READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900
CHAPTER XXXI.BEGINNNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR—SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY
THE acceptance or rejection of the Bohemian
crown was a question of the most vital importance, not only to the Elector
Palatine himself, the youthful Frederick V, but also to the whole of Germany.
In this perplexity, Frederick summoned a meeting of the Princes of the Union
at Rothenburg on the Tauber, and
submitted the matter to their consideration. The opinions of the assembly
appeared to be equally divided. The Margraves of Baden and Anspach, and Prince Christian of Anhalt, advised
Frederick to accept the proffered crown; while the Landgrave of Hesse, the
Margrave of Culmbach, and the Duke of
Würtemberg, dissuaded him from it. Frederick now hastened back to Heidelberg
and took anxious counsel with his friends. Not only were the divided opinions
of the Union itself calculated to stagger him in his course, but he had also
received a written warning from the whole Electoral College not to engage in so
rash an undertaking. Frederick had also privately consulted Maximilian of
Bavaria, who, in a friendly letter, remarkable for its good sense, strongly
dissuaded him from his ambitious views; and even hinted that he could not stand
quietly by and see Bohemia wrested from the House of Austria. On the other hand
Frederick was encouraged to persevere by Christian of Anhalt, who had been
a kind of tutor to him, and to whose advice he attributed great weight; as well
as by his minister Camerarius, and his wife
Elizabeth of England. The latter especially, whose ambitious temper, combined
with considerable talent, has procured for her the reputation of a princess of
spirit, vehemently incited him to the enterprise; and is said to have asked him
why, as he had had courage enough to woo a King's daughter, he had none to
stretch out his hand and seize a scepter which seemed offered to him by Heaven?
From his father-in-law, James I, however, he could expect but little help; for
though that Sovereign would gladly have seen his daughter a Queen, his pacific
policy forbade him to appeal to arms for such an object; and he gave no decided
opinion on the matter. But from two other foreign princes, Maurice of Nassau,
the hereditary enemy of the House of Austria, and Bethlem Gabor, the Protestant Voyvode of
Transylvania, Frederick received assurances of support. Thus, by his own
ambition, and the injudicious advice of his friends, he was lured to his
destruction. Towards the end of October, 1619, he proceeded to Prague, and on
the 4th of November he solemnly received the Bohemian crown.
Circumstances seemed at first to favour the ambitious enterprise of Frederick. Bethlem Gabor, who was in alliance with Count Thurn, had,
during Ferdinand's journey to Frankfurt, declared war against his
representative, Leopold; had occupied in a very short time Upper Hungary, where
the malcontents flocked to his standard in great numbers, and had thence
pressed on, burning and plundering, into Lower Austria, so that Leopold even found
himself hampered at Vienna, and was forced to recall Bucquoi from Bohemia (October, 1619). Gabor had betrayed the native treachery of his
character in the way in which he had obtained possession of his dominions.
Stephen Bocskai had died without heirs in
December, 1606. This able politician, by the peace of Sitvatorok,
had been established as Voyvode of
Transylvania, and on his death that dignity, after a short enjoyment of it by
Sigismund Rakoczy, came to Gabriel Bathory, who
was elected by the Transylvanian States, though not without some contentions
between the Emperor and the Porte. But Gabriel Bathory acted so tyrannically,
that, at length, even the Protestants of Transylvania rose against him and
appealed to the Porte. Unluckily for himself, Bathory employed Bethlem Gabor to mediate for him with the Pasha of Temesvar. Gabor made the Pasha large presents, and still
larger promises; and through his influence the Grand-Signor ultimately invested
Gabor with Transylvania, October, 1613; and a few days after Bathory was
murdered by some of his own officers.
Although these proceedings were viewed with
displeasure at Vienna, neither the Emperor nor the Hungarians were inclined to
go to war with the Turks. Gabor was recognized; the Porte sent a splendid
embassy to Vienna, and in July, 1615, a new peace was concluded there for
twenty years on the basis of that of Sitvatorok.
Gabor, with the aid of the Turks, now sought to wrest from Ferdinand the Crown
of Hungary, though he had declined that of Bohemia. The news of his proceedings
in conjunction with Count Thurn reached Ferdinand II at Munich, where on his
return from Frankfurt he was staying with Duke Maximilian; and he immediately
applied to that Prince for the help of the League, which was readily accorded
on the conditions set forth in the treaty of Munich. Of these conditions it is
necessary to our purpose to mention only two. By the third article of the
treaty, the Emperor and the House of Austria engaged all their possessions to
indemnify the Duke against any loss of territory that he might sustain in the
war, as well as all expenses in excess of his ordinary contributions to the
League; while, by the fifth article, any portion of the Austrian territories
that Maximilian might succeed in wresting from the enemy was to remain in his
possession till he should have been remunerated for all the damages and
extraordinary expenses which he might have incurred.
The fortunes of the Austrian House seemed
desperate when Count Thurn, who had followed the retreat of Bucquoi,
now stood, for a second time in the same year, before Vienna, united with
Gabor, and at the head of an army of 80,000 men. Bucquoi had broken down the bridge over the Danube, and thrown himself into Vienna,
where also the Emperor had arrived, but without any troops. The capture of that
capital might at once have decided the war; but circumstances prevented the
Allies from maintaining the siege. Neither Thurn nor Gabor had money to pay
their troops; the want of provisions was such that 2,000 Bohemians are said to
have died of hunger, and news was brought to Gabor that in his absence his
general, Ragotski, had been defeated in Transylvania
by the Imperialists (December).
The "Winter King"
Meanwhile the Palatine Frederick was playing the
King at Prague. He did nothing but amuse himself with skating-parties and other
entertainments throughout the winter; and, as it was the only one which he
passed in Bohemia, he obtained the name of the "Winter King". Neither
did his manners, nor those of his wife, recommend him to his new subjects; but
all these matters would have been of little importance had he possessed the
energy and talent requisite for the station to which he had so ambitiously
aspired. Especially he betrayed a want of dignity and self-assertion to which
the Bohemians had not been accustomed in their Sovereigns. Early in December he
had convened the members of the Union at Nuremberg, at which assembly Count
Hohenzollern presented himself as ambassador from the Emperor, and was admitted
without question. The Union, however, did nothing but send ambassadors to
Munich to treat and parley with Maximilian; although these men must have seen
the warlike preparations making in Bavaria, and that Spain and the Jesuits were
zealously supporting the League. On the other hand the members of the League,
who met at Würzburg in December, voted an army of 25,000 men, and
invested Maximilian with the control of all their funds. Neither could
Frederick look for help from abroad. His father-in-law would do nothing; Prince
Maurice was too much engaged with the affairs of Holland to attend to those of
Bohemia; and in January, 1620, Bethlem Gabor had
concluded a truce with the Emperor till the 20th of September, in order to
negotiate a peace; an interval which enabled Ferdinand to seat himself firmly
on the Imperial throne.
It was fortunate for the Emperor that France was
at this time governed by the counsels of Luynes, who
had been gained by the promise of a rich heiress of the House of Péquigny, a ward of the Belgian Archduke's, for his
brother Cadenet. Hence Louis XIII, although
pressed by Venice, the United Provinces, and Savoy to resume the plans of Henry
IV, would attempt nothing against the House of Austria at this critical
juncture; on the contrary, in reply to an Imperial embassy which arrived in
France towards the close of 1619, French ambassadors were dispatched into
Germany, who, in the spring of 1620, did all they could to help the Catholic
League. France was, indeed, at this time occupied by a domestic rebellion. Luynes, in order to satisfy his grasping ambition, had
conciliated Condé, Guise, and Lesdiguières, but set the rest of the nobles at
defiance, and refused to pay their pensions. The consequence was a revolt,
headed by Mayenne, Longueville, Vendome, and his
brother the Grand-Prior, the Count of Soissons, the Dukes of Nevers and
Retz; while other nobles joined the Queen-Mother at Angers. But the rebellion
was quenched by the vigorous measures of the Court before it could grow to a
head; the troops of the Queen were defeated at Pont-de-Cé (August,
1620); yet she obtained from the King the same terms as in the preceding year;
a reconciliation was even effected between the two courts, and Richelieu
married his niece, Mademoiselle du Pont-Courlay,
to Combalet, a nephew of Luynes.
The most remarkable result of this rebellion was the annexation of Bearn to the
Crown of France. The Huguenots of that viscounty, headed by La Force, the
Governor, had long defied the King and the Pope; but Louis XIII, now finding
himself at the head of a considerable body of troops, marched to Pau, and
compelled the newly-created Parliament of that place to register an edict
uniting Béarn and Lower Navarre to France.
