10

Ferdinand Triumphant 1621–4

THE PALATINE CAUSE

The Winter King

Within a few weeks of White Mountain, placards appeared in Brussels and Vienna offering a reward for news of ‘a king, run away a few days past – age, adolescent, colour sanguine, height medium; a cast in one eye, no beard or moustache worth mention; disposition, not bad so long as a stolen kingdom does not lie in his way – name of Frederick’.¹ The fugitive was soon mocked as the ‘winter king’ after the brevity of his reign. His entire world seemed to collapse as he sped north from Silesia. His remaining supporters were demoralized and untrustworthy. He sought shelter in Berlin, but the elector sent him packing after receiving an imperial reprimand in January. Bethlen had opened talks with the Imperialists in Hainburg, while the Silesians surrendered in February. That month, the Protestant Union began negotiations to evacuate the Lower Palatinate and Mansfeld agreed a six-week truce with Tilly. Saxony, Denmark and Britain all advised Frederick to make peace as it was clear Ferdinand had recovered Bohemia. The Twelve Years Truce was due to expire in April, but many still hoped it might be extended. The prospect of peace, at least in the Empire, was not unrealistic, the emergency appeared to be over and the Liga congress at Augsburg voted in March to reduce its army to 15,000.²

Peace foundered on Frederick’s refusal to compromise. His defiance encouraged others to remain in the field, while the renewal in the spring of the Spanish-Dutch war suggested foreign assistance would be forthcoming. Talks did open with Saxon mediation in January, and Frederick declared he was prepared to renounce Bohemia and accept Ferdinand as king, but he attached conditions that even Johann Georg thought unreasonable: Ferdinand was to confirm the Confederation, grant full religious liberty, assume all of Frederick’s Bohemian debts and refund Palatine military expenses!³ Ferdinand responded by placing Frederick, Anhalt, Hohenlohe and Jägerndorf under the imperial ban on 29 January 1621, paving the way for the confiscation of their lands and titles. Frederick simply became more inflexible. With only his dignity left, he felt he could not break his promises to his supporters, most of whom were now also exiles. Their only hope was to fight on.

There seemed little prospect of this when Frederick and Elizabeth reached The Hague in the middle of April. Their first accommodation was a house rented by the States General that belonged to van der Mijle, a man the Republic had driven into exile in its own internal power struggle two years before (see p.318 below). The Dutch later provided the Wassenaer palace that became Elizabeth’s home for the next forty years. Dutch and English handouts were initially comparatively generous, but soon dwindled, especially once the British Civil Wars began in 1639, and in the end visitors to the Wassenaer reported seeing rats scuttling under Elizabeth’s skirts.⁴

Anhalt had already left the Palatinate, ostensibly to represent Frederick in northern Germany. He was worn out and depressed by White Mountain where his son had been captured. Christian IV of Denmark eventually granted him asylum on the condition he abstained from intrigue. Concerned for his son’s release and to prevent the imperial sequestration of Bernburg, Anhalt went to Vienna in 1624 and secured a pardon. He spent the remaining six years of his life battling to spare his lands the consequences of a war he had done much to unleash. Hohenlohe fled to Emden until his relations secured a pardon for him in 1623, after which he devoted himself to trying to pass on the stigma of defeat to Colonel Stubenvoll. Many younger, middle-ranking officials also left, seeking better prospects and job security elsewhere. Others were obliged to compromise with the Bavarian and Spanish forces that soon overran the electorate. The burden of work fell on the remaining elderly loyalists, assisted by some rapidly promoted juniors who often lacked adequate training or experience.⁵ Those like Camerarius, who actively promoted the Bohemian adventure, temporarily fell from grace, creating a vacuum filled partly by Elizabeth’s English secretaries, reflecting the court’s dependency on her father’s assistance. Continued defeats discouraged many of those who remained, like Achaz von Dohna who retired to his East Prussian estates in 1624.

The change of personnel contributed to the general lack of direction and Frederick’s inability to assert his authority. The next two years saw a struggle between those, like Chief Justice Pawell, who pushed a maximalist agenda aimed at recovering everything, including Bohemia, and others, like the young rising star Rusdorf, who favoured the more realistic option of accepting British mediation to secure at least a partial restoration of Frederick as elector. Palatine propagandists responded to the Habsburg presentation of Frederick as a usurper by propagating the myth of a just king unrightfully forced into miserable exile. Comparisons were drawn with David and Goliath, as Frederick struggled to recover his home occupied by the mighty Habsburgs. Elizabeth had lost her kingdom, but was still ‘queen of hearts’ to her supporters, in a deliberate effort to counter the Habsburg depiction of her as the ‘Helen of Germany’ who had led the country to a destructive conflict. The romantic sense of adventure, defending the underdog, appealed to English diplomats and nobles who composed sonnets and, rather more practically, joined Frederick’s remaining forces as volunteers.⁶

The End of the Protestant Union

Frederick remained leader of the Union, but the organization was already collapsing. Württemberg, previously one of the activist members, backed away once Frederick committed himself to Bohemia and fell back on cooperation with its Catholic neighbours through the official Kreis structure.⁷ Many others also doubted the utility of their extra-constitutional confessional alliance. Emperor Ferdinand timed the announcement of the imperial ban perfectly, bringing home the consequences of opposing him just as the Union congress met to discuss the renewal of its charter. The majority seized the offer of mediation from Mainz and Hessen-Darmstadt which, as the Palatinate’s neighbours, had no wish to see the war arrive in their vicinity. Spinola, conscious of the imminent expiry of the Dutch Twelve Years Truce, was happy to agree to the Treaty of Mainz on 12 April. The Union evacuated its positions in the Lower Palatinate, in return for Spinola suspending further operations and promising to halt them permanently if James I could persuade his son-in-law to accept Ferdinand’s terms.

The Union congress dissolved on 14 May 1621 without having renewed its charter, effectively disbanding the organization. Though it had enhanced the Palatinate’s profile and attracted the Stuart marriage, the Union never matched the cohesion of its Catholic Liga rival. Whereas Maximilian pursued dynastic goals within a confessional context, some Palatine leaders had tried to reverse this relationship, widening the gap between themselves and the wider Union membership that only ever sought local security.

The Resumption of the Spanish-Dutch War, 1621

The Union’s collapse coincided with the end of the Twelve Years Truce. The decision to let the Truce expire had little to do with the situation in the Empire. Factions in both Spain and the Republic saw war as the means to assert control over their own governments and promote what they regarded as their country’s best interests.

The Truce had opened deep divisions in Dutch society, just as its Spanish advocates had hoped. The end of Spain’s trade embargo benefited some Dutch, while hurting others. Those who had invested in militarized ventures like the East India Company lost heavily, as did the textile industry that faced renewed Flemish competition.⁸ However, the most serious division proved to be that within Calvinism. The Republic’s leadership was solidly Calvinist, but the proportion of adherents in the rest of society climbed slowly to only about a fifth by 1609. Calvinists found it hard to progress from a clandestine movement to an organized church. Their insistence on tough moral standards and a detailed grasp of theology deterred new members. Much of the rural population clung to the old religion, either to hedge their bets in case Spain recovered the northern provinces or because they preferred the still vital pre-Tridentine Catholicism; the influx of Lutheran economic migrants from northern Germany into Dutch towns also provided an alternative faith. Local and even provincial government was frequently still in Catholic hands. Calvinists remained isolated in their own homes, ‘haunted by a deep sense of their own insecurity’.⁹

Their response was to turn inwards in a bitter dispute over their true doctrine that swiftly became aligned with wider disagreements over the Truce. Many shared the Lutherans’ unease about Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. A group known as the Remonstrants, or Arminians after their leading theologian, Jacobus Arminius, sought to soften Calvin’s harsh view that individuals had no influence over their own salvation. They won support among merchants keen for a more tolerant faith that would widen their trading contacts, as well as those favouring an extension of the Truce. The latter included Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, who had been the effective head of the Republic’s civil government since 1586, who argued the Truce had already brought most of the benefits of independence and was preferable to the uncertainty of war. The hardline Calvinist position was espoused by the Counter-Remonstrants led by Franciscus Gomarus, who championed the civil independence of the Calvinist church and wanted faith to guide politics. They won support from those suffering economically from the Truce, as well as southern Netherlands refugees hoping renewed war would recover their homes, and the Republic’s captain general, Maurice of Nassau.¹⁰

The situation grew ugly as Maurice refused to provide soldiers to help Oldenbarnevelt maintain order against mounting Gomarist agitation. Arminian councillors were swept from office by Gomarist mobs, changing the political balance in the States General after 1617. The crisis peaked when Maurice openly declared his hand in July 1618 by disarming militia hastily assembled by the remaining Arminians. Hoping to head off trouble, Oldenbarnevelt convened a national synod at Dordrecht (Dordt) to resolve the theological controversy. By now, however, he had lost control of the States General which passed a secret motion on 28 August authorizing Maurice to arrest him and other Arminian leaders, including Hugo Grotius, later famous as the theorist of modern international law. Assured of support, the Gomarists easily defeated their rivals when the synod finally opened in November. After a show trial, Oldenbarnevelt was executed on 13 May 1619. Grotius was imprisoned, but managed to escape to Paris. The coup appeared to confirm the Gomarist view of predestination – that God’s elect would triumph regardless of the odds. Oldenbarnevelt’s death broke the opposition of the powerful Holland States to Maurice’s political influence, but three provinces still opposed a resumption of war with Spain. The Gomarists faced a backlash of rioting as republicans rallied behind Arminianism to oppose the House of Orange’s monarchical tendency.

The unfolding chaos determined the Republic’s response to the Bohemian Revolt. Maurice refused to be drawn on the question of renewing the Truce while he still faced opposition at home. Although Frederick never appeared a credible ally, Maurice provided just enough assistance to stoke the Central European fires and draw away the Spanish firemen. Despite his domestic alliance with the Gomarists, Maurice did not subscribe to international Calvinism and was determined to keep his options open. The Republic did not even maintain a permanent envoy in the Empire until 1646 and remained careful never to commit itself formally to war there. Meanwhile, Maurice continued talks with Archduke Albert, fostering false hopes that he would renew the Truce.¹¹

The defeat of the Dutch doves coincided with a victory for the Spanish hawks. The duke of Lerma was forced to resign in 1618, while his key supporter, Calderón, was arrested and later executed on trumped-up charges of witchcraft. Power was shifting to Zúñiga and his nephew, Count Olivares, whom he had placed strategically in the household of the future Philip IV. Zúñiga argued that Spain had already spent too much treasure trying to conquer the Dutch to give up now, allegedly exclaiming ‘a monarchy that has lost its reputación, even if it has lost no territory, is a sky without light, a sun without rays, a body without a soul’.¹² Renewal of the treaty was still advocated by Albert and Isabella who could see the benefits the Truce brought to the southern Netherlands’ economy. They favoured a solution similar to that granted by Austria to the Swiss in 1499: to give the Dutch independence in return for a permanent alliance. The demand that the Republic grant religious freedom to its Catholic subjects was put on the agenda to satisfy religious sensibilities in Madrid, and the Dutch Catholics could not be abandoned without damage to Spanish prestige. Freedom of conscience was already incorporated as Article 13 of the Republic’s founding charter from 1579, but it was restricted in practice by the Calvinist establishment. More serious were Spain’s demands that the Dutch stop interfering in the East and West Indies, as well as lift the blockade of the Scheldt which continued to strangle Antwerp’s economy. Maurice could not grant these terms without alienating his supporters. As it became obvious Albert could not persuade Madrid to moderate its demands, Maurice gambled on the talks collapsing to force his remaining opponents in the States General to hand the political and military initiative to him.

