calculations, and baffled by the moral force of the Protestant faith in Germany. His final defeat in the attempt to subjugate the Protestants left the Empire weak. It is not true that Germany lost its political unity through the Reformation, for this unity was practically gone before rather is it true that then it sacrificed the opportunity of recovering its unity and of placing it on an enduring foundation. The Reformation in Germany, more than in any other country, emanated not from statesmen and rulers, but from the hearts of the people. It was hindered from being universal by the obstacles cast in its way and by its own internal divisions.

The Peace of Augsburg, unsatisfactory as its provisions were to both parties, effected its end as long as the emperors were impartial in their administration. This was true of Ferdinand I., whose accession was resisted by Paul IV., the enemy of his House; and it was true especially of Maximilian II., who was himself strongly inclined to Protestant opinions, and was openly charged with heresy by Catholic zealots. Under his tolerant sway, Protestantism spread over Austria, with the exception of the rural and secluded valleys of the Tyrol. Charles V. had been obliged to relinquish his wish to hand down the imperial crown to his son Philip. Philip, in his fanatical exertions against Protestantism, did not receive countenance or support from the Austrian branch of his family. The cruelties of Alva in the Netherlands, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew were condemned and deplored by the Emperor. Philip was so afraid that Maximilian himself would join the Protestants, that he deemed it necessary to dissuade him, by the most pressing exhortations, from taking such a step. While the contest was raging in the Netherlands, and between the Huguenots and their enemies in France, the Lutherans of Germany remained for the most part neutral. Their hostility to Calvinism had much to do

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in determining their position. They were warned by William of Orange and other Protestants abroad, that the cause was one, and that if Catholic fanaticism were not checked, Germany would be the next victim. In the latter portion of Maximilian's reign, which was from 1564 to 1576, the Jesuits came in, and disturbances arose. Rudolph II., his successor, had been brought up in Spain, and was under the influence of this Order. The same spirit characterized Matthias II., who followed next. In consequence of the incompetence of Rudolph, the government of Austria and Hungary had, during his life, been taken from him and given to Matthias, and he in turn gave way, in like manner, to his cousin Archduke Frederic, of Styria, a bigoted Catholic (1619-37). Frederic and Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, were the devoted champions of the Catholic Reaction. Matthias had been compelled to grant a letter patent to the Bohemians, which gave them full religious toleration and equal rights with the Catholics. Violations of the Religious Peace in Germany on the side of the Catholics were frequent. Bishops and Catholic cities drove out their Protestant subjects and abolished Protestant worship. The indignation of the Protestants throughout Germany was excited by the treatment of the free city of Donauwörth, which was exclusively Protestant, and refused to allow processions from a Catholic convent, these being inconsistent with a former agreement. city was placed under the ban of the Empire, and the Bavarian Duke marched against it with an overwhelming force, excluded Protestant worship, and incorporated the town with his own territories (1607). Complaints were made on the Catholic side of infractions of the Ecclesiastical Proviso, which ordained that benefices should be vacated by incumbents who should embrace Protestantism. The Protestants had permitted the Emperor, in the Peace of Augsburg, on his own authority, to affirm

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the Proviso, which they themselves at the same time firmly refused to adopt; just as the imperial declaration for the protection of Protestant communities within the jurisdiction of Catholic prelates, had been permitted by the other party. Protestant princes had given to benefices lying near them, which had already been gained to the Reformation, bishops or administrators from their own kinsmen ; and at the diets they urged the complete abolishment of all such restrictions upon religious freedom.1 But the Proviso was rigidly enforced in the case of the Elector of Cologne, who went over to Protestantism in 1582. The outrage perpetrated against Donauwörth led to the formation of the Evangelical Union (1608), a League into which, however, all the Protestant States did not enter, and which from the beginning was weakly organized. But the Catholic League, which was formed to oppose it, under the leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria, was firmly cemented and full of energy. On the Protestant side, in addition to other sources of discord, the hostility of the strict Lutherans to the Calvinists was a continual and fruitful cause of division. The Bohemians revolted against Ferdinand II. in 1618, when their religious liberties were violated, and "according to the good old Bohemian custom," as one of the nobles expressed it, flung two of the imperial councilors out of the window. When, shortly after, on the death of Matthias, Ferdinand became his successor, the Bohemians refused to acknowledge him as their king, and gave the crown of Bohemia to Frederic V., the Elector Palatine, and the son-in-law of James I. of England. Ferdinand, a nursling of the Jesuits, who had early taken a vow to extirpate heresy in his dominions, which he had kept, up to the measure of his