Frederick V seemed bent on alienating the hearts
of his new subjects. Calvinism had but few followers in Bohemia; neither
the Utraquists, nor the Lutherans, could endure
churches with naked walls, and without an altar and its adjuncts; yet Scultetus, the Court divine, ordered the crucifixes and
other ornaments to be cleared out from the cathedral; and he published a book
against the Bohemian mode of worship, which of course occasioned endless bitter
replies and controversies. At the same time Frederick offended his two best
generals, Count Thurn and Ernest of Mansfeld, by placing them under Christian
of Anhalt and Count Hohenlohe, who possessed no military talent.
Meanwhile Maximilian of Bavaria, who was the soul of the Catholic party,
induced the Pope to contribute some considerable subsidies; he secured the
neutrality of the Saxon Elector and the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt; and he
advised the Emperor to publish some threatening warnings before the breaking
out of the war. Hence the Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel was the only Prince
of any importance who ventured openly to embrace Frederick's cause. The new
Elector, George William of Brandenburg, had indeed acknowledged Frederick as
King of Bohemia, but from the disturbed state of his own dominions, he declined
to take any active part in his affairs. The only other princely house,
besides Anhalt, that adhered to Frederick was that of Weimar,
great-grandsons of the unfortunate Elector John Frederick. By the advice of the
President Jeannin, the Duke of Angouleme, the French
ambassador in Germany, brought about such a treaty at Ulm, where the Union was
assembled, between that body and the League, as neither the Emperor nor
Maximilian could have expected (July 3rd). A mutual peace was established, but
the conditions were so framed as to leave the League free to act with regard to
Bohemia and Austria. Both sides were to allow the passage of troops into
Bohemia, and the Union consented, on the proposition of Bavaria, to omit the
Archdukes Albert and Isabella Clara Eugenia from the treaty; though they were
members of the Empire, as Sovereigns of the Circle of Burgundy; and though the
evangelical Princes must have perceived the drift of this proceeding to be that
Spinola might enter the Palatinate, and that the whole weight of the war might
fall on the King of Bohemia. As, in addition to all this, the Elector of Saxony
declared for the Emperor, promised to occupy Lusatia and to defend Silesia, and
as Sigismund III of Poland sent 8,000 Cossacks to the aid of Ferdinand, the
contest was already virtually decided before the army of the League appeared in
Bohemia. (The name of Kosack or Cossack is
of Turkish origin, and signifies robber. It was at that time applied to bands
of freebooters in Poland, who were quite distinct from the Cossacks of the Don,
to whom the ominous appellation has since been transferred).
Count Tilly
Preparatory to the Bohemian war, the Emperor,
before the end of 1619, endeavored to conciliate his Protestant subjects in
Austria, and, with the consent of the Pope, he offered entire religious freedom
to the States of Lower Austria, on condition that they should renounce their
alliance with the Bohemian rebels; and though they at first hesitated they were
soon reduced to obedience. Immediately after the treaty of Ulm, Maximilian,
with the greater part of the army of the League, had occupied Upper Austria,
which was made over to him as security for his expenses. Towards the end of
August he began his march towards Bohemia; and being joined by Bucquoi and his forces, the united army amounted to 32,000
men, to whom Frederick could oppose little more than 20,000. In Maximilian's
army Tilly held the second command; a name only inferior to that of Wallenstein
in the annals of the Thirty Years' War. John Tzerklaes,
Count Tilly, whose uncouth name is said to be a compound of Herr Klass, or Nicholas, was a native of Brabant; but having
been bred at the Court of the Infanta at Brussels he affected
something of the Spaniard. This ferocious soldier was remarkable for his
morality and religion. If business broke in upon his usual hours of prayer, the
lost time was made up at night; and he had the reputation of inviolate sobriety
and chastity. He was a little man, and Marshal Gramont,
who once saw him at the head of his army on the march, describes him as mounted
on a white Croatian pony, and dressed in a green satin doublet with slashed
sleeves, and trousers of the same material. On his head he had a little cocked
hat, with a drooping plume of red ostrich feathers that reached down to his
loins; round his waist a belt two inches broad, from which hung his sword, and
a single pistol in his holsters; which, as he informed Gramont,
he had never fired, though he had gained seven decisive battles.
The most disgraceful part of these transactions
for the German Princes was, that they stood by and saw their country spoiled by
the Spaniards; for Count Khevenhiller,
Ferdinand's ambassador at Madrid, prevailed upon Philip III to lend him the
help of Spinola and the Spanish troops in the Netherlands before the twelve
years' truce with the Dutch should have expired. Had not the Elector of Saxony
and the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt promised to stand by the Emperor, Spinola
would never have ventured so far from his base of operations, as to enter, as
he did in the autumn of 1620, the Lower Palatinate with 20,000 Spanish and
Netherland troops, while the army of the Union retreated before him, first from
Oppenheim and then from Worms. Early in November the Spaniards ravaged all the
fertile districts between the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Nahe, and pressed on into the Wetterau.
The Dutch, observed by another Spanish army under Velasco, faithfully kept
their truce with Spain, which did not expire till April, 1621, and thus allowed
time enough for the overthrow of Frederick, the warmest supporter of the synod
of Dort. At the same time the Elector of Saxony entered Lusatia with his army,
thus depriving the Bohemian King of all hopes of relief from that marquisate
and from Silesia. James I did nothing for his son-in-law except allow Colonel
Grey to raise some 3,000 men, who were disembarked in the Elbe in May, 1620;
but they were inhospitably received, especially at Berlin, and, being attacked
with sickness, few succeeded in reaching Bohemia. Thus Frederick's expectations
were deceived on all sides. His fall, which could not perhaps have been
averted, was hastened by his own misconduct. The troops of the Emperor and the
League were in a terrible state of destitution and sickness; and the Bavarian
army alone lost 20,000 men. Although the Bohemian army was in as bad a
condition, it is possible that Frederick, by remaining within the walls of
Prague, might have worn out his enemies; but he was advised to offer them
battle on the White Hill, near that capital. His army, commanded by Christian
of Anhalt and Count Hohenlohe—for Count Mansfeld, his best general,
disgusted at being postponed to those commanders, kept aloof at Pilsen—was
routed and almost annihilated in a single hour (November 8th, 1620). In the
forenoon of that eventful Sunday, Frederick had heard a sermon by Scultetus, and had sat down to dinner with his Queen, when
news of the attack was brought. He mounted his horse with the intention of
proceeding to the field; but from the ramparts he beheld that his army was
already routed; horses were running about without their riders, and officers
and soldiers were clambering up the fortifications in order to enter the city.
At a council at which Digby the English ambassador assisted, it was
league resolved that the King and Queen should fly, for neither the troops nor
the townspeople could be trusted. But whither? In grasping at the shadow
Frederick had lost the substance. The Lower Palatinate, with the exception
of Lautern, Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Frankenthal, was already in possession of Spinola and his
Spaniards. Frederick, therefore, took the road to Breslau with his family, and
with such haste and confusion that he lost his Order of the Garter. On the same
day the Imperialists entered Prague, and shortly afterwards the Bohemians swore
allegiance afresh to Ferdinand II.
Frederick was received with respect at Breslau;
the States of Silesia showed a friendly disposition; but the ex-King saw no
hope of making head against his opponents, and on the 3rd of January, 1621, he
quitted Breslau for the March of Brandenburg. Elizabeth, who was pregnant, gave
birth to Prince Maurice at Küstrin, January 6th; and after she had
recovered from her accouchement, the exiled Sovereigns proceeded into Holland.
On the 23rd of January, Frederick, together with Prince Christian of Anhalt,
the Margrave John George of Brandenburg-Jagerndorf,
and Count Hohenlohe were put under the ban of the Empire. An offer was made to
Elizabeth some years after, that, if her eldest son were permitted to receive
his education and religion at Vienna, matters might be accommodated, and that
he might espouse one of the Emperor's daughters; but though she was advised to
accept this offer by her brother Charles I, Elizabeth replied, "that she
would sooner cut her son's throat with her own hands".
