstances, he now
+      perceived the necessity of postponing his favourite scheme for a time, to
+      a more pressing emergency. While he was driving the Saxons from Bohemia,
+      Gustavus Adolphus had been gaining the victories, already detailed, on the
+      Rhine and the Danube, and carried the war through Franconia and Swabia, to
+      the frontiers of Bavaria. Maximilian, defeated on the Lech, and deprived
+      by death of Count Tilly, his best support, urgently solicited the Emperor
+      to send with all speed the Duke of Friedland to his assistance, from
+      Bohemia, and by the defence of Bavaria, to avert the danger from Austria
+      itself. He also made the same request to Wallenstein, and entreated him,
+      till he could himself come with the main force, to despatch in the mean
+      time a few regiments to his aid. Ferdinand seconded the request with all
+      his influence, and one messenger after another was sent to Wallenstein,
+      urging him to move towards the Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now appeared how completely the Emperor had sacrificed his authority,
+      in surrendering to another the supreme command of his troops. Indifferent
+      to Maximilian's entreaties, and deaf to the Emperor's repeated commands,
+      Wallenstein remained inactive in Bohemia, and abandoned the Elector to his
+      fate. The remembrance of the evil service which Maximilian had rendered
+      him with the Emperor, at the Diet at Ratisbon, was deeply engraved on the
+      implacable mind of the duke, and the Elector's late attempts to prevent
+      his reinstatement, were no secret to him. The moment of revenging this
+      affront had now arrived, and Maximilian was doomed to pay dearly for his
+      folly, in provoking the most revengeful of men. Wallenstein maintained,
+      that Bohemia ought not to be left exposed, and that Austria could not be
+      better protected, than by allowing the Swedish army to waste its strength
+      before the Bavarian fortress. Thus, by the arm of the Swedes, he chastised
+      his enemy; and while one place after another fell into their hands, he
+      allowed the Elector vainly to await his arrival in Ratisbon. It was only
+      when the complete subjugation of Bohemia left him without excuse, and the
+      conquests of Gustavus Adolphus in Bavaria threatened Austria itself, that
+      he yielded to the pressing entreaties of the Elector and the Emperor, and
+      determined to effect the long-expected union with the former; an event,
+      which, according to the general anticipation of the Roman Catholics, would
+      decide the fate of the campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus, too weak in numbers to cope even with Wallenstein's
+      force alone, naturally dreaded the junction of such powerful armies, and
+      the little energy he used to prevent it, was the occasion of great
+      surprise. Apparently he reckoned too much on the hatred which alienated
+      the leaders, and seemed to render their effectual co-operation improbable;
+      when the event contradicted his views, it was too late to repair his
+      error. On the first certain intelligence he received of their designs, he
+      hastened to the Upper Palatinate, for the purpose of intercepting the
+      Elector: but the latter had already arrived there, and the junction had
+      been effected at Egra.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This frontier town had been chosen by Wallenstein, for the scene of his
+      triumph over his proud rival. Not content with having seen him, as it
+      were, a suppliant at his feet, he imposed upon him the hard condition of
+      leaving his territories in his rear exposed to the enemy, and declaring by
+      this long march to meet him, the necessity and distress to which he was
+      reduced. Even to this humiliation, the haughty prince patiently submitted.
+      It had cost him a severe struggle to ask for protection of the man who, if
+      his own wishes had been consulted, would never have had the power of
+      granting it: but having once made up his mind to it, he was ready to bear
+      all the annoyances which were inseparable from that resolve, and
+      sufficiently master of himself to put up with petty grievances, when an
+      important end was in view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever pains it had cost to effect this junction, it was equally
+      difficult to settle the conditions on which it was to be maintained. The
+      united army must be placed under the command of one individual, if any
+      object was to be gained by the union, and each general was equally averse
+      to yield to the superior authority of the other. If Maximilian rested his
+      claim on his electoral dignity, the nobleness of his descent, and his
+      influence in the empire, Wallenstein's military renown, and the unlimited
+      command conferred on him by the Emperor, gave an equally strong title to
+      it. If it was deeply humiliating to the pride of the former to serve under
+      an imperial subject, the idea of imposing laws on so imperious a spirit,
+      flattered in the same degree the haughtiness of Wallenstein. An obstinate
+      dispute ensued, which, however, terminated in a mutual compromise to
+      Wallenstein's advantage. To him was assigned the unlimited command of both
+      armies, particularly in battle, while the Elector was deprived of all
+      power of altering the order of battle, or even the route of the army. He
+      retained only the bare right of punishing and rewarding his own troops,
+      and the free use of these, when not acting in conjunction with the
+      Imperialists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After these preliminaries were settled, the two generals at last ventured
+      upon an interview; but not until they had mutually promised to bury the
+      past in oblivion, and all the outward formalities of a reconciliation had
+      been settled. According to agreement, they publicly embraced in the sight
+      of their troops, and made mutual professions of friendship, while in
+      reality the hearts of both were overflowing with malice. Maximilian, well
+      versed in dissimulation, had sufficient command over himself, not to
+      betray in a single feature his real feelings; but a malicious triumph
+      sparkled in the eyes of Wallenstein, and the constraint which was visible
+      in all his movements, betrayed the violence of the emotion which
+      overpowered his proud soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combined Imperial and Bavarian armies amounted to nearly 60,000 men,
+      chiefly veterans. Before this force, the King of Sweden was not in a
+      condition to keep the field. As his attempt to prevent their junction had
+      failed, he commenced a rapid retreat into Franconia, and awaited there for
+      some decisive movement on the part of the enemy, in order to form his own
+      plans. The position of the combined armies between the frontiers of Saxony
+      and Bavaria, left it for some time doubtful whether they would remove the
+      war into the former, or endeavour to drive the Swedes from the Danube, and
+      deliver Bavaria. Saxony had been stripped of troops by Arnheim, who was
+      pursuing his conquests in Silesia; not without a secret design, it was
+      generally supposed, of favouring the entrance of the Duke of Friedland
+      into that electorate, and of thus driving the irresolute John George into
+      peace with the Emperor. Gustavus Adolphus himself, fully persuaded that
+      Wallenstein's views were directed against Saxony, hastily despatched a
+      strong reinforcement to the assistance of his confederate, with the
+      intention, as soon as circumstances would allow, of following with the
+      main body. But the movements of Wallenstein's army soon led him to suspect
+      that he himself was the object of attack; and the Duke's march through the
+      Upper Palatinate, placed the matter beyond a doubt. The question now was,
+      how to provide for his own security, and the prize was no longer his
+      supremacy, but his very existence. His fertile genius must now supply the
+      means, not of conquest, but of preservation. The approach of the enemy had
+      surprised him before he had time to concentrate his troops, which were
+      scattered all over Germany, or to summon his allies to his aid. Too weak
+      to meet the enemy in the field, he had no choice left, but either to throw
+      himself into Nuremberg, and run the risk of being shut up in its walls, or
+      to sacrifice that city, and await a reinforcement under the cannon of
+      Donauwerth. Indifferent to danger or difficulty, while he obeyed the call
+      of humanity or honour, he chose the first without hesitation, firmly
+      resolved to bury himself with his whole army under the ruins of Nuremberg,
+      rather than to purchase his own safety by the sacrifice of his
+      confederates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Measures were immediately taken to surround the city and suburbs with
+      redoubts, and to form an entrenched camp. Several thousand workmen
+      immediately commenced this extensive work, and an heroic determination to
+      hazard life and property in the common cause, animated the inhabitants of
+      Nuremberg. A trench, eight feet deep and twelve broad, surrounded the
+      whole fortification; the lines were defended by redoubts and batteries,
+      the gates by half moons. The river Pegnitz, which flows through Nuremberg,
+      divided the whole camp into two semicircles, whose communication was
+      secured by several bridges. About three hundred pieces of cannon defended
+      the town-walls and the intrenchments. The peasantry from the neighbouring
+      villages, and the inhabitants of Nuremberg, assisted the Swedish soldiers
+      so zealously, that on the seventh day the army was able to enter the camp,
+      and, in a fortnight, this great work was completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these operations were carried on without the walls, the magistrates
+      of Nuremberg were busily occupied in filling the magazines with provisions
+      and ammunition for a long siege. Measures were taken, at the same time, to
+      secure the health of the inhabitants, which was likely to be endangered by
+      the conflux of so many people; cleanliness was enforced by the strictest
+      regulations. In order, if necessary, to support the King, the youth of the
+      city were embodied and trained to arms, the militia of the town
+      considerably reinforced, and a new regiment raised, consisting of
+      four-and-twenty names, according to the letters of the alphabet. Gustavus
+      had, in the mean time, called to his assistance his allies, Duke William
+      of Weimar, and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel; and ordered his generals on
+      the Rhine, in Thuringia and Lower Saxony, to commence their march
+      immediately, and join him with their troops in Nuremberg. His army, which
+      was encamped within the lines, did not amount to more than 16,000 men,
+      scarcely a third of the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Imperialists had, in the mean time, by slow marches, advanced to
+      Neumark, where Wallenstein made a general review. At the sight of this
+      formidable force, he could not refrain from indulging in a childish boast:
+      "In four days," said he, "it will be shown whether I or the King of Sweden
+      is to be master of the world." Yet, notwithstanding his superiority, he
+      did nothing to fulfil his promise; and even let slip the opportunity of
+      crushing his enemy, when the latter had the hardihood to leave his lines
+      to meet him. "Battles enough have been fought," was his answer to those
+      who advised him to attack the King, "it is now time to try another
+      method." Wallenstein's well-founded reputation required not any of those
+      rash enterprises on which younger soldiers rush, in the hope of gaining a
+      name. Satisfied that the enemy's despair would dearly sell a victory,
+      while a defeat would irretrievably ruin the Emperor's affairs, he resolved
+      to wear out the ardour of his opponent by a tedious blockade, and by thus
+      depriving him of every opportunity of availing himself of his impetuous
+      bravery, take from him the very advantage which had hitherto rendered him
+      invincible. Without making any attack, therefore, he erected a strong
+      fortified camp on the other side of the Pegnitz, and opposite Nuremberg;
+      and, by this well chosen position, cut off from the city and the camp of
+      Gustavus all supplies from Franconia, Swabia, and Thuringia. Thus he held
+      in siege at once the city and the King, and flattered himself with the
+      hope of slowly, but surely, wearing out by famine and pestilence the
+      courage of his opponent whom he had no wish to encounter in the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little aware, however, of the resources and the strength of his adversary,
+      Wallenstein had not taken sufficient precautions to avert from himself the
+      fate he was designing for others. From the whole of the neighbouring
+      country, the peasantry had fled with their property; and what little
+      provision remained, must be obstinately contested with the Swedes. The
+      King spared the magazines within the town, as long as it was possible to
+      provision his army from without; and these forays produced constant
+      skirmishes between the Croats and the Swedish cavalry, of which the
+      surrounding country exhibited the most melancholy traces. The necessaries
+      of life must be obtained sword in hand; and the foraging parties could not
+      venture out without a numerous escort. And when this supply failed, the
+      town opened its magazines to the King, but Wallenstein had to support his
+      troops from a distance. A large convoy from Bavaria was on its way to him,
+      with an escort of a thousand men. Gustavus Adolphus having received
+      intelligence of its approach, immediately sent out a regiment of cavalry
+      to intercept it; and the darkness of the night favoured the enterprise.
+      The whole convoy, with the town in which it was, fell into the hands of
+      the Swedes; the Imperial escort was cut to pieces; about 1,200 cattle
+      carried off; and a thousand waggons, loaded with bread, which could not be
+      brought away, were set on fire. Seven regiments, which Wallenstein had
+      sent forward to Altdorp to cover the entrance of the long and anxiously
+      expected convoy, were attacked by the King, who had, in like manner,
+      advanced to cover the retreat of his cavalry, and routed after an
+      obstinate action, being driven back into the Imperial camp, with the loss
+      of 400 men. So many checks and difficulties, and so firm and unexpected a
+      resistance on the part of the King, made the Duke of Friedland repent that
+      he had declined to hazard a battle. The strength of the Swedish camp
+      rendered an attack impracticable; and the armed youth of Nuremberg served
+      the King as a nursery from which he could supply his loss of troops. The
+      want of provisions, which began to be felt in the Imperial camp as
+      strongly as in the Swedish, rendered it uncertain which party would be
+      first compelled to give way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifteen days had the two armies now remained in view of each other,
+      equally defended by inaccessible entrenchments, without attempting
+      anything more than slight attacks and unimportant skirmishes. On both
+      sides, infectious diseases, the natural consequence of bad food, and a
+      crowded population, had occasioned a greater loss than the sword. And this
+      evil daily increased. But at length, the long expected succours arrived in
+      the Swedish camp; and by this strong reinforcement, the King was now
+      enabled to obey the dictates of his native courage, and to break the
+      chains which had hitherto fettered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In obedience to his requisitions, the Duke of Weimar had hastily drawn
+      together a corps from the garrisons in Lower Saxony and Thuringia, which,
+      at Schweinfurt in Franconia, was joined by four Saxon regiments, and at
+      Kitzingen by the corps of the Rhine, which the Landgrave of Hesse, and the
+      Palatine of Birkenfeld, despatched to the relief of the King. The
+      Chancellor, Oxenstiern, undertook to lead this force to its destination.
+      After being joined at Windsheim by the Duke of Weimar himself, and the
+      Swedish General Banner, he advanced by rapid marches to Bruck and
+      Eltersdorf, where he passed the Rednitz, and reached the Swedish camp in
+      safety. This reinforcement amounted to nearly 50,000 men, and was attended
+      by a train of 60 pieces of cannon, and 4,000 baggage waggons. Gustavus now
+      saw himself at the head of an army of nearly 70,000 strong, without
+      reckoning the militia of Nuremberg, which, in case of necessity, could
+      bring into the field about 30,000 fighting men; a formidable force,
+      opposed to another not less formidable. The war seemed at length
+      compressed to the point of a single battle, which was to decide its
+      fearful issue. With divided sympathies, Europe looked with anxiety to this
+      scene, where the whole strength of the two contending parties was
+      fearfully drawn, as it were, to a focus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, before the arrival of the Swedish succours, a want of provisions had
+      been felt, the evil was now fearfully increased to a dreadful height in
+      both camps, for Wallenstein had also received reinforcements from Bavaria.
+      Besides the 120,000 men confronted to each other, and more than 50,000
+      horses, in the two armies, and besides the inhabitants of Nuremberg, whose
+      number far exceeded the Swedish army, there were in the camp of
+      Wallenstein about 15,000 women, with as many drivers, and nearly the same
+      number in that of the Swedes. The custom of the time permitted the soldier
+      to carry his family with him to the field. A number of prostitutes
+      followed the Imperialists; while, with the view of preventing such
+      excesses, Gustavus's care for the morals of his soldiers promoted
+      marriages. For the rising generation, who had this camp for their home and
+      country, regular military schools were established, which educated a race
+      of excellent warriors, by which means the army might in a manner recruit
+      itself in the course of a long campaign. No wonder, then, if these
+      wandering nations exhausted every territory in which they encamped, and by
+      their immense consumption raised the necessaries of life to an exorbitant
+      price. All the mills of Nuremberg were insufficient to grind the corn
+      required for each day; and 15,000 pounds of bread, which were daily
+      delivered, by the town into the Swedish camp, excited, without allaying,
+      the hunger of the soldiers. The laudable exertions of the magistrates of
+      Nuremberg could not prevent the greater part of the horses from dying for
+      want of forage, while the increasing mortality in the camp consigned more
+      than a hundred men daily to the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To put an end to these distresses, Gustavus Adolphus, relying on his
+      numerical superiority, left his lines on the 25th day, forming before the
+      enemy in order of battle, while he cannonaded the duke's camp from three
+      batteries erected on the side of the Rednitz. But the duke remained
+      immoveable in his entrenchments, and contented himself with answering this
+      challenge by a distant fire of cannon and musketry. His plan was to wear
+      out the king by his inactivity, and by the force of famine to overcome his
+      resolute determination; and neither the remonstrances of Maximilian, and
+      the impatience of his army, nor the ridicule of his opponent, could shake
+      his purpose. Gustavus, deceived in his hope of forcing a battle, and
+      compelled by his increasing necessities, now attempted impossibilities,
+      and resolved to storm a position which art and nature had combined to
+      render impregnable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Intrusting his own camp to the militia of Nuremberg, on the fifty-eighth
+      day of his encampment, (the festival of St. Bartholomew,) he advanced in
+      full order of battle, and passing the Rednitz at Furth, easily drove the
+      enemy's outposts before him. The main army of the Imperialists was posted
+      on the steep heights between the Biber and the Rednitz, called the Old
+      Fortress and Altenberg; while the camp itself, commanded by these
+      eminences, spread out immeasurably along the plain. On these heights, the
+      whole of the artillery was placed. Deep trenches surrounded inaccessible
+      redoubts, while thick barricadoes, with pointed palisades, defended the
+      approaches to the heights, from the summits of which, Wallenstein calmly
+      and securely discharged the lightnings of his artillery from amid the dark
+      thunder-clouds of smoke. A destructive fire of musketry was maintained
+      behind the breastworks, and a hundred pieces of cannon threatened the
+      desperate assailant with certain destruction. Against this dangerous post
+      Gustavus now directed his attack; five hundred musketeers, supported by a
+      few infantry, (for a greater number could not act in the narrow space,)
+      enjoyed the unenvied privilege of first throwing themselves into the open
+      jaws of death. The assault was furious, the resistance obstinate. Exposed
+      to the whole fire of the enemy's artillery, and infuriate by the prospect
+      of inevitable death, these determined warriors rushed forward to storm the
+      heights; which, in an instant, converted into a flaming volcano,
+      discharged on them a shower of shot. At the same moment, the heavy cavalry
+      rushed forward into the openings which the artillery had made in the close
+      ranks of the assailants, and divided them; till the intrepid band,
+      conquered by the strength of nature and of man, took to flight, leaving a
+      hundred dead upon the field. To Germans had Gustavus yielded this post of
+      honour. Exasperated at their retreat, he now led on his Finlanders to the
+      attack, thinking, by their northern courage, to shame the cowardice of the
+      Germans. But they, also, after a similar hot reception, yielded to the
+      superiority of the enemy; and a third regiment succeeded them to
+      experience the same fate. This was replaced by a fourth, a fifth, and a
+      sixth; so that, during a ten hours' action, every regiment was brought to
+      the attack to retire with bloody loss from the contest. A thousand mangled
+      bodies covered the field; yet Gustavus undauntedly maintained the attack,
+      and Wallenstein held his position unshaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, a sharp contest had taken place between the imperial
+      cavalry and the left wing of the Swedes, which was posted in a thicket on
+      the Rednitz, with varying success, but with equal intrepidity and loss on
+      both sides. The Duke of Friedland and Prince Bernard of Weimar had each a
+      horse shot under them; the king himself had the sole of his boot carried
+      off by a cannon ball. The combat was maintained with undiminished
+      obstinacy, till the approach of night separated the combatants. But the
+      Swedes had advanced too far to retreat without hazard. While the king was
+      seeking an officer to convey to the regiments the order to retreat, he met
+      Colonel Hepburn, a brave Scotchman, whose native courage alone had drawn
+      him from the camp to share in the dangers of the day. Offended with the
+      king for having not long before preferred a younger officer for some post
+      of danger, he had rashly vowed never again to draw his sword for the king.
+      To him Gustavus now addressed himself, praising his courage, and
+      requesting him to order the regiments to retreat. "Sire," replied the
+      brave soldier, "it is the only service I cannot refuse to your Majesty;
+      for it is a hazardous one,"&mdash;and immediately hastened to carry the
+      command. One of the heights above the old fortress had, in the heat of the
+      action, been carried by the Duke of Weimar. It commanded the hills and the
+      whole camp. But the heavy rain which fell during the night, rendered it
+      impossible to draw up the cannon; and this post, which had been gained
+      with so much bloodshed, was also voluntarily abandoned. Diffident of
+      fortune, which forsook him on this decisive day, the king did not venture
+      the following morning to renew the attack with his exhausted troops; and
+      vanquished for the first time, even because he was not victor, he led back
+      his troops over the Rednitz. Two thousand dead which he left behind him on
+      the field, testified to the extent of his loss; and the Duke of Friedland
+      remained unconquered within his lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For fourteen days after this action, the two armies still continued in
+      front of each other, each in the hope that the other would be the first to
+      give way. Every day reduced their provisions, and as scarcity became
+      greater, the excesses of the soldiers rendered furious, exercised the
+      wildest outrages on the peasantry. The increasing distress broke up all
+      discipline and order in the Swedish camp; and the German regiments, in
+      particular, distinguished themselves for the ravages they practised
+      indiscriminately on friend and foe. The weak hand of a single individual
+      could not check excesses, encouraged by the silence, if not the actual
+      example, of the inferior officers. These shameful breaches of discipline,
+      on the maintenance of which he had hitherto justly prided himself,
+      severely pained the king; and the vehemence with which he reproached the
+      German officers for their negligence, bespoke the liveliness of his
+      emotion. "It is you yourselves, Germans," said he, "that rob your native
+      country, and ruin your own confederates in the faith. As God is my judge,
+      I abhor you, I loathe you; my heart sinks within me whenever I look upon
+      you. Ye break my orders; ye are the cause that the world curses me, that
+      the tears of poverty follow me, that complaints ring in my ear&mdash;'The
+      king, our friend, does us more harm than even our worst enemies.' On your
+      account I have stripped my own kingdom of its treasures, and spent upon
+      you more than 40 tons of gold; &mdash;[A ton of gold in Sweden amounts to
+      100,000 rix dollars.]&mdash;while from your German empire I have not
+      received the least aid. I gave you a share of all that God had given to
+      me; and had ye regarded my orders, I would have gladly shared with you all
+      my future acquisitions. Your want of discipline convinces me of your evil
+      intentions, whatever cause I might otherwise have to applaud your
+      bravery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nuremberg had exerted itself, almost beyond its power, to subsist for
+      eleven weeks the vast crowd which was compressed within its boundaries;
+      but its means were at length exhausted, and the king's more numerous party
+      was obliged to determine on a retreat. By the casualties of war and
+      sickness, Nuremberg had lost more than 10,000 of its inhabitants, and
+      Gustavus Adolphus nearly 20,000 of his soldiers. The fields around the
+      city were trampled down, the villages lay in ashes, the plundered
+      peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways; foul odours infected the
+      air, and bad food, the exhalations from so dense a population, and so many
+      putrifying carcasses, together with the heat of the dog-days, produced a
+      desolating pestilence which raged among men and beasts, and long after the
+      retreat of both armies, continued to load the country with misery and
+      distress. Affected by the general distress, and despairing of conquering
+      the steady determination of the Duke of Friedland, the king broke up his
+      camp on the 8th September, leaving in Nuremberg a sufficient garrison. He
+      advanced in full order of battle before the enemy, who remained
+      motionless, and did not attempt in the least to harass his retreat. His
+      route lay by the Aisch and Windsheim towards Neustadt, where he halted
+      five days to refresh his troops, and also to be near to Nuremberg, in case
+      the enemy should make an attempt upon the town. But Wallenstein, as
+      exhausted as himself, had only awaited the retreat of the Swedes to
+      commence his own. Five days afterwards, he broke up his camp at Zirndorf,
+      and set it on fire. A hundred columns of smoke, rising from all the
+      burning villages in the neighbourhood, announced his retreat, and showed
+      the city the fate it had escaped. His march, which was directed on
+      Forchheim, was marked by the most frightful ravages; but he was too far
+      advanced to be overtaken by the king. The latter now divided his army,
+      which the exhausted country was unable to support, and leaving one
+      division to protect Franconia, with the other he prosecuted in person his
+      conquests in Bavaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, the imperial Bavarian army had marched into the
+      Bishopric of Bamberg, where the Duke of Friedland a second time mustered
+      his troops. He found this force, which so lately had amounted to 60,000
+      men, diminished by the sword, desertion, and disease, to about 24,000, and
+      of these a fourth were Bavarians. Thus had the encampments before
+      Nuremberg weakened both parties more than two great battles would have
+      done, apparently without advancing the termination of the war, or
+      satisfying, by any decisive result, the expectations of Europe. The king's
+      conquests in Bavaria, were, it is true, checked for a time by this
+      diversion before Nuremberg, and Austria itself secured against the danger
+      of immediate invasion; but by the retreat of the king from that city, he
+      was again left at full liberty to make Bavaria the seat of war.
+      Indifferent towards the fate of that country, and weary of the restraint
+      which his union with the Elector imposed upon him, the Duke of Friedland
+      eagerly seized the opportunity of separating from this burdensome
+      associate, and prosecuting, with renewed earnestness, his favourite plans.
+      Still adhering to his purpose of detaching Saxony from its Swedish
+      alliance, he selected that country for his winter quarters, hoping by his
+      destructive presence to force the Elector the more readily into his views.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No conjuncture could be more favourable for his designs. The Saxons had
+      invaded Silesia, where, reinforced by troops from Brandenburgh and Sweden,
+      they had gained several advantages over the Emperor's troops. Silesia
+      would be saved by a diversion against the Elector in his own territories,
+      and the attempt was the more easy, as Saxony, left undefended during the
+      war in Silesia, lay open on every side to attack. The pretext of rescuing
+      from the enemy an hereditary dominion of Austria, would silence the
+      remonstrances of the Elector of Bavaria, and, under the mask of a
+      patriotic zeal for the Emperor's interests, Maximilian might be sacrificed
+      without much difficulty. By giving up the rich country of Bavaria to the
+      Swedes, he hoped to be left unmolested by them in his enterprise against
+      Saxony, while the increasing coldness between Gustavus and the Saxon
+      Court, gave him little reason to apprehend any extraordinary zeal for the
+      deliverance of John George. Thus a second time abandoned by his artful
+      protector, the Elector separated from Wallenstein at Bamberg, to protect
+      his defenceless territory with the small remains of his troops, while the
+      imperial army, under Wallenstein, directed its march through Bayreuth and
+      Coburg towards the Thuringian Forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An imperial general, Holk, had previously been sent into Vogtland with
+      6,000 men, to waste this defenceless province with fire and sword, he was
+      soon followed by Gallas, another of the Duke's generals, and an equally
+      faithful instrument of his inhuman orders. Finally, Pappenheim, too, was
+      recalled from Lower Saxony, to reinforce the diminished army of the duke,
+      and to complete the miseries of the devoted country. Ruined churches,
+      villages in ashes, harvests wilfully destroyed, families plundered, and
+      murdered peasants, marked the progress of these barbarians, under whose
+      scourge the whole of Thuringia, Vogtland, and Meissen, lay defenceless.
+      Yet this was but the prelude to greater sufferings, with which Wallenstein
+      himself, at the head of the main army, threatened Saxony. After having
+      left behind him fearful monuments of his fury, in his march through
+      Franconia and Thuringia, he arrived with his whole army in the Circle of
+      Leipzig, and compelled the city, after a short resistance, to surrender.
+      His design was to push on to Dresden, and by the conquest of the whole
+      country, to prescribe laws to the Elector. He had already approached the
+      Mulda, threatening to overpower the Saxon army which had advanced as far
+      as Torgau to meet him, when the King of Sweden's arrival at Erfurt gave an
+      unexpected check to his operations. Placed between the Saxon and Swedish
+      armies, which were likely to be farther reinforced by the troops of
+      George, Duke of Luneburg, from Lower Saxony, he hastily retired upon
+      Meresberg, to form a junction there with Count Pappenheim, and to repel
+      the further advance of the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus had witnessed, with great uneasiness, the arts employed
+      by Spain and Austria to detach his allies from him. The more important his
+      alliance with Saxony, the more anxiety the inconstant temper of John
+      George caused him. Between himself and the Elector, a sincere friendship
+      could never subsist. A prince, proud of his political importance, and
+      accustomed to consider himself as the head of his party, could not see
+      without annoyance the interference of a foreign power in the affairs of
+      the Empire; and nothing, but the extreme danger of his dominions, could
+      overcome the aversion with which he had long witnessed the progress of
+      this unwelcome intruder. The increasing influence of the king in Germany,
+      his authority with the Protestant states, the unambiguous proofs which he
+      gave of his ambitious views, which were of a character calculated to
+      excite the jealousies of all the states of the Empire, awakened in the
+      Elector's breast a thousand anxieties, which the imperial emissaries did
+      not fail skilfully to keep alive and cherish. Every arbitrary step on the
+      part of the King, every demand, however reasonable, which he addressed to
+      the princes of the Empire, was followed by bitter complaints from the
+      Elector, which seemed to announce an approaching rupture. Even the
+      generals of the two powers, whenever they were called upon to act in
+      common, manifested the same jealousy as divided their leaders. John
+      George's natural aversion to war, and a lingering attachment to Austria,
+      favoured the efforts of Arnheim; who, maintaining a constant
+      correspondence with Wallenstein, laboured incessantly to effect a private
+      treaty between his master and the Emperor; and if his representations were
+      long disregarded, still the event proved that they were not altogether
+      without effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus, naturally apprehensive of the consequences which the
+      defection of so powerful an ally would produce on his future prospects in
+      Germany, spared no pains to avert so pernicious an event; and his
+      remonstrances had hitherto had some effect upon the Elector. But the
+      formidable power with which the Emperor seconded his seductive proposals,
+      and the miseries which, in the case of hesitation, he threatened to
+      accumulate upon Saxony, might at length overcome the resolution of the
+      Elector, should he be left exposed to the vengeance of his enemies; while
+      an indifference to the fate of so powerful a confederate, would
+      irreparably destroy the confidence of the other allies in their protector.
+      This consideration induced the king a second time to yield to the pressing
+      entreaties of the Elector, and to sacrifice his own brilliant prospects to
+      the safety of this ally. He had already resolved upon a second attack on
+      Ingoldstadt; and the weakness of the Elector of Bavaria gave him hopes of
+      soon forcing this exhausted enemy to accede to a neutrality. An
+      insurrection of the peasantry in Upper Austria, opened to him a passage
+      into that country, and the capital might be in his possession, before
+      Wallenstein could have time to advance to its defence. All these views he
+      now gave up for the sake of an ally, who, neither by his services nor his
+      fidelity, was worthy of the sacrifice; who, on the pressing occasions of
+      common good, had steadily adhered to his own selfish projects; and who was
+      important, not for the services he was expected to render, but merely for
+      the injuries he had it in his power to inflict. Is it possible, then, to
+      refrain from indignation, when we know that, in this expedition,
+      undertaken for the benefit of such an ally, the great king was destined to
+      terminate his career?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rapidly assembling his troops in Franconia, he followed the route of
+      Wallenstein through Thuringia. Duke Bernard of Weimar, who had been
+      despatched to act against Pappenheim, joined the king at Armstadt, who now
+      saw himself at the head of 20,000 veterans. At Erfurt he took leave of his
+      queen, who was not to behold him, save in his coffin, at Weissenfels.
