The thirty years' war

Preface

HE tangled story of this long, terrible, and eventful war I have endeavored so to draw out as will make it easily understood by even youthful readers.

My authorities, in addition to general histories and encyclopaedias, are, Schiller's and Gardiner's histories of the Thirty Years' War, and Abelous' Gustavus Adolphus, translated bv Mrs. C. A. Lacroix.

Chapter I

The Beginning of the Protestant Reformation — John de Wickliffe — John Huss and Jerome of Prague — Martin Luther — Religious Civil War — Peace of Augsburg — Charles V, Page II

Chapter II

Rumblings of the Coming Storm — The Catholic Elector of Cologne marries Agnes of Mansfield, and becomes a Calvinist — He is dispossessed — Troubles in Strasburg and Donauworth — Dispute about the Succession of Cleves — Henry IV, of France, 19

Chapter III

Rudolph grants a Charter to Bohemia — Matthias, his Successor, violates it, is deposed, and Ferdinand is acknowledged by the Diet — The Protestants object, and appeal in vain to Matthias — Revolution follows — Thirty Years' War begun — Count Thurn raises an Army — Count Mansfield — Death of Matthias — Accession of Ferdinand to the Dukedom of Austria — Thurn invades Austria, 24 % 5

6 Contents.

Chapter IV

Ferdinand elected Emperor — Deposed from the Kingdom of Bohemia — Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate, is chosen King— He besieges Vienna — Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, engages to aid Ferdinand II — John George, Elector of Saxony, likewise — Catholic Union and Protestant League arm for the Conflict — France interposes — Battle of Prague — Flight of Frederick — Ferdinand tears up the Royal Charter, Page 36

Chapter V

Frederick put to the Ban — Mansfield, the Margrave of Baden, and Frederick of Brunswick for him — Tilly defeats the Margrave of Wimpfen — Christian is defeated — Frederick flees to the Hague — Diet of Ratisbon — Frederick deposed, and his Electorate given to Maximilian for his Life-time, 46

Chapter VI

The Lower Saxon Circle arms — Christian of Brunswick defeated by Tilly — Northern Germany arms — Appeal to Protestant Nations — England enlists France — Mansfield's Expedition — Christian IV, of Denmark, intervenes — Wallenstein offers the Emperor an Army — Defeats Mansfield — Mansfield's Death — Bethlen Gabor — Battle of Lutter, and Defeat of King of Denmark, 54

Chapter VII

Wallenstein's Enlightened Views — Opposed by the Electors — Conquers Mecklenburg — Stralsund is besieged

Contents. 7

in vain — Gliickstadt likewise — Christian IV makes Peace at Lubeck — Wallenstein rewarded with Mecklenburg — Edict of Restitution — Wallenstein dismissed, . . Page 67

Chapter VIII

Sketch of Gustavus Adolphus — Undertakes the Protestant Cause in Germany — Takes Riiger — Drives the Imperialists into Brandenburg — Tilly at Frankfort — He hastens to meet Gustavus — Siege of Magdeburg — Gustavus takes Frankfort, 80

Chapter IX

Elector of Brandenburg abandons his Neutrality — Saxony arms — Tilly takes Leipsic — Victory of Gustavus over Tilly — Gustavus moves toward the Rhine — Takes Various Towns — Duke of Lorraine defeated — Other Towns taken — Attempts to assassinate Gustavus — Capture of Mayence — Horn pursued by Tilly — Tilly driven to Bavaria by the Swedes, 101

Chapter X

Battle of Lech— Defeat and Death of Tilly— Deliverance of Augsburg — Siege of Ingolstadt — Gustavus's Horse killed under him — Takes Munich — John George invades Bohemia — Prague capitulates — The Emperor now recalls Wallenstein on his own Terms, . 122

Chapter XI

Wallenstein takes Prague — Gustavus protects Nuremberg — Wallenstein declines Battle — Gustavus attacks his

8 Contents.

Intrenchments in vain — He quits the Famished Region — Wallenstein quits afterwards — Gustavus pursues him — Meets his Queen at Erfurt— Battle of Liitzen — His Death — Victory of his Troops, Page 135

Chapter XII

Conference of the Allies — Oxenstiern is appointed Chief of the Armies — Exploits of the Army — Wallenstein's Ambiguous Conduct — Invites a Conference with the Swedish Generals — Captures Thurn with his Whole Corps — Lets him go — He is declared a Traitor by Ferdinand II — His Officers and their Men declare against him — He marches to Eger to join the Swedes — His Assassination, 154

