Part 350

Again peace was made, on a basis of slight concessions. Henry of Navarre married the King's sister, Margaret of Valois; prior to which he and his mother took up their residence with the court, at Paris, where Jeanne d'Albret soon sickened and died. The Admiral Coligny acquired, apparently, a marked influence over the mind of the young king; and once more there seemed to be a smiling future for the Reformed. But damnable treacheries were hidden underneath this fair showing. The most hideous conspiracy of modern times was being planned, at the very moment of the ostentatious peace-marriage of the King of Navarre, and the chief parties to it were Catherine de' Medici and the Guises, whose evil inclinations in common had brought them together at last. On the 22d of August, 1572, Coligny was wounded by an assassin, employed by the widow and son of the late Duke of Guise, whose death they charged against him, notwithstanding his protestations of innocence. Two days later, the monstrous and almost incredible massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day was begun. Paris was full of Huguenots—the heads of the party—its men of weight and influence—who had been drawn to the capital by the King of Navarre's marriage and by the supposed new era of favor in which they stood. To cut these off was to decapitate Protestantism in France, and that was the purpose of the infernal scheme. The weak-minded young king was not an original party to the plot. When everything had been planned, he was easily excited by a tale of pretended Huguenot conspiracies, and his assent to summary measures of prevention was secured. A little after midnight, on the morning of Sunday, August 24, the signal was given, by Catherine's order, which let loose a waiting swarm of assassins, throughout Paris, on the victims who had been marked for them. The Huguenots had had no warning; they were taken everywhere by surprise, and they were easily murdered in their beds, or hunted down in their hopeless flight.

{1070}

The noble Coligny, prostrated by the wound he had received two days before, was killed in his chamber, and his body flung out of the window. The young Duke of Guise stood waiting in the court below, to gloat on the corpse and to basely spurn it with his foot.

The massacre in Paris was carried on through two nights and two days; and, for more than a month following, the example of the capital was imitated in other cities of France, as the news of what were called "the Paris Matins" reached them. The total number of victims in the kingdom is estimated variously to have been between twenty thousand and one hundred thousand. Henry of Navarre and the young Prince of Condé escaped the massacre, but they saved their lives by a hypocritical abjuration of their religion.

The strongest town in the possession of the Huguenots was La Rochelle, and great numbers of their ministers and people of mark who survived the massacre now took refuge in that city, with a considerable body of armed men. The royal forces laid siege to the city, but made no impression on its defences. Peace was conceded in the end on terms which again promised the Huguenots some liberty of worship. But there was no sincerity in it.

In 1574, Charles IX. died, and his brother, the Duke of Anjou, who had lately been elected King of Poland, ran away from his Polish capital with disgraceful haste and secrecy, to secure the French crown. He was the most worthless of the Valois-Medicean brood, and the French court in his reign attained its lowest depth of degradation. The contending religions were soon at war again, with the accustomed result, in 1576, of another short-lived peace. The Catholics were divided into two factions, one fanatical, following the Guises, the other composed of moderate men, calling themselves the Politiques, who hated the Spanish influence under which the Guises were always acting, and who were willing to make terms with the Huguenots. The Guises and the ultra-Catholics now organized throughout France a great oath-bound "Holy League", which became so formidable in power that the king took fright, put himself at the head of it, and reopened war with the Reformed.

More and more, the conflict of religions became confused with questions of politics and mixed with personal quarrels. At one time, the king's younger brother, the Duke of Alençon, had gone over to the Huguenot side; but stayed only long enough to extort from the court some appointments which he desired. The king, more despised by his subjects than any king of France before him had ever been, grew increasingly jealous and afraid of the popularity and strength of the Duke of Guise, who was proving to be a man quite superior to his father in capability. Guise, on his side, was made arrogant by his sense of power, and his ambition soared high. There were reasons for believing that he did not look upon the throne itself as beyond his reach.

