72. Aretin, Beiträge, VII, p. 148.
73. Gindely, Geschichte, pp. 227–8.
74. Letters and Documents, I, p. 199.
75. d’Elvert, Beiträge zur Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges in Mähren, Brünn, 1867, I, p. 45; Lundorp, I, pp. 657 ff.
76. Letters and Documents, II, p. 31.
77. Moser, Patriotisches Archiv, Frankfort, 1781, VII, p. 45.
78. Hurter, Ferdinand II, VIII, p. 50.
79. Gindely, Geschichte, II, p. 230.
80. Moser, Patriotisches Archiv, VII, p. 109.
81. Haeberlin, Neueste Teutsche Reichsgeschichte. Halle, 1774–1804, XXIV, pp. 376–7.
82. Letters and Documents, II, p. 2.
83. Letters and Documents, II, p. 1.
84. Ibid., I, p. 110.
85. Gindely, Geschichte, I, p. 447.
86. Ambassade extraordinaire de Messieurs les Duc d’Angoulême, Comte de Béthune . . . en l’année MDCXX, ed. H. de Béthune. Paris, 1667, p. 95.
87. See supra, pp. 67–8.
88. Lünig, V, i, pp. 691 ff.
89. John Harrison, A Short Relation of the Departure of the Most High and Mighty Prince Frederick. Dort, 1619.
CHAPTER THREE
SPANISH TOCSIN, GERMAN ALARUM
1619–21
Qu’ils se battent en Bohême tant qu’ils voudront, nous serons bons voisins en ces quartiers icy.
THE ELECTOR OF TREVES
1.
Were it ever possible in history to single out one action as decisive for the developments which followed it, the acceptance of the Crown of Bohemia by the Elector Frederick was such an act. By that acceptance he drew together the guiding threads of European diplomacy and combined the interests of Protestant Germany with those of the European enemies of the Hapsburg dynasty. As Elector Palatine he was already the bulwark between the Dutch resistance and the Spanish advance: as King of Bohemia he would be the safeguard of princely liberties against imperial infringement. Could he maintain both positions, his lands would form a barrier against Hapsburg aggression from the Rhine to the Oder. France, the United Provinces, Denmark, Sweden, England, the German princes should have recognized the decisive moment and acted. According to the scheduled schemes of Anhalt the time had come.
Anhalt was no fool; neither was his colleague of Ansbach when he declared that: ‘We have in our hands the means to overturn the world’; neither was the Venetian agent in Vienna who predicted that all Germany would fly to arms, nor the leaders of the Bohemian revolt who confidently awaited the action of the European princes, nor the imperial councillors who feared the intervention of France, nor the Duke of Bouillon who wrote to demand it.[1] But all made one error; they calculated without the human element. Seldom in the history of Europe has the insignificance of one man had so profound an effect upon his period. Frederick was no leader; indeed he was a man of so blank a personality as to defy all attempts to make him one. In vain to say that the occasion mattered more than the man. In the long run the enemies of the Hapsburg must be drawn into Frederick’s quarrel or perish, but afraid to trust so mild a leader they hesitated until Frederick had fallen, until Bohemia and the Palatinate were lost, and then spent a generation in trying to fill the breach which had been made.
