The Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, declared that the treaties of Passau and Augsburg were confirmed. The Edict of Restitution was canceled. The great Supreme Court of the Empire was to be half Protestant and half Catholic. It legalized the break which had been made by Luther and the other reformers. It gave liberty of conscience to the Protestant part of Europe.
Against the Treaty of Westphalia the Pope of Rome made an earnest protest that does not at this distance of time and place seem important. This protest, however, was the pontifical declaration that in spite of the treaty of Augsburg, Rome had never abandoned and never intends to abandon the claim made by Gregory VIII., Innocent III., Bonifacius VIII. and their successors, that the Pope of Rome is the supreme and exclusive source of all ecclesiastical and political authority in all the world.
All the wars, murders, intrigues, massacres and apparent victories of Charles V., Ferdinand II., of Philip II. of Spain, of Alva in the Netherlands, the half Roman policy of Charles I. of England, came to dire judgment in the Peace of Westphalia, and Catholic and Protestant learned the deep lesson of religious toleration.
It took Luther, Calvin, Knox, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Gustavus Adolphus and Cromwell, the Huguenots of France, and all God's faithful plain people of many nations to bring about the religious toleration we now enjoy.
Sweden practically saved religious liberty to the world. So far this has been her greatest contribution to history. Protestantism everywhere means liberty of conscience, Romanism everywhere means absolutism.
Chancellor Oxenstiern, next to Gustavus, deserves the honors of that war. By his great statesmanship and unfaltering dignity he secured religious toleration, which was the chief thing fought for, and secured a fair share of land and money for his impoverished country.
When the Thirty Years' War ended, not one of the great men who began it was alive. Emperor Ferdinand II., King Christian II., Gustavus the Great, Wallenstein, Tilly, Pappenheim, James I. of England, and Richelieu, had all gone to give an account of the deeds done in the body. For a whole century the remains of burned and ruined towns, villages and desolated homes and farms marked the sorrows of the cruelest long war of history.
In the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, ecclesiastical property was determined by possession in 1624 (six years after the war began), and liberty of conscience granted to the Protestants. This treaty was decided by France and Sweden, and in many respects it bore hard on Germany. It was from rights granted in this treaty that Louis XIV. treated Germany as a vassal province, and that Napoleon I. brought the Empire to a close.[[6]] The House of Hapsburg began to see the necessity of changing the title of Emperor of Austria, though it kept the shell without the soul for one hundred and forty years after the Peace of Westphalia. There was a growing expectation that the young Elector of Brandenburg might become the real ruler of northern Germany.
[6]. In the year 1800, Francis I. took the title Emperor of Austria.
Oxenstiern, supported by a cabinet, ruled over Sweden till Christina, the daughter of Gustavus, in her eighteenth year, became Queen of Sweden. This mannish queen was jealous of the fame of the old Chancellor, and dishonored herself by dishonoring him. It is quite possible that she was slightly insane. She scattered the crown property, gave costly gifts to unworthy people, and at last she was in a measure forced to abdicate in favor of her cousin, one of the Vasa family. Having lost the love and respect of her subjects, she soon left Sweden in masculine attire under the name of Count Dohna. She first went to Brussels, and later to Italy. It had been known for some time that she was greatly influenced by the Spanish minister at her court, and at Innsbruck she openly joined the Roman Church, and was rechristened Alexandria.