+      Their anxious adieus seemed to forbode an eternal separation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached Naumburg on the 1st November, 1632, before the corps, which the
+      Duke of Friedland had despatched for that purpose, could make itself
+      master of that place. The inhabitants of the surrounding country flocked
+      in crowds to look upon the hero, the avenger, the great king, who, a year
+      before, had first appeared in that quarter, like a guardian angel. Shouts
+      of joy everywhere attended his progress; the people knelt before him, and
+      struggled for the honour of touching the sheath of his sword, or the hem
+      of his garment. The modest hero disliked this innocent tribute which a
+      sincerely grateful and admiring multitude paid him. "Is it not," said he,
+      "as if this people would make a God of me? Our affairs prosper, indeed;
+      but I fear the vengeance of Heaven will punish me for this presumption,
+      and soon enough reveal to this deluded multitude my human weakness and
+      mortality!" How amiable does Gustavus appear before us at this moment,
+      when about to leave us for ever! Even in the plenitude of success, he
+      honours an avenging Nemesis, declines that homage which is due only to the
+      Immortal, and strengthens his title to our tears, the nearer the moment
+      approaches that is to call them forth!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, the Duke of Friedland had determined to advance to meet
+      the king, as far as Weissenfels, and even at the hazard of a battle, to
+      secure his winter-quarters in Saxony. His inactivity before Nuremberg had
+      occasioned a suspicion that he was unwilling to measure his powers with
+      those of the Hero of the North, and his hard-earned reputation would be at
+      stake, if, a second time, he should decline a battle. His present
+      superiority in numbers, though much less than what it was at the beginning
+      of the siege of Nuremberg, was still enough to give him hopes of victory,
+      if he could compel the king to give battle before his junction with the
+      Saxons. But his present reliance was not so much in his numerical
+      superiority, as in the predictions of his astrologer Seni, who had read in
+      the stars that the good fortune of the Swedish monarch would decline in
+      the month of November. Besides, between Naumburg and Weissenfels there was
+      also a range of narrow defiles, formed by a long mountainous ridge, and
+      the river Saal, which ran at their foot, along which the Swedes could not
+      advance without difficulty, and which might, with the assistance of a few
+      troops, be rendered almost impassable. If attacked there, the king would
+      have no choice but either to penetrate with great danger through the
+      defiles, or commence a laborious retreat through Thuringia, and to expose
+      the greater part of his army to a march through a desert country,
+      deficient in every necessary for their support. But the rapidity with
+      which Gustavus Adolphus had taken possession of Naumburg, disappointed
+      this plan, and it was now Wallenstein himself who awaited the attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in this expectation he was disappointed; for the king, instead of
+      advancing to meet him at Weissenfels, made preparations for entrenching
+      himself near Naumburg, with the intention of awaiting there the
+      reinforcements which the Duke of Lunenburg was bringing up. Undecided
+      whether to advance against the king through the narrow passes between
+      Weissenfels and Naumburg, or to remain inactive in his camp, he called a
+      council of war, in order to have the opinion of his most experienced
+      generals. None of these thought it prudent to attack the king in his
+      advantageous position. On the other hand, the preparations which the
+      latter made to fortify his camp, plainly showed that it was not his
+      intention soon to abandon it. But the approach of winter rendered it
+      impossible to prolong the campaign, and by a continued encampment to
+      exhaust the strength of the army, already so much in need of repose. All
+      voices were in favour of immediately terminating the campaign: and, the
+      more so, as the important city of Cologne upon the Rhine was threatened by
+      the Dutch, while the progress of the enemy in Westphalia and the Lower
+      Rhine called for effective reinforcements in that quarter. Wallenstein
+      yielded to the weight of these arguments, and almost convinced that, at
+      this season, he had no reason to apprehend an attack from the King, he put
+      his troops into winter-quarters, but so that, if necessary, they might be
+      rapidly assembled. Count Pappenheim was despatched, with great part of the
+      army, to the assistance of Cologne, with orders to take possession, on his
+      march, of the fortress of Moritzburg, in the territory of Halle. Different
+      corps took up their winter-quarters in the neighbouring towns, to watch,
+      on all sides, the motions of the enemy. Count Colloredo guarded the castle
+      of Weissenfels, and Wallenstein himself encamped with the remainder not
+      far from Merseburg, between Flotzgaben and the Saal, from whence he
+      purposed to march to Leipzig, and to cut off the communication between the
+      Saxons and the Swedish army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had Gustavus Adolphus been informed of Pappenheim's departure,
+      when suddenly breaking up his camp at Naumburg, he hastened with his whole
+      force to attack the enemy, now weakened to one half. He advanced, by rapid
+      marches, towards Weissenfels, from whence the news of his arrival quickly
+      reached the enemy, and greatly astonished the Duke of Friedland. But a
+      speedy resolution was now necessary; and the measures of Wallenstein were
+      soon taken. Though he had little more than 12,000 men to oppose to the
+      20,000 of the enemy, he might hope to maintain his ground until the return
+      of Pappenheim, who could not have advanced farther than Halle, five miles
+      distant. Messengers were hastily despatched to recall him, while
+      Wallenstein moved forward into the wide plain between the Canal and
+      Lutzen, where he awaited the King in full order of battle, and, by this
+      position, cut off his communication with Leipzig and the Saxon
+      auxiliaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three cannon shots, fired by Count Colloredo from the castle of
+      Weissenfels, announced the king's approach; and at this concerted signal,
+      the light troops of the Duke of Friedland, under the command of the
+      Croatian General Isolani, moved forward to possess themselves of the
+      villages lying upon the Rippach. Their weak resistance did not impede the
+      advance of the enemy, who crossed the Rippach, near the village of that
+      name, and formed in line below Lutzen, opposite the Imperialists. The high
+      road which goes from Weissenfels to Leipzig, is intersected between Lutzen
+      and Markranstadt by the canal which extends from Zeitz to Merseburg, and
+      unites the Elster with the Saal. On this canal, rested the left wing of
+      the Imperialists, and the right of the King of Sweden; but so that the
+      cavalry of both extended themselves along the opposite side. To the
+      northward, behind Lutzen, was Wallenstein's right wing, and to the south
+      of that town was posted the left wing of the Swedes; both armies fronted
+      the high road, which ran between them, and divided their order of battle;
+      but the evening before the battle, Wallenstein, to the great disadvantage
+      of his opponent, had possessed himself of this highway, deepened the
+      trenches which ran along its sides, and planted them with musketeers, so
+      as to make the crossing of it both difficult and dangerous. Behind these,
+      again, was erected a battery of seven large pieces of cannon, to support
+      the fire from the trenches; and at the windmills, close behind Lutzen,
+      fourteen smaller field pieces were ranged on an eminence, from which they
+      could sweep the greater part of the plain. The infantry, divided into no
+      more than five unwieldy brigades, was drawn up at the distance of 300
+      paces from the road, and the cavalry covered the flanks. All the baggage
+      was sent to Leipzig, that it might not impede the movements of the army;
+      and the ammunition-waggons alone remained, which were placed in rear of
+      the line. To conceal the weakness of the Imperialists, all the
+      camp-followers and sutlers were mounted, and posted on the left wing, but
+      only until Pappenheim's troops arrived. These arrangements were made
+      during the darkness of the night; and when the morning dawned, all was
+      ready for the reception of the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day, Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the opposite
+      plain, and formed his troops in the order of attack. His disposition was
+      the same as that which had been so successful the year before at Leipzig.
+      Small squadrons of horse were interspersed among the divisions of the
+      infantry, and troops of musketeers placed here and there among the
+      cavalry. The army was arranged in two lines, the canal on the right and in
+      its rear, the high road in front, and the town on the left. In the centre,
+      the infantry was formed, under the command of Count Brahe; the cavalry on
+      the wings; the artillery in front. To the German hero, Bernard, Duke of
+      Weimar, was intrusted the command of the German cavalry of the left wing;
+      while, on the right, the king led on the Swedes in person, in order to
+      excite the emulation of the two nations to a noble competition. The second
+      line was formed in the same manner; and behind these was placed the
+      reserve, commanded by Henderson, a Scotchman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this position, they awaited the eventful dawn of morning, to begin a
+      contest, which long delay, rather than the probability of decisive
+      consequences, and the picked body, rather than the number of the
+      combatants, was to render so terrible and remarkable. The strained
+      expectation of Europe, so disappointed before Nuremberg, was now to be
+      gratified on the plains of Lutzen. During the whole course of the war, two
+      such generals, so equally matched in renown and ability, had not before
+      been pitted against each other. Never, as yet, had daring been cooled by
+      so awful a hazard, or hope animated by so glorious a prize. Europe was
+      next day to learn who was her greatest general:&mdash;to-morrow, the
+      leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must acknowledge a victor. This
+      morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of Gustavus
+      at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military genius, or to
+      the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were
+      to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high price at which
+      they had been purchased. The victory was as yet doubtful, but certain were
+      the labour and the bloodshed by which it must be earned. Every private in
+      both armies, felt a jealous share in their leader's reputation, and under
+      every corslet beat the same emotions that inflamed the bosoms of the
+      generals. Each army knew the enemy to which it was to be opposed: and the
+      anxiety which each in vain attempted to repress, was a convincing proof of
+      their opponent's strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the fateful morning dawned; but an impenetrable fog, which spread
+      over the plain, delayed the attack till noon. Kneeling in front of his
+      lines, the king offered up his devotions; and the whole army, at the same
+      moment dropping on their knees, burst into a moving hymn, accompanied by
+      the military music. The king then mounted his horse, and clad only in a
+      leathern doublet and surtout, (for a wound he had formerly received
+      prevented his wearing armour,) rode along the ranks, to animate the
+      courage of his troops with a joyful confidence, which, however, the
+      forboding presentiment of his own bosom contradicted. "God with us!" was
+      the war-cry of the Swedes; "Jesus Maria!" that of the Imperialists. About
+      eleven the fog began to disperse, and the enemy became visible. At the
+      same moment Lutzen was seen in flames, having been set on fire by command
+      of the duke, to prevent his being outflanked on that side. The charge was
+      now sounded; the cavalry rushed upon the enemy, and the infantry advanced
+      against the trenches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Received by a tremendous fire of musketry and heavy artillery, these
+      intrepid battalions maintained the attack with undaunted courage, till the
+      enemy's musketeers abandoned their posts, the trenches were passed, the
+      battery carried and turned against the enemy. They pressed forward with
+      irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five imperial brigades was
+      immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third put to flight.
+      But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to their progress. With
+      the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to rally his discomfited
+      troops; and his powerful word was itself sufficient to stop the flight of
+      the fugitives. Supported by three regiments of cavalry, the vanquished
+      brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and pressed vigorously into the
+      broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous conflict ensued. The nearness of
+      the enemy left no room for fire-arms, the fury of the attack no time for
+      loading; man was matched to man, the useless musket exchanged for the
+      sword and pike, and science gave way to desperation. Overpowered by
+      numbers, the wearied Swedes at last retire beyond the trenches; and the
+      captured battery is again lost by the retreat. A thousand mangled bodies
+      already strewed the plain, and as yet not a single step of ground had been
+      won.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="1p260 (146K)" src="images/1p260.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, the king's right wing, led by himself, had fallen upon
+      the enemy's left. The first impetuous shock of the heavy Finland
+      cuirassiers dispersed the lightly-mounted Poles and Croats, who were
+      posted here, and their disorderly flight spread terror and confusion among
+      the rest of the cavalry. At this moment notice was brought the king, that
+      his infantry were retreating over the trenches, and also that his left
+      wing, exposed to a severe fire from the enemy's cannon posted at the
+      windmills was beginning to give way. With rapid decision he committed to
+      General Horn the pursuit of the enemy's left, while he flew, at the head
+      of the regiment of Steinbock, to repair the disorder of his right wing.
+      His noble charger bore him with the velocity of lightning across the
+      trenches, but the squadrons that followed could not come on with the same
+      speed, and only a few horsemen, among whom was Francis Albert, Duke of
+      Saxe Lauenburg, were able to keep up with the king. He rode directly to
+      the place where his infantry were most closely pressed, and while he was
+      reconnoitring the enemy's line for an exposed point of attack, the
+      shortness of his sight unfortunately led him too close to their ranks. An
+      imperial Gefreyter,&mdash;[A person exempt from watching duty, nearly
+      corresponding to the corporal.]&mdash;remarking that every one
+      respectfully made way for him as he rode along, immediately ordered a
+      musketeer to take aim at him. "Fire at him yonder," said he, "that must be
+      a man of consequence." The soldier fired, and the king's left arm was
+      shattered. At that moment his squadron came hurrying up, and a confused
+      cry of "the king bleeds! the king is shot!" spread terror and
+      consternation through all the ranks. "It is nothing&mdash;follow me,"
+      cried the king, collecting his whole strength; but overcome by pain, and
+      nearly fainting, he requested the Duke of Lauenburg, in French, to lead
+      him unobserved out of the tumult. While the duke proceeded towards the
+      right wing with the king, making a long circuit to keep this discouraging
+      sight from the disordered infantry, his majesty received a second shot
+      through the back, which deprived him of his remaining strength. "Brother,"
+      said he, with a dying voice, "I have enough! look only to your own life."
+      At the same moment he fell from his horse pierced by several more shots;
+      and abandoned by all his attendants, he breathed his last amidst the
+      plundering hands of the Croats. His charger, flying without its rider, and
+      covered with blood, soon made known to the Swedish cavalry the fall of
+      their king. They rushed madly forward to rescue his sacred remains from
+      the hands of the enemy. A murderous conflict ensued over the body, till
+      his mangled remains were buried beneath a heap of slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mournful tidings soon ran through the Swedish army; but instead of
+      destroying the courage of these brave troops, it but excited it into a
+      new, a wild, and consuming flame. Life had lessened in value, now that the
+      most sacred life of all was gone; death had no terrors for the lowly since
+      the anointed head was not spared. With the fury of lions the Upland,
+      Smaeland, Finland, East and West Gothland regiments rushed a second time
+      upon the left wing of the enemy, which, already making but feeble
+      resistance to General Horn, was now entirely beaten from the field.
+      Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, gave to the bereaved Swedes a noble leader
+      in his own person; and the spirit of Gustavus led his victorious squadrons
+      anew. The left wing quickly formed again, and vigorously pressed the right
+      of the Imperialists. The artillery at the windmills, which had maintained
+      so murderous a fire upon the Swedes, was captured and turned against the
+      enemy. The centre, also, of the Swedish infantry, commanded by the duke
+      and Knyphausen, advanced a second time against the trenches, which they
+      successfully passed, and retook the battery of seven cannons. The attack
+      was now renewed with redoubled fury upon the heavy battalions of the
+      enemy's centre; their resistance became gradually less, and chance
+      conspired with Swedish valour to complete the defeat. The imperial
+      powder-waggons took fire, and, with a tremendous explosion, grenades and
+      bombs filled the air. The enemy, now in confusion, thought they were
+      attacked in the rear, while the Swedish brigades pressed them in front.
+      Their courage began to fail them. Their left wing was already beaten,
+      their right wavering, and their artillery in the enemy's hands. The battle
+      seemed to be almost decided; another moment would decide the fate of the
+      day, when Pappenheim appeared on the field, with his cuirassiers and
+      dragoons; all the advantages already gained were lost, and the battle was
+      to be fought anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order which recalled that general to Lutzen had reached him in Halle,
+      while his troops were still plundering the town. It was impossible to
+      collect the scattered infantry with that rapidity, which the urgency of
+      the order, and Pappenheim's impatience required. Without waiting for it,
+      therefore, he ordered eight regiments of cavalry to mount; and at their
+      head he galloped at full speed for Lutzen, to share in the battle. He
+      arrived in time to witness the flight of the imperial right wing, which
+      Gustavus Horn was driving from the field, and to be at first involved in
+      their rout. But with rapid presence of mind he rallied the flying troops,
+      and led them once more against the enemy. Carried away by his wild
+      bravery, and impatient to encounter the king, who he supposed was at the
+      head of this wing, he burst furiously upon the Swedish ranks, which,
+      exhausted by victory, and inferior in numbers, were, after a noble
+      resistance, overpowered by this fresh body of enemies. Pappenheim's
+      unexpected appearance revived the drooping courage of the Imperialists,
+      and the Duke of Friedland quickly availed himself of the favourable moment
+      to re-form his line. The closely serried battalions of the Swedes were,
+      after a tremendous conflict, again driven across the trenches; and the
+      battery, which had been twice lost, again rescued from their hands. The
+      whole yellow regiment, the finest of all that distinguished themselves in
+      this dreadful day, lay dead on the field, covering the ground almost in
+      the same excellent order which, when alive, they maintained with such
+      unyielding courage. The same fate befel another regiment of Blues, which
+      Count Piccolomini attacked with the imperial cavalry, and cut down after a
+      desperate contest. Seven times did this intrepid general renew the attack;
+      seven horses were shot under him, and he himself was pierced with six
+      musket balls; yet he would not leave the field, until he was carried along
+      in the general rout of the whole army. Wallenstein himself was seen riding
+      through his ranks with cool intrepidity, amidst a shower of balls,
+      assisting the distressed, encouraging the valiant with praise, and the
+      wavering by his fearful glance. Around and close by him his men were
+      falling thick, and his own mantle was perforated by several shots. But
+      avenging destiny this day protected that breast, for which another weapon
+      was reserved; on the same field where the noble Gustavus expired,
+      Wallenstein was not allowed to terminate his guilty career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Less fortunate was Pappenheim, the Telamon of the army, the bravest
+      soldier of Austria and the church. An ardent desire to encounter the king
+      in person, carried this daring leader into the thickest of the fight,
+      where he thought his noble opponent was most surely to be met. Gustavus
+      had also expressed a wish to meet his brave antagonist, but these hostile
+      wishes remained ungratified; death first brought together these two great
+      heroes. Two musket-balls pierced the breast of Pappenheim; and his men
+      forcibly carried him from the field. While they were conveying him to the
+      rear, a murmur reached him, that he whom he had sought, lay dead upon the
+      plain. When the truth of the report was confirmed to him, his look became
+      brighter, his dying eye sparkled with a last gleam of joy. "Tell the Duke
+      of Friedland," said he, "that I lie without hope of life, but that I die
+      happy, since I know that the implacable enemy of my religion has fallen on
+      the same day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Pappenheim, the good fortune of the Imperialists departed. The
+      cavalry of the left wing, already beaten, and only rallied by his
+      exertions, no sooner missed their victorious leader, than they gave up
+      everything for lost, and abandoned the field of battle in spiritless
+      despair. The right wing fell into the same confusion, with the exception
+      of a few regiments, which the bravery of their colonels Gotz, Terzky,
+      Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their ground. The Swedish
+      infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's confusion. To
+      fill up the gaps which death had made in the front line, they formed both
+      lines into one, and with it made the final and decisive charge. A third
+      time they crossed the trenches, and a third time they captured the
+      battery. The sun was setting when the two lines closed. The strife grew
+      hotter as it drew to an end; the last efforts of strength were mutually
+      exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost to repair in these
+      precious moments the fortune of the day. It was in vain; despair endows
+      every one with superhuman strength; no one can conquer, no one will give
+      way. The art of war seemed to exhaust its powers on one side, only to
+      unfold some new and untried masterpiece of skill on the other. Night and
+      darkness at last put an end to the fight, before the fury of the
+      combatants was exhausted; and the contest only ceased, when no one could
+      any longer find an antagonist. Both armies separated, as if by tacit
+      agreement; the trumpets sounded, and each party claiming the victory,
+      quitted the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artillery on both sides, as the horses could not be found, remained
+      all night upon the field, at once the reward and the evidence of victory
+      to him who should hold it. Wallenstein, in his haste to leave Leipzig and
+      Saxony, forgot to remove his part. Not long after the battle was ended,
+      Pappenheim's infantry, who had been unable to follow the rapid movements
+      of their general, and who amounted to six regiments, marched on the field,
+      but the work was done. A few hours earlier, so considerable a
+      reinforcement would perhaps have decided the day in favour of the
+      Imperialists; and, even now, by remaining on the field, they might have
+      saved the duke's artillery, and made a prize of that of the Swedes. But
+      they had received no orders to act; and, uncertain as to the issue of the
+      battle, they retired to Leipzig, where they hoped to join the main body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke of Friedland had retreated thither, and was followed on the
+      morrow by the scattered remains of his army, without artillery, without
+      colours, and almost without arms. The Duke of Weimar, it appears, after
+      the toils of this bloody day, allowed the Swedish army some repose,
+      between Lutzen and Weissenfels, near enough to the field of battle to
+      oppose any attempt the enemy might make to recover it. Of the two armies,
+      more than 9,000 men lay dead; a still greater number were wounded, and
+      among the Imperialists, scarcely a man escaped from the field uninjured.
+      The entire plain from Lutzen to the Canal was strewed with the wounded,
+      the dying, and the dead. Many of the principal nobility had fallen on both
+      sides. Even the Abbot of Fulda, who had mingled in the combat as a
+      spectator, paid for his curiosity and his ill-timed zeal with his life.
+      History says nothing of prisoners; a further proof of the animosity of the
+      combatants, who neither gave nor took quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pappenheim died the next day of his wounds at Leipzig; an irreparable loss
+      to the imperial army, which this brave warrior had so often led on to
+      victory. The battle of Prague, where, together with Wallenstein, he was
+      present as colonel, was the beginning of his heroic career. Dangerously
+      wounded, with a few troops, he made an impetuous attack on a regiment of
+      the enemy, and lay for several hours mixed with the dead upon the field,
+      beneath the weight of his horse, till he was discovered by some of his own
+      men in plundering. With a small force he defeated, in three different
+      engagements, the rebels in Upper Austria, though 40,000 strong. At the
+      battle of Leipzig, he for a long time delayed the defeat of Tilly by his
+      bravery, and led the arms of the Emperor on the Elbe and the Weser to
+      victory. The wild impetuous fire of his temperament, which no danger,
+      however apparent, could cool, or impossibilities check, made him the most
+      powerful arm of the imperial force, but unfitted him for acting at its
+      head. The battle of Leipzig, if Tilly may be believed, was lost through
+      his rash ardour. At the destruction of Magdeburg, his hands were deeply
+      steeped in blood; war rendered savage and ferocious his disposition, which
+      had been cultivated by youthful studies and various travels. On his
+      forehead, two red streaks, like swords, were perceptible, with which
+      nature had marked him at his very birth. Even in his later years, these
+      became visible, as often as his blood was stirred by passion; and
+      superstition easily persuaded itself, that the future destiny of the man
+      was thus impressed upon the forehead of the child. As a faithful servant
+      of the House of Austria, he had the strongest claims on the gratitude of
+      both its lines, but he did not survive to enjoy the most brilliant proof
+      of their regard. A messenger was already on his way from Madrid, bearing
+      to him the order of the Golden Fleece, when death overtook him at Leipzig.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Te Deum, in all Spanish and Austrian lands, was sung in honour of a
+      victory, Wallenstein himself, by the haste with which he quitted Leipzig,
+      and soon after all Saxony, and by renouncing his original design of fixing
+      there his winter quarters, openly confessed his defeat. It is true he made
+      one more feeble attempt to dispute, even in his flight, the honour of
+      victory, by sending out his Croats next morning to the field; but the
+      sight of the Swedish army drawn up in order of battle, immediately
+      dispersed these flying bands, and Duke Bernard, by keeping possession of
+      the field, and soon after by the capture of Leipzig, maintained
+      indisputably his claim to the title of victor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was a dear conquest, a dearer triumph! It was not till the fury of
+      the contest was over, that the full weight of the loss sustained was felt,
+      and the shout of triumph died away into a silent gloom of despair. He, who
+      had led them to the charge, returned not with them; there he lay upon the
+      field which he had won, mingled with the dead bodies of the common crowd.
+      After a long and almost fruitless search, the corpse of the king was
+      discovered, not far from the great stone, which, for a hundred years
+      before, had stood between Lutzen and the Canal, and which, from the
+      memorable disaster of that day, still bears the name of the Stone of the
+      Swede. Covered with blood and wounds, so as scarcely to be recognised,
+      trampled beneath the horses' hoofs, stripped by the rude hands of
+      plunderers of its ornaments and clothes, his body was drawn from beneath a
+      heap of dead, conveyed to Weissenfels, and there delivered up to the
+      lamentations of his soldiers, and the last embraces of his queen. The
+      first tribute had been paid to revenge, and blood had atoned for the blood
+      of the monarch; but now affection assumes its rights, and tears of grief
+      must flow for the man. The universal sorrow absorbs all individual woes.
+      The generals, still stupefied by the unexpected blow, stood speechless and
+      motionless around his bier, and no one trusted himself enough to
+      contemplate the full extent of their loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor, we are told by Khevenhuller, showed symptoms of deep, and
+      apparently sincere feeling, at the sight of the king's doublet stained
+      with blood, which had been stripped from him during the battle, and
+      carried to Vienna. "Willingly," said he, "would I have granted to the
+      unfortunate prince a longer life, and a safe return to his kingdom, had
+      Germany been at peace." But when a trait, which is nothing more than a
+      proof of a yet lingering humanity, and which a mere regard to appearances
+      and even self-love, would have extorted from the most insensible, and the
+      absence of which could exist only in the most inhuman heart, has, by a
+      Roman Catholic writer of modern times and acknowledged merit, been made
+      the subject of the highest eulogium, and compared with the magnanimous
+      tears of Alexander, for the fall of Darius, our distrust is excited of the
+      other virtues of the writer's hero, and what is still worse, of his own
+      ideas of moral dignity. But even such praise, whatever its amount, is much
+      for one, whose memory his biographer has to clear from the suspicion of
+      being privy to the assassination of a king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was scarcely to be expected, that the strong leaning of mankind to the
+      marvellous, would leave to the common course of nature the glory of ending
+      the career of Gustavus Adolphus. The death of so formidable a rival was
+      too important an event for the Emperor, not to excite in his bitter
+      opponent a ready suspicion, that what was so much to his interests, was
+      also the result of his instigation. For the execution, however, of this
+      dark deed, the Emperor would require the aid of a foreign arm, and this it
+      was generally believed he had found in Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe
+      Lauenburg. The rank of the latter permitted him a free access to the
+      king's person, while it at the same time seemed to place him above the
+      suspicion of so foul a deed. This prince, however, was in fact not
+      incapable of this atrocity, and he had moreover sufficient motives for its
+      commission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francis Albert, the youngest of four sons of Francis II, Duke of
+      Lauenburg, and related by the mother's side to the race of Vasa, had, in
+      his early years, found a most friendly reception at the Swedish court.
+      Some offence which he had committed against Gustavus Adolphus, in the
+      queen's chamber, was, it is said, repaid by this fiery youth with a box on
+      the ear; which, though immediately repented of, and amply apologized for,
+      laid the foundation of an irreconcileable hate in the vindictive heart of
+      the duke. Francis Albert subsequently entered the imperial service, where
+      he rose to the command of a regiment, and formed a close intimacy with
+      Wallenstein, and condescended to be the instrument of a secret negociation
+      with the Saxon court, which did little honour to his rank. Without any
+      sufficient cause being assigned, he suddenly quitted the Austrian service,
+      and appeared in the king's camp at Nuremberg, to offer his services as a
+      volunteer. By his show of zeal for the Protestant cause, and prepossessing
+      and flattering deportment, he gained the heart of the king, who, warned in
+      vain by Oxenstiern, continued to lavish his favour and friendship on this
+      suspicious new comer. The battle of Lutzen soon followed, in which Francis
+      Albert, like an evil genius, kept close to the king's side and did not
+      leave him till he fell. He owed, it was thought, his own safety amidst the
+      fire of the enemy, to a green sash which he wore, the colour of the
+      Imperialists. He was at any rate the first to convey to his friend
+      Wallenstein the intelligence of the king's death. After the battle, he
+      exchanged the Swedish service for the Saxon; and, after the murder of
+      Wallenstein, being charged with being an accomplice of that general, he
+      only escaped the sword of justice by abjuring his faith. His last
+      appearance in life was as commander of an imperial army in Silesia, where
+      he died of the wounds he had received before Schweidnitz. It requires some
+      effort to believe in the innocence of a man, who had run through a career
+      like this, of the act charged against him; but, however great may be the
+      moral and physical possibility of his committing such a crime, it must
+      still be allowed that there are no certain grounds for imputing it to him.
+      Gustavus Adolphus, it is well known, exposed himself to danger, like the
+      meanest soldier in his army, and where thousands fell, he, too, might
+      naturally meet his death. How it reached him, remains indeed buried in
+      mystery; but here, more than anywhere, does the maxim apply, that where
+      the ordinary course of things is fully sufficient to account for the fact,
+      the honour of human nature ought not to be stained by any suspicion of
+      moral atrocity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But by whatever hand he fell, his extraordinary destiny must appear a
+      great interposition of Providence. History, too often confined to the
+      ungrateful task of analyzing the uniform play of human passions, is
+      occasionally rewarded by the appearance of events, which strike like a
+      hand from heaven, into the nicely adjusted machinery of human plans, and
+      carry the contemplative mind to a higher order of things. Of this kind, is
+      the sudden retirement of Gustavus Adolphus from the scene;&mdash;stopping
+      for a time the whole movement of the political machine, and disappointing
+      all the calculations of human prudence. Yesterday, the very soul, the
+      great and animating principle of his own creation; to-day, struck
+      unpitiably to the ground in the very midst of his eagle flight; untimely
+      torn from a whole world of great designs, and from the ripening harvest of
+      his expectations, he left his bereaved party disconsolate; and the proud
+      edifice of his past greatness sunk into ruins. The Protestant party had
+      identified its hopes with its invincible leader, and scarcely can it now
+      separate them from him; with him, they now fear all good fortune is
+      buried. But it was no longer the benefactor of Germany who fell at Lutzen:
+      the beneficent part of his career, Gustavus Adolphus had already
+      terminated; and now the greatest service which he could render to the
+      liberties of Germany was&mdash;to die. The all-engrossing power of an
+      individual was at an end, but many came forward to essay their strength;
+      the equivocal assistance of an over-powerful protector, gave place to a
+      more noble self-exertion on the part of the Estates; and those who were
+      formerly the mere instruments of his aggrandizement, now began to work for
+      themselves. They now looked to their own exertions for the emancipation,
+      which could not be received without danger from the hand of the mighty;
+      and the Swedish power, now incapable of sinking into the oppressor, was
+      henceforth restricted to the more modest part of an ally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ambition of the Swedish monarch aspired unquestionably to establish a
+      power within Germany, and to attain a firm footing in the centre of the
+      empire, which was inconsistent with the liberties of the Estates. His aim
+      was the imperial crown; and this dignity, supported by his power, and
+      maintained by his energy and activity, would in his hands be liable to
+      more abuse than had ever been feared from the House of Austria. Born in a
+      foreign country, educated in the maxims of arbitrary power, and by
+      principles and enthusiasm a determined enemy to Popery, he was ill
+      qualified to maintain inviolate the constitution of the German States, or
+      to respect their liberties. The coercive homage which Augsburg, with many
+      other cities, was forced to pay to the Swedish crown, bespoke the
+      conqueror, rather than the protector of the empire; and this town, prouder
+      of the title of a royal city, than of the higher dignity of the freedom of
+      the empire, flattered itself with the anticipation of becoming the capital
+      of his future kingdom. His ill-disguised attempts upon the Electorate of
+      Mentz, which he first intended to bestow upon the Elector of Brandenburg,
+      as the dower of his daughter Christina, and afterwards destined for his
+      chancellor and friend Oxenstiern, evinced plainly what liberties he was
+      disposed to take with the constitution of the empire. His allies, the
+      Protestant princes, had claims on his gratitude, which could be satisfied
+      only at the expense of their Roman Catholic neighbours, and particularly
+      of the immediate Ecclesiastical Chapters; and it seems probable a plan was
+      early formed for dividing the conquered provinces, (after the precedent of
+      the barbarian hordes who overran the German empire,) as a common spoil,
+      among the German and Swedish confederates. In his treatment of the Elector
+      Palatine, he entirely belied the magnanimity of the hero, and forgot the
+      sacred character of a protector. The Palatinate was in his hands, and the
+      obligations both of justice and honour demanded its full and immediate
+      restoration to the legitimate sovereign. But, by a subtlety unworthy of a
+      great mind, and disgraceful to the honourable title of protector of the
+      oppressed, he eluded that obligation. He treated the Palatinate as a
+      conquest wrested from the enemy, and thought that this circumstance gave
+      him a right to deal with it as he pleased. He surrendered it to the
+      Elector as a favour, not as a debt; and that, too, as a Swedish fief,
+      fettered by conditions which diminished half its value, and degraded this
+      unfortunate prince into a humble vassal of Sweden. One of these conditions
+      obliged the Elector, after the conclusion of the war, to furnish, along
+      with the other princes, his contribution towards the maintenance of the
+      Swedish army, a condition which plainly indicates the fate which, in the
+      event of the ultimate success of the king, awaited Germany. His sudden
+      disappearance secured the liberties of Germany, and saved his reputation,
+      while it probably spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in
+      arms against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by a
+      disadvantageous peace. Saxony was already disposed to abandon him, Denmark
+      viewed his success with alarm and jealousy; and even France, the firmest
+      and most potent of his allies, terrified at the rapid growth of his power
+      and the imperious tone which he assumed, looked around at the very moment
+      he past the Lech, for foreign alliances, in order to check the progress of
+      the Goths, and restore to Europe the balance of power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The weak bond of union, by which Gustavus Adolphus contrived to hold
+      together the Protestant members of the empire, was dissolved by his death:
+      the allies were now again at liberty, and their alliance, to last, must be
+      formed anew. By the former event, if unremedied, they would lose all the
+      advantages they had gained at the cost of so much bloodshed, and expose
+      themselves to the inevitable danger of becoming one after the other the
+      prey of an enemy, whom, by their union alone, they had been able to oppose
+      and to master. Neither Sweden, nor any of the states of the empire, was
+      singly a match with the Emperor and the League; and, by seeking a peace
+      under the present state of things, they would necessarily be obliged to
+      receive laws from the enemy. Union was, therefore, equally indispensable,
+      either for concluding a peace or continuing the war. But a peace, sought
+      under the present circumstances, could not fail to be disadvantageous to
+      the allied powers. With the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the enemy had
+      formed new hopes; and however gloomy might be the situation of his affairs
+      after the battle of Lutzen, still the death of his dreaded rival was an
+      event too disastrous to the allies, and too favourable for the Emperor,
+      not to justify him in entertaining the most brilliant expectations, and
+      not to encourage him to the prosecution of the war. Its inevitable
+      consequence, for the moment at least, must be want of union among the
+      allies, and what might not the Emperor and the League gain from such a
+      division of their enemies? He was not likely to sacrifice such prospects,
+      as the present turn of affairs held out to him, for any peace, not highly
+      beneficial to himself; and such a peace the allies would not be disposed
+      to accept. They naturally determined, therefore, to continue the war, and
+      for this purpose, the maintenance of the existing union was acknowledged
+      to be indispensable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how was this union to be renewed? and whence were to be derived the
+      necessary means for continuing the war? It was not the power of Sweden,
+      but the talents and personal influence of its late king, which had given
+      him so overwhelming an influence in Germany, so great a command over the
+      minds of men; and even he had innumerable difficulties to overcome, before
+      he could establish among the states even a weak and wavering alliance.