1 Gieseler, Iv. i. 1, § 11. Upon the history and interpretation of the Ecclesiastical Reservation, see Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte, v. 265, 274 seq. (Werke, vii. 7 seq.), Gieseler, IV. i. 1, § 9, and n. 40.

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ability, threw himself, as much from necessity as from choice, into the arms of the Catholic League. He manifested his ardor in the Catholic cause by an assiduous attention to religious services. For example, he took part in a procession in the midst of a storm of rain, emulating thus the zeal which the Emperor Julian displayed in celebrating the rites of heathenism. Thus the Austrian imperial house took up the work which had been laid down by Charles V., of defending and propagating Catholicism, in alliance with the Church. The Catholic Reaction, which had found a representative in Philip II., found another leader in the Emperor; and the two branches of the Hapsburg family were more united in religious sympathies. The Elector, Frederic, with his obtrusive Calvinism, and with a court whose customs and manners were not congenial with Bohemian feeling receiving little support, moreover, from the Protestant princes or from England-suffered a complete defeat. Lutheran prejudices and the fear of countenancing rebellion and the revolutionary spirit, deprived him of his natural allies. The result was that Bohemia was abandoned to fire and sword. In the frightful persecution which had for its object the eradication of Protestantism, and in the protracted wars that ensued upon it, the population was reduced from about four millions to between seven and eight hundred thousand! It was only when the Palatinate was conquered and devastated;1 when the electoral rank was transferred to the Duke of Bavaria, and with it the territories of Frederic, except what was given to Spain; and when the enterprise of banishing Protestantism was actively undertaken by the combined agency of the troops of the League and of Jesuit priests, that the Protestant powers took up the cause of the fugitive Elector. In 1625, England, Holland, and Denmark entered into an alliance for his

1 The Heidelberg Library was carried off to Rome.

restoration. Christian IV. of Denmark was defeated, and the Danish intervention failed. By robbing Frederic of the electoral dignity and conferring it on the Bavarian Duke, a majority in the electoral body was acquired by the Catholics. But the power and station which the Duke gained, separated, in important particulars, his interests from those of Ferdinand. It was through the aid of Wallenstein and his consummate ability in collecting and organizing, as well as leading an army, that Ferdinand was able to emancipate himself from the virtual control of Maximilian and the League.1 Wallenstein was a Bohemian noble, proud, able, and swayed by dreams of ambition; unscrupulous in respect to the means which might be required for the fulfillment of his daring schemes. He had rendered valuable military services to Ferdinand; and, on the suppression of the Bohemian revolt, had acquired vast wealth by the purchase of confiscated property. He offered to raise an army and to sustain it. He made it support itself by pillage. It was a period of transition in the method of prosecuting war, when the old system of feudal militia had passed away, and the modern system of national forces or standing armies had not arisen. Armies were made up of hirelings of all nations, who prosecuted war as a trade wherever the richest booty was to be gained; considering indiscriminate robbery a legitimate incident of warfare. The ineffable miseries of the protracted struggle in Germany were due, to a considerable extent, to this composition of the armies. Bands of organized plunderers, with arms in their hands, were let loose upon an unprotected population, captured cities being given up to the unbridled passions of a fierce and lawless soldiery. The unarmed people dreaded their friends hardly less than their foes. The good behavior of the

1 Ranke, Geschichte Wallensteins (3d ed., 1872). This biography, as might be expected, is highly instructive on the whole subject of the thirty years' war.