Bohemia
Forty-three Bohemian gentlemen who had not been
fortunate enough to escape were condemned at Prague; twenty-seven of them were
put to death, and the remainder sentenced to lighter punishments. Thirty more
who had fled, and among them Count Thurn, were put under ban and deprived of their
lands. A systematic plan was now adopted by Ferdinand II to root out
Protestantism in Bohemia and the annexed States, as well as in his Austrian
dominions. Soon after the battle of Prague, all Calvinists were expelled the
city. In May, 1622, a mandate was issued, directing, under the severest
penalties, all who had taken any part in the disturbances to acknowledge their
guilt before the Stadholder, when 728 landed proprietors appeared, and sued for
mercy. The lives of these men were spared, but their property was confiscated,
either wholly or in part, and incorporated with the Crown lands, or made over
to those who had adhered to the Emperor and to the Catholic religion. After the
Diet of Ratisbon, in 1623, Ferdinand II went into Bohemia, the Papal Nuncio, Caraffa, preceding him by a day's journey. The use of the
cup in the Lord's Supper, which had been conceded by Pope Pius IV in 1564,
after the Council of Trent, to subjects of the Austrian dominions, was
forbidden. On the other hand, the revenues transferred during the predominance
of Protestantism were restored to the Catholic churches and convents: but to
fill these last it was necessary to bring monks from Poland. In 1626 a mandate
was issued forbidding those who would not return to the Catholic faith to
exercise any trade or profession. These proceedings of course excited partial
disturbances, but the times were over when the Bohemians could hope to resist
the royal power. Yet 30,000 families, and among them 185 of noble or knightly
rank, adopted the alternative allowed them of quitting the Kingdom. The places
of the emigrants were filled by Germans. Many peasant families, however,
secretly retained their religious faith; and when a century and a half later,
in the reign of Joseph II, religious freedom was proclaimed, the numbers who
declared themselves Protestants excited much surprise. Ferdinand II attempted
not, however, to infringe the civil rights of the Bohemians; on the contrary,
in May, 1627, he confirmed all their privileges, except the Majestäts-Brief, or Royal Charter of Rodolph; from which he
tore off the seal and cut away the signature: and to gratify the national pride
of the Bohemians, and to provide them another hero in place of Ziska, he
caused statues to be erected, especially on bridges, to John Nepomuk; who, according to tradition, had by order of the
Emperor Wenceslaus been thrown into the Moldau in
1383, for refusing to reveal what had been intrusted to
him by the Empress in confession. Nepomuk was
at length canonized in 1729. Ferdinand proceeded in a similar manner with his
Protestant subjects in Upper, and ultimately in Lower Austria; as well as in
the States dependent on Bohemia, though in Silesia, some traces of
Protestantism were preserved, through the care of the Elector of Saxony.
James I, besides that his theory of the divine
right of Kings caused him to regard with displeasure the acceptance by his
son-in-law of the Bohemian Crown, was also unwilling at this time to break
openly with the House of Austria, in consequence of the prospect held out to
him by Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, of a marriage between Charles, Prince
of Wales, and the second Infanta of Spain; yet as the English nation
and Parliament manifested the most enthusiastic interest in the cause of the
Palatine, which they identified with that of Protestantism, he could not
withhold all assistance from that unfortunate Prince in endeavoring at least to
maintain him in his hereditary dominions. Towards the end of 1620 James raised
a considerable English force, which, uniting with the Dutch under Prince
Frederick Henry, marched into the Palatinate, and succeeded in defending Frankenthal, Heidelberg, and Mannheim against Spinola, who
was in possession of all the other towns and was ravaging the open country. Had
these forces been adequately supported by the German Union, the restoration of
Frederick in the Palatinate might probably have been effected; but the Elector
of Mainz, and Louis Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, persuaded the Duke of
Würtemberg and the Margrave Joachim Ernest of Brandenburg to join them in
concluding a treaty with Spinola, April 12th, 1621, by which Frederick was left
to his fate, and the Palatinate abandoned to the Spaniards. These Princes
engaged that the Union should meddle no more with his affairs; and, indeed,
after a last meeting at Heilbronn, in May, 1621, that confederacy was
dissolved. The only Princes who staunchly adhered to the Palatine's cause were
Count Ernest of Mansfeld, Prince Christian of Brunswick, and George Frederick,
Margrave of Baden-Durlach. After the battle of Prague
Mansfeld had maintained himself awhile against the superior forces of
Maximilian and Tilly, first in Bohemia and then in the Upper Palatinate; and at
last succeeded in escaping the united forces of both by a masterly retreat
through Nuremberg, Windsheim, and Rothenburg, into the Lower Palatinate; and, at his approach
in September, 1621, the Spaniards were compelled to raise the siege of Frankenthal. The truce between Spain and the United
Provinces having now expired, Spinola, with the main body of the Spanish army,
had been compelled to descend the Rhine in order to defend the Netherlands; and
Gonzales de Cordova, who had been left behind with the remainder, had been
engaged in a severe struggle with the troops of the Palatine and with the
English; but nothing decisive was done, and Tilly, approaching by the Bergstrasse, and devastating everything before him, from
Ladenburg to Mosbach, in vain summoned
Heidelberg to surrender. During the autumn and winter the contending armies
supported themselves by ravaging the Palatinate and the surrounding countries.
Christian of Brunswick, in an attempt to penetrate into the Palatinate from
Westphalia, was defeated in the Busecker Thai,
in the Wetterau, by the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt
in conjunction with the Bavarians, and compelled to return into Westphalia.
Battle of Wimpfen
Frederick at length determined to join his
people, who were fighting so bravely for him; and in April, 1622, he proceeded
from the Hague to Heidelberg. In Mansfeld and George Frederick of Baden-Durlach he found most disinterested friends. Mansfeld
had resisted very tempting offers from the enemy, while the Margrave had, at
his own expense, raised for Frederick a considerable army. The united forces
defeated Tilly at Mingolsheim with great
loss, April 17th; but knew not how to use their victory. Mansfeld and the
Margrave did not agree; and having separated their armies, while Tilly and
Gonzales had united theirs, the Margrave was completely defeated, after a
well-fought battle, at Wimp- fen, May 6th; his army was dispersed, and he
himself compelled to seek refuge at Stuttgart. This reverse deterred the Duke
of Würtemberg from taking part with Frederick. This Prince, who was with Mansfeld's army, resolved on a bold attempt to join
Christian of Brunswick, and making a sudden rush from Mannheim seized the town
of Darmstadt. The Landgrave and his son were captured in their flight; but
after a month's detention were liberated at the intercession of the German
Princes, though on hard conditions. Christian, who was no friend to the clergy,
had maintained his army in Westphalia at the expense of the Church as well as
of the inhabitants, and had recruited it by holding out the hopes of plunder.
In May Christian had again marched through Fulda into the Wetterau; but he was not remarkable for military talent,
and instead of forming a junction with Mansfeld, he encamped at Hochst. Here he committed another blunder by accepting a
battle offered to him by Tilly, to whose eighteen guns he could oppose only
three, besides being deficient in cavalry. The consequence was a signal defeat
(June 20th). Half of his troops were left on the field; a part of the rest were
dispersed, or perished in the Main and its morasses; and with the remainder he
contrived to join Mansfeld in the Bergstrasse.
Their united forces were still equal to those of Tilly; but at this juncture
James I persuaded his son-in-law to give up the contest, in order to become,
like himself, the victim of the Spaniards, who had persuaded James that if
Frederick would humble himself, and resign for a brief period his territories
into the Emperor's hands, he would be pardoned and reinstated. Accordingly, in
July, Frederick dismissed Christian and Mansfeld; who, in their retreat from
the Palatinate, were pursued by Gonzales de Cordova, and defeated in a bloody
battle at Fleurus, in which Christian lost his
arm; but they succeeded in reaching Holland with part of their troops. Mansfeld
retired into East Friesland.
