Background to the Thirty Years War

After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 Lutheranism had been given official recognition in the Holy Roman Empire. Lands of the Roman Church which had previously been taken by secular powers belonged again to the Church. German rulers could also impose their religion on their subjects. However, the Peace agreement did not help to settle the conflict in Germany. A number of rulers became Calvinists and were, thus, outside the treaty. Protestants continued to take over Catholic properties, particularly in North Germany. The Catholics commanded a majority in most of the organs of government; the Protestants came to distrust these bodies and the machinery of government began to break down. The Catholics and Protestants formed armed alliances to preserve their rights: the Catholic League under Maximilian I of Bavaria and the Protestant Union under Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate (James’s son-in- law).

At the beginning of the seventeenth century the regions ruled by the German Habsburgs included Upper and Lower Austria, Bohemia together with Moravia and Silesia, the lesser part of Hungary which had not been conquered by the Turks, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Tyrol, and the provinces bordering on Germany. This territory, however, was divided among three branches of the family, the main line, the Styrian, and that of Tyrol-Vorarlberg. Although the main line of the German Habsburgs held the larger part of these landed possessions yet its territories did not form a compact whole, but were only a number of loosely connected countries, each having its own provincial estates, which were largely composed of nobles. Having been constantly in opposition to the dynasty, the nobles desired religious freedom, that is the right to become Protestant and to introduce Protestantism into their domains. The struggle of the nobility against the dynasty reached its height during the last decade of the reign of Rudolph II (1576-1612). Even at that time the nobility maintained relations with the active Protestant party in the empire. In 1604 the Hungarian nobles revolted with the aid of the ruler of Transylvania, and in 1607 they rebelled again and became the allies of the Turks. On 25 June, 1608, Rudolph was obliged to transfer the government of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia to his more compliant brother Matthias; he did not, however, give up his rights as King of Bohemia, and in 1609 was able to pacify an outbreak of the Bohemian nobility only by granting the Imperial Charter (Majestätsbrief) which gave religious liberty not only to the nobles and their dependents in Bohemia but also to those living on the crown lands. This concession greatly strengthened the power of the nobles.

 

The Bohemian Phase

The Bohemian Phase of the war is obviously more relevant to the present research as it involves the historical figures implicitly mentioned in the play. This phase encompassed the years 1618 through 1621. Official cause of this conflict was the Defenestration act.

The religious situation in Bohemia was complex: the Habsburg rulers were staunch defenders of the Roman Church. The Bohemian population was divided among a Catholic minority (many of them associated with the Habsburg court) and various types of Protestants. The most radical leaders of the Protestant nobility and representatives of their overlord Matthias II, Holy Roman Emperor, leader of the Habsburg House of Austria, met on 22 May 1618. They determined to confront the regents on the following day. It was at that meeting that the regents (and a clerk in their employ) were flung from the window in the “Defenestration of Prague.”

Matthias, like Rudolph, had no son and the Royal Family chose as his successor Ferdinand, the head of the Styrian branch of the Habsburgs, who had restored Catholicism in Styria. In 1617 the dynasty persuaded the Bohemians to accept Ferdinand as their future king, and in 1618 they prevailed upon the Hungarians to elect him king. Before this (May, 1618) the Bohemian nobles had revolted anew under the leadership of Count von Thurn on account of the alleged infringement of the charter granted by Rudolph. The dynasty was not yet ready for war. When Matthias died (March, 1619) the Hungarians and the inhabitants of Moravia joined the revolt, and in June Thurn advanced on Vienna with an army to persuade also the Austrians to join. However, Ferdinand prevented the insurrection and Thurn withdrew. Ferdinand was now able to go to Frankfurt, where his election as Emperor (28 August) secured the imperial dignity for his family. Two days before this the Bohemians had elected the leader of the Protestants, Frederick of the Palatinate, as rival King of Bohemia.

The inhabitants of Lower Austria now joined the revolt. Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania (an administrative district of Hungary), made an alliance with its leaders, and in “ composition ” with them once more threatened Vienna at the close of 1619. Since this moment, however, discipline steadily declined in the Bohemian army, and the leaders disagreed. The expected aid was never received from the Protestant party, excepting that a few of the less important nobles of the empire joined the revolting forces. On the other hand, in October 1619, Ferdinand obtained the help of Maximilian of Bavaria, who had the largest army in the Empire, and of the Protestant Elector of Saxony. Spain and Poland also sent troops. Maximilian so greatly terrified the Protestant party, which since 1608 had formed the Union, that it was broken up. He then advanced into Bohemia supported by Austrian troops and decisively defeated the Bohemians in the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague. The Elector Frederick, called the "Winter King" on account of the brief duration of his rule, fled. Ferdinand took possession of his provinces and restored order there.