Not that the present book is a mere collection of other men's words. If I have often adopted without much change the narrative or opinions of German writers, I have never said any thing which I have not made my own, by passing it through my own mind. To reproduce with mere paste and scissors passages from the writings of men so opposed to one another as Ranke, Gindely, Ritter, Opel, Hurter, Droysen, Gfrörer, Klopp, Förster, Villermont, Uetterodt, Koch, and others, would be to bewilder, not to instruct. And in forming my own opinions I have had the advantage not merely of being in the habit of writing from original documents, but of having studied at least some of the letters and State papers of the time. I have thus, for example, been able, from my knowledge of the despatches of Sir Robert Anstruther, to neglect Droysen's elaborate argument that Christian IV. took part in the war through jealousy of Gustavus Adolphus; and to speak, in opposition to Onno Klopp, of the persistence of the Dukes of Mecklenburg in the support which they gave to the King of Denmark. More valuable than the little additional knowledge thus obtained is the insight into the feelings and thoughts of the Catholic princes gained by a very slight acquaintance with their own correspondence. To start by trying to understand what a man appears to himself, and only when that has been done, to try him by the standard of the judgment of others, is in my opinion the first canon of historical portraiture; and it is one which till very recent times has been more neglected by writers on the Thirty Years' War than by students of any other portion of history. My teachers in Germany from whom I have borrowed so freely, and according to the rules of the series, without acknowledgment in foot-notes, will, I hope, accept this little book, not as an attempt to do that which they are so much better qualified to execute, but as an expression of the sympathy which an Englishman cannot but feel for the misfortunes as well as the achievements of his kindred on the Continent, and as an effort to tell something of the by-gone fortunes of their race to those amongst his own countrymen to whom, from youth or from circumstances of education, German literature is a sealed book. I have only to add that the dates are according to the New Style. Ten days must be deducted to bring them in accordance with those used at the time in England. CONTENTS. _Events in English History not noticed in the text, or only referred to, are printed in Italics._ CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. SECTION I.--_Political Institutions of Germany_ (1440-1517). PAGE National institutions of Germany defective 1 (_a_) As regarded the Emperor 1 (_b_) As regarded the great vassals 3