The personal tragedy of Frederick was the more bitter because for the first weeks after his decision the signs were deceptively favourable. While his youthful cavalcade made its way to the Bohemian frontier, Ferdinand had retired from Frankfurt to Graz among the Styrian hills where his eldest son, smitten with an incurable disease, lay wasting slowly. On all sides disquieting rumours, stilled momentarily by the imperial election, broke out afresh. It was said that there were traitors even among the imperial council.[2] In Styria there was discontent, the Protestants of Austria and Hungary had entered into alliance with the Bohemians;[3] Bethlen Gabor, joining his forces with theirs, had taken Pressburg and driven Ferdinand’s unpaid, undisciplined troops back over the Danube. Defence proved impossible on the long line of frontier, and before the autumn was over he was marching unhindered for Vienna, laying the country waste about him. God alone, reported the Venetian agent, could now save the House of Austria.[4]
Beyond his own borders events were no less distressing to Ferdinand. The United Provinces, Denmark,[5] Sweden, and the Venetian republic, recognized Frederick as king. The Duke of Bouillon promised help, and from Davos, high up in the mountains of the Grisons, the Swiss sent word that they would hold the Val Telline against all Spanish reinforcements. Even Ferdinand’s brother-in-law and close ally, the King of Poland, was prevented by the protests of the Diet from making a diversion in Silesia.[6]
Meanwhile Vienna, overcrowded with fugitives and wounded, with plague raging and famine imminent, awaited the coming of Bethlen Gabor. From the bedside of his dying son, Ferdinand hastened to the capital, believing that his presence alone might hearten the citizens. Drought, followed by torrential rain and thunderstorms, had damaged the harvest, and the heat of the late summer had brought out the plague in the valleys of Austria.[7] All across the duchy Ferdinand met straggling bands of fugitives—Catholic peasants fleeing from Bohemia, Hungary, Upper Austria, monks and nuns driven from their plundered convents, who knelt at the muddy roadside, lifting thin hands and anxious faces to him. When he entered his capital Bethlen Gabor was already at the gates, while the country for miles to the eastward was the prey of his foraging hordes.[8]
While Ferdinand strove to encourage Vienna, Frederick had been enthusiastically welcomed at Prague. The frankness with which he had guaranteed the Bohemian constitution before he crossed the frontier,[9] the bustling competence of Anhalt, the hope of powerful allies, the beauty of the young queen and the flattering fact that although she was far advanced in pregnancy she had risked the arduous journey in order to bear her child among her husband’s new subjects—all these things contributed to form a favourable first impression. Besides, Prague, notoriously gay, welcomed an occasion for festivity even though the country towards the borders was already desolate, and fugitives were camped in the streets and open places of the city.[10]
Soon the new king would learn that there was no money for arms or men; in the meantime there was money to hang the whole city in blue and silver, to furnish out a guard of honour in the dress of Zizka’s time, to set up fountains running red and white wine, and to throw largess of silver coins stamped with the device, ‘God and the Estates gave me the Crown’. The joyous entry of the King and Queen, their separate and splendid coronations, the hysterical gaiety of the city delighted at the return of a Court, were enough at first to deceive Frederick. His spirits reached such heights that when, in the small hours of December 18th, his wife gave birth to a son, he was with difficulty restrained from arousing the whole town with joy bells.[11]
Ferdinand’s ill fortune kept pace with his rival’s triumph. While in Prague preparations were made for the christening of Rupert, Duke of Lusatia, as Frederick entitled his newborn child, in Graz on Christmas Eve Ferdinand’s eldest son had died.
The omens played Frederick false, for weeks lengthened into months and still the united rising of the Protestant powers did not take place.
The Princes of the Union after long deliberation agreed to recognize Frederick’s sovereignty, but made no further effort to help him. The German cities in the first flush of Protestant enthusiasm offered a gift of money,[12] but nothing more was ever heard of it. Emerging for one moment into the light of history the Elector of Treves remarked, ‘Let them fight as much as they like in Bohemia; we others, we will remain good friends in these parts’,[13] and relapsed into optimistic inactivity. As far as the princes on the Rhine were concerned, his prophecy was accurate.
It was different in Saxony. In spite of his discouragement of the rebels, John George had been sure that if they elected a new king they would choose him; he had not fully realized the strength of the Palatine party in Prague. Had the crown been offered to him he would not have accepted it, but he wou
ld have taken the opportunity to establish himself as the protector of the Protestants in Bohemia and to dictate a settlement to Ferdinand. Now this hope was gone and instead he was faced with a potential increase in the power of the Elector Palatine.
