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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    1613-7] The Silesian, Moravian, and Lusatian Diets speedily followed suit in accepting his succession. In Austria, on the other hand, where nothing beyond the act of homage could be required, he postponed asking for it, in the belief that after the death of Matthias it would be easier to avoid the concessions made by him to the Estates in 1609. The most important question of all, that ol Ferdinands succession to the Imperial throne, could now be taken in hand; and, immediately after his coronation at Prague, Matthias had accompanied him to Dresden, where they had easily assured themselves of the goodwill ol the Elector, John George (August, 1617). A Kurfilrstentag for the election of a successor to the Imperial throne, and, in pursuance of Klesl’s cherished policy of compromise, for the simultaneous discussion of grievances, was soon summoned for February 1, 1618. The main opposition which the proposal of Ferdinand’s Imperial succession had to overcome was that of the Palatine party, of which the young Elector was the necessary figure-head, and which had never ceased to keep in view its main purpose—the entire exclusion of the House of Habsburg from the Imperial throne. Christian of Anhalt’s chancery was always at work; and Matthias had no reason for sup- posing that either the Palatine councillors or the Corresponding Princes, whose action they continued to direct, had been secured by the policy of compromise. Anhalt had been in communication with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden as early as 1614, and in 1617 Monthoux, an envoy of Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, negotiated a treaty for military aid with the States General and the Union, while Anhalt’s eldest son entered into the Savoy service. As for the young Elector Palatine, who in 1614 had assumed the government of his inheritance, though he was something of a soldier and something of a theologian, his excellent education had failed to implant in him independence of judgment; while the rare natural vigour of his English consort as yet chiefly found vent in the eager pursuit of pleasure and in extravagant display. Anhalt had long indulged in the confident expectation that on the death of Matthias the Bohemian Crown would drop into the Elector Palatine’s lap; no secret had been made of these hopes when Frederick appeared as a suitor in England; and a few months after the marriage (April, 1613) James I avowed his opinion that in a few years his son-in-law would be King of Bohemia. But Christopher von Dohna had travelled in vain from Heidelberg to Prague and Dresden, and Ferdinand had been accepted as successor to the Bohemian throne. In the matter of the Imperial succession the Palatine Government, with which (especially since the marriage of Frederick’s sister, Elizabeth Charlotte, to the Electoral Prince, George William of Brandenburg) the Elector John Sigismund’s went hand in hand, had for some time favoured the scheme of bringing forward Maximilian of Bavaria. But though that Prince had reason for carefully watching the policy of the c. M. II. IV. CH. I. 2