Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 13).

Date:: 1830-33

Credit: Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 13). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

Title Page

144/608

ban. The electoral family of the Palati- nate received back tlie Palatinate (q. v.) of the Rhine, and the eiglith electorship was created for it, with a provision, how- ever, that this should be abolished in case the Bavarian house should become extinct (as actually happened in 1777), since the Palatine house would then recov- er the Bavarian electorate. The changes which had been made for the advantage of the Protestants since the religious peace (q. v.), in 1555, were confirmed by the determination that every thing should remain as it had been at the begin- ning of the (so called) normal year{q. v.), 1624. The Calvinists received equal rights with the adherents of the Augs- burg Confession (q. v.), or the Lutherans. The princes of the empire were bound not to prosecute or oppress those of their subjects whose religious faith differed from their own. After all impediments in the way of the system of toleration had been overcome, the ambassadors em- braced and shed tears of joy. Several religious foundations were secularized, and given as indemnifications to several members of the empire, in which the em- peror acquiesced to seciu-e the integrity of his hereditary states. The empire ceded Alsatia to France, to its lasting in- jury ; Sweden received Hither Pome- rania, Bremen, Verdun, Wismar, and 5,000,000 of German dollars for her troops. Brandenburg received the secu- larized bishoprics of Halberstadt, Minden, Camin, and the reversion of Magdeburg. Mecklenburg received the secularized bishoprics of Schvverin and Ratzeburg; Hanover, alternately with a Catholic bishop, the bishopric of Osnabriick and some convents ; Hesse-Cassel, the abbey of Hirschfeld and 600,000 German dol- lars. The United Netherlands were ac- knowledged as an independent nation, and the Swiss as entirely separate from the German empire. France and Swe- den undertook to guaranty this peace. The solemn protest of pope Innocent X against these terms, particularly in re- spect to the injury done to the papal see by the secularization of bishoprics and abbeys, &c., was not i-egarded ; but the complete execution of the conditions of the treaty was obstructed by many diffi- culties. The war was even continued be- tween France with Savoy on the one side, and Spain with Lon-aine on the other; also between Spain and Portugal.—See Von Woltmann's History of the Peace of IVestphalia (2 vols., Leipsic, 1808).—This peace gave the death-blow to the political unity of Germany. It made the German empire, which was always a most dis- advantageous form of government for the people, a disjointed frame, without organization or system. Ferdinand II, had it not been for his intolerance, might have had it in his power, after the peace of Liibeck with Denmark, in 1629, to give once more consistency to the empire; whether, on the whole, to the advaKage of the peo])le, or not, we do not say. But by the edict of restitution effected by the Jesuits, he deprived himself of the fruits of Tilly's and Wallenstein's victo- ries. Every German prince and petty monarch now thought only of his own house ; and the German empire not only lost, by the peace of Westphalia, a territo- ry of 40,000 square miles, with 4,500,000 inhabitants, but also its western military frontier; while Lorraine, on the side of Alsatia, and the Burgundian cii'cle in the west and north, were left without defence. The internal trade of Germany was also grievously obstructed by the estab- lishment of above 300 sovereigns. On the other hai.d, the right procured by France for eveiy member of the empire to con- clude separate alliances, which gave to Bavaria, Brandenburg, and other German houses, importance in the general Euro- pean politics, together with the influ- ence of foreign powers, as Sweden, on the politics of Germany, made this couu- tiy thenceforth the theati*e of all the quarrels of Europe. One military state after another was established; and the German nation, impeded, in a thousand ways, in its manufactures and commerce, labored only to support a number of petty, yet overgrown armies, ridiculous courts and foreign embassies. The aris- tocratic principle was developed at the expense of the monarchical, so that the empire, which always had the disadvan- tages both of an electoral and a hereditary monarchy, without the advantages of either, now became entirely crippled. France and Sweden acquired great in- fluence in Germany by this peace, owing to the contemptible pride of the petty princes of the countiy, and tlieir insensi- bility for the general well-being of the nation. Though well aware that such speculations are useless, the historian can hardly help asking himself. How differ- ent would have been the destiny of Eu- rope but for the ball which put an end to the precious life of Gustavus Adolphus, on the field of Liitzen ? Wethersfield Priso>'. (See Prison Discipline.)

Licence and re-use

Contents