Only the most selfless politician in John George’s place could have regarded the establishment of a fellow-elector in Bohemia with equanimity. If Frederick succeeded he would be the most powerful prince in Germany, with two electoral votes in his hands and control of the upper waters of the Elbe and Oder and the middle waters of the Rhine. Added to this, Frederick had a sister married into the Hohenzollern family, a dynasty whose expansion John George regarded with the utmost suspicion. Before the Bohemian election he had seen himself as the arbiter of the Empire; after it, he was merely a prince whose heritage was in danger of isolation between the growing power of Brandenburg in the north and of the new King of Bohemia in the south.[14] John George’s anxiety was fanned into active hatred by his Court preacher, the irascible Höe, who denounced the Bohemian government for having betrayed the Lutheran faith to the Calvinistic Antichrist. He went farther; he espoused without more ado the cause of the dispossessed Ferdinand. ‘God’, he cried, ‘shall smite the cheeks of your imperial majesty’s insolent enemies, scatter their teeth, turn them backwards, and bring them to shame.’[15]
Dismayed but not yet at the end of his resources, Anhalt threw out one more bait to tempt the Elector of Saxony. He advised Frederick to invite all the Protestant German rulers to a conference at Nuremberg, hoping that in the interests of peace even the least favourable princes would appear. Had Anhalt planned a demonstration of Frederick’s weakness he could have thought of none better. Hardly a ruler in Germany, save the members of the Union, sent representatives; above all John George of Saxony remained unmoved. Those who did assemble half-heartedly agreed to guarantee Frederick’s lands on the Rhine while he was away, but would not be moved to any decision in the matter of Bohemia. The agent whom Ferdinand had sent to sound the intentions of the meeting was able to return to Vienna with wholly reassuring news.[16]
The Nuremberg assembly laid bare Frederick’s weakness and the disunion of the Protestant princes. Four months later, in March 1620, a meeting called by Ferdinand at Mühlhausen demonstrated the strength and union of the opposing party. Frederick had asserted on taking the Bohemian Crown that he wrested it not from the Emperor, but only from an Austrian Archduke.[17] This argument rested on the assumption that Bohemia was outside the bounds of the Empire: Frederick was not breaking the imperial peace, but merely indulging in an external war, so that Ferdinand could not extend his authority as Emperor to oppose him.
This specious argument was shattered by the meeting at Mühlhausen. Here were gathered the representatives of Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League as well as the delegate of the Elector John George. Here Ferdinand bought the united support of Lutherans and Catholics by offering a guarantee not to interfere with the religion of the secularized bishoprics in the Upper Saxon Circle. In response they pronounced Bohemia to be an integral part of the Empire. Frederick had therefore broken the imperial peace and laid himself open to the direst penalties of the law. On April 30th an imperial mandate was issued summoning him to withdraw from Bohemia before June 1st; his disregard of this ultimatum was the real declaration of war. From June 1st 1620, the hand of every loyal German must be lifted against him as the deliberate destroyer of public peace; henceforward the Emperor might bring up all the forces he could command as Emperor, as Archduke of Austria and as the rightful King of Bohemia, to the destruction of the usurper.[18]
2.
Frederick’s position was weak in Germany; it was weaker still in Europe. The King of Great Britain celebrated his son-in-law’s accession by officially denying to every sovereign in Europe that he had countenanced or even known of the project.[19] The enthusiasm of the Londoners who attempted to stage an illumination in the new king’s honour,[20] and of the ardent Protestants throughout the country who at once began to collect money for his cause,[21] did nothing to move James from his initial obstinacy. ‘His Majesty hath a purpose to join with the French King in doing all good offices for the weal of Christendom to pacify the present broils that are on foot in Germany’, his ambassador explained, to the exasperation of Frederick’s advisers.[22] The defection of so near an ally discouraged Frederick’s other friends: his cause, they whispered, must be bad indeed if not even his nearest kin would support it.[23]
The King of Denmark admonished the Elector of Saxony to assist Frederick[24] but was too deeply engaged in a commercial dispute with Hamburg to spare time, money or men for personal intervention. The King of Sweden, with Frederick’s warm encouragement, descended on Brandenburg and carried off the eldest princess for his wife, but the marriage was not a prelude to armed intervention on the Protestant side in Germany. Intent on his wars with the King of Poland, Gustavus was more anxious to gain Frederick’s help than to offer any himself.
