READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XXX

THE COMING STRUGGLE

NO sooner had the murder of Henry IV been perpetrated, than the Duke of Epernon, who had been an eye-witness of it, hastened, in his capacity of colonel-general of the French infantry, to appoint the guard at the Louvre, and to occupy with troops the principal places of the capital. The ministers of the late King, Sillery, Villeroi, and Jeannin, with whom Epernon and Guise agreed, advised Mary to seize the regency before the Princes of the blood should have time to dispute it with her; and Epernon proceeded to the convent of the Augustinians, where the Parliament had been assembled, and overawed it by his language. That body, however, was of itself sufficiently inclined to exert a privilege which did not constitutionally belong to it. Henry had been murdered at four o'clock in the afternoon; before seven, the Parliament brought to Mary de' Medici an arrêt conferring upon her the regency; to which, indeed, she had already been appointed by Henry, though for a different purpose, and with less extensive powers.

En these proceedings, Sully, the prime minister of Henry, was conspicuous by his absence. At the time of the King's murder, Sully was waiting for him at the arsenal: instead of Henry came a gentleman of his suite, bringing the knife, which still reeked with his blood. Sully's first impulse was to mount his horse and ride towards the Louvre; in the Rue St. Honoré he was met by Vitry, the captain of the guards, who, with tears in his eyes, implored him to go no further; it was rumored, he said, that the plot had been hatched in high places, and had many ramifications. Sully turned his horse's head, and shut himself up in the Bastille; whence he sent a message to his son-in-law, the Duke of Rohan, then in Champagne, to hasten to Paris with the 6,000 Swiss of whom he was colonel-general. But the Queen sent to assure Sully of her confidence; and on the following morning he appeared at the Louvre; Mary brought to him the infant Louis XIII, and while Sully embraced the heir of his late friend and master, the Queen besought him to serve the son as he had served the father. Deceitful words! Concini was already director of Mary and the State. On the same morning, the regency of the Queen was solemnly confirmed in a Lit de Justice, at which the youthful King presided, and in infantine tones appointed his mother to be his tutor.

The regency of Mary de' Medici was not unpopular. She was now in the meridian of womanly beauty; and in her progresses through the capital she was received with the acclamations of the people. But they also lamented the loss of Henry, whose merits were not appreciated till he was dead. It was difficult to save Ravaillac, when proceeding to execution, from the fury of the populace; his remains, instead of being burnt pursuant to his sentence, were seized by the crowd and torn to pieces; even the peasants of the neighborhood carried off portions of them to burn in their villages. The Sorbonne, at the instance of the Parliament of Paris, issued a decree condemning the principles from which the assassination had proceeded, and the Parliament itself ordered the book of Mariana, in which that Jesuit sanctions regicide, to be burnt.

Mary de' Medici had stolen a march upon the Princes of the blood, whose characters did not render them very formidable. Condé, as we have seen, was absent in Italy; of his two uncles, one, the Prince of Conti, was almost imbecile, the other, the Count of Soissons, who had absented himself from Court, was entirely venal. He arrived in Paris on the 17th of May, but abandoned all his pretensions for a sum of 200,000 crowns and an annual pension of 50,000. Henry of Condé, first Prince of the blood, was, as already related, in a state of rebellion against Henry IV; but he protested his devotion to the young King, and finding that he should be well received, returned to Paris in the middle of July, when most of the nobility, who were disgusted with the conduct of Concini, and other rapacious favorites by whom the Queen was surrounded, went out to meet and welcome him; and he entered the capital at the head of 1,500 gentlemen. But Condé was as venal as his uncle. At his first interview with the Queen, Mary was all grace, the Prince all submission. The treasure amassed by Henry IV in the Bastille for his projected war supplied Mary with unlimited means of seduction, and the County of Clermont, a pension of 200,000 livres, the Hotel Gondi, with 30,000 crowns to furnish it, together with a seat in the Council, converted Condé from a rival into a subject. The Queen also gained the leading nobles by giving them pensions and governments; the people by remitting several unpopular ordinances and taxes; the Huguenots by confirming the Edict of Nantes. Her new situation seemed to have roused a fresh spirit in her. She was up at sunrise to receive her privy council; she devoted the whole morning to business; after dinner she admitted to an audience all who demanded it; and in the evening she discussed her affairs with confidential friends.

But there was one man who was not to be gained. Sully viewed with aversion both the domestic and foreign policy of Mary, so contrary to all his former projects. He resolved to retire, and in October, during the sacre of Louis XIII at Rheims, he obtained leave to visit his estates, and set off with a determination never to return. His administrative talents were soon missed; nothing went right in his absence; and, at the pressing solicitation of Mary and her ministers, he again returned to the helm. He was now about fifty years of age, in the full maturity of his powers, and ambitious to employ his talents in those schemes for the benefit of France which had so long engrossed his attention; but he met with a furious opposition from the rapacious courtiers and nobles; his life was even threatened, and in January, 1611, he found himself compelled finally to relinquish office. From this time till his death in 1641, at the age of eighty-one, his life was passed in retirement on his estates of Rosni, Boisbelle, Sully, and Villebon; and it was reserved for him, at length, to see his plans realized in part by Richelieu.

Except in one point the policy of Henry IV and his great minister was entirely abandoned. The Queen had always favored a Spanish alliance, and particularly desired the Spanish match proposed during the lifetime of her husband, in which views she was supported by Concini, his wife La Galigaï, and the Duke of Epernon. Even the ministers Sillery, Villeroi, and Jeannin were for conciliating Spain; but at the same time they recommended that the alliances with Great Britain, the United Provinces, the German Protestant Princes, and the Turks should be confirmed; and though three-fourths of the army of Champagne were disbanded, they persuaded the Council, in spite of the opposition of the Jesuits, that the treaty of Hall should be carried out. It was a sort of compromise between the parties, and the last concession to the policy of Henry IV.

The Bishop and Archduke Leopold had already begun to think of treating for the surrender of Jülich, when the news of Henry IV's assassination determined him to a vigorous resistance; and Rauschenberger, his commandant in that city, had succeeded in defending it not only against the two German Princes, but also against Maurice of Nassau, who had appeared before it in the last week in July. In August, however, the besieging forces were joined by some 14,000 French, under the Marshal de la Châtre, with the Duke of Rohan for his lieutenant, and on the first of September Rauschenberger found it necessary to capitulate. A Prince of the House of Brandenburg now obtained the government of Jülich and its territory, although the Emperor Rodolph had, in June, formally invested with it Christian II, Elector of Saxony. The Archduke Leopold continued to maintain some troops in Alsace, which committed terrible disorders, till the Union sent an army against him, compelled him to dismiss his troops and enter into the treaty of Willstatt. The Elector Palatine, Frederick IV, one of the chief leaders of the Protestant Union, died in September, 1610, leaving by his will the Duke of Zweibrücken (Deux-Ponts), a Calvinist, the guardian of his minor son, Frederick V; although the Palsgrave of Neuburg, a Lutheran, was his nearest kinsman. The Duke of Zweibrücken now became a director of the Union.