Like the Republic, Spain had no intention of becoming involved in Germany and increasingly regarded the war there as a serious distraction. A significant portion of the Army of Flanders remained in the Lower Palatinate and would continue operations with imperial and Liga troops until 1623, but both Madrid and Brussels sought rapid disengagement in order to concentrate on the struggle against the Dutch. Operations along the Lower Rhine allowed Spain to eject the Dutch from many of the areas they had occupied since 1614, but the object was to contain them, not to spread the war to north-west Germany. Limited assistance was provided to Tilly and the imperial army to help them defeat Frederick’s remaining German supporters in line with Spain’s general goal of pacifying the Empire. This remained the Spanish objective throughout the rest of the Thirty Years War since it was clear no assistance could be expected in return from Austria until this was achieved.

The Protestant Crowns

The Protestant monarchies were equally reluctant to help Frederick. Denmark was unquestionably the most powerful Protestant kingdom at this point and enjoyed cordial relations with Frederick’s Stuart in-laws. (By contrast, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden dangled the prospect of massive intervention in Germany simply to attract interest in his own plans to conquer Poland’s Baltic coast.) Unfortunately for Frederick, Christian IV of Denmark took a dim view of his actions, demanding ‘who advised you to drive out kings and seize kingdoms?’¹³

Nonetheless, the Danish king felt obliged to act. Like Johann Georg of Saxony, he feared Frederick’s rash action had jeopardized German Lutherans and that Ferdinand, possibly under the influence of Jesuits and other ‘evil advisers’, might deprive them of their constitutional rights, just like Charles V after his victory of Mühlberg in 1547. Christian combined a display of Lutheran resolve with pressure on Frederick to appease Ferdinand through a humble submission. He convened a conference in March 1621 at Segeberg in Holstein, attended by Frederick and representatives of the Lower Saxon Kreis, the Protestant Union, Brandenburg, James I and the Dutch. Denmark deployed 5,000 men in its German possessions, while the Lower Saxons agreed at their own congress in April to mobilize. This rather feeble attempt at Protestant solidarity failed because none of the participants had any intention of actually forcing Ferdinand to concede their request to revoke the imperial ban against Frederick. Many questioned the legitimacy of their own mobilization, which was presented as upholding the public peace. More fundamentally, the key players were at cross-purposes. Sweden refused to participate at all, while Christian used the deployment to intimidate the Hanseatic towns into conceding Danish jurisdiction and toll rights over the north German rivers. This not only alarmed the Lower Saxons but alienated the Dutch too, who already resented the high Sound tolls and were major trading partners of the Hanseatic League.¹⁴ Christian could not oppose Ferdinand openly without jeopardizing the positions of his sons, who were Lutheran administrators in Schwerin and Verden, and he accepted the emperor’s confirmation of the Mühlhausen declaration from March 1620 that left these bishoprics in Protestant hands.

British policy continued to swerve indecisively, responding to events with piecemeal, often ill-judged interventions. Neither James, nor his son Charles I after 1625, managed to reconcile the tension between confessional aspirations and political realities. The former suggested intervention on Frederick’s behalf, the latter necessitated negotiation with the Habsburgs who soon held the entire Palatinate. Intervention was fraught with risk, while negotiation continued to stall on Britain’s lack of leverage over the wayward elector. Yet the crown felt it had to act, if only to satisfy popular pressure and to maintain its prestige. Periodic expeditions were sent, initially as volunteers to support Frederick, later as official forces to put pressure on Spain or France. Throughout, foreign powers were allowed to recruit Britons directly into their own armies with varying degrees of royal support (see Table 1). Recruitment represented a heavy burden. Elizabethan levies totalled 106,000 men while the country was at war between 1586 and 1602, equivalent to 2 per cent of the total population. Stuart recruitment was at least 25 per cent higher, and its impact was magnified by the virtual absence of any military effort between 1603 and 1620. It fell heavily on south-east England, because it was convenient to recruit here for expeditions to the continent, as well as Scotland, where around 10 per cent of adult males enlisted. It was also expensive: the monarchy spent £1.44 million to maintain the Palatine court in exile and recruit for it and for Mansfeld between 1620 and 1632, whereas crown debts already topped £1 million by 1625.¹⁵ To put things into perspective, approximately the same number of men left the Stuart kingdoms to fight on the continent as were conscripted in Sweden and Finland between 1621 and 1648, yet, by comparison, the effort had negligible diplomatic impact and brought no strategic gains.

Table 1: British military involvement

Expedition	Date	Total Enlisted	Serving	Composition
A) For the ‘Protestant Cause’
Sir Andrew Grey	Jan. 1620	2,500	Bohemia	Anglo-Scots
Sir John Seton	1620	1,200	Bohemia	Scots
Sir Horace de Vere	1620–2	2,250	Palatinate	English
Other volunteers	1620–2	2,000	Bohemia-Palatinate	Anglo-Scots
Anglo-Dutch Brigade *	1621	8,000	Dutch	Anglo-Scots
Anglo-Dutch Brigade *	1624–6	6,000	Dutch	Anglo-Scots
Mansfeld	Jan. 1625	13,300	Mansfeld**	Anglo-Scots
Cadiz	Sept. 1625	10,000	Charles I	English
Sir Charles Morgan	1627–9	18,700	Denmark	75% Scots, rest English & Welsh* * *
Ile de Ré	1627	6,000	Charles I	Anglo-Welsh
Marquis of Hamilton	1631	6,000	Sweden	80% Scots
Swedish army	1632–9	24,000	Sweden	80% Scots
Lord Craven	1638	3,000	Palatinate	English
French army	1624–44	25,000	France	Scots-Irish
		127,950
B) For the Habsburgs
Jerzy Ossolinski	Mar. 1621	5,000	Poland	British
Army of Flanders	1621–3	2,300	Spain	Irish
Army of Flanders	1631–3	1,800	Spain	Irish
Army of Flanders	1635	7,000	Spain	Irish
Army of Flanders	1640	150	Spain	Irish
Direct to Spain	1641–53	4,337	Spain	Irish
Army of Flanders	1642	2,000	Spain	Irish
Army of Flanders	1649–53	20,000	Spain	Irish
		42,587
		170,537

Notes:

The table indicates the numbers sent, not the total serving at any one time

Sources: S. Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603–1660 (East Linton, 2003), pp.49–51, 56, 62, 227–8; M.C. Fissel, English Warfare 1511–1642 (London, 2001), pp.105–10, 271; R.B. Manning, An Apprenticeship in Arms. The origins of the British army 1585–1702 (Oxford, 2006), pp.62–93, 98, 101; M. Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France in the Reign of the Sun King (Leiden, 2004); F.G.J. Ten Raa et al., Het staatsche Leger 1568–1795 (8 vols., The Hague, 1911–59), III, pp.167–70, 178–82; R.A. Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries: the Wild Geese in Spain 1618–68 (Blackrock, 1994); R.I. Frost, ‘Scottish soldiers, Poland-Lithuania and the Thirty Years War’, in S. Murdoch (ed.), Scotland and the Thirty Years War (Leiden, 2001), pp.191–213.

Bethlen and Jägerndorf

Only in the east did Frederick’s old supporters renew the struggle. The margrave of Jägerndorf still held Görlitz in Upper Lusatia, as well as Glatz, which blocked the main pass between Bohemia and Silesia. He was joined by those Bohemians and Moravians who refused to submit to Ferdinand, including the younger Count Thurn. His position nonetheless became untenable once the Upper Lusatian and Silesian Estates submitted to the elector of Saxony and agreed to assist the imperial army in return for Ferdinand’s confirmation of the religious guarantees issued by Johann Georg. He abandoned Görlitz on 3 March 1621, but decided to fight on since he had been declared an outlaw, and was encouraged by Bethlen’s decision to break off the Hainburg talks on 22 April.

Ferdinand was prepared to grant the extensive territorial concessions already offered Bethlen in January 1620, but insisted on remaining king of Hungary. Like Frederick, Bethlen felt he could not abandon the Bohemians without compromising his honour, and demanded they be included in the proposed peace, as well as insisting on remaining king himself. Both sides had harassed each other’s positions throughout the talks, using the lull to collect their forces. The Moravian Estates swung behind their colleagues in Lower and Inner Austria by funding regiments in the imperial army, while the Hungarian magnates provided hussars and haiduks, and the Croats sent irregulars. The emperor had retained 2,000 Cossacks and had additional German infantry, giving Bucquoy a respectable 20,000 men north of the Danube, while Collalto guarded the southern bank with another 5,000. Bethlen could muster only 17,000 light horse and 4,000 foot.¹⁶ These numbers indicate the scale of the fighting in east Central Europe, equivalent to the much-better publicized operations along the Rhine at this point (see below).

Bucquoy moved as soon as the talks broke up, seizing Pressburg after a short bombardment on 5 May, while Collalto captured minor posts south of the river against minimal opposition. Bucquoy then took Tyrnau and Neutra to secure Moravia and Lower Austria against further Transylvanian raiding, before besieging Neuhäusel on the Neutra river, an important fortress along the Military Frontier that had defected to Bethlen in 1619 and was now held by Szanisló Thurzó. Bethlen retreated east to Kassa, appealing to Jägerndorf to join him. The margrave had regrouped at Schweidnitz and Jauer, but the advance of 8,000 Saxons through Silesia left him no choice and he retreated southwards along the mountains into Upper Hungary in July.

Bethlen meanwhile sent 6,000 light cavalry ahead of his main force to relieve Neuhäusel, which had already been under siege for seven weeks. The cavalry drove in the imperial outposts and soon the besiegers were themselves besieged. Bucquoy was killed as he led some cavalry out to find food. His death was considered a major blow and the emperor did not find another general of similar stature until 1625.¹⁷ Command devolved to Colonel Maximilian Liechtenstein whose situation grew desperate as Bethlen arrived with the rest of his men, raising Transylvanian numbers to 15,000. Abandoning his siege train, Liechtenstein tried to escape across the Neutra at night on 11 July 1621, but was caught in the marshy ground. Only 8,000 men made it onto Schütt Island where they were essentially trapped, dependent on supplies sent from the imperial garrisons at Raab, Komorn and Pressburg.

Bethlen ignored them, heading west to retake Tyrnau on 30 July and was joined by Jägerndorf with over 8,000 men, mainly infantry with artillery – just the troops he needed. Pressburg was besieged from 18 August and the Transylvanians raided into Moravia, while Bethlen’s western Hungarian supporters resumed their attacks into Lower and Inner Austria south of the Danube. Yet, the underlying trend was against him. His army was only half as large as it had been the previous year. He had no money to pay Jägerndorf’s infantry, while the Hungarians were tired of fighting and contingents from eleven counties went home. The inability to take Pressburg further depressed morale. Wallenstein collected 4,000 men in Moravia for the emperor, while the main army was brought back up to 12,000. Ferdinand wanted a quick settlement and improved the terms offered at Hainburg.

Following his usual practice, Bethlen had already opened negotiations during his advance in July. Operations were suspended in October as Szanisló Thurzó negotiated with Cardinal Dietrichstein and Miklós Esterházy at Nikolsburg in Moravia, agreeing terms at the end of 1621 that were ratified on 6 January. Bethlen was allowed to keep the 7 Upper Hungarian counties (modern Slovakia) offered in January 1620, including Kassa, leaving Ferdinand with just 24 counties across Hungary. His supporters were given amnesties and Hungarian religious privileges were confirmed. He was also enfeoffed with the vacant Silesian duchies of Oppeln and Ratibor, while Ferdinand effectively recognized Transylvanian independence. In return, Bethlen surrendered the St Stephen’s crown and renounced the royal title he had assumed in August 1620. The deal was sealed by Thurzo’s defection. Ferdinand included him as the only Protestant of the four candidates proposed to the Hungarian diet to replace palatine Forgách who had died earlier that year. Thurzó was duly elected governor, but converted to Catholicism in August 1622 as agreed secretly with the emperor.¹⁸

Abandoned, Jägerndorf retreated northwards towards Glatz, his only surviving garrison, but without land, and thus without money, his army disintegrated. By March 1622, Saxon, imperial and Silesian troops had surrounded Glatz. The town finally surrendered on 25 October. The Saxons evacuated Silesia, but the emperor left 10,000 men to occupy Moravia and suppress the Slovak peasants whom the Bohemian exiles had stirred to rebellion.

