Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (106 page)

The Dutch initially struggled to govern without a king, briefly raising the prospect, between 1577 and 1581, that they might accept Archduke Matthias, the future emperor, as a constitutional monarch. He was followed by François d’Anjou as
prince et seigneur
until the latter’s death in 1584 coincided with more favourable military circumstances that enabled radicals to consolidate a more republican form of government.
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A serious monarchical element was nonetheless retained in the position of ‘stadholder’, or governor appointed by the States of each province. These positions could be combined by one person, enabling the influential princes of Orange to assume political leadership of the republic for long periods.
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The Dutch were thus well on their way to establishing an Estates-based republic when the Protestant nobility of the Austrian monarchy sought to use similar institutions to underpin their bid for constitutional and religious liberties after 1618. The Bohemian and Austrian Estates were well established and accustomed to cooperating across provincial boundaries to coordinate taxes and defence against the Turks. They also had strong ties to their Polish and Hungarian equivalents thanks to the legacy of common rule under the Jagiellon family. Many
Humanists considered Polish and Czech as dialects of a common language, while aristocrats of all four countries were frequently multilingual, or could at least converse with each other in Latin. Study at German and Italian universities provided further common bonds, as did military service against the Turks. Above all, they shared concepts of corporate rights (
libertates
), conceiving themselves as a
societas civilis
sustained by individual engagement for the public good through office-holding, representation in provincial diets and general opposition to
dominium absolutum
, or unrestrained royal rule, considered dangerous to all inhabitants.
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The ideology of the Estates as public guardians gained ground with the Habsburg failures and dynastic infighting after 1606, while concessions from the rival archdukes added to each province’s store of privileges. The famous Letter of Majesty extorted from Rudolf II allowed the Protestant members of the Bohemian Estates to establish what amounted to a parallel government after 1609. However, the dynasty’s renewed confidence enticed many key figures to signal renewed loyalty by converting to Catholicism. Skilful management ensured that the Bohemian diet accepted Archduke Ferdinand, the future emperor, as their king in June 1617.
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The Bohemian elite was thus far from united when the radical malcontents staged the Defenestration of Prague in May 1618, precipitating a full-scale revolt.

However, it would be wrong to see the revolt in the Austrian Habsburg lands as doomed on account of its largely aristocratic leadership, compared to their supposedly more progressive, bourgeois Dutch equivalents. The Dutch provinces were already Europe’s most economically advanced region. The rebels benefited from continued economic growth, enabling them to develop permanent, disciplined armed forces whose loyalty was secured through regular pay.
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This enabled the Dutch to win independence with the conventional military methods of a regular army under state control, despite the significance of both their civic militia and maritime piracy to republican ideology. Theirs was not a people’s war. The Bohemian and Austrian rebels attempted the same, even preferring to negotiate for Ottoman military aid rather than arm their peasants. However, they never solved their financial problems, and their army’s discontent at its pay arrears was a major factor in its catastrophic defeat at White Mountain in 1620.
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The Bohemian rebels formally deposed Ferdinand and established
the
Confoederatio Bohemica
on 31 July 1619.
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The five Bohemian provinces established a Confederation, whilst retaining self-government like the Dutch provinces. Although in many ways still conservative, the Confederation’s leadership adopted new institutions, like a general diet of all five provinces and a common supreme court. In an effort to make the union work, Bohemia accepted parity of status and rights with the other four provinces. The Confederation was extended on 16 August through a federation with the Protestant rebel factions in Upper and Lower Austria, while later an alliance was formed with the prince of Transylvania, who had instigated renewed revolt in Habsburg Hungary. The Confederates designed their constitution ahead of offering the Bohemian crown to Frederick V, the elector Palatine, who unwisely accepted, thereby widening the revolt into the Thirty Years War (see
pp. 123–6
). Whilst following a broadly similar trajectory to the Dutch, the Bohemian rebels moved faster in rejecting the Habsburgs, thanks to their stronger identity as a distinct country.

Like the Dutch, they faced considerable problems in rallying the support of the wider population. There were still substantial Catholic minorities, who were discriminated against under the new constitution and whose presence increased the Habsburgs’ incentive to continue fighting. The leading rebels were largely Calvinists, whereas the majority of Bohemians were Utraquists or Lutherans. The obviously Calvinist bias of Frederick V and his courtiers alienated many Bohemians.
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Religious diversity was both greater and more problematic than during the Dutch Revolt. Despite their common bonds, there were also significant divisions between Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, as well as amongst their component provinces, while the tradition of general diets was less established than that of the Burgundian States General. Concern for provincial liberties frustrated military and fiscal coordination, seriously undermining the Confederation’s war effort.

Wider circumstances were also against the Bohemians and their allies. Their uprising was broadly regarded as a repeat of the earlier Dutch Revolt, which had been marked by sectarian violence and civil war. The Defenestration immediately rebounded on the rebels. Their preferred choice as leader, the Lutheran Saxon elector, Johann Georg I, refused to have anything to do with them and eventually aided Ferdinand II in crushing the rebellion. International assistance was less forthcoming or effective than that received by the Dutch, with the
Dutch themselves aiding the Bohemians only as a means to keep both Habsburg branches distracted.
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The Jülich-Cleves Estates Union

The historical prominence of the Dutch and Bohemian revolts has overshadowed another example of Estates-based federalism: the union of the Cleves, Mark, Jülich and Berg Estates in 1521. This was formed to match the acquisition of all four principalities by a single family previously ruling just Cleves and Mark. All four assemblies retained their own administration and laws, but the previous two pairings of Cleves-Mark and Jülich-Berg forged closer ties. Further consolidation was inhibited by the spread of Protestantism, which failed to convert all inhabitants, leaving the four principalities confessionally mixed. The Estates also suffered from the usual tensions between nobles and towns over the subdivision of tax burdens. However, the duke was also unable to forge a more unitary administration, not least due to his defeat by Charles V in 1542–3 over rival claims to Geldern, which left him with 633,000 talers in debt. The duke was then forced to allow the four Estates a greater role in governance.