Alliance between France and Spain

The politics of the French Court now underwent a complete change. The idea began to spread that the union of France and Spain, the two greatest monarchies of Europe, was necessary to the peace and happiness of Christendom; though Mary de' Medici, in adopting it, was guided principally by considerations of domestic policy. She was alarmed at the conduct of the Prince of Condé, who held several governments in France, and who had strengthened himself by connections with some of the chief nobles; as his uncle Soissons, the Duke of Nevers, Lesdiguières, Count Bucquoi, and others, and especially the Duke of Bouillon and his party. Condé wanted to obtain the chief voice in the executive as well as in the Council, and the promise of the constableship on the next vacancy; but he cloaked his personal ambition by making demands for what seemed the public good. The Queen preserved awhile the peace of France by conciliating Condé and the disaffected nobles by large gifts, governments, and pensions. The Huguenots had also begun to stir, whom it was not possible thus to conciliate. They still formed a very formidable power in the State. At the beginning of the century they possessed 760 parish churches, and about 200 fortified towns; they counted in their ranks 4,000 of the nobility, and could easily bring into the field an army of 25,000 men. They demanded to hold their assemblies, as in the time of Henry IV, threatening to do so without leave if permission were not granted; and in the summer of 1611 they had a stormy meeting at Saumur. All these things were motives with the Queen for pressing the alliance with Spain. The Spanish Court was also anxious for it; and the Duke of Feria had been dispatched to Paris with the friendly message that all grounds for hostility had vanished on the death of Henrv IV. The negotiations for the marriages between Louis XIII and Dona Anne, the eldest Infanta of Spain, and between Louis’s eldest sister, Elizabeth of France, and Don Philip, Prince of the Asturias, were not, however, brought to a conclusion till August, 1612. In these contracts, Don Philip renounced all future pretensions to the French Crown, and Dona Anne gave up all claim to the Spanish inheritance. With the marriage treaties another was also arranged by which each government engaged not to support, either directly or indirectly, the rebellious subjects of the other: a point of great importance to France, but of very little moment to Spain since the conclusion of the truce with Holland. The alliance of the two leading Catholic Powers was welcome to the clergy, and especially to the Pope, who did all he could to promote it. He hoped to derive advantage from it not only with regard to the Protestants, but also the Gallican Church: for the peace of Christendom, as it was called by the contracting Powers, concerned only that of the Catholic world.

The Spanish marriages furnished materials for complaint and sedition to the malcontent French Princes. In 1614, Condé, Mayenne, Nevers, Bouillon, and other nobles attempted an absurd revolt, which was soon put down, and terminated by the peace of Ste. Menehould, May 15th. In one of the articles, Condé insisted upon the convocation of the Etats-Généraux; which the Queen accordingly assembled at Paris in the following October, although the Prince secretly let her know that he was not in earnest in the matter. This assembly of the States-General is chiefly remarkable as being the last under the French monarchy before 1789. It ended in the dismissal of the Tiers Etat (March, 1615); their chamber was locked up, and they were forbidden again to meet. Their next assembly, in 1789, was the beginning of the downfall of the French monarchy. The Etats of 1614 are also memorable as being the first occasion on which Richelieu appeared in public life. Although not yet thirty years of age, he was already so distinguished by his talents that he was elected spokesman of the clergy; and he displayed in that capacity, by his masculine eloquence, the genius which was to wield for a period the destinies of France.

Richelieu.

Armand Jean du Plessis, the third son of a gentleman of Poitou, who, besides the estate of Plessis, in that province, also inherited the lordships of Richelieu, Beçay and Chillou, was born at Paris, September 5th, 1585. His father had been a captain in Henry IV's guard, and Armand also chose the military profession; with which view he acquired all the accomplishments of a cavalier, and especially a skill in horse­manship, on which he piqued himself through life. But the family was in straitened circumstances. Henry IV, who loved to reward his old servants, had indeed bestowed on the eldest brother a pension of 1,200 crowns, and on Alphonse the second, the bishopric of Luçon, besides other preferments. But Alphonse, a prey to religious fanaticism, soon resolved to resign his bishopric, and turn Carthusian; and the family, unwilling to see that valuable preferment pass from their hands, procured from the Court the nomination of Armand to the see in place of his brother. Armand, with the energy natural to his character, resolved to qualify himself for his new career; and, shutting himself up in a country house, near Paris, with a doctor of Louvain, he devoted himself for a year or two to the study of theology with an application which is said to have injured his health.

Nevertheless Richelieu entered on his episcopal functions at the early age of twenty-one, after making a journey to Rome for his consecration (April, 1607), where he is said to have charmed Pope Paul V by an elegant Latin oration. After his return to France he appears to have applied himself with some diligence to his episcopal duties, though he paid occasional visits to the Court. He was elected to represent the clergy of Poitou, Fontenai, and Niort, in the States-General; and the speech which he delivered as the organ of the priesthood laid the foundation of his political fortune. To a modern reader, indeed, it may appear somewhat prolix and old-fashioned; but on the whole it marks an era in the progress of French eloquence, especially by the absence of the tedious display of erudition then in vogue. In an eloquent passage he vehemently denounced the exclusion of the clergy from all share in the government; and complained that so debased was the Gallican Church that it seemed as if the honor of serving God rendered its priests unfit to serve the King, His image upon earth. He concluded his speech with some compliments to the Queen, and by expressing a wish to see the Spanish marriages accomplished. After the close of the assembly he did not return to his diocese, but remained at Paris, in the hope, apparently, of obtaining such employment as he had hinted at; but he had yet to wait a year or two for the attainment of his object.

Louis XIII.