CHAPTER XIII. Emperor's Son made Generalissimo — Battle of Nord

Saxony — Treaty of Prague — France proclaims War — Spanish Army invades France — The Nation under Richelieu rises and expels It — Victories of Bauner over the Saxons — Duke Bernard's Victories and Death, .... 176

Chapter XIV

Ferdinand II dies — Succeeded by Ferdinand III — His Troops relieve Leipsic — Bauner's Masterly Retreat — Invades Bohemia — Retreats — Threatens Ratisbon and alarms the Diet there — His Death — Torstenson succeeds to the Command — Changes the Theater of War to Silesia and Moravia — Leopold and Piccolomini repel him — Wrangel

Contents. 9

joins him, and they drive the Enemy before them — Second Battle of Leipsic and Defeat of the Imperialists, Page 190

Chapter XV

Richelieu's Death — Mazarin succeeds him as Minister of Louis XIV — The French under Guibriant cross the Rhine — He is mortally wounded — His Army afterwards is destroyed at Duttlingen — Torstenson is ordered to make War on Denmark — The King sues for Peace — Torstenson again in Bohemia — The Battle of Jankowitz — Ferdinand HI defeated with Loss of his Army — Torstenson follows him to Vienna — Resigns and is succeeded by Wrangel, 198

Chapter XVI

The Part of France in the Close of the War — Defense of Rocroy against the Spaniards, by the Duke of Enghien — Battles with Bavarians — Wrangel and Turenne unite — The Last Campaign — Peace of Westphalia — Its Results, 204

Illustrations.

Gustavus Adolphus, . . . Frontispiece.

Assassination of Wallenstein, 175.

THIRTY YEARS' WAR.

diopter' I.

THE BEGINNING OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION— JOHN DE WICKLIFFE— JOHN HUSS— MARTIN LUTHER— RELIG- IOUS CIVIL WAR — PEACE OF AUGSBURG — CHARLES V.

' I ^HE Protestant Reformation began in a very -*• effectual manner with John de Wickliffe, often styled the Morning Star of the Reformation. He was born A. D. 1324, in the parish of Wickliffe, Yorkshire, England, and became a student and afterwards professor in the University of Oxford. So early as 1356 he assailed the authority of the Pope in a treatise entitled, "The Last Age of the Church." During the life of Edward III he had the support of the monarch against persecution, as well as the popular favor; but in the next reign he was condemned for heresy, and expelled from the university. He retired to his rectory at Lutterworth, and devoted himself to the translation into English of the Holy Scriptures, the first ever made; of which the New Testament portion only has been printed. He died of a paralytic stroke A. D. 1384. He held that the Pope was not the head of the Church, and objected to the authority of councils. He rejected the Roman doctrines of confession, transubstantiation, and the celibacy of the clergy. His influence was felt throughout Christendom. The Council of Constance, which condemned his disciple John Huss, condemned the writings of Wickliffe, and ordered his bones to be taken up and burned. This was accomplished in A. D. T425.

The second great movement for Reformation was by John Huss, of Bohemia. He was born at Hussinatz, in 1373, and was educated at the University of Prague, and became Professor of Theology and Philosophy. As preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel he acquired great popularity. Having read the writings of Wickliffe, and being familiar with the original Scriptures, he perceived the corruptions of the Church, and assailed them with the greatest intrepidity, especially papal indulgences, masses for the dead, image worship, monastic life, auricular confession, simony, various fasts, and withholding the cup from the laity. He was summoned by the Council of Constance to appear before them and answer the charge of heresy. The Emperor Sigismund gave to him a safe conduct, which was shamefully violated by his being thrown into prison soon after his arrival. Seven months afterwards, June 7th, he was called by the council to defend himself in the presence of the emperor. He was condemned to be burnt, and his ashes were thrown into the Rhine July 6, 141 5. On his way to the place of execution he passed the spot where his writings had been burnt, and he smiled as he looked upon their charred remains. At the stake he was offered pardon and deliverance from death if he would recant; but he made no sign of submission, and preferred the martyr's crown.

His colleague, Jerome of Prague, was in prison at Constance when the sad news of the martyrdom of Huss was brought to him. There he remained in darkness until the nth of September, when, worn out by his sufferings, he consented to make some recantation. But it availed nothing; he was not set at liberty; and being called to an audience on the 26th of May, he formally and solemnly retracted his recantation. He was condemned to be burnt, and on the 30th of May he marched to the pile singing hymns and reciting the Apostles' creed. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine. This was a man of great learning and surpassing eloquence.