+      With his death vanished all, which his personal qualities alone had
+      rendered practicable; and the mutual obligation of the states seemed to
+      cease with the hopes on which it had been founded. Several impatiently
+      threw off the yoke which had always been irksome; others hastened to seize
+      the helm which they had unwillingly seen in the hands of Gustavus, but
+      which, during his lifetime, they did not dare to dispute with him. Some
+      were tempted, by the seductive promises of the Emperor, to abandon the
+      alliance; others, oppressed by the heavy burdens of a fourteen years' war,
+      longed for the repose of peace, upon any conditions, however ruinous. The
+      generals of the army, partly German princes, acknowledged no common head,
+      and no one would stoop to receive orders from another. Unanimity vanished
+      alike from the cabinet and the field, and their common weal was threatened
+      with ruin, by the spirit of disunion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus had left no male heir to the crown of Sweden: his daughter
+      Christina, then six years old, was the natural heir. The unavoidable
+      weakness of a regency, suited ill with that energy and resolution, which
+      Sweden would be called upon to display in this trying conjuncture. The
+      wide reaching mind of Gustavus Adolphus had raised this unimportant, and
+      hitherto unknown kingdom, to a rank among the powers of Europe, which it
+      could not retain without the fortune and genius of its author, and from
+      which it could not recede, without a humiliating confession of weakness.
+      Though the German war had been conducted chiefly on the resources of
+      Germany, yet even the small contribution of men and money, which Sweden
+      furnished, had sufficed to exhaust the finances of that poor kingdom, and
+      the peasantry groaned beneath the imposts necessarily laid upon them. The
+      plunder gained in Germany enriched only a few individuals, among the
+      nobles and the soldiers, while Sweden itself remained poor as before. For
+      a time, it is true, the national glory reconciled the subject to these
+      burdens, and the sums exacted, seemed but as a loan placed at interest, in
+      the fortunate hand of Gustavus Adolphus, to be richly repaid by the
+      grateful monarch at the conclusion of a glorious peace. But with the
+      king's death this hope vanished, and the deluded people now loudly
+      demanded relief from their burdens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the spirit of Gustavus Adolphus still lived in the men to whom he had
+      confided the administration of the kingdom. However dreadful to them, and
+      unexpected, was the intelligence of his death, it did not deprive them of
+      their manly courage; and the spirit of ancient Rome, under the invasion of
+      Brennus and Hannibal, animated this noble assembly. The greater the price,
+      at which these hard-gained advantages had been purchased, the less readily
+      could they reconcile themselves to renounce them: not unrevenged was a
+      king to be sacrificed. Called on to choose between a doubtful and
+      exhausting war, and a profitable but disgraceful peace, the Swedish
+      council of state boldly espoused the side of danger and honour; and with
+      agreeable surprise, men beheld this venerable senate acting with all the
+      energy and enthusiasm of youth. Surrounded with watchful enemies, both
+      within and without, and threatened on every side with danger, they armed
+      themselves against them all, with equal prudence and heroism, and laboured
+      to extend their kingdom, even at the moment when they had to struggle for
+      its existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The decease of the king, and the minority of his daughter Christina,
+      renewed the claims of Poland to the Swedish throne; and King Ladislaus,
+      the son of Sigismund, spared no intrigues to gain a party in Sweden. On
+      this ground, the regency lost no time in proclaiming the young queen, and
+      arranging the administration of the regency. All the officers of the
+      kingdom were summoned to do homage to their new princess; all
+      correspondence with Poland prohibited, and the edicts of previous monarchs
+      against the heirs of Sigismund, confirmed by a solemn act of the nation.
+      The alliance with the Czar of Muscovy was carefully renewed, in order, by
+      the arms of this prince, to keep the hostile Poles in check. The death of
+      Gustavus Adolphus had put an end to the jealousy of Denmark, and removed
+      the grounds of alarm which had stood in the way of a good understanding
+      between the two states. The representations by which the enemy sought to
+      stir up Christian IV. against Sweden were no longer listened to; and the
+      strong wish the Danish monarch entertained for the marriage of his son
+      Ulrick with the young princess, combined, with the dictates of a sounder
+      policy, to incline him to a neutrality. At the same time, England,
+      Holland, and France came forward with the gratifying assurances to the
+      regency of continued friendship and support, and encouraged them, with one
+      voice, to prosecute with activity the war, which hitherto had been
+      conducted with so much glory. Whatever reason France might have to
+      congratulate itself on the death of the Swedish conqueror, it was as fully
+      sensible of the expediency of maintaining the alliance with Sweden.
+      Without exposing itself to great danger, it could not allow the power of
+      Sweden to sink in Germany. Want of resources of its own, would either
+      drive Sweden to conclude a hasty and disadvantageous peace with Austria,
+      and then all the past efforts to lower the ascendancy of this dangerous
+      power would be thrown away; or necessity and despair would drive the
+      armies to extort from the Roman Catholic states the means of support, and
+      France would then be regarded as the betrayer of those very states, who
+      had placed themselves under her powerful protection. The death of
+      Gustavus, far from breaking up the alliance between France and Sweden, had
+      only rendered it more necessary for both, and more profitable for France.
+      Now, for the first time, since he was dead who had stretched his
+      protecting arm over Germany, and guarded its frontiers against the
+      encroaching designs of France, could the latter safely pursue its designs
+      upon Alsace, and thus be enabled to sell its aid to the German Protestants
+      at a dearer rate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strengthened by these alliances, secured in its interior, and defended
+      from without by strong frontier garrisons and fleets, the regency did not
+      delay an instant to continue a war, by which Sweden had little of its own
+      to lose, while, if success attended its arms, one or more of the German
+      provinces might be won, either as a conquest, or indemnification of its
+      expenses. Secure amidst its seas, Sweden, even if driven out of Germany,
+      would scarcely be exposed to greater peril, than if it voluntarily retired
+      from the contest, while the former measure was as honourable, as the
+      latter was disgraceful. The more boldness the regency displayed, the more
+      confidence would they inspire among their confederates, the more respect
+      among their enemies, and the more favourable conditions might they
+      anticipate in the event of peace. If they found themselves too weak to
+      execute the wide-ranging projects of Gustavus, they at least owed it to
+      this lofty model to do their utmost, and to yield to no difficulty short
+      of absolute necessity. Alas, that motives of self-interest had too great a
+      share in this noble determination, to demand our unqualified admiration!
+      For those who had nothing themselves to suffer from the calamities of war,
+      but were rather to be enriched by it, it was an easy matter to resolve
+      upon its continuation; for the German empire was, in the end, to defray
+      the expenses; and the provinces on which they reckoned, would be cheaply
+      purchased with the few troops they sacrificed to them, and with the
+      generals who were placed at the head of armies, composed for the most part
+      of Germans, and with the honourable superintendence of all the operations,
+      both military and political.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this superintendence was irreconcileable with the distance of the
+      Swedish regency from the scene of action, and with the slowness which
+      necessarily accompanies all the movements of a council.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To one comprehensive mind must be intrusted the management of Swedish
+      interests in Germany, and with full powers to determine at discretion all
+      questions of war and peace, the necessary alliances, or the acquisitions
+      made. With dictatorial power, and with the whole influence of the crown
+      which he was to represent, must this important magistrate be invested, in
+      order to maintain its dignity, to enforce united and combined operations,
+      to give effect to his orders, and to supply the place of the monarch whom
+      he succeeded. Such a man was found in the Chancellor Oxenstiern, the first
+      minister, and what is more, the friend of the deceased king, who,
+      acquainted with all the secrets of his master, versed in the politics of
+      Germany, and in the relations of all the states of Europe, was
+      unquestionably the fittest instrument to carry out the plans of Gustavus
+      Adolphus in their full extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oxenstiern was on his way to Upper Germany, in order to assemble the four
+      Upper Circles, when the news of the king's death reached him at Hanau.
+      This was a heavy blow, both to the friend and the statesman. Sweden,
+      indeed, had lost but a king, Germany a protector; but Oxenstiern, the
+      author of his fortunes, the friend of his soul, and the object of his
+      admiration. Though the greatest sufferer in the general loss, he was the
+      first who by his energy rose from the blow, and the only one qualified to
+      repair it. His penetrating glance foresaw all the obstacles which would
+      oppose the execution of his plans, the discouragement of the estates, the
+      intrigues of hostile courts, the breaking up of the confederacy, the
+      jealousy of the leaders, and the dislike of princes of the empire to
+      submit to foreign authority. But even this deep insight into the existing
+      state of things, which revealed the whole extent of the evil, showed him
+      also the means by which it might be overcome. It was essential to revive
+      the drooping courage of the weaker states, to meet the secret machinations
+      of the enemy, to allay the jealousy of the more powerful allies, to rouse
+      the friendly powers, and France in particular, to active assistance; but
+      above all, to repair the ruined edifice of the German alliance, and to
+      reunite the scattered strength of the party by a close and permanent bond
+      of union. The dismay which the loss of their leader occasioned the German
+      Protestants, might as readily dispose them to a closer alliance with
+      Sweden, as to a hasty peace with the Emperor; and it depended entirely
+      upon the course pursued, which of these alternatives they would adopt.
+      Every thing might be lost by the slightest sign of despondency; nothing,
+      but the confidence which Sweden showed in herself, could kindle among the
+      Germans a noble feeling of self-confidence. All the attempts of Austria,
+      to detach these princes from the Swedish alliance, would be unavailing,
+      the moment their eyes became opened to their true interests, and they were
+      instigated to a public and formal breach with the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before these measures could be taken, and the necessary points settled
+      between the regency and their minister, a precious opportunity of action
+      would, it is true, be lost to the Swedish army, of which the enemy would
+      be sure to take the utmost advantage. It was, in short, in the power of
+      the Emperor totally to ruin the Swedish interest in Germany, and to this
+      he was actually invited by the prudent councils of the Duke of Friedland.
+      Wallenstein advised him to proclaim a universal amnesty, and to meet the
+      Protestant states with favourable conditions. In the first consternation
+      produced by the fall of Gustavus Adolphus, such a declaration would have
+      had the most powerful effects, and probably would have brought the
+      wavering states back to their allegiance. But blinded by this unexpected
+      turn of fortune, and infatuated by Spanish counsels, he anticipated a more
+      brilliant issue from war, and, instead of listening to these propositions
+      of an accommodation, he hastened to augment his forces. Spain, enriched by
+      the grant of the tenth of the ecclesiastical possessions, which the pope
+      confirmed, sent him considerable supplies, negociated for him at the Saxon
+      court, and hastily levied troops for him in Italy to be employed in
+      Germany. The Elector of Bavaria also considerably increased his military
+      force; and the restless disposition of the Duke of Lorraine did not permit
+      him to remain inactive in this favourable change of fortune. But while the
+      enemy were thus busy to profit by the disaster of Sweden, Oxenstiern was
+      diligent to avert its most fatal consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Less apprehensive of open enemies, than of the jealousy of the friendly
+      powers, he left Upper Germany, which he had secured by conquests and
+      alliances, and set out in person to prevent a total defection of the Lower
+      German states, or, what would have been almost equally ruinous to Sweden,
+      a private alliance among themselves. Offended at the boldness with which
+      the chancellor assumed the direction of affairs, and inwardly exasperated
+      at the thought of being dictated to by a Swedish nobleman, the Elector of
+      Saxony again meditated a dangerous separation from Sweden; and the only
+      question in his mind was, whether he should make full terms with the
+      Emperor, or place himself at the head of the Protestants and form a third
+      party in Germany. Similar ideas were cherished by Duke Ulric of Brunswick,
+      who, indeed, showed them openly enough by forbidding the Swedes from
+      recruiting within his dominions, and inviting the Lower Saxon states to
+      Luneburg, for the purpose of forming a confederacy among themselves. The
+      Elector of Brandenburg, jealous of the influence which Saxony was likely
+      to attain in Lower Germany, alone manifested any zeal for the interests of
+      the Swedish throne, which, in thought, he already destined for his son. At
+      the court of Saxony, Oxenstiern was no doubt honourably received; but,
+      notwithstanding the personal efforts of the Elector of Brandenburg, empty
+      promises of continued friendship were all which he could obtain. With the
+      Duke of Brunswick he was more successful, for with him he ventured to
+      assume a bolder tone. Sweden was at the time in possession of the See of
+      Magdeburg, the bishop of which had the power of assembling the Lower Saxon
+      circle. The chancellor now asserted the rights of the crown, and by this
+      spirited proceeding, put a stop for the present to this dangerous assembly
+      designed by the duke. The main object, however, of his present journey and
+      of his future endeavours, a general confederacy of the Protestants,
+      miscarried entirely, and he was obliged to content himself with some
+      unsteady alliances in the Saxon circles, and with the weaker assistance of
+      Upper Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Bavarians were too powerful on the Danube, the assembly of the four
+      Upper Circles, which should have been held at Ulm, was removed to
+      Heilbronn, where deputies of more than twelve cities of the empire, with a
+      brilliant crowd of doctors, counts, and princes, attended. The ambassadors
+      of foreign powers likewise, France, England, and Holland, attended this
+      Congress, at which Oxenstiern appeared in person, with all the splendour
+      of the crown whose representative he was. He himself opened the
+      proceedings, and conducted the deliberations. After receiving from all the
+      assembled estates assurances of unshaken fidelity, perseverance, and
+      unity, he required of them solemnly and formally to declare the Emperor
+      and the league as enemies. But desirable as it was for Sweden to
+      exasperate the ill-feeling between the emperor and the estates into a
+      formal rupture, the latter, on the other hand, were equally indisposed to
+      shut out the possibility of reconciliation, by so decided a step, and to
+      place themselves entirely in the hands of the Swedes. They maintained,
+      that any formal declaration of war was useless and superfluous, where the
+      act would speak for itself, and their firmness on this point silenced at
+      last the chancellor. Warmer disputes arose on the third and principal
+      article of the treaty, concerning the means of prosecuting the war, and
+      the quota which the several states ought to furnish for the support of the
+      army. Oxenstiern's maxim, to throw as much as possible of the common
+      burden on the states, did not suit very well with their determination to
+      give as little as possible. The Swedish chancellor now experienced, what
+      had been felt by thirty emperors before him, to their cost, that of all
+      difficult undertakings, the most difficult was to extort money from the
+      Germans. Instead of granting the necessary sums for the new armies to be
+      raised, they eloquently dwelt upon the calamities occasioned by the
+      former, and demanded relief from the old burdens, when they were required
+      to submit to new. The irritation which the chancellor's demand for money
+      raised among the states, gave rise to a thousand complaints; and the
+      outrages committed by the troops, in their marches and quarters, were
+      dwelt upon with a startling minuteness and truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the service of two absolute monarchs, Oxenstiern had but little
+      opportunity to become accustomed to the formalities and cautious
+      proceedings of republican deliberations, or to bear opposition with
+      patience. Ready to act, the instant the necessity of action was apparent,
+      and inflexible in his resolution, when he had once taken it, he was at a
+      loss to comprehend the inconsistency of most men, who, while they desire
+      the end, are yet averse to the means. Prompt and impetuous by nature, he
+      was so on this occasion from principle; for every thing depended on
+      concealing the weakness of Sweden, under a firm and confident speech, and
+      by assuming the tone of a lawgiver, really to become so. It was nothing
+      wonderful, therefore, if, amidst these interminable discussions with
+      German doctors and deputies, he was entirely out of his sphere, and if the
+      deliberateness which distinguishes the character of the Germans in their
+      public deliberations, had driven him almost to despair. Without respecting
+      a custom, to which even the most powerful of the emperors had been obliged
+      to conform, he rejected all written deliberations which suited so well
+      with the national slowness of resolve. He could not conceive how ten days
+      could be spent in debating a measure, which with himself was decided upon
+      its bare suggestion. Harshly, however, as he treated the States, he found
+      them ready enough to assent to his fourth motion, which concerned himself.
+      When he pointed out the necessity of giving a head and a director to the
+      new confederation, that honour was unanimously assigned to Sweden, and he
+      himself was humbly requested to give to the common cause the benefit of
+      his enlightened experience, and to take upon himself the burden of the
+      supreme command. But in order to prevent his abusing the great powers thus
+      conferred upon him, it was proposed, not without French influence, to
+      appoint a number of overseers, in fact, under the name of assistants, to
+      control the expenditure of the common treasure, and to consult with him as
+      to the levies, marches, and quarterings of the troops. Oxenstiern long and
+      strenuously resisted this limitation of his authority, which could not
+      fail to trammel him in the execution of every enterprise requiring
+      promptitude or secrecy, and at last succeeded, with difficulty, in
+      obtaining so far a modification of it, that his management in affairs of
+      war was to be uncontrolled. The chancellor finally approached the delicate
+      point of the indemnification which Sweden was to expect at the conclusion
+      of the war, from the gratitude of the allies, and flattered himself with
+      the hope that Pomerania, the main object of Sweden, would be assigned to
+      her, and that he would obtain from the provinces, assurances of effectual
+      cooperation in its acquisition. But he could obtain nothing more than a
+      vague assurance, that in a general peace the interests of all parties
+      would be attended to. That on this point, the caution of the estates was
+      not owing to any regard for the constitution of the empire, became
+      manifest from the liberality they evinced towards the chancellor, at the
+      expense of the most sacred laws of the empire. They were ready to grant
+      him the archbishopric of Mentz, (which he already held as a conquest,) and
+      only with difficulty did the French ambassador succeed in preventing a
+      step, which was as impolitic as it was disgraceful. Though on the whole,
+      the result of the congress had fallen far short of Oxenstiern's
+      expectations, he had at least gained for himself and his crown his main
+      object, namely, the direction of the whole confederacy; he had also
+      succeeded in strengthening the bond of union between the four upper
+      circles, and obtained from the states a yearly contribution of two
+      millions and a half of dollars, for the maintenance of the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These concessions on the part of the States, demanded some return from
+      Sweden. A few weeks after the death of Gustavus Adolphus, sorrow ended the
+      days of the unfortunate Elector Palatine. For eight months he had swelled
+      the pomp of his protector's court, and expended on it the small remainder
+      of his patrimony. He was, at last, approaching the goal of his wishes, and
+      the prospect of a brighter future was opening, when death deprived him of
+      his protector. But what he regarded as the greatest calamity, was highly
+      favourable to his heirs. Gustavus might venture to delay the restoration
+      of his dominions, or to load the gift with hard conditions; but
+      Oxenstiern, to whom the friendship of England, Holland, and Brandenburg,
+      and the good opinion of the Reformed States were indispensable, felt the
+      necessity of immediately fulfilling the obligations of justice. At this
+      assembly, at Heilbronn, therefore, he engaged to surrender to Frederick's
+      heirs the whole Palatinate, both the part already conquered, and that
+      which remained to be conquered, with the exception of Manheim, which the
+      Swedes were to hold, until they should be indemnified for their expenses.
+      The Chancellor did not confine his liberality to the family of the
+      Palatine alone; the other allied princes received proofs, though at a
+      later period, of the gratitude of Sweden, which, however, she dispensed at
+      little cost to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Impartiality, the most sacred obligation of the historian, here compels us
+      to an admission, not much to the honour of the champions of German
+      liberty. However the Protestant Princes might boast of the justice of
+      their cause, and the sincerity of their conviction, still the motives from
+      which they acted were selfish enough; and the desire of stripping others
+      of their possessions, had at least as great a share in the commencement of
+      hostilities, as the fear of being deprived of their own. Gustavus soon
+      found that he might reckon much more on these selfish motives, than on
+      their patriotic zeal, and did not fail to avail himself of them. Each of
+      his confederates received from him the promise of some possession, either
+      already wrested, or to be afterwards taken from the enemy; and death alone
+      prevented him from fulfilling these engagements. What prudence had
+      suggested to the king, necessity now prescribed to his successor. If it
+      was his object to continue the war, he must be ready to divide the spoil
+      among the allies, and promise them advantages from the confusion which it
+      was his object to continue. Thus he promised to the Landgrave of Hesse,
+      the abbacies of Paderborn, Corvey, Munster, and Fulda; to Duke Bernard of
+      Weimar, the Franconian Bishoprics; to the Duke of Wirtemberg, the
+      Ecclesiastical domains, and the Austrian counties lying within his
+      territories, all under the title of fiefs of Sweden. This spectacle, so
+      strange and so dishonourable to the German character, surprised the
+      Chancellor, who found it difficult to repress his contempt, and on one
+      occasion exclaimed, "Let it be writ in our records, for an everlasting
+      memorial, that a German prince made such a request of a Swedish nobleman,
+      and that the Swedish nobleman granted it to the German upon German
+      ground!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After these successful measures, he was in a condition to take the field,
+      and prosecute the war with fresh vigour. Soon after the victory at Lutzen,
+      the troops of Saxony and Lunenburg united with the Swedish main body; and
+      the Imperialists were, in a short time, totally driven from Saxony. The
+      united army again divided: the Saxons marched towards Lusatia and Silesia,
+      to act in conjunction with Count Thurn against the Austrians in that
+      quarter; a part of the Swedish army was led by the Duke of Weimar into
+      Franconia, and the other by George, Duke of Brunswick, into Westphalia and
+      Lower Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquests on the Lech and the Danube, during Gustavus's expedition
+      into Saxony, had been maintained by the Palatine of Birkenfeld, and the
+      Swedish General Banner, against the Bavarians; but unable to hold their
+      ground against the victorious progress of the latter, supported as they
+      were by the bravery and military experience of the Imperial General
+      Altringer, they were under the necessity of summoning the Swedish General
+      Horn to their assistance, from Alsace. This experienced general having
+      captured the towns of Benfeld, Schlettstadt, Colmar, and Hagenau,
+      committed the defence of them to the Rhinegrave Otto Louis, and hastily
+      crossed the Rhine to form a junction with Banner's army. But although the
+      combined force amounted to more than 16,000, they could not prevent the
+      enemy from obtaining a strong position on the Swabian frontier, taking
+      Kempten, and being joined by seven regiments from Bohemia. In order to
+      retain the command of the important banks of the Lech and the Danube, they
+      were under the necessity of recalling the Rhinegrave Otto Louis from
+      Alsace, where he had, after the departure of Horn, found it difficult to
+      defend himself against the exasperated peasantry. With his army, he was
+      now summoned to strengthen the army on the Danube; and as even this
+      reinforcement was insufficient, Duke Bernard of Weimar was earnestly
+      pressed to turn his arms into this quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Duke Bernard, soon after the opening of the campaign of 1633, had made
+      himself master of the town and territory of Bamberg, and was now
+      threatening Wurtzburg. But on receiving the summons of General Horn,
+      without delay he began his march towards the Danube, defeated on his way a
+      Bavarian army under John de Werth, and joined the Swedes near Donauwerth.
+      This numerous force, commanded by excellent generals, now threatened
+      Bavaria with a fearful inroad. The bishopric of Eichstadt was completely
+      overrun, and Ingoldstadt was on the point of being delivered up by
+      treachery to the Swedes. Altringer, fettered in his movements by the
+      express order of the Duke of Friedland, and left without assistance from
+      Bohemia, was unable to check the progress of the enemy. The most
+      favourable circumstances combined to further the progress of the Swedish
+      arms in this quarter, when the operations of the army were at once stopped
+      by a mutiny among the officers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the previous successes in Germany were owing altogether to arms; the
+      greatness of Gustavus himself was the work of the army, the fruit of their
+      discipline, their bravery, and their persevering courage under numberless
+      dangers and privations. However wisely his plans were laid in the cabinet,
+      it was to the army ultimately that he was indebted for their execution;
+      and the expanding designs of the general did but continually impose new
+      burdens on the soldiers. All the decisive advantages of the war, had been
+      violently gained by a barbarous sacrifice of the soldiers' lives in winter
+      campaigns, forced marches, stormings, and pitched battles; for it was
+      Gustavus's maxim never to decline a battle, so long as it cost him nothing
+      but men. The soldiers could not long be kept ignorant of their own
+      importance, and they justly demanded a share in the spoil which had been
+      won by their own blood. Yet, frequently, they hardly received their pay;
+      and the rapacity of individual generals, or the wants of the state,
+      generally swallowed up the greater part of the sums raised by
+      contributions, or levied upon the conquered provinces. For all the
+      privations he endured, the soldier had no other recompense than the
+      doubtful chance either of plunder or promotion, in both of which he was
+      often disappointed. During the lifetime of Gustavus Adolphus, the combined
+      influence of fear and hope had suppressed any open complaint, but after
+      his death, the murmurs were loud and universal; and the soldiery seized
+      the most dangerous moment to impress their superiors with a sense of their
+      importance. Two officers, Pfuhl and Mitschefal, notorious as restless
+      characters, even during the King's life, set the example in the camp on
+      the Danube, which in a few days was imitated by almost all the officers of
+      the army. They solemnly bound themselves to obey no orders, till these
+      arrears, now outstanding for months, and even years, should be paid up,
+      and a gratuity, either in money or lands, made to each man, according to
+      his services. "Immense sums," they said, "were daily raised by
+      contributions, and all dissipated by a few. They were called out to serve
+      amidst frost and snow, and no reward requited their incessant labours. The
+      soldiers' excesses at Heilbronn had been blamed, but no one ever talked of
+      their services. The world rung with the tidings of conquests and
+      victories, but it was by their hands that they had been fought and won."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The number of the malcontents daily increased; and they even attempted by
+      letters, (which were fortunately intercepted,) to seduce the armies on the
+      Rhine and in Saxony. Neither the representations of Bernard of Weimar, nor
+      the stern reproaches of his harsher associate in command, could suppress
+      this mutiny, while the vehemence of Horn seemed only to increase the
+      insolence of the insurgents. The conditions they insisted on, were that
+      certain towns should be assigned to each regiment for the payment of
+      arrears. Four weeks were allowed to the Swedish Chancellor to comply with
+      these demands; and in case of refusal, they announced that they would pay
+      themselves, and never more draw a sword for Sweden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These pressing demands, made at the very time when the military chest was
+      exhausted, and credit at a low ebb, greatly embarrassed the chancellor.
+      The remedy, he saw, must be found quickly, before the contagion should
+      spread to the other troops, and he should be deserted by all his armies at
+      once. Among all the Swedish generals, there was only one of sufficient
+      authority and influence with the soldiers to put an end to this dispute.
+      The Duke of Weimar was the favourite of the army, and his prudent
+      moderation had won the good-will of the soldiers, while his military
+      experience had excited their admiration. He now undertook the task of
+      appeasing the discontented troops; but, aware of his importance, he
+      embraced the opportunity to make advantageous stipulations for himself,
+      and to make the embarrassment of the chancellor subservient to his own
+      views.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Adolphus had flattered him with the promise of the Duchy of
+      Franconia, to be formed out of the Bishoprics of Wurtzburg and Bamberg,
+      and he now insisted on the performance of this pledge. He at the same time
+      demanded the chief command, as generalissimo of Sweden. The abuse which
+      the Duke of Weimar thus made of his influence, so irritated Oxenstiern,
+      that, in the first moment of his displeasure, he gave him his dismissal
+      from the Swedish service. But he soon thought better of it, and
+      determined, instead of sacrificing so important a leader, to attach him to
+      the Swedish interests at any cost. He therefore granted to him the
+      Franconian bishoprics, as a fief of the Swedish crown, reserving, however,
+      the two fortresses of Wurtzburg and Koenigshofen, which were to be
+      garrisoned by the Swedes; and also engaged, in name of the Swedish crown,
+      to secure these territories to the duke. His demand of the supreme
+      authority was evaded on some specious pretext. The duke did not delay to
+      display his gratitude for this valuable grant, and by his influence and
+      activity soon restored tranquillity to the army. Large sums of money, and
+      still more extensive estates, were divided among the officers, amounting
+      in value to about five millions of dollars, and to which they had no other
+      right but that of conquest. In the mean time, however, the opportunity for
+      a great undertaking had been lost, and the united generals divided their
+      forces to oppose the enemy in other quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustavus Horn, after a short inroad into the Upper Palatinate, and the
+      capture of Neumark, directed his march towards the Swabian frontier, where
+      the Imperialists, strongly reinforced, threatened Wuertemberg. At his
+      approach, the enemy retired to the Lake of Constance, but only to show the
+      Swedes the road into a district hitherto unvisited by war. A post on the
+      entrance to Switzerland, would be highly serviceable to the Swedes, and
+      the town of Kostnitz seemed peculiarly well fitted to be a point of
+      communication between him and the confederated cantons. Accordingly,
+      Gustavus Horn immediately commenced the siege of it; but destitute of
+      artillery, for which he was obliged to send to Wirtemberg, he could not
+      press the attack with sufficient vigour, to prevent the enemy from
+      throwing supplies into the town, which the lake afforded them convenient
+      opportunity of doing. He, therefore, after an ineffectual attempt, quitted
+      the place and its neighbourhood, and hastened to meet a more threatening
+      danger upon the Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Emperor's instigation, the Cardinal Infante, the brother of Philip
+      IV. of Spain, and the Viceroy of Milan, had raised an army of 14,000 men,
+      intended to act upon the Rhine, independently of Wallenstein, and to
+      protect Alsace. This force now appeared in Bavaria, under the command of
+      the Duke of Feria, a Spaniard; and, that they might be directly employed
+      against the Swedes, Altringer was ordered to join them with his corps.
+      Upon the first intelligence of their approach, Horn had summoned to his
+      assistance the Palsgrave of Birkenfeld, from the Rhine; and being joined
+      by him at Stockach, boldly advanced to meet the enemy's army of 30,000
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter had taken the route across the Danube into Swabia, where
+      Gustavus Horn came so close upon them, that the two armies were only
+      separated from each other by half a German mile. But, instead of accepting
+      the offer of battle, the Imperialists moved by the Forest towns towards
+      Briesgau and Alsace, where they arrived in time to relieve Breysack, and
+      to arrest the victorious progress of the Rhinegrave, Otto Louis. The
+      latter had, shortly before, taken the Forest towns, and, supported by the
+      Palatine of Birkenfeld, who had liberated the Lower Palatinate and beaten
+      the Duke of Lorraine out of the field, had once more given the superiority
+      to the Swedish arms in that quarter. He was now forced to retire before
+      the superior numbers of the enemy; but Horn and Birkenfeld quickly
+      advanced to his support, and the Imperialists, after a brief triumph, were
+      again expelled from Alsace. The severity of the autumn, in which this
+      hapless retreat had to be conducted, proved fatal to most of the Italians;
+      and their leader, the Duke of Feria, died of grief at the failure of his
+      enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, Duke Bernard of Weimar had taken up his position on the
+      Danube, with eighteen regiments of infantry and 140 squadrons of horse, to
+      cover Franconia, and to watch the movements of the Imperial-Bavarian army
+      upon that river. No sooner had Altringer departed, to join the Italians
+      under Feria, than Bernard, profiting by his absence, hastened across the
+      Danube, and with the rapidity of lightning appeared before Ratisbon. The
+      possession of this town would ensure the success of the Swedish designs
+      upon Bavaria and Austria; it would establish them firmly on the Danube,
+      and provide a safe refuge in case of defeat, while it alone could give
+      permanence to their conquests in that quarter. To defend Ratisbon, was the
+      urgent advice which the dying Tilly left to the Elector; and Gustavus
+      Adolphus had lamented it as an irreparable loss, that the Bavarians had
+      anticipated him in taking possession of this place. Indescribable,
+      therefore, was the consternation of Maximilian, when Duke Bernard suddenly
+      appeared before the town, and prepared in earnest to besiege it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The garrison consisted of not more than fifteen companies, mostly
+      newly-raised soldiers; although that number was more than sufficient to
+      weary out an enemy of far superior force, if supported by well-disposed
+      and warlike inhabitants. But this was not the greatest danger which the
+      Bavarian garrison had to contend against. The Protestant inhabitants of
+      Ratisbon, equally jealous of their civil and religious freedom, had
+      unwillingly submitted to the yoke of Bavaria, and had long looked with
+      impatience for the appearance of a deliverer. Bernard's arrival before the
+      walls filled them with lively joy; and there was much reason to fear that
+      they would support the attempts of the besiegers without, by exciting a
+      tumult within. In this perplexity, the Elector addressed the most pressing
+      entreaties to the Emperor and the Duke of Friedland to assist him, were it
+      only with 5,000 men. Seven messengers in succession were despatched by
+      Ferdinand to Wallenstein, who promised immediate succours, and even
+      announced to the Elector the near advance of 12,000 men under Gallas; but
+      at the same time forbade that general, under pain of death, to march.