Just before the meeting of the States-General, Louis XIII, who had entered his fourteenth year, September 27th, had been declared major; a step by which Mary de' Medici, in losing the title of Regent, only fixed her power on a firmer basis, so long as the King, still by nature a minor, continued to be obedient to her counsels. In order to effect the Spanish marriages as speedily as possible, she arranged a journey into Guienne, when the French and Spanish princesses were to be exchanged. On the 9th of August, 1615, Condé published a hostile manifesto, demanding the postponement of the marriages till the King was really of marriageable years; and being supported by several of the nobles, as well as by the Huguenots, then holding their triennial assembly at Grenoble, he began to levy soldiers. The Parliament of Paris, aware of the support which they might expect from Condé's faction, had also displayed the most refractory symptoms; they had addressed the Queen in a violent remonstrance, and in particular they had complained of the employment in high offices of certain persons, whom they did not name, some of whom were foreigners; but Condé supplied the omission by naming the Marshal d'Ancre, the Chancellor, and two or three others. Concini, Mary's brilliant favorite, although he had never borne arms, had been dignified in November, 1613, with the bâton, and the title of Marshal d'Ancre. Vain, presumptuous, devoid of ability, Concini had by his insolence incurred the hatred of all, and especially of the lawyers of the Parliament. He had insulted that assembly by keeping on his hat; and he had incurred the rebuke of the venerable President Harlai, in the Lit de Justice held after the assassination of Henry IV, by directing in a loud voice the proceedings of the Queen. Alarmed by the denunciations of the Parliament, backed as they were by Condé, Marshal d'Ancre and his wife implored the Queen to postpone her intended journey; but Mary on this occasion, contrary to her usual custom, displayed considerable ill-humour towards her favorite; bade him repair to his government of Picardy, to maintain there the royal authority; and ordered various measures to be adopted against the attempts of Condé and his confederates. She then took the road to Bordeaux with the King and Court, escorted by a military force under the Dukes of Guise and Epernon. Condé and his confederates set off with some 5,000 or 6,000 men; and the Duke of Rohan, with the same view, took the command of the Huguenot forces in Guienne. But Rohan had been deceived as to their real strength; he was not able to obstruct the Queen's passage; the road to Spain was open, and the double marriage was celebrated by proxy at Bordeaux and Burgos, October 18th. The two princesses were exchanged at Hendaye, on the Bidasoa, November 9th. Guise, at the head of 5,000 men, conducted the new Queen of France to Bordeaux, and on the 25th of November, the union of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria—strange mixture of the blood of Henry IV and Philip II—was solemnized in the cathedral of that city by the Bishop of Saintes. The principal subject of contention being thus at an end, an accommodation was soon afterwards effected with the malcontents, by the treaty of Loudun, May 3rd, 1616. By a supplementary article, one and a half million livres were assigned to Conde for the expenses of the war, and the other Princes received in proportion. The rights and privileges of the Huguenots were confirmed.

After this peace Richelieu was employed by the Queen-Mother in conducting some negotiations with Condé, whom the Court wished to gain over, and to convert into a mediator with the great nobles. Richelieu had now obtained through the interest of Leonora Galigaï, the wife of Marshal d'Ancre, the place of first-almoner to the Queen-regnant, Anne of Austria, an office of no political importance, but which he afterwards sold for a considerable sum. Soon afterwards he was also made a Conseiller d'Etat. He discharged his mission to Condé with success, and persuaded that Prince, who was residing in jealous retirement in Berri, to come to Paris. In November, 1616, the Bishop of Luçon was named ambassador-extraordinary to Spain, on the subject of some differences which had arisen between Spain and the Duke of Savoy. His effects were already packed up, when a change having occurred in the French ministry by the dismissal of Du Vair, the Keeper of the Seals, Richelieu was appointed a secretary of state in the place of Mangot, promoted to the seals. He marked his entrance upon office by asserting the pre-eminence of the Church, and demanded a special brevet, giving him, though a younger man, precedence over the other members of the council. Villeroi, compelled to cede to him the post of first secretary, retired, though still retaining the emoluments belonging to that dignity. Richelieu obtained his promotion through the favour of Marshal d'Ancre and his wife. Thus Richelieu began his political career as the devoted servant of the Queen-Mother, and the instrument of her Spanish policy; a course directly opposed to his subsequent views after he had obtained the entire management of the affairs of France.

Arrest of Condé

Richelieu's patron already stood on the brink of a precipice. Several of the great nobles, at the head of whom were Mayenne and Bouillon, had conspired to take Concini’s life, and they had induced Condé to join them. The French nobility had much degenerated. The leagues and revolts of the preceding century had, by profession at least, been for great principles, contended for in the open field; they were now miserable intrigues for the sole object of personal aggrandizement. The first princes of the land were ready to sacrifice their principles, and even their ambition, for a sum of money or a government; and now they were leagued together to murder a foreigner whose greatest crime was that he intercepted some of those emoluments and honors which they coveted for themselves. Condé, however, had neither the firmness nor the discretion necessary for a conspirator; he secretly let Concini know that he could protect him no longer, and both the Marshal and his wife set off for Caen. But though Condé spared the favorite, he only pushed with more vigor the plans which he had formed against the Queen and government. His return had been hailed by the Parisians with a loudness of acclamation which had excited the jealousy of the Court. He seemed to partake, and even to eclipse, the authority of the Queen. He was assiduous at the Council, of which, by the treaty of Loudun, he was the head; the finances were abandoned to his direction; no ordinance was issued without his signature; and while the Louvre was deserted, such were the crowds that resorted to his hotel that it was difficult to approach the gates. He treated the Queen-Mother with an insolence which completely alienated her. He attempted to win the populace, to gain over the guilds, as well as the colonels and captains of quarters, and to animate the pulpits against the government; and as all his conduct seemed to indicate that he aimed at nothing less than seizing the supreme power, and perhaps even the throne itself, Mary, by the advice of her ministers, resolved on arresting him; which was accordingly effected. Being sent to the Bastille, he betrayed the meanest pusillanimity, and offered to reveal all the plots of his accomplices; who, on the first notice of the Prince's capture, had fled from Paris. Condé's mother, proceeding on foot to the Pont Notre-Dame, exclaimed that Marshal d'Ancre had murdered her son, and called on the populace to avenge her. The mob gazed with astonishment and pity on so strange a sight; and Picard, a little, red-haired, grey-eyed shoemaker, the demagogue of Paris, who had had a mortal quarrel with Concini, seized the moment to lead them to the hotels of the marshal and his secretary, Corbinelli, which were plundered and destroyed. Meanwhile the Duke of Nevers was meditating open force, and Mayenne and Bouillon were preparing to join him. Concini trembled in the midst of his enormous wealth, and thought of securing it by retiring to Italy; but from this project he was diverted by his wife; and when the confusion and astonishment created by the arrest of Condé had somewhat subsided, he took heart and returned to Paris. After all it was not by the disaffected nobles that he was to be overthrown, but by a domestic revolution in the palace.

Louis XIII, now in his sixteenth year, was beginning to act for himself. As a child he had been sullen and refractory; as a youth he grew up dissembling, distrustful, and melancholy. His features were handsome, but the expression of his countenance was at once harsh and irresolute; his eyes and hair were black, his countenance tawny as a Spaniard's, but without the vivacity of the south. He neither loved literature, nor play, nor wine, nor the society of ladies; art touched him somewhat more, especially music. He had shown some ability in the mathematical and mechanical sciences, and had early become a good artilleryman and engineer. Although of an unsound constitution, he was not deficient in bodily strength and activity, and hunting and hawking were his favorite diversions. He blew the horn himself; he knew the names of all his hounds; it was his supreme delight to see the pack assemble before him, or to watch his falcons soar into the air and swoop on the scared and fluttering birds which sought refuge in the trees or under the battlements. Observing his passion for fowling, M. de Souvre, his governor, had placed about him a person particularly skilled in that pastime; a gentleman about thirty years of age, the illegitimate son or grandson of a canon of Marseilles and an Italian woman who claimed to belong to the Florentine family of the Alberti. Hence the Bang's falconer called himself Charles d'Albert, and from a small property on the Rhone, Sieur de Luynes. Two younger brothers bore the names of Brantes and Cadenet, from two lordships of such slender dimensions that a hare, says Bassompierre, could leap over them; nor was the nobility of these three Provençal brothers very magnificently supported by a pension of 1,200 crowns which Henry IV had settled on the eldest, who shared it with his brothers.

