Memoirs of a Cavalier. Defoe Daniel
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happy conclusion, of any war ever maintained in the world.
The King of Sweden had already taken Stettin, Stralsund, Rostock, Wismar, and all the strong places on the Baltic, and began to spread himself in Germany. He had made a league with the French, as I observed in my story of Saxony; he had now made a treaty with the Duke of Brandenburg, and, in short, began to be terrible to the empire.
In this conjuncture the emperor called the General Diet of the empire to be held at Ratisbon, where, as was pretended, all sides were to treat of peace and to join forces to beat the Swedes out of the empire. Here the emperor, by a most exquisite management, brought the affairs of the Diet to a conclusion, exceedingly to his own advantage, and to the farther oppression of the Protestants; and, in particular, in that the war against the King of Sweden was to be carried on in such manner as that the whole burden and charge would lie on the Protestants themselves, and they be made the instruments to oppose their best friends. Other matters also ended equally to their disadvantage, as the methods resolved on to recover the Church lands, and to prevent the education of the Protestant clergy; and what remained was referred to another General Diet to be held at Frankfort-au-Main in August 1631.
I won't pretend to say the other Protestant princes of Germany had never made any overtures to the King of Sweden to come to their assistance, but 'tis plain they had entered into no league with him; that appears from the difficulties which retarded the fixing of the treaties afterward, both with the Dukes of Brandenburg and Saxony, which unhappily occasioned the ruin of Magdeburg.
But 'tis plain the Swede was resolved on a war with the emperor. His Swedish majesty might, and indeed could not but foresee that if he once showed himself with a sufficient force on the frontiers of the empire, all the Protestant princes would be obliged by their interest or by his arms to fall in with him, and this the consequence made appear to be a just conclusion, for the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony were both forced to join with him.
First, they were willing to join with him – at least they could not find in their hearts to join with the emperor, of whose power they had such just apprehensions. They wished the Swedes success, and would have been very glad to have had the work done at another man's charge, but, like true Germans, they were more willing to be saved than to save themselves, and therefore hung back and stood upon terms.
Secondly, they were at last forced to it. The first was forced to join by the King of Sweden himself, who being come so far was not to be dallied with, and had not the Duke of Brandenburg complied as he did, he had been ruined by the Swede. The Saxon was driven into the arms of the Swede by force, for Count Tilly, ravaging his country, made him comply with any terms to be saved from destruction.
Thus matters stood at the end of the Diet at Ratisbon. The King of Sweden began to see himself leagued against at the Diet both by Protestant and Papist; and, as I have often heard his Majesty say since, he had resolved to try to force them off from the emperor, and to treat them as enemies equally with the rest if they did not.
But the Protestants convinced him soon after, that though they were tricked into the outward appearance of a league against him at Ratisbon, they had no such intentions; and by their ambassadors to him let him know that they only wanted his powerful assistance to defend their councils, when they would soon convince him that they had a due sense of the emperor's designs, and would do their utmost for their liberty. And these I take to be the first invitations the King of Sweden had to undertake the Protestant cause as such, and which entitled him to say he fought for the liberty and religion of the German nation.
I have had some particular opportunities to hear these things form the mouths of some of the very princes themselves, and therefore am the forwarder to relate them; and I place them here because, previous to the part I acted on this bloody scene, 'tis necessary to let the reader into some part of that story, and to show him in what manner and on what occasions this terrible war began.
The Protestants, alarmed at the usage they had met with at the former Diet, had secretly proposed among themselves to form a general union or confederacy, for preventing that ruin which they saw, unless some speedy remedies were applied, would be inevitable. The Elector of Saxony, the head of the Protestants, a vigorous and politic prince, was the first that moved it; and the Landgrave of Hesse, a zealous and gallant prince, being consulted with, it rested a great while between those two, no method being found practicable to bring it to pass, the emperor being so powerful in all parts, that they foresaw the petty princes would not dare to negotiate an affair of such a nature, being surrounded with the Imperial forces, who by their two generals, Wallenstein and Tilly, kept them in continual subjection and terror.
This dilemma had like to have stifled the thoughts of the union as a thing impracticable, when one Seigensius, a Lutheran minister, a person of great abilities, and one whom the Elector of Saxony made great use of in matters of policy as well as religion, contrived for them this excellent expedient.
I had the honour to be acquainted with this gentleman while I was at Leipsic. It pleased him exceedingly to have been the contriver of so fine a structure as the Conclusions of Leipsic, and he was glad to be entertained on that subject. I had the relation from his own mouth, when, but very modestly, he told me he thought 'twas an inspiration darted on a sudden into his thoughts, when the Duke of Saxony calling him into his closet one morning, with a face full of concern, shaking his head, and looking very earnestly, "What will become of us, doctor?" said the duke; "we shall all be undone at Frankfort-au-Main." "Why so, please your highness?" says the doctor. "Why, they will fight with the King of Sweden with our armies and our money," says the duke, "and devour our friends and ourselves by the help of our friends and ourselves." "But what is become of the confederacy, then," said the doctor, "which your highness had so happily framed in your thoughts, and which the Landgrave of Hesse was so pleased with?" "Become of it?" says the duke, "'tis a good thought enough, but 'tis impossible to bring it to pass among so many members of the Protestant princes as are to be consulted with, for we neither have time to treat, nor will half of them dare to negotiate the matter, the Imperialists being quartered in their very bowels." "But may not some expedient be found out," says the doctor, "to bring them all together to treat of it in a general meeting?" "'Tis well proposed," says the duke, "but in what town or city shall they assemble where the very deputies shall not be besieged by Tilly or Wallenstein in fourteen days' time, and sacrificed to the cruelty and fury of the Emperor Ferdinand?" "Will your highness be the easier in it," replies the doctor, "if a way may be found out to call such an assembly upon other causes, at which the emperor may have no umbrage, and perhaps give his assent? You know the Diet at Frankfort is at hand; 'tis necessary the Protestants should have an assembly of their own to prepare matters for the General Diet, and it may be no difficult matter to obtain it." The duke, surprised with joy at the motion, embraced the doctor with an extraordinary transport. "Thou hast done it, doctor," said he, and immediately caused him to draw a form of a letter to the emperor, which he did with the utmost dexterity of style, in which he was a great master, representing to his Imperial Majesty that, in order to put an end to the troubles of Germany, his Majesty would be pleased to permit the Protestant princes of the empire to hold a Diet to themselves, to consider of such matters as they were to treat of at the General Diet, in order to conform themselves to the will and pleasure of his Imperial Majesty, to drive out foreigners, and settle a lasting peace in the empire. He also insinuated something of their resolutions unanimously to give their suffrages in favour of the King of Hungary at the election of a king of the Romans, a thing which he knew the emperor had in his thought, and would push at with all his might at the Diet. This letter was sent, and the bait so neatly concealed, that the Electors of Bavaria and Mentz, the King of Hungary, and several of the Popish princes, not foreseeing that the ruin of them all lay in the bottom of it, foolishly advised the emperor to consent to it.
In consenting to this the emperor signed his own destruction, for here began the conjunction of the German Protestants with the Swede, which was the fatalest blow to Ferdinand, and which he could never recover.
Accordingly the Diet was held at Leipsic, February 8, 1630, where the Protestants agreed on several heads for their mutual defence, which were the grounds of the following war. These were the famous Conclusions of Leipsic, which so alarmed the emperor and the whole empire, that to crush it in the beginning, the emperor commanded Count Tilly immediately to fall upon the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Saxony as the principal