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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    1612-3] Weakness of the Imperial authority.—Indulte. at least showed the expulsion of the Turks from Europe to be in the eyes of contemporary European statesmanship a possible hypothesis; and when in 1613 many of the Estates of the Empire treated Matthias1 application for aid against the Turks as a mere blind to cover purposes of his own, there was at all events no longer any serious apprehension of immediate danger from the Porte. Least of all were those who were prepared for their own ends to plunge the Empire into war likely to be restrained by any pious or respectful feeling towards the authority of the Emperor himself. Not that the feeling of loyalty had wholly died out among either Princes or cities ; but it only counted in the game when, as in the case of John George of Saxony, it cooperated with other motives, religious, dynastic, and personal. The awe inspired by the political greatness of Charles V, the respect secured by Ferdinand Ps subordination of his own wishes to the interests of the Empire, the goodwill which could hardly be refused to Maximilian IPs kindly latitudinarianism—had come to be forgotten in the hopelessness of a rule so impotent and so perverse as that of Rudolf II. How could the elements of conservative fidelity thus dissipated be reunited and vitalised anew by such a prince as Matthias, himself unstable at heart and controlled by no influence save that of an ecclesiastic whom Catholics and Protestants, Archdukes and Estates, could alike find plausible reasons for distrusting ? Yet, as has already been seen, no serious impediment was in May, 1612, placed in the way of the election of Matthias; and, even in the matter of the Wahlcapitulation imposed upon him by the Electors, the opportunity was lost of obtaining important concessions from so pliant a candidate at the moment of least resistance. It was intended to secure a reconstitution of the Emperor’s supreme ministerial council, the Reichshofrath, whose encroachments in the previous reign had been so notorious; and, above all, the Protestants desired the extension of the system of Imperial indulgences {Indulte) to the administrators of bishoprics and abbacies, who would have thus gained seats in the Diet and assured a working majority to its Protestant members. But Saxony at the last rallied to the Catholic side; and these concessions were not exacted. The reorganisation of the Reichshofrath with the approval of the Electoral body was however accepted in principle ; and the assent of the reigning Emperor was declared to be no longer indispensable to the election of his successor. This innovation might prove of moment. For the present the election of Matthias as Emperor made no change in the existing state of things. Though really in a minority in the Imperial Diet, the Catholics both here and in the great tribunals and councils of the Empire were still artificially enabled to exercise the sway proper to a majority. Neither Matthias nor Klesl could rise to the conception of an Imperial State or national monarchy covering and controlling the aspirations of both Catholics and Protestants ; nor can it