CHAP. VI.]

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN GERMANY.

557

treaty of Bernwald between France and Sweden was not definitively signed till January 23rd 1631, several months after Gustavus had landed in Germany; nor, as Voltaire remarks, was the stipulated subsidy of a million livres per annum alone sufficient to have induced the Swedish King to enter on such a war.4

Gustavus Adolphus set sail from the harbour of Elfsnabben, May 30th 1630. Before his departure he took a formal leave of the States assembled at Stockholm, when he presented to them his little daughter, Christina, not yet six years of age; and tenderly embracing her, recommended her to their fidelity as heiress of his kingdom in a speech which drew tears even from those northern eyes. To conduct the government in his absence, he had appointed a Council of Regency consisting of ten persons, who were to reside constantly at Stockholm.

After an adverse and tedious navigation, he landed with his army of some 13,000 men in the isle of Usedom, on the coast of Pomerania, June 24th. Another division of his army was conveyed to Stralsund. Gustavus prided himself on being the first to set foot on German soil. No sooner was he landed than he seized a pick-axe and began to open a trench; after which he fell upon his knees and offered up a prayer. In his army were many thousand British soldiers, most of whom had served in the German wars. After taking possession of the isles of Usedom and Wollin, which lie off the mouth of the Oder, Gustavus proceeded towards Stettin, the residence of Bogislaus XIV., Duke of Pomerania. After a vain attempt to assert his neutrality, Bogislaus found himself compelled to admit the Swedes; and being old and childless made little difficulty in promising that the Duchy of Pomerania should remain in the hands of Sweden till the costs of the war were paid. Gustavus caused Stettin to be fortified anew, and then proceeded to occupy Damm and Stargard. By the junction of the troops at Stralsund and others, his army was now increased to upwards of 25,000 men, and there was no force competent to oppose him; for the Imperial army was dispersed in various directions, and that of Tilly was far from the seat of war, in the Upper Palatinate, Franconia, and Westphalia. An imprudent step on the part of the Emperor increased the advantages of Gustavus.

Ferdinand II. had convened a Diet at Ratisbon in July 1630, for the purpose of procuring the election of his son as King of the Romans. The opportunity was seized to thwart and impede the Emperor's policy. Maximilian of Bavaria, jealous of the progress of Harte, Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p.

Dumont, t. vi. pt. i. Venice furnished in addition 400,000 livres annually.

216.

555

DIET OF RATISBON, 1630.

[Book IV. Wallenstein, and having satisfied his own ambition by securing the Upper Palatinate and the electoral dignity, would willingly have seen an end put to the war; and he resolved to clog the wheels of Austria by procuring the disgrace and ruin of the Duke of Friedland, and establishing a secret intelligence with the French Court. lenstein, in order to acquire new principalities, under pretence of carrying out the Edict of Restitution, had, as we have said, withdrawn his troops from Mecklenburg and Lower Saxony, thus leaving North Germany open to the invader. Wallenstein, after ravaging the province of Magdeburg, at last laid formal siege to that city; but as Ferdinand was then contemplating the nomination of his son as King of the Romans, and required for that purpose the votes of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, both of whom had claims on Magdeburg, Wallenstein was ordered to abandon the siege. He then cast his eyes on the smaller lands and dioceses. Wolfenbüttel, from which Duke Frederick Ulric of Brunswick had been deposed by a decree of the Imperial Council, was to be made over as a principality to Wallenstein's general, Pappenheim; Kulenberg was to be given to Tilly; Würtemberg had also felt the effects of military violence and everywhere, in carrying out the Edict of Restitution, no particular inquiries were made whether the church property seized had been secularised before or after the Peace of Passau.