+      Meanwhile the Bavarian commandant of Ratisbon, in the hope of speedy
+      assistance, made the best preparations for defence, armed the Roman
+      Catholic peasants, disarmed and carefully watched the Protestant citizens,
+      lest they should attempt any hostile design against the garrison. But as
+      no relief arrived, and the enemy's artillery incessantly battered the
+      walls, he consulted his own safety, and that of the garrison, by an
+      honourable capitulation, and abandoned the Bavarian officials and
+      ecclesiastics to the conqueror's mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possession of Ratisbon, enlarged the projects of the duke, and Bavaria
+      itself now appeared too narrow a field for his bold designs. He determined
+      to penetrate to the frontiers of Austria, to arm the Protestant peasantry
+      against the Emperor, and restore to them their religious liberty. He had
+      already taken Straubingen, while another Swedish army was advancing
+      successfully along the northern bank of the Danube. At the head of his
+      Swedes, bidding defiance to the severity of the weather, he reached the
+      mouth of the Iser, which he passed in the presence of the Bavarian General
+      Werth, who was encamped on that river. Passau and Lintz trembled for their
+      fate; the terrified Emperor redoubled his entreaties and commands to
+      Wallenstein, to hasten with all speed to the relief of the hard-pressed
+      Bavarians. But here the victorious Bernard, of his own accord, checked his
+      career of conquest. Having in front of him the river Inn, guarded by a
+      number of strong fortresses, and behind him two hostile armies, a
+      disaffected country, and the river Iser, while his rear was covered by no
+      tenable position, and no entrenchment could be made in the frozen ground,
+      and threatened by the whole force of Wallenstein, who had at last resolved
+      to march to the Danube, by a timely retreat he escaped the danger of being
+      cut off from Ratisbon, and surrounded by the enemy. He hastened across the
+      Iser to the Danube, to defend the conquests he had made in the Upper
+      Palatinate against Wallenstein, and fully resolved not to decline a
+      battle, if necessary, with that general. But Wallenstein, who was not
+      disposed for any great exploits on the Danube, did not wait for his
+      approach; and before the Bavarians could congratulate themselves on his
+      arrival, he suddenly withdrew again into Bohemia. The duke thus ended his
+      victorious campaign, and allowed his troops their well-earned repose in
+      winter quarters upon an enemy's country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While in Swabia the war was thus successfully conducted by Gustavus Horn,
+      and on the Upper and Lower Rhine by the Palatine of Birkenfeld, General
+      Baudissen, and the Rhinegrave Otto Louis, and by Duke Bernard on the
+      Danube; the reputation of the Swedish arms was as gloriously sustained in
+      Lower Saxony and Westphalia by the Duke of Lunenburg and the Landgrave of
+      Hesse Cassel. The fortress of Hamel was taken by Duke George, after a
+      brave defence, and a brilliant victory obtained over the imperial General
+      Gronsfeld, by the united Swedish and Hessian armies, near Oldendorf. Count
+      Wasaburg, a natural son of Gustavus Adolphus, showed himself in this
+      battle worthy of his descent. Sixteen pieces of cannon, the whole baggage
+      of the Imperialists, together with 74 colours, fell into the hands of the
+      Swedes; 3,000 of the enemy perished on the field, and nearly the same
+      number were taken prisoners. The town of Osnaburg surrendered to the
+      Swedish Colonel Knyphausen, and Paderborn to the Landgrave of Hesse;
+      while, on the other hand, Bueckeburg, a very important place for the
+      Swedes, fell into the hands of the Imperialists. The Swedish banners were
+      victorious in almost every quarter of Germany; and the year after the
+      death of Gustavus, left no trace of the loss which had been sustained in
+      the person of that great leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a review of the important events which signalized the campaign of 1633,
+      the inactivity of a man, of whom the highest expectations had been formed,
+      justly excites astonishment. Among all the generals who distinguished
+      themselves in this campaign, none could be compared with Wallenstein, in
+      experience, talents, and reputation; and yet, after the battle of Lutzen,
+      we lose sight of him entirely. The fall of his great rival had left the
+      whole theatre of glory open to him; all Europe was now attentively
+      awaiting those exploits, which should efface the remembrance of his
+      defeat, and still prove to the world his military superiority.
+      Nevertheless, he continued inactive in Bohemia, while the Emperor's losses
+      in Bavaria, Lower Saxony, and the Rhine, pressingly called for his
+      presence&mdash;a conduct equally unintelligible to friend and foe&mdash;the
+      terror, and, at the same time, the last hope of the Emperor. After the
+      defeat of Lutzen he had hastened into Bohemia, where he instituted the
+      strictest inquiry into the conduct of his officers in that battle. Those
+      whom the council of war declared guilty of misconduct, were put to death
+      without mercy, those who had behaved with bravery, rewarded with princely
+      munificence, and the memory of the dead honoured by splendid monuments.
+      During the winter, he oppressed the imperial provinces by enormous
+      contributions, and exhausted the Austrian territories by his winter
+      quarters, which he purposely avoided taking up in an enemy's country. And
+      in the spring of 1633, instead of being the first to open the campaign,
+      with this well-chosen and well-appointed army, and to make a worthy
+      display of his great abilities, he was the last who appeared in the field;
+      and even then, it was an hereditary province of Austria, which he selected
+      as the seat of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the Austrian provinces, Silesia was most exposed to danger. Three
+      different armies, a Swedish under Count Thurn, a Saxon under Arnheim and
+      the Duke of Lauenburg, and one of Brandenburg under Borgsdorf, had at the
+      same time carried the war into this country; they had already taken
+      possession of the most important places, and even Breslau had embraced the
+      cause of the allies. But this crowd of commanders and armies was the very
+      means of saving this province to the Emperor; for the jealousy of the
+      generals, and the mutual hatred of the Saxons and the Swedes, never
+      allowed them to act with unanimity. Arnheim and Thurn contended for the
+      chief command; the troops of Brandenburg and Saxony combined against the
+      Swedes, whom they looked upon as troublesome strangers who ought to be got
+      rid of as soon as possible. The Saxons, on the contrary, lived on a very
+      intimate footing with the Imperialists, and the officers of both these
+      hostile armies often visited and entertained each other. The Imperialists
+      were allowed to remove their property without hindrance, and many did not
+      affect to conceal that they had received large sums from Vienna. Among
+      such equivocal allies, the Swedes saw themselves sold and betrayed; and
+      any great enterprise was out of the question, while so bad an
+      understanding prevailed between the troops. General Arnheim, too, was
+      absent the greater part of the time; and when he at last returned,
+      Wallenstein was fast approaching the frontiers with a formidable force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His army amounted to 40,000 men, while to oppose him the allies had only
+      24,000. They nevertheless resolved to give him battle, and marched to
+      Munsterberg, where he had formed an intrenched camp. But Wallenstein
+      remained inactive for eight days; he then left his intrenchments, and
+      marched slowly and with composure to the enemy's camp. But even after
+      quitting his position, and when the enemy, emboldened by his past delay,
+      manfully prepared to receive him, he declined the opportunity of fighting.
+      The caution with which he avoided a battle was imputed to fear; but the
+      well-established reputation of Wallenstein enabled him to despise this
+      suspicion. The vanity of the allies allowed them not to see that he
+      purposely saved them a defeat, because a victory at that time would not
+      have served his own ends. To convince them of his superior power, and that
+      his inactivity proceeded not from any fear of them, he put to death the
+      commander of a castle that fell into his hands, because he had refused at
+      once to surrender an untenable place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For nine days, did the two armies remain within musket-shot of each other,
+      when Count Terzky, from the camp of the Imperialists, appeared with a
+      trumpeter in that of the allies, inviting General Arnheim to a conference.
+      The purport was, that Wallenstein, notwithstanding his superiority, was
+      willing to agree to a cessation of arms for six weeks. "He was come," he
+      said, "to conclude a lasting peace with the Swedes, and with the princes
+      of the empire, to pay the soldiers, and to satisfy every one. All this was
+      in his power; and if the Austrian court hesitated to confirm his
+      agreement, he would unite with the allies, and (as he privately whispered
+      to Arnheim) hunt the Emperor to the devil." At the second conference, he
+      expressed himself still more plainly to Count Thurn. "All the privileges
+      of the Bohemians," he engaged, "should be confirmed anew, the exiles
+      recalled and restored to their estates, and he himself would be the first
+      to resign his share of them. The Jesuits, as the authors of all past
+      grievances, should be banished, the Swedish crown indemnified by stated
+      payments, and all the superfluous troops on both sides employed against
+      the Turks." The last article explained the whole mystery. "If," he
+      continued, "HE should obtain the crown of Bohemia, all the exiles would
+      have reason to applaud his generosity; perfect toleration of religions
+      should be established within the kingdom, the Palatine family be
+      reinstated in its rights, and he would accept the Margraviate of Moravia
+      as a compensation for Mecklenburg. The allied armies would then, under his
+      command, advance upon Vienna, and sword in hand, compel the Emperor to
+      ratify the treaty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus was the veil at last removed from the schemes, over which he had
+      brooded for years in mysterious silence. Every circumstance now convinced
+      him that not a moment was to be lost in its execution. Nothing but a blind
+      confidence in the good fortune and military genius of the Duke of
+      Friedland, had induced the Emperor, in the face of the remonstrances of
+      Bavaria and Spain, and at the expense of his own reputation, to confer
+      upon this imperious leader such an unlimited command. But this belief in
+      Wallenstein's being invincible, had been much weakened by his inaction,
+      and almost entirely overthrown by the defeat at Lutzen. His enemies at the
+      imperial court now renewed their intrigues; and the Emperor's
+      disappointment at the failure of his hopes, procured for their
+      remonstrances a favourable reception. Wallenstein's whole conduct was now
+      reviewed with the most malicious criticism; his ambitious haughtiness, his
+      disobedience to the Emperor's orders, were recalled to the recollection of
+      that jealous prince, as well as the complaints of the Austrian subjects
+      against his boundless oppression; his fidelity was questioned, and
+      alarming hints thrown out as to his secret views. These insinuations,
+      which the conduct of the duke seemed but too well to justify, failed not
+      to make a deep impression on Ferdinand; but the step had been taken, and
+      the great power with which Wallenstein had been invested, could not be
+      taken from him without danger. Insensibly to diminish that power, was the
+      only course that now remained, and, to effect this, it must in the first
+      place be divided; but, above all, the Emperor's present dependence on the
+      good will of his general put an end to. But even this right had been
+      resigned in his engagement with Wallenstein, and the Emperor's own
+      handwriting secured him against every attempt to unite another general
+      with him in the command, or to exercise any immediate act of authority
+      over the troops. As this disadvantageous contract could neither be kept
+      nor broken, recourse was had to artifice. Wallenstein was Imperial
+      Generalissimo in Germany, but his command extended no further, and he
+      could not presume to exercise any authority over a foreign army. A Spanish
+      army was accordingly raised in Milan, and marched into Germany under a
+      Spanish general. Wallenstein now ceased to be indispensable because he was
+      no longer supreme, and in case of necessity, the Emperor was now provided
+      with the means of support even against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The duke quickly and deeply felt whence this blow came, and whither it was
+      aimed. In vain did he protest against this violation of the compact, to
+      the Cardinal Infante; the Italian army continued its march, and he was
+      forced to detach General Altringer to join it with a reinforcement. He
+      took care, indeed, so closely to fetter the latter, as to prevent the
+      Italian army from acquiring any great reputation in Alsace and Swabia; but
+      this bold step of the court awakened him from his security, and warned him
+      of the approach of danger. That he might not a second time be deprived of
+      his command, and lose the fruit of all his labours, he must accelerate the
+      accomplishment of his long meditated designs. He secured the attachment of
+      his troops by removing the doubtful officers, and by his liberality to the
+      rest. He had sacrificed to the welfare of the army every other order in
+      the state, every consideration of justice and humanity, and therefore he
+      reckoned upon their gratitude. At the very moment when he meditated an
+      unparalleled act of ingratitude against the author of his own good
+      fortune, he founded all his hopes upon the gratitude which was due to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leaders of the Silesian armies had no authority from their principals
+      to consent, on their own discretion, to such important proposals as those
+      of Wallenstein, and they did not even feel themselves warranted in
+      granting, for more than a fortnight, the cessation of hostilities which he
+      demanded. Before the duke disclosed his designs to Sweden and Saxony, he
+      had deemed it advisable to secure the sanction of France to his bold
+      undertaking. For this purpose, a secret negociation had been carried on
+      with the greatest possible caution and distrust, by Count Kinsky with
+      Feuquieres, the French ambassador at Dresden, and had terminated according
+      to his wishes. Feuquieres received orders from his court to promise every
+      assistance on the part of France, and to offer the duke a considerable
+      pecuniary aid in case of need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was this excessive caution to secure himself on all sides, that led
+      to his ruin. The French ambassador with astonishment discovered that a
+      plan, which, more than any other, required secrecy, had been communicated
+      to the Swedes and the Saxons. And yet it was generally known that the
+      Saxon ministry was in the interests of the Emperor, and on the other hand,
+      the conditions offered to the Swedes fell too far short of their
+      expectations to be likely to be accepted. Feuquieres, therefore, could not
+      believe that the duke could be serious in calculating upon the aid of the
+      latter, and the silence of the former. He communicated accordingly his
+      doubts and anxieties to the Swedish chancellor, who equally distrusted the
+      views of Wallenstein, and disliked his plans. Although it was no secret to
+      Oxenstiern, that the duke had formerly entered into a similar negociation
+      with Gustavus Adolphus, he could not credit the possibility of inducing a
+      whole army to revolt, and of his extravagant promises. So daring a design,
+      and such imprudent conduct, seemed not to be consistent with the duke's
+      reserved and suspicious temper, and he was the more inclined to consider
+      the whole as the result of dissimulation and treachery, because he had
+      less reason to doubt his prudence than his honesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oxenstiern's doubts at last affected Arnheim himself, who, in full
+      confidence in Wallenstein's sincerity, had repaired to the chancellor at
+      Gelnhausen, to persuade him to lend some of his best regiments to the
+      duke, to aid him in the execution of the plan. They began to suspect that
+      the whole proposal was only a snare to disarm the allies, and to betray
+      the flower of their troops into the hands of the Emperor. Wallenstein's
+      well-known character did not contradict the suspicion, and the
+      inconsistencies in which he afterwards involved himself, entirely
+      destroyed all confidence in his sincerity. While he was endeavouring to
+      draw the Swedes into this alliance, and requiring the help of their best
+      troops, he declared to Arnheim that they must begin with expelling the
+      Swedes from the empire; and while the Saxon officers, relying upon the
+      security of the truce, repaired in great numbers to his camp, he made an
+      unsuccessful attempt to seize them. He was the first to break the truce,
+      which some months afterwards he renewed, though not without great
+      difficulty. All confidence in his sincerity was lost; his whole conduct
+      was regarded as a tissue of deceit and low cunning, devised to weaken the
+      allies and repair his own strength. This indeed he actually did effect, as
+      his own army daily augmented, while that of the allies was reduced nearly
+      one half by desertion and bad provisions. But he did not make that use of
+      his superiority which Vienna expected. When all men were looking for a
+      decisive blow to be struck, he suddenly renewed the negociations; and when
+      the truce lulled the allies into security, he as suddenly recommenced
+      hostilities. All these contradictions arose out of the double and
+      irreconcileable designs to ruin at once the Emperor and the Swedes, and to
+      conclude a separate peace with the Saxons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Impatient at the ill success of his negociations, he at last determined to
+      display his strength; the more so, as the pressing distress within the
+      empire, and the growing dissatisfaction of the Imperial court, admitted
+      not of his making any longer delay. Before the last cessation of
+      hostilities, General Holk, from Bohemia, had attacked the circle of
+      Meissen, laid waste every thing on his route with fire and sword, driven
+      the Elector into his fortresses, and taken the town of Leipzig. But the
+      truce in Silesia put a period to his ravages, and the consequences of his
+      excesses brought him to the grave at Adorf. As soon as hostilities were
+      recommenced, Wallenstein made a movement, as if he designed to penetrate
+      through Lusatia into Saxony, and circulated the report that Piccolomini
+      had already invaded that country. Arnheim immediately broke up his camp in
+      Silesia, to follow him, and hastened to the assistance of the Electorate.
+      By this means the Swedes were left exposed, who were encamped in small
+      force under Count Thurn, at Steinau, on the Oder, and this was exactly
+      what Wallenstein desired. He allowed the Saxon general to advance sixteen
+      miles towards Meissen, and then suddenly turning towards the Oder,
+      surprised the Swedish army in the most complete security. Their cavalry
+      were first beaten by General Schafgotsch, who was sent against them, and
+      the infantry completely surrounded at Steinau by the duke's army which
+      followed. Wallenstein gave Count Thurn half an hour to deliberate whether
+      he would defend himself with 2,500 men, against more than 20,000, or
+      surrender at discretion. But there was no room for deliberation. The army
+      surrendered, and the most complete victory was obtained without bloodshed.
+      Colours, baggage, and artillery all fell into the hands of the victors,
+      the officers were taken into custody, the privates drafted into the army
+      of Wallenstein. And now at last, after a banishment of fourteen years,
+      after numberless changes of fortune, the author of the Bohemian
+      insurrection, and the remote origin of this destructive war, the notorious
+      Count Thurn, was in the power of his enemies. With blood-thirsty
+      impatience, the arrival of this great criminal was looked for in Vienna,
+      where they already anticipated the malicious triumph of sacrificing so
+      distinguished a victim to public justice. But to deprive the Jesuits of
+      this pleasure, was a still sweeter triumph to Wallenstein, and Thurn was
+      set at liberty. Fortunately for him, he knew more than it was prudent to
+      have divulged in Vienna, and his enemies were also those of Wallenstein. A
+      defeat might have been forgiven in Vienna, but this disappointment of
+      their hopes they could not pardon. "What should I have done with this
+      madman?" he writes, with a malicious sneer, to the minister who called him
+      to account for this unseasonable magnanimity. "Would to Heaven the enemy
+      had no generals but such as he. At the head of the Swedish army, he will
+      render us much better service than in prison."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victory of Steinau was followed by the capture of Liegnitz,
+      Grossglogau, and even of Frankfort on the Oder. Schafgotsch, who remained
+      in Silesia to complete the subjugation of that province, blockaded Brieg,
+      and threatened Breslau, though in vain, as that free town was jealous of
+      its privileges, and devoted to the Swedes. Colonels Illo and Goetz were
+      ordered by Wallenstein to the Warta, to push forwards into Pomerania, and
+      to the coasts of the Baltic, and actually obtained possession of
+      Landsberg, the key of Pomerania. While thus the Elector of Brandenburg and
+      the Duke of Pomerania were made to tremble for their dominions,
+      Wallenstein himself, with the remainder of his army, burst suddenly into
+      Lusatia, where he took Goerlitz by storm, and forced Bautzen to surrender.
+      But his object was merely to alarm the Elector of Saxony, not to follow up
+      the advantages already obtained; and therefore, even with the sword in his
+      hand, he continued his negociations for peace with Brandenburg and Saxony,
+      but with no better success than before, as the inconsistencies of his
+      conduct had destroyed all confidence in his sincerity. He was therefore on
+      the point of turning his whole force in earnest against the unfortunate
+      Saxons, and effecting his object by force of arms, when circumstances
+      compelled him to leave these territories. The conquests of Duke Bernard
+      upon the Danube, which threatened Austria itself with immediate danger,
+      urgently demanded his presence in Bavaria; and the expulsion of the Saxons
+      and Swedes from Silesia, deprived him of every pretext for longer
+      resisting the Imperial orders, and leaving the Elector of Bavaria without
+      assistance. With his main body, therefore, he immediately set out for the
+      Upper Palatinate, and his retreat freed Upper Saxony for ever of this
+      formidable enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So long as was possible, he had delayed to move to the rescue of Bavaria,
+      and on every pretext evaded the commands of the Emperor. He had, indeed,
+      after reiterated remonstrances, despatched from Bohemia a reinforcement of
+      some regiments to Count Altringer, who was defending the Lech and the
+      Danube against Horn and Bernard, but under the express condition of his
+      acting merely on the defensive. He referred the Emperor and the Elector,
+      whenever they applied to him for aid, to Altringer, who, as he publicly
+      gave out, had received unlimited powers; secretly, however, he tied up his
+      hands by the strictest injunctions, and even threatened him with death, if
+      he exceeded his orders. When Duke Bernard had appeared before Ratisbon,
+      and the Emperor as well as the Elector repeated still more urgently their
+      demand for succour, he pretended he was about to despatch General Gallas
+      with a considerable army to the Danube; but this movement also was
+      delayed, and Ratisbon, Straubing, and Cham, as well as the bishopric of
+      Eichstaedt, fell into the hands of the Swedes. When at last he could no
+      longer neglect the orders of the Court, he marched slowly toward the
+      Bavarian frontier, where he invested the town of Cham, which had been
+      taken by the Swedes. But no sooner did he learn that on the Swedish side a
+      diversion was contemplated, by an inroad of the Saxons into Bohemia, than
+      he availed himself of the report, as a pretext for immediately retreating
+      into that kingdom. Every consideration, he urged, must be postponed to the
+      defence and preservation of the hereditary dominions of the Emperor; and
+      on this plea, he remained firmly fixed in Bohemia, which he guarded as if
+      it had been his own property. And when the Emperor laid upon him his
+      commands to move towards the Danube, and prevent the Duke of Weimar from
+      establishing himself in so dangerous a position on the frontiers of
+      Austria, Wallenstein thought proper to conclude the campaign a second
+      time, and quartered his troops for the winter in this exhausted kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such continued insolence and unexampled contempt of the Imperial orders,
+      as well as obvious neglect of the common cause, joined to his equivocal
+      behaviour towards the enemy, tended at last to convince the Emperor of the
+      truth of those unfavourable reports with regard to the Duke, which were
+      current through Germany. The latter had, for a long time, succeeded in
+      glozing over his criminal correspondence with the enemy, and persuading
+      the Emperor, still prepossessed in his favour, that the sole object of his
+      secret conferences was to obtain peace for Germany. But impenetrable as he
+      himself believed his proceedings to be, in the course of his conduct,
+      enough transpired to justify the insinuations with which his rivals
+      incessantly loaded the ear of the Emperor. In order to satisfy himself of
+      the truth or falsehood of these rumours, Ferdinand had already, at
+      different times, sent spies into Wallenstein's camp; but as the Duke took
+      the precaution never to commit anything to writing, they returned with
+      nothing but conjectures. But when, at last, those ministers who formerly
+      had been his champions at the court, in consequence of their estates not
+      being exempted by Wallenstein from the general exactions, joined his
+      enemies; when the Elector of Bavaria threatened, in case of Wallenstein
+      being any longer retained in the supreme command, to unite with the
+      Swedes; when the Spanish ambassador insisted on his dismissal, and
+      threatened, in case of refusal, to withdraw the subsidies furnished by his
+      Crown, the Emperor found himself a second time compelled to deprive him of
+      the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor's authoritative and direct interference with the army, soon
+      convinced the Duke that the compact with himself was regarded as at an
+      end, and that his dismissal was inevitable. One of his inferior generals
+      in Austria, whom he had forbidden, under pain of death, to obey the orders
+      of the court, received the positive commands of the Emperor to join the
+      Elector of Bavaria; and Wallenstein himself was imperiously ordered to
+      send some regiments to reinforce the army of the Cardinal Infante, who was
+      on his march from Italy. All these measures convinced him that the plan
+      was finally arranged to disarm him by degrees, and at once, when he was
+      weak and defenceless, to complete his ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In self-defence, must he now hasten to carry into execution the plans
+      which he had originally formed only with the view to aggrandizement. He
+      had delayed too long, either because the favourable configuration of the
+      stars had not yet presented itself, or, as he used to say, to check the
+      impatience of his friends, because THE TIME WAS NOT YET COME. The time,
+      even now, was not come: but the pressure of circumstances no longer
+      allowed him to await the favour of the stars. The first step was to assure
+      himself of the sentiments of his principal officers, and then to try the
+      attachment of the army, which he had so long confidently reckoned on.
+      Three of them, Colonels Kinsky, Terzky, and Illo, had long been in his
+      secrets, and the two first were further united to his interests by the
+      ties of relationship. The same wild ambition, the same bitter hatred of
+      the government, and the hope of enormous rewards, bound them in the
+      closest manner to Wallenstein, who, to increase the number of his
+      adherents, could stoop to the lowest means. He had once advised Colonel
+      Illo to solicit, in Vienna, the title of Count, and had promised to back
+      his application with his powerful mediation. But he secretly wrote to the
+      ministry, advising them to refuse his request, as to grant it would give
+      rise to similar demands from others, whose services and claims were equal
+      to his. On Illo's return to the camp, Wallenstein immediately demanded to
+      know the success of his mission; and when informed by Illo of its failure,
+      he broke out into the bitterest complaints against the court. "Thus," said
+      he, "are our faithful services rewarded. My recommendation is disregarded,
+      and your merit denied so trifling a reward! Who would any longer devote
+      his services to so ungrateful a master? No, for my part, I am henceforth
+      the determined foe of Austria." Illo agreed with him, and a close alliance
+      was cemented between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what was known to these three confidants of the duke, was long an
+      impenetrable secret to the rest; and the confidence with which Wallenstein
+      spoke of the devotion of his officers, was founded merely on the favours
+      he had lavished on them, and on their known dissatisfaction with the
+      Court. But this vague presumption must be converted into certainty, before
+      he could venture to lay aside the mask, or take any open step against the
+      Emperor. Count Piccolomini, who had distinguished himself by his
+      unparalleled bravery at Lutzen, was the first whose fidelity he put to the
+      proof. He had, he thought, gained the attachment of this general by large
+      presents, and preferred him to all others, because born under the same
+      constellations with himself. He disclosed to him, that, in consequence of
+      the Emperor's ingratitude, and the near approach of his own danger, he had
+      irrevocably determined entirely to abandon the party of Austria, to join
+      the enemy with the best part of his army, and to make war upon the House
+      of Austria, on all sides of its dominions, till he had wholly extirpated
+      it. In the execution of this plan, he principally reckoned on the services
+      of Piccolomini, and had beforehand promised him the greatest rewards. When
+      the latter, to conceal his amazement at this extraordinary communication,
+      spoke of the dangers and obstacles which would oppose so hazardous an
+      enterprise, Wallenstein ridiculed his fears. "In such enterprises," he
+      maintained, "nothing was difficult but the commencement. The stars were
+      propitious to him, the opportunity the best that could be wished for, and
+      something must always be trusted to fortune. His resolution was taken, and
+      if it could not be otherwise, he would encounter the hazard at the head of
+      a thousand horse." Piccolomini was careful not to excite Wallenstein's
+      suspicions by longer opposition, and yielded apparently to the force of
+      his reasoning. Such was the infatuation of the Duke, that notwithstanding
+      the warnings of Count Terzky, he never doubted the sincerity of this man,
+      who lost not a moment in communicating to the court at Vienna this
+      important conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Preparatory to taking the last decisive step, he, in January 1634, called
+      a meeting of all the commanders of the army at Pilsen, whither he had
+      marched after his retreat from Bavaria. The Emperor's recent orders to
+      spare his hereditary dominions from winter quarterings, to recover
+      Ratisbon in the middle of winter, and to reduce the army by a detachment
+      of six thousand horse to the Cardinal Infante, were matters sufficiently
+      grave to be laid before a council of war; and this plausible pretext
+      served to conceal from the curious the real object of the meeting. Sweden
+      and Saxony received invitations to be present, in order to treat with the
+      Duke of Friedland for a peace; to the leaders of more distant armies,
+      written communications were made. Of the commanders thus summoned, twenty
+      appeared; but three most influential, Gallas, Colloredo, and Altringer,
+      were absent. The Duke reiterated his summons to them, and in the mean
+      time, in expectation of their speedy arrival, proceeded to execute his
+      designs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was no light task that he had to perform: a nobleman, proud, brave, and
+      jealous of his honour, was to declare himself capable of the basest
+      treachery, in the very presence of those who had been accustomed to regard
+      him as the representative of majesty, the judge of their actions, and the
+      supporter of their laws, and to show himself suddenly as a traitor, a
+      cheat, and a rebel. It was no easy task, either, to shake to its
+      foundations a legitimate sovereignty, strengthened by time and consecrated
+      by laws and religion; to dissolve all the charms of the senses and the
+      imagination, those formidable guardians of an established throne, and to
+      attempt forcibly to uproot those invincible feelings of duty, which plead
+      so loudly and so powerfully in the breast of the subject, in favour of his
+      sovereign. But, blinded by the splendour of a crown, Wallenstein observed
+      not the precipice that yawned beneath his feet; and in full reliance on
+      his own strength, the common case with energetic and daring minds, he
+      stopped not to consider the magnitude and the number of the difficulties
+      that opposed him. Wallenstein saw nothing but an army, partly indifferent
+      and partly exasperated against the court, accustomed, with a blind
+      submission, to do homage to his great name, to bow to him as their
+      legislator and judge, and with trembling reverence to follow his orders as
+      the decrees of fate. In the extravagant flatteries which were paid to his
+      omnipotence, in the bold abuse of the court government, in which a lawless
+      soldiery indulged, and which the wild licence of the camp excused, he
+      thought he read the sentiments of the army; and the boldness with which
+      they were ready to censure the monarch's measures, passed with him for a
+      readiness to renounce their allegiance to a sovereign so little respected.
+      But that which he had regarded as the lightest matter, proved the most
+      formidable obstacle with which he had to contend; the soldiers' feelings
+      of allegiance were the rock on which his hopes were wrecked. Deceived by
+      the profound respect in which he was held by these lawless bands, he
+      ascribed the whole to his own personal greatness, without distinguishing
+      how much he owed to himself, and how much to the dignity with which he was
+      invested. All trembled before him, while he exercised a legitimate
+      authority, while obedience to him was a duty, and while his consequence
+      was supported by the majesty of the sovereign. Greatness, in and of
+      itself, may excite terror and admiration; but legitimate greatness alone
+      can inspire reverence and submission; and of this decisive advantage he
+      deprived himself, the instant he avowed himself a traitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Field-Marshal Illo undertook to learn the sentiments of the officers, and
+      to prepare them for the step which was expected of them. He began by
+      laying before them the new orders of the court to the general and the
+      army; and by the obnoxious turn he skilfully gave to them, he found it
+      easy to excite the indignation of the assembly. After this well chosen
+      introduction, he expatiated with much eloquence upon the merits of the
+      army and the general, and the ingratitude with which the Emperor was
+      accustomed to requite them. "Spanish influence," he maintained, "governed
+      the court; the ministry were in the pay of Spain; the Duke of Friedland
+      alone had hitherto opposed this tyranny, and had thus drawn down upon
+      himself the deadly enmity of the Spaniards. To remove him from the
+      command, or to make away with him entirely," he continued, "had long been
+      the end of their desires; and, until they could succeed in one or other,
+      they endeavoured to abridge his power in the field. The command was to be
+      placed in the hands of the King of Hungary, for no other reason than the
+      better to promote the Spanish power in Germany; because this prince, as
+      the ready instrument of foreign counsels, might be led at pleasure. It was
+      merely with the view of weakening the army, that the six thousand troops
+      were required for the Cardinal Infante; it was solely for the purpose of
+      harassing it by a winter campaign, that they were now called on, in this
+      inhospitable season, to undertake the recovery of Ratisbon. The means of
+      subsistence were everywhere rendered difficult, while the Jesuits and the
+      ministry enriched themselves with the sweat of the provinces, and
+      squandered the money intended for the pay of the troops. The general,
+      abandoned by the court, acknowledges his inability to keep his engagements
+      to the army. For all the services which, for two and twenty years, he had
+      rendered the House of Austria; for all the difficulties with which he had
+      struggled; for all the treasures of his own, which he had expended in the
+      imperial service, a second disgraceful dismissal awaited him. But he was
+      resolved the matter should not come to this; he was determined voluntarily
+      to resign the command, before it should be wrested from his hands; and
+      this," continued the orator, "is what, through me, he now makes known to
+      his officers. It was now for them to say whether it would be advisable to
+      lose such a general. Let each consider who was to refund him the sums he
+      had expended in the Emperor's service, and where he was now to reap the
+      reward of their bravery, when he who was their evidence removed from the
+      scene."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A universal cry, that they would not allow their general to be taken from
+      them, interrupted the speaker. Four of the principal officers were deputed
+      to lay before him the wish of the assembly, and earnestly to request that
+      he would not leave the army. The duke made a show of resistance, and only
+      yielded after the second deputation. This concession on his side, seemed
+      to demand a return on theirs; as he engaged not to quit the service
+      without the knowledge and consent of the generals, he required of them, on
+      the other hand, a written promise to truly and firmly adhere to him,
+      neither to separate nor to allow themselves to be separated from him, and
+      to shed their last drop of blood in his defence. Whoever should break this
+      covenant, was to be regarded as a perfidious traitor, and treated by the
+      rest as a common enemy. The express condition which was added, "AS LONG AS
+      WALLENSTEIN SHALL EMPLOY THE ARMY IN THE EMPEROR'S SERVICE," seemed to
+      exclude all misconception, and none of the assembled generals hesitated at
+      once to accede to a demand, apparently so innocent and so reasonable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This document was publicly read before an entertainment, which
+      Field-Marshal Illo had expressly prepared for the purpose; it was to be
+      signed, after they rose from table. The host did his utmost to stupify his
+      guests by strong potations; and it was not until he saw them affected with
+      the wine, that he produced the paper for signature. Most of them wrote
+      their names, without knowing what they were subscribing; a few only, more
+      curious or more distrustful, read the paper over again, and discovered
+      with astonishment that the clause "as long as Wallenstein shall employ the
+      army for the Emperor's service" was omitted. Illo had, in fact, artfully
+      contrived to substitute for the first another copy, in which these words
+      were wanting. The trick was manifest, and many refused now to sign.
+      Piccolomini, who had seen through the whole cheat, and had been present at
+      this scene merely with the view of giving information of the whole to the
+      court, forgot himself so far in his cups as to drink the Emperor's health.
