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Entry into Mentz.
^•* Compacts witli the Protestant HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
states of the empire.
Proposals of peace.
[1628-
tlie king had taken and fortified, while the terrors
of liis arms, with wondei-ful rapidity and fortune,
were spread over both sides of the Rhine.
Gustavus Adolphus in Mentz, at the outset of
the year H)32, is a splendid show, but which pro-
mises more than it covers. His queen accompanied
him. The chancellor had brought him reinforce-
ments from Prussia. A crowd of princes and am-
bassadors surrounded him, and he counted in his
general staff more princes than Oxenstierna gladly
saw, who, when the defence of the Rhine was after-
wards confided to him, complained that these princes
would not obey. During fourteen days operations
were suspended, a period long enough to show the
fruitlessness of that ti’eaty of neutrality with the
League which France had proposed. The Catholic
League was dissolved ;
its members either tlu’ew
themselves into the arms of France, as Treves to
its own misfortune, or were forced to form a more
intimate connexion with the emperor, as Bavaria,
or had lost their territories to Gustavus Adolphus,
who now stood on the Rhine as the acknowledged
head of Protestant Germany. This was his real
position; in form it was indeterminate. Although
never accurately laid down, the outlines of a defi-
nition were yet sketched, which grew gradually
more distinct. The homage, which after the vic-
tory of Leipsic the king required from his conquests
for himself and the crown of Sweden, was indeed
for the most part limited by certain conditions,
such as for the war only, or for Sweden and its
allies conjointly ;
but sometimes these conditions
are omitted, as in the question respecting the con-
quered Catholic bishoprics,to whose inhabitants, and
the Catholics generally, the king gave immediate
security in respect to their religion and property.
Afterwards it awakened general remark, that he
had caused Augsburg to do homage without any
such conditions. The obligations now contracted
between him and the Protestant estates, although
not alike in all, provide that contributions for the
war shall be paid by all in common, and that the
absolute directory of it shall remain with the king;
and they acknowledge in more or less decided ex-
pressions the king of Sweden as their Lord Pro-
tector. In fact, as in name, Gustavus Adolphus
was Protector of the German Protestant League.
What might thence arise was hidden by the future;
and if we give credit to a contemporary Catholic
historian, it was even declared. "
During the
king’s stay in Mentz," says Khevenhliller,
" some
postulates came forth, which the king of Sweden
had made, to the elector of Bavaria and other
Roman Catholic states, for the re-establishment of
peace in Germany. The principal were : that the
emperor should revoke the Edict of Restitution *
;
that both religions, the Evangelical and Catholic,
as well in towns as in the country, should be free
and undisturbed, without constraint of conscience ;
that Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia should be re-
placed in their old condition, and all refugees
recalled ; that the palsgrave Frederic should be
the Spanish designs, and that Farenshach had come to Dun-
kirk and offered, if he should get ships, to take Gottemburg.
The council sent a military force thither. See their letter to
the chancellor, Jan. 2.3, 16.’’.2.
Reg.
* So runs the first article of this project in Richelieu, M6m.
vii. 4,5, who gives it more shortly, and without mention of
the election of king of the Romans. In this first article in
Khevenhuller, the king of Sweden is substituted for the
restored, and recover his electoral rank, of which
Bavaria had deprived him ;
that Augsburg shoidd
be reinvested with its freedom, the exercise of the
Evangelical religion being allowed; that all Jesuits
should be expelled from the empire as peace-
breakers ;
that ecclesiastical dignities should be
thrown open to the members of both religions ;
and that the king of Sweden, since he had saved
the empire from ruin, should be chosen king of
the Romans ’.
It is safer to abide by the words of Gustavus
Adolphus himself, addressed to the deputies of
Nuremberg at the same period.
" From his
friends," he said, "he wished for nothing more
than their gratitude; what he had taken from the
enemy he intended to keep; the Protestant League
must sever itself from the Catholics, and provide
itself with a suitable chief, especially for the war ;
with some months’ pay he could not, like a runaway
soldier, be satisfied ; land he might by the law of
nations (as Grotius taught) demand, although he
had enough of it ;
Pomerania he could not, on ac-
count of his maritime objects, abandon, and if he
restored any thing, he might nevertheless demand
the same rights of superiority as the emperor had
formerly possessed ;
the old imperial constitution
was of no further effect." The Nurembergers de-
clared, that they knew of no better or more auspi-
cious choice for the supreme headship than they
had in his majesty". He had at the same time
requested the opinion of the Swedish senate re-
specting the terms which might be deemed a firm
foundation for a peace. The conditions which they
proposed were : freedom of religion, abolition of
the inquisition for ever, and restitution of the
Evangelics ;
the indemnification of Sweden for the
expenses of the war, and security for their pay-
ment ;
an alliance between the evangelical party
and the king of Sweden, to whom should pertain
the directoi’y of all their wars with the emperor
or other potentates; the cession of Pomerania and
Wismar to Sweden, in return for which Branden-
burg should obtain Silesia, Saxony, and Lusatia, and
the Landgrave of Hesse, the princes of Weimar and
others, should be benefited at the cost of Austria ’.
Tlie distance and interruption by the war
rendered communication with Sweden difficult.
Months passed away without intelligence, which
led to irregularities and misapprehensions. From
Wittembei’g, on the 30th August, 1631, the king
had ordered the convocation of a Commission of
Estates, to which application might be made for
the prolongation of the so-called cattle-tax. On
the 30th of October, from Wurtzbui’g, he had pro-
mised to send the warrant for calling together the
diet. This not arriving, the council pretended to
have received it, and appointed the 1st February,
1632, for the day of meeting. In the interval,
after a long delay, arrived a letter of secretary
Grubbe’, in which the royal will was signified, that
no diet should be held, but instead thereof the
emperor by a manifest error of the press, and the ninth
article also appears to be inaccurate.
’
Khevenhuller, xii. 86.
"
Breyer, Contributions to the History of the Thirty
Years’ War. Munich, 1812, p. 207.
7
Opinion of the council of state upon the conditions of
peace. Stockholm, March 26, ]6.’!2. Register of the Council.
In the public archives we have not found any register of the
king’s letter of 1632.
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