REIGN OF HENRY IV.—When Henry IV. gained his throne, the country was in a most wretched condition. In the desolating wars, population had fallen off. Everywhere there were poverty and lawlessness. Yet war with Spain was inevitable. In this war, Henry was the victor; and the Peace of Vervins restored the Spanish conquests, and the conquests made by Savoy, to France (1598). The idea of Henry's foreign policy, which was that of weakening the power of Spain and of the house of Hapsburg, was afterwards taken up by a powerful statesman, Richelieu, and fully realized. In the Edict of Nantes (1598), the king secured to the Huguenots the measure of religious liberty for which they had contended. Fortified cities were still left in their hands. Security was obtained by the Calvinists, but they became a defensive party with no prospect of further progress. Order and prosperity were restored to the kingdom. In all his measures, the king was largely guided by a most competent minister, Sully. But the useful reign of Henry IV. was cut short by the dagger of an assassin, Ravaillac (1610). For fifteen years confusion prevailed in France, and a contest of factions, until Richelieu took up the threads of policy which had fallen from Henry's hand.
CHAPTER VII. THE THIRTY-YEARS' WAR, TO THE PEACE OP WESTPHALIA (1618-1648).
ORIGIN OF THE WAR.—In Germany, more than in any other country, the Reformation had sprung from the hearts of the people. Its progress would have been far greater had it not been retarded by political obstacles, and by divisions among Protestants themselves. Germany, to be sure, was not disunited by the Reformation: it was disunited before. But now strong states existed on its borders,—France, even Denmark and Sweden,—which might profit by its internal conflicts. The Peace of Augsburg, unsatisfactory as it was to both parties, availed to prevent open strife as long as Ferdinand I. (1556-1564) and Maximilian II. (1564-1576) held the imperial office. The latter, especially, favored toleration, and did not sympathize with the fanaticism of the Spanish branch of his family. He condemned the cruelties of Alva and the massacre of St. Bartholomew. With the accession of Rudolph II., a change took place. He had been brought up in Spain. The Catholic counter-reformation was now making its advance. The order of the _Jesuits _was putting forth great and successful exertions to win back lost ground. There were out-breakings of violence between the two religious parties. A Catholic procession was insulted in Donauwörth, a free city of the empire. The city was put under the ban by the emperor; the Bavarian Duke marched against it, and incorporated it in his own territory (1607). On both sides, complaints were made of the infraction of the Peace of Augsburg. The Donauwörth affair led to the formation of the Evangelical Union, a league into which, however, all the Protestant states did not enter. The Catholic League, under the Leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria, was firmly knit together and full of energy.
FIRST STAGE IN THE WAR (to 1629).
THE BOHEMIAN STRUGGLE.—The Bohemians revolted against Ferdinand II. in 1618, when their religious liberties were violated, and shortly after (1619) refused to acknowledge him as their king. He was a narrow and fanatical, though not by nature a cruel, ruler. He gave himself up to the control of the Catholic League. The two branches of the Hapsburg family—the Austrian and Spanish—were now in full accord with each other. The Bohemians gave their crown to Frederick V., the Elector Palatine, the son-in-law of James I. of England. Bohemia was invaded by Ferdinand, aided by the League, and abandoned to fire and sword. The terrible scenes of the Hussite struggle were re-enacted. In the protracted wars that ensued, it was estimated that the Bohemian population was reduced from about four millions to between seven and eight hundred thousand! The Palatinate was conquered and devastated. The electoral dignity was transferred to the Duke of Bavaria. At last, in 1625, England, Holland, and Denmark intervened in behalf of the fugitive Elector Palatine. Christian IV. of Denmark was defeated, and the intervention failed. The power gained by Maximilian, the Bavarian Duke, made his interests separate, in important particulars, from those of Ferdinand. Ferdinand was able to release himself from the virtual control of Maximilian and the League, through Wallenstein, a general of extraordinary ability. He was a Bohemian noble, proud, ambitious, and wealthy. He raised an army, and made it support itself by pillage. The unspeakable miseries of Germany, in this prolonged struggle, were due largely to the composition of the armies, which were made up of hirelings of different nations, whose trade was war, and who were let loose on an unprotected population. Captured cities were given up to the unbridled passions of a fierce and greedy soldiery. Germany, traversed for a whole generation by these organized bands of marauders, was in many places reduced almost to a desert.
EDICT OF RESTITUTION.—Victory attended the arms of Wallenstein, and of Tilly, a brutal commander, the general of the League. The territory of the Dukes of Mecklenburg was given to Wallenstein as a reward (1629). He was anxious to conquer the German towns on the Baltic. Stralsund offered a stubborn resistance, which he could not overcome. The League moved Ferdinand to the adoption of the Edict of Restitution (1629), which put far off the hope of peace. This edict enforced the parts of the Peace of Augsburg which were odious to the Protestants, especially the Ecclesiastical Reservation (p. 410), and abrogated the provisions of an opposite tenor. It was evident that the real aim was the entire extinction of Protestantism. The League, moreover, induced the emperor to remove Wallenstein, of whom they were jealous. The effect of these measures was to rouse the most lukewarm of the Protestant princes, including the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, to a sense of the common danger. It was plain that Wallenstein was a sacrifice to the League, and to the ambition of Maximilian of Bavaria.
SECOND STAGE IN THE WAR (1629-1632).
In the second act of this long drama, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is the hero. His reign is marked by the rise of his country to the height of its power.
EVENTS IN SWEDEN: CAREER OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.—Gustavus Vasa made the mistake of undertaking to divide power among his four sons. There was a vein of eccentricity, amounting sometimes to insanity, in the family. Eric XIV. was hasty and jealous, imprisoned his brother John, and committed reckless crimes. In 1569 he was himself confined, and nine years after was secretly put to death. John and another brother, Charles of Südermanland, now reigned together. John was favorable to the Roman-Catholic Church, and offended his Protestant subjects by efforts at union and compromise. Moreover, he unwisely made concessions to the nobles, and increased the burdens of the peasants. Finally, he wanted to make his son Sigismund king of Poland, a country which, from its anarchical constitution, was on the road to ruin. Poland was a Catholic land; and, in order to get the crown, Sigismund avowed himself a Catholic. Charles, a strict Lutheran, drew to his side all who were hostile to John's spirit and policy. On the death of the latter (1592), Duke Charles came into collision with Sigismund and with the nobles, whose power depended on his concessions; and he gained the victory over them (1598). In 1604 the Diet gave him the crown, which he wore for seven years. He had to contend against faction, and to withstand the attacks of Denmark and of Russia. In the midst of these troubles he died, and was succeeded by his son Gustavus Adolphus, then less than eighteen years of age (1611-1632). He was a well-educated prince, early familiar with war, a devoted patriot, and, although tolerant in his temper, was a sincere Protestant, after the type of the old Saxon electors. For eighteen years after his accession, it had been his aim to control the Baltic. This had brought him into conflict with Denmark, Poland, and Russia. His interposition in the German war, a step which was full of peril to himself, was regarded by Brandenburg and Saxony with jealousy and repugnance. But when the savage troops of Tilly (1631) sacked and burned Magdeburg, the neutral party was driven to side with Sweden. Gustavus defeated Tilly, and the advance of his army in the South of Germany prostrated the power of the League. The princes regarded the Swedish king with suspicion: the cities regarded him with cordiality. Whether along with his sagacious and just intentions he connected his own elevation to the rank of King of Rome, and emperor, must be left uncertain. Ferdinand was obliged to call back Wallenstein. The battle of Lützen, in 1632, was a great defeat of Wallenstein, and a grand victory for the Swedes; but it cost them the life of their king.