Aug. 2. adherents of the confession of Augsburg until the next diet. Maurice defeated Albert, margrave of Brandenburg-Culmbach at Sievershausen (1553), but was mortally wounded.

1555. Religious Peace of Augsburg. Sept. 25.

The territorial princes and the free cities, who, at this date, acknowledged the confession of Augsburg, received freedom of worship, the right to introduce the reformation within their territories (jus reformandi), and equal rights with the Catholic estates. No agreement reached as regarded the Ecclesiastical Reservation (Reservatum ecclesiasticum) that the spiritual estates (bishops and abbots) who became Protestant should lose their offices and incomes. This peace secured no privileges for the reformed religion (Genevan). 1552-1556. War between Charles V. and Henry II., who, as the

ally of Maurice, had seized Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Charles besieged Metz, which was successfully defended by Francis of Guise.

The truce of Vaucelles left France, provisionally, in possession of the cities which had been occupied.

1556. Abdication of Charles V. in Brussels (Oct. 25, 1555, and Jan. 15, 1556).

The crown of Spain with the colonies, Naples, Milan, FrancheComté, and the Netherlands, went to his son Philip; the imperial office and the Hapsburg lands to his brother Ferdinand I. (p. 302, 303). Charles lived in the monastery of St. Just as a private individual, but not as a monk, and died there in 1558.

1556-1564. Ferdinand I.,

husband of Anna, sister of Louis II., king of Bohemia and Hungary, after whose death he was elected king of these countries by their estates. Constant warfare over the latter country, which he was obliged to abandon, in great part, to the Turks. His son,

1564-1576. Maximilian II.,

was of a mild disposition and favorably inclined to the Protestants, whom he left undisturbed in the free exercise of their religion. War with Zapolya, prince of Transylvania, and the Turks. Sultan Soliman II. died in camp before Sigeth, which was defended by the heroic Zriny. By the truce with Selim II. (1566) each party retained its possessions. The imperial knight, Grumbach, who had broken the public peace by a feud with the bishop of Würzburg, had plundered the city of Würzburg (1563), and had been protected by John Frederic, duke of Saxony, was placed under the ban, and after the capture of Gotha, cruelly executed (1567). The duke was kept in strict confinement in Austria until his death.

Reaction against Protestantism.

Anti-Reformation.

1576-1612. Rudolf II., son of the Emperor Maximilian II., a learned man, an astrologer and astronomer (Kepler, † 1630,

was appointed imperial mathematician by him), but incapable of governing. New quarrels over the ecclesiastical reservation (p.306). The imperial city of Donauwörth, placed under the ban by the emperor, because a mob had disturbed a Catholic procession, was, in spite of the prohibition of the emperor, retained by Maximilian of Bavaria, who had executed the ban (1607). These troubles led to the formation of a

1608. Protestant Union (leader, Frederic IV., elector Palatine), which was opposed by the

1609. Catholic League (leader, Maximilian, duke of Bavaria). Both princes were of the house of Wittelsbach.

Rudolf, from whom his brother, Matthias, had forced the cession of Hungary, Moravia, and Austria, hoping to conciliate the Bohemians gave them the

1609. Royal Charter (Majestätsbrief), which permitted a free exercise of religion to the three estates of lords, knights, and royal cities.

1609. Beginning of the quarrel about the succession of Jülich-Cleves on the death of John William, duke of Cleves. The elector of Brandenburg and the prince of Neuburg were the principal claimants.

Rudolf, toward the close of his life, was forced by Matthias to abdicate the government of Bohemia.

1612-1619. Matthias,

being childless, and having obtained the renunciation of his brothers, secured for his cousin Ferdinand, duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, who had been educated by the Jesuits in strict Catholicism, the succession in Bohemia and Hungary, in spite of the objections of the Protestant estates.

1618-1648.

§ 4. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.

The Thirty Years' War is generally divided into four periods, which were properly as many different wars. The first two, the Bohemian and the Danish, had a predominant religious character; they developed from the revolt in Bohemia to a general attack by Catholic Europe upon Protestant Europe. The latter two, the Swedish and Swedish-French, were political wars; wars against the power of the house of Hapsburg, and wars of conquest on the part of Sweden and France upon German soil.

1. Period of war in Bohemia and the County Palatine.

(1618-1623.)

1

Occasion: Closing of a Utraquist 1 church in the territory of the abbot of Braunau, and destruction of another in a city of the archbishop of Prague, that is, in the territory of ecclesiastical estates, which

1 Utraquist, that is, favoring communion in both kinds.

according to the view of the Protestants ought to be regarded as royal estates, in accordance with the Bohemian constitution. The irritation of the Bohemian Protestants (Utraquists) was increased by the transference of the administration of the country to ten governors, seven of whom were Catholics. Meeting of the defensors, and revolt in Prague, headed by count Matthias of Thurn. The governors, Martinitz and Slawata, and the secretary, Fabricius, thrown from a window in the palace of Prague, seventy feet into the ditch, but escaped with their lives (May 23, 1618). Thirty directors appointed by the rebels. The Protestant Union sent count Mansfeld to the aid of the Bohemians. From Silesia and Lusatia came troops under margrave John George of Jägerndorf. The imperial forces were defeated by Mansfeld and count Thurn. The emperor Matthias died 1619.

