The Thirty Years War — Volume 05 by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
page 13 of 64 (20%)
page 13 of 64 (20%)
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Prague. Equal justice, however, towards all, might perhaps have
restored confidence between the head of the Empire and its members-- between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics--between the Reformed and the Lutheran party; and the Swedes, abandoned by all their allies, would in all probability have been driven from Germany with disgrace. But this inequality strengthened, in those who were more severely treated, the spirit of mistrust and opposition, and made it an easier task for the Swedes to keep alive the flame of war, and to maintain a party in Germany. The peace of Prague, as might have been expected, was received with very various feelings throughout Germany. The attempt to conciliate both parties, had rendered it obnoxious to both. The Protestants complained of the restraints imposed upon them; the Roman Catholics thought that these hated sectaries had been favoured at the expense of the true church. In the opinion of the latter, the church had been deprived of its inalienable rights, by the concession to the Protestants of forty years' undisturbed possession of the ecclesiastical benefices; while the former murmured that the interests of the Protestant church had been betrayed, because toleration had not been granted to their co-religionists in the Austrian dominions. But no one was so bitterly reproached as the Elector of Saxony, who was publicly denounced as a deserter, a traitor to religion and the liberties of the Empire, and a confederate of the Emperor. In the mean time, he consoled himself with the triumph of seeing most of the Protestant states compelled by necessity to embrace this peace. The Elector of Brandenburg, Duke William of Weimar, the princes of Anhalt, the dukes of Mecklenburg, the dukes of Brunswick Lunenburg, the Hanse towns, and most of the imperial cities, acceded to it. The Landgrave |
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