In Germany, after the death of Gustavus at Lützen, it was as it was in Greece after the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea. "There was more disturbance and more dispute after the battle than before it." In Sweden, Christina, the infant daughter of Gustavus, succeeded peaceably to her father's throne, and authority was exercised without contradiction by the Chancellor Oxenstjerna. But, wise and prudent as Oxenstjerna was, it was not in the nature of things that he should be listened to as Gustavus had been listened to. The chiefs of the army, no longer held in by a soldier's hand, threatened to assume an almost independent position. Foremost of these was the young Bernhard of Weimar, demanding, like Wallenstein, a place among the princely houses of Germany. In his person he hoped the glories of the elder branch of the Saxon House would revive, and the disgrace inflicted upon it by Charles V. for its attachment to the Protestant cause would be repaired. He claimed the rewards of victory for those whose swords had gained it, and payment for the soldiers, who during the winter months following the victory at Lützen had received little or nothing. His own share was to be a new duchy of Franconia, formed out of the united bishoprics of Würzburg and Bamberg. Oxenstjerna was compelled to admit his pretensions, and to confirm him in his duchy. [Sidenote: § 2. The League of Heilbronn.] The step was thus taken which Gustavus had undoubtedly contemplated, but which he had prudently refrained from carrying into action. The seizure of ecclesiastical lands in which the population was Catholic was as great a barrier to peace on the one side as the seizure of the Protestant bishoprics in the north had been on the other. There was, therefore, all the more necessity to be ready for war. If a complete junction of all the Protestant forces was not to be had, something at least was attainable. On April 23, 1633, the League of Heilbronn was signed. The four circles of Swabia, Franconia, and the Upper and Lower Rhine formed a union with Sweden for mutual support. [Sidenote: § 3. Defection of Saxony.] It is not difficult to explain the defection of the Elector of Saxony. The seizure of a territory by military violence had always been most obnoxious to him. He had resisted it openly in the case of Frederick in Bohemia. He had resisted it, as far as he dared, in the case of Wallenstein in Mecklenburg. He was not inclined to put up with it in the case of Bernhard in Franconia. Nor could he fail to see that with the prolongation of the war, the chances of French intervention were considerably increasing. [Sidenote: 1631. § 4. French politics.]