Thus the great conflict of Christendom, so long impending, seemed at
last to have broken forth in full fury on a comparatively insignificant
incident. Thus reasoned the superficial public, as if the throwing out
of window of twenty stadholders could have created a general war in
Europe had not the causes of war lain deep and deadly in the whole
framework of society.

The succession of Ferdinand to the throne of the holy Wenzel, in which
his election to the German Imperial crown was meant to be involved, was
a matter which concerned almost every household in Christendom. Liberty
of religion, civil franchise, political charters, contract between
government and subject, right to think, speak, or act, these were the
human rights everywhere in peril. A compromise between the two religious
parties had existed for half a dozen years in Germany, a feeble
compromise by which men had hardly been kept from each others' throats.
That compromise had now been thrown to the winds. The vast conspiracy
of Spain, Rome, the House of Austria, against human liberty had found a
chief in the docile, gloomy pupil of the Jesuits now enthroned in
Bohemia, and soon perhaps to wield the sceptre of the Holy Roman Empire.
There was no state in Europe that had not cause to put hand on sword-
hilt. "Distrust and good garrisons," in the prophetic words of
Barneveld, would now be the necessary resource for all intending
to hold what had been gained through long years of toil, martyrdom,
and hard fighting,

The succession of Ferdinand excited especial dismay and indignation in
the Palatinate. The young elector had looked upon the prize as his own.
The marked advance of Protestant sentiment throughout the kingdom and its
neighbour provinces had seemed to render the succession of an extreme
Papist impossible. When Frederic had sued for and won the hand of the