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1618-9] Thurn's advance on Vienna.

-Death of Matthias 25

the Protestant cause throughout the Austrian dominions, could not make up its mind to abandon its defensive character. Nor, in truth, consisting as it did of a majority of timorous towns, and of a few petty Princes either intent upon their own purposes or, like Maurice of Hesse, wedded to their own methods, was the Union really fit for any political action on so large a scale. The Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, though now outside the Union, was ready to coöperate with the Elector Palatine, especially since the marriage of Frederick's sister Elizabeth Charlotte to the Electoral Prince George William (1616); but he was of little account as an active ally, being in difficulties with his actual Lutheran subjects, which he tried to meet in a spirit of tolerance, and apprehensive as to the succession in Lutheran Prussia, which would fall to his House on the death of Duke Albert Frederick.

The conflict in Bohemia would open under conditions far more favourable for the insurrection if the coöperation of the Austrian Estates could be secured at the outset. In September the agitation among them led to a large deputation to the Emperor, whose patience they completely exhausted by a recital of their grievances. Hereupon Thurn, instead of throwing himself with all his strength upon the Imperialists, when under Bucquoy they invaded Bohemia, led his army into Lower Austria (November). He took Zwettel, and his cavalry advanced into the neighbourhood of Vienna. A demand arose for the convocation of a general meeting of all the Diets; and this project, which, if rapidly pushed forward, might have resulted in confederating the Estates of the bulk of the dominions of the House of Austria against the continuance of its rule, was probably only frustrated by the steady refusal of the Moravian Diet to take part in the Bohemian movement. To no man were the German Habsburgs in this crisis of their destinies more deeply indebted than to the Moravian statesman Zierotin.

Though the first year of the war thus ended without any serious blow having been struck on either side, a terrible foretaste of the suffering which during its course that war was to spread far and near was experienced by southern Bohemia, where the Imperialists burnt down hundreds of villages. During the stoppage of warfare in the winter months of 1618-9, there were some attempts at negotiation which might seem not altogether hopeless so long as the Emperor Matthias survived. But, never himself since the downfall of Klesl, he had been further shaken by the death of his Empress in December, and, as the remnants of his authority seemed crumbling away, he sank into hopeless prostration, till on March 20, 1619, he suddenly died in a fit. In his public life he had on the whole proved more manageable than his more gifted elder brother, and had thus enabled the State-machine to work on after a fashion; but he had lived long enough to show that, left to himself, he could only drift before the storm. A few months earlier

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Habsburg dominions. — Ferdinand's prospects [1618-9

(November 2, 1618) the death of Archduke Maximilian had deprived Ferdinand of the unselfish, though not always discreet, support of another elder kinsman, but had more distinctly than ever committed to him the maintenance of the imperilled dynasty. His younger brother Leopold, so prominent in Rudolf II's latter days, who succeeded Maximilian as ruler of Tyrol and the Austrian possessions in Elsass, continued to play a quite secondary part.

Few princes have entered upon a great inheritance and its responsibilities in conditions so nearly desperate as those in which Ferdinand found himself on the death of Matthias. His Bohemian crown seemed to have already fallen from his head; for to a rescript sent by him to the Bohemian Estates, promising to maintain all their rights and privileges, and asking for his recognition as King, no reply was vouchsafed. His Hungarian throne seemed hardly better assured; for the rumour soon came from Transylvania that Bethlen Gabor was hastening to the neighbourhood of Vienna, there to hold conference with Thurn, and then to invade Hungary in due course. Upper Lusatia had now followed the example of Silesia; and, after Thurn had entered Moravia with a force of 8000 men, a change had, in spite of Zierotin's continued counsels of moderation, been here also brought about. Part of the Moravian army and the treasury of the Estates were indeed carried off in safety to Vienna by Albrecht von Waldstein (Wallenstein); but a Directorate was established, and the remainder of the Moravian troops united with the Bohemian. Upper Austria was soon in open revolt, the Protestant Estates refusing to accept Archduke Albert's renunciation of the hereditary authority in favour of Ferdinand and establishing themselves as a government at Linz, in communication with the Bohemian Directors; while the Lower Austrians, though less resolutely, followed suit. Thurn could look round upon seven kingdoms or provinces in revolt or defection, when in the first days of June, 1619, at the head of an army variously estimated at 10,000 to 12,000 men, he crossed the Danube in the immediate vicinity of the capital.