Frederick, who retired first to Sedan, and
afterwards again into Holland, soon discovered how miserably he had been
cheated. Long negotiations had been opened at Brussels, under the mediation of
the British King; but, whilst they were going on, Frederick was deprived both
of his Electoral dignity and of the Upper Palatinate. Duke Maximilian, who, as
we have said, was in possession of Upper Austria, which he claimed to hold
under the treaty of Munich till he should have been reimbursed his expenses,
had brought in an account of thirteen million florins; and Ferdinand II
resolved to satisfy him at the cost of the unfortunate Palatine. At a Diet held
at Ratisbon, in January, 1623, in which but few German Princes took part,
the Emperor persuaded the Catholic members to transfer the Upper Palatinate,
together with the Electoral dignity, to Maximilian; who, in spite of the protests
of Saxony and Brandenburg, was solemnly invested for his lifetime with
Frederick's Electorship, and the annexed office of Erztruchsess,
or Imperial steward, March 6th. Meanwhile Tilly had completed the conquest of
the Lower Palatinate. Heidelberg surrendered September 15th, 1622, and the
Castle on the 19th; on the following day, Tilly laid siege to Mannheim, which
place, though bravely defended by Sir Horace Vere, was compelled to
capitulate, November, 1st. Frankenthal held
out till the following spring. By the instructions of his master Maximilian,
Tilly acted with the greatest harshness towards the Protestants of the
Palatinate; they were deprived of their churches, and all ecclesiastical
property was restored to the Roman Catholics. Tilly also seized the library at
Heidelberg, famed among the learned throughout Europe for its collection of
manuscripts. Many cart-loads of these were dispatched to Munich; and Maximilian
afterwards presented the greater portion of them to the Pope. Thus the unhappy
Palatine was irretrievably ruined, chiefly through the vacillation of his
father-in-law, James I. In 1621 James had indeed addressed a long Latin letter
to Bethlem Gabor (October 19th), beseeching him, if
possible, to reduce Hungary, and proceed next year into Bohemia; and promising,
with the full consent of his Parliament, a subsidy of £80,000. That
fickle-minded leader, however, who had gained some successes and suffered some
reverses in Hungary, concluded a peace with the Emperor at Nikolsburg, January 7th, 1622; by which he renounced
Hungary and the title of King, in consideration of receiving in that country
seven Gespannschaften, or counties, and
the town of Kaschau, together with the
principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor in Silesia, and a yearly pension of 50,000
florins. In 1623, however, Bethlem Gabor resumed the
war against the Emperor, relying on the assistance of the German Protestants,
as well as of the Turks : the history of which last people begins about this
period to be again much mixed up with that of Europe.
Turkish History. Mustapha I and Osman II
The unimportant reign of Sultan Achmet I, with whom Austria had concluded the peace of Sitvatorok, was closed by his death, November 22nd,
1617. Nothing can more strongly testify the sunken state of the Turkish power
than that it was possible to raise from a dungeon to the throne Achmet’s imbecile brother, Mustapha I. After three
months' enjoyment of the scepter, Mustapha was led back to his prison, and, on
the 26th of February, 1618, Osman II, a boy of fourteen, the oldest of seven
sons of Achmet, was saluted Padishah by the
venal troops. Osman displayed a spirit and ambition beyond his years. Strong
and active, and inured to all soldier-like exercises, Osman was a bold rider
and an unerring marksman with the bow; but with all his energy, he lacked the
perseverance without which nothing great can be accomplished, while his
meanness alienated from him the hearts of the rapacious Janissaries. Osman
longed to flesh his maiden scimetar in a
war with Poland, between which country and the Porte bickerings had
for several years existed; and he esteemed its conquest so easy that he divided
the spoil beforehand. Desolating inroads had been made by the Tartars into
Poland, by the Cossacks into the Turkish dominions, which in 1620 ended in open
war. Poland was then ruled by the Swedish Prince Sigismund III, of whom we
shall have to speak further on. Caspar Gratiani, Voyvode of Moldavia, had courted the favour of Sigismund by sending to him the intercepted
letters addressed by Bethlem Gabor to the Porte,
complaining of the incursions of the Polish Cossacks and freebooters. Gratiani was deposed on the discovery of his
proceedings; but he would not yield without a struggle : he called upon the
Poles for help, who sent him an army of 50,000 men. Against these, posted in a
fortified camp near Jassy, in Moldavia, Iskander Pasha, Governor
of Silistria, led a force of double their
number, composed of Osmanlis and Tartars; and on the 20th of
September, 1620, a great battle was fought, in which 10,000 Poles were slain.
The remainder, after a fruitless attempt to defend their entrenched camp,
retreated towards the Dniester; in the passage of which river most of them
perished. Gratiani himself fell in the
retreat.
It was this success that incited Osman to
attempt the conquest of Poland, against the advice of his ministers, and even
the wishes of his army; and in the spring of 1621, clothed in a suit of mail
which had belonged to Soliman the Magnificent, he placed himself at
the head of 100,000 men. But the march proved difficult and destructive; the
mercenary troops were alienated by Osman's reluctance to pay the customary
gratuity; and it was the end of August before the Turks arrived on the
Dniester. Here Sigismund had encamped 40,000 Poles and Cossacks, and 8,000
Germans sent to him by the Emperor; while another army of reserve of 60,000
men, under the Crown-Prince, lay at Kaminietz. A
first assault on the Polish camp was attended with some success; but the
following ones were repulsed, although in the sixth and last the Sultan in
person led one of the storming columns. A Polish winter set in early; men and
horses perished by thousands; a mutiny broke out, and Osman, after opening
negotiations for a peace, began his retreat. On the 28th of December, 1621, he
entered Constantinople in triumph; for, though he had lost 80,000 men, he
pretended to claim a victory. But his ill-success, his unpopularity with the
army, the dearness of provisions, and the strictness of his police, which he
superintended in person, soon produced symptoms of revolt among the
Janissaries. As these degenerate troops were averse to the warlike schemes
meditated by Osman, he resolved to destroy them. The scheme he formed was bold
and well designed, and, if successful, might have revived the sinking fortunes
of the Turkish Empire. Under pretense of a pilgrimage to Mecca, Osman was to
raise a large army at Damascus, march with it to Constantinople, and annihilate
the refractory Janissaries: but his preparations, and some incautious words,
prematurely betrayed his intentions. On the 18th of May, 1622, on the report
that the Sultan's tent was about to be transported to Scutari, the Janissaries,
associating themselves to the Spahis, rose in rebellion, repulsed with
insults their Aga and other officers, who had been sent to hear their
complaints; and demanded from the Mufti a categorical answer to the inquiry,
"Whether it was permitted to put to death those who misled the Padishah,
and devoured the substance of the Moslems?". The Mufti having answered in
the affirmative, the mutineers hastened to the palaces of the Grand-Vizier and
of the Chodsha, who were thought to be the
authors of the plan for their destruction; these ministers saved themselves by
flight, but their palaces were plundered and destroyed. On the following day
the insurrection assumed a still more formidable aspect. The Sultan having
refused to give up the six authors of his pilgrimage, though he consented to
renounce the pilgrimage itself, an attack was made on the Seraglio; and, in the
midst of the confusion, a cry of Mustapha Khan for Sultan, echoed by thousands
of voices, became the watchword of the revolution. The unhappy Mustapha, wasted
to a shadow by want of air and food, and expecting death rather than a crown,
was dragged from his obscure dungeon, carried to the throne room, and saluted
Padishah. Osman, contemplating flight when it was too late, abandoned his
Grand-Vizier and Kislar-Aga to the fury of the
soldiers, by whom they were horribly murdered; the Janissaries, who would
listen to no terms, though large offers were made, occupied the Seraglio, and
directed all the actions of the Sultana Valide,
the mother of the crazy Mustapha; and Constantinople was abandoned to plunder
and devastation. Osman, who had fled to the palace of the Aga of the Janissaries,
was dragged from his hiding-place, and conducted, with abuse and derision,
first to the barracks of the mutineers, and then to the Seven Towers. On the
way, his faithful adherent, Hussein Pasha, was murdered at his feet; and he
himself was soon after put to death, by order of the Valide and
her Vizier, Daud Pasha. During the brief second sultanship of
Mustapha I a peace with Poland was the only event of importance, effected
chiefly through Sir Thomas Roe. On the 30th of August, 1623, a counter revolution
took place at Constantinople. Mustapha was deposed with the consent of the
Janissaries, who even renounced on this occasion the accustomed donative, and
the eldest surviving son of Ackmet I, now
fourteen years of age, ascended the throne with the title of Amurath IV. The unhappy Mustapha survived his deposition
sixteen years.
Bethlem Gabor
James I during these events, the Spanish match
being still in hand, had instructed Sir Thomas Roe to maintain peace between
the Porte, the Emperor, and the King of Poland; although, as we have seen, the
British King had secretly afforded some trifling aid to his son-in-law the
Palatine, both by sending him a few troops, and by endeavoring underhand to
excite Bethlem Gabor to action. In 1623 this Prince,
whom Sir Isaac Wake, the English minister at Venice, characterized as a Janus
with one face towards Christendom and another towards Turkey, renewed the war
against Ferdinand; and, though he could then count but little on the help of
the Turks, he entered Hungary, took several places, and even threatened Pressburg, Raab, and Comorn. On the
approach of winter, however, he was compelled to dismiss his army; when the
Tartars, of which it was partly composed, carried off 20,000 Hungarians into
slavery. In May, 1624, Gabor again concluded a peace with the Emperor, which
did not differ much from that of Nikolsburg. As
the Spanish match had now gone off, we find secretary Calvert instructing Roe,
May 28th, 1624, to do all in his power to keep well with the Transylvanian
Prince. While Poland was attacked in the south by Osman and the Turks,
Sigismund III had to defend himself in the north from his kinsman, the renowned
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden: and as this last country, as well as Denmark, by
the part which they took in the Thirty Years' War, were now about to become of
great importance in the European system, it will here be proper to take a brief
review of their history.
