The war had scarcely opened when, the Imperial office falling vacant, the Bohemian king, Ferdinand, was elected emperor. With the power and influence he now wielded, it was not a difficult matter for him to quell the Protestant insurrection in his royal dominions. The leaders of the revolt were executed, and the reformed faith in Bohemia was almost uprooted.
The Danish Period (1625–1629).—The situation of affairs at this moment in Germany filled all the Protestant rulers of the North with the greatest alarm. Christian IV., king of Denmark, supported by England and Holland, threw himself into the struggle as the champion of German Protestantism. He now becomes the central figure on the side of the reformers. On the side of the Catholics are two noted commanders,—Tilly, the leader of the forces of the Holy League, and Wallenstein, the commander of the Imperial army. What is known as the Danish period of the war now begins (1625).
The war, in the main, proved disastrous to the Protestant allies, and Christian IV. was constrained to conclude a treaty of peace with the emperor (Peace of Liibeck, 1629), and retire from the struggle.
By what is known as the Edict of Restitution (1629), the Emperor Ferdinand now restored to the Catholics all the ecclesiastical lands and offices in North Germany of which possession had been taken by the Protestants in violation of the terms of the Peace of Augsburg. This decree gave back to the Catholic Church two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, besides many monasteries and other ecclesiastical property.
The Swedish Period (1630–1635); Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein, and Tilly.—At this moment of seeming triumph, Ferdinand was constrained by rising discontent and jealousies to dismiss from his service his most efficient general, Wallenstein, who had made almost all classes, save his soldiers, his bitter enemies. In his retirement, Wallenstein maintained a court of fabulous magnificence. Wherever he went he was followed by an imperial train of attendants and equipages. He was reserved and silent, but