A force of 12,000 men was setting forth from Flanders to Ferdinand's aid; but he had no allies beyond the frontiers of the Empire except Spain and Poland. The advances made to these Powers by Christian IV of Denmark were only dictated by jealousy of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, to whom the Bohemians had applied for help, for Christian was himself burning to come forward as the champion of the Protestant cause.

But Ferdinand stood unshaken, prepared, as he told his confessor, after weighing the dangers that threatened him on all sides, "to perish in the struggle, should that be the will of God." His confidence may have been increased by his habit of not perplexing himself with details, whether military or financial; and, while he remained unterrified by the ruins around him, his expenditure was as liberal as if his affairs and his conscience had been equally well regulated. On

1618-9]

Thurn before Vienna. His withdrawal

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June 5 he received in a spirit of placid firmness a deputation from the Estates of Lower Austria, who, trusting to the effect of Thurn's close approach to Vienna, had on that very day split off from their Catholic colleagues on the refusal of the latter to agree to the scheme of a confederation with the Bohemians. Ferdinand, it must be remembered, had given no promise to the Austrians of respecting their religious liberties such as he had made to the Bohemians and Hungarians. Before the turbulent interview (certain familiar details of which appear to be apocryphal) had ended, five hundred cuirassiers of the regiment afterwards known as Dampierre's rode into the courtyard of the Hofburg, commanded by a French officer, Gilbert de Saint-Hilaire. The deputies, on whom the tables had thus been turned, were allowed to depart unharmed. Probably there had been some understanding between Thurn and the Austrian delegates; but if so, he had lost some precious hours. Troops now began to pour in till some 6000 were gathered in Vienna, where much enthusiasm was manifested, especially by the students under Jesuit influence. Thurn saw that a siege of the capital was now out of the question; and, when the news arrived from Bohemia that Bucquoy had routed Mansfeld at Zablat (the honours of the day belonged to a regiment of Walloons and Spaniards commanded by Wallenstein), Thurn took his departure from the neighbourhood of Vienna (June 14), and fell back upon Bohemia. But here he proved unable to arrest the progress of the Imperialists; he had, in fact, little or no control of his mercenary soldiery; nor were matters mended by the temporary appointment of Anhalt as Commander-in-Chief in Bohemia and the sister kingdoms. Thus, in the course of the summer and autumn of 1619 the prospects of the Bohemian insurrection had unmistakably darkened, while the wider anti-Habsburg movement which that insurrection was to have called forth had been checked.

Ferdinand lost no time in making use of this respite by taking his departure to Frankfort, his brother Leopold being left as his vicegerent in Vienna. On his way, at Salzburg, Ferdinand met Doncaster, to whom he listened politely, but with the consciousness that the ambassador's messages needed no immediate answer. At Frankfort, where he arrived on July 28, he found the Kurfürstentag already in session, but only the three Spiritual Electors in personal attendance. The issue of the Imperial election was still not quite assured, though his chances were steadily improving. Brandenburg had entered into an engagement to vote against him, and to take no step without the concurrence of the Palatine Government. But that Government itself was at a loss. Neither the name of the Duke of Lorraine, nor that of the Duke of Savoy, notwithstanding the reopening of negotiations with the latter in the winter months of 1618-9, could be seriously brought forward. But the notion, to which the Palatine politicians clung with strange persistency, of raising Maximilian of Bavaria to the Imperial

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Ferdinand elected Emperor

[1619 throne, had not been altogether dropped; and in the meantime they were seeking to create delays by contending that a settlement of the Bohemian troubles should precede the Imperial election. The Elector of Saxony decided the day by refusing to concur in this proposal, though it perhaps offered the last chance of localising the war, and by announcing his intention to vote with the Spiritual Electors. Hereupon the Elector of Brandenburg, unmindful of his promise, followed suit; and, after Ferdinand had cautiously assented to the "interposition" of the whole electoral body in the Bohemian troubles, his Wahlcapitulation was settled without much difficulty, and on August 28 followed his unanimous election as Emperor. The Palatine collapse was complete; for Frederick's ambassador had in the end avowed his instructions to vote in the first instance for Maximilian, but in the event of the remaining electors or the majority of them voting for Ferdinand, to accede to their choice.

