but immediately after the murders Colonel Butler and Captain Devereux hurried to his residence. He was quite unprepared and was immediately assassinated by Captain Devereux (February 25).
The fall of Waldstein[1] was followed by a new series of extensive confiscations in Bohemia. The numerous estates of the Duke of Friedland and his principal adherents were seized by the Imperial government and were granted to the generals of Waldstein who had remained faithful to the Emperor, and to the officers who had taken part in the murder of Waldstein. We now find several Irish and Scotch names among the new owners of Bohemian estates. The events that immediately followed the death of the Duke of Friedland certainly speak for the wisdom of the Jesuits who had demanded his recall. King Ferdinand III, son of the Emperor Ferdinand, took the command of the Imperial armies, and it was decided to pursue an energetic policy against Sweden and France while endeavouring to negotiate with the Elector of Saxony. The Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna attempted meanwhile to unite the Protestant principalities and free towns of Germany for the purpose of combined action. Their representatives met under his presidency at Frankfurt on April 7, 1634. All parts of Protestant Germany were represented, and the Bohemian exiles also sent envoys who requested aid against Ferdinand. The Elector of Saxony was also represented, but his envoys maintained an attitude of distrust to Sweden, endeavouring to separate that country from its German allies. Whatever hopes Oxenstierna may have had were dissipated by the great victory which the Romanists, led by two princes of the house of Habsburg—King Ferdinand III and the Cardinal Infanta Don Fernando—obtained at Nordlingen on September 5 and 6, 1634. For a moment it appeared as if all the results of the victories of Gustavus Adolphus had been lost.
- ↑ The projects of Waldstein have recently been stated very clearly by Professor Pekář in his masterly work, Dějiny Waldštynského Spiknutí (history of Waldstein's conspiracy). Waldstein, an unscrupulous condottiere, can by no means be considered as a Bohemian patriot. Being Bohemian he was, however, fully aware of the great disaffection that still existed in his country, and he intended to use it to obtain the Bohemian crown. This is particularly proved by the close relations which he in the last years of his life entertained with the Bohemian exiles.
