G02 



THIRTY YEARS' WARTHISTLEWOOD. 



when besieged by an army of 100,000 men under 

 Wullenstein, and from whom the alarmed Protest- 

 ants now sought assistance. Full of zeal lor his 

 religion, exasperated by various injuries received 

 from the emperor, this prince landed in Pomerania, 

 June 24, 1U.50, with an army of 30,000 men. He 

 drove the imperial troops before him wherever he 

 appeared. He was unable, indeed, to prevent the 

 capture and destruction of Magdeburg, by Tilly, in 

 1631 ; but, having increased his strength by an al- 

 liance with France and several German princes, 

 some of whom were compelled to accede to it, ns 

 the princes of Brandenburg and Saxony, and having 

 destroyed Tilly's army in the battle at Leipsic 

 (September 7, 1631), he reduced the emperor and 

 his allies to great straits, by his rapid movements, 

 aided by the victories of his generals and confede- 

 rates in Westphalia and Lower Saxony, and by the 

 invasion of Bohemia by the Saxons. Gustavus de- 

 livered the Protestants in Franconia from the im- 

 perial army, conquered Mentz, made himself master 

 of the Palatinate, and pushed into Bavaria. At 

 the same time, the elector of Saxony had captured 

 Prague. The emperor feared that Vienna itself 

 would be besieged. Tilly had died in Bavaria. 

 Such was the situation of the Protestant affairs in 

 Germany. But when Wallenstein (who, at the 

 urgent instance of the diet assembled at Ratisbon, 

 had been dismissed for his acts of extortion and 

 plunder) again appeared on the stage, with a formid- 

 able army and high military renown, Gustavus 

 found himself under the necessity of evacuating 

 Bavaria. The two armies met at Nuremberg ; but 

 Wallenstein, not finding it expedient to risk a battle, 

 remained in his intrenchments, on which an ineffec- 

 tual assault was made by Gustavus. They at lust 

 came to a bloody battle at Liitzen, in Saxony (No- 

 vember 6, 1632), in which the king gained the vic- 

 tory at the expense of his life. His death would 

 have been attended with the most disastrous con- 

 sequences to the Protestants, had not his high- 

 chancellor, Oxenstiern, by his skilful negotiations, 

 effected the alliance of Heilbronn among the German 

 princes, while the brave duke Bernard of Weimar 

 and Gustavus Horn made the Swedish arms trium- 

 phant through almost all Germany a result not a 

 little promoted by the ambiguous behaviour of 

 Wallenstein, who, having retired to Bohemia in 

 1634, was charged with treason and put to death 

 by emissaries of the emperor. But the aspect of 

 things suddenly changed again at the bloody battle 

 of Nordlingen, in 1634. The elector of Saxony 

 united himself, at the peace of Prague, in 1635, 

 with the emperor against Sweden (on which occa- 

 sion Saxony was indemnified with the possession of 

 Lusatia). Several states of the empire concurred 

 in this peace, so that the Swedes were obliged to 

 seek protection in a closer union with France. By 

 the successes of Bernard of Weimar on the Upper 

 Rhine, and of Baner, who, in 1638, had invaded 

 Bohemia, they again became formidable. Torsten- 

 son, with astonishing rapidity, marched from one 

 end of Germany to the other, made Austria trem- 

 ble, humbled the king of Denmark, and filled up 

 the measure of Swedish glory, which Wrangel con- 

 tinued to maintain till the end of the war. It was 

 not till after the death of Bernard, duke of Weimar 

 (1639), that France took a serious part in this war ; 

 and, though at first her armies had done but little, 

 and met -with a severe defeat at Duttlingen, in 

 1643, they afterwards gained brilliant victories, un- 

 der Conde and Turenne ; over the imperial and 



Bavarian troops. At length, the conquest of Prague 

 by the Swedish general Konigsmark (July 25, 

 1648"), compelled Ferdinand III. (Ferdinand 11. 

 had before died, in 1637^ to conclude the peace, 

 which, after seven years negotiation, at Miinster 

 and Osnabriick, in Westphalia, was signed October 

 24, 1648. (See Westphalia, Peace of, and Ger- 

 many.) For more information, see Schiller's ///-- 

 tory of the Thirty Years' War : Woltmann's His- 

 tory of the Peace of Westphalia (2 vols.) serves as 

 a continuation of Schiller. A good history of this 

 war is yet a desideratum. It spread from one end 

 of Germany to the other; and, after its conclusion, 

 that country, wasted by tire, sword and plague, was 

 a scene of desolation and disorder. A bad currency 

 and a deficiency of labourers brought on great s. ;u- 

 c-ity. The art of war was the only thing that had 

 gained any thing, principally by the genius of 

 Gustavus Adolphus, who made an era in military 

 tactics, and was the first who hud a train of artillery 

 in bis army. 



THISBE ; a beautiful Babylonian maiden, whose 

 memory has been preserved by her unhappy passion 

 for Pyramus. The parents of the lovers opposed 

 their mutual wishes; and they were able to keep 

 up a communication with each other only by con- 

 versing through a hole in the wall, which separated 

 the contiguous houses of their parents. Once, 

 however, they agreed to meet at the tomb of 

 Ninus, without the city. Thisbe arrived first, but 

 was terrified at the unexpected sight of a lioness, 

 and hid herself in a neighbouring cave. In her 

 haste, she dropped her mantle, which was rent by 

 the lioness. Pyramus now reached the spot, and, 

 convinced, by the appearance of the torn garment, 

 that Thisbe had fallen a prey to the monster, he 

 threw himself in despair upon his sword. Thisbe, 

 on returning, and finding her lover weltering in his 

 blood, stabbed herself with the same sword. Both 

 were interred in the same grave, at the foot of a 



mulberry tree, whose white berries became red 



This Thisbe must not be confounded with the 

 nymph Thisbe, from whom the town of the same 

 name, in Boeotia, was called. 



THISTLE (cntcws). These rough, spiny plants 

 are conspicuous objects in northern climates. The 

 stem is thick and herbaceous ; the leaves more or 

 less pinnated, and toothed, and beset with spines. 

 It belongs to the composite ; and the flowers are 

 disposed in large, dense heads, surrounded with a 

 close, scaly, and usually spiny involucre, and are of 

 a purple colour, with a few exceptions. 



THISTLE, KNIGHTS OF, OR KNIGHTS OF 

 ST ANDREW; according to some writers, insti- 

 tuted by Achaius, king of Scots, in memory of an 

 appearance in the heavens of a bright cross, resem- 

 bling that whereon St Andrew suffered martyrdom, 

 seen by Achaius, the night before he gained a vic- 

 tory over Athelstan, king of England. This order, 

 after having much declined, was revived by James 

 II. of England, in 1687, and again by queen Anne, 

 in 1703. The motto is " Nemomeimptinelacessit." 



THISTLEWOOD, ARTHUB, memorable for his 

 concern in the political commotions which disturbed 

 England during the ascendancy of lord Castle- 

 reagh, was the son of a farmer in Lincolnshire, 

 and was born in 1772. He obtained a lieutenant's 

 commission in the supplementary militia in 1797, 

 and, soon after, married a young lady with a consi- 

 derable fortune. He then resided at Bawtry, in 

 Yorkshire; but, his wife dying in about eighteen 

 months, be went to Lincoln, where he abandoned 



