866 



WALLACHIA WALLENSTEIN. 



en the head of him, whose name shall be through 

 all ages honoured and revered by every generous 

 breast. Sir William Wallace was dragged at the 

 tails of horses through the streets of London to a 

 gallows in Smithfield, where, after being hanged a 

 short time, he was taken down, yet breathing, and 

 his bowels torn out, and burned. His head was 

 then struck nil', and his body divided into quarters. 

 His head was placed on a pole on London Bridge, 

 his right arm above the bridge at Newcastle, his 

 left arm was sent to Berwick, his right foot and 

 liuil) to Perth, and his left quarter to Aberdeen. 

 These," says an old English historian, " were 

 the trophies of their favourite hero, which the Scots 

 had now to contemplate, instead of his banners and 

 gonfanons, which they had once proudly followed." 

 But he might have added, as is well remarked by 

 Mr Tytler, that " they were trophies more glori- 

 ous than the richest banner that had ever been 

 borne before him ; and if Wallace already had been 

 the idol of the people, if they had long regarded 

 him as the only man who had asserted, throughout 

 every change of circumstances, the independence of 

 his country, now that his mutilated limbs were 

 brought before them, it may well be conceived how 

 deep and inextinguishable were their feelings of 

 pity and revenge." Edward, assuredly, could have 

 adopted no more certain way of canonizing the 

 memory of his enemy, and increasing the animosity 

 of the Scottish people. Accordingly, we find, al- 

 though the execution of Wallace may be said to 

 have completed that subjugation of the country, 

 which the English monarch had been straining for, 

 by force and fraud, during a period of fifteen years 

 that in less than six months from the death of 

 her great champion, Scotland, roused to the cause 

 now sealed and made holy by her patriot's blood, 

 shook off the yoke of England, and became once 

 more a free kingdom. 



WALLACHIA. See Walachia. 



WALLENSTEIN, ALBERT, count of (properly 

 Waldsteiii) ; duke of Friedland, generalissimo of the 

 Austrian army in the thirty years' war, a man whose 

 name excites mingled emotions of admiration and 

 abhorrence; for, though his achievements were 

 great, he knew no motive but ambition, and 

 scrupled at no means of gratifying it. He was the 

 terror of his contemporaries, and, in the short 

 period of 1625 1634, exercised a powerful influence 

 on events, and has therefore met with many his- 

 torians. But the veil which hangs over the last 

 scene of his life has not been wholly removed by 

 any of them. 



Albert of Waldstein, born at Prague, in 1583, 

 was descended from a distinguished Bohemian 

 family, which was attached to the Protestant re- 

 ligion. For the instructions which he received 

 under the paternal roof, and in the celebrated Pro- 

 testant school at Goldberg, in Silesia, he had no 

 taste. His restless, impetuous disposition was 

 hostile to discipline, and, in all mischievous ex- 

 ploits, he was the leader of his fellow scholars, over 

 whom he exercised a certain supremacy. He be- 

 haved in like manner at the university of Altorf, 

 which he entered in 1594, and where the commis- 

 sion of an offence brought him into the academic 

 prison. Albert afterwards entered, as a page, into 

 the service of the margrave Charles of Burgau, a 

 prince of the Austrian-Tyrolese collateral line, who 

 resided at Inspruck. He became a convert to the 

 Catholic religion, and received from the margrave 

 the means of travelling in Germany, England, 



France and Italy. During his travels, military and 

 financial systems, statesmen and generals, were the 

 only objects of his attention. He then studied, 

 for a time, mathematics and politics, but especially 

 astrology, at the celebrated university of Padusi. 

 Argoli, his teacher in the latter science, sec-n 

 have given rise to his latter projects, by predicting a 

 splendid fortune to him. In 1606, Walleniteio 

 performed a campaign against the Turks, in Hun- 

 gary, with the imperial army, in which he manifest- 

 ed much bravery, and became captain. The peace 

 (Nov. 11, 1606) terminated this campaign, and he 

 returned to Bohemia without an appointment. Here 

 he married a very rich but aged widow, who, ait IT 

 a short, childless marriage, left him a great pro- 

 perty, which enabled him to play a splendid part at 

 the court of the emperor Matthias, at Vienna. In 

 an insignificant war which broke out in Friuli in 

 1617, between the archduke Ferdinand of Stiria 

 and the republic of Venice, he raised, at his own 

 expense, a body of 200 cavalry, and led them to 

 the assistance of the archduke (afterwards the em- 

 peror Ferdinand II)., by which means he acquired 

 a high place in his favour. His courage and con- 

 duct were distinguished at the relief of Gradisca; 

 and he gained the attachment of officers and soldiers 

 by his extraordinary generosity, and his attention 

 to their wants. After the end of the war, Ferdi- 

 nand appointed him colonel of the militia at Ol- 

 ni iit z, in Moravia. He there^ took for his second 

 wife Isabella, daughter of count Harrach, a favourite 

 of Ferdinand, and was raised by Ferdinand to the 

 rank of count. On the breaking out of the trou- 

 bles in Bohemia, Wallenstein joined, in 1619, the 

 Austrian party against the Protestant Bohemians. 

 He was compelled to leave Olmiitz, but succeeded 

 in conveying the public treasure to Vienna. He 

 had retained of it 9000 dollars. With this and his 

 own money he raised 1000 cuirassiers, whom he led 

 to Bohemia, to succour the Austrian general. Here 

 he distinguished himself in several engagements, 

 and afterwards went, with the Austrian army, un- 

 der Boucquoi, to Moravia, the fortified places of 

 which soon opened their gates to the conquerors. 

 Wallenstein was now appointed military governor 

 of Moravia, recovered his estates, which had been 

 confiscated by the Protestant Bohemians, and, hav- 

 ing been created major-general, after the fall of 

 Boucquoi, commanded with success against Beth- 

 lem Gabor, prince of Transylvania. In 1622, the 

 emperor invested him with the lordship of Fried- 

 land, in Bohemia, and, in 1623, created him prince 

 of Friedland. When the war commenced in the 

 north of Germany, where the king of Denmark 

 came forward, in 1625, at the head of the Lower 

 Saxon circle, against the league, the emperor found 

 himself in great embarrassment, from want of money 

 and troops. Wallenstein offered to raise an army 

 of 50,000 men at his own expense, and without the 

 least contribution on the part of the emperor, on 

 condition that he should be its commander-in-chief, 

 and should be allowed to retain the contributions 

 obtained from the conquered countries. It was not 

 uncommon in those times, for a general to levy a 

 body of troops at his own expense, and then in- 

 demnify himself from friend and foe; but the scheme 

 of raising so numerous an army appeared rash. The 

 emperor had no alternative: he therefore accepted 

 his proposition on those terms, and, soon after, gave 

 him the title of duke. The reputation of Wallen- 

 stein, and the active co-operation of many devoted 

 officers, soon enabled him to collect an army of 