Luynes seemed dull and harmless enough, with no ideas beyond his birds; and Concini had not only tolerated him, but even procured for him the government of Amboise. Louis, however, having on the occasion of his marriage employed Luynes to compliment his young Queen Anne at Bayonne, the marshal conceived a jealousy of the falconer; and on the return of the Court to Paris in May, 1616, he took no pains to conceal his enmity. From this time Luynes used every endeavor to incite the King both against his mother and the Concini; he sought friends on every side; he made an offer to the Spanish ambassador to sell himself for a pension; he entered into correspondence with the malcontent princes, and courted the friendship of Richelieu. This minister had not answered the marshal's expectations. In placing the bishop in office, Concini had expected to find him a sort of humble clerk, the subservient tool of all his wishes. But Richelieu was made of other materials, and was resolved to act for himself. It is probable that the sagacious bishop perceived Concini to be tottering to his fall; it is certain that a violent quarrel took place between them, and the marshal addressed to Richelieu a letter, displaying all the rage of a madman. The bishop, however, had no concern in Concini's death; the blow came from Luynes alone. That favorite even suspected that Richelieu and his fellow-secretary Barbin, were in a plot against him with Concini; and to avert the apprehended storm, Luynes had proposed to marry one of the marshal's nieces at Florence; but Leonora would not give her consent. This refusal cost her and Concini their lives. Luynes now redoubled his machinations against the marshal. He represented him as meditating rebellion, and with that view raising an army in Normandy and Flanders; he denounced him as consulting astrologers respecting the King's life. He also poisoned the mind of Louis against his mother, by painting in vivid colors the insupportable dominion she would obtain over him after she had reduced the rebel nobles; nay, he even revived the old Huguenot tales about Catharine de' Medici having killed her children in order to prolong her power; and he pointed out that Mary, like Catharine, was surrounded by Italians, poisoners, and magicians.

Luynes succeeded by his artifices in persuading the King to consent to Marshal d'Ancre's arrest; his assassination, which Luynes had also proposed, Louis would not sanction, except in case he should resist; under the circumstances a mere salvo for the King's conscience. The execution of this enterprise Luynes entrusted to the Marquis of Vitry, captain of the guards, a resolute man, and an enemy of the marshal's. Vitry was directed to proceed at night to a certain spot, where he would meet some persons who would communicate to him the wishes of the King. Great was Vitry's surprise to find at the appointed rendezvous, Tronçon and Marsillac, creatures of Luynes, together with Deageant, a fraudulent clerk of the secretary Barbin, and a gardener employed at the Tuileries. But Vitry had gone too far to recede, and was induced by the prospect of a great reward to undertake an act which he must have been conscious would result in murder.

Concini occupied a small hotel at the corner of the Louvre towards the Seine, near the Queen's apartments, to which there was a bridge, called by the people "Le Pont d'Amour". On the morning of April 24th, 1617, the marshal, accompanied by some fifty of his friends and servants, was proceeding to his wife's apartments in the palace, to wait as usual for the Queen's rising. He had reached the middle of the drawbridge over the fosse of the Louvre, when Vitry, who was accompanied by some twenty gentlemen, seized him by the arm, exclaiming that he arrested him in the King's name. Concini laid his hand on his sword, but immediately fell, pierced by three pistol bullets. Louis, trembling and anxious, was awaiting the result of the enterprise, when Colonel d'Ornano, in breathless haste, informed him of Concini's death. Then Louis, seizing a sword and carbine, presented himself at a window, exclaiming, "Thank you, my friends; I am now a King!"

One of the first acts of the King was to recall his father's old ministers, except the greatest of them all, the Duke of Sully. Luynes was for the time all powerful, and many changes were made. Richelieu's office was now occupied by Villeroi; and of his two colleagues, Mangot was dismissed and Barbin arrested. Thus ended Richelieu's first ministry, after it had lasted about seven months. On the day of Concini's assassination he had sent a message to the Queen-Mother to assure her of his devotion, and during the next few years he attached himself to her fortunes. The revolt of the princes and nobles was terminated by the death of Marshal d'Ancre, and they were pardoned a rebellion which was ascribed to his tyranny. Condé, however, was not released, but was transferred from the Bastille to Vincennes. Louis XIII bore a great antipathy to his cousin; it would not have been convenient for a third to share the government with the King and his falconer; and the Prince's former friends troubled not themselves about his fate. Mary de' Medici was banished to Blois.

The Parliament of Paris gave their formal sanction to the murder of Concini, which, indeed, was acceptable to all parties; his possessions were confiscated in favour of Luynes; and a criminal prosecution was instituted against the marshal's wife, La Galigaï; the principal charge against her being the wealth which she had accumulated by selling the royal favour. She was condemned to death, and showed unexpected courage when taken to execution.

The first acts of Louis XIII's government were sufficiently popular. France intervened between Spain and Savoy; a French army under Lesdiguières appeared in Piedmont; the Spanish Court, occupied with the affairs of Germany, hastened to renew a peace; a disarmament was agreed on between Milan and Savoy, and the places taken were restored on both sides. Christina of France, the King's second sister, was given in marriage to the Prince of Piedmont. This policy had been chalked out by Richelieu, but Luynes obtained the credit of it. The first care of this favorite was to push his own fortune. He had recently married Mary de Rohan, daughter of the Duke of Montbazon, known by her genius for intrigue. Luynes put the Queen-Mother under military surveillance at Blois, and surrounded her with spies, who reported all her words and actions. It must be confessed that Richelieu seems to have been little better than one of these. He had procured a written leave to accompany the Queen; he would not accept the post of chief of her council till he had obtained permission from Paris; and during the month which he passed with Mary at Blois, he rendered to Luynes from time to time an exact account of her proceedings. But all this circumspection did not save him from suspicion. He received a hint from the King that he would do well to retire to his diocese, and in April, 1618, he was directed to take up his residence at Avignon. The Queen-Mother was treated with the greatest indignity. Blois was surrounded with troops; and she could receive no visitors without express permission. Luynes and the King talked of shutting her up in the Castle of Amboise, or even forcing her into a convent. Mary resolved on making her escape; and by means of the Abbé Rucellai, an intriguing Italian and a priest of the Oratory, she persuaded the Duke of Epemon to help her in her design. On the night of the 22nd of February, 1619, the Queen descended a rope-ladder from a window of the castle and escaped to Loches, a town of which Epernon was commandant. Here she wrote a letter to the King to justify the step which she had taken, and on the following day she proceeded to Angoulême. The Court was filled with consternation. In their alarm, the King and Luynes lent a ready ear to the counsels of Father Joseph, a Capuchin friar, the devoted friend of the Bishop of Luçon; who advised them that the best way to appease the Queen and prevent her from adopting violent courses, would be to dispatch Richelieu to treat with and pacify her. Du Tremblai, Father Joseph's brother, was accordingly sent to Avignon, with the King's autograph letter to Richelieu, in treating him to repair to Angoulême; and he immediately set off for that place. Richelieu exhorted the Queen to moderation; in April an accommodation was effected which placed Mary in a much more favorable position, and in the following August the King met his mother at Tours, when a cordial reconciliation seemed to be established.

