Thirty Years' Wye

The following is a partial 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 Roomisc Coaserdom. The coaserdom was a land of many underricces; there were some 1,000 sundry, somewhat freestanding underricces, many of them rather small. The Coaser Knights, who were the lords of some of these lesser ricces, and who were firsthand hews of the coaser, were hurely rife in the suthewest, and eac might own only one deal of one thorp, while other knights might own lands abute as big as freestanding ricces elsewhere, suc as Scotland or the Netherlandisc Commonwealth. Greatest in the Duc ric were the lands of the Habsburgs of Eastric, spanning the kingdoms of Beheemland and Ungerland, as well as Eastric, Tyrol, and Alsoss, with abute 8,000,000 men dewlling within. The next greatest were Saxland, Brandenburg, and Bayern, with more than 1,000,000 men eac. Next, the Kurpfalts, Hesse, Treer, and Württemberg, with abute 500,000 men eac.

These were strong ricces, but they were weakened by three things. First, they did not hold to primogeniture: Hesse had been split into four deals at the death of Fillip the Yifel, Loothers patron, in 1567; the lands of the Habsburgs were split in 1564 and again in 1576. Twoth, many of the ricces were made up of lands strewn abute; the Kurpfalts was split into an upper scire, next to the borders of both Beheemland and Bayern, and a lower scire on the middel Rine. These things had, in the going of time, set in Ducland a heller of strength among the ricces. The strength of the Habsburgs may haf brought them a monopoly on the coaserisc titel from 1438 onward, but they could haf nothing more: the other athelings, when threatened, could set up a thoftscip whose strength macced that of the coaser himself. Huefer, the third weakness, the leef upheafing of the 16th yearhundred, went all that; athelings who had formerly stood together were nue split by leef. Sweefeland, for one, more or less macced in its great to Switzerland today, had 68 seckewler and 40 unseckewler athelings and also 32 coaserisc free boroughs. By 1618 more than half of these leaders and almost right 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 scires: the Reformasyon and Wither-Reformasyon had split Ducland into foelike but efenly weighed teams.

The Leeffrith of Augsburg in 1555 had put an end to 30 years of fitful infighting in Ducland between Catholicks and Lootherers by setting up a framework of beelds for the folk of the coaserdom. At the top of these beelds was the right of efery seckewler weelder, from the sefen walers dune to the Coaser Knights, to ceoose whether their underlings leef was to be Lootherisc or Catholick. The only lands whic were yuted from this ew were the free boroughs, where both Lootherers and Catholicks were to haf freedom of worscip, and the Catholick circricces, where biscops and abbots who wisced to become Lootherers had to step dune before doing so. The latter ew gafe rise to a wye from 1583 to 1588 when the alderbiscop of Colone boded himself a Protestant but would not step dune. In the end a team of Catholick athelings, led by the hartow of Bayern, pusced him ute.

This Wye of Colone marked a scift in the leefstear of Ducland. Until then, the Catholicks had been the ones sceelding themselfs from blows, losing grund steadily to the Protestants. Efen the bidding of the Moot of Trent, whic stirred up Catholicks elsewhere, trucked to strengthen the standing of the Catholick Circ in Ducland. After the speedful struggel to keep Colone, huefer, Catholick athelings began to forthfill the cuius regio lodestar with thrithe. In Bayern, as well as in Würzburg, Bamberg, and other circricces, Protestants were yeafen the kire of either wharfing their leef, or fleemdom. Most of those rined were of the Lootherisc circ, already weakened by fleers to Calvinleef, a new leef that had almost no Duc beleefers at the time of the Leeffrith of Augsburg. The weelders of the Kurpfalts (1560), Nassue (1578), Hesse-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 Calviners efen more than they loathed the Catholicks.

These leefsplits set up a manifold weafe in Ducland. 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 pacwork cwilt of Calvinisc, Loothererisc, and Catholick, and in some steads one could find all three. One suc was Donuevort, a freestanding borough right beyond the Danewb from Bayern, bund by the Leeffrith of Augsburg to thafe both Catholicks and Protestants. But for years the smaller deal of Catholicks in the borough had not been yeafen full rights of open worscip. 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. Scortly afterward, an Italisc Capuchin, Fray Lorenzo, later hallowed, came to the borough and was himself mobbed by a Lootherisc 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 Lootherisc wickners of Donuevort flatly werned to yeafe their Catholick underlings freedom of worscip, the Bayerners went into the borough and ednewed Catholick worscip by thrake in Ereyool 1607. Maximilians men also forbade Protestant worscip and set up a leedward that later handed ofer the borough to firsthand Bayernisc weeld.

These befallings thoroughly worried Protestants elsewhere in Ducland. 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 Thoftscip, a fellowscip that was to last 10 years and ward against the Catholicks. At first the Thoftscip was Duc only, but before long it became ofertheedisc.

The new plight began with the death of John William, the cildless hartow of Cleves-Jülich, in Lide 1609. His hartowdoms, whic held a worthy spot in the Lower Rineland, had both Protestant and Catholick underlings, but both of the main claimers to the erf were Protestants; under cuius regio, either of them getting the land would lead to the drifing ute of the Catholicks. The coaser therefore would not acknowledge the Protestant athelings claims. Sinse both were men of the Thoftscip, they sought, and num, oaths from their fellows to fight on their behalfs; they also num, through Cristian of Anhalt, alike oaths from the kings of Frankric and England. This swift growth in Protestant strength made the Duc Catholicks answer in kind: a Catholick Leag was made between Hartow Maximilian of Bayern and his neighbors in Afterlithe 1609, and they were soon to be theeded by the circweelders of the Rineland, and were soon to get help from Spain and the Pope. Again, bulwarking on one side led to witherdeeds from the other team. The leaders of the Protestant Thoftscip made a forthward with England in 1612, whic was set in stone by the wedlock between the Thoftscips steerend, the yung Frederick V of the Kurpfalts, to the king of Englands daughter. Another forthward was made with the Netherlandisc Commonwealth in 1613.

At first sight this seems like the web of thoftscips spun by the leaders of Europe 300 years later whic drofe the mainland into World Wye I. But whereas the drife behind errandrakes before 1914 was fear of ones ric being bestridden, before 1618 it was fear for ones leef being wiped ute. The liths of the Thoftscip beleefed that there was a Catholick plot to root ute Protestant leef from the ric. This weening was scared by the Thoftscips uteland backers. At the time of the Cleves-Jülich erf plight, Her Ralf Winwood, an Englisc errandrake at the heart of the ado, 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 Eastric and the circ of Rome in these lands." suc fears were likely uncalled for at this time. In 1609 scared goal of the Pope and coaser was in sooth far from flawless, and the last thing Maximilian of Bayern wisced to see was Habsburg midwist in the Leag: rather than thole it, in 1614 he made a sunder fellowscip of his own and in 1616 he withdrew from the Leag altogether. This waning in the Catholick threat was enugh to drife witherdeeds from the Protestants. Although there was ednewed fighting in 1614 ofer Cleves-Jülich, the liths of the Thoftscip had lost their wyemood by 1618. They boded that they would no longer become wrapped up in the wrangels of lone liths, and they set ute to lengthen their lithscip for only three years more.