PROTESTANT PALADINS

New Champions

The void was filled by new champions for whom the Palatine cause became an honourable cloak for a variety of more personal ambitions. These paladins operated without secure bases. Their deference to Frederick was largely conditional on how far he could deliver British support. They were prepared to take extraordinary risks, sometimes simply to avoid imminent disaster, but also in the hope that a stunning victory would enhance their reputation and attract more solid political and financial backing.

At their head was Count Ernst von Mansfeld, one of the war’s most controversial figures. His motives remain unclear and his actions duplicitous. To most, he appears the archetypal mercenary who has come to characterize soldiers generally for this period.¹⁹Whereas the controversy surrounding Wallenstein centres on his political ambitions, only baser motives are attributed to Mansfeld. Perhaps the key to understanding this complex man is his illegitimate birth as the thirteenth, natural son of Peter Ernst, count of a small territory in Upper Saxony and a Spanish field marshal. With no prospect of inheriting the county that, in any case, his father had to share with numerous relations, Mansfeld chose a military career, hoping to secure both legitimacy and reward. His lack of status made him quick to take offence and won him little sympathy. Along with plain bad luck, this frustrated hopes of rapid advancement and left him with a sense of grievance against the Habsburgs, heightened both by their failure to reimburse his expenses and because they twice removed him from command for his own mistakes. Rudolf II eventually declared him legitimate after the Turkish War, but he sought recognition from others, for example being ennobled by the duke of Savoy in 1613. He defected to the Union during the first Jülich crisis in 1610, but only after he had been captured. Though he tolerated Protestantism, he had been raised a Catholic and there is no clear evidence he converted. Certainly, he was disliked by those with genuine faith and it seems his allegiance to his new employers was determined by better prospects and lingering animosity towards the Habsburgs.

Mansfeld’s subsequent prominence derives from his abilities as an organizer that in turn rested on a network of experienced recruiting officers. Some of these contacts dated from his service in Savoy in 1613-18, like Joachim Karpzow who served in the Protestant Swiss regiment Mansfeld took to Bohemia in 1618. Karpzow later attracted notoriety for having his wife beheaded without a trial. Association with such characters did nothing to enhance Mansfeld’s own reputation, despite his published Apologie(1621) presenting himself as a chivalrous knight defending the Winter Queen’s honour. He possessed considerable strategic and tactical ability, combined with ruthlessness and a willingness to risk his men’s lives. As a result, he often compounded his defeats by rapid retreats during which his forces disintegrated, making him expensive to employ.

The count was also a victim of his employers’ own failure to pay properly, forcing him to extort money and supplies from the areas where he operated. His position was already precarious by February 1619 when he was placed under the imperial ban, well before Frederick’s other supporters. Even before White Mountain, Mansfeld was acting independently, consolidating his hold over western Bohemia to trade for a pardon and compensation. He offered to surrender Pilsen in October 1620 in return for 400,000 florins to pay off his troops. Similar proposals followed, generally coupled after November 1621 with demands for territorial compensation and a military command, preferably in the archdukes’ service.²⁰ It was never clear whether he was genuine or just playing for time. His health was also failing by the early 1620s when he suffered heart trouble and asthma, forcing him to travel in a coach. His territorial demands were opportunistic, mainly centred on Lower (northern) Alsace and parts of the bishopric of Speyer that he overran in November 1621, and later East Frisia when he occupied it in 1622.

Mansfeld’s close association with Frederick ensured he received cash and militia from the Palatinate, as well as the bulk of the foreign support. These assets gave him an operational strength of 15–20,000 men, higher than the other paladins, but his strategic difficulties were greater given the dispersal of Palatine territory. He began 1621 with his forces concentrated in the heavily forested, hilly Upper Palatinate, coupled with isolated garrisons in north-west Bohemia. These positions were 175km from the better fortified Lower Palatinate, which itself suffered from the strategic problem of being cut in two by the Rhine. The right half was covered by rich maize and wheat fields near the river, but became more hilly and forested further east around Heidelberg. Its key was Mannheim, a fortified new town at the confluence of the Neckar and Rhine. The latter river could also be crossed downstream at Oppenheim and upstream at Germersheim. The area west of the river was crossed by a series of wooded ridges separating it from Mainz to the north and Trier to the west. The route west across Trier to Spanish Luxembourg was guarded by Kreuznach, but the real stronghold was Frankenthal, built just west from the Rhine flood plain opposite Mannheim. After the Union’s dissolution, these positions were defended by 7,000 men under the Englishman Colonel de Vere.²¹

By contrast, Frederick’s other supporters were all ruling princes or their legitimate offspring. Landgrave Moritz and Margrave Georg Friedrich were his neighbours in Hessen-Kassel and Baden-Durlach respectively. Both were Union members, but whereas Georg Friedrich supported the Bohemian adventure, Moritz had resigned in protest. Their common bond was the fear that Frederick’s defeat would expose them to unsympathetic imperial justice. Moritz had good reason to believe Ferdinand would deprive him of Marburg, which he had seized from his Darmstadt relations in 1604. Though Lutheran, Landgrave Ludwig V of Darmstadt spent 1618–19 travelling to France, Spain, Rome and Munich rallying support for the emperor, and helped the elector of Mainz broker the truce with Spinola that triggered the Union’s collapse in May 1621. With a large, well-administered territory, Moritz had the most substantial indigenous resources of all the paladins and mustered 2,950 regular soldiers and 9,350 militiamen at the end of 1620. His land was also strategically located just north of the Main, placing him between Westphalia and Lower Saxony to the north and the Palatinate and Franconia to the south.²²

Full of ingenious ideas to benefit his subjects, the landgrave was opposed by his nobles who largely remained Lutheran and refused to support military adventures. His isolation increased with growing reliance on Calvinist outsiders, like Dr Wolfgang Günther who headed the civil administration by 1623.²³ Together, they completely misread the situation in 1621, seizing the opportunity for action but, with typical Protestant disunity, attacking the neighbouring Lutheran county of Waldeck. With good connections to the Nassau dynasty, Waldeck appeared a natural ally, but Moritz disputed its status as an imperial fief and claimed overlordship. The count was a member of the Wetterau Union that coordinated security among the patchwork of Calvinist, Lutheran and a few Catholic micro territories sandwiched between the Rhine, Main and Hessen. These territories mobilized their connections; the Dutch accused Moritz of betraying Protestantism, while the Catholics condemned him as a second winter king. The Hessian Estates negotiated behind his back with Darmstadt and the emperor, and the landgrave abandoned Waldeck following a Reichshofrat judgment against him in March 1622. The episode ruined Moritz’s reputation and left him exposed as the war swept in his direction.

Georg Friedrich of Baden-Durlach was more vulnerable still, having used his relations’ bankruptcy as an excuse to seize their territory, Baden-Baden, in 1594. Inability to obtain imperial approval, as well as the desire to escape the influence of his more powerful Lutheran neighbour, Württemberg, encouraged Georg Friedrich to embrace Calvinism and then join the Protestant Union. He claimed to have read the Bible 58 times, twice as many as Bethlen, yet his Lutheran subjects resisted the change of faith. Militias formed half his 11,500-strong army, but his territory was too small and poor to pay for professionals. Apart from his own bodyguard, the rest of his force comprised regiments loaned by Mansfeld, as well as two provided by Magnus of Württemberg, most likely recruited from the duchy’s Union contingent discharged in March 1621.²⁴ Magnus was the much younger brother of the reigning duke, Johann Friedrich. With little prospect of ruling, he seized an opportunity for glory that would cost him his life at the battle of Wimpfen. Johann Friedrich’s refusal to back the adventure denied Georg Friedrich access to Württemberg’s more potent resources.

The remaining paladins resembled young Magnus: scions of princely or noble families without sufficient means to sustain their status or activities to satisfy their ambitions. The most important was Duke Christian of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a younger son of Duke Heinrich Julius.²⁵Christian had antagonized his elder brother, the considerably less able reigning duke, Friedrich Ulrich, by tactlessly revealing that the latter’s Brandenburg wife was having an affair. Christian owed his own position as Lutheran administrator of Halberstadt partly to the influence of his mother, Christian IV of Denmark’s sister. As administrator, his status was by no means secure, but this alone cannot account for his rash decision to declare for Frederick – typical of the general behaviour that earned him the sobriquet ‘the Mad Halberstädter’. As part of Lower Saxony, Halberstadt was covered by the Mühlhausen guarantee that satisfied both Saxony and Denmark. And given his Danish kinship, his powerful Guelph relations and his own moderate Lutheranism, he could be relatively confident that Ferdinand would not depose him.

The slogan ‘God’s friend – papists’ foe’ on one of his banners suggests conventional confessional motives, but another, ‘For God and her’, meaning the Winter Queen, indicates how Christian was stirred by the chivalric dimension of the Palatine cause. He undoubtedly had territorial ambitions, probably intended to be at the current bishop of Paderborn’s expense, but the brevity and inconstancy of Christian’s involvement make them difficult to determine. He operated at the greatest disadvantage, since Halberstadt offered an inadequate base to raise a major army. Apart from some money sent by his mother, he was completely without additional resources prior to his temporary entry into Dutch service in August 1622. Consequently, his force rarely topped 10,000 men and contained a high proportion of cavalry. Though nominally more expensive than infantry, they were relatively easy to recruit in the horse-breeding region of Lower Saxony and, being mounted, could live off the land better than foot soldiers.

The Weimar brothers’ involvement was broadly similar, though they were already deeply committed to Frederick’s cause, having supplied units to Bohemia in 1620. Duke Johann Ernst, the eldest brother, remained aloof to preserve the family property, while his younger siblings backed a cause from which, if successful, he too would benefit. Friedrich and Wilhelm went to Bohemia and were joined in 1621 by Bernhard, the youngest and subsequently most famous, who became an officer in Wilhelm’s regiment. Like Anhalt, the Weimars lacked adequate resources, but also had a political and confessional agenda. They had been educated at Jena, one of the more radical Lutheran universities which taught arguments similar to the Calvinist theory of resistance. In addition to the prospect of conquering Catholic land, there was the hope of recovering the electoral title from their relation Johann Georg of Saxony, whose loyalty to Ferdinand made him a potential target.²⁶ Their Altenburg relation, Duke Friedrich, was more opportunistic: having contemplated converting to Catholicism he joined Duke Christian in January 1623 after Spain failed to pay the troops he had raised.²⁷

There were also structural factors behind the burst of Protestant activism. Bavaria and the Liga recruited at least 50,000 men in 1619–20, half of whom died of disease, deserted or were killed in action. There were still many willing to enlist. Underemployment remained high, given a rapid growth in population since the 1530s that had yet to level off or be reversed by the war. Food prices outstripped wages and the situation was especially acute due to hyperinflation in 1621–3. The ‘trade of war’ appeared to offer easy money, since recruiters promised enlistment bounties, good wages and a bonus upon discharge. The prospect of plunder was an added attraction, alongside all the customary pressures encouraging enlistment, like the desire to escape unpleasant personal circumstances. Moreover, German recruiters lacked competition from other powers. Though both the Army of Flanders and that of the Dutch Republic roughly doubled their establishment in 1618–22, much of their manpower was found locally, while France, Denmark and Sweden had yet to recruit substantial numbers of Germans.