Disgrace of the Duke of Lerma

The government of Luynes was as favorable to both branches of the House of Austria, and consequently to political and religious despotism, as that of the Queen-Mother could have been. In Spain, the fall of the Duke of Lerma had astonished all Europe (1618). To defend himself against the jealousy and hatred of the nobles, Lerma had procured from the Pope a Cardinal's hat, which in case of extremity would insure him a retreat at Rome; and as another resource he had surrounded the King with persons whose fortunes depended on his own, such as his son the Duke of Uzeda. But Uzeda repaid his father with the basest ingratitude, and at the head of a party of the nobles began to conspire his ruin. Complaints were made against Lerma's government; the King's confidence in him was alienated, and his friends and partisans were dismissed from Court. Lerma, however, still clung to office till Philip sent him an autograph letter of dismissal. Uzeda succeeded to most of his father's places, and conducted the government during the last years of Philip III's reign; to whom he rendered himself agreeable by diverting his melancholy with fêtes, processions, tournaments, and bull-fights.

Venice preserved.

Luynes courted the favour of the Spanish Court by denouncing to it the plot of the Duke of Osuna, Viceroy of Naples, to seize the Two Sicilies, and thus lost the opportunity of delivering Italy from the Spanish yoke. After the overthrow of the Duke of Lerma's ministry in Spain, Osuna, fearing that he should be recalled by the new government, formed the design of making himself King of Naples and Sicily, and with that view entered into negotiations with the French Court and with the Duke of Savoy. Luynes at first entertained the project, but changed his mind and acquainted the Spanish cabinet with it; Osuna was recalled and arrested, and languished in prison the remainder of his life. A little before, Osuna, together with Don Pedro de Toledo, Governor of Milan, and the Marquis of Bedmar, had been engaged in a conspiracy to bring Venice into the power of the Spanish Crown; for which purpose Osuna hired, as his principal agent, Jacques Pierre, a celebrated French pirate. In August, 1617, Pierre proceeded to Venice, and pretending to have had a quarrel with Osuna, induced the Venetians, by the vehement hatred which he displayed against the Viceroy, to give him a command in their navy. Another Frenchman, Renault de Nevers, also took an active part in the plot; and in nocturnal interviews with Bedmar, the Spanish ambassador at Venice, they arranged all their proceedings. Osuna was to dispatch a fleet from Naples, commanded by one Elliott, an Englishman, while the Governor of Milan was to assemble his forces on the Venetian frontier. But the execution of the plot was delayed by a violent storm, which dispersed the Spanish fleet; and, meanwhile, some of the conspirators, and especially one Jaffier, warned the Signory of their danger. Many persons were in consequence apprehended, and more than fifty quietly put to death.

The period was now arrived which was to desolate Germany thirty years by a war carried on in the name of religion. The policy of the French Court assisted the initiation of that tremendous effort of bigotry and despotism. Characters like William the Silent and Henry IV still formed rare exceptions amidst the general reign of intolerance; nor must the reproach be confined exclusively to the Catholics. "We have already adverted to the bigotry displayed by the Saxon Lutherans; it found its counterpart among the Calvinists of Holland; where, stimulated by political rancour, it gave rise to the worst excesses. Among the divines of that country had arisen Arminius (Jacob Harmensen), who had dared to question the doctrine of predestination. A storm of reprobation arose against Arminius, who died in 1609. His tenets had prevailed in the University of Leyden, and had been adopted by most of the higher and educated class, and among them by Olden Barneveldt, the illustrious Advocate of Holland, and Hugo Grotius; but by the populace they were viewed with a fanatical abhorrence, fanned and excited by the rigid Calvinist clergy. The latter party, from one of their chief divines named Gomarus, obtained the name of Gomarists, while their opponents were called Arminians; and subsequently, from a paper which they addressed to the States of Holland in 1610, Remonstrants.

The storm first broke upon the head of Vorstius, the successor at Leyden to the chair of Arminius, who, at the instigation of James I, was driven from Holland, but escaped with his life; though the royal theologian had charitably hinted to the States, that never heretic better deserved the flames. Barneveldt was not so fortunate, to whose fate political rancour likewise contributed. For it was not only a theological question, but also a political one, as it involved the point whether the State should govern the Church, or the Church the State. In accordance with the doctrine of Erastianism, or the supremacy of the civil magistrate in matters of religion, the Arminian magistrates of Holland, Overyssel, and Utrecht proceeded to control the excesses of the Gomarists and to make some changes in the mode of nominating the pastors. This excited the anger of the Stadholder, Maurice of Nassau; who had long entertained a secret hatred of Barneveldt for having thwarted him in his ambitious designs to seize the sovereignty. They had continued to be opposed to each other even after the conclusion of the Spanish truce, and especially on the subject of an alteration which Prince Maurice wished to make in the constitution. The government of the United Provinces was vested in the States-General, which consisted of deputies from all the provinces assembled at the Hague, under the presidency of the Stadholder. The number of deputies which each province sent to the States-General was undefined, and indeed immaterial, as every province had only a single vote. The States-General had no power to make laws for the separate provinces, which were governed by their own; but they determined all those questions which concerned the general interests of the confederacy. In this assembly Olden Barneveldt had great influence. By virtue of his office of Advocate of Holland he was a constant member of it; he had a right to propose subjects for deliberation; and, as Holland paid more than half the taxes raised for the Republic, his voice had of course great weight. In order to obtain a more unrestricted power, Maurice had proposed that the States-General should only have a voice respecting peace and war, and that all other affairs should be conducted by a Council of State, of which he himself should be the president; but Barneveldt had frustrated this design. These and other things of the like kind had embittered Maurice against the Advocate, and the religious disputes seemed to offer an opportunity of revenge. Barneveldt was the head of the Remonstrants, Maurice of the Counter-remonstrants, and there was a struggle between the two parties for the possession of the churches. It became evident that the dispute must be decided by force. The Gomarists had proposed a national synod to settle the religious question; but Barneveldt persuaded the States of Holland to reject it, and to authorize the governors of cities to enroll soldiers for the preservation of the peace. In case of complaints arising therefrom, the States of Holland alone were to be appealed to Prince Maurice and his family were to be requested to support this decision, which obtained the name of the "Sharp Resolve." The dispute was now evidently reduced to the question whether, in the last resort, the authority lay with the States or the Stadholder—a point which the constitution does not appear to have determined.

