The Cambridge modern history. Vol. IV, The Thiry Years' War / planned by the late Lord Acton ; edited by A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero, Stanley Leathes.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Cambridge modern history. Vol. IV, The Thiry Years' War / planned by the late Lord Acton ; edited by A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero, Stanley Leathes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1612-4] subjects were appeased by conciliatory assurances, the Union might dissolve, and the League, from which Bavarian jealousy had excluded the head of the House of Austria, might follow suit. No consummation could better assure the preservation of the peace of the Empire, while at the same time strengthening the authority of its chief. Yet all these calculations were delusive. In no part of the Habsburg dominions or of the Empire at large was there even an approach to mutual confidence between the parties. Matthias’ understanding with the Austrian towns was verbal only. The inviolable compact between Crown and Estates in Bohemia—the Letter of Majesty itself—was already known to have a fatal flaw. As for the Union and the League, the advantages in an emergency of a ready-formed alliance had already been made so manifest that there could not be the faintest intention of putting an end to either association; and Maximilian of Bavaria was far too jealous of John George of Saxony for a combination between the League and the Lutherans to be even conceivable. The Elector Palatine was hard pressed in his finances; but in the long run he must follow his destiny as the leading Calvinist Prince and the directions of the keeper of his political conscience, Anhalt, the activity of whose “ chancery ” had never been more intense or more concentrated on definite issues. Moreover, in 1614 the party of action made a distinct advance when the new Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg actually adopted Calvinism and his policy became identified with that of the Elector Palatine. As to foreign connexions, the pacific intentions of James I might reduce the significance of his treaty with the Union; but in the same year the negotiations were completed which in the following February (1613) led to the celebration, amidst the rejoicings of Protestant England, of the marriage of his only daughter Elizabeth to the young “Palsgrave”; and on his way home Frederick V induced the States General to conclude another defensive treaty with the Union, which was ratified in the following year. Clearly, the truce between Spain and the United Provinces was little likely to become a peace; the all-important border-question was still unsettled, and was before long to bring Spinola and Maurice of Nassau once more face to face. Though France and Spain seemed settling down into amity and were soon to be bound together by two royal marriages, yet there could never be any real unity of purpose or policy between them; and their intimacy only served to revive in Philip III aspirations which, vain as they were, constituted a real menace to the peace of Europe. So far as the internal condition of the Empire was concerned, it was rapidly becoming incompatible with the continuance of tranquillity; and the deep-seated disturbances in its religious, political, and social life were alike making for war. I I he religious question, which more than half a century ago the two-faced agreement of the Peace of Augsburg had sought to regulate, CH. I. 1—2