The Estates retained influence throughout the sixteenth century, thanks to further problems. The Dutch Revolt after 1566 threatened to destabilize the entire Lower Rhine, while the accession of the mentally ill Duke Johann Wilhelm in 1592 opened the question of succession as he had no direct heirs. The ducal government regularly dealt with a combined committee representing the four Estates from the 1580s, especially to promote an irenic form of Christianity intended to reduce sectarianism and deny outsiders excuses for intervention. A month ahead of Johann Wilhelm’s death in May 1609, the Estates agreed to remain united and not to favour either of the two main claimants, Brandenburg or Pfalz-Neuburg. They failed to prevent a short war in 1609–10 that led to de facto partition, with Brandenburg holding Cleves and Mark, and Pfalz-Neuburg occupying Jülich and Berg. Nonetheless, Estates’ envoys continued to work for an amicable settlement, and they were included collectively in the Treaty of Xanten (1614), by which Spain and the Dutch avoided open war by mutually accepting continued partition of this strategic area.
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The Estates renewed their union in 1647 as it was feared the
partition might become permanent. They hoped to preserve the integrity of the four principalities and their associated dependencies in Ravenstein and Ravensberg. These goals were traditional and the Estates did not seek to usurp princely powers and form a republic. However, the princes suspected them of wanting to ‘turn Dutch’ through a federation with the United Provinces. Dutch commercial and religious influence was strong across the Lower Rhine and Westphalia, and was underpinned between 1614 and 1679 by the occupation of strategic small towns.
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Charges of seeking to join the Dutch were also levelled against the Estates of both East Frisia and the bishopric of Münster. The princes’ criticism reflected genuine fears for their own authority, but was also good propaganda since it presented the Estates as trying to leave the Empire. The Estates were also disadvantaged by the Peace of Westphalia, which firmly identified them as belonging to the mediate political sphere, thus clearly denying them the right to negotiate with external powers.

Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg was particularly aggressive, refusing to allow a general diet of the united Estates and attempting to isolate them by dealing with each individually. However, the elector overplayed his hand by invading Jülich-Berg in a bid to seize the entire inheritance in 1651. Although they lacked formal representation in the Reichstag, the Estates sent envoys to the meeting in 1653–4, causing Frederick William to fear that Emperor Ferdinand III might respond to their petition by depriving him of Cleves and Mark. However, the outcome indicated that the days of Estates unions were over. Ferdinand III preferred to deal with the elector, who, as an imperial prince, was party to much wider political issues, notably resolving Sweden’s relationship to the Empire following the Thirty Years War. Brandenburg’s compromise with Pfalz-Neuburg in 1666 removed the Estates’ last hope as both princes agreed that the partition was permanent and forbade further unions between the assemblies.
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Republicanism

Republican ideas were rarely involved in these struggles, except for the Dutch once they decided to reject Spanish rule entirely. Dutch republicanism was inspired by the late Humanist reading of ancient Greek and Roman history and philosophy that presented an idealized society of
sober, patriotic citizens.
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This aspect of the classical legacy was largely rejected in the Empire, which drew inspiration instead from imperial Rome. Later sixteenth-century observers interpreted the French and Netherlands civil wars as the direct consequence of ‘Monarchomachs
’
, or self-appointed ‘king-makers’ who had usurped divine authority and overturned all proper order. These beliefs were reinforced by the experience of the Bohemian Revolt and subsequent Thirty Years War, as well as the parallel British civil wars, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in January 1649 and Cromwell’s military dictatorship. By the late seventeenth century, German thinkers even criticized their few predecessors, like Johannes Althusius, who had advocated a greater role for territorial Estates in governance.
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Most commentators interpreted republicanism as moral rather than constitutional, relating it to the early modern ideal of a
res publica
, or a commonwealth where liberties were safeguarded by orderly government and the rule of law. This accorded Estates their traditional role as part of the broader multilayered legal structure protecting German liberties in the Empire.

Gottlieb Samuel Treuer was the first to link despotism explicitly with tyranny, in 1719, thereby encouraging a trend to discuss politics in binary abstract terms like freedom
or
slavery, rather than as remedies for specific problems. However, the Empire’s political pluralism encouraged most writers to focus on finding the right balance among existing institutions rather than present politics as a stark choice between diverging alternatives.
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The century after the Thirty Years War saw the slow acceptance of the idea of the impersonal state at the level of the Empire’s territories, defining these as public entities embodied less by their princes than by charters, laws and legal agreements belonging to all inhabitants. This adversely affected how many intellectuals viewed the Estates, which were increasingly criticized as sectional, corporate interest groups, rather than benevolent guardians of inhabitants’ liberties. Authors now assigned civil freedoms to a new conception of the private sphere, in which individuals were entitled to act as they pleased within the law, sheltered from arbitrary state intervention.

Debates increasingly hinged on what form of government could best guarantee such freedoms. The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 attracted wide attention, not least because America’s last king, George III, was also elector of Hanover and hired 30,000 Germans to suppress the kind of liberties many intellectuals desired for the
Empire. The war placed a ‘German’ monarch clearly in a despotic, even tyrannical role. The debate widened during the 1780s as intellectuals deliberately addressed wider audiences through the burgeoning periodicals and regular press, leading to calls for ‘people’s representation’ by 1790. These advocated replacing assemblies based on corporate social status, with gender and wealth criteria, simultaneously opening direct representation to all richer males, whilst still denying it to the poor and more clearly excluding all females.
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