Synod of Dort

Maurice had gained several of the provinces, and had also with him the clergy, the army, and the mob; and, in spite of the opposition of the Arminian provinces (Holland, Utrecht, and Overyssel), a synod was summoned at Dort. Before it met, Barneveldt, Grotius, and a few more Arminians, were illegally arrested at the Hague on the sole authority of the Stadholder, and all the Arminian magistrates were arbitrarily deposed (August, 1618). All the reformed Churches in Europe had been invited to send deputies to the synod of Dort, which was attended by English, German, and Swiss ministers. By this assembly the Arminians were condemned without a hearing; 200 of their pastors were deposed and 80 of them banished (May, 1619); but such a victory was not enough for Maurice, who thirsted after Barneveldt's blood. He and Grotius were arraigned before a tribunal composed of their personal enemies or the most virulent of the Gomarists. There was no categorical indictment against Barneveldt; no counsel was employed on either side, nor were any witnesses called. One of the most serious charges against him was that he had received bribes from Spain. The civil dissensions in the Netherlands had inspired that Power with the hope of recovering those provinces, but there was not a shadow of proof that he was implicated in the scheme. He was also charged with damaging the Prince's character by declaring that he aspired to the sovereignty. Barneveldt, who had done more than any man, except perhaps William the Silent, to found the liberties of his country, was condemned to death, chiefly on the charge of having intended to betray it. The verdict pronounced against him was, in substance, that he had deserved death for having sought to dissolve the union between the provinces, and because he had vexed the Church of God, by asserting that each province had the right to order its own religious constitution; also because he had hindered the exercise of true religion, raised troops of his own power, hindered the execution of sentences pronounced by courts of justice, and accepted presents from foreign Powers. It was a judicial murder. Maurice, who had the prerogative of mercy, insisted that the venerable statesman and patriot should solicit him for a pardon; but to this Barneveldt would not condescend. He was beheaded May 13th, 1619. Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment; but escaped in 1621 through the devotion of his wife, and took refuge at Paris, where he composed his famous work on international law (De jure belli et pacis).

Retrospect of German History

In Germany the persecutors and the persecuted were more evenly matched, and the struggle could not be decided without a long and almost internecine war, in which most of the European Powers became involved. But in order to understand the state of parties in that country, and the causes which immediately led to the Thirty Years' War, it will be necessary to resume from an earlier period a brief view of German history.

It was soon discovered that the Emperor Rodolph intended not to observe the Majestats-Brief, or Royal Charter to the Bohemians, which had been extorted from him; and that he was endeavoring to deprive his brother Matthias of the succession to the Crown of Bohemia. Nothing could be more wretched than Rodolph’s administration. He was surrounded at Prague by painters, and alchemists; ambassadors or councillors who attempted to consult him on business could not obtain an audience for months; all offices were sold, but the purchasers were soon turned out to make room for other buyers; and the conduct of affairs was left in the hands of a vice-chancellor and a corrupt secretary. After much negotiation between Rodolph and his brother Matthias, matters were at length brought to a crisis between them by the proceedings of the Archduke Leopold, who, after being driven from Alsace, had marched his troops into his Bishopric of Passau, where they subsisted by plundering all around, and especially by robbing merchants on their way to Linz. Leopold kept these troops together on pretense of the affair of Jülich; but their true destination, as Matthias well knew, was to wrest Austria and Moravia from him, and afterwards Bohemia from the Emperor Rodolph. At last, in December, 1610, the Bishopric of Passau being exhausted, a large body of these mercenaries crossed the Danube into Upper Austria, committing acts of violence, robbery, and devastation. On Matthias preparing to march against them from Vienna, Leopold threw off the mask, and proceeded with his hordes to Prague, where, contrary to the wish of the citizens, they were admitted by Rodolph. During the two or three months that they held possession of Prague, they treated it like a town taken by assault; but on the approach of Matthias and his army, in March, 1611, they deemed it prudent to withdraw to Budweis. Rodolph now became a sort of prisoner of the Bohemian provisional government, consisting, as we have said, of thirty Directors, ten from each estate, to which had been added a council of nine, three from each estate, chosen by the people as their representatives. Count Thurn, one of the leaders of the patriot party, took possession of the castle with his forces, telling the Emperor that he had come to guard him. Rodolph sent a humble message to his brother, offering him lodgings in the castle; to which Matthias, or rather his minister, Cardinal Klesel, replied, that he had been invited to Prague by the States, but that he would always behave like a faithful brother. Matthias entered that capital in great pomp, March 24th. The reign of Rodolph in Bohemia was now, of course, at an end. The States assembled on the 11th of April, and demanded of Rodolph to be released from their allegiance; but they also required from Matthias that on receiving the Crown he should confirm all their rights and liberties. Rodolph resigned with reluctance a power which he had not known how to use, and, from a window that looked out upon the town, uttered a solemn curse on Prague and all Bohemia. Matthias took possession of the Hradschin, and on the 23rd of May received the crown and the homage of the Bohemians; recognizing, however, their right to elect their Kings, and engaging to observe the charter granted by Rodolph. Matthias remained in Prague till near the end of August without having once seen his brother; and on his return to Vienna he married his cousin Anne, daughter of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. He was now fifty-five years of age.

Matthias Emperor.

Rodolph, whose derangement had rendered his deposition necessary, did not long survive these transactions; he died January 20th, 1612, and, in the following June, Matthias was elected Emperor in his place. The Protestant cause gained little by the change. Matthias was almost as incompetent as his brother; and, if Rodolph was governed by Spaniards and Jesuits, Matthias was led by Klesel and other fanatical opponents of toleration. The beginning of his reign was marked by fresh religious disturbances in Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary; while the matter of Jülich still afforded the most dangerous materials for dissension. The Elector of Brandenburg, on the death, in 1613, of his brother, the Margrave Ernest of Brandenburg, who governed Jülich for both the "Princes in possession", placed the government of it in the hands of his own son, George William. This arrangement was by no means satisfactory to the Palsgrave of Neuburg and his son, Wolfgang; and the latter now took a step unexpected even by his father. The Palsgrave had consented to the marriage of his son, whom he deemed to be still a Protestant, with Magdalen, a younger sister of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria; but Wolfgang, as the Pope knew, had already secretly gone over to the Roman Catholic faith; and he therefore readily granted a dispensation for the marriage, which was necessary, not only on account of kinship, but also of the presumed heresy of the bridegroom. The marriage was celebrated at Munich in November, 1613, and, of course, created an open enmity between the Neuburg and Brandenburg families.

