The greatest story in the world, period 3 (of 3)

by Horace G. Hutchinson

On the Continent there was tension quite as acute between the people and the princes, but there it was tension not so much between any two sections of the reformed Church, as between the people as members of the reformed Church and the princes as representatives of the old Church. Moreover in some lands the princes and rulers themselves were of the reformed religion.

In France it is the Catholic Crown and the State forces that we see opposed to the Protestants, there called Huguenots.

In Germany a Catholic League is made by the rulers of the States that adhered to the old faith, and, in opposition, a Protestant Union is formed by the princes of the States that have accepted the doctrines of the Reformation. But also in Germany, we see that, in one of the States at least, a Catholic prince is set against a large Protestant section of his people. This was in Bohemia.

It was in France that the first violent outbreak, due to this tension, occurred—a rising of the Huguenots under the great Prince Condé. It was quickly suppressed, and Condé was taken and imprisoned. That was a rising of very small and unimportant character compared to one which happened three years later, in 1618, as a consequence of the opposition which we have just noted, between the king and people in Bohemia.

Bohemia was the land of Huss, one of the fore-runners of Luther's Reformation. The spirit of Protestantism was strong there. By attempting to persecute the Bohemians for their religious opinions and practices the king at once made that spirit stronger still, and the people appealed for support to the German princes of the Protestant Union. It was support, energetically given.

Gustavus Adolphus

The Bohemian king, on his side, had the help of the German rulers of States in the Catholic League and also the promised help of France and of Spain. James of England was appealed to, but declined. He was very fully occupied at home. But we see a new figure appearing on the stage, a figure of most attractive and romantic interest—that of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden.

Sweden, and all Scandinavia, by which I mean Norway and Denmark also, have not come very prominently on the stage of the Great Story. Nor will they be there now for a very long period at a time. But at least twice we shall see a Swedish king appearing in a dramatic fashion. Little Denmark is also the occasional scene of a great event. One of these occasions arrived very soon after the date which we have now reached. That date is 1618, the year of the commencement of what is known as the Thirty Years' War. The principal leader of the Protestant forces in that war was Gustavus Adolphus coming down from Sweden at the head of his armies at a moment when his help was sorely needed.

It was not the first time that he had made himself known and felt in the affairs of Central and Eastern Europe. About the year 1611, when he came to the throne of Sweden, a design was formed of uniting Sweden with Russia. The throne of Russia was the object of much dispute at the moment. The year before, the Poles had invaded Russia, had taken Moscow, and the son of the Polish king had been crowned Tsar. In the year of Gustavus's accession as King of Sweden, the Poles were driven out of Moscow again. We should remember that the first rulers of Russia, those under whom she had begun to be a nation, came from Sweden, and since there was no very apparent heir to the throne it might have seemed to the Muscovites not unnatural that a Swede should step into it. In the end, quite a different solution of the question was arrived at. A Tsar of the family of Romanoff, very distantly connected with the original sovereign family, was put on the throne, and founded the dynasty which endured until the last Tsar was deposed and done to death in the terrible revolution which happened during the Great War.

It is impossible here to pursue all the ups and downs of the fighting which went on in Germany, for Germany provided the principal battle-fields through that war of thirty years' duration. Knowing what we do of modern warfare, it may seem difficult for us to understand how the people of the countries that were the scene of such prolonged fighting could survive at all. But we have to understand that the way in which wars were fought in those days was very different from the present manner.