GERMANY. 449 



him ; which, with other reasons, occasioned his abdication of the 

 crown. 



His brother, Ferdinand I, who in 1558 succeeded to the throne, 

 proved a moderate prince with regard to religion. He had the address 

 to procure his son, Maximilian, to be declared king of the Romans, 

 in his own life time, and died in 1564. By his last will he ordered, 

 that, if either his own male issue or that of his brother Charles, should 

 fail, his Austrian estates should revert to his second daughter Anne, 

 wife to the elector of Bavaria, and her issue. 



This destination is noticed, as it gave rise to the opposition made 

 by the house of Bavaria to the pragmatic sanction in favour of the 

 late empress-queen of Hungary, on the death of her father, Charles 

 VI. The reign of Maximilian II, was disturbed with internal com- 

 motions, and an invasion from the Turks ; but he died in peace ift 

 1576. He was succeeded by his son Rodolph, who was involved in, 

 wars with the Hungarians, and in differences with his brother Mat- 

 thias, to whom he ceded Hungary and Austria in his life time. To 

 him succeeded in the empire, Matthias, under whom the reformers, 

 who went by the names of Lutherans and Calvinists, were so much, 

 divided among themselves as to threaten the empire with a civil war. 

 The ambition of Matthias at last reconciled them ; but the Bohemians 

 revolted, and threw the imperial commissaries out of a window at 

 Prague. This gave rise to a ruinous war, which lasted thirty years. 

 Matthias thought to have exterminated both parties ; but theyjformed 

 a confederacy, called the Evangelic League, which was counter- 

 balanced by a Catholic League. 



Matthias dying in 1618, was succeeded by his cousin, Ferdinand 

 II ; but the Bohemians offered their crown to Frederic, the elector 

 palatine, the most powerful protestant prince in Germany, and son-in- 

 law to his Britannic majesty, James I. That prince was incautious 

 enough to accept of the crown ; but he lost it, being entirely defeat- 

 ed by the duke of Bavaria and the imperial generals, at the battle of 

 Prague : and he was also deprived of his own electorate, the best part 

 of which was given to the duke of Bavaria. The protestant princes 

 of Germany, however, had among them at this time many able com- 

 manders, who were at the head of armies, and continued the war with 

 great firmness and intrepidity : among them Avere the margrave of 

 Baden Dourlach, Christian duke of Brunswick, and count Mans- 

 field ; the last was one of the ablest generals of the age. Christian IV, 

 king of Denmark, declared for them ; and Richelieu, the French 

 minister, did not wish to see the house of Austria aggrandised. 

 The emperor, on the other hand, had excellent generals ; and Chris- 

 tian, having put himself at the head of the evangelic league, was 

 defeated by Tilly, an imperialist of great reputation in war. Ferdi- 

 nand so grossly abused the advantages obtained over the protestants, 

 that they formed a fresh confederacy at Leipsic, of which the cele- 

 brated Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, was the head. His vic- 

 tories and progress, till he was killed at the battle of Lutztn,in 1632, 

 have already been related. But the protestant cause did not die with, 

 him. He had brought up a set of heroes, such as the duke of Saxe 

 Weimar, Torstenson, Banier, and others, who shook the Austrian 

 power, rill, under the mediation of Sweden, a general peace 'vas con- 

 cluded among all the powers at war, at Munster, in the year 1648 ; 

 which forms the basis of the present political svstem of Europe. 



Vol. I. 3 M 



