Neither the Duke of Weimar nor Oxenstiern enjoyed the personal ascendency of Gustavus Adolphus. The minister could not deal as he did with German princes, nor the German prince with German territory. The Swedish cause was very seriously weakened, and as the emperor gave up the idea of restitution, which was hopeless, and which had done so much to intensify animosities, and as Wallenstein commanded and Tilly was dead, it became possible to discuss terms of peace with the Saxons, who dreaded the moderated emperor less than the formidable Swedes. That situation gives the basis of the tragedy that followed. Wallenstein enjoyed undivided command. If the enemy accepted his proposals, he thought himself strong enough to compel their acceptance at Vienna. He opened two negotiations, one with the Saxons, to get rid of the Swedes, the other with the Swedes themselves. The latter was promoted by his friends, the Bohemian exiles; but Oxenstiern was reluctant, and required that Wallenstein should declare against his master. If he would do that, he should have the crown of Bohemia. Wallenstein refused, and the matter was allowed to drop.
The scheme which he proposed to the Saxons and Brandenburgers was the restoration of peace on the principles of religious liberty; the control of belief by Government abolished; everything rescinded which had been done since 1618 in contradiction with this principle; the departure of the Swedes to be purchased by an indemnity. These are the main ideas. They were reasonable conditions of a lasting peace, and would have saved many years of useless war, and prevented the ruin of Germany. Wallenstein designed that the emperor should be compelled to submit, if necessary, by a display of force. What Ferdinand wished for beyond this, what he had striven for all along, the Catholic domination, was hopeless. And if not hopeless, it was a thing not to be desired, and not worthy of the cruel sacrifice of continued warfare. It was the interest of Spaniard, Bavarian, and clergy to frustrate Wallenstein's scheme. They represented that he was a traitor, that he was plotting with the enemies of the empire, that he crowded his camp with Protestants, that he wanted to be king, and compassed the death of his master. Some of it was plausibly near the truth; and their suspicions were confirmed when the Duke of Weimar took Ratisbon. The Elector of Bavaria had sent full warning; the Aulic Council had sent positive orders. But Wallenstein refused to move.
Fearing that he might be deposed before he could execute what he had long meditated, he summoned his colonels to Pilsen, and threatened to resign. They pledged themselves to stand by him. The clause, saving their duty to the emperor, was struck out of the declaration by him. He still hoped to succeed. But Ferdinand issued orders that he should be no longer obeyed; and these orders, proclaimed at Prague to sound of drum, were accepted by the army. A successor was appointed; Piccolomini, the real victor at Lutzen, was made field-marshal; and the officers were drawn away by the prospect of the impending confiscations. They amounted, eventually, to fourteen millions of florins. The Spanish envoy, Onate, at last sent word in Ferdinand's name that Wallenstein should be mastered, alive or dead. Wallenstein understood that he was in danger, and begged Weimar to come to his assistance with cavalry.
He started from Pilsen, with the remnant of his troops, to meet Weimar at Eger, where two Scotch Presbyterians were in command, who inspired confidence. But on the way he met the Irish regiment of dragoons, with their colonel, Butler, and required them to accompany him. They were going to Prague, to join his enemies, and were the authors of his death. Butler persuaded the two Scotsmen, Lesley and Gordon, and the few officers, known to be Wallenstein's immediate friends, were invited to a banquet in the castle of Eger, and there cut down. When the Countess Kinsky, who was the wife of one of them, learnt of her husband's death, she had the presence of mind instantly to destroy his papers, and the secret of Wallenstein's treason was lost in that conflagration. Devereux, one of Butlers captains, went with a handful of men to the general's quarters and despatched him. The deed was approved by the emperor, and the murderers were rewarded. This is the dramatic end of the struggle, so far as it was caused by genuine problems of Church and State.
A war of aggression and desolation ensued, and lasted many years, without higher significance. When the Imperialists had gained another victory at Nordlingen, Lutheran Saxony made its peace, at Prague, in 1635.
Then Richelieu took up the conflict, to carry on his feud with both branches of the House of Habsburg, and the empire sank lower and lower, German princes and generals betraying their country to the national enemy. In 1643, when Richelieu was dead, a chance of peace began. Five years later it was concluded for Germany, at Munster and Osnabruck, not for Spain. The Empire lost much in population and territory, which were taken by France; still more in authority, which fell from the emperors hands into the hands of the several princes, now virtually sovereign and subject to no control. The peace of Westphalia gave no accession to the Protestant interest.
In extension, the Protestants lost by the Thirty Years' War. They lost one-half of the Palatinate, incorporated in Bavaria; and they submitted to exclusion from the Austrian dominions, all but Silesia. Calvinists were now admitted to equal rights with the rest. Protestants and Catholics recovered what they had possessed in 1624. Therefore the cause of the insurgent Bohemians was abandoned, and the men who were thrown out of the window triumphed in the end. Concerning liberty of conscience, not a word was said. The power of the interfering State was not shorn, but the idea that the division of Christendom might be healed by force passed away from the minds of men. It had taken thirty years of incessant bloodshed to extinguish the Counter-Reformation.
XI
THE PURITAN REVOLUTION
AT THE death of Elizabeth, England separated from the Continent in politics, and moved thenceforth in a different direction. Long before, political observers like Commynes and Fortescue recognised the distinctive character and the superiority of the insular institutions; but these were not strong enough to withstand the Tudors, and the work had to be begun over again. It was begun, upon the ancient ways, with tradition and precedent; and when that was found to be not quite convincing, it was pursued by means of new, general, and revolutionary principles. The combination, or alteration, of these methods of policy is the peculiar note of the times before us.