The Thirty Years War — Volume 05Schiller, Friedrich
History
The Thirty Years War — Volume 05
Schiller, Friedrich
Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648
The archbishopric of Magdeburg remained in possession of Prince Augustus
of Saxony, and Halberstadt in that of the Archduke Leopold William.
Four estates were taken from the territory of Magdeburg, and given to
Saxony, for which the Administrator of Magdeburg, Christian William of
Brandenburg, was otherwise to be indemnified. The Dukes of Mecklenburg,
upon acceding to this treaty, were to be acknowledged as rightful
possessors of their territories, in which the magnanimity of Gustavus
Adolphus had long ago reinstated them. Donauwerth recovered its
liberties. The important claims of the heirs of the Palatine, however
important it might be for the Protestant cause not to lose this
electorate vote in the diet, were passed over in consequence of the
animosity subsisting between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. All the
conquests which, in the course of the war, had been made by the German
states, or by the League and the Emperor, were to be mutually restored;
all which had been appropriated by the foreign powers of France and
Sweden, was to be forcibly wrested from them by the united powers. The
troops of the contracting parties were to be formed into one imperial
army, which, supported and paid by the Empire, was, by force of arms, to
carry into execution the covenants of the treaty.
As the peace of Prague was intended to serve as a general law of the
Empire, those points, which did not immediately affect the latter,
formed the subject of a separate treaty. By it, Lusatia was ceded to
the Elector of Saxony as a fief of Bohemia, and special articles
guaranteed the freedom of religion of this country and of Silesia.
All the Protestant states were invited to accede to the treaty of
Prague, and on that condition were to benefit by the amnesty. The
princes of Wurtemberg and Baden, whose territories the Emperor was
already in possession of, and which he was not disposed to restore
unconditionally; and such vassals of Austria as had borne arms against
their sovereign; and those states which, under the direction of
Oxenstiern, composed the council of the Upper German Circle, were
excluded from the treaty,--not so much with the view of continuing the
war against them, as of compelling them to purchase peace at a dearer
rate. Their territories were to be retained in pledge, till every thing
should be restored to its former footing. Such was the treaty of
Prague. Equal justice, however, towards all, might perhaps have
restored confidence between the head of the Empire and its members--
between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics--between the Reformed
and the Lutheran party; and the Swedes, abandoned by all their allies,
would in all probability have been driven from Germany with disgrace.
But this inequality strengthened, in those who were more severely
treated, the spirit of mistrust and opposition, and made it an easier
task for the Swedes to keep alive the flame of war, and to maintain a
party in Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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