The sympathy with the doctrines of Huss and his designs was so general in Bohemia, that a religious war was kindled by his death. The sacramental cup, which was denied the laity, was made the symbol of insurrection. John Ziska, blind in one eye, but a genius in military art, and a favorite with the masses, put himself at their head, and bore down all the armies brought against him.

The indignation of the people at the action of the Council of Constance was inflamed to the utmost by the seduction by a monk of his sister, a nun. A priest belonging to the party of the Hussites was hit by a stone as he marched in a procession. A riot was the consequence. The town hall was attacked, and thirteen of the city councilmen thrown out of the window. The aged king of Bohemia, Wenceslaus, was so alarmed that he died of a paralytic stroke. The Emperor Sigismund, his brother, was the legal successor to the crown of Bohemia, and going on his way of persecuting the reformers, the Hussites swore never to acknowledge him as sovereign. A fortified town was built on Mount Tabor, under the direction of Ziska, who employed for the first time bulwarks of wagons to protect his infantry from the attacks of cavalry. He defended Prague against the approaches of Sigismund by intrenchments on the hill of Wittkow, now called Ziska's Hill, where, with only four thousand he repelled the assaults of thirty thousand men. While at the siege of the castle of Raby he was made totally blind by an arrow striking his only remaining eye; but he contrived to manage his army by reports brought to him as he moved over the field in a car. After having won thirteen pitched battles and brought the emperor to sue for peace by offering him the government of Bohemia, he was the victim of a pestilence which invaded his camp at the siege of Preibislaw, October 12. 1424. The war was continued under other leaders; the result was that the Catholic party gained the ascendancy at first, but the reformed doctrines took such hold on the mass of the people that at the breaking out of the thirty years' war, two centuries later, three-fourths of the inhabitants were Protestants.

But the time was not come for the success of Protestantism ; another century must pass before the next great step will be taken. Meanwhile the revival of the study of Greek classics, the art of printing, the new universities, the growing numbers of learned men, and the better education of the masses, prepared the way for Martin Luther.

The story of Luther need not here be re-

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counted. Suffice it that in 1525 John, Elector of Saxony, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Albert, Duke of Prussia, declared for the Reformation. Sweden, under Gustavus Vasa, received it in 1527, and soon after Denmark, Lower Saxony, the north of Westphalia, Hamburg, and Lubeck. For the moment all Germany seemed to be going in the same direction. The Catholic princes, Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, Duke Louis of Bavaria, and others, together with several archbishops and bishops of Southern Germany met and concluded a treaty at Ratisbon for the defense of Popery. The result was a civil war, in which the Protestant princes finally had the advantage. A convention for the settlement of difficulties was held at Passau in 1552, by which it was agreed that a Diet or general assembly should be held at Augsburg to establish the terms of a general peace. This Diet was held in 1555, and a treaty of peace was signed, by which the Protestant estates were not only to be tolerated, but to retain the possession of the confiscated ecclesiastical property. The Emperor Charles V, disappointed in his measures

S to compel union in religious matters, and worn out with the cares of empire and with physical disorders, abdicated all his imperial and royal governments and retired to a monastery in Spain.

dlikptef II.

RUMBLINGS OF THE COMING STORM — THE CATHOLIC ELECTOR GEBHARD, OF COLOGNE, MARRIES THE COUNTESS AGNES, OF MANSFIELD, AND BECOMES A CALVINIST — HE IS DISPOSSESSED — TROUBLES IN STRAS- BURG AND DANAUWERTH — DISPUTE ABOUT THE SUC- CESSION OF CLEVES — HENRY IV, OF FRANCE.

*nT"*HE religious peace was observed by the -*■ emperors and potentates of Germany until the accession of Rudolph II, a weak, bigoted prince, who gave more attention to painting and astronomy than to the duties of his government, and allowed his religious advisers to dictate oppressive measures against the new religion. The ecclesiastical states were, by a reserve clause, not included in the peace stipulations, and an elector changing his religion would forfeit all the temporalities of his bishopric. A romantic affair led to great troubles. The Elector of Cologne, Gebhard, fell in love with Agnes, the young and beautiful Countess of Mansfield and Canoness of Gerresheim. He could not marry her while he remained a prelate of the Roman Catholic Church; consequently, he renounced the Catholic religion, and embraced Calvinism. But he refused to relinquish his principality, and was sustained by the Protestants, who had always objected to the reserve clause. The emperor at once interposed, and the ban of the Pope was pronounced against the elector, depriving him of all his dignities. This excited the indignation of the Protestant princes, and especially of Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV of France. A civil war arose in the electorate, and ended in the exclusion of Gebhard from his dominions. He might have succeeded better had it not been for the sad want of union between the Lutheran and Calvinist sections of the reformed Church, the Lutheran princes refusing to come to his aid.