+      But Count Terzky now rose, and declared that all were perjured villains
+      who should recede from their engagement. His menaces, the idea of the
+      inevitable danger to which they who resisted any longer would be exposed,
+      the example of the rest, and Illo's rhetoric, at last overcame their
+      scruples; and the paper was signed by all without exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein had now effected his purpose; but the unexpected resistance he
+      had met with from the commanders roused him at last from the fond
+      illusions in which he had hitherto indulged. Besides, most of the names
+      were scrawled so illegibly, that some deceit was evidently intended. But
+      instead of being recalled to his discretion by this warning, he gave vent
+      to his injured pride in undignified complaints and reproaches. He
+      assembled the generals the next day, and undertook personally to confirm
+      the whole tenor of the agreement which Illo had submitted to them the day
+      before. After pouring out the bitterest reproaches and abuse against the
+      court, he reminded them of their opposition to the proposition of the
+      previous day, and declared that this circumstance had induced him to
+      retract his own promise. The generals withdrew in silence and confusion;
+      but after a short consultation in the antichamber, they returned to
+      apologize for their late conduct, and offered to sign the paper anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing now remained, but to obtain a similar assurance from the absent
+      generals, or, on their refusal, to seize their persons. Wallenstein
+      renewed his invitation to them, and earnestly urged them to hasten their
+      arrival. But a rumour of the doings at Pilsen reached them on their
+      journey, and suddenly stopped their further progress. Altringer, on
+      pretence of sickness, remained in the strong fortress of Frauenberg.
+      Gallas made his appearance, but merely with the design of better
+      qualifying himself as an eyewitness, to keep the Emperor informed of all
+      Wallenstein's proceedings. The intelligence which he and Piccolomini gave,
+      at once converted the suspicions of the court into an alarming certainty.
+      Similar disclosures, which were at the same time made from other quarters,
+      left no room for farther doubt; and the sudden change of the commanders in
+      Austria and Silesia, appeared to be the prelude to some important
+      enterprise. The danger was pressing, and the remedy must be speedy, but
+      the court was unwilling to proceed at once to the execution of the
+      sentence, till the regular forms of justice were complied with. Secret
+      instructions were therefore issued to the principal officers, on whose
+      fidelity reliance could be placed, to seize the persons of the Duke of
+      Friedland and of his two associates, Illo and Terzky, and keep them in
+      close confinement, till they should have an opportunity of being heard,
+      and of answering for their conduct; but if this could not be accomplished
+      quietly, the public danger required that they should be taken dead or
+      live. At the same time, General Gallas received a patent commission, by
+      which these orders of the Emperor were made known to the colonels and
+      officers, and the army was released from its obedience to the traitor, and
+      placed under Lieutenant-General Gallas, till a new generalissimo could be
+      appointed. In order to bring back the seduced and deluded to their duty,
+      and not to drive the guilty to despair, a general amnesty was proclaimed,
+      in regard to all offences against the imperial majesty committed at
+      Pilsen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Gallas was not pleased with the honour which was done him. He was
+      at Pilsen, under the eye of the person whose fate he was to dispose of; in
+      the power of an enemy, who had a hundred eyes to watch his motions. If
+      Wallenstein once discovered the secret of his commission, nothing could
+      save him from the effects of his vengeance and despair. But if it was thus
+      dangerous to be the secret depositary of such a commission, how much more
+      so to execute it? The sentiments of the generals were uncertain; and it
+      was at least doubtful whether, after the step they had taken, they would
+      be ready to trust the Emperor's promises, and at once to abandon the
+      brilliant expectations they had built upon Wallenstein's enterprise. It
+      was also hazardous to attempt to lay hands on the person of a man who,
+      till now, had been considered inviolable; who from long exercise of
+      supreme power, and from habitual obedience, had become the object of
+      deepest respect; who was invested with every attribute of outward majesty
+      and inward greatness; whose very aspect inspired terror, and who by a nod
+      disposed of life and death! To seize such a man, like a common criminal,
+      in the midst of the guards by whom he was surrounded, and in a city
+      apparently devoted to him; to convert the object of this deep and habitual
+      veneration into a subject of compassion, or of contempt, was a commission
+      calculated to make even the boldest hesitate. So deeply was fear and
+      veneration for their general engraven in the breasts of the soldiers, that
+      even the atrocious crime of high treason could not wholly eradicate these
+      sentiments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gallas perceived the impossibility of executing his commission under the
+      eyes of the duke; and his most anxious wish was, before venturing on any
+      steps, to have an interview with Altringer. As the long absence of the
+      latter had already begun to excite the duke's suspicions, Gallas offered
+      to repair in person to Frauenberg, and to prevail on Altringer, his
+      relation, to return with him. Wallenstein was so pleased with this proof
+      of his zeal, that he even lent him his own equipage for the journey.
+      Rejoicing at the success of his stratagem, he left Pilsen without delay,
+      leaving to Count Piccolomini the task of watching Wallenstein's further
+      movements. He did not fail, as he went along, to make use of the imperial
+      patent, and the sentiments of the troops proved more favourable than he
+      had expected. Instead of taking back his friend to Pilsen, he despatched
+      him to Vienna, to warn the Emperor against the intended attack, while he
+      himself repaired to Upper Austria, of which the safety was threatened by
+      the near approach of Duke Bernard. In Bohemia, the towns of Budweiss and
+      Tabor were again garrisoned for the Emperor, and every precaution taken to
+      oppose with energy the designs of the traitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Gallas did not appear disposed to return, Piccolomini determined to put
+      Wallenstein's credulity once more to the test. He begged to be sent to
+      bring back Gallas, and Wallenstein suffered himself a second time to be
+      overreached. This inconceivable blindness can only be accounted for as the
+      result of his pride, which never retracted the opinion it had once formed
+      of any person, and would not acknowledge, even to itself, the possibility
+      of being deceived. He conveyed Count Piccolomini in his own carriage to
+      Lintz, where the latter immediately followed the example of Gallas, and
+      even went a step farther. He had promised the duke to return. He did so,
+      but it was at the head of an army, intending to surprise the duke in
+      Pilsen. Another army under General Suys hastened to Prague, to secure that
+      capital in its allegiance, and to defend it against the rebels. Gallas, at
+      the same time, announced himself to the different imperial armies as the
+      commander-in-chief, from whom they were henceforth to receive orders.
+      Placards were circulated through all the imperial camps, denouncing the
+      duke and his four confidants, and absolving the soldiers from all
+      obedience to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The example which had been set at Lintz, was universally followed;
+      imprecations were showered on the traitor, and he was forsaken by all the
+      armies. At last, when even Piccolomini returned no more, the mist fell
+      from Wallenstein's eyes, and in consternation he awoke from his dream. Yet
+      his faith in the truth of astrology, and in the fidelity of the army was
+      unshaken. Immediately after the intelligence of Piccolomini's defection,
+      he issued orders, that in future no commands were to be obeyed, which did
+      not proceed directly from himself, or from Terzky, or Illo. He prepared,
+      in all haste, to advance upon Prague, where he intended to throw off the
+      mask, and openly to declare against the Emperor. All the troops were to
+      assemble before that city, and from thence to pour down with rapidity upon
+      Austria. Duke Bernard, who had joined the conspiracy, was to support the
+      operations of the duke, with the Swedish troops, and to effect a diversion
+      upon the Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terzky was already upon his march towards Prague; and nothing, but the
+      want of horses, prevented the duke from following him with the regiments
+      who still adhered faithfully to him. But when, with the most anxious
+      expectation, he awaited the intelligence from Prague, he suddenly received
+      information of the loss of that town, the defection of his generals, the
+      desertion of his troops, the discovery of his whole plot, and the rapid
+      advance of Piccolomini, who was sworn to his destruction. Suddenly and
+      fearfully had all his projects been ruined&mdash;all his hopes
+      annihilated. He stood alone, abandoned by all to whom he had been a
+      benefactor, betrayed by all on whom he had depended. But it is under such
+      circumstances that great minds reveal themselves. Though deceived in all
+      his expectations, he refused to abandon one of his designs; he despaired
+      of nothing, so long as life remained. The time was now come, when he
+      absolutely required that assistance, which he had so often solicited from
+      the Swedes and the Saxons, and when all doubts of the sincerity of his
+      purposes must be dispelled. And now, when Oxenstiern and Arnheim were
+      convinced of the sincerity of his intentions, and were aware of his
+      necessities, they no longer hesitated to embrace the favourable
+      opportunity, and to offer him their protection. On the part of Saxony, the
+      Duke Francis Albert of Saxe Lauenberg was to join him with 4,000 men; and
+      Duke Bernard, and the Palatine Christian of Birkenfeld, with 6,000 from
+      Sweden, all chosen troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein left Pilsen, with Terzky's regiment, and the few who either
+      were, or pretended to be, faithful to him, and hastened to Egra, on the
+      frontiers of the kingdom, in order to be near the Upper Palatinate, and to
+      facilitate his junction with Duke Bernard. He was not yet informed of the
+      decree by which he was proclaimed a public enemy and traitor; this
+      thunder-stroke awaited him at Egra. He still reckoned on the army, which
+      General Schafgotsch was preparing for him in Silesia, and flattered
+      himself with the hope that many even of those who had forsaken him, would
+      return with the first dawning of success. Even during his flight to Egra
+      (so little humility had he learned from melancholy experience) he was
+      still occupied with the colossal scheme of dethroning the Emperor. It was
+      under these circumstances, that one of his suite asked leave to offer him
+      his advice. "Under the Emperor," said he, "your highness is certain of
+      being a great and respected noble; with the enemy, you are at best but a
+      precarious king. It is unwise to risk certainty for uncertainty. The enemy
+      will avail themselves of your personal influence, while the opportunity
+      lasts; but you will ever be regarded with suspicion, and they will always
+      be fearful lest you should treat them as you have done the Emperor.
+      Return, then, to your allegiance, while there is yet time."&mdash;"And how
+      is that to be done?" said Wallenstein, interrupting him: "You have 40,000
+      men-at-arms," rejoined he, (meaning ducats, which were stamped with the
+      figure of an armed man,) "take them with you, and go straight to the
+      Imperial Court; then declare that the steps you have hitherto taken were
+      merely designed to test the fidelity of the Emperor's servants, and of
+      distinguishing the loyal from the doubtful; and since most have shown a
+      disposition to revolt, say you are come to warn his Imperial Majesty
+      against those dangerous men. Thus you will make those appear as traitors,
+      who are labouring to represent you as a false villain. At the Imperial
+      Court, a man is sure to be welcome with 40,000 ducats, and Friedland will
+      be again as he was at the first."&mdash;"The advice is good," said
+      Wallenstein, after a pause, "but let the devil trust to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the duke, in his retirement in Egra, was energetically pushing his
+      negociations with the enemy, consulting the stars, and indulging in new
+      hopes, the dagger which was to put an end to his existence was unsheathed
+      almost under his very eyes. The imperial decree which proclaimed him an
+      outlaw, had not failed of its effect; and an avenging Nemesis ordained
+      that the ungrateful should fall beneath the blow of ingratitude. Among his
+      officers, Wallenstein had particularly distinguished one Leslie, an
+      Irishman, and had made his fortune.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   [Schiller is mistaken as to this point. Leslie was a Scotchman,
+   and Buttler an Irishman and a papist. He died a general in the
+   Emperor's service, and founded, at Prague, a convent of Irish
+   Franciscans which still exists.&mdash;Ed.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This was the man who now felt himself called on to execute the sentence
+      against him, and to earn the price of blood. No sooner had he reached
+      Egra, in the suite of the duke, than he disclosed to the commandant of the
+      town, Colonel Buttler, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, two Protestant
+      Scotchmen, the treasonable designs of the duke, which the latter had
+      imprudently enough communicated to him during the journey. In these two
+      individuals, he had found men capable of a determined resolution. They
+      were now called on to choose between treason and duty, between their
+      legitimate sovereign and a fugitive abandoned rebel; and though the latter
+      was their common benefactor, the choice could not remain for a moment
+      doubtful. They were solemnly pledged to the allegiance of the Emperor, and
+      this duty required them to take the most rapid measures against the public
+      enemy. The opportunity was favourable; his evil genius seemed to have
+      delivered him into the hands of vengeance. But not to encroach on the
+      province of justice, they resolved to deliver up their victim alive; and
+      they parted with the bold resolve to take their general prisoner. This
+      dark plot was buried in the deepest silence; and Wallenstein, far from
+      suspecting his impending ruin, flattered himself that in the garrison of
+      Egra he possessed his bravest and most faithful champions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time, he became acquainted with the Imperial proclamations
+      containing his sentence, and which had been published in all the camps. He
+      now became aware of the full extent of the danger which encompassed him,
+      the utter impossibility of retracing his steps, his fearfully forlorn
+      condition, and the absolute necessity of at once trusting himself to the
+      faith and honour of the Emperor's enemies. To Leslie he poured forth all
+      the anguish of his wounded spirit, and the vehemence of his agitation
+      extracted from him his last remaining secret. He disclosed to this officer
+      his intention to deliver up Egra and Ellenbogen, the passes of the
+      kingdom, to the Palatine of Birkenfeld, and at the same time, informed him
+      of the near approach of Duke Bernard, of whose arrival he hoped to receive
+      tidings that very night. These disclosures, which Leslie immediately
+      communicated to the conspirators, made them change their original plan.
+      The urgency of the danger admitted not of half measures. Egra might in a
+      moment be in the enemy's hands, and a sudden revolution set their prisoner
+      at liberty. To anticipate this mischance, they resolved to assassinate him
+      and his associates the following night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to execute this design with less noise, it was arranged that the
+      fearful deed should be perpetrated at an entertainment which Colonel
+      Buttler should give in the Castle of Egra. All the guests, except
+      Wallenstein, made their appearance, who being in too great anxiety of mind
+      to enjoy company excused himself. With regard to him, therefore, their
+      plan must be again changed; but they resolved to execute their design
+      against the others. The three Colonels, Illo, Terzky, and William Kinsky,
+      came in with careless confidence, and with them Captain Neumann, an
+      officer of ability, whose advice Terzky sought in every intricate affair.
+      Previous to their arrival, trusty soldiers of the garrison, to whom the
+      plot had been communicated, were admitted into the Castle, all the avenues
+      leading from it guarded, and six of Buttler's dragoons concealed in an
+      apartment close to the banqueting-room, who, on a concerted signal, were
+      to rush in and kill the traitors. Without suspecting the danger that hung
+      over them, the guests gaily abandoned themselves to the pleasures of the
+      table, and Wallenstein's health was drunk in full bumpers, not as a
+      servant of the Emperor, but as a sovereign prince. The wine opened their
+      hearts, and Illo, with exultation, boasted that in three days an army
+      would arrive, such as Wallenstein had never before been at the head of.
+      "Yes," cried Neumann, "and then he hopes to bathe his hands in Austrian
+      blood." During this conversation, the dessert was brought in, and Leslie
+      gave the concerted signal to raise the drawbridges, while he himself
+      received the keys of the gates. In an instant, the hall was filled with
+      armed men, who, with the unexpected greeting of "Long live Ferdinand!"
+      placed themselves behind the chairs of the marked guests. Surprised, and
+      with a presentiment of their fate, they sprang from the table. Kinsky and
+      Terzky were killed upon the spot, and before they could put themselves
+      upon their guard. Neumann, during the confusion in the hall, escaped into
+      the court, where, however, he was instantly recognised and cut down. Illo
+      alone had the presence of mind to defend himself. He placed his back
+      against a window, from whence he poured the bitterest reproaches upon
+      Gordon, and challenged him to fight him fairly and honourably. After a
+      gallant resistance, in which he slew two of his assailants, he fell to the
+      ground overpowered by numbers, and pierced with ten wounds. The deed was
+      no sooner accomplished, than Leslie hastened into the town to prevent a
+      tumult. The sentinels at the castle gate, seeing him running and out of
+      breath, and believing he belonged to the rebels, fired their muskets after
+      him, but without effect. The firing, however, aroused the town-guard, and
+      all Leslie's presence of mind was requisite to allay the tumult. He
+      hastily detailed to them all the circumstances of Wallenstein's
+      conspiracy, the measures which had been already taken to counteract it,
+      the fate of the four rebels, as well as that which awaited their chief.
+      Finding the troops well disposed, he exacted from them a new oath of
+      fidelity to the Emperor, and to live and die for the good cause. A hundred
+      of Buttler's dragoons were sent from the Castle into the town to patrol
+      the streets, to overawe the partisans of the Duke, and to prevent tumult.
+      All the gates of Egra were at the same time seized, and every avenue to
+      Wallenstein's residence, which adjoined the market-place, guarded by a
+      numerous and trusty body of troops, sufficient to prevent either his
+      escape or his receiving any assistance from without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before they proceeded finally to execute the deed, a long conference
+      was held among the conspirators in the Castle, whether they should kill
+      him, or content themselves with making him prisoner. Besprinkled as they
+      were with the blood, and deliberating almost over the very corpses of his
+      murdered associates, even these furious men yet shuddered at the horror of
+      taking away so illustrious a life. They saw before their mind's eye him
+      their leader in battle, in the days of his good fortune, surrounded by his
+      victorious army, clothed with all the pomp of military greatness, and
+      long-accustomed awe again seized their minds. But this transitory emotion
+      was soon effaced by the thought of the immediate danger. They remembered
+      the hints which Neumann and Illo had thrown out at table, the near
+      approach of a formidable army of Swedes and Saxons, and they clearly saw
+      that the death of the traitor was their only chance of safety. They
+      adhered, therefore, to their first resolution, and Captain Deveroux, an
+      Irishman, who had already been retained for the murderous purpose,
+      received decisive orders to act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these three officers were thus deciding upon his fate in the castle
+      of Egra, Wallenstein was occupied in reading the stars with Seni. "The
+      danger is not yet over," said the astrologer with prophetic spirit. "IT
+      IS," replied the Duke, who would give the law even to heaven. "But," he
+      continued with equally prophetic spirit, "that thou friend Seni thyself
+      shall soon be thrown into prison, that also is written in the stars." The
+      astrologer had taken his leave, and Wallenstein had retired to bed, when
+      Captain Deveroux appeared before his residence with six halberdiers, and
+      was immediately admitted by the guard, who were accustomed to see him
+      visit the general at all hours. A page who met him upon the stairs, and
+      attempted to raise an alarm, was run through the body with a pike. In the
+      antichamber, the assassins met a servant, who had just come out of the
+      sleeping-room of his master, and had taken with him the key. Putting his
+      finger upon his mouth, the terrified domestic made a sign to them to make
+      no noise, as the Duke was asleep. "Friend," cried Deveroux, "it is time to
+      awake him;" and with these words he rushed against the door, which was
+      also bolted from within, and burst it open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein had been roused from his first sleep, by the report of a
+      musket which had accidentally gone off, and had sprung to the window to
+      call the guard. At the same moment, he heard, from the adjoining building,
+      the shrieks of the Countesses Terzky and Kinsky, who had just learnt the
+      violent fate of their husbands. Ere he had time to reflect on these
+      terrible events, Deveroux, with the other murderers, was in his chamber.
+      The Duke was in his shirt, as he had leaped out of bed, and leaning on a
+      table near the window. "Art thou the villain," cried Deveroux to him, "who
+      intends to deliver up the Emperor's troops to the enemy, and to tear the
+      crown from the head of his Majesty? Now thou must die!" He paused for a
+      few moments, as if expecting an answer; but scorn and astonishment kept
+      Wallenstein silent. Throwing his arms wide open, he received in his
+      breast, the deadly blow of the halberds, and without uttering a groan,
+      fell weltering in his blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, an express arrived from the Duke of Lauenburg, announcing
+      his approach. The messenger was secured, and another in Wallenstein's
+      livery despatched to the Duke, to decoy him into Egra. The stratagem
+      succeeded, and Francis Albert fell into the hands of the enemy. Duke
+      Bernard of Weimar, who was on his march towards Egra, was nearly sharing
+      the same fate. Fortunately, he heard of Wallenstein's death in time to
+      save himself by a retreat. Ferdinand shed a tear over the fate of his
+      general, and ordered three thousand masses to be said for his soul at
+      Vienna; but, at the same time, he did not forget to reward his assassins
+      with gold chains, chamberlains' keys, dignities, and estates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus did Wallenstein, at the age of fifty, terminate his active and
+      extraordinary life. To ambition, he owed both his greatness and his ruin;
+      with all his failings, he possessed great and admirable qualities, and had
+      he kept himself within due bounds, he would have lived and died without an
+      equal. The virtues of the ruler and of the hero, prudence, justice,
+      firmness, and courage, are strikingly prominent features in his character;
+      but he wanted the gentler virtues of the man, which adorn the hero, and
+      make the ruler beloved. Terror was the talisman with which he worked;
+      extreme in his punishments as in his rewards, he knew how to keep alive
+      the zeal of his followers, while no general of ancient or modern times
+      could boast of being obeyed with equal alacrity. Submission to his will
+      was more prized by him than bravery; for, if the soldiers work by the
+      latter, it is on the former that the general depends. He continually kept
+      up the obedience of his troops by capricious orders, and profusely
+      rewarded the readiness to obey even in trifles; because he looked rather
+      to the act itself, than its object. He once issued a decree, with the
+      penalty of death on disobedience, that none but red sashes should be worn
+      in the army. A captain of horse no sooner heard the order, than pulling
+      off his gold-embroidered sash, he trampled it under foot; Wallenstein, on
+      being informed of the circumstance, promoted him on the spot to the rank
+      of Colonel. His comprehensive glance was always directed to the whole, and
+      in all his apparent caprice, he steadily kept in view some general scope
+      or bearing. The robberies committed by the soldiers in a friendly country,
+      had led to the severest orders against marauders; and all who should be
+      caught thieving, were threatened with the halter. Wallenstein himself
+      having met a straggler in the open country upon the field, commanded him
+      to be seized without trial, as a transgressor of the law, and in his usual
+      voice of thunder, exclaimed, "Hang the fellow," against which no
+      opposition ever availed. The soldier pleaded and proved his innocence, but
+      the irrevocable sentence had gone forth. "Hang then innocent," cried the
+      inexorable Wallenstein, "the guilty will have then more reason to
+      tremble." Preparations were already making to execute the sentence, when
+      the soldier, who gave himself up for lost, formed the desperate resolution
+      of not dying without revenge. He fell furiously upon his judge, but was
+      overpowered by numbers, and disarmed before he could fulfil his design.
+      "Now let him go," said the Duke, "it will excite sufficient terror."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His munificence was supported by an immense income, which was estimated at
+      three millions of florins yearly, without reckoning the enormous sums
+      which he raised under the name of contributions. His liberality and
+      clearness of understanding, raised him above the religious prejudices of
+      his age; and the Jesuits never forgave him for having seen through their
+      system, and for regarding the pope as nothing more than a bishop of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as no one ever yet came to a fortunate end who quarrelled with the
+      Church, Wallenstein also must augment the number of its victims. Through
+      the intrigues of monks, he lost at Ratisbon the command of the army, and
+      at Egra his life; by the same arts, perhaps, he lost what was of more
+      consequence, his honourable name and good repute with posterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For in justice it must be admitted, that the pens which have traced the
+      history of this extraordinary man are not untinged with partiality, and
+      that the treachery of the duke, and his designs upon the throne of
+      Bohemia, rest not so much upon proven facts, as upon probable conjecture.
+      No documents have yet been brought to light, which disclose with
+      historical certainty the secret motives of his conduct; and among all his
+      public and well attested actions, there is, perhaps, not one which could
+      not have had an innocent end. Many of his most obnoxious measures proved
+      nothing but the earnest wish he entertained for peace; most of the others
+      are explained and justified by the well-founded distrust he entertained of
+      the Emperor, and the excusable wish of maintaining his own importance. It
+      is true, that his conduct towards the Elector of Bavaria looks too like an
+      unworthy revenge, and the dictates of an implacable spirit; but still,
+      none of his actions perhaps warrant us in holding his treason to be
+      proved. If necessity and despair at last forced him to deserve the
+      sentence which had been pronounced against him while innocent, still this,
+      if true, will not justify that sentence. Thus Wallenstein fell, not
+      because he was a rebel, but he became a rebel because he fell. Unfortunate
+      in life that he made a victorious party his enemy, and still more
+      unfortunate in death, that the same party survived him and wrote his
+      history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Wallenstein's death rendered necessary the appointment of a new
+      generalissimo; and the Emperor yielded at last to the advice of the
+      Spaniards, to raise his son Ferdinand, King of Hungary, to that dignity.
+      Under him, Count Gallas commanded, who performed the functions of
+      commander-in-chief, while the prince brought to this post nothing but his
+      name and dignity. A considerable force was soon assembled under Ferdinand;
+      the Duke of Lorraine brought up a considerable body of auxiliaries in
+      person, and the Cardinal Infante joined him from Italy with 10,000 men. In
+      order to drive the enemy from the Danube, the new general undertook the
+      enterprise in which his predecessor had failed, the siege of Ratisbon. In
+      vain did Duke Bernard of Weimar penetrate into the interior of Bavaria,
+      with a view to draw the enemy from the town; Ferdinand continued to press
+      the siege with vigour, and the city, after a most obstinate resistance,
+      was obliged to open its gates to him. Donauwerth soon shared the same
+      fate, and Nordlingen in Swabia was now invested. The loss of so many of
+      the imperial cities was severely felt by the Swedish party; as the
+      friendship of these towns had so largely contributed to the success of
+      their arms, indifference to their fate would have been inexcusable. It
+      would have been an indelible disgrace, had they deserted their
+      confederates in their need, and abandoned them to the revenge of an
+      implacable conqueror. Moved by these considerations, the Swedish army,
+      under the command of Horn, and Bernard of Weimar, advanced upon
+      Nordlingen, determined to relieve it even at the expense of a battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="1p320 (139K)" src="images/1p320.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The undertaking was a dangerous one, for in numbers the enemy was greatly
+      superior to that of the Swedes. There was also a further reason for
+      avoiding a battle at present; the enemy's force was likely soon to divide,
+      the Italian troops being destined for the Netherlands. In the mean time,
+      such a position might be taken up, as to cover Nordlingen, and cut off
+      their supplies. All these grounds were strongly urged by Gustavus Horn, in
+      the Swedish council of war; but his remonstrances were disregarded by men
+      who, intoxicated by a long career of success, mistook the suggestions of
+      prudence for the voice of timidity. Overborne by the superior influence of
+      Duke Bernard, Gustavus Horn was compelled to risk a contest, whose
+      unfavourable issue, a dark foreboding seemed already to announce. The fate
+      of the battle depended upon the possession of a height which commanded the
+      imperial camp. An attempt to occupy it during the night failed, as the
+      tedious transport of the artillery through woods and hollow ways delayed
+      the arrival of the troops. When the Swedes arrived about midnight, they
+      found the heights in possession of the enemy, strongly entrenched. They
+      waited, therefore, for daybreak, to carry them by storm. Their impetuous
+      courage surmounted every obstacle; the entrenchments, which were in the
+      form of a crescent, were successfully scaled by each of the two brigades
+      appointed to the service; but as they entered at the same moment from
+      opposite sides, they met and threw each other into confusion. At this
+      unfortunate moment, a barrel of powder blew up, and created the greatest
+      disorder among the Swedes. The imperial cavalry charged upon their broken
+      ranks, and the flight became universal. No persuasion on the part of their
+      general could induce the fugitives to renew the assault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved, therefore, in order to carry this important post, to lead
+      fresh troops to the attack. But in the interim, some Spanish regiments had
+      marched in, and every attempt to gain it was repulsed by their heroic
+      intrepidity. One of the duke's own regiments advanced seven times, and was
+      as often driven back. The disadvantage of not occupying this post in time,
+      was quickly and sensibly felt. The fire of the enemy's artillery from the
+      heights, caused such slaughter in the adjacent wing of the Swedes, that
+      Horn, who commanded there, was forced to give orders to retire. Instead of
+      being able to cover the retreat of his colleague, and to check the pursuit
+      of the enemy, Duke Bernard, overpowered by numbers, was himself driven
+      into the plain, where his routed cavalry spread confusion among Horn's
+      brigade, and rendered the defeat complete. Almost the entire infantry were
+      killed or taken prisoners. More than 12,000 men remained dead upon the
+      field of battle; 80 field pieces, about 4,000 waggons, and 300 standards
+      and colours fell into the hands of the Imperialists. Horn himself, with
+      three other generals, were taken prisoners. Duke Bernard with difficulty
+      saved a feeble remnant of his army, which joined him at Frankfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The defeat at Nordlingen, cost the Swedish Chancellor the second sleepless
+      night he had passed in Germany.&mdash;[The first was occasioned by the
+      death of Gustavus Adolphus.]&mdash;The consequences of this disaster were
+      terrible. The Swedes had lost by it at once their superiority in the
+      field, and with it the confidence of their confederates, which they had
+      gained solely by their previous military success. A dangerous division
+      threatened the Protestant Confederation with ruin. Consternation and
+      terror seized upon the whole party; while the Papists arose with exulting
+      triumph from the deep humiliation into which they had sunk. Swabia and the
+      adjacent circles first felt the consequences of the defeat of Nordlingen;
+      and Wirtemberg, in particular, was overrun by the conquering army. All the
+      members of the League of Heilbronn trembled at the prospect of the
+      Emperor's revenge; those who could, fled to Strasburg, while the helpless
+      free cities awaited their fate with alarm. A little more of moderation
+      towards the conquered, would have quickly reduced all the weaker states
+      under the Emperor's authority; but the severity which was practised, even
+      against those who voluntarily surrendered, drove the rest to despair, and
+      roused them to a vigorous resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this perplexity, all looked to Oxenstiern for counsel and assistance;
+      Oxenstiern applied for both to the German States. Troops were wanted;
+      money likewise, to raise new levies, and to pay to the old the arrears
+      which the men were clamorously demanding. Oxenstiern addressed himself to
+      the Elector of Saxony; but he shamefully abandoned the Swedish cause, to
+      negociate for a separate peace with the Emperor at Pirna. He solicited aid
+      from the Lower Saxon States; but they, long wearied of the Swedish
+      pretensions and demands for money, now thought only of themselves; and
+      George, Duke of Lunenburg, in place of flying to the assistance of Upper
+      Germany, laid siege to Minden, with the intention of keeping possession of
+      it for himself. Abandoned by his German allies, the chancellor exerted
+      himself to obtain the assistance of foreign powers. England, Holland, and
+      Venice were applied to for troops and money; and, driven to the last
+      extremity, the chancellor reluctantly resolved to take the disagreeable
+      step which he had so long avoided, and to throw himself under the
+      protection of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment had at last arrived which Richelieu had long waited for with
+      impatience. Nothing, he was aware, but the impossibility of saving
+      themselves by any other means, could induce the Protestant States in
+      Germany to support the pretensions of France upon Alsace. This extreme
+      necessity had now arrived; the assistance of that power was indispensable,
+      and she was resolved to be well paid for the active part which she was
+      about to take in the German war. Full of lustre and dignity, it now came
+      upon the political stage. Oxenstiern, who felt little reluctance in
+      bestowing the rights and possessions of the empire, had already ceded the
+      fortress of Philipsburg, and the other long coveted places. The
+      Protestants of Upper Germany now, in their own names, sent a special
+      embassy to Richelieu, requesting him to take Alsace, the fortress of
+      Breyssach, which was still to be recovered from the enemy, and all the
+      places upon the Upper Rhine, which were the keys of Germany, under the
+      protection of France. What was implied by French protection had been seen
+      in the conduct of France towards the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun,
+      which it had held for centuries against the rightful owners. Treves was
+      already in the possession of French garrisons; Lorraine was in a manner
+      conquered, as it might at any time be overrun by an army, and could not,
+      alone, and with its own strength, withstand its formidable neighbour.
+      France now entertained the hope of adding Alsace to its large and numerous
+      possessions, and,&mdash;since a treaty was soon to be concluded with the
+      Dutch for the partition of the Spanish Netherlands&mdash;the prospect of
+      making the Rhine its natural boundary towards Germany. Thus shamefully
+      were the rights of Germany sacrificed by the German States to this
+      treacherous and grasping power, which, under the mask of a disinterested
+      friendship, aimed only at its own aggrandizement; and while it boldly
+      claimed the honourable title of a Protectress, was solely occupied with
+      promoting its own schemes, and advancing its own interests amid the
+      general confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In return for these important cessions, France engaged to effect a
+      diversion in favour of the Swedes, by commencing hostilities against the
+      Spaniards; and if this should lead to an open breach with the Emperor, to
+      maintain an army upon the German side of the Rhine, which was to act in
+      conjunction with the Swedes and Germans against Austria. For a war with
+      Spain, the Spaniards themselves soon afforded the desired pretext. Making
+      an inroad from the Netherlands, upon the city of Treves, they cut in
+      pieces the French garrison; and, in open violation of the law of nations,
+      made prisoner the Elector, who had placed himself under the protection of
+      France, and carried him into Flanders. When the Cardinal Infante, as
+      Viceroy of the Spanish Netherlands, refused satisfaction for these
+      injuries, and delayed to restore the prince to liberty, Richelieu, after
+      the old custom, formally proclaimed war at Brussels by a herald, and the
+      war was at once opened by three different armies in Milan, in the
+      Valteline, and in Flanders. The French minister was less anxious to
+      commence hostilities with the Emperor, which promised fewer advantages,
+      and threatened greater difficulties. A fourth army, however, was detached
+      across the Rhine into Germany, under the command of Cardinal Lavalette,
+      which was to act in conjunction with Duke Bernard, against the Emperor,
+      without a previous declaration of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavier blow for the Swedes, than even the defeat of Nordlingen, was the
+      reconciliation of the Elector of Saxony with the Emperor. After many
+      fruitless attempts both to bring about and to prevent it, it was at last
+      effected in 1634, at Pirna, and, the following year, reduced into a formal
+      treaty of peace, at Prague. The Elector of Saxony had always viewed with
+      jealousy the pretensions of the Swedes in Germany; and his aversion to
+      this foreign power, which now gave laws within the Empire, had grown with
+      every fresh requisition that Oxenstiern was obliged to make upon the
+      German states. This ill feeling was kept alive by the Spanish court, who
+      laboured earnestly to effect a peace between Saxony and the Emperor.