In the spring of 1614, Wolfgang occupied Dusseldorf, drove out the officers of the Brandenburg government, and seized as many other places as he could; then, after a well-acted comedy of conversion, he publicly embraced the Roman Catholic faith. About the same time, John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, also changed his religion, and from a zealous Lutheran became a Calvinist. Previously to these events, Frederick V, the young Elector Palatine, had been betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of our James I, and, in 1612, the wedding was celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in London. In honor of the nuptials, Jonson and Davenant wrote masques, which were set to music by Lawes; while Inigo Jones, assisted by the most eminent painters, contrived the scenery. Frederick's guardian, John EE., Duke of Zweibrücken, had made an alliance with England in the name of the German Protestant Union, of which he was director; and also, in the same capacity, negotiated a treaty with the Dutch Republic for a term of fifteen years, which was signed at the Hague in May, 1613.

Of the two great parties into which at this time we find state of Germany divided, namely, that of the Protestant Union and that of the Catholic League, the former, consisting of Calvinistic Princes and States, was incontestably the more powerful, and formed a kind of state within the state. Besides the English and Dutch alliances, it counted on the support of Venice and the Swiss reformed Cantons; and a meeting of its members at Rothenburg, in 1611, had not only been attended by ambassadors from these countries, and from Holland, but also by envoys from the Emperor Rodolph, as well as from the malcontent members of his family. On the other hand, the power of the Catholic League was paralyzed at that period by the quarrels of the Imperial house, and by the dissensions between Maximilian of Bavaria and the Archbishop of Salzburg, as well as by a sort of schism of the spiritual Electors, who established a Rhenish section of the League, of which they made the Elector of Mainz director. Maximilian of Bavaria, indeed, had been on the point of abandoning the League altogether, when, in 1613, the dissensions in Jülich already mentioned, an insurrection of the Protestants in Austria, and a correspondence between Matthias's minister Klesel and the Elector of Mainz, induced him to revive it. Maximilian regarded the government of Matthias, as conducted by Klesel, with no favorable eye; and he was particularly embittered against that Cardinal for having hindered him from applying the funds of the League to his own use. Klesel was equally detested by Ferdinand and Leopold of Styria; and, indeed, his government had conciliated neither Protestants nor Catholics. The German Lutheran Princes and States seemed to stand aloof from both parties; but the Elector of Saxony, now John George, was, in fact, sold to Austria and the Jesuits, and hoped to be invested by the Emperor with Jülich; while the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt also courted Matthias, in the hope of plundering the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

Some religious disturbances at Aix-la-Chapelle, and a quarrel between Cologne and the Protestant town of Mühlheim, afforded Wolfgang of Neuburg a pretense to solicit the Emperor to call the Spaniards into Germany. Matthias, in spite of the protest of the Elector of Brandenburg, had caused these disputes to be settled in a partial manner by his Aulic Council, and he entrusted his brother the Archduke Albert, in the Netherlands, with the execution of the decree. Albert obtained the permission of the Court of Spain to use the Spanish troops in this affair; and in 1614 he dispatched Spinola with them to Aix-la-Chapelle and Muhlheim. After taking Aix-la-Chapelle and expelling the Protestant Council, Spinola proceeded to Muhlheim. On his march he was joined by Wolfgang of Neuburg with 5,000 foot and 800 horse; Muhlheim made no defence, and Spinola, after destroying its fortifications, laid siege to Wesel, which he took in three days; but, as this was a regular attack on the allies of the Dutch Republic, Prince Maurice, who was in the neighborhood with a small army, immediately occupied, in the name of the House of Brandenburg, Rees, Emmerich, Kranenburg, and Gennep. Thus a German territory, disputed by German Princes, was occupied by the Spaniards for one party and by the Dutch for the other; the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg resided at Cleves, and the Palsgrave of Neuburg at Dusseldorf, while the members of the German Union contented themselves with producing long papers and speeches. In a conference held at Xanten, a treaty was made by which the territories in dispute were divided between the contending parties, but the execution of it was prohibited by the Spanish Court.

Ferdinand of Styria becomes King of Bohemia.

Meanwhile, the Emperor Matthias, whose government occasioned great discontent, was growing daily weaker both in body and mind. Neither he nor his brothers had any legitimate offspring; and the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria was straining every nerve to obtain the succession both to the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria and to the Empire. The Archdukes Maximilian of Tyrol and Albert of Belgium, as well as Philip III of Spain, supported Ferdinand's claim; for though Philip believed his own pretensions to be preferable to those of the Styrian line, he waived them in favour of Ferdinand, seeing that the state of Germany required the hand of a strong and able ruler. In 1616, Maximilian and Albert tendered to Matthias the resignation of their claims in favour of their cousin Ferdinand; and though Cardinal Klesel did all he could to oppose the nomination of that Prince, Matthias found it necessary to comply with the wishes of his brothers. In June, 1617, Ferdinand received the Crown of Bohemia with the consent of the States, and in the following year (July 1st) he was acknowledged in Hungary as the successor of Matthias.

Ferdinand had made a favorable impression on the Bohemians; but the clergy and nobles of his party soon effaced it by their persecuting and intolerant conduct. The Bohemians were not long in showing their discontent. The Emperor- King Matthias, having in 1617 proceeded to Vienna, left at Prague a regency consisting of seven Catholics and three Utraquists. Among the Catholics were William Slawata and Martinitz, two men notorious for their fanaticism. A dispute having arisen respecting the building of some Protestant churches, the Utraquists pleaded the sanction of Rodolph's Charter for what they had done, and addressed a warm re­monstrance to Matthias; to which he replied by an angry rescript, denouncing the leaders in the matter as insurgents, and threatening to punish them as such. The Protestant malcontents, excited by this step, found a leader in the fiery Count Henry of Thurn, who had just received a mortal offence by being deposed from the dignity of Burggraf of Karlstein, to which was attached the custody of the Bohemian crown and of the charters of the Kingdom. When the imperial rescript arrived in Prague, the four members of the regency then present in that capital, namely, Slawata, Martinitz, Adam von Sternberg, and Diepold von Lobkowitz, caused those members of the States who had signed the remonstrance to be summoned before them, and communicated to them the Emperor's answer; when the Remonstrants observed that they would come again in a month with a reply. Accordingly on the 23rd of May, 1618, they appeared at the head of a large body of men, among whom were some of the first nobles of the land, all completely armed; and they marched straight to the Royal Castle where the regents were waiting to receive them. After surrounding the Castle with their followers, so that nobody could escape, they consulted in the Green Chamber as to what they should do; when Count Thurn, in an animated address, persuaded them that so long as Slawata and Martinitz lived they could hope for nothing but persecution. His speech was received with loud applause, and he and his companions then proceeded to the Council Hall, where Sternberg addressed them with friendly words, and entreated them to lay aside their demonstrations.

"We have nothing to allege against you and Lobkowitz", exclaimed Kolon von Felz; "we complain only of Slawata and Martinitz."

"Out at window with them, after the good old Bohemian fashion", cried Wenzel von Raupowa.

No sooner said than done. Sternberg and Lobkowitz were conducted out of the hall, and five nobles, seizing Martinitz, hurled him from one of the windows; after which they seemed to stand aghast at their own deed.