Hardly had this result become known at Frankfort than the news arrived there that nine days earlier Ferdinand had been deposed from the Bohemian throne. On July 31 the General Diet, attended by representatives of Bohemia, the incorporated lands, and the two Austrian duchies, had, solely by their own authority, adopted the Act of Confederation which declared the Bohemian Crown elective and assured the predominance of Protestantism throughout these lands. The formal deposition of Ferdinand had followed on August 19. The resolution was approved in Silesia, Lusatia, and Moravia— though in the Diet of the last-named margravate not without strenuous opposition. Had the futility of the Palatine policy at Frankfort been known at Prague, the Protestant leaders might possibly have paused. No doubt the decision of Bethlen Gabor to overrun Hungary, though not actually sent to the Directors till the day before the fatal vote, added to their confidence. But in any case, on the banks of the Moldau as on those of the Main, the die was now cast, and it only remained to decide who should be invited to the vacant throne.

The decision was made, not, as it would seem, in deference to the general desire of the Bohemian Protestants, of whom, partly for political and partly for historic reasons, the majority would probably have preferred John George of Saxony, but in accordance with the determination of the junta who had the reins of the government and the command of the troops in their hands. Ruppa, Thurn, and Hohenlohe had made up their minds for the Elector Palatine. In this they were undoubtedly influenced by the personal communications which had taken place and by his position in the Union, which at its meeting at Heilbronn in June, 1619, urged by the arguments of Maurice of Hesse, as well as by the presence of Count Achatius von Dohna, sent by Frederick V, had guaranteed a substantial loan to the Bohemian ambassadors and set on foot a "defensive" force of some 33,000 troops.

1619]

Frederick elected King of Bohemia

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Means having been found for ascertaining that Frederick was "in principle" prepared to accept, he was on August 26 all but unanimously elected King by the General Diet, and on the following day proclaimed. at Prague. The momentous tidings found him at Amberg, where he was anxiously waiting in the company of his adviser, Christian von Anhalt. No doubt the greatness at which he trembled had been thrust upon him as the inheritor of the policy not less than of the religious faith and princely dignity of his predecessors. But his "I dare not was as prolonged as his "I would" was manifest through it all. At first he had in vain entreated the Directors to postpone the initial step of the deposition of Ferdinand. Then he had openly wondered what course he would take if he were chosen, and before his election had, as has been seen, sent Christopher von Dohna to England to sound his father-in-law. He could take scant comfort from a meeting of the Union hastily summoned to Rothenburg (September 12), where only Baden and Ansbach were warmly for acceptance. From his councillors at Heidelberg he obtained an opinion in which they only contrived to adduce four reasons for acceptance as against fourteen for refusal. Maximilian of Bavaria openly warned him of the risk which by accepting he would run for both himself and his House. Similar advice, of which it is unnecessary to analyse the motives too nicely, reached him from John George of Saxony and other Electors; on the other hand he was encouraged to proceed by John Sigismund of Brandenburg, who was before long to marry his daughter Maria Eleonora to Gustavus Adolphus (1620), and some years later (1625) another daughter, Catharine, to Bethlen Gabor. Maurice of Orange likewise advised compliance. Frederick's mother Louisa Juliana, the high-minded daughter of William the Silent, was overwhelmed with forebodings of disaster when she heard of his acceptance. That he was urged to accept by his wife is a baseless legend, but one which continues to survive; her mind was not at this time occupied with high political issues, though on the news of the election she asked her father's support and promised her own readiness to share whatever the future might have in store for her consort. was not the persuasions of Elizabeth, born though she was to be a Queen, nor was it any religious admonition on the part of his spiritual adviser, Scultetus, which convinced the hesitating Frederick; it was rather, we may feel assured, the steady pressure of Anhalt's counsel that he had gone too far to retreat, which finally shaped itself in his mind as the belief that his acceptance of the proffered Bohemian Crown was the will of God. In this sense, on September 28, Frederick wrote secretly in the affirmative to the Directors, who had already thrice asked from him an answer. Two days earlier Dohna had taken his departure from the Court of James I, whose final pronouncement, made four days. before, had been merely a refusal to decide on his own course of action until he should have convinced himself of the justice of Frederick's

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