+      Wearied with the calamities of a long and destructive contest, which had
+      selected Saxony above all others for its theatre; grieved by the miseries
+      which both friend and foe inflicted upon his subjects, and seduced by the
+      tempting propositions of the House of Austria, the Elector at last
+      abandoned the common cause, and, caring little for the fate of his
+      confederates, or the liberties of Germany, thought only of securing his
+      own advantages, even at the expense of the whole body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, the misery of Germany had risen to such a height, that all
+      clamorously vociferated for peace; and even the most disadvantageous
+      pacification would have been hailed as a blessing from heaven. The plains,
+      which formerly had been thronged with a happy and industrious population,
+      where nature had lavished her choicest gifts, and plenty and prosperity
+      had reigned, were now a wild and desolate wilderness. The fields,
+      abandoned by the industrious husbandman, lay waste and uncultivated; and
+      no sooner had the young crops given the promise of a smiling harvest, than
+      a single march destroyed the labours of a year, and blasted the last hope
+      of an afflicted peasantry. Burnt castles, wasted fields, villages in
+      ashes, were to be seen extending far and wide on all sides, while the
+      ruined peasantry had no resource left but to swell the horde of
+      incendiaries, and fearfully to retaliate upon their fellows, who had
+      hitherto been spared the miseries which they themselves had suffered. The
+      only safeguard against oppression was to become an oppressor. The towns
+      groaned under the licentiousness of undisciplined and plundering
+      garrisons, who seized and wasted the property of the citizens, and, under
+      the license of their position, committed the most remorseless devastation
+      and cruelty. If the march of an army converted whole provinces into
+      deserts, if others were impoverished by winter quarters, or exhausted by
+      contributions, these still were but passing evils, and the industry of a
+      year might efface the miseries of a few months. But there was no relief
+      for those who had a garrison within their walls, or in the neighbourhood;
+      even the change of fortune could not improve their unfortunate fate, since
+      the victor trod in the steps of the vanquished, and friends were not more
+      merciful than enemies. The neglected farms, the destruction of the crops,
+      and the numerous armies which overran the exhausted country, were
+      inevitably followed by scarcity and the high price of provisions, which in
+      the later years was still further increased by a general failure in the
+      crops. The crowding together of men in camps and quarters&mdash;want upon
+      one side, and excess on the other, occasioned contagious distempers, which
+      were more fatal than even the sword. In this long and general confusion,
+      all the bonds of social life were broken up;&mdash;respect for the rights
+      of their fellow men, the fear of the laws, purity of morals, honour, and
+      religion, were laid aside, where might ruled supreme with iron sceptre.
+      Under the shelter of anarchy and impunity, every vice flourished, and men
+      became as wild as the country. No station was too dignified for outrage,
+      no property too holy for rapine and avarice. In a word, the soldier
+      reigned supreme; and that most brutal of despots often made his own
+      officer feel his power. The leader of an army was a far more important
+      person within any country where he appeared, than its lawful governor, who
+      was frequently obliged to fly before him into his own castles for safety.
+      Germany swarmed with these petty tyrants, and the country suffered equally
+      from its enemies and its protectors. These wounds rankled the deeper, when
+      the unhappy victims recollected that Germany was sacrificed to the
+      ambition of foreign powers, who, for their own ends, prolonged the
+      miseries of war. Germany bled under the scourge, to extend the conquests
+      and influence of Sweden; and the torch of discord was kept alive within
+      the Empire, that the services of Richelieu might be rendered indispensable
+      in France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in truth, it was not merely interested voices which opposed a peace;
+      and if both Sweden and the German states were anxious, from corrupt
+      motives, to prolong the conflict, they were seconded in their views by
+      sound policy. After the defeat of Nordlingen, an equitable peace was not
+      to be expected from the Emperor; and, this being the case, was it not too
+      great a sacrifice, after seventeen years of war, with all its miseries, to
+      abandon the contest, not only without advantage, but even with loss? What
+      would avail so much bloodshed, if all was to remain as it had been; if
+      their rights and pretensions were neither larger nor safer; if all that
+      had been won with so much difficulty was to be surrendered for a peace at
+      any cost? Would it not be better to endure, for two or three years more,
+      the burdens they had borne so long, and to reap at last some recompense
+      for twenty years of suffering? Neither was it doubtful, that peace might
+      at last be obtained on favourable terms, if only the Swedes and the German
+      Protestants should continue united in the cabinet and in the field, and
+      pursued their common interests with a reciprocal sympathy and zeal. Their
+      divisions alone, had rendered the enemy formidable, and protracted the
+      acquisition of a lasting and general peace. And this great evil the
+      Elector of Saxony had brought upon the Protestant cause by concluding a
+      separate treaty with Austria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, indeed, had commenced his negociations with the Emperor, even before
+      the battle of Nordlingen; and the unfortunate issue of that battle only
+      accelerated their conclusion. By it, all his confidence in the Swedes was
+      lost; and it was even doubted whether they would ever recover from the
+      blow. The jealousies among their generals, the insubordination of the
+      army, and the exhaustion of the Swedish kingdom, shut out any reasonable
+      prospect of effective assistance on their part. The Elector hastened,
+      therefore, to profit by the Emperor's magnanimity, who, even after the
+      battle of Nordlingen, did not recall the conditions previously offered.
+      While Oxenstiern, who had assembled the estates in Frankfort, made further
+      demands upon them and him, the Emperor, on the contrary, made concessions;
+      and therefore it required no long consideration to decide between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, however, he was anxious to escape the charge of
+      sacrificing the common cause and attending only to his own interests. All
+      the German states, and even the Swedes, were publicly invited to become
+      parties to this peace, although Saxony and the Emperor were the only
+      powers who deliberated upon it, and who assumed the right to give law to
+      Germany. By this self-appointed tribunal, the grievances of the
+      Protestants were discussed, their rights and privileges decided, and even
+      the fate of religions determined, without the presence of those who were
+      most deeply interested in it. Between them, a general peace was resolved
+      on, and it was to be enforced by an imperial army of execution, as a
+      formal decree of the Empire. Whoever opposed it, was to be treated as a
+      public enemy; and thus, contrary to their rights, the states were to be
+      compelled to acknowledge a law, in the passing of which they had no share.
+      Thus, even in form, the pacification at Prague was an arbitrary measure;
+      nor was it less so in its contents. The Edict of Restitution had been the
+      chief cause of dispute between the Elector and the Emperor; and therefore
+      it was first considered in their deliberations. Without formally annulling
+      it, it was determined by the treaty of Prague, that all the ecclesiastical
+      domains holding immediately of the Empire, and, among the mediate ones,
+      those which had been seized by the Protestants subsequently to the treaty
+      at Passau, should, for forty years, remain in the same position as they
+      had been in before the Edict of Restitution, but without any formal
+      decision of the diet to that effect. Before the expiration of this term a
+      commission, composed of equal numbers of both religions, should proceed to
+      settle the matter peaceably and according to law; and if this commission
+      should be unable to come to a decision, each party should remain in
+      possession of the rights which it had exercised before the Edict of
+      Restitution. This arrangement, therefore, far from removing the grounds of
+      dissension, only suspended the dispute for a time; and this article of the
+      treaty of Prague only covered the embers of a future war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The archbishopric of Magdeburg remained in possession of Prince Augustus
+      of Saxony, and Halberstadt in that of the Archduke Leopold William. Four
+      estates were taken from the territory of Magdeburg, and given to Saxony,
+      for which the Administrator of Magdeburg, Christian William of
+      Brandenburg, was otherwise to be indemnified. The Dukes of Mecklenburg,
+      upon acceding to this treaty, were to be acknowledged as rightful
+      possessors of their territories, in which the magnanimity of Gustavus
+      Adolphus had long ago reinstated them. Donauwerth recovered its liberties.
+      The important claims of the heirs of the Palatine, however important it
+      might be for the Protestant cause not to lose this electorate vote in the
+      diet, were passed over in consequence of the animosity subsisting between
+      the Lutherans and the Calvinists. All the conquests which, in the course
+      of the war, had been made by the German states, or by the League and the
+      Emperor, were to be mutually restored; all which had been appropriated by
+      the foreign powers of France and Sweden, was to be forcibly wrested from
+      them by the united powers. The troops of the contracting parties were to
+      be formed into one imperial army, which, supported and paid by the Empire,
+      was, by force of arms, to carry into execution the covenants of the
+      treaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the peace of Prague was intended to serve as a general law of the
+      Empire, those points, which did not immediately affect the latter, formed
+      the subject of a separate treaty. By it, Lusatia was ceded to the Elector
+      of Saxony as a fief of Bohemia, and special articles guaranteed the
+      freedom of religion of this country and of Silesia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the Protestant states were invited to accede to the treaty of Prague,
+      and on that condition were to benefit by the amnesty. The princes of
+      Wurtemberg and Baden, whose territories the Emperor was already in
+      possession of, and which he was not disposed to restore unconditionally;
+      and such vassals of Austria as had borne arms against their sovereign; and
+      those states which, under the direction of Oxenstiern, composed the
+      council of the Upper German Circle, were excluded from the treaty,&mdash;not
+      so much with the view of continuing the war against them, as of compelling
+      them to purchase peace at a dearer rate. Their territories were to be
+      retained in pledge, till every thing should be restored to its former
+      footing. Such was the treaty of Prague. Equal justice, however, towards
+      all, might perhaps have restored confidence between the head of the Empire
+      and its members&mdash; between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics&mdash;between
+      the Reformed and the Lutheran party; and the Swedes, abandoned by all
+      their allies, would in all probability have been driven from Germany with
+      disgrace. But this inequality strengthened, in those who were more
+      severely treated, the spirit of mistrust and opposition, and made it an
+      easier task for the Swedes to keep alive the flame of war, and to maintain
+      a party in Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peace of Prague, as might have been expected, was received with very
+      various feelings throughout Germany. The attempt to conciliate both
+      parties, had rendered it obnoxious to both. The Protestants complained of
+      the restraints imposed upon them; the Roman Catholics thought that these
+      hated sectaries had been favoured at the expense of the true church. In
+      the opinion of the latter, the church had been deprived of its inalienable
+      rights, by the concession to the Protestants of forty years' undisturbed
+      possession of the ecclesiastical benefices; while the former murmured that
+      the interests of the Protestant church had been betrayed, because
+      toleration had not been granted to their co-religionists in the Austrian
+      dominions. But no one was so bitterly reproached as the Elector of Saxony,
+      who was publicly denounced as a deserter, a traitor to religion and the
+      liberties of the Empire, and a confederate of the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, he consoled himself with the triumph of seeing most of
+      the Protestant states compelled by necessity to embrace this peace. The
+      Elector of Brandenburg, Duke William of Weimar, the princes of Anhalt, the
+      dukes of Mecklenburg, the dukes of Brunswick Lunenburg, the Hanse towns,
+      and most of the imperial cities, acceded to it. The Landgrave William of
+      Hesse long wavered, or affected to do so, in order to gain time, and to
+      regulate his measures by the course of events. He had conquered several
+      fertile provinces of Westphalia, and derived from them principally the
+      means of continuing the war; these, by the terms of the treaty, he was
+      bound to restore. Bernard, Duke of Weimar, whose states, as yet, existed
+      only on paper, as a belligerent power was not affected by the treaty, but
+      as a general was so materially; and, in either view, he must equally be
+      disposed to reject it. His whole riches consisted in his bravery, his
+      possessions in his sword. War alone gave him greatness and importance, and
+      war alone could realize the projects which his ambition suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of all who declaimed against the treaty of Prague, none were so loud
+      in their clamours as the Swedes, and none had so much reason for their
+      opposition. Invited to Germany by the Germans themselves, the champions of
+      the Protestant Church, and the freedom of the States, which they had
+      defended with so much bloodshed, and with the sacred life of their king,
+      they now saw themselves suddenly and shamefully abandoned, disappointed in
+      all their hopes, without reward and without gratitude driven from the
+      empire for which they had toiled and bled, and exposed to the ridicule of
+      the enemy by the very princes who owed every thing to them. No
+      satisfaction, no indemnification for the expenses which they had incurred,
+      no equivalent for the conquests which they were to leave behind them, was
+      provided by the treaty of Prague. They were to be dismissed poorer than
+      they came, or, if they resisted, to be expelled by the very powers who had
+      invited them. The Elector of Saxony at last spoke of a pecuniary
+      indemnification, and mentioned the small sum of two millions five hundred
+      thousand florins; but the Swedes had already expended considerably more,
+      and this disgraceful equivalent in money was both contrary to their true
+      interests, and injurious to their pride. "The Electors of Bavaria and
+      Saxony," replied Oxenstiern, "have been paid for their services, which, as
+      vassals, they were bound to render the Emperor, with the possession of
+      important provinces; and shall we, who have sacrificed our king for
+      Germany, be dismissed with the miserable sum of 2,500,000 florins?" The
+      disappointment of their expectations was the more severe, because the
+      Swedes had calculated upon being recompensed with the Duchy of Pomerania,
+      the present possessor of which was old and without heirs. But the
+      succession of this territory was confirmed by the treaty of Prague to the
+      Elector of Brandenburg; and all the neighbouring powers declared against
+      allowing the Swedes to obtain a footing within the empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never, in the whole course of the war, had the prospects of the Swedes
+      looked more gloomy, than in the year 1635, immediately after the
+      conclusion of the treaty of Prague. Many of their allies, particularly
+      among the free cities, abandoned them to benefit by the peace; others were
+      compelled to accede to it by the victorious arms of the Emperor. Augsburg,
+      subdued by famine, surrendered under the severest conditions; Wurtzburg
+      and Coburg were lost to the Austrians. The League of Heilbronn was
+      formally dissolved. Nearly the whole of Upper Germany, the chief seat of
+      the Swedish power, was reduced under the Emperor. Saxony, on the strength
+      of the treaty of Prague, demanded the evacuation of Thuringia,
+      Halberstadt, and Magdeburg. Philipsburg, the military depot of France, was
+      surprised by the Austrians, with all the stores it contained; and this
+      severe loss checked the activity of France. To complete the embarrassments
+      of Sweden, the truce with Poland was drawing to a close. To support a war
+      at the same time with Poland and in Germany, was far beyond the power of
+      Sweden; and all that remained was to choose between them. Pride and
+      ambition declared in favour of continuing the German war, at whatever
+      sacrifice on the side of Poland. An army, however, was necessary to
+      command the respect of Poland, and to give weight to Sweden in any
+      negotiations for a truce or a peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mind of Oxenstiern, firm, and inexhaustible in expedients, set itself
+      manfully to meet these calamities, which all combined to overwhelm Sweden;
+      and his shrewd understanding taught him how to turn even misfortunes to
+      his advantage. The defection of so many German cities of the empire
+      deprived him, it is true, of a great part of his former allies, but at the
+      same time it freed him from the necessity of paying any regard to their
+      interests. The more the number of his enemies increased, the more
+      provinces and magazines were opened to his troops. The gross ingratitude
+      of the States, and the haughty contempt with which the Emperor behaved,
+      (who did not even condescend to treat directly with him about a peace,)
+      excited in him the courage of despair, and a noble determination to
+      maintain the struggle to the last. The continuance of war, however
+      unfortunate it might prove, could not render the situation of Sweden worse
+      than it now was; and if Germany was to be evacuated, it was at least
+      better and nobler to do so sword in hand, and to yield to force rather
+      than to fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the extremity in which the Swedes were now placed by the desertion of
+      their allies, they addressed themselves to France, who met them with the
+      greatest encouragement. The interests of the two crowns were closely
+      united, and France would have injured herself by allowing the Swedish
+      power in Germany to decline. The helpless situation of the Swedes, was
+      rather an additional motive with France to cement more closely their
+      alliance, and to take a more active part in the German war. Since the
+      alliance with Sweden, at Beerwald, in 1632, France had maintained the war
+      against the Emperor, by the arms of Gustavus Adolphus, without any open or
+      formal breach, by furnishing subsidies and increasing the number of his
+      enemies. But alarmed at the unexpected rapidity and success of the Swedish
+      arms, France, in anxiety to restore the balance of power, which was
+      disturbed by the preponderance of the Swedes, seemed, for a time, to have
+      lost sight of her original designs. She endeavoured to protect the Roman
+      Catholic princes of the empire against the Swedish conqueror, by the
+      treaties of neutrality, and when this plan failed, she even meditated
+      herself to declare war against him. But no sooner had the death of
+      Gustavus Adolphus, and the desperate situation of the Swedish affairs,
+      dispelled this apprehension, than she returned with fresh zeal to her
+      first design, and readily afforded in this misfortune the aid which in the
+      hour of success she had refused. Freed from the checks which the ambition
+      and vigilance of Gustavus Adolphus placed upon her plans of
+      aggrandizement, France availed herself of the favourable opportunity
+      afforded by the defeat of Nordlingen, to obtain the entire direction of
+      the war, and to prescribe laws to those who sued for her powerful
+      protection. The moment seemed to smile upon her boldest plans, and those
+      which had formerly seemed chimerical, now appeared to be justified by
+      circumstances. She now turned her whole attention to the war in Germany;
+      and, as soon as she had secured her own private ends by a treaty with the
+      Germans, she suddenly entered the political arena as an active and a
+      commanding power. While the other belligerent states had been exhausting
+      themselves in a tedious contest, France had been reserving her strength,
+      and maintained the contest by money alone; but now, when the state of
+      things called for more active measures, she seized the sword, and
+      astonished Europe by the boldness and magnitude of her undertakings. At
+      the same moment, she fitted out two fleets, and sent six different armies
+      into the field, while she subsidized a foreign crown and several of the
+      German princes. Animated by this powerful co-operation, the Swedes and
+      Germans awoke from the consternation, and hoped, sword in hand, to obtain
+      a more honourable peace than that of Prague. Abandoned by their
+      confederates, who had been reconciled to the Emperor, they formed a still
+      closer alliance with France, which increased her support with their
+      growing necessities, at the same time taking a more active, although
+      secret share in the German war, until at last, she threw off the mask
+      altogether, and in her own name made an unequivocal declaration of war
+      against the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To leave Sweden at full liberty to act against Austria, France commenced
+      her operations by liberating it from all fear of a Polish war. By means of
+      the Count d'Avaux, its minister, an agreement was concluded between the
+      two powers at Stummsdorf in Prussia, by which the truce was prolonged for
+      twenty-six years, though not without a great sacrifice on the part of the
+      Swedes, who ceded by a single stroke of the pen almost the whole of Polish
+      Prussia, the dear-bought conquest of Gustavus Adolphus. The treaty of
+      Beerwald was, with certain modifications, which circumstances rendered
+      necessary, renewed at different times at Compiegne, and afterwards at
+      Wismar and Hamburg. France had already come to a rupture with Spain, in
+      May, 1635, and the vigorous attack which it made upon that power, deprived
+      the Emperor of his most valuable auxiliaries from the Netherlands. By
+      supporting the Landgrave William of Cassel, and Duke Bernard of Weimar,
+      the Swedes were enabled to act with more vigour upon the Elbe and the
+      Danube, and a diversion upon the Rhine compelled the Emperor to divide his
+      force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The war was now prosecuted with increasing activity. By the treaty of
+      Prague, the Emperor had lessened the number of his adversaries within the
+      Empire; though, at the same time, the zeal and activity of his foreign
+      enemies had been augmented by it. In Germany, his influence was almost
+      unlimited, for, with the exception of a few states, he had rendered
+      himself absolute master of the German body and its resources, and was
+      again enabled to act in the character of emperor and sovereign. The first
+      fruit of his power was the elevation of his son, Ferdinand III., to the
+      dignity of King of the Romans, to which he was elected by a decided
+      majority of votes, notwithstanding the opposition of Treves, and of the
+      heirs of the Elector Palatine. But, on the other hand, he had exasperated
+      the Swedes to desperation, had armed the power of France against him, and
+      drawn its troops into the heart of the kingdom. France and Sweden, with
+      their German allies, formed, from this moment, one firm and compactly
+      united power; the Emperor, with the German states which adhered to him,
+      were equally firm and united. The Swedes, who no longer fought for
+      Germany, but for their own lives, showed no more indulgence; relieved from
+      the necessity of consulting their German allies, or accounting to them for
+      the plans which they adopted, they acted with more precipitation,
+      rapidity, and boldness. Battles, though less decisive, became more
+      obstinate and bloody; greater achievements, both in bravery and military
+      skill, were performed; but they were but insulated efforts; and being
+      neither dictated by any consistent plan, nor improved by any commanding
+      spirit, had comparatively little influence upon the course of the war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saxony had bound herself, by the treaty of Prague, to expel the Swedes
+      from Germany. From this moment, the banners of the Saxons and Imperialists
+      were united: the former confederates were converted into implacable
+      enemies. The archbishopric of Magdeburg which, by the treaty, was ceded to
+      the prince of Saxony, was still held by the Swedes, and every attempt to
+      acquire it by negociation had proved ineffectual. Hostilities commenced,
+      by the Elector of Saxony recalling all his subjects from the army of
+      Banner, which was encamped upon the Elbe. The officers, long irritated by
+      the accumulation of their arrears, obeyed the summons, and evacuated one
+      quarter after another. As the Saxons, at the same time, made a movement
+      towards Mecklenburg, to take Doemitz, and to drive the Swedes from
+      Pomerania and the Baltic, Banner suddenly marched thither, relieved
+      Doemitz, and totally defeated the Saxon General Baudissin, with 7000 men,
+      of whom 1000 were slain, and about the same number taken prisoners.
+      Reinforced by the troops and artillery, which had hitherto been employed
+      in Polish Prussia, but which the treaty of Stummsdorf rendered
+      unnecessary, this brave and impetuous general made, the following year
+      (1636), a sudden inroad into the Electorate of Saxony, where he gratified
+      his inveterate hatred of the Saxons by the most destructive ravages.
+      Irritated by the memory of old grievances which, during their common
+      campaigns, he and the Swedes had suffered from the haughtiness of the
+      Saxons, and now exasperated to the utmost by the late defection of the
+      Elector, they wreaked upon the unfortunate inhabitants all their rancour.
+      Against Austria and Bavaria, the Swedish soldier had fought from a sense,
+      as it were, of duty; but against the Saxons, they contended with all the
+      energy of private animosity and personal revenge, detesting them as
+      deserters and traitors; for the hatred of former friends is of all the
+      most fierce and irreconcileable. The powerful diversion made by the Duke
+      of Weimar, and the Landgrave of Hesse, upon the Rhine and in Westphalia,
+      prevented the Emperor from affording the necessary assistance to Saxony,
+      and left the whole Electorate exposed to the destructive ravages of
+      Banner's army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, the Elector, having formed a junction with the Imperial General
+      Hatzfeld, advanced against Magdeburg, which Banner in vain hastened to
+      relieve. The united army of the Imperialists and the Saxons now spread
+      itself over Brandenburg, wrested several places from the Swedes, and
+      almost drove them to the Baltic. But, contrary to all expectation, Banner,
+      who had been given up as lost, attacked the allies, on the 24th of
+      September, 1636, at Wittstock, where a bloody battle took place. The onset
+      was terrific; and the whole force of the enemy was directed against the
+      right wing of the Swedes, which was led by Banner in person. The contest
+      was long maintained with equal animosity and obstinacy on both sides.
+      There was not a squadron among the Swedes, which did not return ten times
+      to the charge, to be as often repulsed; when at last, Banner was obliged
+      to retire before the superior numbers of the enemy. His left wing
+      sustained the combat until night, and the second line of the Swedes, which
+      had not as yet been engaged, was prepared to renew it the next morning.
+      But the Elector did not wait for a second attack. His army was exhausted
+      by the efforts of the preceding day; and, as the drivers had fled with the
+      horses, his artillery was unserviceable. He accordingly retreated in the
+      night, with Count Hatzfeld, and relinquished the ground to the Swedes.
+      About 5000 of the allies fell upon the field, exclusive of those who were
+      killed in the pursuit, or who fell into the hands of the exasperated
+      peasantry. One hundred and fifty standards and colours, twenty-three
+      pieces of cannon, the whole baggage and silver plate of the Elector, were
+      captured, and more than 2000 men taken prisoners. This brilliant victory,
+      achieved over an enemy far superior in numbers, and in a very advantageous
+      position, restored the Swedes at once to their former reputation; their
+      enemies were discouraged, and their friends inspired with new hopes.
+      Banner instantly followed up this decisive success, and hastily crossing
+      the Elbe, drove the Imperialists before him, through Thuringia and Hesse,
+      into Westphalia. He then returned, and took up his winter quarters in
+      Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, without the material aid furnished by the diversion upon the Rhine,
+      and the activity there of Duke Bernard and the French, these important
+      successes would have been unattainable. Duke Bernard, after the defeat of
+      Nordlingen, reorganized his broken army at Wetterau; but, abandoned by the
+      confederates of the League of Heilbronn, which had been dissolved by the
+      peace of Prague, and receiving little support from the Swedes, he found
+      himself unable to maintain an army, or to perform any enterprise of
+      importance. The defeat at Nordlingen had terminated all his hopes on the
+      Duchy of Franconia, while the weakness of the Swedes, destroyed the chance
+      of retrieving his fortunes through their assistance. Tired, too, of the
+      constraint imposed upon him by the imperious chancellor, he turned his
+      attention to France, who could easily supply him with money, the only aid
+      which he required, and France readily acceded to his proposals. Richelieu
+      desired nothing so much as to diminish the influence of the Swedes in the
+      German war, and to obtain the direction of it for himself. To secure this
+      end, nothing appeared more effectual than to detach from the Swedes their
+      bravest general, to win him to the interests of France, and to secure for
+      the execution of its projects the services of his arm. From a prince like
+      Bernard, who could not maintain himself without foreign support, France
+      had nothing to fear, since no success, however brilliant, could render him
+      independent of that crown. Bernard himself came into France, and in
+      October, 1635, concluded a treaty at St. Germaine en Laye, not as a
+      Swedish general, but in his own name, by which it was stipulated that he
+      should receive for himself a yearly pension of one million five hundred
+      thousand livres, and four millions for the support of his army, which he
+      was to command under the orders of the French king. To inflame his zeal,
+      and to accelerate the conquest of Alsace, France did not hesitate, by a
+      secret article, to promise him that province for his services; a promise
+      which Richelieu had little intention of performing, and which the duke
+      also estimated at its real worth. But Bernard confided in his good
+      fortune, and in his arms, and met artifice with dissimulation. If he could
+      once succeed in wresting Alsace from the enemy, he did not despair of
+      being able, in case of need, to maintain it also against a friend. He now
+      raised an army at the expense of France, which he commanded nominally
+      under the orders of that power, but in reality without any limitation
+      whatever, and without having wholly abandoned his engagements with Sweden.
+      He began his operations upon the Rhine, where another French army, under
+      Cardinal Lavalette, had already, in 1635, commenced hostilities against
+      the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against this force, the main body of the Imperialists, after the great
+      victory of Nordlingen, and the reduction of Swabia and Franconia had
+      advanced under the command of Gallas, had driven them as far as Metz,
+      cleared the Rhine, and took from the Swedes the towns of Metz and
+      Frankenthal, of which they were in possession. But frustrated by the
+      vigorous resistance of the French, in his main object, of taking up his
+      winter quarters in France, he led back his exhausted troops into Alsace
+      and Swabia. At the opening of the next campaign, he passed the Rhine at
+      Breysach, and prepared to carry the war into the interior of France. He
+      actually entered Burgundy, while the Spaniards from the Netherlands made
+      progress in Picardy; and John De Werth, a formidable general of the
+      League, and a celebrated partisan, pushed his march into Champagne, and
+      spread consternation even to the gates of Paris. But an insignificant
+      fortress in Franche Comte completely checked the Imperialists, and they
+      were obliged, a second time, to abandon their enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The activity of Duke Bernard had hitherto been impeded by his dependence
+      on a French general, more suited to the priestly robe, than to the baton
+      of command; and although, in conjunction with him, he conquered Alsace
+      Saverne, he found himself unable, in the years 1636 and 1637, to maintain
+      his position upon the Rhine. The ill success of the French arms in the
+      Netherlands had cheated the activity of operations in Alsace and Breisgau;
+      but in 1638, the war in that quarter took a more brilliant turn. Relieved
+      from his former restraint, and with unlimited command of his troops, Duke
+      Bernard, in the beginning of February, left his winter quarters in the
+      bishopric of Basle, and unexpectedly appeared upon the Rhine, where, at
+      this rude season of the year, an attack was little anticipated. The forest
+      towns of Laufenburg, Waldshut, and Seckingen, were surprised, and
+      Rhinefeldt besieged. The Duke of Savelli, the Imperial general who
+      commanded in that quarter, hastened by forced marches to the relief of
+      this important place, succeeded in raising the siege, and compelled the
+      Duke of Weimar, with great loss to retire. But, contrary to all human
+      expectation, he appeared on the third day after, (21st February, 1638,)
+      before the Imperialists, in order of battle, and defeated them in a bloody
+      engagement, in which the four Imperial generals, Savelli, John De Werth,
+      Enkeford, and Sperreuter, with 2000 men, were taken prisoners. Two of
+      these, De Werth and Enkeford, were afterwards sent by Richelieu's orders
+      into France, in order to flatter the vanity of the French by the sight of
+      such distinguished prisoners, and by the pomp of military trophies, to
+      withdraw the attention of the populace from the public distress. The
+      captured standards and colours were, with the same view, carried in solemn
+      procession to the church of Notre Dame, thrice exhibited before the altar,
+      and committed to sacred custody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The taking of Rhinefeldt, Roeteln, and Fribourg, was the immediate
+      consequence of the duke's victory. His army now increased by considerable
+      recruits, and his projects expanded in proportion as fortune favoured him.
+      The fortress of Breysach upon the Rhine was looked upon as holding the
+      command of that river, and as the key of Alsace. No place in this quarter
+      was of more importance to the Emperor, and upon none had more care been
+      bestowed. To protect Breysach, was the principal destination of the
+      Italian army, under the Duke of Feria; the strength of its works, and its
+      natural defences, bade defiance to assault, while the Imperial generals
+      who commanded in that quarter had orders to retain it at any cost. But the
+      duke, trusting to his good fortune, resolved to attempt the siege. Its
+      strength rendered it impregnable; it could, therefore, only be starved
+      into a surrender; and this was facilitated by the carelessness of the
+      commandant, who, expecting no attack, had been selling off his stores. As
+      under these circumstances the town could not long hold out, it must be
+      immediately relieved or victualled. Accordingly, the Imperial General
+      Goetz rapidly advanced at the head of 12,000 men, accompanied by 3000
+      waggons loaded with provisions, which he intended to throw into the place.
+      But he was attacked with such vigour by Duke Bernard at Witteweyer, that
+      he lost his whole force, except 3000 men, together with the entire
+      transport. A similar fate at Ochsenfeld, near Thann, overtook the Duke of
+      Lorraine, who, with 5000 or 6000 men, advanced to relieve the fortress.
+      After a third attempt of general Goetz for the relief of Breysach had
+      proved ineffectual, the fortress, reduced to the greatest extremity by
+      famine, surrendered, after a blockade of four months, on the 17th December
+      1638, to its equally persevering and humane conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The capture of Breysach opened a boundless field to the ambition of the
+      Duke of Weimar, and the romance of his hopes was fast approaching to
+      reality. Far from intending to surrender his conquests to France, he
+      destined Breysach for himself, and revealed this intention, by exacting
+      allegiance from the vanquished, in his own name, and not in that of any
+      other power. Intoxicated by his past success, and excited by the boldest
+      hopes, he believed that he should be able to maintain his conquests, even
+      against France herself. At a time when everything depended upon bravery,
+      when even personal strength was of importance, when troops and generals
+      were of more value than territories, it was natural for a hero like
+      Bernard to place confidence in his own powers, and, at the head of an
+      excellent army, who under his command had proved invincible, to believe
+      himself capable of accomplishing the boldest and largest designs. In order
+      to secure himself one friend among the crowd of enemies whom he was about
+      to provoke, he turned his eyes upon the Landgravine Amelia of Hesse, the
+      widow of the lately deceased Landgrave William, a princess whose talents
+      were equal to her courage, and who, along with her hand, would bestow
+      valuable conquests, an extensive principality, and a well disciplined
+      army. By the union of the conquests of Hesse, with his own upon the Rhine,
+      and the junction of their forces, a power of some importance, and perhaps
+      a third party, might be formed in Germany, which might decide the fate of
+      the war. But a premature death put a period to these extensive schemes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Courage, Father Joseph, Breysach is ours!" whispered Richelieu in the ear
+      of the Capuchin, who had long held himself in readiness to be despatched
+      into that quarter; so delighted was he with this joyful intelligence.
+      Already in imagination he held Alsace, Breisgau, and all the frontiers of
+      Austria in that quarter, without regard to his promise to Duke Bernard.