These proceedings had given great dissatisfaction, not only to Duke Maximilian, but also to other electors and princes; and in 1630 Maximilian openly joined the party that demanded the dismissal of Wallenstein, and the reduction of the Imperial army, as conditions without which they would not consent to the election of the Emperor's son, Ferdinand, as King of the Romans. The Emperor, the Elector of Bavaria, and the spiritual Electors, appeared in person at Ratisbon, but Brandenburg and Saxony sent only plenipotentiaries. At this assembly, also, appeared the French envoys, Leon Brulart and Father Joseph, ostensibly about the affairs of Italy, but with secret instructions to do all in their power still further to embitter Maximilian, who had already a secret intelligence with the French Court, and the spiritual Electors against Wallenstein, to effect the disarmament of the empire, and to prevent the election of Ferdinand's son. In all these objects they were completely successful. The Emperor, after a long struggle, consented to dismiss Wallenstein, and to reduce the Imperial army to 40,000 men, while the League still kept on foot a force of 30,000; yet so far from securing the election of his son by these

See Richelieu, Mémoires, pt. x.

CHAP. VI.]

DISMISSAL OF WALLENSTEIN.

559

concessions, the Electors even talked of making the Duke of Bavaria his successor on the Imperial throne. Wallenstein, after remaining at Halberstadt till January 1630, had proceeded into Bohemia to reduce some of his Protestant peasants to obedience, after which he returned to the head-quarters of his army at Memmingen, in Suabia; and it was here that he received, in August, the order of the Emperor to lay down his command. He surprised all by his ready compliance with the Emperor's order, of which he had been previously informed by his cousin, Max von Wallenstein. When the Imperial envoys appeared, he received them in a friendly manner, gave them a splendid entertainment, and when, after long hesitation, they began a carefully prepared speech, he interrupted them by reading a Latin paper, in which were indicated the nativity of the Emperor, that of the Elector of Bavaria, and his own; adding, "You may see, gentlemen, from the stars, that I was acquainted with your commission, and that the spiritus of the Elector dominates over that of the Emperor. I cannot, therefore, blame the Emperor; and though I grieve that his Majesty should support me so little, I shall obey." He now again repaired to his Bohemian estates, but spent much of his time at Prague, where he lived with regal splendour.

The dismissal of Wallenstein's army, which the policy of Richelieu had not a little contributed to effect, was of course most favourable to the operations of Gustavus Adolphus. Richelieu's envoys had also succeeded in adjusting the affairs of the Mantuan succession, of which we must here say a few words.

Vincenzio di Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Marquis of Montferrat, died December 26th 1627. His next heir in the Duchy of Mantua was the Duke of Nevers, descended with Vincenzio from a common grandfather, Frederick II., though by a younger son of this duke. Vincenzio's successor in the Montferrat was his niece, Maria di Gonzaga, who shortly before her uncle's death had been married to Charles de Rethel, son of the Duke of Nevers; in which House therefore the whole inheritance was united; and the Duke of Nevers took possession of it in January 1628. The Court of Spain, however, was unwilling to see so important an Italian possession fall into the hands of a prince long naturalised in France; and they raised up a counter-claimant in the person of Cæsar Duke of Guastalla, descended from Ferdinand, a brother of Duke Frederick II.; founding his pretensions on the circumstance that, though of the younger branch, he was the offspring of the eldest

▾ Förster, Wallenstein, p. 147.

560

THE MANTUAN SUCCESSION.

[BOOK IV. son of Ferdinand, while the Duke of Nevers sprang from the third son of Frederick. The Duke of Savoy also disputed the title of his grand-daughter, Maria di Gonzaga, to the Montferrat, and revived the claims of his house, made a century before, to that marquisate, but condemned by the Emperor Charles V. The Spaniards incited the Duke of Guastalla to appeal to the Emperor, as suzerain of the Mantuan fief, and made an alliance with the Duke of Savoy, promising to give him Trino and other places in the Montferrat adjoining his dominions. As Ferdinand II. delayed to give his decision, a Spanish force, under the Count of Montenegro, entered the Mantuan territory, whilst another body laid siege to Casale, the capital of the Montferrat; Charles Emmanuel engaging to secure, meanwhile, the passes of the Alps against the advance of the French.