After 1584, when the Duke of Alençon (Duke of Anjou under his later title) died, a new political question, vastly disturbing, was brought into affairs. That death left no heir to the crown in the Valois line, and the King of Navarre, of the House of Bourbon, was now nearer in birth to the throne than any other living person. Henry had, long ere this, retracted his abjuration of 1572, had rejoined the Huguenots and taken his place as their chief. The head of the Huguenots was now the heir presumptive to the crown, and the wretched, incapable king was being impelled by his fear of Guise to look to his Huguenot heir for support. It was a strange situation. In 1588 it underwent a sinister change. Guise and his brother, the Cardinal, were both assassinated by the king's body-guard, acting under the king's orders, in the royal residence at the Castle of Blois. When the murder had been done, the cowardly king spurned his dead enemy with his foot, as Guise, sixteen years before, had spurned the murdered Coligny, and said "I am King at last." He was mistaken. His authority vanished with the vile deed by which he expected to reinvigorate it. Paris broke into open rebellion. The League renewed its activity throughout France. The king, abandoned and cursed on all sides, had now no course open to him but an alliance with Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots. The alliance was effected, and the two Henrys joined forces to subdue insurgent Paris. While the siege of the city was in progress (1589), Henry III. fell a victim, in his turn, to the murderous mania of his depraved age and court. He was assassinated by a fanatical monk.

Henry of Navarre.

Henry of Navarre now steps into the foreground of French history, as Henry IV., lawful King of France as well as of Navarre, and ready to prove his royal title by a more useful reign than the French nation had known since it buried St. Louis, his last ancestor on the throne. But his title was recognized at first by few outside the party of the Huguenots. The League went openly into alliance with Philip of Spain, who even half-stopped his war in the Netherlands to send money and troops into France. The energies of his insignificant soul were all concentrated on the desire to keep the heretical Béarnese from the throne of France. But happily his powers were no longer equal to his malice; he was still staggering under the blow which destroyed his great Armada.

Henry received some help in money from Queen Elizabeth, and 5,000 English and Scotch came over to join his army. He was an abler general than any among his opponents, and he made headway against them. His splendid victory at Ivry, on the 14th of March, 1590, inspirited his followers and took heart from the League. He was driven from his subsequent siege of Paris by a Spanish army, under the Duke of Parma; but the very interference of the Spanish king helped to turn French feeling in Henry's favor. On the 25th of July, 1593, he practically extinguished the opposition to himself by his final submission to the Church of Rome. It was an easy thing for him to do. His religion sat lightly on him. He had accepted it from his mother; he had adhered to it—not faithfully—as the creed of a party. He could give it up, in exchange for the crown of France, and feel no trouble of conscience. But the Reformed religion in France was really benefited by his apostacy. Peace came to the kingdom, as the consequence,—a peace of many years,—and the Huguenots were sheltered in considerable religious freedom by the peace. Henry secured it to them in 1598 by the famous Edict of Nantes, which remained in force for nearly a hundred years.

{1071}

The reign of Henry IV. was one of the satisfactory periods in the life of France, so far as concerns the material prosperity of the nation. He was a man of strong, keen intellect, with firmness of will and elasticity of temper, but weak on the moral side. He was of those who win admiration and friendship easily, and he remains traditionally the most popular of French kings. He had the genius for government which so rarely coincides with royal birth. A wise minister, the Duke of Sully, gave stability to his measures, and between them they succeeded in remarkably improving and promoting the agricultural and the manufacturing industries of France, effacing the destructive effects of the long civil wars, and bringing economy and order into the finances of the overburdened nation. His useful career was ended by an assassin in 1610.

Germany and the Thirty Years War.

The reactionary wars of religion in Germany came half-a-century later than in France. While the latter country was being torn by the long civil conflicts which Henry IV. brought to an end, the former was as nearly in the enjoyment of religious peace as the miserable contentions in the bosom of Protestantism, between Lutherans and Calvinists (the latter more commonly called "the Reformed"), would permit. On the abdication of Charles V., in 1556, he had fortunately failed to bring about the election of his son Philip to the imperial throne. His brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia and Hungary, was chosen Emperor, and that sovereign had too many troubles in his immediate dominions to be willing to invite a collision with the Protestant princes of Germany at large. The Turks had overrun Hungary and established themselves in possession of considerable parts of the country. Ferdinand obtained peace with the redoubtable Sultan Suleiman, but only by payments of money which bore a strong likeness to tribute. He succeeded, through his prudent and skilful policy, in making both the Hungarian and the Bohemian crowns practically hereditary in the House of Austria.