+      But the firm determination which the latter had unequivocally shown, to
+      keep Breysach for himself, greatly embarrassed the cardinal, and no
+      efforts were spared to retain the victorious Bernard in the interests of
+      France. He was invited to court, to witness the honours by which his
+      triumph was to be commemorated; but he perceived and shunned the seductive
+      snare. The cardinal even went so far as to offer him the hand of his niece
+      in marriage; but the proud German prince declined the offer, and refused
+      to sully the blood of Saxony by a misalliance. He was now considered as a
+      dangerous enemy, and treated as such. His subsidies were withdrawn; and
+      the Governor of Breysach and his principal officers were bribed, at least
+      upon the event of the duke's death, to take possession of his conquests,
+      and to secure his troops. These intrigues were no secret to the duke, and
+      the precautions he took in the conquered places, clearly bespoke the
+      distrust of France. But this misunderstanding with the French court had
+      the most prejudicial influence upon his future operations. The
+      preparations he was obliged to make, in order to secure his conquests
+      against an attack on the side of France, compelled him to divide his
+      military strength, while the stoppage of his subsidies delayed his
+      appearance in the field. It had been his intention to cross the Rhine, to
+      support the Swedes, and to act against the Emperor and Bavaria on the
+      banks of the Danube. He had already communicated his plan of operations to
+      Banner, who was about to carry the war into the Austrian territories, and
+      had promised to relieve him so, when a sudden death cut short his heroic
+      career, in the 36th year of his age, at Neuburgh upon the Rhine (in July,
+      1639).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He died of a pestilential disorder, which, in the course of two days, had
+      carried off nearly 400 men in his camp. The black spots which appeared
+      upon his body, his own dying expressions, and the advantages which France
+      was likely to reap from his sudden decease, gave rise to a suspicion that
+      he had been removed by poison&mdash;a suspicion sufficiently refuted by
+      the symptoms of his disorder. In him, the allies lost their greatest
+      general after Gustavus Adolphus, France a formidable competitor for
+      Alsace, and the Emperor his most dangerous enemy. Trained to the duties of
+      a soldier and a general in the school of Gustavus Adolphus, he
+      successfully imitated his eminent model, and wanted only a longer life to
+      equal, if not to surpass it. With the bravery of the soldier, he united
+      the calm and cool penetration of the general and the persevering fortitude
+      of the man, with the daring resolution of youth; with the wild ardour of
+      the warrior, the sober dignity of the prince, the moderation of the sage,
+      and the conscientiousness of the man of honour. Discouraged by no
+      misfortune, he quickly rose again in full vigour from the severest
+      defeats; no obstacles could check his enterprise, no disappointments
+      conquer his indomitable perseverance. His genius, perhaps, soared after
+      unattainable objects; but the prudence of such men, is to be measured by a
+      different standard from that of ordinary people. Capable of accomplishing
+      more, he might venture to form more daring plans. Bernard affords, in
+      modern history, a splendid example of those days of chivalry, when
+      personal greatness had its full weight and influence, when individual
+      bravery could conquer provinces, and the heroic exploits of a German
+      knight raised him even to the Imperial throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best part of the duke's possessions were his army, which, together
+      with Alsace, he bequeathed to his brother William. But to this army, both
+      France and Sweden thought that they had well-grounded claims; the latter,
+      because it had been raised in name of that crown, and had done homage to
+      it; the former, because it had been supported by its subsidies. The
+      Electoral Prince of the Palatinate also negociated for its services, and
+      attempted, first by his agents, and latterly in his own person, to win it
+      over to his interests, with the view of employing it in the reconquest of
+      his territories. Even the Emperor endeavoured to secure it, a circumstance
+      the less surprising, when we reflect that at this time the justice of the
+      cause was comparatively unimportant, and the extent of the recompense the
+      main object to which the soldier looked; and when bravery, like every
+      other commodity, was disposed of to the highest bidder. But France, richer
+      and more determined, outbade all competitors: it bought over General
+      Erlach, the commander of Breysach, and the other officers, who soon placed
+      that fortress, with the whole army, in their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Palatine, Prince Charles Louis, who had already made an
+      unsuccessful campaign against the Emperor, saw his hopes again deceived.
+      Although intending to do France so ill a service, as to compete with her
+      for Bernard's army, he had the imprudence to travel through that kingdom.
+      The cardinal, who dreaded the justice of the Palatine's cause, was glad to
+      seize any opportunity to frustrate his views. He accordingly caused him to
+      be seized at Moulin, in violation of the law of nations, and did not set
+      him at liberty, until he learned that the army of the Duke of Weimar had
+      been secured. France was now in possession of a numerous and well
+      disciplined army in Germany, and from this moment began to make open war
+      upon the Emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was no longer against Ferdinand II. that its hostilities were to be
+      conducted; for that prince had died in February, 1637, in the 59th year of
+      his age. The war which his ambition had kindled, however, survived him.
+      During a reign of eighteen years he had never once laid aside the sword,
+      nor tasted the blessings of peace as long as his hand swayed the imperial
+      sceptre. Endowed with the qualities of a good sovereign, adorned with many
+      of those virtues which ensure the happiness of a people, and by nature
+      gentle and humane, we see him, from erroneous ideas of the monarch's duty,
+      become at once the instrument and the victim of the evil passions of
+      others; his benevolent intentions frustrated, and the friend of justice
+      converted into the oppressor of mankind, the enemy of peace, and the
+      scourge of his people. Amiable in domestic life, and respectable as a
+      sovereign, but in his policy ill advised, while he gained the love of his
+      Roman Catholic subjects, he incurred the execration of the Protestants.
+      History exhibits many and greater despots than Ferdinand II., yet he alone
+      has had the unfortunate celebrity of kindling a thirty years' war; but to
+      produce its lamentable consequences, his ambition must have been seconded
+      by a kindred spirit of the age, a congenial state of previous
+      circumstances, and existing seeds of discord. At a less turbulent period,
+      the spark would have found no fuel; and the peacefulness of the age would
+      have choked the voice of individual ambition; but now the flash fell upon
+      a pile of accumulated combustibles, and Europe was in flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His son, Ferdinand III., who, a few months before his father's death, had
+      been raised to the dignity of King of the Romans, inherited his throne,
+      his principles, and the war which he had caused. But Ferdinand III. had
+      been a closer witness of the sufferings of the people, and the devastation
+      of the country, and felt more keenly and ardently the necessity of peace.
+      Less influenced by the Jesuits and the Spaniards, and more moderate
+      towards the religious views of others, he was more likely than his father
+      to listen to the voice of reason. He did so, and ultimately restored to
+      Europe the blessing of peace, but not till after a contest of eleven years
+      waged with sword and pen; not till after he had experienced the
+      impossibility of resistance, and necessity had laid upon him its stern
+      laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortune favoured him at the commencement of his reign, and his arms were
+      victorious against the Swedes. The latter, under the command of the
+      victorious Banner, had, after their success at Wittstock, taken up their
+      winter quarters in Saxony; and the campaign of 1637 opened with the siege
+      of Leipzig. The vigorous resistance of the garrison, and the approach of
+      the Electoral and Imperial armies, saved the town, and Banner, to prevent
+      his communication with the Elbe being cut off, was compelled to retreat
+      into Torgau. But the superior number of the Imperialists drove him even
+      from that quarter; and, surrounded by the enemy, hemmed in by rivers, and
+      suffering from famine, he had no course open to him but to attempt a
+      highly dangerous retreat into Pomerania, of which, the boldness and
+      successful issue border upon romance. The whole army crossed the Oder, at
+      a ford near Furstenberg; and the soldiers, wading up to the neck in water,
+      dragged the artillery across, when the horses refused to draw. Banner had
+      expected to be joined by General Wrangel, on the farther side of the Oder
+      in Pomerania; and, in conjunction with him, to be able to make head
+      against the enemy. But Wrangel did not appear; and in his stead, he found
+      an Imperial army posted at Landsberg, with a view to cut off the retreat
+      of the Swedes. Banner now saw that he had fallen into a dangerous snare,
+      from which escape appeared impossible. In his rear lay an exhausted
+      country, the Imperialists, and the Oder on his left; the Oder, too,
+      guarded by the Imperial General Bucheim, offered no retreat; in front,
+      Landsberg, Custrin, the Warta, and a hostile army; and on the right,
+      Poland, in which, notwithstanding the truce, little confidence could be
+      placed. In these circumstances, his position seemed hopeless, and the
+      Imperialists were already triumphing in the certainty of his fall. Banner,
+      with just indignation, accused the French as the authors of this
+      misfortune. They had neglected to make, according to their promise, a
+      diversion upon the Rhine; and, by their inaction, allowed the Emperor to
+      combine his whole force upon the Swedes. "When the day comes," cried the
+      incensed General to the French Commissioner, who followed the camp, "that
+      the Swedes and Germans join their arms against France, we shall cross the
+      Rhine with less ceremony." But reproaches were now useless; what the
+      emergency demanded was energy and resolution. In the hope of drawing the
+      enemy by stratagem from the Oder, Banner pretended to march towards
+      Poland, and despatched the greater part of his baggage in this direction,
+      with his own wife, and those of the other officers. The Imperialists
+      immediately broke up their camp, and hurried towards the Polish frontier
+      to block up the route; Bucheim left his station, and the Oder was stripped
+      of its defenders. On a sudden, and under cloud of night, Banner turned
+      towards that river, and crossed it about a mile above Custrin, with his
+      troops, baggage, and artillery, without bridges or vessels, as he had done
+      before at Furstenberg. He reached Pomerania without loss, and prepared to
+      share with Wrangel the defence of that province.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Imperialists, under the command of Gallas, entered that duchy at
+      Ribses, and overran it by their superior strength. Usedom and Wolgast were
+      taken by storm, Demmin capitulated, and the Swedes were driven far into
+      Lower Pomerania. It was, too, more important for them at this moment than
+      ever, to maintain a footing in that country, for Bogislaus XIV. had died
+      that year, and Sweden must prepare to establish its title to Pomerania. To
+      prevent the Elector of Brandenburg from making good the title to that
+      duchy, which the treaty of Prague had given him, Sweden exerted her utmost
+      energies, and supported its generals to the extent of her ability, both
+      with troops and money. In other quarters of the kingdom, the affairs of
+      the Swedes began to wear a more favourable aspect, and to recover from the
+      humiliation into which they had been thrown by the inaction of France, and
+      the desertion of their allies. For, after their hasty retreat into
+      Pomerania, they had lost one place after another in Upper Saxony; the
+      princes of Mecklenburg, closely pressed by the troops of the Emperor,
+      began to lean to the side of Austria, and even George, Duke of Lunenburg,
+      declared against them. Ehrenbreitstein was starved into a surrender by the
+      Bavarian General de Werth, and the Austrians possessed themselves of all
+      the works which had been thrown up on the Rhine. France had been the
+      sufferer in the contest with Spain; and the event had by no means
+      justified the pompous expectations which had accompanied the opening of
+      the campaign. Every place which the Swedes had held in the interior of
+      Germany was lost; and only the principal towns in Pomerania still remained
+      in their hands. But a single campaign raised them from this state of
+      humiliation; and the vigorous diversion, which the victorious Bernard had
+      effected upon the Rhine, gave quite a new turn to affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The misunderstandings between France and Sweden were now at last adjusted,
+      and the old treaty between these powers confirmed at Hamburg, with fresh
+      advantages for Sweden. In Hesse, the politic Landgravine Amelia had, with
+      the approbation of the Estates, assumed the government after the death of
+      her husband, and resolutely maintained her rights against the Emperor and
+      the House of Darmstadt. Already zealously attached to the Swedish
+      Protestant party, on religious grounds, she only awaited a favourable
+      opportunity openly to declare herself. By artful delays, and by prolonging
+      the negociations with the Emperor, she had succeeded in keeping him
+      inactive, till she had concluded a secret compact with France, and the
+      victories of Duke Bernard had given a favourable turn to the affairs of
+      the Protestants. She now at once threw off the mask, and renewed her
+      former alliance with the Swedish crown. The Electoral Prince of the
+      Palatinate was also stimulated, by the success of Bernard, to try his
+      fortune against the common enemy. Raising troops in Holland with English
+      money, he formed a magazine at Meppen, and joined the Swedes in
+      Westphalia. His magazine was, however, quickly lost; his army defeated
+      near Flotha, by Count Hatzfeld; but his attempt served to occupy for some
+      time the attention of the enemy, and thereby facilitated the operations of
+      the Swedes in other quarters. Other friends began to appear, as fortune
+      declared in their favour, and the circumstance, that the States of Lower
+      Saxony embraced a neutrality, was of itself no inconsiderable advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under these advantages, and reinforced by 14,000 fresh troops from Sweden
+      and Livonia. Banner opened, with the most favourable prospects, the
+      campaign of 1638. The Imperialists who were in possession of Upper
+      Pomerania and Mecklenburg, either abandoned their positions, or deserted
+      in crowds to the Swedes, to avoid the horrors of famine, the most
+      formidable enemy in this exhausted country. The whole country betwixt the
+      Elbe and the Oder was so desolated by the past marchings and quarterings
+      of the troops, that, in order to support his army on its march into Saxony
+      and Bohemia, Banner was obliged to take a circuitous route from Lower
+      Pomerania into Lower Saxony, and then into the Electorate of Saxony
+      through the territory of Halberstadt. The impatience of the Lower Saxon
+      States to get rid of such troublesome guests, procured him so plentiful a
+      supply of provisions, that he was provided with bread in Magdeburg itself,
+      where famine had even overcome the natural antipathy of men to human
+      flesh. His approach spread consternation among the Saxons; but his views
+      were directed not against this exhausted country, but against the
+      hereditary dominions of the Emperor. The victories of Bernard encouraged
+      him, while the prosperity of the Austrian provinces excited his hopes of
+      booty. After defeating the Imperial General Salis, at Elsterberg, totally
+      routing the Saxon army at Chemnitz, and taking Pirna, he penetrated with
+      irresistible impetuosity into Bohemia, crossed the Elbe, threatened
+      Prague, took Brandeis and Leutmeritz, defeated General Hofkirchen with ten
+      regiments, and spread terror and devastation through that defenceless
+      kingdom. Booty was his sole object, and whatever he could not carry off he
+      destroyed. In order to remove more of the corn, the ears were cut from the
+      stalks, and the latter burnt. Above a thousand castles, hamlets, and
+      villages were laid in ashes; sometimes more than a hundred were seen
+      burning in one night. From Bohemia he crossed into Silesia, and it was his
+      intention to carry his ravages even into Moravia and Austria. But to
+      prevent this, Count Hatzfeld was summoned from Westphalia, and Piccolomini
+      from the Netherlands, to hasten with all speed to this quarter. The
+      Archduke Leopold, brother to the Emperor, assumed the command, in order to
+      repair the errors of his predecessor Gallas, and to raise the army from
+      the low ebb to which it had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result justified the change, and the campaign of 1640 appeared to take
+      a most unfortunate turn for the Swedes. They were successively driven out
+      of all their posts in Bohemia, and anxious only to secure their plunder,
+      they precipitately crossed the heights of Meissen. But being followed into
+      Saxony by the pursuing enemy, and defeated at Plauen, they were obliged to
+      take refuge in Thuringia. Made masters of the field in a single summer,
+      they were as rapidly dispossessed; but only to acquire it a second time,
+      and to hurry from one extreme to another. The army of Banner, weakened and
+      on the brink of destruction in its camp at Erfurt, suddenly recovered
+      itself. The Duke of Lunenburg abandoned the treaty of Prague, and joined
+      Banner with the very troops which, the year before, had fought against
+      him. Hesse Cassel sent reinforcements, and the Duke of Longueville came to
+      his support with the army of the late Duke Bernard. Once more numerically
+      superior to the Imperialists, Banner offered them battle near Saalfeld;
+      but their leader, Piccolomini, prudently declined an engagement, having
+      chosen too strong a position to be forced. When the Bavarians at length
+      separated from the Imperialists, and marched towards Franconia, Banner
+      attempted an attack upon this divided corps, but the attempt was
+      frustrated by the skill of the Bavarian General Von Mercy, and the near
+      approach of the main body of the Imperialists. Both armies now moved into
+      the exhausted territory of Hesse, where they formed intrenched camps near
+      each other, till at last famine and the severity of the winter compelled
+      them both to retire. Piccolomini chose the fertile banks of the Weser for
+      his winter quarters; but being outflanked by Banner, he was obliged to
+      give way to the Swedes, and to impose on the Franconian sees the burden of
+      maintaining his army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this period, a diet was held in Ratisbon, where the complaints of the
+      States were to be heard, measures taken for securing the repose of the
+      Empire, and the question of peace or war finally settled. The presence of
+      the Emperor, the majority of the Roman Catholic voices in the Electoral
+      College, the great number of bishops, and the withdrawal of several of the
+      Protestant votes, gave the Emperor a complete command of the deliberations
+      of the assembly, and rendered this diet any thing but a fair
+      representative of the opinions of the German Empire. The Protestants, with
+      reason, considered it as a mere combination of Austria and its creatures
+      against their party; and it seemed to them a laudable effort to interrupt
+      its deliberations, and to dissolve the diet itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Banner undertook this bold enterprise. His military reputation had
+      suffered by his last retreat from Bohemia, and it stood in need of some
+      great exploit to restore its former lustre. Without communicating his
+      designs to any one, in the depth of the winter of 1641, as soon as the
+      roads and rivers were frozen, he broke up from his quarters in Lunenburg.
+      Accompanied by Marshal Guebriant, who commanded the armies of France and
+      Weimar, he took the route towards the Danube, through Thuringia and
+      Vogtland, and appeared before Ratisbon, ere the Diet could be apprised of
+      his approach. The consternation of the assembly was indescribable; and, in
+      the first alarm, the deputies prepared for flight. The Emperor alone
+      declared that he would not leave the town, and encouraged the rest by his
+      example. Unfortunately for the Swedes, a thaw came on, which broke up the
+      ice upon the Danube, so that it was no longer passable on foot, while no
+      boats could cross it, on account of the quantities of ice which were swept
+      down by the current. In order to perform something, and to humble the
+      pride of the Emperor, Banner discourteously fired 500 cannon shots into
+      the town, which, however, did little mischief. Baffled in his designs, he
+      resolved to penetrate farther into Bavaria, and the defenceless province
+      of Moravia, where a rich booty and comfortable quarters awaited his
+      troops. Guebriant, however, began to fear that the purpose of the Swedes
+      was to draw the army of Bernard away from the Rhine, and to cut off its
+      communication with France, till it should be either entirely won over, or
+      incapacitated from acting independently. He therefore separated from
+      Banner to return to the Maine; and the latter was exposed to the whole
+      force of the Imperialists, which had been secretly drawn together between
+      Ratisbon and Ingoldstadt, and was on its march against him. It was now
+      time to think of a rapid retreat, which, having to be effected in the face
+      of an army superior in cavalry, and betwixt woods and rivers, through a
+      country entirely hostile, appeared almost impracticable. He hastily
+      retired towards the Forest, intending to penetrate through Bohemia into
+      Saxony; but he was obliged to sacrifice three regiments at Neuburg. These
+      with a truly Spartan courage, defended themselves for four days behind an
+      old wall, and gained time for Banner to escape. He retreated by Egra to
+      Annaberg; Piccolomini took a shorter route in pursuit, by Schlakenwald;
+      and Banner succeeded, only by a single half hour, in clearing the Pass of
+      Prisnitz, and saving his whole army from the Imperialists. At Zwickau he
+      was again joined by Guebriant; and both generals directed their march
+      towards Halberstadt, after in vain attempting to defend the Saal, and to
+      prevent the passage of the Imperialists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Banner, at length, terminated his career at Halberstadt, in May 1641, a
+      victim to vexation and disappointment. He sustained with great renown,
+      though with varying success, the reputation of the Swedish arms in
+      Germany, and by a train of victories showed himself worthy of his great
+      master in the art of war. He was fertile in expedients, which he planned
+      with secrecy, and executed with boldness; cautious in the midst of
+      dangers, greater in adversity than in prosperity, and never more
+      formidable than when upon the brink of destruction. But the virtues of the
+      hero were united with all the railings and vices which a military life
+      creates, or at least fosters. As imperious in private life as he was at
+      the head of his army, rude as his profession, and proud as a conqueror; he
+      oppressed the German princes no less by his haughtiness, than their
+      country by his contributions. He consoled himself for the toils of war in
+      voluptuousness and the pleasures of the table, in which he indulged to
+      excess, and was thus brought to an early grave. But though as much
+      addicted to pleasure as Alexander or Mahomet the Second, he hurried from
+      the arms of luxury into the hardest fatigues, and placed himself in all
+      his vigour at the head of his army, at the very moment his soldiers were
+      murmuring at his luxurious excesses. Nearly 80,000 men fell in the
+      numerous battles which he fought, and about 600 hostile standards and
+      colours, which he sent to Stockholm, were the trophies of his victories.
+      The want of this great general was soon severely felt by the Swedes, who
+      feared, with justice, that the loss would not readily be replaced. The
+      spirit of rebellion and insubordination, which had been overawed by the
+      imperious demeanour of this dreaded commander, awoke upon his death. The
+      officers, with an alarming unanimity, demanded payment of their arrears;
+      and none of the four generals who shared the command, possessed influence
+      enough to satisfy these demands, or to silence the malcontents. All
+      discipline was at an end, increasing want, and the imperial citations were
+      daily diminishing the number of the army; the troops of France and Weimar
+      showed little zeal; those of Lunenburg forsook the Swedish colours; the
+      Princes also of the House of Brunswick, after the death of Duke George,
+      had formed a separate treaty with the Emperor; and at last even those of
+      Hesse quitted them, to seek better quarters in Westphalia. The enemy
+      profited by these calamitous divisions; and although defeated with loss in
+      two pitched battles, succeeded in making considerable progress in Lower
+      Saxony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length appeared the new Swedish generalissimo, with fresh troops and
+      money. This was Bernard Torstensohn, a pupil of Gustavus Adolphus, and his
+      most successful imitator, who had been his page during the Polish war.
+      Though a martyr to the gout, and confined to a litter, he surpassed all
+      his opponents in activity; and his enterprises had wings, while his body
+      was held by the most frightful of fetters. Under him, the scene of war was
+      changed, and new maxims adopted, which necessity dictated, and the issue
+      justified. All the countries in which the contest had hitherto raged were
+      exhausted; while the House of Austria, safe in its more distant
+      territories, felt not the miseries of the war under which the rest of
+      Germany groaned. Torstensohn first furnished them with this bitter
+      experience, glutted his Swedes on the fertile produce of Austria, and
+      carried the torch of war to the very footsteps of the imperial throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Silesia, the enemy had gained considerable advantages over the Swedish
+      general Stalhantsch, and driven him as far as Neumark. Torstensohn, who
+      had joined the main body of the Swedes in Lunenburg, summoned him to unite
+      with his force, and in the year 1642 hastily marched into Silesia through
+      Brandenburg, which, under its great Elector, had begun to maintain an
+      armed neutrality. Glogau was carried, sword in hand, without a breach, or
+      formal approaches; the Duke Francis Albert of Lauenburg defeated and
+      killed at Schweidnitz; and Schweidnitz itself with almost all the towns on
+      that side of the Oder, taken. He now penetrated with irresistible violence
+      into the interior of Moravia, where no enemy of Austria had hitherto
+      appeared, took Olmutz, and threw Vienna itself into consternation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in the mean time, Piccolomini and the Archduke Leopold had collected
+      a superior force, which speedily drove the Swedish conquerors from
+      Moravia, and after a fruitless attempt upon Brieg, from Silesia.
+      Reinforced by Wrangel, the Swedes again attempted to make head against the
+      enemy, and relieved Grossglogau; but could neither bring the Imperialists
+      to an engagement, nor carry into effect their own views upon Bohemia.
+      Overrunning Lusatia, they took Zittau, in presence of the enemy, and after
+      a short stay in that country, directed their march towards the Elbe, which
+      they passed at Torgau. Torstensohn now threatened Leipzig with a siege,
+      and hoped to raise a large supply of provisions and contributions from
+      that prosperous town, which for ten years had been unvisited with the
+      scourge of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Imperialists, under Leopold and Piccolomini, immediately hastened by
+      Dresden to its relief, and Torstensohn, to avoid being inclosed between
+      this army and the town, boldly advanced to meet them in order of battle.
+      By a strange coincidence, the two armies met upon the very spot which,
+      eleven years before, Gustavus Adolphus had rendered remarkable by a
+      decisive victory; and the heroism of their predecessors, now kindled in
+      the Swedes a noble emulation on this consecrated ground. The Swedish
+      generals, Stahlhantsch and Wellenberg, led their divisions with such
+      impetuosity upon the left wing of the Imperialists, before it was
+      completely formed, that the whole cavalry that covered it were dispersed
+      and rendered unserviceable. But the left of the Swedes was threatened with
+      a similar fate, when the victorious right advanced to its assistance, took
+      the enemy in flank and rear, and divided the Austrian line. The infantry
+      on both sides stood firm as a wall, and when their ammunition was
+      exhausted, maintained the combat with the butt-ends of their muskets, till
+      at last the Imperialists, completely surrounded, after a contest of three
+      hours, were compelled to abandon the field. The generals on both sides had
+      more than once to rally their flying troops; and the Archduke Leopold,
+      with his regiment, was the first in the attack and last in flight. But
+      this bloody victory cost the Swedes more than 3000 men, and two of their
+      best generals, Schlangen and Lilienhoeck. More than 5000 of the
+      Imperialists were left upon the field, and nearly as many taken prisoners.
+      Their whole artillery, consisting of 46 field-pieces, the silver plate and
+      portfolio of the archduke, with the whole baggage of the army, fell into
+      the hands of the victors. Torstensohn, too greatly disabled by his victory
+      to pursue the enemy, moved upon Leipzig. The defeated army retired into
+      Bohemia, where its shattered regiments reassembled. The Archduke Leopold
+      could not recover from the vexation caused by this defeat; and the
+      regiment of cavalry which, by its premature flight, had occasioned the
+      disaster, experienced the effects of his indignation. At Raconitz in
+      Bohemia, in presence of the whole army, he publicly declared it infamous,
+      deprived it of its horses, arms, and ensigns, ordered its standards to be
+      torn, condemned to death several of the officers, and decimated the
+      privates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surrender of Leipzig, three weeks after the battle, was its brilliant
+      result. The city was obliged to clothe the Swedish troops anew, and to
+      purchase an exemption from plunder, by a contribution of 300,000
+      rix-dollars, to which all the foreign merchants, who had warehouses in the
+      city, were to furnish their quota. In the middle of winter, Torstensohn
+      advanced against Freyberg, and for several weeks defied the inclemency of
+      the season, hoping by his perseverance to weary out the obstinacy of the
+      besieged. But he found that he was merely sacrificing the lives of his
+      soldiers; and at last, the approach of the imperial general, Piccolomini,
+      compelled him, with his weakened army, to retire. He considered it,
+      however, as equivalent to a victory, to have disturbed the repose of the
+      enemy in their winter quarters, who, by the severity of the weather,
+      sustained a loss of 3000 horses. He now made a movement towards the Oder,
+      as if with the view of reinforcing himself with the garrisons of Pomerania
+      and Silesia; but, with the rapidity of lightning, he again appeared upon
+      the Bohemian frontier, penetrated through that kingdom, and relieved
+      Olmutz in Moravia, which was hard pressed by the Imperialists. His camp at
+      Dobitschau, two miles from Olmutz, commanded the whole of Moravia, on
+      which he levied heavy contributions, and carried his ravages almost to the
+      gates of Vienna. In vain did the Emperor attempt to arm the Hungarian
+      nobility in defence of this province; they appealed to their privileges,
+      and refused to serve beyond the limits of their own country. Thus, the
+      time that should have been spent in active resistance, was lost in
+      fruitless negociation, and the entire province was abandoned to the
+      ravages of the Swedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Torstensohn, by his marches and his victories, astonished friend and
+      foe, the armies of the allies had not been inactive in other parts of the
+      empire. The troops of Hesse, under Count Eberstein, and those of Weimar,
+      under Mareschal de Guebriant, had fallen into the Electorate of Cologne,
+      in order to take up their winter quarters there. To get rid of these
+      troublesome guests, the Elector called to his assistance the imperial
+      general Hatzfeldt, and assembled his own troops under General Lamboy. The
+      latter was attacked by the allies in January, 1642, and in a decisive
+      action near Kempen, defeated, with the loss of about 2000 men killed, and
+      about twice as many prisoners. This important victory opened to them the
+      whole Electorate and neighbouring territories, so that the allies were not
+      only enabled to maintain their winter quarters there, but drew from the
+      country large supplies of men and horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Guebriant left the Hessians to defend their conquests on the Lower Rhine
+      against Hatzfeldt, and advanced towards Thuringia, as if to second the
+      operations of Torstensohn in Saxony. But instead of joining the Swedes, he
+      soon hurried back to the Rhine and the Maine, from which he seemed to
+      think he had removed farther than was expedient. But being anticipated in
+      the Margraviate of Baden, by the Bavarians under Mercy and John de Werth,
+      he was obliged to wander about for several weeks, exposed, without
+      shelter, to the inclemency of the winter, and generally encamping upon the
+      snow, till he found a miserable refuge in Breisgau. He at last took the
+      field; and, in the next summer, by keeping the Bavarian army employed in
+      Suabia, prevented it from relieving Thionville, which was besieged by
+      Conde. But the superiority of the enemy soon drove him back to Alsace,
+      where he awaited a reinforcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The death of Cardinal Richelieu took place in November, 1642, and the
+      subsequent change in the throne and in the ministry, occasioned by the
+      death of Louis XIII., had for some time withdrawn the attention of France
+      from the German war, and was the cause of the inaction of its troops in
+      the field. But Mazarin, the inheritor, not only of Richelieu's power, but
+      also of his principles and his projects, followed out with renewed zeal
+      the plans of his predecessor, though the French subject was destined to
+      pay dearly enough for the political greatness of his country. The main
+      strength of its armies, which Richelieu had employed against the
+      Spaniards, was by Mazarin directed against the Emperor; and the anxiety
+      with which he carried on the war in Germany, proved the sincerity of his
+      opinion, that the German army was the right arm of his king, and a wall of
+      safety around France. Immediately upon the surrender of Thionville, he
+      sent a considerable reinforcement to Field-Marshal Guebriant in Alsace;
+      and to encourage the troops to bear the fatigues of the German war, the
+      celebrated victor of Rocroi, the Duke of Enghien, afterwards Prince of
+      Conde, was placed at their head. Guebriant now felt himself strong enough
+      to appear again in Germany with repute. He hastened across the Rhine with
+      the view of procuring better winter quarters in Suabia, and actually made
+      himself master of Rothweil, where a Bavarian magazine fell into his hands.
+      But the place was too dearly purchased for its worth, and was again lost
+      even more speedily than it had been taken. Guebriant received a wound in
+      the arm, which the surgeon's unskilfulness rendered mortal, and the extent
+      of his loss was felt on the very day of his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French army, sensibly weakened by an expedition undertaken at so
+      severe a season of the year, had, after the taking of Rothweil, withdrawn
+      into the neighbourhood of Duttlingen, where it lay in complete security,
+      without expectation of a hostile attack. In the mean time, the enemy
+      collected a considerable force, with a view to prevent the French from
+      establishing themselves beyond the Rhine and so near to Bavaria, and to
+      protect that quarter from their ravages. The Imperialists, under
+      Hatzfeldt, had formed a junction with the Bavarians under Mercy; and the
+      Duke of Lorraine, who, during the whole course of the war, was generally found
+      everywhere except in his own duchy, joined their united forces. It was
+      resolved to force the quarters of the French in Duttlingen, and the
+      neighbouring villages, by surprise; a favourite mode of proceeding in this
+      war, and which, being commonly accompanied by confusion, occasioned more
+      bloodshed than a regular battle. On the present occasion, there was the
+      more to justify it, as the French soldiers, unaccustomed to such
+      enterprises, conceived themselves protected by the severity of the winter
+      against any surprise. John de Werth, a master in this species of warfare,
+      which he had often put in practice against Gustavus Horn, conducted the
+      enterprise, and succeeded, contrary to all expectation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attack was made on a side where it was least looked for, on account of
+      the woods and narrow passes, and a heavy snow storm which fell upon the
+      same day, (the 24th November, 1643,) concealed the approach of the
+      vanguard till it halted before Duttlingen. The whole of the artillery
+      without the place, as well as the neighbouring Castle of Honberg, were
+      taken without resistance, Duttlingen itself was gradually surrounded by
+      the enemy, and all connexion with the other quarters in the adjacent
+      villages silently and suddenly cut off. The French were vanquished without
+      firing a cannon. The cavalry owed their escape to the swiftness of their
+      horses, and the few minutes in advance, which they had gained upon their
+      pursuers. The infantry were cut to pieces, or voluntarily laid down their
+      arms. About 2,000 men were killed, and 7,000, with 25 staff-officers and
+      90 captains, taken prisoners. This was, perhaps, the only battle, in the
+      whole course of the war, which produced nearly the same effect upon the
+      party which gained, and that which lost;&mdash;both these parties were
+      Germans; the French disgraced themselves. The memory of this unfortunate
+      day, which was renewed 100 years after at Rosbach, was indeed erased by
+      the subsequent heroism of a Turenne and Conde; but the Germans may be
+      pardoned, if they indemnified themselves for the miseries which the policy
+      of France had heaped upon them, by these severe reflections upon her
+      intrepidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, this defeat of the French was calculated to prove highly
+      disastrous to Sweden, as the whole power of the Emperor might now act
+      against them, while the number of their enemies was increased by a
+      formidable accession. Torstensohn had, in September, 1643, suddenly left
+      Moravia, and moved into Silesia. The cause of this step was a secret, and
+      the frequent changes which took place in the direction of his march,
+      contributed to increase this perplexity. From Silesia, after numberless
+      circuits, he advanced towards the Elbe, while the Imperialists followed
+      him into Lusatia. Throwing a bridge across the Elbe at Torgau, he gave out
+      that he intended to penetrate through Meissen into the Upper Palatinate in
+      Bavaria; at Barby he also made a movement, as if to pass that river, but
+      continued to move down the Elbe as far as Havelburg, where he astonished
+      his troops by informing them that he was leading them against the Danes in
+      Holstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The partiality which Christian IV. had displayed against the Swedes in his
+      office of mediator, the jealousy which led him to do all in his power to
+      hinder the progress of their arms, the restraints which he laid upon their
+      navigation of the Sound, and the burdens which he imposed upon their
+      commerce, had long roused the indignation of Sweden; and, at last, when
+      these grievances increased daily, had determined the Regency to measures
+      of retaliation. Dangerous as it seemed, to involve the nation in a new
+      war, when, even amidst its conquests, it was almost exhausted by the old,
+      the desire of revenge, and the deep-rooted hatred which subsisted between
+      Danes and Swedes, prevailed over all other considerations; and even the
+      embarrassment in which hostilities with Germany had plunged it, only
+      served as an additional motive to try its fortune against Denmark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matters were, in fact, arrived at last to that extremity, that the war was
+      prosecuted merely for the purpose of furnishing food and employment to the
+      troops; that good winter quarters formed the chief subject of contention;
+      and that success, in this point, was more valued than a decisive victory.
