The Thirty Years War, book 2 | Page 7

vow which he had made at Loretto and at Rome, to his
generalissima, the Holy Virgin, to extend her worship even at the risk
of his crown and life. With this object, the oppression of the Protestants
was inseparably connected. More favourable circumstances for its
accomplishment could not offer than those which presented themselves
at the close of the Bohemian war. Neither the power, nor a pretext of
right, were now wanting to enable him to place the Palatinate in the

hands of the Catholics, and the importance of this change to the
Catholic interests in Germany would be incalculable. Thus, in
rewarding the Duke of Bavaria with the spoils of his relation, he at
once gratified his meanest passions and fulfilled his most exalted duties;
he crushed an enemy whom he hated, and spared his avarice a painful
sacrifice, while he believed he was winning a heavenly crown.
In the Emperor's cabinet, the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon
long before fortune had decided against him; but it was only after this
event that they ventured to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary
power. A decree of the Emperor, destitute of all the formalities required
on such occasions by the laws of the Empire, pronounced the Elector,
and three other princes who had borne arms for him at Silesia and
Bohemia, as offenders against the imperial majesty, and disturbers of
the public peace, under the ban of the empire, and deprived them of
their titles and territories. The execution of this sentence against
Frederick, namely the seizure of his lands, was, in further contempt of
law, committed to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy, to the
Duke of Bavaria, and the League. Had the Evangelic Union been
worthy of the name it bore, and of the cause which it pretended to
defend, insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of
the sentence; but it was hopeless for a power which was far from a
match even for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate, to contend
against the united strength of the Emperor, Bavaria, and the League.
The sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector soon
detached the free cities from the Union; and the princes quickly
followed their example. Fortunate in preserving their own dominions,
they abandoned the Elector, their former chief, to the Emperor's mercy,
renounced the Union, and vowed never to revive it again.
But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted the
unfortunate Frederick, and while Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia
submitted to the Emperor, a single man, a soldier of fortune, whose
only treasure was his sword, Ernest Count Mansfeld, dared, in the
Bohemian town of Pilsen, to defy the whole power of Austria. Left
without assistance after the battle of Prague by the Elector, to whose
service he had devoted himself, and even uncertain whether Frederick
would thank him for his perseverance, he alone for some time held out
against the imperialists, till the garrison, mutinying for want of pay,

sold the town to the Emperor. Undismayed by this reverse, he
immediately commenced new levies in the Upper Palatinate, and
enlisted the disbanded troops of the Union. A new army of 20,000 men
was soon assembled under his banners, the more formidable to the
provinces which might be the object of its attack, because it must
subsist by plunder. Uncertain where this swarm might light, the
neighbouring bishops trembled for their rich possessions, which offered
a tempting prey to its ravages. But, pressed by the Duke of Bavaria,
who now entered the Upper Palatinate, Mansfeld was compelled to
retire. Eluding, by a successful stratagem, the Bavarian general, Tilly,
who was in pursuit of him, he suddenly appeared in the Lower
Palatinate, and there wreaked upon the bishoprics of the Rhine the
severities he had designed for those of Franconia. While the imperial
and Bavarian allies thus overran Bohemia, the Spanish general, Spinola,
had penetrated with a numerous army from the Netherlands into the
Lower Palatinate, which, however, the pacification of Ulm permitted
the Union to defend. But their measures were so badly concerted, that
one place after another fell into the hands of the Spaniards; and at last,
when the Union broke up, the greater part of the country was in the
possession of Spain. The Spanish general, Corduba, who commanded
these troops after the recall of Spinola, hastily raised the siege of
Frankenthal, when Mansfeld entered the Lower Palatinate. But instead
of driving the Spaniards out of this province, he hastened across the
Rhine to secure for his needy troops shelter and subsistence in Alsace.
The open countries on which this swarm of maurauders threw
themselves were converted into frightful deserts, and only by enormous
contributions could the cities purchase an exemption from plunder.
Reinforced by this expedition, Mansfeld again appeared