There were also many experienced soldiers to draw upon, including those who had served during the Turkish War, the Jülich crises, and the recent fighting in Italy. They provided the cadres needed to stiffen inexperienced units and were consequently in high demand. It was fortuitous that several friendly governments disbanded their armies precisely when the paladins were recruiting. Mansfeld was able to enlist the bulk of the former Unionists, while Duke Christian enlisted around 2,500 men discharged by Hamburg after its crisis with Denmark (see pp.320–1). The latter included Baron Knyphausen who had also previously served the Dutch and now raised one of the better regiments in Christian’s rather disorderly army.

The Emperor’s Countermeasures

The paladins’ dispersal across western and northern Germany shifted the war to these regions, away from the Habsburg lands where the fighting was drawing to a close. The Saxons returned Silesia to Habsburg control in May 1622 and disbanded their army. The emperor still had 15–20,000 men, but these were fully occupied against Bethlen. Archduke Leopold had another 6,000 in Alsace, where he was reinforced by 9,000 Cossacks for the summer of 1622.²⁸

The Spanish contingent remained with the main imperial army until June 1622 when it totalled 7,500 men under General Caracciolo and joined the operations in the Lower Palatinate, before departing to Flanders the following year. The resumption of the Dutch War had already prompted Spinola to send about 10,000 men under Count van den Bergh to Jülich, leaving only 11,000 under General Córdoba in the Lower Palatinate in 1621. Spain followed its own objectives. Apart from Caracciolo’s corps, its forces lay outside imperial command, and Córdoba’s task was to secure the area west of the Rhine, rather than to be drawn into Germany. While Bergh contested possession of the Lower Rhine against the local Dutch garrisons, the two claimants of the Jülich inheritance pursued their own feud.

The main operation was Bergh’s siege of the Dutch in Jülich from September 1621. Since the Spanish drew straw and oats from Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg’s territories, the Dutch began ‘catching and stretching’ (Fangen und Spannen) hostages in reprisals that continued in a vicious cycle throughout the war.²⁹ Wolfgang Wilhelm raised his own forces, eventually numbering 2,500, to assist Bergh take Jülich in July 1622, and then Pfaffenmütze in January 1623, removing a threat to Bonn. Fearing its own possessions would be next, Brandenburg transferred its 1,300 troops in the area to Dutch service at its own expense in an effort to retain influence without unduly exposing itself. Unwilling to fight, Brandenburg surrendered Ravenstein to Wolfgang Wilhelm in May 1624 in return for his recognition of their mutual possessions.³⁰ Spain had gained the upper hand by then, having ejected the Dutch and Brandenburgers from Jülich, most of Mark and Ravensberg. It now had 11,000 men holding fifty outposts across Jülich, Cleves and into the western part of Münster. However, its strategy was to isolate the Dutch Republic, not assist the emperor.

Spain’s disinterest in imperial affairs and the weakness of his own forces left Ferdinand dependent on the Catholic Liga. Duke Maximilian had a direct interest in conquering the Palatinate as his reward for saving the emperor in Bohemia. Ferdinand did retain some influence, because Maximilian needed his approval to act. Bavaria delayed invading the Upper Palatinate until Ferdinand gave permission on 9 July 1621, while Tilly’s march to the Rhine was legitimized by a commission in November to apprehend the outlaw Mansfeld. Several thousand Bavarians remained holding down Upper Austria, and Tilly left most of the rest behind in the Upper Palatinate when he pursued Mansfeld, taking instead the contingents of the other Liga members. Maximilian remained Liga commander, because the elector of Mainz declined his rights under the Liga charter to take over once the army reached the area of his Rhenish Directory. Nonetheless, the new situation fundamentally changed the organization. The associated Westphalian members felt exposed with the resumption of the Dutch War and Duke Christian of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel’s raiding into Paderborn. Ferdinand of Cologne raised his own contingent in 1621, which was soon reinforced by other units to create a separate Liga corps of about 12,000 men under Tilly’s second-in-command, Count Anholt. This became the nucleus of an autonomous Westphalian army directed by Cologne that remained an important factor throughout the war.³¹

Tilly against Mansfeld

Mansfeld proved a resourceful and tenacious opponent. Having failed to break through north-west Bohemia and join Jägerndorf in May 1621, he entrenched 13,000 men at Waidhaus on the Nuremberg–Pilsen road just inside the Upper Palatinate. The remaining 2,000 were posted in Amberg and Cham to cover his rear against the Bavarians while he faced Tilly and Marradas, who had collected over 18,000 Liga and imperial troops opposite him at Roshaupt (Rozuadov) across the pass. The two armies spent the next four months alternately assaulting and shelling each other’s encampments in the first of a series of protracted struggles that characterized the war as much as the better-known pitched battles. Tilly remained weak, despite his superior numbers, because Maximilian had withdrawn his best regiments to form a second Bavarian army at Straubing totalling 14,500 men. The soldiers were replaced by fewer numbers of militia, who performed badly in the prolonged positional warfare.³²

Maximilian’s preparations at Straubing were finally complete by mid-September 1621. Within a week he had taken Cham and was closing against Amberg, intending to trap Mansfeld against the mountains. With his customary negotiations going nowhere, Mansfeld broke out one stormy night and dashed to Neumarkt. Once Tilly had crossed the pass to join Maximilian, Mansfeld’s position became untenable and he raced westwards on 9 October, through Nuremberg to Mannheim, abandoning stragglers to arrive two weeks later with 7,000 unruly, unpaid troops.

His escape was embarrassing for Tilly, but an opportunity for Maximilian. The Upper Palatinate submitted without further resistance, freeing Tilly to pursue Mansfeld. Maximilian was concerned the Spanish might seize the entire Lower Palatinate and wanted to capture at least its capital Heidelberg as it was associated with the electoral title. Mansfeld escaped across the Rhine to ravage Lower Alsace, abandoning the area to the east to Tilly. Sickness and detachments had reduced the main Liga army strength to fewer than 12,000, and it was unable to take either Heidelberg or Mannheim, while Córdoba and the Spanish similarly failed to dislodge the British defenders in Frankenthal.

The resistance of his fortresses revived Frederick’s hopes and he travelled incognito through France to join Mansfeld at Germersheim on 22 April 1622. Georg Friedrich of Baden-Durlach declared his hand, handing over government to his eldest son and mustering his own troops at Knielingen, near modern Karlsruhe. Duke Christian had been unable to break through Anholt’s cordon at the end of 1621, but did eject Wolfgang Wilhelm’s garrison from Lippstadt in the County of Mark in January. Dutch engineers helped transform the town into a major fortress, while Christian’s cavalry ransacked nearby Paderborn. The contents of the episcopal treasury were sold to buy arms and build the army to around 10,000 men.

Tilly faced the formidable task of defeating the three paladins before they could combine. New recruits had given him 20,000 men ready to besiege Heidelberg. Frederick and Mansfeld crossed the Rhine at Germersheim, plundering their way across the bishopric of Speyer, but found Tilly’s position at Wiesloch too strong. They fell back, hoping Georg Friedrich would join them. Tilly pounced at dawn on 27 April, catching them as they crossed the swollen Kleinbach stream at Mingolsheim 10km south of Wiesloch.³³Tilly had about 15,000 men with him, 3,000 less than Mansfeld. The Liga advance guard threw Mansfeld’s cavalry into confusion as they tried to cover the crossing of the rest of the army. Cohesion was lost as men raced for the bridge and the road became clogged with abandoned wagons. Tilly’s Croats set the village on fire, but a Protestant Swiss regiment held it long enough for the fugitives to regroup on a hill to the south. Mansfeld and Frederick had gone on ahead, but now returned and rode along the lines exhorting the men to redeem the honour lost at White Mountain. Tilly attacked over the bridge as his infantry arrived that afternoon, but Mansfeld counter-attacked with his cavalry from behind the hill and chased Tilly’s troops back through Mingolsheim until they were halted by the Schmidt infantry regiment of Liga veterans. Mansfeld’s rearguard remained on the hill until dusk, before following the rest of the army that had already retreated having lost 400 killed. Discipline was collapsing. Many of Mansfeld’s men had lost their shoes scrambling across the marshy stream and spent the afternoon stripping the dead. Tilly’s losses were greater, possibly 2,000, and he retired east to Wimpfen.

The first round had been a draw, but the advantage of numbers still lay with the paladins as Georg Friedrich joined Frederick and Mansfeld at Sinsheim on 29 April to give them a total force of 30,000. They wasted time besieging the small town of Eppingen, failing to crush Tilly before he was joined by Córdoba who had crossed the Rhine with 5,300 men. Short of supplies, Mansfeld marched to attack the Spanish garrison in Ladenburg that cut the road between Mannheim and Heidelberg, leaving a few regiments to give Georg Friedrich 12,700 men.³⁴ Tilly dissuaded Córdoba from departing to save Ladenburg and persuaded him instead to attack the margrave, who was overconfident and unaware of the Spaniards’ arrival. They spent the night of 5 May 1622 deploying on a wooded hill south of Wimpfen. As he served a king, Córdoba took the place of honour on the right, while Tilly’s 12,900 Liga troops occupied the left. The overnight rain had cleared, leaving hot and sunny weather the following morning. The men rested in the shade, fortifying themselves with breakfast and a wine ration, while their artillery shelled the Baden army deployed to the south. Georg Friedrich had chosen a bad position in the right-angle formed by the Neckar and the marshy Bölliger stream that was to his rear, with a wood on his left and his right flank next to Ober Eisesheim village, just west of the Neckar. The entire front was covered by 70 wagons, some mounting small cannon, protecting 2,000 musketeers, with the remaining infantry drawn up behind. It appeared strong, but left little chance for retreat if things went wrong.

Tilly and Córdoba began a general advance at 11 a.m., but were forced back by heavy fire and retired to the shade of the trees. Georg Friedrich also broke for lunch, recalling his outposts, including those in the wood to his left. Córdoba immediately occupied this with Spanish musketeers. The battle resumed as Georg Friedrich sent infantry to retake the wood, while launching most of his cavalry in a surprise attack from Ober Eisesheim. Their advance was screened by the thick clouds of smoke from the ineffectual cannonade and dust thrown up by skirmishers riding about the plain between the two armies. Several Liga units broke and the entire left began to give way as Georg Friedrich’s riders fanned out along the hill, capturing the artillery. Men of the Schmidt regiment saw one of their comrades, who had left the ranks to relieve himself, suddenly ‘come running, holding his trousers in his hand and shouting: The enemy! The enemy!’³⁵ The regiment quickly formed a defensive hedgehog, pikes pointing in all directions, while some of its musketeers rushed to man four cannon to their left that the gunners had just abandoned.

Georg Friedrich’s cavalry lost cohesion as some swirled around the immovable Schmidt regiment, while others dashed after the units that had broken earlier. His infantry were still stuck behind their wagons, too far away to assist. Meanwhile, Córdoba’s musketeers had worked their way round the far end of the line and were threatening its rear. Numbers and experience eventually prevailed as the Liga and Spanish cavalry regrouped and pushed their opponents off the field by the late afternoon. The infantry launched a final assault around 7 p.m. on the wagon line. At that moment, some powder wagons to the rear exploded, sending more smoke into the evening sky and creating the myth of the white-robed woman urging the Catholics to victory. Despite being mainly militia, the Baden infantry resisted stoutly, the final detachment surrendering at 9 p.m. The assault cost Tilly and Córdoba 1,800 casualties, but Georg Friedrich’s army had ceased to exist. A quarter were

killed or captured, and around half dispersed, leaving barely 3,000 to join Mansfeld, who finally captured Ladenburg on 8 May.