The French Court had no personal motives to favour the cause of the Duke of Nevers, who had taken part in all the rebellions against it; political reasons alone induced it to support him, though the siege of La Rochelle and the war with England at first prevented it from giving him any effectual assistance. After the fall of La Rochelle, Richelieu was hindered by the intrigues of the Queenmother from immediately interfering in the affairs of Italy; but early in 1629 he persuaded Louis XIII., whom he accompanied, to cross Mont Génèvre with his army; the Pas de Suse was carried against the Piedmontese (March), and the Duke of Savoy was compelled to accept a treaty, to which, as the French were preponderant in force, the Spanish governor of Milan was also glad to accede.

The French, who held Casale, leaving a garrison of 6000 men in Susa till the treaty should be ratified by Spain, now recrossed the Alps, in order to reduce the last remains of the Hugonots, who, under the Duke of Rohan, still held out in Languedoc and the southern parts of France. The hands of Richelieu were left the more free for this undertaking by the peace concluded with England, April 4th 1629; by which Charles I., engrossed by his quarrels with his subjects, consented to renounce the protection of the Hugonots. The Court of Spain, despite its bigotry, had entered into an agreement to assist Rohan and his heretics; but it was too late; the Hugonots were worsted in a struggle, into the details of which we cannot enter; suffice it to say, that their extinction as a political party was consummated by the reduction of Montauban in August 1629.

Meanwhile an Austrian army, withdrawn, as already mentioned, from North Germany, had entered the territory of the Grisons

CHAP. VI.]

RICHELIEU GENERALISSIMO.

561

towards the end of May; had seized Coire and the passes of the Rhine; and on the 5th of June the French were summoned by a proclamation of the Emperor to evacuate the Imperial fiefs in Italy. The summer was spent in negociations, during which, with an eye to future contests, the veteran captain, Spinola, was made governor of Milan by Philip IV. At the end of September the Imperialists, under Colalto, descended into Lombardy, and laid siege to Mantua, whilst Spinola invaded the Montferrat. Richelieu now raised an army, composed chiefly of foreign mercenaries, and as Louis XIII. was detained at home by domestic occurrences, he crossed the Alps at their head in February 1630, with the title and authority of Lieutenant-General of the King. The ravages of disease had compelled the Imperial army to abandon the siege of Mantua; but the Duke of Savoy was intractable, and to put an end to his evasions, Richelieu made a feint on Turin, near which Charles Emmanuel was posted with his army. In this march the Cardinal appeared as generalissimo at the head of the cavalry, with cuirass, cap and plume, a sword by his side, and pistols in his holsters. But instead of marching on Turin, Richelieu suddenly retraced his steps towards the Alps, and seized Pinerolo after a three days' siege, thus securing the key of Italy. Louis, in person, effected the reduction of Savoy in June; whilst in Piedmont Charles Emmanuel was defeated at Vegliana by the Duke de Montmorenci, July 10th. Grief and vexation at these events caused the death of the Duke of Savoy, who expired July 26th at the age of sixty-eight. To balance, however, these successes of the French, the almost impregnable fortress of Mantua was surprised and captured by the lieutenants of Colalto in the night of July 17th.

Victor Amadeus, the new Duke of Savoy, who had married a sister of Louis XIII., was not so uncompromising an enemy of France as his father. By the intermediation of Giulio Mazarini, the Pope's agent, a truce was signed, to last from September 8th to October 15th, and Victor Amadeus promised to join the French if a reasonable peace were not effected by the 13th of October. The town of Casale was put into Spinola's hands, who was at that time besieging it; the citadel was still held by the French under Toiras; who, however, engaged to surrender it, if not relieved before the end of October. On the 17th of that month, the truce being expired, Marshals La Force, Schomberg, and Marillac marched to the relief of Casale. Spinola had died during the truce. On the 26th of October the French and Spanish armies were in presence before the town; a battle was on the eve of commencing, when