THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
At the beginning of the 17th century Europe was poised for war. The Kingdom of Spain was intent on conquering the northern Netherlands, and France was determined to stop it. Both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire – which primarily covered modern-day Germany – were being ruled by members of the formidable House of Habsburg. The Kingdom of France was ruled by a rival dynasty and found itself sandwiched between Habsburg Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. France watched Spain’s army with a suspicious eye, resolving to stop it from advancing on the Netherlands and gaining yet more territory near France’s own border.
As well as the territorial struggles between kingdoms, religiosity added another layer of friction to the situation in Europe. Since the Reformation in 1517, Protestantism and its two major subreligions, Lutheranism and Calvinism, had spread throughout the continent. The surge of Protestants had fractured relationships both between countries and within their own borders. Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Hungary and others maintained traditional Catholicism as their state religion. Meanwhile, England, Denmark, Sweden and the northern Netherlands had converted to Protestantism. Yet within national borders the semi-independent regions practised conflicting Christian religions to that of the state.
Nowhere was this so hotly contested than in the Holy Roman Empire. The six German princes who served and elected the emperor (alongside the Elector of Bohemia) were evenly divided between Catholicism and Protestantism. In fact, the divisions had grown so deep that the princes had split into opposing forces named the Protestant Union and the Catholic League. The reigning Emperor Matthias and his chosen successor, Archduke Ferdinand II, did not appreciate the growing threat of the Protestants and plotted to oppress their religious freedoms. So while Europe was watching France, Spain and the Netherlands nervously, expectant of an impending war, they were caught by surprise when conflict broke out not to the west but in Prague, the violence sparked by an angry mob hurling some imperial advisors out of a window in an event that became known as the Defenestration of Prague.
As Matthias’ successor,
