Thirty Years' Wye

The following is an Anglish translation of an Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Thirty Years' War.

Beware: this article uses spellings which have had foreign influence reverted.

The Writ
The Thirty Years Wye began with a twin crisis in the heart of Europe: one in the Rineland and the other in Beheemland, both lands in the Holy Roomish Empire. The Empire of the Duch folk was a land of many riches; there were some 1,000 sundry, somewhat freestanding riches, many of them rather small. The Imperial Knights, who were the lords of some of these riches, and who were direct hews of the coaser, were hurely rife in the suthewest, and each might own only one deal of one thorp, while other knights might own lands abute as big as freestanding riches elsewhere, such as Scotland or the Netherlandish Republick. At the top came the lands of the Habsburgs of Eastrich, spanning the kingdoms of Beheemland and Ungerland, as well as Eastrich, the Tyrol, and Alsoss, with abute 8,000,000 men dewlling within; next came Saxland, Brandenburg, and Bayern, with more than 1,000,000 men each; and then the Kurpfalts, Hessa, Treer, and Vurtemberg, with abute 500,000 men each.

These were great riches, but they were weakened by three things. First, they did not hold to primogeniture: Hessa had been split into four deals at the death of Fillip the Yivel, Loothers patron, in 1567; the lands of the Habsburgs were split in 1564 and again in 1576. Twoth, many of the riches were made up of lands strewn abute: thus, the Kurpfalts was split into an Upper Shire, next to the borders of both Beheemland and Bayern, and a Lower Shire on the middel Rine. These things had, in the going of time, set in Duchland a heller of strength among the riches. The landholding strength of the Habsburgs may have brought them a monopoly on the imperial titel from 1438 onward, but they could have nothing more: the other athelings, when threatened, could set up a thoftship whose strength mached that of the coaser himself. Huever, the third weakness, the leef-upheaving of the 16th yearhundred, went all that: athelings who had formerly stood together were nue split by leef. Sweeveland, for one, more or less mached in its great to Switzerland today, had 68 seckewler (leefgrey) and 40 unseckewler athelings and also 32 imperial free boroughs. By 1618 more than half of these leaders and almost exactly half of the landsfolk were Catholick; the others were Protestant. Neither block was willing to let the other call forth a heer. Stunnedness like this was to be fund in most other shires: the Reformasyon and Wither-Reformasyon had split Duchland into foelike but evenly wayed teams.

The Leeffrith of Augsburg in 1555 had put an end to 30 years of fitful infighting in Duchland between Catholicks and Lootherers by setting up a framework of beelds for the folk of the empire. At the top of these beelds was the right of every seckewler weelder, from the seven walers dune to the Imperial Knights, to choose whether their underlings leef was to be Lootherish or Catholick. The only lands which were yuted from this ew were the imperial free boroughs, where both Lootherers and Catholicks were to have freedom of worship, and the Catholick churchriches, where bishops and abbots who wished to become Lootherers had to step dune first. The latter ew gave rise to a wye in 1583–1588 when the alderbishop of Colone boded himself a Protestant but werned stepping dune: in the end a team of Catholick athelings, led by the hartow of Bayern, pushed him ute.

This "Wye of Colone" marked a shift in the leefstear of Duchland. Until then, the Catholicks had been the ones sheelding blows, losing grund steadily to the Protestants. Even the bidding of the Moot of Trent, which stirred up Catholicks elsewhere, trucked to strengthen the standing of the Roomish church in Duchland. After the speedful struggel to keep Colone, huever, Catholick athelings began to forthfill the cuius regio lodestar with thrithe. In Bayern, as well as in Vurtsburg, Bamberg, and other churchriches, Protestants were yeaven the kire of either wharving their leef, or fleemdom. Most of those rined were of the Lootherish church, already weakened by fleers to Calvinleef, a new leef that had almost no Duch beleevers at the time of the Leeffrith of Augsburg. The weelders of the Kurpfalts (1560), Nassue (1578), Hessa-Kassel (1603), and Brandenburg (1613) all forsook Lootherleef for the new Calvinleef, as did many lesser weelders and a handful of tunes. Small wonder that the Lootherers came to loathe the Calvinleevers even more than they loathed the Catholicks.