A dispute took place in Strasburg respecting the election ef a bishop, which brought on a local war, and ended in the triumph of the Catholics.

In 1607 the free city of Danauwerth, in Suabia, was made the scene of a riot which cost the city its liberties. The inhabitants were mostly Protestants, and felt themselves insulted by a fanatical abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Cross leading a procession through the city, with flying banners and the Roman cross. A year afterwards a similar attempt was suppressed by the populace, who trampled the banners under foot and drove the Papists to their homes with blows and abusive outcries. The emperor placed the city under the ban ; and when the Duke of Bavaria marched an army to enforce it the city submitted without resistance, and was converted into a municipality of Bavaria.

These and similar aggressions led to the formation, under the guidance of Christian, Prince of Anhalt, of a Protestant union for the protection of their rights. Soon after, a Catholic league was formed, under Maximilian of Bavaria, to antagonize the Protestant union.

In 1609 an event happened which threatened to involve all Europe in war. The Duke of Cleves died, and the succession was disputed by no less than eight princes, chief of whom were the Elector of Brandenburg and the son of the Duke of Neuburg. The emperor claimed the right of umpire, and prepared to occupy the duchy. In this emergency the disputants, who were both Protestants, agreed to a joint government of the territory. The emperor sent his relative, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau and Strasburg, to seize the city of Juliers, which he effected by stratagem ; but all the rest of the country submitted to the Protestant princes. The real question here was whether the Protestant or the Catholic party was to be strengthened by the accession of this duchy. Against Austria, on one side, were arrayed England, Holland, and France. Henry of Navarre was now Henry IV of France. He had always felt that the House of Austria, by its affinity with Spain, was likely some day to combine with that ambitious rival against the peace and safety of France; and he devoted himself, with the aid of his great minister, Sully, to extensive preparations for a war which should humble Austria and cripple her power. In concert with Maurice, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, he was on the eve of commencing hostilities by making the Duchy of Cleves the battleground, when the dagger of an assassin extinguished his life and put an end to his vast projects. The coming of France into the final scenes of the Thirty Years' War, as we shall see, gave the victory to the Protestants, and fixed for a long period the political geography of Europe. The two rival claimants could not come to a settlement between themselves. At length the young Prince of Neuburg thought of the expedient of marriage with the daughter of the Elector of Brandenburg, and proposed it to him; whereat he was so incensed that he boxed the young man's ears. The result was that Neuburg abjured Protestantism, and called on the Catholic league to take his part in the quarrel. It is a wonder that affair did not set all Europe in a blaze of war. But the time was not yet; these events were the clouds and thunder on the horizon betokening the coming tempest.

Copter- III.

RUDOLPH GRANTS A ROYAL CHARTER TO BOHEMIA — MAT- THIAS, ELECTED HIS SUCCESSOR, VIOLATES IT, AND IS DEPOSED, AND FERDINAND IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE DIET AS THE LEGITIMATE HEIR TO THE CROWN — THE PROTESTANTS OBJECT, AND APPEAL TO MATTHIAS, WHO SANCTIONS THE WHOLE THING — THE PROTESTANT ESTATES ASSEMBLE AT PRAGUE AND MARCH TO THE PALACE, AND THROW THE OBNOXIOUS COMMISSIONERS OF THE EMPEROR OUT OF THE WINDOW, AND INAU- GURATE A REVOLUTION — THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR BEGUN — REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED — COUNT THURN RAISES AN ARMY — THE EMPEROR PRE- PARES FOR WAR — BOHEMIA IS INVADED — COUNT MANS- FIELD ARRIVES FROM THE PROTESTANT LEAGUE WITH FOUR THOUSAND MEN — THE DEATH OF MATTHIAS AND ACCESSION OF FERDINAND TO THE DUKEDOM OF AUS- TRIA — THURN INVADES AUSTRIA AND BESIEGES VIENNA.

