§ 5. Ill treatment of the Protestants.
On the other side offence was given still more widely to those who wished to maintain the rights of Protestantism. Without wishing to enter upon a general persecution, Ferdinand was resolved to allow no rights against his church to those who could not conclusively prove to his own satisfaction that those rights were under the guarantee of unassailable law. He had begun in his own hereditary dominions. It is true that in Bohemia and Austria no tortures were inflicted, no martyrs suffered either at the stake or on the scaffold. But it was found that the stern, relentless pressure of daily annoyance was sufficient for the purpose of producing at least external conformity. By 1627 the desired result had been obtained, and Protestantism existed only as a proscribed religion. Then came the turn of the Palatinate. For a time there had been no open persecution. In 1625 Maximilian had written to the governor of Heidelberg not to let any opportunity slip, if he could find an excuse for turning out a Protestant minister from his parish and replacing him by a Catholic priest. In February, 1628, the Jesuits were able to report that they had made 400 converts in Heidelberg itself, and 1,200 in the neighbouring country districts. Then came a further change. In March an agreement was drawn up between Maximilian and Ferdinand. The Emperor received back Upper Austria, and made over to the Elector of Bavaria, in its stead, the Upper Palatinate and that part of the Lower Palatinate which lies on the right bank of the Rhine. Maximilian held that by this transfer he had acquired the full rights of a territorial prince, and that amongst these rights was that of disposing of the religion of his new subjects. In June all noblemen residing in the country were told that they must either change their religion within two months or go into exile. In September the order was extended to the inhabitants generally.
§ 6. The cities of South Germany.
The year 1628 was a year of alarm over all Protestant South Germany. There at least Ferdinand was ready to carry out the wishes expressed by the Catholic electors at Mühlhausen the year before. Whilst Maximilian was threatening the Palatinate, imperial commissioners were passing through the other territories and cities, taking account of churches and church property which had come into Protestant possession since the Convention of Passau. To the wishes of the populations not the slightest attention was paid. In Nördlingen, for instance, not a single Catholic was to be found. Every church in the place was none the less marked down for re-delivery to the Catholic clergy. In some places to which the commissioners came, Shylock-like, to claim their pound of flesh, they demanded more even than the strict letter of the law allowed them. Not content with restoring to the Catholic worship churches which had with general consent been in the hands of Protestants for half a century, they proceeded to compel the inhabitants of the towns to attend the mass.
§ 7. The Edict of Restitution.
The success of these outrageous measures in the south encouraged Ferdinand to pursue the same course in the north. There he had to deal not merely with scattered towns, or a few abbeys, but with the great lay bishoprics, many of which were extensive enough to form the domain of a duke or a landgrave. On March 29, 1629, before the Peace of Lübeck was actually signed, he issued the fatal Edict of Restitution. With a stroke of his pen, the two archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Bremen, the twelve bishoprics of Minden, Verden, Halberstadt, Lübeck, Ratzeburg, Misnia, Merseburg, Naumburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, Lebus, and Camin, with about a hundred and twenty smaller ecclesiastical foundations, were restored to the Catholic clergy.
§ 8. Real weakness of the Emperor.
The wheel had come full circle round since the day when Christian of Anhalt had planned the great uprising to sweep away the Catholic bishops and the House of Austria. The House of Austria was firmer in its seat than ever. The Catholic bishops were triumphant. But in the midst of their triumph the enemies of the Empire were watching them keenly, and judging that both they and the Emperor were all the weaker for this grand vindication of legality.
[Section II.]—French Intervention in Italy.
§ 1. Gustavus and Richelieu.