The long expected breach between the League and the Emperor's general had come at last. Instead of reducing his forces after the Peace of Lübeck, Wallenstein had increased them. He was now at the head of 100,000 men. From a military point of view no one could say it was too much. He had Mantua to defend, the coasts of the North Sea to watch, perhaps France to guard against, and that too with all the princes and peoples of Germany exasperated against him. Some efforts he made to curb the violence of his soldiers. But to restrain the monster he had created was beyond his power. And if his soldiers bore hard upon burgher and peasant, he himself treated the princes with contemptuous scorn. He asked why the electors and the other princes should not be treated as the Bohemian nobles had been treated. The Estates of the Empire had no more right to independence than the Estates of the kingdom. It was time for the Emperor to make himself master of Germany, as the kings of France and Spain were masters of their own dominions. All this made the electors above measure indignant. "A new domination," they told Ferdinand, "has arisen for the complete overthrow of the old and praiseworthy constitution of the Empire."
§ 2. What could he effect?
A reconstruction of that old rotten edifice would have done no harm. But its overthrow by military violence was another matter. A new form of government, to be exercised by a soldier with the help of soldiers, could never be found in justice,
For always formidable was the league
And partnership of free power and free will.
The way of ancient ordinances, though it winds,
Is yet no devious path. Straight forward goes
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies, and rapid,
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.
Schiller's Piccolomini, act i. scene 4.
§ 3. His partiality.
Even whilst he was defending the universality of oppression on the principle that it was but fair that all estates should contribute to the common defence, he was exhibiting in his own case an extraordinary instance of partiality. Whilst all Germany was subjected to contributions and exactions, not a soldier was allowed to set foot on Wallenstein's own duchy of Mecklenburg.
§ 4. The Edict of Restitution carried out.
And if the Catholic electors had good reason to complain of Wallenstein, Wallenstein had also good reason to complain of the electors. The process of carrying out the Edict of Restitution was increasing the number of his enemies. "The Emperor," he said, "needed recruits, not reforms." Ferdinand did not think so. He had persuaded the chapter of Halberstadt to elect a younger son of his own as their bishop. He induced the chapter of Magdeburg to depose their administrator, on the ground that he had taken part in the Danish war. But, in spite of the Edict of Restitution, the chapter of Magdeburg refused to choose a Catholic bishop in his place, and preferred a son of the Elector of Saxony. John George was thereby brought by his family interests into collision with the Edict of Restitution.