History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 3 [52]
vengeance, posted straight to Munchen, to Max of Bavaria there; declared himself convinced, or nearly so, of the Roman-Catholic Religion; wooed, and in a few weeks (10th November, 1613) wedded Max's younger Sister; and soon after, at Dusseldorf, pompously professed such his blessed change of Belief,--with immense flourish of trumpeting, and jubilant pamphleteering, from Holy Church. [Kohler, ubi supra.] His poor old Father, the devoutest of Protestants, wailed aloud his "Ichabod! the glory is departed!"-- holding "weekly fast and humiliation" ever after,--and died in few months of a broken heart. The Catholic League has now a new Member on those terms.
And on the other hand, Johann Sigismund, nearly with the like haste (25th December, 1613), declared himself convinced of Calvinism, his younger Brother's creed; [Pauli, iii. 546.]--which continues ever since the Brandenburg Court-creed, that of the People being mostly Lutheran. Men said, it was to please the Dutch, to please the Julichers, most of whom are Calvinist. Apologetic Pauli is elaborate, but inconclusive. It was very ill taken at Berlin, where even popular riot arose on the matter. In Prussia too it had its drawbacks. [Ib. iii. 544; Michaelis, i. 349.]
And now, all being full of mutation, rearrangement and infinite rumor, there marched next year (1614), on slight pretext, resting on great suspicions, Spanish troops into the Julich-Cleve country, and, countenanced by Neuburg, began seizing garrisons there. Whereupon Dutch troops likewise marched, countenanced by Brandenburg, and occupied other fortresses and garrisons: and so, in every strong-place, these were either Papist-Spaniards or Calvinist-Dutch; who stood there, fronting one another, and could not by treatying be got out again;--like clouds positively electric VERSUS clouds negatively. As indeed was getting to be the case of Germany in general; case fatally visible in every Province, Principality and Parish there: till a thunder-storm, and succession of thunder-storms, of Thirty Years' continuance, broke out. Of which these huge rumors and mutations, and menacings of war, springing out of that final colloquy and slap in the face, are to be taken as the THIRD premonitory Symptom. Spaniards and Dutch stand electrically fronting one another in Cleve for seven years, till their Truce is out, before they clash together; Germany does not wait so long by a couple of years.
SYMPTOM FOURTH, AND CATASTROPHE UPON THE HEELS OF IT.
Five years more (1618), and there will have come a FOURTH Symptom, biggest of all, rapidly consummating the process;--Symptom still famed, of the following external figure: Three Official Gentlemen descending from a window in the Castle of Prag: hurled out by impatient Bohemian Protestantism, a depth of seventy feet,-- happily only into dung, and without loss of life. From which follows a "King of Bohemia" elected there, King not unknown to us;--"thunder-clouds" all in one huge clash, and the "continent of sour smoke" blazing all into a continent of thunderous fire: THIRTY-YEARS WAR, as they now call it! Such a conflagration as poor Germany never saw before or since.
These were the FOUR preliminary SYMPTOMS of that dismal business. "As to the primary CAUSES of it," says one of my Authorities, "these lie deep, deep almost as those of Original Sin. But the proximate causes seem to me to have been these two: FIRST, That the Jesuit-Priests and Principalities had vowed and resolved to have, by God's help and by the Devil's (this was the peculiarity of it), Europe made Orthodox again: and then SECONDLY, The fact that a Max of Bavaria existed at that time, whose fiery character, cunning but rash head, and fanatically Papist heart disposed him to attempt that enterprise, him with such resources and capacities, under their bad guidance."
Johann Sigismund did many swift decisive strokes of business in his time, businesses of extensive and important nature; but this of the slap to Neuburg has stuck best in the idle memory of mankind. Dusseldorf, Year 1613: it was precisely in the
And on the other hand, Johann Sigismund, nearly with the like haste (25th December, 1613), declared himself convinced of Calvinism, his younger Brother's creed; [Pauli, iii. 546.]--which continues ever since the Brandenburg Court-creed, that of the People being mostly Lutheran. Men said, it was to please the Dutch, to please the Julichers, most of whom are Calvinist. Apologetic Pauli is elaborate, but inconclusive. It was very ill taken at Berlin, where even popular riot arose on the matter. In Prussia too it had its drawbacks. [Ib. iii. 544; Michaelis, i. 349.]
And now, all being full of mutation, rearrangement and infinite rumor, there marched next year (1614), on slight pretext, resting on great suspicions, Spanish troops into the Julich-Cleve country, and, countenanced by Neuburg, began seizing garrisons there. Whereupon Dutch troops likewise marched, countenanced by Brandenburg, and occupied other fortresses and garrisons: and so, in every strong-place, these were either Papist-Spaniards or Calvinist-Dutch; who stood there, fronting one another, and could not by treatying be got out again;--like clouds positively electric VERSUS clouds negatively. As indeed was getting to be the case of Germany in general; case fatally visible in every Province, Principality and Parish there: till a thunder-storm, and succession of thunder-storms, of Thirty Years' continuance, broke out. Of which these huge rumors and mutations, and menacings of war, springing out of that final colloquy and slap in the face, are to be taken as the THIRD premonitory Symptom. Spaniards and Dutch stand electrically fronting one another in Cleve for seven years, till their Truce is out, before they clash together; Germany does not wait so long by a couple of years.
SYMPTOM FOURTH, AND CATASTROPHE UPON THE HEELS OF IT.
Five years more (1618), and there will have come a FOURTH Symptom, biggest of all, rapidly consummating the process;--Symptom still famed, of the following external figure: Three Official Gentlemen descending from a window in the Castle of Prag: hurled out by impatient Bohemian Protestantism, a depth of seventy feet,-- happily only into dung, and without loss of life. From which follows a "King of Bohemia" elected there, King not unknown to us;--"thunder-clouds" all in one huge clash, and the "continent of sour smoke" blazing all into a continent of thunderous fire: THIRTY-YEARS WAR, as they now call it! Such a conflagration as poor Germany never saw before or since.
These were the FOUR preliminary SYMPTOMS of that dismal business. "As to the primary CAUSES of it," says one of my Authorities, "these lie deep, deep almost as those of Original Sin. But the proximate causes seem to me to have been these two: FIRST, That the Jesuit-Priests and Principalities had vowed and resolved to have, by God's help and by the Devil's (this was the peculiarity of it), Europe made Orthodox again: and then SECONDLY, The fact that a Max of Bavaria existed at that time, whose fiery character, cunning but rash head, and fanatically Papist heart disposed him to attempt that enterprise, him with such resources and capacities, under their bad guidance."
Johann Sigismund did many swift decisive strokes of business in his time, businesses of extensive and important nature; but this of the slap to Neuburg has stuck best in the idle memory of mankind. Dusseldorf, Year 1613: it was precisely in the