F) OHEMIA bad become a Protestant kingdom, •D but was under the government of the Catholic emperor, Rudolph II, as king. In 1609 the nobles and princes of the kingdom extorted from him a royal charter, granting freedom of conscience to every citizen; but authority to build churches and hold public worship belonged to the Estates of the kingdom, which was made up of about fourteen hundred gentry and representatives of forty-two towns. On the royal domains, however, worship was to be free. Rudolph was never satisfied with this state of affairs, and strove to break the charter. The result was that in 161 1 he was dethroned by the Estates, and his brother Matthias was made king. The next year he died, and was succeeded by Matthias as emperor.

Very soon Matthias, as King of Bohemia, began to show his opposition to the royal charter. The Protestants of Braunau and of Klostergrab were forbidden by the Catholic ecclesiastic landowners to make use for worship of the churches they had built; and it was contended that this interdict was contrary to the charter, inasmuch as these lands were in the royal domain, where worship was free. But Matthias decided against the Protestants, and one of the churches was pulled down and the other was closed up. In 1607 the Bohemian Diet was summoned to meet, and Ferdinand of Styria was declared king by hereditary right. It was produced in argument that in years past the Estates had declared the throne to be hereditary, and not elective, and therefore the acceptance of the election of Matthias was not to be tolerated as a revolutionary measure. They submitted, if they were not convinced, and so deposed Matthias by acknowledging Ferdinand to be the hereditary king.

Ferdinand was a rigid Catholic, and had rooted out the new religion in his principality of Styria. Could he, therefore, make oath to observe and maintain the royal charter? The Jesuits explained to him that, though it was a sin to grant such a charter, it was now the law of the land, and it would not be wrong to accept it. He accordingly took the oath, and was crowned King of Bohemia. By this act the Estates had settled the succession to the crown on the House of Austria.

But the nation was disgusted with this procedure. A summons was issued to the representatives of the Protestant Estates to meet, to consider the emergency. They met, and prepared a petition to Matthias. But, strange to say, some time before they met word was sent from Matthias sanctioning all that had taken place, and declaring the assembly illegal.

This answer, it was believed, was instigated by Slawata and Martinetz, imperial delegates, who had become odious by their persecution of Protestants. . Led by Count Thurn, armed members of the assembly proceeded to the royal palace, and demanded of the four commissioners there in session who had been instrumental in procuring the obnoxious imperial message. Steenberg and Lokowitz were taken by the arm and put out of the room; and Martinetz and Slawata were dragged to the window and pushed into the castle trench, a height of seventy feet. Their secretary, Fabricius, was sent after them. Martinetz, seeing his doom, begged for a confessor. " Commend thy soul to God. Shall we allow the Jesuit scoundrels to come here?" was the answer. •'Jesus! Mary!" cried he, as he made the fearful plunge. "Let us see," said one of the revolutionists, "whether his Mary will help him." Strange to say, he was not killed by the fall. He lighted upon an immense dung-heap, and his fall was broken. Looking out of the window, and seeing him rise and walk off, one of the party exclaimed, "Behold, his Mary has helped him!" The other two followed him, and with the same astonishing escape from death.

"There are moments," says Gardiner, "when the character of a nation or party stands revealed as by a lightning flash, and this was one of them. It is not in such a way as this that successful revolutions are begun."

The leader in this movement was Henry Matthias, Count Thurn. He was concerned in obtaining from the emperor the royal charter, and was enthusiastically devoted to the Protestant cause. He was not a native of Bohemia, but had estates in the kingdom, and had achieved renown and popular favor in the war against the Turks. He was at this time deeply incensed against the imperial court for depriving him of the office of Constable of the Castle and Custodian of the Bohemian Crown and the National Charter, and revenge, as well as devotion to his adopted country, moved him to engage in these revolutionary projects.

The revolution was formally organized by the appointment of thirty directors. These took possession of all the offices of state and the imperial revenues. The royal army and officers of civil government were taken into their service. The Jesuits, who were hated as the insidious enemies of the kingdom, were banished; and all was done on the pretense of maintaining the royal authority and the laws of the realm. Appeals for sympathy were made to the neighboring Protestant princes. John George, Elector of Saxony, hesitated to sanction rebellion, and remarked that his office would be to "help to put out the fire." But the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, son-inlaw of James I of England, expressed a warm sympathy with the patriots, and a readiness to furnish them aid when the proper time should arrive.