Dying in 1564, Ferdinand transmitted both those kingdoms, with the Austrian Archduchy and the imperial office, to his son, Maximilian II., the broadest and most liberal minded of his race. Though educated in Spain, and in companionship with his cousin, Philip II., Maximilian exhibited the most tolerant spirit that appears anywhere in his age. Perhaps it was the hatefulness of orthodox zeal as exemplified in Philip which drove the more generous nature of Maximilian to revolt. He adhered to the Roman communion; but he manifested so much respect for the doctrines of the Lutheran that his father felt called upon at one time to make apologies for him to the Pope. Throughout his reign he held himself aloof from religious disputes, setting an example of tolerance and spiritual intelligence to all his subjects, Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics alike, which ought to have influenced them more for their good than it did. Under the shelter of the toleration which Maximilian gave it, Protestantism spread quickly over Austria, where it had had no opportunity before; revived the old Hussite reform in Bohemia; made great gains in Hungary, and advanced in all parts of his dominions except the Tyrol. The time permitted to it for this progress was short, since Maximilian reigned but twelve years. He died in 1576, and his son Rudolph, who followed him, brought evil changes upon the country in all things. He, too, had been educated in Spain, but with a very different result. He came back a creature of the Jesuits; but so weakly wilful a creature that even they could do little with him. Authority of government went to pieces in his incompetent hands, and at last, in 1606, a family conclave of princes of the Austrian house began measures which aimed at dispossessing Rudolph of his various sovereignties, so far as possible, in favor of his brother Matthias. Rudolph resisted with some effect, and in the contests which ensued the Protestants of Austria and Bohemia improved their opportunity for securing an enlargement of their rights. Matthias made the concession of complete toleration in Austria, while Rudolph, in Bohemia, granted the celebrated charter, called the Letter of Majesty (1609), which gave entire religious liberty to all sects.

These concessions were offensive to two princes, the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, who had already taken the lead in a vigorous movement of Catholic reaction. Some proceedings on the part of Maximilian, which the Emperor sanctioned, against the Protestant free city of Donauwörth, had caused certain Protestant princes and cities, in 1608, to form a defensive Union. But the Elector Palatine, who attached himself to the Reformed or Calvinist Church, was at the head of this Union, and the bigoted Lutherans, especially the Elector of Saxony, looked with coldness upon it. On the other hand, the Catholic states formed a counter-organization—a Holy League—which was more compact and effective. The two parties being thus set in array, there rose suddenly between them a political question of the most disturbing character. It related to the right of succession to an important duchy, that of Juliers, Clèves, and Berg. There were several powerful claimants, in both of the Saxon families, and including also the Elector of Brandenburg and the Palsgrave of Neuberg, two members of the Union. As usual, the political question took possession of the religious issue and used it for its own purposes. The Protestant Union opened negotiations with Henry IV. of France, who saw an opportunity to weaken the House of Austria and to make some gains for France at the expense of Germany. A treaty was concluded, and Henry began active preparations for campaigns in both Germany and Italy, with serious intent to humble and diminish the Austrian power. The Dutch came into the alliance, likewise, and James I. of England promised his co-operation. The combination was formidable, and might have changed very extensively the course of events that awaited unhappy Germany, if the whole plan had not been frustrated by the assassination of Henry IV., in 1610. All the parties to the alliance drew back after that event, and both sides waited.

{1072}

In 1611, Rudolph was deposed in Bohemia, and the following year he died. Matthias, already King of Hungary, succeeded Rudolph in Bohemia and in the Empire. But Matthias was scarcely stronger in mind or body than his brother, and the same family pressure which had pushed Rudolph aside now forced Matthias to accept a coadjutor, in the person of the vigorous Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria. For the remainder of his reign Matthias was a cipher, and all power in the government was exercised by Ferdinand. His bitter opposition to the tolerant policy which had prevailed generally for half-a-century was well understood. Hence, his rise to supremacy in the Empire gave notice that the days of religious peace were ended. The outbreak of civil war was not long in coming.

Beginning of the war in Bohemia.

It began in Bohemia. A violation of the Protestant rights guaranteed by the Letter of Majesty provoked a rising under Count Thurn. Two of the king's councilors, with their secretary, were flung from a high window of the royal castle, and this act of violence was followed by more revolutionary measures. A provisional government of thirty Directors was set up and the king's authority set wholly aside. The Protestant Union gave prompt support to the Bohemian insurrection and sent Count Mansfield with three thousand soldiers to its aid. The Thirty Years War was begun (1618).

Early in these disturbances, Matthias died (1619). Ferdinand had already made his succession secure, in Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, and the imperial crown was presently conferred on him. But the Bohemians repudiated his kingship and offered their crown to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, lately married to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England. The Elector, persuaded, it is said, by his ambitious young wife, unwisely accepted the tempting bauble, and went to Prague to receive it. But he had neither prudence nor energy to justify his bold undertaking. Instead of strengthening himself for his contest with Ferdinand, he began immediately to enrage his new subjects by pressing Calvinistic forms and doctrines upon them, and by arrogantly interfering with their modes of worship. His reign was so brief that he is known in Bohemian annals as "the winter king." A single battle, won by Count Tilly, in the service of the Catholic League and of its chief, Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, ended his sovereignty. He lost his Electorate as well as his kingdom, and was a wandering fugitive for the remainder of his life. Bohemia was mercilessly dealt with by the victorious Ferdinand. Not only was Protestantism crushed, and Catholicism established as the exclusive religion, but the very life of the country, intellectually and materially, was extinguished; so that Bohemia never again stood related to the civilization of Europe as it had stood before, when Prague was an important center of learning and thought. To a less extent, Austria suffered the same repression, and its Protestantism was uprooted.