Retrospect of Scandinavian History
We need not carry our retrospect beyond the
Union of Calmar in 1397; by which the three northern Kingdoms of Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden were joined together under the famous Danish Queen Margaret.
The most noteworthy articles of the Act of Union were: that the right of
electing a Sovereign should be exercised conjointly by the three Kingdoms; that
a son of the reigning King, if there were any, should be preferred; that each
Kingdom should keep its own laws and customs; and that all should combine for
the common defence. But this confederacy, which
seemed calculated to promote the power and tranquillity of
Scandinavia, proved the source of much discontent and jealousy and of several
bloody wars. Margaret was succeeded on her death, in 1412, by Eric of
Pomerania, the son of her sister's daughter. Eric, who was at that time in his
thirtieth year, had married, in 1406, Philippa, daughter of Henry IV of
England, a lady distinguished by her understanding, goodness, and courage. In
1428 Philippa defended Copenhagen against the combined fleet of
Holstein and the Hanse towns, whilst Eric lay hid in a convent
at Sord. Eric's reign was tyrannical and turbulent. In 1439 the Danes and
Swedes renounced their allegiance; and Eric, who was then in the island
of Gothland, had henceforth to eke out a
subsistence by piracy. The Kingdoms elected in Eric's stead Christopher of
Bavaria, son of his sister Catharine by John, Duke of the Upper Palatinate;
but, after Christopher's death, in 1448, the Calmar Union was dissolved. The
Danes now elected for their King Count Christian of Oldenburg; while the Swedes
and Norwegians chose Charles Knutson. But in the following year Charles was
compelled to resign Norway to Christian, and in 1457 he lost even Sweden
through an insurrection led by the Archbishop of Upsala; Christian was at once
chosen in his place, and crowned at Upsala; and in the following year the
Councils of all three Kingdoms, assembled at Skara, recognized Christian's
son John as his successor.
King Christian I became still more powerful by
being chosen to succeed his maternal uncle in Sleswig and Holstein. He had, however, to strive for a long while with Charles Knutson
for the throne of Sweden, and after Charles's death, in 1470, with Sten Sture, a nobleman of Dalecarlia, to whom Charles had bequeathed the
administration of the realm. In 1471 a battle was fought on the Brunkebjerg, a height now enclosed in the city of
Stockholm, in which the Danish King was utterly defeated, though, of course, he
continued to hold the old Danish lands beyond the Sound, viz., Scania, Halland, and Bleking.
Christian died in 1481, and was succeeded in Denmark and Norway by his son
John. The Swedes, in 1483, acknowledged John's supremacy by renewing the Union
of Calmar; yet, in spite of all his efforts and the domestic dissensions
prevailing in Sweden, John could never really establish himself in that
country. Sten Sture's regency
had excited much discontent in Sweden. In 1503 he died, and was succeeded
by Swante Sture,
who, though a namesake, was no kinsman. Swante Sture, after some struggles and vicissitudes, succeeded in
retaining the regency, and on his death in 1512, his son, Sten Sture the younger, was elected in his place.
Accession of Christian II
King John died in 1513. The education of his son
and successor, Christian II, recalls the patriarchal ages, and shows how rude
were the manners at that time even of the highest classes in Scandinavia. In
1502, being in his twentieth year, he was sent as Viceroy into Norway to quell
an insurrection, which he effected in the most brutal manner; and during the
eight years that he remained in that country he almost annihilated the
nobility. At Bergen, where he resided, then the staple of the northern
Hanseatic trade, he fell in love with a girl called Dyveke,
or Little Dove, daughter of Sigbrit, a huckstress of Amsterdam, who had set up a tavern at
Bergen. From these women, who completely ruled him, Christian seems to have
imbibed the democratical principles common in the
Netherlands. He was the enemy of nobles and prelates, and opposed the
oppression which they exercised over the peasants, who in Denmark were then
nothing but serfs. It must be recollected, however, that the constitution of
Denmark, as well as of Norway and Sweden, consisted then of an aristocracy, or
rather oligarchy, of nobles, which left the King but little real power, and
which he of course regarded with aversion. After Christian's accession, in
1513, he openly lived with his mistress Dyveke,
and she and her mother continued to retain their influence over him in spite of
his marriage with Isabella, a sister of the Emperor Charles V.
It was during the reign of Christian II that
Denmark first began to have much connection with the rest of Europe. In the
year of his accession, he allied himself with the Wendish group of
towns of the Hanseatic League, whose capital was Lübeck; and he subsequently
formed alliances with Russia, France, England, and Scotland, with the view of
obtaining their aid in his contemplated reduction of Sweden; but he deferred
any expedition against that country till a favorable opportunity was presented
through Gustaf Trolle, Archbishop of
Upsala, who, with many of the old Swedish nobility, hated the Sture family. In 1517 Trolle levied
open war against the administrator Sten Sture, in which Christian supported him with a fleet; but Sten Sture succeeded in
capturing Trolle, had him deposed from his see
in a Diet convened at Arboga, and razed to the
ground his strong castle of Staket. In the next
year Christian again appeared before Stockholm with a fleet and army, in which
were 2,000 French sent by Francis I. Christian was defeated by Sten Sture in a battle near Brankirka, after which he sought an interview with the
regent, in the meantime demanding hostages till he should have safely returned
to his ships. Six noble Swedes were accordingly placed in his hands, and among
them the young Gustavus Ericson who had carried the Swedish banner in the
battle; but, with an infamous breach of faith, Christian had no sooner got back
to his ships than he carried the hostages off with him to Denmark.
The Archbishop of Upsala having gone to Rome to
complain of Sten Sture, the
Pope appointed in Denmark an ecclesiastical commission, which excommunicated
the administrator and his party, and laid all Sweden under an interdict. This
proceeding, which served to pave the way for Sweden's acceptance of the
Lutheran reformation, afforded Christian II a pretense for getting up a crusade
against that country, and levying money both on clergy and laity; and he
employed the year 1519 in gathering a large army, to which adventurers flocked
from all parts of Europe. Early in 1520 this army invaded Sweden, under command
of Otte Krumpe,
who caused the Papal interdict to be placarded on all the church doors. Sture was defeated and wounded in a battle fought on the
ice at Aasund in West Gothland; and a traitor offered to lead Krumpe into Upland, by avoiding the abattis with
which the passes had been protected. At this news Sten Sture, in spite of his wound, hastened to the defence of Stockholm, but died on the way in his sledge
on Mälar Lake. The Swedes were routed in a
second battle near Upsala, after winch a treaty was concluded to the effect
that Christian should reign in Sweden, agreeably to the Union of Calmar, but on
condition of granting an entire amnesty. Christian now proceeded to Stockholm,
where in November his coronation was performed with great splendor. Christian
at first behaved in a most friendly manner, and promised to be not only a King,
but even a father, to the Swedes; yet he had no sooner received the crown than
he took the most inhuman vengeance on his confiding subjects. Two bishops, the
burgomaster of Stockholm, the town council, and many nobles, were beheaded in
the market-place; other executions, often preceded by torture, followed, during
a space of four days; and the city was given up to be plundered by the soldiers
like a place taken by storm. Orders were dispatched to Finland to proceed in a
similar manner, while the King's progress southward was everywhere marked by
executions.
Gustavus Vasa
These cruelties, for which Christian was
reproached by his brother-in-law, Charles V, procured for him the name of the
Nero of the North, and brought on insurrections in all his dominions. That in
Sweden was led by Gustavus Ericson, the hostage already mentioned, a young man
remarkable alike by his origin, talent, and courage; whose family, for what
reason is not precisely known, afterwards assumed the name of Vasa, which was
borne neither by himself nor by his forefathers. During his captivity in
Denmark, Gustavus Vasa had been entrusted to the custody of his kinsman,
Eric Baner, a nobleman of Jutland, who kept him
in his castle of Kallö. At his keeper's table
Gustavus heard of the preparations for war with Sweden, and was insulted by the
boasts of the young Danes, how they would divide Swedish lands, how they would
cast lots for Swedish maidens, so that he could rest neither day nor night. He
escaped one morning from Kallö, disguised
himself as an ox-driver, and, in September, 1519, reached Lübeck in safety,
where he remained eight months. In May, 1520, soon after the death of Sten Sture, and when the Danes under
Christian were besieging Stockholm, the Lübeckers landed
Gustavus secretly at Stenso, near Calmar; but he
found among his countrymen no response to his appeals to them to arm, and was
fain to fly. How he spent the summer, disguised and wandering in bypaths in
order to escape recognition—for a price had been set upon his head—is not
known. It was September before he arrived at Tarna,
the estate of his brother-in-law Joachim Brahe in Sodermanland;
whom, however, he could not dissuade from attending Christian's coronation.
