Help us create a biggest collection of medieval chronicles and manuscripts on line.
#   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z 
Medieval chronicles, historical sources, history of middle ages, texts and studies

WILLIAM STUBBS Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects

DOWNLOAD THE ONLY FULL EDITIONS of

Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of England, France, Spain and the Ajoining Countries from the latter part of the reign of Edward II to the coronation of Henry IV in 12 volumes 

Chronicles of Enguerrand De Monstrelet (Sir John Froissart's Chronicles continuation) in 13 volumes 

 
 
 
  Previousall pages

Next  

WILLIAM STUBBS
Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects
page 270



264 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. [X. new territorial force. Here too the religious influence produces cross division ; the Lutheran and the Calvinist will not fight side by side ; the Bavarian sets Catholicism before imperialism ; Austria sets the family interest before either ; yet Austria is as Catholic as the Jesuits and as imperial as the jurists can make her. But notwithstanding this cross influence of rights and ideas, the Thirty Years' War is mainly a war of force, a war for determining the balance, not between ideas or rights, not between competing religions o r competing liberties, but between armed sovereignties and territorial aggregations. Make the utmost of the idealism of Gustavus Adolphus, the legal pretexts of his interference are even worse founded than those under which Denmark in the earlier stage of the war had thrown in her lot as against the empire; and the idealism of Gustavus, his high and noble purpose of coming down as the saviour of religion, ends in the artificial aggrandisement of Sweden, as the luckless intriguing policy of Christian ends in the complete humiliation of Denmark. The interference of France, without sympathy of idea, without pretext of legality, is a simple intrusion of force. But I pass on. The Thirty Years' War exhausted Germany; even the victorious powers were worn out, much more the defeated ones : the stage is left clear for the glories of Lewis XIV. ' The state is myself.' ' The right is the glory of France.' Perhaps the lurid glare of the glories of this act, the act of the Great Monarch, throws a shade on minor actors and less prominent motives, but it can scarcely be misread ; it is the triumph of force over both old rights and new ideas ; a régime in which might is construed as right. The dominance of the idea of force in the aggression produces a corresponding infiuence in the resisting powers. They are bound not by sympathy but by necessity; the alliances that resist the great monarch are alliances of expediency, not of principle, and


  Previous First Next  
 
 
 
 

"Medievalist" is an educational project designed as a digital collection of chronicles, documents and studies related to the middle age history. All materials from this site are permitted for non commersial use unless otherwise indicated. If you reduplicate documents from here you have to indicate "Medievalist" as a source and place link to us.