In this sketch it is unnecessary to follow the details of the frightful Thirty Years War, which began as here described. During the first years it was carried on mainly by the troops of the Catholic League, under Tilly, acting against Protestant forces which had very little coherence or unity, and which were led by Count Mansfield, Christian of Anhalt, and other nobles, in considerable independence of one another. In 1625 the first intervention from outside occurred. Christian IV. of Denmark took up the cause of threatened Protestantism. As Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, he was a prince of the Empire, and he joined with other Protestant princes in condemning the deposition of the Elector-Palatine, whose electorate had been conferred on Maximilian of Bavaria. King Christian entered into an alliance with England and Holland, which powers promised help for the reinstatement of the Elector. But the aid given was trifling, and slight successes which Christian and his German allies obtained against Tilly were soon changed to serious reverses.

Wallenstein.

For the first time during the war, the Emperor now brought into the field an army acting in his own name, and not in that of the League. It was done in a singular manner—by contract, so to speak, with a great soldier and wealthy nobleman, the famous Wallenstein. Wallenstein offered to the Emperor the services of an army of 50,000 men, which he would raise and equip at his own expense, and which should be maintained without public cost—that is, by plunder. His proposal was accepted, and the formidable body of trained and powerfully handled brigands was launched upon Germany, for the torture and destruction of every region in which it moved. It was the last appearance in European warfare of the "condottiere" of the Middle Ages. Wallenstein and Tilly swept all before them. The former failed only before the stubborn town of Stralsund, which defied his siege. Mansfield and Christian of Anhalt both died in 1627. Peace was forced upon the Danish king. The Protestant cause was prostrate, and the Emperor despised its weakness so far that he issued an "Edict of Restitution," commanding the surrender of certain bishoprics and ecclesiastical estates which had fallen into Protestant hands since the Treaty of Passau. At the same time, he yielded to the jealousy which Wallenstein's power had excited, by dismissing that commander from his service.

Gustavus Adolphus.

The time was an unfavorable one for such an experiment. A new and redoubtable champion of Protestantism had just appeared on the scene and was about to revive the war. This was Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who had ambitions, grievances and religious sympathies, all urging him to rescue the Protestant states of Germany from the Austrian-Catholic despotism which seemed to be impending over them. His interference was jealously resented at first by the greater Protestant princes. The Elector of Brandenburg submitted to an alliance with him only under compulsion. The Elector of Saxony did not join the Swedish king until (1631) Tilly had ravaged his territories with ferocity, burning 200 villages. When Gustavus had made his footing in the country secure, he quickly proved himself the greatest soldier of his age. Tilly was overwhelmed in a battle fought on the Breitenfeld, at Leipsic. The following spring he was again beaten, on the Lech, in Bavaria, and died of wounds received in the battle. Meantime, the greater part of Germany was at the feet of the Swedish king; and a sincere co-operation between him and the German princes would probably have ended the war. But small confidence existed between these allies, and Richelieu, the shrewd Cardinal who was ruling France, had begun intrigues which made the Thirty Years War profitable in the end to France. The victories of Gustavus seemed to bear little fruit. Wallenstein was summoned once more to save the Emperor's cause, and reappeared in the field with 40,000 men. The heroic Swede fought him at Lützen, on the 16th of November, 1632, and routed him, but fell in the battle among the slain.

{1073}

With the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the possibility of a satisfactory conclusion of the war vanished. The Swedish army remained in Germany, under the military command of Duke Bernhard of Saxe Weimar and General Horn, but under the political direction of Axel Oxenstiern, the able Swedish Chancellor. On the Imperial side, Wallenstein again incurred distrust and suspicion. His power was so formidable that his enemies were afraid to let him live. They plotted his death by assassination, and he was murdered on the 25th of February, 1634. The Emperor's son Ferdinand now took the command of the Imperial forces, and, a few months later, having received reinforcements from Spain, he had the good fortune to defeat the Swedes at Nördlingen.

The French in the War.