Brahe went to Stockholm, which city, as we have said, had been entered in the
autumn by Christian, and there met his death. The father of Gustavus was among
those who had signed the deed conferring the Swedish Crown upon Christian, but
he was, nevertheless, as well as his son-in-law, one of the victims of that
monster. At Räfnas, his paternal estate, to
which he had proceeded on leaving Tarna,
Gustavus heard the news of the massacre, and he mounted his horse and fled,
attended by a single servant, who robbed and forsook him. Gustavus now took the
road to Dalecarlia, a land noted for its love of
freedom and hatred of Danes. Here he worked in peasant's clothes, for daily
wages, in hourly danger from his pursuers, from whom he had many narrow
escapes; and was once wounded with a lance as he lay hidden under a heap of
straw. His adventures, which remind us of those of our own Alfred, are still
related in that neighborhood; the barns at Rankhytta in
which he threshed oats, the building near Ornas where
his life was saved by a woman, are preserved as national monuments; the spot
near Marnaas where he lay hid under a
felled pine trunk, the hill near Asby surrounded
with marshes, where he found refuge, the cellar in the village of Utmetland, where he hid himself, are still pointed out.
The news of Christian's "blood bath"
procured Gustavus Vasa many followers; he was elected for their leader by a
great assembly of peasants at the Mora Stone, and found himself at the head of
thousands of men; whom, though undisciplined and armed only with spears, clubs,
bows, swords, and such weapons as chance afforded, he soon rendered fully a
match for the Danish troops. His situation was embarrassing as well as
difficult; for the Danes, besides possessing all the fortresses and castles in
the Kingdom, had carried off as hostages some of the most distinguished Swedish
ladies, including the mother and two sisters of Gustavus himself. Nevertheless,
he boldly went to war, and in June, 1521, he invested Stockholm; but the siege,
for want of proper artillery and engineering skill, was protracted two years.
During this period his command was confirmed in a Herrendag,
or assembly of nobles, at Wadstena, August 24th;
the Crown was proffered to him, which he declined, but accepted the office of
Regent. The Danes were now by degrees almost entirely driven out of Sweden; and
Christian II, so far from being able to relieve Stockholm, found himself in
danger of losing the Danish Crown. He had quarrelled with
his uncle, Duke Frederick of Holstein; he had offended his own Danish subjects,
as well as the Hanse towns, by his commercial regulations, and
especially by an ordinance forbidding the sale of agricultural produce to
foreigners, and directing it to be brought to Copenhagen and there sold to
Danish merchants; and he had alienated the nobles by laws, good and just in
themselves, but contrary to the capitulation he had entered into on his
accession; among which was, that they should not be allowed to sell the
peasants with the land. He had made enemies of the clergy by prohibiting them
from buying farms, unless they should marry like their forefathers. He had also
committed many acts of barbarity and cruelty; and to escape the odium which
they brought upon him, he caused Didrik Slaghoek, whom he had made Archbishop of Lund, to be burnt
alive as the author of them.
By his connection with the House of Austria, as
well as through the influence of Sigbrit,
Christian had been led in his commercial policy to favour the Netherlander at the expense of the Hanse towns; and the cities of
Lübeck, Dantzic, Wismar, and Rostock now took
their revenge by declaring for Gustavus Vasa, ravaging the Danish coasts,
seizing Danish ships, occupying Bornholm, and plundering Helsingör. The same towns also concluded an alliance with
Christian's uncle Frederick, who had formed secret connections with the Danish
nobles, and induced them to renounce their allegiance to his nephew, and place
himself on the throne with the title of Frederick I. The Union of Calmar was
now again dissolved. The Norwegians, indeed, agreed to accept Frederick's
sovereignty; but when Frederick called upon the Swedish States to recognize his
title in conformity with the Union, they replied that they had already chosen
Gustavus Ericson for their King; which was done at the Diet of Strangnas, June 7th, 1523. Three weeks after Stockholm
surrendered to Gustavus. Bewildered by this revolution, Christian II fled from
Copenhagen in April, before there was any necessity to do so; indeed that city,
Malmo, Kallundborg, and some other places, did
not acknowledge Frederick till the beginning of 1524; at which time the island
of Gothland was all that remained faithful
to Christian. From Copenhagen Christian and his wife sailed to the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, Gustavus was consolidating
his power, partly by moderation and mildness, partly by examples of necessary
severity. He put himself at the head of the Reformation, as Frederick I also
did in Denmark; and he acted with that mixture of softness and dissimulation,
combined with boldness in action, which always distinguished him. Luther's
doctrines had been first introduced into Sweden in 1519, by two brothers, Olaus and Lawrence Petri, who had studied at
Wittenberg. The Petris soon attracted the
attention of Gustavus, who gave them his protection, and entered himself into
correspondence with Luther. The designs of Gustavus were helped by the
circumstance that, at his accession, four out of the six Swedish bishoprics
were vacant; and Gustaf Trolle, Archbishop
of Upsala, who had taken part against him, had been declared an enemy of his
country. As in other parts of Europe, the nobles were induced to join the
movement by the prospect of sharing the spoils of the Church; and in a great
Diet at Westeras in 1527, the Reformation
was introduced. The castles and lands of the prelates were then seized;
convents were suppressed, and their inmates turned adrift; and many were
inclined to withhold even the tithes of the parochial clergy, had not the King
issued an order for their payment. There seems to have been no great difficulty
in introducing the Reformation among this simple people, for the majority of
the Swedes were so ignorant as not to know the difference between Romanism and Lutheranism.
Gustavus I always denied that he had introduced a new doctrine; and even under
his son and successor, John III, a great part of the people still believed
themselves to belong to the Romish faith. The Reformation in Sweden
was not, however, unaccompanied with disturbances on the part of the higher
classes, and many years elapsed before it was completely established.
Meanwhile Christian II, a wanderer and an exile,
was seeking the aid of foreign Princes to reestablish himself on the throne of
Denmark. The merchants of the Netherlands whom he had befriended, as well as
some of the German Princes, were in his favour; and,
in 1531, the government of the Netherlands allowed him to raise in Holland an
army of 8,000 or 10,000 men, who were embarked in Dutch ships with the
intention of landing them in the Danish province of Halland,
beyond the Sound; but the fleet was driven by stress of weather on the coast of
Norway, and towards the end of autumn a landing was effected at Oslo. Here,
during the winter, Christian was secure from the attacks of Frederick and
Gustavus, who had combined against him. Christian had been a convert to
Lutheranism, but, as his faith sat easy upon him, he now declared himself the
protector of Catholicism in Norway; the whole country, except a few fortified
places, declared in his favour, and he was even
proclaimed King of Norway. In the spring of 1532, however, when the ice had
broken up, a Swedish army had entered Upper Norway; the Danish and Wendish Hanse fleets
landed a large force at Oslo; and Christian, whose men were daily deserting
because he had no means to pay them, was compelled to shut himself up in the
castle, and enter into negotiations with the Danish commander. By a treaty
signed at Aggerhuys, July 1st, it was agreed that
Christian should be carried into Denmark, to treat in person with his uncle
Frederick; and that he should be at liberty to quit the Kingdom if no agreement
should be concluded: but such was the hatred of the Danish nobles towards him,
that they compelled Frederick to condemn him to perpetual imprisonment, and to
give eight written promises to that effect into the custody of four Danish and
four Holstein noblemen. The unhappy Christian was immured in the Castle
of Sonderborg; all the windows of his vaulted
chamber were walled up, except one, through which his food was conveyed; and a
half-witted dwarf was appointed to be his only attendant and companion. In this
miserable prison he continued seventeen years, till in 1549 he was removed to
the Castle of Kallundborg, and there during the
remainder of his life, which lasted till 1559, he was treated with something
like royal dignity; but his health and spirits had already been completely
broken.