Mansfeld temporarily re-crossed the Rhine to chase away Archduke Leopold who was threatening his new base of Hagenau in Alsace. Duke Christian’s army at last approached the Main, but its route south to join Mansfeld lay through the lands of the ostensibly neutral, but secretly pro-imperial landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt. Mansfeld returned from Alsace in early June and seized the landgrave to force him to give Christian passage. Córdoba re-crossed the Rhine with most of his men in the other direction, but Tilly was more than compensated by the arrival of General Caracciolo’s other Spanish corps from Bohemia, as well as Anholt who had been shadowing Christian’s march from Westphalia. This gave him 30,000 men, the largest force he had yet commanded. Having blocked Mansfeld’s march north at Lorsch on 10 June, Tilly boldly abandoned the area south of the Main to cross at Aschaffenburg and move past Frankfurt to catch Christian as he was crossing at Höchst, just west of the city on 20 June.

Mansfeld had managed to reinforce Christian with 5,000 men, but he was still outnumbered two-to-one. This time there was no repeat of the mistakes at Mingolsheim. Tilly methodically isolated the 2,000 infantry Christian had left at Sossenheim to delay him, relying on panic to do its work. The Höchst bridge became clogged with wagons and collapsed after only 3,000 had crossed. Christian ordered his cavalry to swim across, but many drowned. Disorder increased with the appearance of a Liga cavalry regiment sent just for that purpose. Höchst castle held out until 10 p.m., but Christian lost a third of his army, while many of the survivors were without weapons. Tilly repaired the bridge and continued the pursuit southwards the next day. Christian joined Mansfeld, who lost another 2,000 men covering their combined retreat to Mannheim. The rest of the baggage was captured, while Christian’s cavalry regretted the fine Westphalian hams they lost as they ditched their saddle-bags to get away.³⁶

The battle sealed the Palatinate’s fate. Georg Friedrich had already opened negotiations for a pardon, disbanding his remaining troops on 22 June, abdicating in favour of his son and returning the land taken from his relations. Mansfeld and Christian retreated to Hagenau. Under pressure from King James to placate the emperor, Frederick cancelled Mansfeld’s contract on 13 July 1622. Sending Anholt in pursuit of

Mansfeld, Tilly remained east of the river, retaking Ladenburg and finally capturing Heidelberg (on 15 September) and Mannheim (on 2 November) after long sieges. Duke Maximilian now held the entire eastern half of the Lower Palatinate and installed Heinrich von Metternich as governor.³⁷

Harried by Anholt, Leopold and the 9,000 Cossacks who had just arrived, Mansfeld evacuated his loot from Hagenau and retreated with Christian through neutral Lorraine to Sedan. Relations between the two commanders were tense and they came close to fighting a duel. Renewed negotiations with all parties resulted in their gaining a contract to enter Dutch service for three months on 24 August. Spinola had concentrated 20,600 men to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom, the fortress that secured the Dutch salient south of the Rhine and supported the crippling blockade of Antwerp. The two paladins were supposed to assist in its relief, but this necessitated their dashing across Spanish territory. They had already lost 11,000 deserters since leaving Alsace and were down to 6,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry, most of whom were mutinous and barely under orders. Córdoba had marched after them. He now overtook their columns and blocked the way at Fleurus, west of Namur, with 9,000 foot and 2,000 horse on 29 August. After repeated attacks, the Spanish right gave way and all who could sped past. The paladins lost all their baggage and artillery, and most of their infantry, but many of the cavalry reached Breda the next day. Wounded, Christian had his lower left arm amputated to the accompaniment of martial music, and he issued a commemorative medal inscribed Altera restat: I’ve still got the other one! Like Mingolsheim, the battle was hailed as a great Protestant victory, but it made little difference to the siege of Bergen, which was finally abandoned by Spinola on 4 October when it became obvious the Dutch could resupply the garrison by sea.³⁸

The War Enters North-west Germany

With the Germans’ contract due to expire, the Dutch were keen to get rid of the unruly troops. They had no desire to intervene in Germany, but Bergh’s operations in Jülich threatened the security of their eastern frontier. It was agreed to send Mansfeld into East Frisia, where he could live at the locals’ expense and prevent the Lutheran Count Enno III from conspiring with Bergh to oust the Dutch garrison from Emden. Having been paid and re-equipped by the Dutch, Mansfeld marched from Schenkenschans along the western edge of Münster, down the Ems into East Frisia with 6,000 men at the end of October 1622. Emden’s inhabitants sabotaged Enno’s attempt to flood the frontier and, once inside, Mansfeld was secure behind East Frisia’s natural defences. The west was protected by the Dutch frontier, the north by the sea, while most of the south and east comprised barren heath and marsh. Mansfeld closed the door by garrisoning Meppen and Leer on the Ems in the south west. The only other route in ran through the duchy of Oldenburg to the north east and that was protected by Denmark.

Emden had wanted help, but not like this. Mansfeld’s invasion brought disaster. Using the tax registers, he set about systematic plunder. Emden’s trade boom was abruptly halted as the town was swamped with refugees fleeing the countryside.³⁹ Christian arrived in January having bought Dutch arms for 7,000 men. Mansfeld named him cavalry commander, but the two had fallen out and Christian continued east over the Weser into Lower Saxony with his few followers.

Both paladins became the focus of intense diplomacy. Maximilian and the Habsburgs were keen to wind matters up. Peace talks with British intermediaries led to Frankenthal’s surrender on 20 March on James’s orders. Two of Sir Thomas Fairfax’s sons had died defending the place and many of the defenders were furious, but its situation was hopeless and James hoped its surrender would encourage Ferdinand to offer better terms to Frederick, now back in his Dutch exile. The emperor declared a truce throughout the Empire to give time for Archduchess Isabella of the Spanish Netherlands to organize a conference to settle the Palatine question. It was clear, however, that the emperor intended to resolve matters to his satisfaction, arguing that Mansfeld’s continued presence in the Empire removed any obligation to be conciliatory towards Frederick.⁴⁰ A princes’ congress (Fürstentag) convened in Regensburg in February 1623 to advise measures against Mansfeld and receive lavish rewards from the emperor. The Liga congress met in parallel session, and agreed to maintain Tilly’s army at 15,000.

The Protestant powers remained at cross-purposes both with each other and with France, which was currently seeking allies to oppose Spain in Italy (see Chapter 11). France agreed to sponsor Mansfeld to launch a diversion against Spain, sending him money and 6,000 recruits by sea in June. Their arrival brought his army to over 20,000, equivalent to a third of the local population and far more than East Frisia could support. Meanwhile, Duke Christian’s presence in Lower Saxony embarrassed his Guelph relations who feared it would provide an excuse for Ferdinand to break the Mühlhausen guarantee. Christian IV felt the same and sent Danish troops to keep Christian away from Bremen and Mansfeld out of Oldenburg. Christian was saved by his brother, Friedrich Ulrich, who used his influence in the Lower Saxon Kreis to hire him in March to uphold the region’s neutrality for three months. The money and respite allowed him to collect 21,000 men in Halberstadt and Wolfenbüttel by June. Elector Johann Georg mobilized the Upper Saxons that April to stop him moving east.⁴¹

Ferdinand had already authorized Tilly to protect Westphalia in February 1623, but Tilly remained to the south, partly to reorganize but also to allow time for the emperor’s envoys to defuse the situation. Ferdinand offered to let Christian keep Halberstadt and pardon both him and Mansfeld, provided they disbanded their forces. These were generous terms, but they were rejected as dishonourable. Christian insisted the emperor extend the pardon to his officers, including those who were Bohemian exiles. In the meantime, Count Thurn was writing encouragingly from Constantinople that Bethlen would rejoin the fight.

Anholt moved 12,000 men to cover the southern half of Westphalia, while Tilly collected 17,000 in the Wetterau to enforce a new Reichshofrat verdict against Landgrave Moritz of Hessen-Kassel in April. This awarded Marburg to Darmstadt in clear recognition of the latter’s loyalty and as compensation for the 3 million fl. worth of damage inflicted by Mansfeld’s troops on its territory. Collalto reinforced Tilly with 8,000 Imperialists from Bohemia in May, and together they moved to Eschwege on the Lower Saxon frontier at the end of June. At Maximilian’s request, Ferdinand issued an ultimatum to the Lower Saxons to assist Tilly if Christian refused to submit. Christian’s cavalry already skirmished with Imperialists as he moved west from Halberstadt to block the frontier at Göttingen. Tilly advanced and Christian finally broke off negotiations on 16 July.

The Battle of Stadtlohn

Christian’s prospects looked bleak. Fearing his relations would help Tilly, he sped west hoping the Dutch would employ him again. He resigned his bishopric on 28 July in favour of Denmark, but this won him no favours. Mansfeld refused to leave East Frisia, despite Christian heading north into Osnabrück to shorten the distance between them. This allowed Tilly to catch up as he took the more direct route west, reaching Greven on the Ems just half an hour after Christian had left on 4 August. Anholt now joined him, but detachments and the usual campaign wastage meant they mustered only slightly over 5,000 cavalry, 15,000 infantry and 14 guns, including Collalto’s imperial detachment.⁴²

Christian still had over 50km to go to reach the Dutch garrison of Bredevoort, across relatively flat country cut by small rivers and boundary ditches. He adopted the tactics used at Höchst, leaving a strong rearguard to cover his retreat from one ‘defile’, or choke point, to another. He managed to get over the Steinfurter Aa on the evening of Saturday 5 August. Tilly’s Croats caught up at Bergsteinfurt, forcing Christian to retreat precipitously past Horstmar to camp at Strönfeld just across the Vechta. Leaving instructions that the baggage was to set out at 11 p.m., to be followed by the rest of the army in stages, he fell asleep. He awoke at 3 a.m. to find his exhausted soldiers still slumbering. His rearguard finally abandoned the Vechta crossing at Metelen at 8 a.m., without destroying the bridge, falling back past Nienborg where Colonel Styrum was left with a fresh detachment of 500 cavalry to hold the Dinkel crossing at Heek village.

Tilly’s force was already in hot pursuit, crossing the Vechta past the smoking embers of Christian’s camp fires. Anholt attacked Colonel Styrum’s men at 9 a.m., forcing Christian to send 500 musketeers to extricate them and fall back across the Ahauser Aa where Baron Knyphausen was posted with a more substantial rearguard of 2,000 musketeers and 2 guns between Wessum and Wüllen, west of the river. Christian deployed the rest of the army south of Wüllen on the Quantwicker hill, holding this position for three hours to give time for his baggage to cross the Berkel, the last obstacle before Bredevoort, about 9km further south-west. Though the hot weather reduced the water level, the banks remained wet, making it impassable to wagons that had to cross either by the Stadtlohn bridge or another immediately to the east. His army was down to 15,000 with 16 guns. Around half were raw recruits, many without arms, who were already showing signs of panic.

Knyphausen’s men gave way, forcing Christian to make a final stand behind the Wüllener Landwehr, a parish boundary ditch half way between the village and Stadtlohn. The most reliable units, chiefly those of the Weimar brothers, were placed in the centre. His left deployed on the Lohner Bruch, a marshy heath largely dried by the heat. The right rested on the Liesner wood and the deep cut of the Lepping stream. The heath and stream narrowed to the south-west like a funnel, cramping Christian’s forces crowding by the Berkel, whilst allowing Tilly greater space to deploy to the north.

It was now 2 p.m. on 6 August, the Feast of the Transfiguration, deemed auspicious by the Catholics. While Anholt deployed, the Liga artillery began to unsettle Christian’s infantry. Two counter-attacks failed, allowing Tilly to advance about ninety minutes later. His veteran infantry closed to musket range, while the cavalry swept round the enemy’s right flank. Christian’s army disintegrated as it was herded towards Stadtlohn. The recruits fell on their knees begging for mercy, but the Croats and Cossacks cut down fugitives until the following dawn.