Where now was Ferdinand, who had been crowned King of Bohemia? He was in Vienna, at the court of the emperor, and exhorted him instantly to employ the severest measures to put down the rebellion, and to root out the reformed religion, the cause of it. "Disobedience, lawlessness, and insurrection," he pleaded, went always hand in hand with Protestantism. Every privilege which had been conceded to the Estates by himself and his predecessor had had no other effect than to raise their demands. All the measures of the heretics were aimed against the imperial authority. Step by step had they advanced from defiance to defiance, up to this last aggression. In a short time they would assail all that remained to be assailed in the person of the emperor. In arms alone was there any safety against such an enemy; peace and subordination could only be established upon the ruins of their dangerous privileges; security for the Catholic belief was to be found in the total destruction of this sect. Uncertain, it was true, might be the event of the war, but inevitable was the ruin if it were permitted. The confiscation of the lands of the rebels would richly indemnify them for its expenses, while the terror of punishment would teach the other stales the wisdom of a prompt obedience in future.

The emperor did not fully reciprocate these sentiments; but he was convinced that war could not be avoided. He applied to Spain for aid, and was promised gold and detachments of the Spanish forces in Italy and Belgium. On the muster of the army Count Bacquoi, a Netherlander, was made general -in -chief, and Count Dampierre was associated with him. The emperor now issued a manifesto to the Bohemians, in a conciliatory spirit, in which he declared "that he held sacred the Letter of Majesty; that he had not formed any resolutions inimical to their religion or privileges; and that his present preparations were forced upon him by their own. As soon as the nation laid down their arms, he also would disband his army." But the Protestants did not believe in his pacific intentions, as they regarded him as the instrument of the bigoted and cruel Ferdinand, with whom they coulcl have no friendly relations.

The war began on the side of the Bohemians.

Count Thurn marched an army to capture Budweis and Krumman, two towns in which the Catholics held dominion. Krumman surrendered without resistance, but Budweis refusing to surrender, was besieged.

The imperial army now advanced in two divisions, under Bucquoi and Dampierre, and invaded the Bohemian territories with the design of laying siege to Prague. Every-where the people rose up against them, and contested their march at every pass and every defile where a stand could be made. Reports came in from Merovia and from the Protestant Union that aid was coming to them. Four thousand men from the army of the Duke of Savoy were offered to the Union, and Count Peter Ernest of Mansfield was placed at the head. He had repudiated the Catholic faith in which he was reared, and entered with enthusiasm into the cause of the Protestants. He soon appeared on the scene of action and made his first attack upon the Catholic town of Pilsen. After a short siege it surrendered, and was occupied by his troops. This gave him a strong foothold in the country.

All the time Count Thurn was facing the army of Bucquoi, and resisting his progress. Silesia soon espoused the cause of the revolutionists, and sent an auxiliary army into the field. Before these united forces Bucquoi was compelled to retrace his steps and return to the fortified town of Budweis. Winter now set in, and the contending armies took up Winter quarters.

On the 20th of March, 1619, the aged Emperor Matthias died. The next legitimate heir to the crown of Austria was Ferdinand, the rejected King of Bohemia. He directly made overtures of reconciliation to the directors, and promised to respect the Royal Charter. But they had no faith in his Jesuitical pledges, and rejected his proposals with scorn.

With the opening of Spring the campaign commenced anew. While Mansfield held Bucquoi in check Count Thurn marched into Merovia, where the Protestant population hailed him with rapture. Brun is taken, and all the rest of the country came over to him. He next invaded Austria, and meeting no opposition from the people, the greater part of whom, in Upper and Lower Austria, were largely Protestant, and had refused allegiance to Ferdinand on the decease of Matthias. Before midsummer the exulting army of Thurn had reached the walls of Vienna, where Ferdinand was holding his court.

No preparations were made to resist a siege. The troops in his service were few in number and disaffected for want of pay. The population were almost equally divided on the question of religion. A deputation came from the Austrian estates demanding his signature to a compact with the Bohemians. One day fifteen Austrian nobles crowded into his chamber, and one of them seized him by the button and cried: "Ferdinand, wilt thou sign it?" What could he do? He was no coward, and his mind was decidedly against the reformed religion. He threw himself down before the crucifix, and the image of Jesus bowed his head to the royal suppliant, so it was reported, and so perhaps he fancied he heard the consoling answer to his petition, "Ferdinand, I will not forsake thee." Soon after a trumpet announced the entrance into the city of a regiment of horse that had found a gate unguarded by the besieging army. But this re-enforcement would have been of no avail had Count Thurn been supplied with siege equipage, and had he been seconded, as he expected, by a rising of the Protestant faction of the city. A report that Bucquoi had defeated Mansfield and was marching on Prague, added wings to his retreat.