Frederick I died at Gottorp,
his usual residence, in 1533, when a contest began for the Danish Crown. The
Diet was assembled, but the election of a King was deferred for a year by the
State Council, who during the interregnum exercised supreme power. The city of
Lübeck, now governed by two enterprising democrats, Marcus Mejer, and George Wollenwever,
seized the opportunity to endeavor to place a protégé of their own on the
throne of Denmark, and thus revive the waning power of the Hansa; and they
associated in their undertaking the burgomasters of Malmo and Copenhagen. As
Duke Christian of Holstein, eldest son of Frederick I, would not submit to the
terms which they prescribed as the conditions of helping him to the throne,
they employed Count Christian of Oldenburg to invade Denmark on pretense of
restoring Christian II. The Count having raised an army with the money of
Lübeck, demanded from the Duke of Holstein the liberation of the imprisoned
King, and passed over into Denmark with the Hanse fleet. He was
favorably received in Malmo and Copenhagen; all Scania and Seeland submitted
to him as the representative of Christian II; and the peasants of Jutland were
also in his favour. Alarmed at these proceedings, the
Council now chose the Duke of Holstein for their King, with the title of
Christian III (July, 1534); but the Count of Oldenburg maintained himself in
Denmark throughout the year, till the new Sovereign was helped by the arms of
the King of Sweden.
Gustavus was now at variance with the Wendish Hanse towns.
They had, indeed, liberally assisted him in his struggle in Sweden; but they
made exorbitant claims upon his gratitude. They demanded that the
Netherlanders, with whom Gustavus had concluded a treaty in 1526, should be
excluded from the commerce of the Baltic; and Lübeck required with such
impatience the repayment of a loan of 28,000 rix-dollars, that Gustavus,
to satisfy the demand, was compelled to order every parish to contribute one of
its church bells. As the strict and vigorous government of Gustavus had
occasioned considerable discontent in Sweden, the Lübeckers took
advantage of it to declare war against him. Among the malcontents was the
King's own brother-in-law, the Count of Hoya, who fled to Lübeck with his wife
and children; where Gustaf Trolle and
other dissatisfied nobles gathered around him. All these embraced the cause of
the Count of Oldenburg and Christian II, against the new King of Denmark. But
as his own Kingdom was threatened, Gustavus's army entered the Danish
provinces lying beyond the Sound; the Lübeckers were
driven out of Scania, Halland, and Bleking; in January 1535, Christian of Oldenburg and
Marcus Mejer were completely defeated in a
battle near Helsingborg; and the Hanseatic fleet was also vanquished by that of
Denmark and Sweden. In Denmark Proper, the invaders sustained a disastrous defeat
from the King's troops in Funen, in which Gustaf Trolle was mortally wounded; and though Copenhagen
held out a year, under the extremities of famine, it was at length forced to
capitulate. After this defeat the party of the invaders fell to pieces; and
Lübeck found it expedient to conclude a peace with Christian III (February,
1536). The commercial privileges of the Lübeckers were
renewed, and they were invested with Bornholm for another fifty years. After
this war, which was called "the Count's War", Christian III and
Gustavus Vasa put the finishing hand to the Reformation in their respective
dominions, and to the temporal power of the clergy. Christian caused all the
Danish bishops to be arrested on the same day, and then proceeded to confiscate
ecclesiastical property. Lutheranism was formally established in Denmark in the
autumn of 1536. At the personal interview between Christian and Gustavus
at Bromsebro in Calmar in 1541, a peace of
twenty years was concluded. While Sweden, in 1540, had with the consent of the
States been converted into an hereditary Kingdom, Christian III found himself
obliged to weaken his power by dividing Denmark, according to German fashion,
with his two brothers, John and Adolf. Admonished, however, by the difficulties
and dangers which had attended his own election, he took care betimes that his
son should be appointed his successor, who was elected in 1542, and on the
death of his father in 1559, succeeded to the Crown, with the title of
Frederick II.
Gustavus Vasa died in September, 1560. Under his
sway Sweden attained to great prosperity, and the latter half of his reign was
accounted the happiest time that country ever saw. He bestowed great care on
trade, and especially on mining and working in metals; and he restored public
order by a strict police. He was a rigid economist, and during the Reformation
laid his hands on all the plate and movables of the churches and ecclesiastical
foundations. He personally engaged in agriculture, mining, and trade, and lived
a long while in rural fashion on his farms in Finland.
After the death of Gustavus, Sweden again fell
into confusion, and almost barbarism. His eldest son, who succeeded him with
the title of Eric XIV, though possessing talents and accomplishments, was
subject to occasional fits of mental derangement; and Gustavus, to avert the danger
threatened by his reign, had made his other three sons nearly equal to Eric in
power. To John he gave Finland; to Magnus, East Gothland;
and to Charles, Sodermanland, which provinces
they ruled as hereditary Dukes. But of these brothers Magnus was still more
deranged than Eric, while John and Charles were unfeeling and cruel. Eric had
been one of Queen Elizabeth's suitors; who, however, with less than her usual
coquetry, seems to have written to Gustavus to dissuade his son from a hopeless
suit. Eric afterwards married the daughter of a corporal of his guard.
Eric XIV of Sweden
Eric soon found himself engaged in hostilities
with the Danes, the Russians, and his three brothers. After the dissolution of
the military order of the Knights of the Sword, which had ruled in Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland, like the Teutonic Order in
Prussia, the Russians attempted to seize Livonia. Magnus, brother of Frederick
II of Denmark, had in vain attempted to protect the Livonians, who now
appealed to Eric; and in 1561 the Swedish King landed an army at Revel, and
compelled the Russians to a peace. But shortly afterwards Eric fell into a
quarrel with his brother John, Duke of Finland, who, contrary to Eric's will,
had married Catharine Jagellonica, a sister of
Sigismund II, the last male of the house of Jagellon;
a union which opened to him a prospect of the Polish throne. The Archbishopric
of Riga having on the death of the Archbishop been made over to Sweden by his
coadjutor, but the transfer being disputed by the Poles, Eric called on his
brother John to aid him with a fleet and money in taking possession. John,
considering himself an independent Sovereign, refused to comply, upon which
Eric summoned both John and his wife before his tribunal at Stockholm, and on
their refusing to appear, caused the Swedish States to condemn John to death as
a rebellious vassal, and besieged and captured him in his castle at Abo,
August, 1563. John and Catharine were confined at Gripsholm,
where they were kept shut up for four years. A war which broke out with Denmark
about the same time, entailed great misery on Sweden, and the acts of cruelty
committed by Eric in his insanity, which had now become more confirmed, set
everybody against him. At last, in one of the paroxysms of his disorder, Eric
repaired to the prison of his brother John, fell at his feet, saluted him as
his Sovereign, and gave him his liberty. The first use that John made of his
freedom was to conspire with his brother Charles against Eric. In September,
1568, John and Charles having collected around them at Wadstena all
the malcontents of the Kingdom, proceeded to Stockholm, into which they were
admitted by the citizens; Eric surrendered himself, and early in 1569 John
caused him to be deposed by the States, and condemned to death; his marriage
was declared null, and the offspring of it illegitimate. At the intercession of
the Queen-dowager, Eric's stepmother, his sentence was commuted to perpetual
imprisonment; and John was elected King in his place, January 24th, 1569. The
unfortunate Eric survived these events eight years, although John and
Charles endeavoured by ill-usage to put an
end to his life. He was treated like a common malefactor; and in the autumn of
1574, on the discovery of some plans to effect his release, he was thrown into
the frightful tower of Orbyhuys in Upland.
Two or three years after, John procured from the clergy a sanction to offer him
up "for the good of the people,"—in other words, to murder him; and
he was poisoned with some soup, February, 1577, in his forty-fourth year.
Death of Frederick II of Denmark. Accession of
Christian IV.
Frederick II of Denmark died in 1588, after a
long and prosperous reign. Frederick kept a splendid Court, patronized art and
science, and spent large sums in the astronomical pursuits of his
favorite, Tycho Brahe, at Uranienborg.
His son and successor, Christian IV, who had been elected in 1586, was still a
child; but the reputation of his father shed a glory over his accession, which,
however, was destined to fade in the Thirty Years' War. It must be recollected
that at this period Denmark held beyond the Sound several old Danish lands now
belonging to the Kingdom of Sweden, comprising a fifth part of the inhabitants;
and by the peace of Stettin, concluded with the Swedish King, John, in 1570,
the possession of Scania, Halland, Bleking, Herjedalen, Jemtland, Bohus, and Wyck,
was confirmed to the Danes.