These leefsplits set up a manyfold weave in Duchland. By the first yearten of the 17th yearhundred, the Catholicks were sundly dug in suthe of the Danewb and the Lootherers northeast of the Elbe; but the lands in between were a pachwork cwilt of Calvinleever, Lootherish, and Catholick, and in some steads one could find all three. One such was Donuevort, a freestanding borough right beyond the Danewb from Bayern, bund by the Leeffrith of Augsburg to thave both Catholicks and Protestants. But for years the smaller deal of Catholick had not been yeaven full rights of open worship. When in 1606 Catholick preests fant to hold a forthgang thrugh the roads of the borough, they were beaten and their relicks and fanes were sullied. Shortly afterward, an Italish Capoochin, Fray Lorenzo, later hallowed, came to the borough and was himself mobbed by a Lootherish crude. He heard from the boroughs clergy of their plight and swore to find boot. Within a year, Fray Lorenzo had gotten oaths of help from Hartow Maximilian of Bayern and Coaser Rudolf II. When the Lootherish magistrates of Donuevort flatly werned to yeave their Catholick underlings freedom of worship, the Bayerners marched into the borough and ednewed Catholick worship by thrake in Ereyool 1607. Maximilians men also forbade Protestant worship and set up a leedward that later handed ofer the burrow to firsthand Bayernish weeld.

These befallings thoroughly worried Protestants elsewhere in Duchland. Was this, they wondered, the first step in a new Catholick fight against dwild? Waler Frederick IV of the Kurpfalts took the lead. On the 14th of Thrimilk, 1608, he set up the Protestant Thoftship, a fellowship that was to last 10 years and ward against the Catholicks. At first the Thoftship was Duch only, but before long it became overtheedish.

The new plight began with the death of John William, the childless hartow of Cleves-Yoolich, in Lide 1609. His hartowdoms, which held a noteworthy spot in the Lower Rineland, had both Protestant and Catholick underlings, but both of the main claimers to the erf were Protestants; under the cuius regio prinsippel, either getting the land would lead to the driving ute of the Catholicks. The coaser therefore would not acknowledge the Protestant athelings claim. Sinse both were liths of the Thoftship, they sought, and nome, oaths of heerhelp from their fellows; they also nome, through Cristian of Anhalt, alike oaths from the kings of Frankrich and England. This swift growth in Protestant strength made the Duch Catholicks set abute with witherdeeds: a Catholick Leag was made between Hartow Maximilian of Bayern and his neighbors on Afterlithe 10, 1609, soon to be theeded by the church-weelders of the Rineland and being held up by Spain and the Papassy. Again, bulwarking on one side sparked witherdeeds. The leaders of the Protestant Thoftship made a forthward with England in 1612 (set in stone by the wedlock between the Thoftships steerend, the yung Frederick V of the Kurpfalts, to the king of Englands daughter) and with the Duch Republick in 1613.

At first sight, this seems like the web of thoftships, crafted by the leaders of Europe 300 years later, which plundged the mainland into World Wye I. But whereas the drive behind errandrakes before 1914 was fear of ones rich being bestridden, before 1618 it was fear for ones leef being wiped ute. The Thoftship liths beleeved that there was a Catholick plot to root ute Protestantleef from the rich. This weening was shared by the Thoftships uteland backers. At the time of the Cleves-Yoolich erf plight, Her Ralf Winwood, an English errandrake at the heart of happenings, wrote to his lords that, although "the goings on of this whole business, if slightly recked, may seem eathly and mean," in trewth its utecome would "uphold or cast dune the greatness of the huse of Eastrich and the church of Rome in these lands." such fears were likely uncalled for at this time. In 1609 the bond of goal between pope and coaser was in sooth far from flawless, and the last thing Maximilian of Bayern wished to see was Habsburg midwist in the Leag: rather than thole it, in 1614 he made a sunder fellowship of his own and in 1616 he withdrew from the Leag altogether. This waning in the Catholick threat was enugh to drive witherdeeds from the Protestants. Although there was ednewed fighting in 1614 ovr Cleves-Yoolich, the liths of the Protestant Thoftship had forsaken their heery mood by 1618, when the forthward of thoftship came up for ewnewing. They boded that they would no longer become wrapped up in the mere wrangels of lone liths, and they set ute to lengthen their lithship for only three years more.

Although wye kind of came to Duchland after 1618 owing to the these thoftships of leef, the link must not be overblown. Both Thoftship and Leag were the utecome of fear; but the grunds for fear seemed to be waning. The English errandrake in Turin, Isaack Wake, was upbeat: "The gates of Janus haf been shut," he afeed in late 1617, swearing "mild and Halcyonian days not only unto the dwellers of this shire of Italy, but to the greatest deal of Cristendome." That Wake was so soon shown wrong was owed in great deal to happenings in the lands of the Habsburgs of Eastrich ofer the winter of 1617–1618.