Читать книгу The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 - Gardiner Samuel Rawson - Страница 9

§ 1. The Bohemians look for aid from foreign powers.

If the assistance of the Union was thus likely to do more harm than good to the Bohemians, their hopes of aid from other powers were still more delusive. The Dutch, indeed, sent something, and would willingly have sent more, but they had too many difficulties at home to be very profuse in their offers. James of England told his son-in-law plainly that he would have nothing to do with any encroachment upon the rights of others, and he had undertaken at the instigation of Spain a formal mediation between the Bohemians and their king – a mediation which had been offered him merely in order to keep his hands tied whilst others were arming.

§ 2. Attack upon Vienna.

On March 20, before the next campaign opened, Matthias died. Ferdinand's renewed promises to respect the Royal Charter – made doubtless under the reservation of putting his own interpretation upon the disputed points – were rejected with scorn by the Directors. The sword was to decide the quarrel. With the money received from the Dutch, and with aid in money and munitions of war from Heidelberg, Thurn and Mansfeld were enabled to take the field. The latter remained to watch Bucquoi, whilst the former undertook to win the other territories, which had hitherto submitted to Matthias, and had stood aloof from the movement in Bohemia. Without much difficulty he succeeded in revolutionizing Moravia, and he arrived on June 5 under the walls of Vienna. Within was Ferdinand himself, with a petty garrison of 300 men, and as many volunteers as he could attach to his cause. Thurn hoped that his partisans inside the cities would open the gates to admit him. But he lost time in negotiations with the Austrian nobility. The estates of the two territories of Upper and Lower Austria were to a great extent Protestant, and they had refused to do homage to Ferdinand on the death of Matthias. The Lower Austrians now sent a deputation to Vienna to demand permission to form a confederation with the Bohemians, on terms which would practically have converted the whole country, from the Styrian frontier to the borders of Silesia, into a federal aristocratic republic.

§ 3. Ferdinand resists the demands of the Lower Austrian Estates.

In Ferdinand they had to do with a man who was not to be overawed by personal danger. He knew well that by yielding he would be giving a legal basis to a system which he regarded as opposed to all law, human and divine. Throwing himself before the crucifix, he found strength for the conflict into which he entered on behalf of his family, his church, and, as he firmly believed, of his country and his God – strength none the less real because the figure on the cross did not, as men not long afterwards came fondly to believe, bow its head towards the suppliant, or utter the consoling words: 'Ferdinand, I will not forsake thee.'

§ 4. Rescue arrives.

To a deputation from the Austrian Estates he was firm and unbending. They might threaten as they pleased, but the confederation with Bohemia he would not sign. Rougher and rougher grew the menaces addressed to him. Some one, it is said, talked of dethroning him and of educating his children in the Protestant religion. Suddenly the blare of a trumpet was heard in the court below. A regiment of horses had slipped in through a gate unguarded by Thurn, and had hurried to Ferdinand's defence. The deputation, lately so imperious, slunk away, glad enough to escape punishment.

§ 5. The siege raised.

Little would so slight a reinforcement have availed if Thurn had been capable of assaulting the city. But, unprovided with stores of food or siege munitions, he had counted on treason within. Disappointed of his prey, he returned to Bohemia, to find that Bucquoi had broken out of Budweis, and had inflicted a serious defeat on Mansfeld.

§ 6. The Imperial election.

Ferdinand did not linger at Vienna to dispute his rights with his Austrian subjects. The election of a new Emperor was to take place at Frankfort, and it was of importance to him to be on the spot. To the German Protestants the transfer of the Imperial crown to his head could not be a matter of indifference. If he succeeded, as there seemed every probability of his succeeding, in re-establishing his authority over Bohemia, he would weigh with a far heavier weight than Matthias upon the disputes by which Germany was distracted. The Elector Palatine and his councillors had a thousand schemes for getting rid of him, without fixing upon any. John George of Saxony, in 1619 as in 1612, had a definite plan to propose. Ferdinand, he said, was not in possession of Bohemia, and could not, therefore, vote as King of Bohemia at the election. The election must, therefore, be postponed till the Bohemian question had been settled by mediation. If only the three Protestant electors could have been brought to agree to this course, an immediate choice of Ferdinand would have been impossible.

§ 7. Ferdinand chosen Emperor.

Whatever might be the merits of the proposal itself, it had the inestimable advantage of embarking the Lutherans of the North and the Calvinists of the South in a common cause. But Frederick distrusted John George, and preferred another plan of his own. John George lost his temper, and voted unconditionally for Ferdinand. Frederick, if he did not mean to be left alone in impotent isolation, had nothing for it but to follow his example. He had no other candidate seriously to propose; and on August 28, 1619, Ferdinand was chosen by a unanimous vote. He was now known as the Emperor Ferdinand II.

§ 8. Frederick elected King of Bohemia.

Two days before, another election had taken place at Prague. The Bohemians, after deposing Ferdinand from the throne, which in 1617 they had acknowledged to be his, chose Frederick to fill the vacant seat.

§ 9. He accepts the throne.

Would Frederick accept the perilous offer? Opinions round him were divided on the advisability of the step. The princes of the Union, and even his own councillors, took opposite sides. In his own family, his mother raised a voice of warning. His wife, Elizabeth of England, the beautiful and high-spirited, urged him to the enterprise. The poor young man himself was well-nigh distracted. At last he found a consolation in the comfortable belief that his election was the act of God. Amidst the tears of the good people of Heidelberg he set out from the proud castle, magnificent even now in its ruins as it looks down upon the rushing stream of the Neckar. 'He is carrying the Palatinate into Bohemia,' said his sorrowing mother. On November 4 he was crowned at Prague, and the last act of the Bohemian Revolution was accomplished.