Count Thurn marched upon Vienna. The Austrian estates, for the most part Protestants, threatened to join the Bohemians, and made rough demands upon Ferdinand, who, by his courage and the arrival of a few troops, was rescued from a dangerous situation. Thurn, who arrived before Vienna shortly afterwards, was soon obliged to retire by an unfavorable turn of the war in Bohemia.2 Ferdinand went to Frankfort, where he was elected emperor by the other six electors.

1619-1637. Ferdinand II.

Meantime the Bohemians had deposed him from the throne of Bohemia and elected the young Frederic V., elector palatine, the head of the Union and of the German Calvinists, son-in-law of James I., king of England. ("The Winter King").

Count Thurn, for the second time before Vienna, allied with Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania (Nov. 1619). Cold, want, and an inroad of an imperial partisan in Hungary, caused a retreat.

Ferdinand leagued himself with Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, head of the Catholic League, the friend of his youth, who helped him subdue the Austrian estates, with Spain (Spinola invaded the county palatine; treaty of Ulm, July 3, 1620; neutrality of the Union secured), and with the Lutheran elector of Saxony, who re-subjugated Lusatia and Silesia. Maximilian of Bavaria, with the army of the League commanded by Tilly, marched to Bohemia and joined the imperial general Buquoy. They were victorious in the

'1620, Nov. 8. Battle on the White Hill

over the troops of Frederic V., under the command of Christian of Anhalt. Frederic was put under the ban, and his lands confiscated; he himself fled to Holland. Christian of Anhalt and John George of Brandenburg-Jägerndorf, also put under the ban. Subjugation of the Bohemians, destruction of the Royal Charter, execution of the leading rebels, extirpation of Protestantism in Bohemia. Afterwards, violent anti-reformation in Austria, and, with less violence, in Silesia.

Dissolution of the Protestant Union and transfer of the seat of war 1 Cf. Gindely, Gesch. d. dreissigjähr. Kriegs, vol. i. (1869), chap. 2. 2 Gindely, ii. (1878), chap. 2.

to the palatinate, which was conquered in execution of the ban by Maximilian's general, Tilly (Jan Tzerklas, baron of Tilly, born 1559, in the Walloon Brabant), with the help of Spanish troops under Spinola. Tilly, defeated at Wiesloch by Mansfeld (April, 1622), defeated the margrave of Baden-Durlach at Wimpfen (May), and Christian of Brunswick, brother of the reigning duke and administrator of the bishopric of Halberstadt, at Höchst (June, 1622), and again at Stadtlohn in Westphalia (1623).

1623. Maximilian received the electoral vote belonging to Frederic V. and the Upper Palatinate; Saxony obtained Lusatia, for the present in pledge.

2. Danish Period. Seat of War in Lower Saxony.

1625-1629.

Christian IV., king of Denmark and duke of Holstein, was the head of the Lower Saxon Circle, and the leader of the Protestants. Albert of Wallenstein (Waldstein, born 1583, in Bohemia, of an utraquist family, but educated in the Catholic faith, 1617 count, 1623 prince of the empire, 1624 duke of Friedland) became the imperial commander of an army, recruited by himself, which was to be provisioned by a system of robbery.

Wallenstein defeated Mansfeld at the Bridge of Dessau (1626), pursued him through Silesia to Hungary, where Mansfeld joined Bethlen Gabor. Mansfeld died in Dalmatia (Nov., 1626). Christian of Brunswick had died in June of the same year.

Tilly defeated Christian VI. at Luther am Barenberge, in Brunswick (Aug., 1626). Tilly and Wallenstein conquered Holstein (1627). Wallenstein alone conquered Schleswig and Jutland, drove the dukes of Mecklenburg from the country, forced the duke of Pommerania to submission, but besieged Stralsund (1628) in vain, the citizens defending themselves heroically for ten weeks.

1629. Peace of Lübeck

May 22. between the emperor and Christian IV. The latter received his lands back, but promised not to interfere in German affairs, and abandoned his allies. The dukes of Mecklenburg put under the ban. Wallenstein invested with their lands.

1629, March 29. Edict of Restitution: 1. Agreeably to the ecclesias

tical reservation (p. 306), all ecclesiastical estates which had been confiscated since the convention of Passau should be restored. This affected two archbishoprics: Magdeburg and Bremen ; twelve bishoprics: Minden, Verden, Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg, Meissen, Merseburg, Naumburg (the latter three were, however, left in the possession of the elector of Saxony), Brandenburg, Havelberg, Lebus and Camin, besides very many (about 120) monasteries and foundations. 2. Only the ahherents of the Augsburg confession were to have free exercise of religion; all other "sects were to be broken up. Beginning of a merciless execution of the edict by Wallenstein's troops and those of the League.