King John, with the many friends of his consort
Catharine Jagellonica, had in 1587 procured
their son to be elected King of Poland, with the title of Sigismund III. This
was an unfortunate event for Sweden, from the contests which it afterwards
occasioned. Catharine was a zealous Catholic, led by the Jesuits, who had been
introduced into Sweden; and Sigismund was brought up in his mother's faith. It
was generally believed that John himself had turned Catholic; but he was not
willing to sacrifice his Crown for the Pope, especially as he saw that his
brother Charles was endeavoring to form a party as head of the Protestants.
John was prudent enough to banish the Jesuits, to dissolve their college at
Stockholm, to fill the professorial chairs with their opponents, and to
threaten with exile all those who had gone over to the Catholic Church.
King John died November 17th, 1592. His brother
Charles had been for some time the virtual ruler of Sweden; and, as his nephew
Sigismund was in Poland at the time of his father's death, Charles continued to
hold the regency, although the government should have been entrusted to
seven Councillors. Charles had been endeavoring
to deprive Sigismund of the Swedish succession, on the ground of his religion;
and he was helped in his views by the circumstance that both the Poles and the
Swedes demanded the constant residence of their Sovereign among them. In the
autumn of 1593, on the approach of Sigismund with an army, Charles indeed found
it necessary to lay down the government, and his nephew received the Swedish
Crown; but in the following year Sigismund was compelled to return to Poland,
and he left his uncle Charles to govern Sweden with royal powers. Charles used
his authority to make preparations for seizing the Crown. Sigismund returned to
Sweden to dispute it with him, but was ultimately defeated in a battle at Stangebro in September, 1598. In the following
February, the Swedish States conferred the government upon Charles, with the
title of "Ruling Hereditary Prince"; and in July they declared that
if Sigismund did not immediately send his son Ladislaus into Sweden, to be educated in the Lutheran faith, he and his posterity should
be excluded from the Swedish Crown. Charles now sought to establish his power
by numerous cruel executions, chiefly of the nobles; for by the peasants and
clergy he was regarded as their deliverer from the papistry of
Sigismund, and he even obtained the name of "the peasants' friend."
At length, in 1604, Charles, having filled all the chief offices of the Kingdom
with his adherents, assumed, as Charles IX, the title of "King Elect, and
Hereditary Prince of the Swedes, Vandals, and Goths". Gustavus Adolphus,
then in his tenth year, his eldest son by his marriage with Christina, daughter
of Duke Adolf of Holstein-Gottorp, and granddaughter
of Frederick I of Denmark, was at the same time recognized as Crown Prince, and
his brother Charles Philip as Hereditary Prince, with remainder, in default of
male issue, to their sister. The last years of Charles IX were spent in war
with Russia, Poland, and Denmark.
Christian IV of Denmark, who was only eleven
years of age at the time of his father's death, did not obtain the government
of that Kingdom till 1596; and, when it was at length committed to him, he was
compelled, like his predecessors, to sign a capitulation, which circumscribed
his power even more than theirs. During his minority the Council of State had
contested the regency with his mother and uncle, and assigned it to four of
their own members: and no attention was paid, except in the Duchies of Sleswig and Holstein, to the letters of Rodolph II
pronouncing Christian of age in his seventeenth year. Christian I had conferred
on these provinces the right of choosing their own Regent, and the pretensions
of the Danish Council were consequently excluded there.
The first years of Christian IV’s reign were
prosperous. He chose the oldest and most experienced statesmen for his counsellors;
he was himself intelligent and industrious; he founded the prosperity of Norway
on the ruins of the Hanseatic League, and personally surveyed the coasts of
that country to find convenient havens for trade; nor did Iceland, in its
remote and icy ocean, escape his vigilance and cares. The power of Denmark was
then superior to that of Sweden, nor was Christian disinclined to use it in a
contest with the Swedish King, between whom and himself an ill-feeling
prevailed. This festered still more rancorously in Christian's breast after
Charles IX had been solemnly crowned King of Sweden in 1608; but the Danish
Council, on which Christian was dependent, was averse to open hostilities, and
he was constrained to gratify his hatred by fomenting the rebellions of the
Swedish nobles. Charles, on his side, was unwilling to engage with his powerful
neighbor in a war for which no pretext could be alleged, except the three
crowns displayed in the armorial bearings of both Sovereigns, the asylum given
to Swedish fugitives by Christian, and the contested possession of the Lap
Marks and of the island of Oesel, alike
valueless to both countries. Denmark, however, was longing to extend her
possessions beyond the Sound; and in April, 1611, after some correspondence
between the Danish and Swedish Kings, which might not disgrace Billingsgate,
Christian IV declared war.
Accession of Gustavus Adolphus in 1611
Charles IX had been disabled by a stroke of
palsy from any active exertions, and he committed the conduct of the war to his
son Gustavus Adolphus, now in his seventeenth year. The campaign went in favour of the Danes, who took Calmar. Before the end of the
year Gustavus became King of Sweden. Charles IX died in October, 1611; and in
the following December, Gustavus Adolphus, with the consent of the States,
succeeded to his father's title of " King Elect of the Swedes, Goths, and
Vandals". Gustavus had been well educated. He was master of several modern
languages, as well as Greek and Latin; he had been early trained to business;
and in the art of war, in which he was to acquire so much renown, he had the
advantage of the instructions of two famous captains, Ewert Horn and
the Baron de la Gardie, a French noble. In the report of a Dutch
ambassador at the Court of Sweden, two or three years after the accession of
Gustavus, he is described as slim and well-formed in person, of pale and rather
long countenance, with light hair and pointed beard, inclining to yellow. He
had the reputation of courage, combined with humanity and good temper, of
prudence, vigilance, and industry; he possessed eloquence, and was amiable and
affable in his intercourse with everybody; so that great expectations were
entertained of him. These expectations were not to be disappointed. Under
Gustavus, Sweden first made its might felt and respected as a European Power;
and during the brief period that he took a part in the Thirty Years' War, he
was by far its most prominent figure.
Gustavus was naturally impetuous, and easily
governed by his ideas; but at his accession he chose for his chancellor and
minister Axel Oxenstiern; a man who, though only
about ten years older than himself, was already, at the age of twenty-eight,
distinguished as a cold, practical statesman, the" very model of "a
diplomatist. By this man were the affairs of Sweden for a long period to be
directed. The first step of the youthful monarch, who found himself hampered
with a Russian as well as a Danish war, was to endeavor to make peace with
Christian IV; but the Danes repulsed his herald, and would not even allow
Gustavus the title of King. He was therefore constrained to take the field; and
in a battle with the Danes on the frozen lake of Widsjo,
he nearly lost his life; the ice broke under the weight of Gustavus and his
horse, and he was with difficulty rescued. The war went rather in favour of Denmark; but both sides were exhausted, and in
January, 1613, a peace was concluded by English mediation. It was in favour of the Danes; but Gustavus was anxious to conclude
it, in order that he might take a part in the affairs of Russia. That country
was now in a state of prostration. The throne was vacant and contested; four
impostors, under the name of Demetrius, had successively claimed it; the Swedes
had penetrated to Neva and Novgorod, the Poles to Moscow and Smolensk; the
successes of the Swedes under La Gardie had inclined a large party of
the Russians to choose Charles Philip, brother of Gustavus, for their Tsar; but
early in 1613 Michael Romanoff was elected, the founder of the present House of
Romanoff. The Russian war continued four or five years. Gustavus took a
personal share in it, and he and La Gardie at first gained
considerable advantages; but after his failure at the siege of Pleskow, the King of Sweden began to lower his demands, and
in February, 1617, a peace was concluded at Stolbova,
through the mediation of James I, and Gustavus acknowledged Michael Romanoff as
Tsar. By this peace the ground on which St. Petersburg now stands was included
in the limits of Swedish territory.
After the Russian peace the war with Poland
broke out afresh. In the summer of 1621 Gustavus began his campaigns against
that country by the siege and capture of Riga. In the preceding year he had
married Mary Eleanor, sister of George William, the new Elector of Brandenburg.
He had previously visited Berlin incognito, to judge for himself of his future
consort, and he had also proceeded to the Court of the Elector Palatine. The
Polish war lasted nine years; but to detail its operations would afford neither
instruction nor amusement. It was concluded in September, 1629, by the six
years' truce of Altmark, by which Gustavus
retained Livonia and the towns of Elbing, Braunsberg, Pillau, and
Memel. He was preparing to take a part in the Thirty Years' War of Germany, to
which subject and the affairs connected with it we must now revert. For that
enterprise his campaigns in Russia and Poland had served to qualify him, in
which he had not only acquired the experience of a general, but, at the cost of
more than one serious wound, had displayed the most brilliant valor.
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