"Here you have the other", cried Thurn, pushing to them Slawata; and he followed his companion. Then came the turn of Fabricius, the secretary of the regency. The window was about seventy feet above the ground, yet all three men were almost miraculously saved by falling on a large heap of rubbish which stood directly under it. Fabricius immediately hastened off to Vienna, to carry the news to the Emperor. Martinitz and Slawata were carried off by their servants to the house of the Chancellor Lobkowitz, whither they were pursued by Thurn and his people; but the beautiful Polyxena Lobkowitz interceded for them and saved their lives. Martinitz afterwards escaped in disguise to Munich.

Under the conduct of Thurn a regular revolt was now organized in Bohemia; a government was appointed consisting of thirty Directors, and steps were taken to form a union with the Protestants of Austria and Hungary. This revolt proved the fall of Cardinal Klesel, whose temporizing conduct being suspected, he was seized and carried off to the castle of Ambras near Innsbruck, belonging to his enemy the Archduke Maximilian; and it was not till 1627, that, through the intercession of the Pope, he was permitted to return to his diocese.

In Bohemia Proper only three Catholic towns—Pilsen, Budweis, and Krummau had remained faithful to the Emperor; but the annexed province of Moravia refused to join the rebellion, and offered its mediation, which the insurgents declined, and pressed forward with a considerable army towards the Austrian frontier. The Silesians had also refused to declare against the Emperor, but they sent 3,000 men to maintain "the cause of religion". By means of Spanish gold, the Emperor Matthias, or rather King Ferdinand, contrived to raise two armies of mercenaries, one of which was under the command of Count Bucquoi, a Walloon general of note, while the other was entrusted to Henry Duval, Count of Dampierre. Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, expecting to profit by the misfortunes of Ferdinand and Matthias, evaded their pressing applications for help. The Bohemians, on their side, applied for aid to the young Elector Palatine, Frederick V, as Director of the Union, but it was not till October that Count Ernest of Mansfeld was dispatched to them with 1,000 horse, raised with the money of the Duke of Savoy. Bucquoi and Dampierre had already entered Bohemia in August; but Dampierre was defeated at Czaslau and Bucquoi at Budweis, by Count Thurn. In November Mansfeld laid the foundation of his military fame by capturing, after an obstinate resistance, Pilsen, the most important town in the Kingdom, after Prague. The Bohemians, under Count Schlick, hung upon the retreating army of Bucquoi, carried off his cattle, his booty, and his military chest, and, pressing over the Austrian border, seized the town of Swietla. Matthias now stood in a critical position. The attitude even of the Austrian States was threatening; they had refused to raise troops for the Emperor's defence, nor would they allow ammunition or provisions required for his service to pass through their territories. In vain, during the winter, King Sigismund III of Poland by threats, and the Saxon Elector John George I by persuasions, had endeavored to make the Bohemians lay down their arms. But in the midst of this state of things the Emperor Matthias suddenly died, March 20th, 1619, and Ferdinand succeeded to his dominions.

At the time of Ferdinand's accession Budweis was the only town held by the Austrian party in Bohemia. The new Sovereign attempted to conciliate his subjects in that Kingdom. He proposed a truce, and offered to confirm all their rights, privileges, and liberties; but the Bohemians could not trust a Prince led by the Jesuits, which Society they had driven from the country in the preceding June, and the insurgents did not even deign to answer his letter. At first the campaign seemed to go in favour of Ferdinand. Count Thurn had proceeded into Moravia with the main body of his army, with the intention of revolutionizing that marquisate, and afterwards Austria; and he occupied the towns of Znaim, Brünn, Iglau, and Olmutz; but while he was thus engaged Bucquoi broke out of Budweis, and took town after town. It was at this time that Albert of Wallenstein, afterwards the renowned and dreaded leader of the Thirty Years' War, attracted the notice and favour of Ferdinand II by the bravery with which, at the head of only a single regiment, he opposed the Bohemians. Born in 1583, of a family belonging to the Bohemian gentry and of the Utraquist faith, but of German extraction, Waldstein, or Wallenstein, having been left an orphan at the early age of ten, was sent by a Roman Catholic uncle to Olmutz, to be educated by the Jesuits, by whom he was, of course, converted. He afterwards studied at Padua, then, next to Bologna, the most renowned University of Europe, where he acquired a good knowledge of Italian, at that period the fashionable language. On a journey which he made through the principal countries of Western Europe, including England, in company with a young friend, and under the superintendence of Peter Verdungus, a celebrated astrologer and mathematician, Wallenstein imbibed from the latter that fondness for astrology which marked his future life. It was still further increased by the lessons which he received at Padua from Argoli, the Professor of Astrology, who also initiated him in the mysteries of the Cabbala. Wallenstein had already served the Emperor Rodolph in Hungary, and the Archduke Ferdinand in a war with Venice, in which he distinguished himself. Meanwhile he had acquired a large fortune by marrying an old Bohemian widow, with whom his wedded life was a short one; and afterwards he ingratiated himself still further with the future Emperor Ferdinand by marrying the daughter of his favorite Count Harrach.

After obtaining possession of Moravia, Thurn marched into Austria, and on the 5th of June, 1619, he appeared in one of the suburbs of Vienna, in which city both the Catholic and Protestant States of the Duchy were assembled round the Emperor. But instead of pushing his way into the city, Thurn suffered himself to be amused for six days with parleys. In this crisis Ferdinand II displayed considerable energy and determination, and when pressed to save himself and his children by flight he refused to quit his capital. At the expiration of six days, as a deputy named Thonradel was pressing Ferdinand with threats to sign a confederation of Austria with the Bohemians, St. Hilaire, who had been dispatched by Dampierre with 500 horse, entered Vienna by the Water-Gate, which Thurn had not been able to secure. At the sound of their trumpet the deputies hurried from the palace, and Ferdinand immediately issued directions for vigorous measures. Thurn remained some days longer before Vienna, and bombarded it, till he was recalled by a message from the Directors at Prague, to the effect that Bucquoi, having defeated Count Mansfeld at Budweis, June 10th, and afterwards formed a junction with Dampierre, was now threatening the capital of Bohemia.

When this danger was over, Ferdinand hastened to Frankfurt to prepare for his election as Emperor, which was hurried on, in order to put an end to the vicariate of the Elector of Saxony and of the Elector Palatine, the latter of whom was desirous of excluding the House of Austria from the Imperial throne. The Palatine had turned his eyes on the Duke of Bavaria; but Maximilian was not dazzled with the prospect of the Empire, nor inclined to contest it with his old friend Ferdinand. All the Electors voted for Ferdinand, and even the Palatine ultimately joined the majority. As the Electors were leaving the Römer, or Town Hall, of Frankfurt, tidings that the insurgent Bohemians had chosen the Elector Palatine for their King occasioned a great sensation. The Emperor Ferdinand II received the Germanic crown, with the usual ceremonies, on September 9th.

CHAPTER XXXI.

BEGINNNING OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR—SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY