But at this moment relief came out of an unexpected quarter. Christian IV. of Denmark had attempted a diversion in favour of the German Protestant princes, and had not only been repulsed, but had drawn the Austrian generals into his own kingdom with fire and sword. But in Sweden had risen up a king, able, pious, earnestly desirous of the restoration of Protestantism, and qualified by long military experience, though yet a young man, to cope with any general of the age. Gustavus Adolphus had mounted the Swedish throne at the age of eighteen, and was now only seven-and-thirty; yet he had already maintained a seventeen years' war against Poland, backed by the power of Austria. But now an armistice of six years was settled with Poland. Wallenstein, the ablest general of Austria, had been removed from the command, in consequence of the universal outcry of the German princes, in an Imperial Council at Ratisbon, against his cruelties and exactions; and the far-seeing Richelieu, who was attacking the Spaniards in Italy and the Netherlands, perceiving the immense advantage of such division in Germany, had offered to make an alliance with the Swede.
On the 23rd of June, 1630, Gustavus embarked fifteen thousand of his veteran troops, and crossed into Pomerania. On the 17th of September the Swedish king gave battle to Tilly and Pappenheim before Leipsic, and routed them with great slaughter. This turned the scale of war: the cowed German princes once more raised their heads and entered into league with Gustavus, who soon drove the Austrians from the larger part of the country, took Hanau and Frankfort-on-the-Main, when Frederick the Palsgrave joined him, hoping to be established by Gustavus in his patrimony. But the brave Swedish king, who was highly incensed against Charles for not joining at his earnest entreaty in this enterprise, in which he himself was hazarding life, crown, and everything, of putting down the Catholic intolerance, and placing a Protestant emperor on the throne, though he received the Palsgrave kindly, gave him no immediate hope of restoration. The English ambassador was there, pressing this vehemently on Gustavus; but the Swede told him he regarded him only as a Spaniard in disguise, and said bluntly, "Let the King of England make a league with me against Spain. Let him send me twelve thousand men, to be maintained at his own cost, and which shall be placed entirely at my command, and I will engage to compel from both Spain and Bavaria full restoration of the Palsgrave's rights."
Gustavus was perfectly right. Had Charles dealt honourably and wisely with his Parliament and people, and husbanded his resources, here was the great opportunity to have re-established his sister and brother-in-law, and have had a glorious share in the victory of Protestantism on the Continent. Gustavus recovered Darmstadt, Oppenheim, and Mainz, and then took up his winter quarters. Meanwhile, the Saxon field-marshal, Von Arnim, invaded Bohemia and took Prague; whilst the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and Duke Bernhard of Weimar, defeated several bodies of Tilly's troops in Westphalia and the Upper Rhine lands.
This sweeping reverse compelled the Emperor to recall Wallenstein to the chief command. Assembling forty thousand men at Znaim in Bohemia, he marched on Prague, and drove the Saxons not only thence but out of Bohemia altogether. Meanwhile Gustavus, issuing from his winter quarters on the Rhine, directed his course to Nuremberg, and so to Donauwörth, and at Rain on the Lech fought with Tilly and the Duke of Bavaria. Tilly was killed (April 30, 1632); and Gustavus advanced and took Augsburg in April, Munich on the 27th of May, and after in vain attacking Wallenstein before Nuremberg, he encountered him at Lützen, in Saxony, and beat him, but fell himself in the hour of victory (November 16, 1632). He had, however, saved Protestantism. Wallenstein lost favour after his defeat, was suspected by the emperor, and finally assassinated by his own officers (February 25, 1634). The generals of Gustavus, under the orders of Gustavus's great Minister Oxenstierna, continued the contest, and enabled the German Protestant princes to establish their power and the exercise of their religion, at the peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Charles, shamed into some degree of co-operation, had despatched the Marquis of Hamilton with six thousand men to the assistance of Gustavus; but the whole affair was so badly managed, the commissariat and general care of the men were so miserable, that the little army speedily became decimated by disease and was of no service. Hamilton returned home, and the remains of his forces under the command of the Prince Charles Louis, son of the Elector Frederick, were routed in Westphalia. Frederick himself, deprived of all hope by the fall of Gustavus, only survived him about a fortnight; and thus ended the dream of the restoration of the Palatinate.
At home Charles had determined to rule without a Parliament, but this necessarily drove him upon all those means of raising an income which Parliament had protested against, and which must, therefore, continue to exasperate the people. Between the dissolution of the Parliament in 1629, and the summons of another in 1640, these proceedings had apparently advanced the cause of despotism, but in reality they promoted the cause of liberty; the nation had been scourged into a temper which left no means but the sword of appeasing it. The first unceremonious violation of his pledge to the public conveyed in the granting of the Petition of Right was levying as unscrupulously as ever the duties of tonnage and poundage; and the goods of all such as refused the illegal payment were immediately distrained upon and sold.
The king next appointed a Committee to inquire into the encroachments on the royal forests, a legitimate and laudable object if conducted in a spirit of fairness and liberality. In every age gross encroachments have been made on these Crown lands, and especially in the reckless reign of James. But it would seem that the Commissioners proceeded in an arbitrary spirit, and, relying on the power of the Crown, often ruined those who resisted their decisions by the costs of law. The Earl of Holland—a noted creature of the king's—was made head of this Commission, and presided in a court established for the purpose. Under its operations vast tracts were recovered to the Crown, and heavy fines for trespasses levied. Rockingham Forest was enlarged from a circuit of six miles to one of sixty, and the Earl of Southampton was nearly ruined by the king's resumption of a large estate adjoining the New Forest. Even where these recoveries were made with right, they exasperated the aristocracy, who had been the chief encroachers, and injured the king in their goodwill. Clarendon says, "To recompense the damage the Crown sustained by the sale of old lands, and by the grant of new pensions, the old laws of the forest are revived; by which not only great fines are imposed, but great annual rents intended, and like to be settled by way of contract, which burden lighted most upon persons of quality and honour, who thought themselves above ordinary oppressions, and therefore like to remember it with more sharpness."
Besides the tonnage and poundage, obsolete laws were revived, and other duties imposed on merchants' goods; and all who resisted were prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned. But a still more plausible scheme was hit upon for extorting money. The old feudal practice, introduced by Henry III. and Edward I., of compelling persons holding lands under the Crown worth twenty pounds per annum, to receive knighthood, or to compound by a fine, had been enforced by Elizabeth and James, and was not likely to be passed over in this general inquisition after the means of income independent of Parliament. All landed proprietors worth forty pounds a year were called on to accept the title of knight and pay the fees, or were fined, and in default of payment thrown into prison. "By this ill-husbandry," says Clarendon, "which, though it was founded in right, was most grievous from the mode of proceeding, vast sums were drawn from the subject. And no less unjust projects of all kinds—many ridiculous, many scandalous, all very grievous—were set on foot, the damage and reproach of which came to the king, the profit to other men; inasmuch as of twenty thousand pounds a year, scarcely one thousand five hundred pounds came to the king's use or account."
A great commotion was raised by the king depriving many freeholders arbitrarily of their lands to enlarge Richmond Park, and he saw the necessity of making some compensation.
Another mode of raising money was by undoing in a great measure what the Parliament had done by abolishing monopolies. True, Charles took care not to grant these monopolies to individuals, but to companies; but this, whilst it arrested the odium of seeing them in the hands of courtiers and favourites, increased their mischief by augmenting the number and power of the oppressors. These companies were enabled to dictate to the public the price of the articles included in their patent, and restrain at their pleasure their manufacture or sale. One of the most flagrant cases was that of the Company of Soap-boilers, who purchased a monopoly of the manufacture of soap for ten thousand pounds, and a duty of eight pounds per ton on all the soap they made. The scheme was that of the renegade Noye; and all who presumed to make soap for themselves, regardless of the monopoly, were fined, the company being authorised to search the premises of all soap-boilers, seize any made without a licence, and prosecute the offender in the Star Chamber. There was a similar monopoly granted to starch-makers.