and the additional treaty of Augsburg in 1555 should be restored to them. The Romanist owners after their return were to be granted the right then belonging to all territorial lords in Germany, of obliging their new subjects to conform to their creed. During a period of nearly 80 years these possessions had frequently changed hands, and the edict would have reduced thousands of men to beggary and violated the religious convictions of hundreds of thousands. Had such a law been carried out—Gindely writes—North Germany would have been obliged to suffer a system of confiscation and anti-reformation, similar to that under which Bohemia was then groaning. Waldstein did not hesitate openly to blame the edict, and the Jesuits, Lamormain in particular, henceforth became his bitterest enemies. It was largely in consequence of this circumstance that when the German princes at the Diet which was held at Regensburg in 1630 demanded that Waldstein should be deprived of his command, Ferdinand consented to this with very little hesitation. Waldstein made no attempt to retain his command. He retired to Bohemia, where he lived partly in the magnificent palace which he had built at Prague, partly on his vast estates.
The triumph of Catholicism in Northern Germany was short-lived. On July 6, 1630, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, landed on the island of Usedom and in a very short time subdued a large part of Northern Germany. It is not my purpose to refer here to the events of the Thirty Years' War, except on the not infrequent occasions when they had a direct influence on the fate of Bohemia. After the Elector of Saxony had—abandoning his former allies—joined the Swedish king, the combined Protestant armies decisively defeated the forces of the Imperialists and the German Romanists at Breitenfeld near Leipzig on September 17, 1631.
After his great victory Gustavus Adolphus hesitated what course to pursue. Some of his councillors advised him to march from Saxony directly into Bohemia and Moravia, whence the road to Vienna lay open. Many of Waldstein's generals had followed their chief into retirement and had dismissed their soldiers. The population of Bohemia and Moravia, which had endured ten years of incessant persecution, was bitterly disaffected to the Habsburg dynasty and to the Roman clergy. There is little doubt that an invasion