Tilly lost 1,000 men killed and wounded, the latter including his nephew Werner who commanded one of the cavalry regiments. Most reports put the Protestant dead at 6,000 with a further 4,000 captured along with a large quantity of munitions and the entire baggage train except two wagons loaded with cash that escaped with Christian just in time. All the artillery was taken and put on display at Coesfeld marketplace. Around 1,000 prisoners enlisted with Tilly, but soon deserted after discovering he insisted on better discipline than they were used to. The rest were taken to Münster where they were kept under such appalling conditions that the inhabitants and clergy organized relief for them. Having promised not to take up arms against the emperor again, they were released. Over sixty senior officers, including six princes and counts, were handed over to the emperor. Wilhelm of Weimar was held until December 1625. His brother Bernhard was wounded, but managed to escape. The loss of so many officers made it very difficult for Christian to recruit a new army. Accompanied by 5,500 survivors, he entered Dutch pay for ten weeks, unfairly blaming Knyphausen for the disaster.

Mopping Up

Spain hoped that the Dutch decision to again shelter a fugitive army would prompt Maximilian and Ferdinand to join them against the Republic. Maximilian refused, consistently regarding the two conflicts as separate.⁴³ Besides, Tilly’s army was in no condition to undertake further major operations. In the meantime, Anholt’s arrival in Westphalia in November 1622 triggered the first popular opposition to the war in Germany. The towns of the bishopric of Münster were predominantly Protestant, but their resistance was driven by a general desire to avoid violence. Fearing Dutch reprisals, they refused to let Anholt’s troops through their gates for the winter. Unpaid and starving, his corps roamed the countryside, while the peasants fled to the marshes. The damage in the duchy of Westphalia alone was put at six times the usual annual tax bill. Elector Ferdinand of Cologne was already ill-disposed towards the towns and considered their defiance an act of rebellion. Anholt spent the spring of 1623 besieging them while he waited for Christian and Tilly to move west. Stadtlohn cleared the way for more thorough action. Assisted by Liga troops, a commission toured the towns into 1624, rewriting their charters and imposing new Catholic councils. Only Münster itself escaped with its privileges intact, because it had already agreed not to grant citizenship to any more Protestants and to supply food to the army. However, the arrival of Tilly’s forces in its vicinity exhausted its resources, leading to a week of plundering as his ravenous troops broke into monasteries and houses in September 1623.⁴⁴

Tilly still had to deal with Mansfeld who had enhanced East Frisia’s natural defences by burning the border villages and flooding the remaining tracks across the heath. He tried to break in using the route Mansfeld had taken the previous October, capturing Meppen in August, but got no further. A march east to Oldenburg proved equally futile as this way was blocked as well. With winter approaching, Tilly dispersed his men into billets along the frontier, hoping to starve Mansfeld out.

The growing crisis brought the feuding population together. Emden collaborated with the count to intercept supplies sent by the Dutch. The situation worsened as Christian’s small army returned to East Frisia after its second Dutch contract expired. Mansfeld found that foraging parties sent to raid across the frontier simply deserted. The duke of Oldenburg scraped together 90,000 talers that Christian accepted to disband his remaining 2,000 men in January 1624. As Mansfeld held out for more, the Dutch loaned the East Frisian Estates the equivalent of three years’ taxes which he accepted on behalf of the 4,500 men that remained with his colours; most promptly enlisted in the Dutch army after pocketing their share at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Tilly had sent a detachment south into Hessen-Kassel to force Duke Moritz to disarm in October 1623. Like Georg Friedrich the year before, Moritz fled, eventually abdicating in favour of his son, Wilhelm V, to save the territory from sequestration. Tilly’s troops stayed until 1625, extracting over 5 million fl. in contributions. Wilhelm bowed to local pressure and had Wolfgang Gunther executed as a scapegoat for his father’s policies.⁴⁵

Back in Upper Hungary, encouraged by the indefatigable Thurn, Bethlen had conspired throughout 1623, believing Christian was marching east to join him. He resurrected the grand scheme of 1620, receiving the sultan’s promise of a force of 30,000 Turks and Tartars in return for agreeing to make Hungary and Bohemia tributary states once they had been conquered. The auxiliaries began assembling in June 1623, while the Croatian and Slovenian border militia mutinied the following month in protest at being paid in debased coin. The need to bring in the harvest delayed Bethlen’s advance until mid August. The Imperialists had already been alerted in May as the Hungarian malcontents intensified their raiding. Caraffa and Wallenstein collected 7,500 troops on the March river to block the way into Moravia and Lower Austria, assisted by 10,000 Cossacks. A further 9,000 men were redirected from Germany and Austria as reinforcements. Bethlen temporarily suspended operations when he learned of Christian’s defeat, but resumed in September, trapping the Imperialists in Göding (Hodonin) on the March and enslaving 15,000 of the local population. Vienna was again thrown into panic. Ferdinand considered fleeing to Innsbruck, while things were so bad inside Göding that Wallenstein’s men were reduced to eating their own horses.

As in 1622, the underlying trend was clearly against Bethlen. The Silesian militia mobilized to block his advance northwards, while more Cossacks arrived to contain the raiding. Unaware of his enemy’s panic and only conscious of his own isolation, Bethlen accepted another truce in November, which was converted into peace in May 1624. Ferdinand granted Bethlen lenient terms, essentially confirming the Nikolsburg treaty. He could afford to be magnanimous. It had been a narrow victory but a decisive one. Bethlen’s credibility was shattered. The Dutch had refused aid, while the sultan was persuaded not to risk his own truce with the Habsburgs. Bethlen sent a Catholic noble to Vienna with an offer to change sides, marry Ferdinand’s daughter and bequeath Transylvania to the emperor. Ferdinand did not take this seriously. He consolidated his hold over his part of Hungary, arriving at the next Pressburg diet in October 1625 accompanied by a large escort. Assisted by Cardinal Pazmany, he obtained majority agreement to his demands. The diet elected the Catholic Miklós Esterházy the new palatine to replace the deceased Thurzó, as well as accepting the emperor’s seventeen-year-old son, Archduke Ferdinand, as king in December. Though Ferdinand confirmed the religious concessions of 1606, it was clear that the growth of Catholic influence in the diet offered the prospect of revoking these in the future.⁴⁶ The paladins had been routed and the war in the Empire appeared to be over. Ferdinand and his supporters could concentrate on exploiting their victory.

THE CATHOLIC ASCENDANCY 1621–9

Change and Continuity

The battle of White Mountain was long regarded as a turning point. Those favourably inclined to the Habsburgs argued it was a victory for progress, ending feudal anarchy and preventing Bohemia from slipping into ‘a Polish future’.⁴⁷ For most Czechs, however, it was a national disaster, starting an ‘age of darkness’ and cultural decline under alien rule. On 3 November 1918, a week after the Czechs broke from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a large crowd gathered on the White Mountain battlefield to hear speeches trumpeting independence as a triumph over the shame of 1620. The people then marched to Prague Old Town Square and pulled down the column of the Virgin, regarded as a symbol of Habsburg absolutism. This view persists today and the title of a recent popular account of the battle translates as ‘Black Day on White Mountain’.⁴⁸

It was not until the 1950s that this interpretation met a challenge from social and economic historians who pointed to long-term continuities across the 1618–20 political divide. The association of this alternative interpretation with state-sponsored Marxist history between 1948 and 1990 did much to discredit it. Certainly, the events cannot be reduced to a struggle within a single ruling class over economic assets. Nonetheless, there were important continuities, while analyses of the nobility provide important clues as to what changed.

In order to understand the impact of the military events, the consequences for Bohemia must be viewed in common with those in the rest of the Empire. The situation in Bohemia was distinct only because the kingdom was part of the Habsburg hereditary lands, allowing Ferdinand greater freedom to act there than in the defeated German territories. National distinctions based on language or alleged cultural differences mattered nowhere but in the propaganda of the defeated rebels and the later writings of those desiring Czech independence.

The significance of the victories of 1620–3 lay not in sweeping constitutional or institutional changes, but in the redistribution of power and wealth to the emperor’s supporters. These, in turn, were identified most clearly by their Catholicism, the propagation of which was merely part of a broader programme to stabilize the Habsburg dynasty after its decline under Rudolf. Ferdinand’s attitude towards his opponents remained the same, regardless of whether they spoke Czech or German. Those that took up arms were rebels who had forfeited their rights. His victories made him a conqueror, entitled to dispose of their property as he pleased. Nonetheless, his actions remained guided by what he regarded as the correct interpretation of the imperial constitution and his duties as emperor. His mandates and ultimatums were considered fair warning. Those failing to take advantage of his clemency placed themselves demonstrably in the wrong. Further punishment depended on formally branding them outlaws. The appropriate penalties were then decided through consultation with electors and princes, or by legal tribunals in the case of the hereditary lands. The distinction lay in the different character of Ferdinand’s dual status. In Bohemia and Austria he regarded himself as hereditary ruler facing his own subjects who were liable to lose their lives as well as property. Elsewhere, he acted as emperor towards disobedient vassals. The concept of ‘notorious rebels’ made a formal hearing unnecessary, but it was also unwise to expose imperial prerogatives to criticism by seeking unduly harsh sentences. In any case, Ferdinand was not seeking death but the expropriation of his opponents’ lands and titles. This could be achieved through consultation with his supporters and, ideally, the accused whom Ferdinand was quite willing to pardon provided they accepted their ‘guilt’ and acquiesced in a reduction of their territory.

Stabilizing the Dynasty

Ferdinand’s adherence to established norms is most apparent in the political changes he made. The general tendency was, predictably, to enhance his authority in a move towards what is labelled ‘absolutism’. We should not, however, overemphasize centralization or modernization. No new institutions were created. Instead, existing arrangements were modified to reduce the potential for formal opposition.

Ferdinand addressed the legacy of the Brothers’ Quarrel by adding a codicil to his will on 10 May 1621, introducing primogeniture to ensure his son, Archduke Ferdinand, would succeed to all his lands. Even here, however, older practices persisted, as the emperor ceded the Tirolean lands in two stages (in 1623 and 1630) to his brother Leopold, who had been made governor there after Archduke Maximilian’s death in 1618. Ferdinand also dropped plans to raise Austria to a kingdom in 1623 because Leopold feared this would diminish his status within the composite Habsburg monarchy.⁴⁹

Despite their role in the rebellion, no attempt was made to abolish the Estates. The Saxon occupation of Lusatia and intervention in Silesia meant the institutions there escaped with their privileges intact, thanks to the elector’s guarantees. Elsewhere, Ferdinand could act more forcefully, but eventually only promulgated ‘renewed constitutions’ for Upper Austria (1625, revised 1627), Bohemia (1627) and Moravia (1628) that remained in force until the 1848 revolution. The monarchy was declared hereditary, eliminating Bohemian claims to elect their king. The Estates retained the right to vote on taxation, but lost that of free assembly, as well as control of the formally hereditary great offices of state. Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty was revoked, leaving Catholicism the sole official faith, though special dispensations remained for Jews. Estates’ powers now rested on dynastic grace, not inalienable corporate rights. Diets lost their significance as real influence shifted to permanent, salaried committees. Even in the Tirol, a region that remained loyal and escaped changes, peasants increasingly selected lawyers to represent them in the diet as government became more bureaucratic and technical.⁵⁰

Regardless of the fighting, the Estates’ role was changing in this period from corporate representation to administration. Their participation in deciding taxation was to help the crown find the amount of money the country could reasonably bear, and to assist in collecting it. The monarch alone now represented the country in external relations. This central element of Ferdinand’s programme revived Charles V’s project from 1548 to make the Empire easier to manage by securing full autonomy for the hereditary lands. Already in 1620, Ferdinand separated the Austrian and imperial chancelleries that had merged in 1559. The Austrian chancellery now handled Ferdinand’s business as hereditary ruler, including diplomatic correspondence, whereas the imperial chancellery dealt with relations with the imperial Estates. Formally, the elector of Mainz remained head of the imperial chancellery, but Habsburg policy in the Empire ran through the vice-chancellor, who was the emperor’s appointee. The Bohemian chancellery remained, but moved to Vienna in 1624. Both it and its Austrian counterpart began issuing patents of nobility, widening the Habsburgs’ patronage independently of the imperial title that was traditionally associated with ennoblement. Coordination was provided by the privy council. This had emerged in the 1520s but now became more important under its chairman, Baron Eggenberg, Ferdinand’s trusted adviser.

