A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.Hayes, Carlton J. H. (Carlton Joseph Huntley)
History
A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.
Hayes, Carlton J. H. (Carlton Joseph Huntley)
Europe -- History; Europe -- Politics and government
The campaigning of the second period of the war took place in North
Germany. At Lutter, King Christian IV was defeated overwhelmingly by
the combined forces of Tilly and Wallenstein, and the Lutheran states
were left at the mercy of the Catholic League. Brandenburg openly
espoused the imperialist cause and aided Ferdinand's generals in
expelling the Danish king from German soil. Only the lack of naval
control of the Baltic and North seas prevented the victors from seizing
Denmark. The desperation of Christian and the growingly suspicious
activity of Sweden resulted in the peace of Lubeck (1629), by which the
king of Denmark was left in possession of Jutland, Schleswig, and
Holstein, but deprived of the German bishoprics which various members
of his family had taken from the Catholic Church.
Following up its successes, the Catholic League prevailed upon the
Emperor Ferdinand II in the same year (1629) to sign the Edict of
Restitution, restoring to the Church all the property that had been
secularized in violation of the peace of Augsburg of 1555. The edict
was to be executed by imperial commissioners, all of whom were
Catholics, and so well did they do their work that, within three years
of the promulgation of the edict, Roman Catholicism in the Germanies
had recovered five bishoprics, thirty Hanse towns, and nearly a hundred
monasteries, to say nothing of parish churches of which the number can
hardly be estimated.
So far, the religious and economic grievances against the Habsburgs had
been confined mainly to Calvinists, but now the Lutheran princes were
alarmed. The enforcement of the Edict of Restitution against all
Protestants alike was the signal for an emphatic protest from Lutherans
as well as from Calvinists. A favorable opportunity for intervention
seemed to present itself to the foremost Lutheran power--Sweden. Not
only were many Protestant princes in Germany in a mood to welcome
foreign assistance against the Catholics, but the emperor was less able
to resist invasion, since in 1630, yielding to the urgent entreaties of
the Catholic League, he dismissed the plundering and ambitious
Wallenstein from his service.
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