+      But now the provinces of Germany were almost all exhausted and laid waste.
+      They were wholly destitute of provisions, horses, and men, which in
+      Holstein were to be found in profusion. If by this movement, Torstensohn
+      should succeed merely in recruiting his army, providing subsistence for
+      his horses and soldiers, and remounting his cavalry, all the danger and
+      difficulty would be well repaid. Besides, it was highly important, on the
+      eve of negotiations for peace, to diminish the injurious influence which
+      Denmark might exercise upon these deliberations, to delay the treaty
+      itself, which threatened to be prejudicial to the Swedish interests, by
+      sowing confusion among the parties interested, and with a view to the
+      amount of indemnification, to increase the number of her conquests, in
+      order to be the more sure of securing those which alone she was anxious to
+      retain. Moreover, the present state of Denmark justified even greater
+      hopes, if only the attempt were executed with rapidity and silence. The
+      secret was in fact so well kept in Stockholm, that the Danish minister had
+      not the slightest suspicion of it; and neither France nor Holland were let
+      into the scheme. Actual hostilities commenced with the declaration of war;
+      and Torstensohn was in Holstein, before even an attack was expected. The
+      Swedish troops, meeting with no resistance, quickly overran this duchy,
+      and made themselves masters of all its strong places, except Rensburg and
+      Gluckstadt. Another army penetrated into Schonen, which made as little
+      opposition; and nothing but the severity of the season prevented the enemy
+      from passing the Lesser Baltic, and carrying the war into Funen and
+      Zealand. The Danish fleet was unsuccessful at Femern; and Christian
+      himself, who was on board, lost his right eye by a splinter. Cut off from
+      all communication with the distant force of the Emperor, his ally, this
+      king was on the point of seeing his whole kingdom overrun by the Swedes;
+      and all things threatened the speedy fulfilment of the old prophecy of the
+      famous Tycho Brahe, that in the year 1644, Christian IV. should wander in
+      the greatest misery from his dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Emperor could not look on with indifference, while Denmark was
+      sacrificed to Sweden, and the latter strengthened by so great an
+      acquisition. Notwithstanding great difficulties lay in the way of so long
+      a march through desolated provinces, he did not hesitate to despatch an
+      army into Holstein under Count Gallas, who, after Piccolomini's
+      retirement, had resumed the supreme command of the troops. Gallas
+      accordingly appeared in the duchy, took Keil, and hoped, by forming a
+      junction with the Danes, to be able to shut up the Swedish army in
+      Jutland. Meantime, the Hessians, and the Swedish General Koenigsmark, were
+      kept in check by Hatzfeldt, and the Archbishop of Bremen, the son of
+      Christian IV.; and afterwards the Swedes drawn into Saxony by an attack
+      upon Meissen. But Torstensohn, with his augmented army, penetrated through
+      the unoccupied pass betwixt Schleswig and Stapelholm, met Gallas, and
+      drove him along the whole course of the Elbe, as far as Bernburg, where
+      the Imperialists took up an entrenched position. Torstensohn passed the
+      Saal, and by posting himself in the rear of the enemy, cut off their
+      communication with Saxony and Bohemia. Scarcity and famine began now to
+      destroy them in great numbers, and forced them to retreat to Magdeburg,
+      where, however, they were not much better off. The cavalry, which
+      endeavoured to escape into Silesia, was overtaken and routed by
+      Torstensohn, near Juterbock; the rest of the army, after a vain attempt to
+      fight its way through the Swedish lines, was almost wholly destroyed near
+      Magdeburg. From this expedition, Gallas brought back only a few thousand
+      men of all his formidable force, and the reputation of being a consummate
+      master in the art of ruining an army. The King of Denmark, after this
+      unsuccessful effort to relieve him, sued for peace, which he obtained at
+      Bremsebor in the year 1645, under very unfavourable conditions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Torstensohn rapidly followed up his victory; and while Axel Lilienstern,
+      one of the generals who commanded under him, overawed Saxony, and
+      Koenigsmark subdued the whole of Bremen, he himself penetrated into
+      Bohemia with 16,000 men and 80 pieces of artillery, and endeavoured a
+      second time to remove the seat of war into the hereditary dominions of
+      Austria. Ferdinand, upon this intelligence, hastened in person to Prague,
+      in order to animate the courage of the people by his presence; and as a
+      skilful general was much required, and so little unanimity prevailed among
+      the numerous leaders, he hoped in the immediate neighbourhood of the war
+      to be able to give more energy and activity. In obedience to his orders,
+      Hatzfeldt assembled the whole Austrian and Bavarian force, and contrary to
+      his own inclination and advice, formed the Emperor's last army, and the
+      last bulwark of his states, in order of battle, to meet the enemy, who
+      were approaching, at Jankowitz, on the 24th of February, 1645. Ferdinand
+      depended upon his cavalry, which outnumbered that of the enemy by 3000,
+      and upon the promise of the Virgin Mary, who had appeared to him in a
+      dream, and given him the strongest assurances of a complete victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="1p362 (157K)" src="images/1p362.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The superiority of the Imperialists did not intimidate Torstensohn, who
+      was not accustomed to number his antagonists. On the very first onset, the
+      left wing, which Goetz, the general of the League, had entangled in a
+      disadvantageous position among marshes and thickets, was totally routed;
+      the general, with the greater part of his men, killed, and almost the
+      whole ammunition of the army taken. This unfortunate commencement decided
+      the fate of the day. The Swedes, constantly advancing, successively
+      carried all the most commanding heights. After a bloody engagement of
+      eight hours, a desperate attack on the part of the Imperial cavalry, and a
+      vigorous resistance by the Swedish infantry, the latter remained in
+      possession of the field. 2,000 Austrians were killed upon the spot, and
+      Hatzfeldt himself, with 3,000 men, taken prisoners. Thus, on the same day,
+      did the Emperor lose his best general and his last army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This decisive victory at Jancowitz, at once exposed all the Austrian
+      territory to the enemy. Ferdinand hastily fled to Vienna, to provide for
+      its defence, and to save his family and his treasures. In a very short
+      time, the victorious Swedes poured, like an inundation, upon Moravia and
+      Austria. After they had subdued nearly the whole of Moravia, invested
+      Brunn, and taken all the strongholds as far as the Danube, and carried the
+      intrenchments at the Wolf's Bridge, near Vienna, they at last appeared in
+      sight of that capital, while the care which they had taken to fortify
+      their conquests, showed that their visit was not likely to be a short one.
+      After a long and destructive circuit through every province of Germany,
+      the stream of war had at last rolled backwards to its source, and the roar
+      of the Swedish artillery now reminded the terrified inhabitants of those
+      balls which, twenty-seven years before, the Bohemian rebels had fired into
+      Vienna. The same theatre of war brought again similar actors on the scene.
+      Torstensohn invited Ragotsky, the successor of Bethlen Gabor, to his
+      assistance, as the Bohemian rebels had solicited that of his predecessor;
+      Upper Hungary was already inundated by his troops, and his union with the
+      Swedes was daily apprehended. The Elector of Saxony, driven to despair by
+      the Swedes taking up their quarters within his territories, and abandoned
+      by the Emperor, who, after the defeat at Jankowitz, was unable to defend
+      himself, at length adopted the last and only expedient which remained, and
+      concluded a truce with Sweden, which was renewed from year to year, till
+      the general peace. The Emperor thus lost a friend, while a new enemy was
+      appearing at his very gates, his armies dispersed, and his allies in other
+      quarters of Germany defeated. The French army had effaced the disgrace of
+      their defeat at Deutlingen by a brilliant campaign, and had kept the whole
+      force of Bavaria employed upon the Rhine and in Suabia. Reinforced with
+      fresh troops from France, which the great Turenne, already distinguished
+      by his victories in Italy, brought to the assistance of the Duke of
+      Enghien, they appeared on the 3rd of August, 1644, before Friburg, which
+      Mercy had lately taken, and now covered, with his whole army strongly
+      intrenched. But against the steady firmness of the Bavarians, all the
+      impetuous valour of the French was exerted in vain, and after a fruitless
+      sacrifice of 6,000 men, the Duke of Enghien was compelled to retreat.
+      Mazarin shed tears over this great loss, which Conde, who had no feeling
+      for anything but glory, disregarded. "A single night in Paris," said he,
+      "gives birth to more men than this action has destroyed." The Bavarians,
+      however, were so disabled by this murderous battle, that, far from being
+      in a condition to relieve Austria from the menaced dangers, they were too
+      weak even to defend the banks of the Rhine. Spires, Worms, and Manheim
+      capitulated; the strong fortress of Philipsburg was forced to surrender by
+      famine; and, by a timely submission, Mentz hastened to disarm the
+      conquerors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Austria and Moravia, however, were now freed from Torstensohn, by a
+      similar means of deliverance, as in the beginning of the war had saved
+      them from the Bohemians. Ragotzky, at the head of 25,000 men, had advanced
+      into the neighbourhood of the Swedish quarters upon the Danube. But these
+      wild undisciplined hordes, instead of seconding the operations of
+      Torstensohn by any vigorous enterprise, only ravaged the country, and
+      increased the distress which, even before their arrival, had begun to be
+      felt in the Swedish camp. To extort tribute from the Emperor, and money
+      and plunder from his subjects, was the sole object that had allured
+      Ragotzky, or his predecessor, Bethlen Gabor, into the field; and both
+      departed as soon as they had gained their end. To get rid of him,
+      Ferdinand granted the barbarian whatever he asked, and, by a small
+      sacrifice, freed his states of this formidable enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mean time, the main body of the Swedes had been greatly weakened by
+      a tedious encampment before Brunn. Torstensohn, who commanded in person,
+      for four entire months employed in vain all his knowledge of military
+      tactics; the obstinacy of the resistance was equal to that of the assault;
+      while despair roused the courage of Souches, the commandant, a Swedish
+      deserter, who had no hope of pardon. The ravages caused by pestilence,
+      arising from famine, want of cleanliness, and the use of unripe fruit,
+      during their tedious and unhealthy encampment, with the sudden retreat of
+      the Prince of Transylvania, at last compelled the Swedish leader to raise
+      the siege. As all the passes upon the Danube were occupied, and his army
+      greatly weakened by famine and sickness, he at last relinquished his
+      intended plan of operations against Austria and Moravia, and contented
+      himself with securing a key to these provinces, by leaving behind him
+      Swedish garrisons in the conquered fortresses. He then directed his march
+      into Bohemia, whither he was followed by the Imperialists, under the
+      Archduke Leopold. Such of the lost places as had not been retaken by the
+      latter, were recovered, after his departure, by the Austrian General
+      Bucheim; so that, in the course of the following year, the Austrian
+      frontier was again cleared of the enemy, and Vienna escaped with mere
+      alarm. In Bohemia and Silesia too, the Swedes maintained themselves only
+      with a very variable fortune; they traversed both countries, without being
+      able to hold their ground in either. But if the designs of Torstensohn
+      were not crowned with all the success which they were promised at the
+      commencement, they were, nevertheless, productive of the most important
+      consequences to the Swedish party. Denmark had been compelled to a peace,
+      Saxony to a truce. The Emperor, in the deliberations for a peace, offered
+      greater concessions; France became more manageable; and Sweden itself
+      bolder and more confident in its bearing towards these two crowns. Having
+      thus nobly performed his duty, the author of these advantages retired,
+      adorned with laurels, into the tranquillity of private life, and
+      endeavoured to restore his shattered health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the retreat of Torstensohn, the Emperor was relieved from all fears of
+      an irruption on the side of Bohemia. But a new danger soon threatened the
+      Austrian frontier from Suabia and Bavaria. Turenne, who had separated from
+      Conde, and taken the direction of Suabia, had, in the year 1645, been
+      totally defeated by Mercy, near Mergentheim; and the victorious Bavarians,
+      under their brave leader, poured into Hesse. But the Duke of Enghien
+      hastened with considerable succours from Alsace, Koenigsmark from Moravia,
+      and the Hessians from the Rhine, to recruit the defeated army, and the
+      Bavarians were in turn compelled to retire to the extreme limits of
+      Suabia. Here they posted themselves at the village of Allersheim, near
+      Nordlingen, in order to cover the Bavarian frontier. But no obstacle could
+      check the impetuosity of the Duke of Enghien. In person, he led on his
+      troops against the enemy's entrenchments, and a battle took place, which
+      the heroic resistance of the Bavarians rendered most obstinate and bloody;
+      till at last the death of the great Mercy, the skill of Turenne, and the
+      iron firmness of the Hessians, decided the day in favour of the allies.
+      But even this second barbarous sacrifice of life had little effect either
+      on the course of the war, or on the negociations for peace. The French
+      army, exhausted by this bloody engagement, was still farther weakened by
+      the departure of the Hessians, and the Bavarians being reinforced by the
+      Archduke Leopold, Turenne was again obliged hastily to recross the Rhine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The retreat of the French, enabled the enemy to turn his whole force upon
+      the Swedes in Bohemia. Gustavus Wrangel, no unworthy successor of Banner
+      and Torstensohn, had, in 1646, been appointed Commander-in-chief of the
+      Swedish army, which, besides Koenigsmark's flying corps and the numerous
+      garrisons disposed throughout the empire, amounted to about 8,000 horse,
+      and 15,000 foot. The Archduke, after reinforcing his army, which already
+      amounted to 24,000 men, with twelve Bavarian regiments of cavalry, and
+      eighteen regiments of infantry, moved against Wrangel, in the hope of
+      being able to overwhelm him by his superior force before Koenigsmark could
+      join him, or the French effect a diversion in his favour. Wrangel,
+      however, did not await him, but hastened through Upper Saxony to the
+      Weser, where he took Hoester and Paderborn. From thence he marched into
+      Hesse, in order to join Turenne, and at his camp at Wetzlar, was joined by
+      the flying corps of Koenigsmark. But Turenne, fettered by the instructions
+      of Mazarin, who had seen with jealousy the warlike prowess and increasing
+      power of the Swedes, excused himself on the plea of a pressing necessity
+      to defend the frontier of France on the side of the Netherlands, in
+      consequence of the Flemings having failed to make the promised diversion.
+      But as Wrangel continued to press his just demand, and a longer opposition
+      might have excited distrust on the part of the Swedes, or induce them to
+      conclude a private treaty with Austria, Turenne at last obtained the
+      wished for permission to join the Swedish army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The junction took place at Giessen, and they now felt themselves strong
+      enough to meet the enemy. The latter had followed the Swedes into Hesse,
+      in order to intercept their commissariat, and to prevent their union with
+      Turenne. In both designs they had been unsuccessful; and the Imperialists
+      now saw themselves cut off from the Maine, and exposed to great scarcity
+      and want from the loss of their magazines. Wrangel took advantage of their
+      weakness, to execute a plan by which he hoped to give a new turn to the
+      war. He, too, had adopted the maxim of his predecessor, to carry the war
+      into the Austrian States. But discouraged by the ill success of
+      Torstensohn's enterprise, he hoped to gain his end with more certainty by
+      another way. He determined to follow the course of the Danube, and to
+      break into the Austrian territories through the midst of Bavaria. A
+      similar design had been formerly conceived by Gustavus Adolphus, which he
+      had been prevented carrying into effect by the approach of Wallenstein's
+      army, and the danger of Saxony. Duke Bernard moving in his footsteps, and
+      more fortunate than Gustavus, had spread his victorious banners between
+      the Iser and the Inn; but the near approach of the enemy, vastly superior
+      in force, obliged him to halt in his victorious career, and lead back his
+      troops. Wrangel now hoped to accomplish the object in which his
+      predecessors had failed, the more so, as the Imperial and Bavarian army
+      was far in his rear upon the Lahn, and could only reach Bavaria by a long
+      march through Franconia and the Upper Palatinate. He moved hastily upon
+      the Danube, defeated a Bavarian corps near Donauwerth, and passed that
+      river, as well as the Lech, unopposed. But by wasting his time in the
+      unsuccessful siege of Augsburg, he gave opportunity to the Imperialists,
+      not only to relieve that city, but also to repulse him as far as Lauingen.
+      No sooner, however, had they turned towards Suabia, with a view to remove
+      the war from Bavaria, than, seizing the opportunity, he repassed the Lech,
+      and guarded the passage of it against the Imperialists themselves. Bavaria
+      now lay open and defenceless before him; the French and Swedes quickly
+      overran it; and the soldiery indemnified themselves for all dangers by
+      frightful outrages, robberies, and extortions. The arrival of the Imperial
+      troops, who at last succeeded in passing the Lech at Thierhaupten, only
+      increased the misery of this country, which friend and foe
+      indiscriminately plundered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, for the first time during the whole course of this war, the
+      courage of Maximilian, which for eight-and-twenty years had stood unshaken
+      amidst fearful dangers, began to waver. Ferdinand II., his
+      school-companion at Ingoldstadt, and the friend of his youth, was no more;
+      and with the death of his friend and benefactor, the strong tie was
+      dissolved which had linked the Elector to the House of Austria. To the
+      father, habit, inclination, and gratitude had attached him; the son was a
+      stranger to his heart, and political interests alone could preserve his
+      fidelity to the latter prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, the motives which the artifices of France now put in
+      operation, in order to detach him from the Austrian alliance, and to
+      induce him to lay down his arms, were drawn entirely from political
+      considerations. It was not without a selfish object that Mazarin had so
+      far overcome his jealousy of the growing power of the Swedes, as to allow
+      the French to accompany them into Bavaria. His intention was to expose
+      Bavaria to all the horrors of war, in the hope that the persevering
+      fortitude of Maximilian might be subdued by necessity and despair, and the
+      Emperor deprived of his first and last ally. Brandenburg had, under its
+      great sovereign, embraced the neutrality; Saxony had been forced to accede
+      to it; the war with France prevented the Spaniards from taking any part in
+      that of Germany; the peace with Sweden had removed Denmark from the
+      theatre of war; and Poland had been disarmed by a long truce. If they
+      could succeed in detaching the Elector of Bavaria also from the Austrian
+      alliance, the Emperor would be without a friend in Germany and left to the
+      mercy of the allied powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferdinand III. saw his danger, and left no means untried to avert it. But
+      the Elector of Bavaria was unfortunately led to believe that the Spaniards
+      alone were disinclined to peace, and that nothing, but Spanish influence,
+      had induced the Emperor so long to resist a cessation of hostilities.
+      Maximilian detested the Spaniards, and could never forgive their having
+      opposed his application for the Palatine Electorate. Could it then be
+      supposed that, in order to gratify this hated power, he would see his
+      people sacrificed, his country laid waste, and himself ruined, when, by a
+      cessation of hostilities, he could at once emancipate himself from all
+      these distresses, procure for his people the repose of which they stood so
+      much in need, and perhaps accelerate the arrival of a general peace? All
+      doubts disappeared; and, convinced of the necessity of this step, he
+      thought he should sufficiently discharge his obligations to the Emperor,
+      if he invited him also to share in the benefit of the truce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deputies of the three crowns, and of Bavaria, met at Ulm, to adjust
+      the conditions. But it was soon evident, from the instructions of the
+      Austrian ambassadors that it was not the intention of the Emperor to
+      second the conclusion of a truce, but if possible to prevent it. It was
+      obviously necessary to make the terms acceptable to the Swedes, who had
+      the advantage, and had more to hope than to fear from the continuance of
+      the war. They were the conquerors; and yet the Emperor presumed to dictate
+      to them. In the first transports of their indignation, the Swedish
+      ambassadors were on the point of leaving the congress, and the French were
+      obliged to have recourse to threats in order to detain them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good intentions of the Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in
+      the benefit of the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt
+      himself justified in providing for his own safety. However hard were the
+      conditions on which the truce was to be purchased, he did not hesitate to
+      accept it on any terms. He agreed to the Swedes extending their quarters
+      in Suabia and Franconia, and to his own being restricted to Bavaria and
+      the Palatinate. The conquests which he had made in Suabia were ceded to
+      the allies, who, on their part, restored to him what they had taken from
+      Bavaria. Cologne and Hesse Cassel were also included in the truce. After
+      the conclusion of this treaty, upon the 14th March, 1647, the French and
+      Swedes left Bavaria, and in order not to interfere with each other, took
+      up different quarters; the former in Wuertemberg, the latter in Upper
+      Suabia, in the neighbourhood of the Lake of Constance. On the extreme
+      north of this lake, and on the most southern frontier of Suabia, the
+      Austrian town of Bregentz, by its steep and narrow passes, seemed to defy
+      attack; and in this persuasion, the whole peasantry of the surrounding
+      villages had with their property taken refuge in this natural fortress.
+      The rich booty, which the store of provisions it contained, gave reason to
+      expect, and the advantage of possessing a pass into the Tyrol, Switzerland
+      and Italy, induced the Swedish general to venture an attack upon this
+      supposed impregnable post and town, in which he succeeded. Meantime,
+      Turenne, according to agreement, marched into Wuertemberg, where he forced
+      the Landgrave of Darmstadt and the Elector of Mentz to imitate the example
+      of Bavaria, and to embrace the neutrality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, at last, France seemed to have attained the great object of its
+      policy, that of depriving the Emperor of the support of the League, and of
+      his Protestant allies, and of dictating to him, sword in hand, the
+      conditions of peace. Of all his once formidable power, an army, not
+      exceeding 12,000, was all that remained to him; and this force he was
+      driven to the necessity of entrusting to the command of a Calvinist, the
+      Hessian deserter Melander, as the casualties of war had stripped him of
+      his best generals. But as this war had been remarkable for the sudden
+      changes of fortune it displayed; and as every calculation of state policy
+      had been frequently baffled by some unforeseen event, in this case also
+      the issue disappointed expectation; and after a brief crisis, the fallen
+      power of Austria rose again to a formidable strength. The jealousy which
+      France entertained of Sweden, prevented it from permitting the total ruin
+      of the Emperor, or allowing the Swedes to obtain such a preponderance in
+      Germany, as might have been destructive to France herself. Accordingly,
+      the French minister declined to take advantage of the distresses of
+      Austria; and the army of Turenne, separating from that of Wrangel, retired
+      to the frontiers of the Netherlands. Wrangel, indeed, after moving from
+      Suabia into Franconia, taking Schweinfurt, and incorporating the imperial
+      garrison of that place with his own army, attempted to make his way into
+      Bohemia, and laid siege to Egra, the key of that kingdom. To relieve this
+      fortress, the Emperor put his last army in motion, and placed himself at
+      its head. But obliged to take a long circuit, in order to spare the lands
+      of Von Schlick, the president of the council of war, he protracted his
+      march; and on his arrival, Egra was already taken. Both armies were now in
+      sight of each other; and a decisive battle was momentarily expected, as
+      both were suffering from want, and the two camps were only separated from
+      each other by the space of the entrenchments. But the Imperialists,
+      although superior in numbers, contented themselves with keeping close to
+      the enemy, and harassing them by skirmishes, by fatiguing marches and
+      famine, until the negociations which had been opened with Bavaria were
+      brought to a bearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neutrality of Bavaria, was a wound under which the Imperial court
+      writhed impatiently; and after in vain attempting to prevent it, Austria
+      now determined, if possible, to turn it to advantage. Several officers of
+      the Bavarian army had been offended by this step of their master, which at
+      once reduced them to inaction, and imposed a burdensome restraint on their
+      restless disposition. Even the brave John de Werth was at the head of the
+      malcontents, and encouraged by the Emperor, he formed a plot to seduce the
+      whole army from their allegiance to the Elector, and lead it over to the
+      Emperor. Ferdinand did not blush to patronize this act of treachery
+      against his father's most trusty ally. He formally issued a proclamation
+      to the Bavarian troops, in which he recalled them to himself, reminded
+      them that they were the troops of the empire, which the Elector had merely
+      commanded in name of the Emperor. Fortunately for Maximilian, he detected
+      the conspiracy in time enough to anticipate and prevent it by the most
+      rapid and effective measures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This disgraceful conduct of the Emperor might have justified a reprisal,
+      but Maximilian was too old a statesman to listen to the voice of passion,
+      where policy alone ought to be heard. He had not derived from the truce
+      the advantages he expected. Far from tending to accelerate a general
+      peace, it had a pernicious influence upon the negociations at Munster and
+      Osnaburg, and had made the allies bolder in their demands. The French and
+      Swedes had indeed removed from Bavaria; but, by the loss of his quarters
+      in the Suabian circle, he found himself compelled either to exhaust his
+      own territories by the subsistence of his troops, or at once to disband
+      them, and to throw aside the shield and spear, at the very moment when the
+      sword alone seemed to be the arbiter of right. Before embracing either of
+      these certain evils, he determined to try a third step, the unfavourable
+      issue of which was at least not so certain, viz., to renounce the truce
+      and resume the war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This resolution, and the assistance which he immediately despatched to the
+      Emperor in Bohemia, threatened materially to injure the Swedes, and
+      Wrangel was compelled in haste to evacuate that kingdom. He retired
+      through Thuringia into Westphalia and Lunenburg, in the hope of forming a
+      junction with the French army under Turenne, while the Imperial and
+      Bavarian army followed him to the Weser, under Melander and Gronsfeld. His
+      ruin was inevitable, if the enemy should overtake him before his junction
+      with Turenne; but the same consideration which had just saved the Emperor,
+      now proved the salvation of the Swedes. Even amidst all the fury of the
+      conquest, cold calculations of prudence guided the course of the war, and
+      the vigilance of the different courts increased, as the prospect of peace
+      approached. The Elector of Bavaria could not allow the Emperor to obtain
+      so decisive a preponderance as, by the sudden alteration of affairs, might
+      delay the chances of a general peace. Every change of fortune was
+      important now, when a pacification was so ardently desired by all, and
+      when the disturbance of the balance of power among the contracting parties
+      might at once annihilate the work of years, destroy the fruit of long and
+      tedious negociations, and indefinitely protract the repose of Europe. If
+      France sought to restrain the Swedish crown within due bounds, and
+      measured out her assistance according to her successes and defeats, the
+      Elector of Bavaria silently undertook the same task with the Emperor his
+      ally, and determined, by prudently dealing out his aid, to hold the fate
+      of Austria in his own hands. And now that the power of the Emperor
+      threatened once more to attain a dangerous superiority, Maximilian at once
+      ceased to pursue the Swedes. He was also afraid of reprisals from France,
+      who had threatened to direct Turenne's whole force against him if he
+      allowed his troops to cross the Weser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Melander, prevented by the Bavarians from further pursuing Wrangel,
+      crossed by Jena and Erfurt into Hesse, and now appeared as a dangerous
+      enemy in the country which he had formerly defended. If it was the desire
+      of revenge upon his former sovereign, which led him to choose Hesse for
+      the scene of his ravage, he certainly had his full gratification. Under
+      this scourge, the miseries of that unfortunate state reached their height.
+      But he had soon reason to regret that, in the choice of his quarters, he
+      had listened to the dictates of revenge rather than of prudence. In this
+      exhausted country, his army was oppressed by want, while Wrangel was
+      recruiting his strength, and remounting his cavalry in Lunenburg. Too weak
+      to maintain his wretched quarters against the Swedish general, when he
+      opened the campaign in the winter of 1648, and marched against Hesse, he
+      was obliged to retire with disgrace, and take refuge on the banks of the
+      Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France had once more disappointed the expectations of Sweden; and the army
+      of Turenne, disregarding the remonstrances of Wrangel, had remained upon
+      the Rhine. The Swedish leader revenged himself, by drawing into his
+      service the cavalry of Weimar, which had abandoned the standard of France,
+      though, by this step, he farther increased the jealousy of that power.
+      Turenne received permission to join the Swedes; and the last campaign of
+      this eventful war was now opened by the united armies. Driving Melander
+      before them along the Danube, they threw supplies into Egra, which was
+      besieged by the Imperialists, and defeated the Imperial and Bavarian
+      armies on the Danube, which ventured to oppose them at Susmarshausen,
+      where Melander was mortally wounded. After this overthrow, the Bavarian
+      general, Gronsfeld, placed himself on the farther side of the Lech, in
+      order to guard Bavaria from the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Gronsfeld was not more fortunate than Tilly, who, in this same
+      position, had sacrificed his life for Bavaria. Wrangel and Turenne chose
+      the same spot for passing the river, which was so gloriously marked by the
+      victory of Gustavus Adolphus, and accomplished it by the same means, too,
+      which had favoured their predecessor. Bavaria was now a second time
+      overrun, and the breach of the truce punished by the severest treatment of
+      its inhabitants. Maximilian sought shelter in Salzburgh, while the Swedes
+      crossed the Iser, and forced their way as far as the Inn. A violent and
+      continued rain, which in a few days swelled this inconsiderable stream
+      into a broad river, saved Austria once more from the threatened danger.
+      The enemy ten times attempted to form a bridge of boats over the Inn, and
+      as often it was destroyed by the current. Never, during the whole course
+      of the war, had the Imperialists been in so great consternation as at
+      present, when the enemy were in the centre of Bavaria, and when they had
+      no longer a general left who could be matched against a Turenne, a
+      Wrangel, and a Koenigsmark. At last the brave Piccolomini arrived from the
+      Netherlands, to assume the command of the feeble wreck of the
+      Imperialists. By their own ravages in Bohemia, the allies had rendered
+      their subsistence in that country impracticable, and were at last driven
+      by scarcity to retreat into the Upper Palatinate, where the news of the
+      peace put a period to their activity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Koenigsmark, with his flying corps, advanced towards Bohemia, where Ernest
+      Odowalsky, a disbanded captain, who, after being disabled in the imperial
+      service, had been dismissed without a pension, laid before him a plan for
+      surprising the lesser side of the city of Prague. Koenigsmark successfully
+      accomplished the bold enterprise, and acquired the reputation of closing
+      the thirty years' war by the last brilliant achievement. This decisive
+      stroke, which vanquished the Emperor's irresolution, cost the Swedes only
+      the loss of a single man. But the old town, the larger half of Prague,
+      which is divided into two parts by the Moldau, by its vigorous resistance
+      wearied out the efforts of the Palatine, Charles Gustavus, the successor
+      of Christina on the throne, who had arrived from Sweden with fresh troops,
+      and had assembled the whole Swedish force in Bohemia and Silesia before
+      its walls. The approach of winter at last drove the besiegers into their
+      quarters, and in the mean time, the intelligence arrived that a peace had
+      been signed at Munster, on the 24th October.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The colossal labour of concluding this solemn, and ever memorable and
+      sacred treaty, which is known by the name of the peace of Westphalia; the
+      endless obstacles which were to be surmounted; the contending interests
+      which it was necessary to reconcile; the concatenation of circumstances
+      which must have co-operated to bring to a favourable termination this
+      tedious, but precious and permanent work of policy; the difficulties which
+      beset the very opening of the negociations, and maintaining them, when
+      opened, during the ever-fluctuating vicissitudes of the war; finally,
+      arranging the conditions of peace, and still more, the carrying them into
+      effect; what were the conditions of this peace; what each contending power
+      gained or lost, by the toils and sufferings of a thirty years' war; what
+      modification it wrought upon the general system of European policy;&mdash;these
+      are matters which must be relinquished to another pen. The history of the
+      peace of Westphalia constitutes a whole, as important as the history of
+      the war itself. A mere abridgment of it, would reduce to a mere skeleton
+      one of the most interesting and characteristic monuments of human policy
+      and passions, and deprive it of every feature calculated to fix the
+      attention of the public, for which I write, and of which I now
+      respectfully take my leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      [Note From the first PG etext of this work:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Separate sources indicate that at the beginning of this war there were
+      about 15 million people in Germany, and at the end of the war there were
+      about 4 million. If this is not surprising enough, war broke out again
+      only 10 years after the conclusion of this war.]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>