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1645.]
The chancellor appointed to
the supreme directory of CHRISTINA. THE REGENCY. the war. Protestant
league of Heilbronn. 297
without communication made, therefore he was
necessitated to defer the matter until the arrival of
the elector of Brandenburg. And so for this time
with such resolvement I travelled thence to the
army again. Hereupon I ought fully to describe
to you, my good lords, the electoral court of Dres-
den and its state in order to your information, as
also my own judgment of affairs, but now I am not
adequate to that end. Only this in brief; at the
court is no resolution, nor any application, and I
fear too that there are some of them who have
their eyes turned to the emperor. They are en-
tirely ignorant how to adapt their steps to these
dangerous times, are accustomed to good days,
cross in a word both hands and feet, and nourish
vain hopes, deeming that thus they can escape
misfortune. Long orations and reasons for doubt-
ing, with many cei’emonies, are not wanting to
them. But nothing real have I either seen or
heard there, and if one would treat with them
effectually, he is held to be dealing imperiously.
Their opinion upon my proposals I have not been
able from themselves at all to understand, only I
have heard underhand from others that the first,
for the crown of Sweden to have the direction of
the war, pleaseth them not; nor the last, inasmuch
as they know not how they should satisfy us, or
(which I rather believe) because they have no
goodwill thereto ;
but I understand them to be in-
clined to the second. I am now drawing the army
from Meissen, and about to restore the territory to
the elector. The troops I am dividing into two
bodies, one to be conducted by duke Bernard of
Weimar to Franconia, the other by Kniphausen to
the Weser. The rest of the Swedish force I re-
move to the sea-coast *."
On the 13th January, 1633, the chancellor was
appointed by the council of state to be legate pleni-
potentiary of the crown of Sweden in the Roman
empire and with all the armies ^. The views held in
Dresden acquired further strength, and matterswent
on as in the time of Gustavus Adolphus. The most
powerful Protestant sovereign houses of Germany,
Saxony and Brandenburg, still ever kept aloof from
8 Dated Leipsic, Jan. 3, 1633. Compare Adlersparre,
1. c. T. v.
9 Cum plena potestate et commissions absolutissima. Reg.
His commission was afterwards confirmed by the guardians.
1
All three, nevertheless, made proposals of marriage to
Christina. That of Brandenburg has been already men-
tioned. Christian IV. eagerly sought the hand of Christina
for his third son, prince Ulric ;
and that the same proposal
was in question for Saxony we learn from Richelieu’s Me-
moirs, vii. 282. The French ambassador Feuquieres was
thus instructed: As to the marriage of the daughter of Sweden
with the eldest son of Saxony, the king would follow in that
the course of things, and express his approval of it, if
Saxony desired it, which, being already allied with the king
of Denmark, could by this means appease the ditferences
which might spring up between these two kingdoms. (Quant
au mariage de la fille de Su^de avec le fils aine de Saxe, &c.)
2 " The duke of Saxony, who is the most vain-glorious of
the Germans, had wished to be chief of the whole confedera-
tion, and to have the direction of affairs. He foresaw well
that the great credit and reputation of Oxenslierna and the
consideration of the late king his master would get the better
of himself—drunken, brutal, hated and despised by his sub-
jects and foreigners
—and this incited him by jealousy to
obstruct hira. These intrigues were so effectual, that the
chancellor found himself obliged to pray the sieur Feuquieres
not to content himself with the good oilices he had rendered
supporting the great cause. Brandenburg’s appa-
rent inclination to an alliance with Sweden on
account of the matrimonial overture soon cooled.
The Swedish relations with both, as also with Den-
mark, which followed the same policy with them
under pretence of mediating for peace, ended by
becoming hostile i. The estates of Lower Saxony
aimed only at neutrality. Westphalia was still the
theatre of war. Thus in the whole of northern
Germany the main limbs of Protestantism were
lopped off. It is the mournful history of this war
that it was fought out by others than those whom
it most nearly concerned. Howbeit, this reproach
is not applicable to all ;
the heroic state of Hesse,
represented by the undaunted landgrave William V.,
and after his early death by his widow, that Amelia
Elizabeth, whom no one that studies this war can
name without reverence, forms a brilliant ex-
ception. Despite the opposition of Saxony, the
Protestant princes and towns of South Germany,
at the convention of Heilbronn, April 9th, 1633,
concluded, under the guidance of Oxenstierna ^,
that alliance among themselves and with Sweden
of which Gustavus Adolphus had laid the foun-
dation 3. On the same day the alliance between
Sweden and France was renewed. Their amity
had grown cold in the king’s last days, and after
the passage of the Lech by Gustavus Adolphus,
Lewis XIII. said to the Venetian minister :
" It is
time to set bounds to the progress of this Goth."
The French minister in Heilbronn now contri-
buted to form this alliance, but likewise to limit
the supreme direction of the war, which was com-
mitted to Oxenstierna as legate of Sweden *.
Measures, dictated by equity, favour, or necessity,
marked his entrance on the exercise of this autho-
rity. The Palatinate was ceded to the heirs of the
unfortunate Frederic’, Mannheim only retaining a
Swedish garrison. The Swedish legate was sur-
rounded by suitors. Bernard of Weimar availed
himself of circumstances to i-equest and obtain
from the reluctant chancellor, Swedish letters of
investitui’e to the duchy of Franconia*. It was on
him towards the individual members of the assembly in the
confeffences, but to demand there public audience to speak
to them altogether." (Le due de Saxe, qui est le plus glo-
rieux des AUemands, &c.) Mem. de Richelieu, vii. 337.
3 "
They chose for their place of deliberation the house of
Oxenstierna, who, seeing a dispute on the subject of precedence
sliding in among them, caused all the seats to be removed,
and affairs to be discussed by them standing." (lis choisirent
pour lieu de consulter, &c.) Mem. de Christine, iii. 84.
• " The said Oxenstierna wished to have his elbows free
in the direction of the affairs of Germany, which was of
great prejudice to the Catholic religion." Ibid. 349. Com-
pare Lettres et Negociations du Marquis de Feuquiferes.
" It was found good to assign him a constituted council of
well-qualified persons, and sufficient instructions, j’et that the
final resolution in matters of war should at all times remain
with him." Chemnitz, ii. 49.
5 The delivery had no sooner taken place than the coun-
cillors of the elector palatine, who were of the reformed con-
fession, began to persecute the Lutherans, and take from
them the churches which Gustavus Adolphus had conceded
to them, so that Oxenstierna was constrained to interpose.
Chemnitz, ii. 139.
6 The royal Swedish letter donatory for the duchy of
Franconia, and the two bishoprics of Wurtzburg and Bam-
berg (referring to the promise of Gustavus Adolphus), was
subscribed by Oxenstierna at Heidelberg, June 10, 1633. It
may be read in Rose, Duke Bernard of Weimar, i. paper 25.
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