The institutional adjustments were less significant than the changes in personnel. The rebellion had shown that the problem lay not with the Estates as such, but in their use by the regime’s opponents. The actual Estates had split, with a substantial proportion of their membership remaining loyal or at least neutral after 1618. It is here that the significance of religion can be gauged since Catholicism remained the most obvious mark of loyalty. The victories after 1620 enabled Ferdinand to extend his existing patronage to the rest of the Empire. By redistributing conquered land, he undermined the opposition’s economic base while strengthening his supporters’. By sparing the land of moderates or those showing contrition, he could win them over and enlarge the pool of talent at his disposal.

It is important not to overestimate the coherence of this strategy. Its implementation was improvised and clearly driven in part by fiscal expediency. The full impact worked through only after several generations. The immediate beneficiaries owed status and wealth to backing the winning side. Rewarded with land and high office, they provided the glue holding the monarchy together through the war. Their fortunes were immediately entwined with that of the dynasty, just as the fate of the Bohemian exiles and other victims depended on the success of the emperor’s remaining enemies like Sweden. The post-war generation were largely the children of these beneficiaries. Unlike those rising in revolt in 1618, they harboured no ambitions to alter political arrangements, but rather to improve their place in the Habsburg court and administration. The dynasty met their aspirations thanks to the continued growth of its army and bureaucracy, as well as by creating new titles and honours. Representation of local and provincial interests now largely ran through these informal channels, as the prominent aristocratic families promoted their own clients within the system.

The Blood Court

The first stage of this process began with the summer offensive of 1620 and involved identifying the victims. Three mandates issued after August 1620 named 65 Lower and 51 Upper Austrians as rebels who had forfeited their property. The others were targeted in January and February 1621 when Frederick and his principal German supporters were placed under the imperial ban, while a special commission began work in Prague headed by Karl Liechtenstein and Cardinal Dietrichstein. Vienna sent a list of 82 men to be arrested, including the Bohemian Directors as well as the Defenestrators. Some, like Colonna von Fels, were already dead, or had fled. Many naïvely remained in Prague, ignoring Tilly’s hints in November 1620 to escape. The trial lasted two months. Johann Georg ignored Protestant pleas and handed over the Defenestrator Joachim Andreas Schlick who had sought shelter in Saxony. Thirty-two were sentenced to death on the ground that their crimes constituted treason. Along with another eleven whose lives were spared, all lost their property, thereby punishing their families as well. The form of execution was deliberately barbaric: most were to have their tongue pulled out, or right hand chopped off, prior to being killed.

Ferdinand wrestled with his conscience on receiving the verdicts, consulting his advisers and travelling to the Mariazell shrine for divine guidance. The Bohemian chancellor Lobkowitz, and the future imperial vice-chancellor Stralendorf, urged the emperor to commute the sentences to galley service. Slavata and Martinitz also had no desire for revenge and opposed the death sentences on their Defenestrators. Ferdinand pardoned five, and alleviated the form of execution for some others, but he signed 28 death warrants on 23 May 1621, the third anniversary of the Defenestration. Liechtenstein was told to hurry to carry out the sentences because the emperor did not want his triumphal entrance into Prague to coincide with the executions. The garrison was augmented and the city gates closed. Twenty-seven men were led to the Old Town Square on 21 June along with the corpse of the other condemned man who had committed suicide in prison. The victims were three lords, seven knights and seventeen citizens, including the university rector who remained the only one to have his tongue pulled out to punish his speech praising Frederick. They included one Catholic: Dionys Czernin, the captain who had let the Defenestrators into the Hradschin.

The executioner, Jan Mydllar, required four axes for his grisly task, though three of the commoners were hanged. Twelve heads, two hands and the rector’s tongue were stuck over the town gates where they remained until the Saxons removed them in 1631. Another 29 fugitives were condemned to death in absentia. The event has entered Czech history as the Blood Court. It was the logical consequence of Ferdinand’s interpretation of the events as rebellion. The number of victims was comparatively small compared to the duke of Alba’s Council of Blood at the start of the Dutch Revolt, or the repression following failed rebellions in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain. Yet, it was undoubtedly unnecessary and a mistake. The mood changed in Prague. Whereas the rebel leadership had been blamed for the disaster, they now attracted sympathy.⁵¹

The Saxons handed over three Lusatians to Ferdinand, and fined eleven others. Of the Moravians, only Colonel Friedrich von Tieffenbach was executed, in Innsbruck on 27 May 1621. Dietrichstein and Slavata held a second tribunal that condemned twelve Moravians to death, but none of them was executed. Some had fled, while Dietrichstein and Karel Zierotin interceded on the others’ behalf. Ferdinand apparently learned from his mistake in Prague and commuted the sentences to life imprisonment – all were released before the decade was out.

The Land Transfers

The executions intensified the exiles’ bitter hatred of the emperor, but the land confiscation was historically more important. The Liechtenstein commission began expropriating rebel property after the Blood Court using lists prepared since November 1620. It was the largest transfer of property in Europe before the seizures during the Communist takeover after 1945 in which, among others, the descendants of those benefiting in the 1620s lost their estates. Protests obliged the commission to stop seizing land from nobles in October 1623, by which time it had already confiscated the possessions of those who had supported the revolt. Property continued to be taken from burghers, but this was obviously on a much smaller scale. The action affected 680 Bohemian noble families, of whom 166 lost everything, as well as 135 Prague burghers and others in 50 towns. Around 150 Moravian estates were seized from 250 families. Since the process involved the transfer of the former owners’ feudal jurisdiction over their tenants, its scale can be gauged from the fact that half the Moravian population changed landlord. Few properties were taken in Upper Silesia, but the chief beneficiaries of the redistribution in Bohemia and Moravia also acquired land there.

The whole episode proved even more emotive for later generations than the executions. Czech historians labelled it ‘deliberate robbery’.⁵² The Slavata were the only senior Czech family to expand their possessions in Bohemia, where they had over 2,000 dependent peasant households. Another 16 Czech families controlled 10,000 more households, or 18 per cent of the total. While Czech remained the predominant language among Bohemian nobles, it was displaced by German in Moravia where the members of the Zierotin family who backed the revolt lost nearly three-quarters of their 10,000 households.

Land confiscation was the standard punishment for rebellion. None of those protesting questioned the basic legality, instead they sought mercy by claiming mitigating circumstances. The process entailed a massive expansion of the state without altering the fundamental legal and property arrangements. The crown did not expropriate the land itself, keeping only 1.6 per cent of the total. It also avoided punishing relations who had not participated in the rebellion, leaving entailed land untouched, and taking only that owned directly by rebels. Confiscation often resembled a forced sale as compensation was sometimes paid, though in debased coin. The growth of state power thus flowed through the reordering of personal relationships as Ferdinand restructured and expanded his clientele, rewarding loyalists regardless of family origin or the location of the property. The monarchy acquired a universal reach without having to destroy provincial privileges. More families now held land in several provinces simultaneously, while newcomers were integrated into the Habsburg elite. Germans, Spaniards, Italians and Belgians comprised 281 of the 417 families entering the Bohemian nobility between 1621 and 1656. The majority were imperial army officers, or Catholics from other parts of the monarchy.

Wealth became heavily concentrated in the hands of a few leading families, largely those who had already backed Ferdinand prior to 1618. The Liechtensteins and Lobkowitzs held huge estates in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, while the Slavata held land in Bohemia and Moravia. Together with the Dietrichsteins, the Liechtenstein family controlled a quarter of Moravia, while Baron Eggenberg emerged as the principal Bohemian landowner. Confiscation, exile and the influx of outsiders broke the social cohesion of the old Bohemian nobility. The marriage market widened. Language and involvement in local politics ceased to be defining criteria. Many nobles became absentee landlords as participation in the court and central government assumed greater significance.

The Palatine Lands and Titles

The policy was extended beyond the Habsburg hereditary lands even before Tilly’s year of victories in 1622 made implementation a realistic option. A Hamburg paper speculated as early as September 1619 that Ferdinand would transfer the Palatine title if Frederick accepted the Bohemian crown.⁵³ The obvious recipient was Maximilian of Bavaria who was in a strong position to demand compensation on the basis of the Treaty of Munich from October 1619, as well as holding imperial commissions for Bohemia and Upper Austria in August 1620. Maximilian recognized the difficulty of assuming responsibility for Bohemia, and renounced his function there on 13 January, retaining only Upper Austria, formally transferred to him by Ferdinand on 15 February until he was able to repay Bavaria’s war costs.⁵⁴ This gave Maximilian leverage over the emperor, since it was highly unlikely the Habsburg treasury would ever find the money to redeem the province. The legal preparations for reassigning the electoral title were completed when Ferdinand bowed to Bavarian pressure and declared Frederick an outlaw on 29 January 1621.

However, Ferdinand was in no hurry to go further, recognizing that Frederick would become irreconcilable if deprived of his electoral, as well as royal Bohemian, title. He also foresaw that sequestrating the Palatinate would provide an excuse for other powers to take up Frederick’s cause. There was the additional problem of Spain, whose intervention in the capacity of its membership of the Burgundian Kreis entitled it to compensation too. Few Habsburg advisers favoured transferring the Palatine title to Bavaria, but Frederick’s intransigence at Segeberg in March convinced Ferdinand there was no point in being lenient. He extended Maximilian’s commission in June 1621 to include the Upper Palatinate and then secretly transferred the electoral title to him on 22 September. The award would only take effect once Ferdinand acknowledged it publicly, but Maximilian hesitated to press him until both were sure of Spain’s support, and Spain did not want to relinquish the western Lower Palatinate, a valuable asset in negotiations with James I. Unlike his predecessor, the new pope, Gregory XV, saw the conflict as a holy war and convinced Spain of the advantage in transferring the title of this Calvinist stronghold to the Catholic Maximilian.

Tilly’s victories secured the ground, especially with the capture of Heidelberg and Mannheim by November 1622. An imperial deputation convened in Regensburg in December, and expanded into a princes’ congress that, as we have seen, ran parallel to a meeting of the Liga and peace talks sponsored by James and Isabella. Ferdinand wished to restore unity and was prepared to be magnanimous. Anhalt, Hohenlohe and others were pardoned. Negotiations continued with Mansfeld and Duke Christian, offering them clemency if they laid down their arms. Unlike in Bohemia, there were no plans to execute opponents. Nor did Ferdinand intend to break the Mühlhausen guarantee for the north German bishoprics. There were already calls from some ecclesiastical princes for a full restitution of former church land, but these were not incorporated into the emperor’s programme. All restitution involved secular principalities – Baden-Baden, Marburg, Waldeck.

This just left the Palatinate, a territory sufficiently large to satisfy more than Maximilian. Frederick’s share of three districts in northern Bavaria was given to his Pfalz-Neuburg relations to reconcile them to Maximilian’s new status. The Forest Road (Bergstrasse) which Mainz had lost to the Palatinate in the fifteenth century was returned to it, while Sinsheim went to Speyer as compensation for Frederick’s destruction of Udenheim in 1618. Darmstadt received two districts in lieu of the damage done in 1622, as well as some properties belonging to the counts of Löwenstein, Solms-Braunfels and Isenburg who had served as colonels in Mansfeld’s army.⁵⁵ These transfers were relatively minor: the two districts given to Darmstadt had only 850 inhabitants. The real beneficiary remained Maximilian who received the entire Upper Palatinate and the remainder of the eastern Lower Palatinate on 25 February 1623.