The Venetians grudgingly agreed to prevent as far as possible the shipping of troops from Spain to Germany,[25] but were otherwise too much afraid of intrigues in Italy and too little interested in a revolt which no longer promised to be good business. The Duke of Savoy, justly indignant because Anhalt had secured for him neither the imperial nor the Bohemian crown as he had promised,[26] withdrew his subsidies from Mansfeld’s army and allowed passage across his dominions to a contingent of Spanish troops bound for Germany. Troubles in Transylvania had forced Bethlen Gabor to raise the siege of Vienna. After settling his own difficulties, he sold his alliance dearly to Frederick, demanding a perpetual stream of titles, subsidies and rewards to keep him even superficially loyal. Had the Bohemian government realized that he was still negotiating with Ferdinand, they would have thought his alliance even dearer at the price.[27] Worst of all a sudden rising in the Grisons threw open the Val Telline to Spain.
There remained the most important of all Anhalt’s allies, the United Provinces. Here at least were friends who could not afford to abandon Frederick; if he were defeated and his land on the Rhine endangered, they would be the first to suffer. It might be presumed therefore that they would defend the Palatinate for him. This was the part for which Anhalt had cast them, and again he had miscalculated. Anxious to undermine the power of the Hapsburg, the Dutch had encouraged the revolt from the outset,[28] but they had not considered the probability of Frederick’s abandoning his post on the Rhine, still less had they foreseen the defection of the Union. They now found that they alone were expected to defend the Rhine should the Spaniards choose to invade the Palatinate. They were not prepared to accept the responsibility. The final clash between the two religious parties which divided the country had coincided with a conflict between the central aristocratic authority of Prince Maurice and the demands of the States of Holland. Internal revolution had made Prince Maurice military dictator. But the dictatorship was not yet firm, and Maurice needed all the time that remained before the expiry of the truce with Spain to consolidate his power. He could not risk precipitating war by any rash movement on the Rhine. Perhaps he would have acted had he been supported by the King of Great Britain and the Protestant Union; he dared not, even to save the Rhineland, act alone. As it was, the United Provinces voted a subsidy of fifty thousand florins a month to Frederick[29] and sent a small contingent to strengthen the Bohemian army. This was hardly the help for which Anhalt had been waiting. As for the Rhine, Maurice placed a few troops on the right bank, facing the episcopal lands of the Bishop of Cologne.[30] By no stretch of imagination could this be interpreted as an act of hostility towards Spain; Maurice had saved what remained of the truce. Whether this tiny gesture would also save the Palatinate was more doubtful.
3.
There were still two rulers in Europe whose decision to act or to acquiesce would be decisive: the Kings of France and Spain. Anhalt had regarded Philip’s intervention for Ferdinand as a foregone conclusion; that being so, he regarded the intervention of Louis for Fred
erick as equally certain. Again he had reckoned without the personal element.
Frederick relied on his uncle, the Duke of Bouillon, to enlist the support of the French government. As a Protestant, as a quondam rebel against royal authority, as a persistent and unscrupulous intriguer, Bouillon was ill qualified to gain the trust of the young King,[31] a devout Catholic, jealous for the prestige of the monarchy, and bred in an atmosphere of suspicion. The ruling favourite, the handsome and vacuous Duke of Luynes, clung to power only by flattering the opinions of his master.
Bouillon talked too much. When in the early spring of 1619, before the deposition of Ferdinand, the King of France had created a new order of knighthood, he had burst out irrepressibly that Louis might make knights in France, but that he, Bouillon, was making kings in Germany.[32] This admission of intrigues that would have been better concealed, suggested that Bouillon’s was the master-hand behind the Bohemian incident. This was not the case, but so long as Bouillon boastingly implied it he was unlikely to persuade Louis to support Frederick. The idea of a French nobleman manipulating a puppet king was of all things most calculated to alienate the young monarch.
Poised unsteadily between an intriguing Court and a discontented people, the royal ministers felt that the safety of the government depended on suppressing the demands of the King’s Protestant subjects. Louis himself was a devout Catholic; on hearing of the Bohemian election he declared at once that, for the sake of the Church, this new kingship was not to be tolerated and when Frederick sent ambassadors to Paris he accorded them only the precedence of Electoral envoys.
Besides, Frederick’s wife stood next but one in succession to the English throne. The possible death of the unmarried and delicate Prince of Wales would mean that in a few years the new King of Bohemia would be as good as King of England. So large an extension of power was not at all to be encouraged in a neighbouring prince.[33]
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