The electoral title was also publicly transferred on the same day, significantly the seventy-fifth anniversary of the switch of the Saxon title between the Ernestine and Albertine Wettins by Charles V. The event was boycotted by Pfalz-Neuburg, Saxony, Brandenburg and the Spanish ambassador, Oñate, while Isabella sent a protest. It retained a sense of impermanence, since the land transfers were attached to Maximilian’s temporary possession of Upper Austria and together set against Ferdinand’s obligation to refund his war expenses, agreed at 12 million florins. Maximilian remained bound to Ferdinand whose help he needed to secure wider recognition of his new status. Mainz’s mediation persuaded Johann Georg in July 1624 after the emperor handed Lusatia to Saxony on similar terms as the pledges to Bavaria over Upper Austria, this time in lieu of expenses set at 3.93 million florins.⁵⁶

Important though these decisions were, they have overshadowed another strand of Ferdinand’s programme. Starting in Regensburg, the emperor had by August 1624 created eleven new princes, in contrast to only four elevations over the preceding seventy years. They included three members of the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns, as well as their relation Field Marshal Count Salm. The others came from the Habsburgs’ own territorial nobility and included the three Liechtenstein brothers, Cardinal Dietrichstein and General Wallenstein. The electors were lukewarm at this attempt to pack a future Reichstag with Habsburg supporters and insisted the new princes acquire appropriate fiefs before they could exercise their votes. The requirement intensified the integration of the Habsburg and imperial nobility: not only did imperial counts and knights serving in the emperor’s army acquire property confiscated from rebels in the Habsburg hereditary lands, but Habsburg aristocrats now assumed a more significant share of the Empire’s lands and titles. Ferdinand also made full use of his prerogative to raise over a hundred families to the status of imperial baron and another seventy to that of imperial count, including Tilly in September 1622.⁵⁷ Those counts that purchased or married into appropriate land acquired a voice in Kreis assemblies. Again, there was a close association with the Habsburg elite: ten of the emperor’s privy councillors joined the Swabian counts between 1627 and 1654.

As in the Habsburg lands, Ferdinand’s programme worked by changing people, not institutions, bringing loyalists to the fore and marginalizing opponents. The scale of the changes was already significant, but not more than could be accommodated within the imperial constitution. The real problems only began after 1627 when the defeat of Denmark and its north German allies provided opportunities for a more fundamental redistribution of lands and titles (see Chapter 12, pp.420–1).

Re-Catholicization

Ferdinand’s measures were nonetheless controversial, not least because they were associated with the promotion of Catholicism. This process has been labelled ‘re-Catholicization’, though many of those affected had lived their entire lives as Protestants. The Catholicism that was imposed was the post-Tridentine version, not that which had existed before. This created tensions among those implementing the policy, some of whom preferred the less austere pre-Reformation Catholicism. Though Catholicism was the primary test for political loyalty, the secular imperative sometimes contradicted the policy’s spiritual dimension.⁵⁸

The primary purpose was to form a solidly Catholic political and social elite, and neither Maximilian nor Ferdinand’s principal advisers showed a great desire to extend the measures to the rest of the population. Maximilian and the leading Habsburg officials favoured continuing the pre-war gradualist approach of avoiding direct attacks on legally recognized Protestant populations, while encouraging them to convert. Persuasion remained a major element of re-Catholicization into the post-war era and was preferred by many clerics. The pope, Jesuits and some others advocated a more robust approach, however. The Jesuits pressed ahead without local support in the small principality of Sulzbach and failed miserably.⁵⁹ Success clearly depended on political backing and the papal nuncio pressed Ferdinand to sanction the use of force. While the emperor wished to remain within his version of the law, he was nonetheless susceptible to militant arguments. His belief that his opponents were rebels convinced him they had forfeited their religious as well as political rights and property. Maximilian was more cautious, partly because his possession of the Palatinate remained insecure until recognized by the other electors in 1628. The delay allowed him to observe the problems Ferdinand encountered in his hereditary lands, as well as Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg’s difficulties in persuading his Jülich and Berg subjects to embrace Catholicism.

Despite these differences, the programme followed the pattern devised in 1579 to promote Catholicism in Austria and Bavaria discussed in Chapter 3. The Protestant infrastructure was targeted first, as pastors and teachers were expelled, turning churches and schools over to Catholics. This began in December 1621 in Bohemia, though Liechtenstein initially tried to exempt Lutherans, who were not ordered to leave until October 1622. The measures were delayed in Lower Austria until 1626, while Maximilian did not apply the policy to Calvinists in the Upper Palatinate until three years after his conquest. The Habsburgs then targeted Protestant towns. Catholicism had already become a criterion for Viennese citizenship in 1623 and this was extended to Bohemian and then Upper and Lower Austrian towns. The ‘renewed constitutions’ destroyed the legal basis for the remaining Protestant rights, clearing the way for a series of ‘general mandates’ in Bohemia, Upper and Lower Austria (all in 1627), and then Moravia and Inner Austria (both in 1628), giving the population six months to convert or emigrate.

Maximilian implemented the measures in reverse order, issuing a general mandate in the Upper Palatinate in April 1628 before going further than Ferdinand and completely abolishing the local Estates in 1629. He obtained Ferdinand’s permission for this step that removed an institution with much weaker roots than those in the Habsburg monarchy. Bavarian measures also attacked Calvinism, a faith widely resented by the largely Lutheran Upper Palatines and even unpopular in much of the Lower Palatinate. Re-Catholicism there only began in 1628 and was much less systematic since Maximilian controlled only a third of the territory, a half being in Spanish hands and the rest divided between Mainz, Speyer and Darmstadt. The Spanish left religion alone, just as they did in their Lower Rhenish garrisons. Darmstadt was Lutheran, while Mainz and Speyer failed to coordinate with Bavaria owing to disputes over jurisdiction. Lutheran towns that had surrendered to Tilly were left alone, while the occupying Bavarian authorities were too busy raising war taxes to press on religious issues.

The Bavarians introduced the other elements of re-Catholicization, including the Gregorian calendar and confession certificates to prove observance. Those failing to attend mass or who ate meat at forbidden times were liable for fines, but the Bavarians were less vigorous in expelling dissenters than the Habsburgs. The Upper Palatinate mandate only applied to Maximilian’s prime target, the nobility. Ninety families converted by 1630 and though another 93 left, they were not required to sell their property and simply became absentee landlords. Other social groups were not affected until July 1660 and even then heads of households were exempt. There was no need for these measures in Bavaria where few people had embraced Protestantism. Maximilian also left the Bavarian Estates intact, relying on economic pressures that made court, administrative and military appointments increasingly attractive to the local nobles. As these appointments were open to Catholics alone, Protestant nobles were thus given a compelling incentive to convert.⁶⁰

A significant proportion of the Habsburg nobility also converted. The revolt intensified the association between Protestantism and subversion, making the faith both dangerous and morally suspect. The battle of White Mountain appeared to indicate that God favoured Catholics. Some converted to avoid punishment, or to share in the spoils. A notable example of opportunism was Johann Ludwig of Nassau-Hadamar who renounced Calvinism in 1629 to win Ferdinand’s support over a disputed inheritance. He became the first of the Nassau dynasty to be made an imperial prince (in 1639) and represented the emperor at the Westphalian peace congress. For others, conversion was simply an extension of their existing loyalty to the dynasty. The Styrian Lutheran Rudolf von Tieffenbach had commanded the artillery at White Mountain and converted in 1623, despite the execution of his brother who was caught on the other side. Twenty-one Hungarian magnates and their sons converted between 1613 and 1637, further reducing the Protestant proportion in the diet. Even in Lower Austria, where the Lutheran nobility retained freedom of conscience, only a third of the 420 nobles remained Protestant by 1650.

Major factors in Catholicism’s success were the punitive measures that drove most of the Protestants into exile. A significant number had fled in the wake of White Mountain and the confiscations. Others, mainly more humble folk, followed after the general mandates. It is likely that 100,000 people left Inner and Lower Austria to avoid persecution between 1598 and 1660. A similar number fled Silesia, despite Saxon intervention to secure Lutheran rights, while around 150,000 left Bohemia and Moravia across the same period. The majority went in the 1620s. Though forming a minority of the emigrants, the nobility suffered disproportionately. The 1628 Inner Austrian mandate prompted 750 Styrian and 160 Carinthian nobles to leave, while over 300 of the 1,400 Bohemian and Moravian noble families departed. The exodus fuelled the reconstruction of the Habsburg elite, because the emigrants sold their land. The political gain to the Habsburgs came at a high price, reducing the population by at least 7 per cent and depleting its wealth. Those leaving were often the ones that could: the 150 citizens departing Vienna after 1623 took property worth 300,000 fl.⁶¹ These losses compounded the damage inflicted by the war, pushing the burden onto those who remained, including the devout Catholics. There were also too few of the latter qualified to fill the vacancies left in the church and administration: two-thirds of Bohemian parishes lacked a priest in 1640.

These problems slowed the acceptance of Catholicism. Considerable effort was expended to make the official faith more attractive. Wallenstein’s brother-in-law, Cardinal Ernst Albrecht von Harrach, was indefatigable in promoting Catholicism as a focus for loyal Czech identity, fostering the existing cult of the Bohemian cleric John of Nepomuk, who was eventually canonized in 1729 and became a symbol of Habsburg piety.⁶² The Jesuits burned 10,000 Protestant books in the Upper Palatinate, but distributed their own free devotional literature and developed a sophisticated cultural outreach programme based on community theatre. Once the nobles had left or converted, the authorities accepted the need for patience. Maximilian effectively gave up on converting the Lutheran adults in the Upper Palatinate, leaving the Jesuits to concentrate on indoctrinating their children.

The vibrancy of Austrian, Bavarian and Czech Catholic culture testifies to the long-term impact of these measures, even if Protestant minorities survived to benefit from Emperor Joseph II’s toleration patent of 1781.⁶³ Re-Catholicization nonetheless brought misery to the generation pressured to abandon beliefs and rituals that had given meaning to their lives. Czech Utraquism, the faith of the poor, was largely eliminated. The exiles suffered additional hardship and were often cruelly treated by their hosts for whom they were either an embarrassment or a convenient political pawn. The Inner Austrians largely fled into western Hungary, or trekked west to Württemberg, Franconia and the south German imperial cities. Upper and Lower Austrians went up the Danube to Protestant cities like Regensburg. Many Moravians went to north-west Hungary, but at least half the Bohemians fled to Saxony where they received a frosty reception. The Saxon government cooperated with the emperor in seizing property and even extraditing leading figures for trial. Not until Ferdinand’s general mandates of 1627–8 did Johann Georg ask his advisers whether the refugees should be granted asylum on religious grounds. The conservative consistory favoured asylum for orthodox Lutherans, though many senior clergy remained sceptical. The growth of Czech-speaking minorities in Pirna and other border towns raised fears of Calvinist infiltration, because the local Saxon officials could not understand what was being said in the exiles’ churches. The exiles were regarded as poor persecuted Christians worthy of sympathy, but who were nonetheless expected to wait – gratefully of course – tolerated by the elector until the situation allowed them to go home. The degree of welcome declined with social status, and peasants and poorer burghers were not granted asylum until the second wave of refugees in the early 1630s. Restrictions on the exiles were only relaxed in the 1650s to repopulate the devastated electorate, and were reimposed by 1680.⁶⁴

Embittered, the exiles pinned their hopes on continuing the war, like the South Netherlands refugees who lobbied for the Dutch not to renew the Twelve Years Truce. Frederick V, the most prominent exile, became the focus of those powers hostile to the Habsburgs. The Palatine and Bohemian causes, both defeated, lived on as justification for Danish and Swedish intervention.