Cancellaria Hispanica
Cancellaria Hispanica was a book published by Ludwig Camerarius in March 1622, in which secret correspondence between Emperor Ferdinand II and Duke Maximilian I was published. The negotiations presented in it fueled the anti-imperial forces in the empire and abroad and were decisive for the expansion of the local conflicts in Bohemia and the Palatinate to a Europe-wide struggle that formed the Thirty Years War .
prehistory
After the lintel in Prague and the subsequent general uprising in Bohemia against Emperor Ferdinand, Frederick of the Palatinate was offered the Bohemian royal crown, which he accepted after a short hesitation. In addition to the King of Spain Philip IV, the emperor succeeded in gaining the Catholic League and, in particular, Duke Maximilian as an ally in the war against the Bohemian insurgents and thus a clear superiority. Friedrich, on the other hand, found hardly any allies, only the States General supported the army of Friedrich's mercenary leader Ernst von Mansfeld and at times Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania undertook attacks on Austria. But the decisive majority of the Protestant princes, especially the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Duke of Saxony , remained neutral. Thus the emperor could have the hope of waging a small, locally limited war with the Bohemians and the Palatinate. So it was not surprising that after the defeat of the Bohemians in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 and the occupation of the Palatinate by the Spaniard Spinola in 1621, Friedrich no longer had a power base in the empire and had to flee to the Netherlands. Here, too, despite a certain distrust of the Protestant princes and the King of France, he found no further support, and the war seemed to be over. Duke Maximilian now urged the emperor to pay his support, and the emperor offered lands such as Upper Austria and the Upper Palatinate as well as Maximilian's much sought-after electoral dignity of the Palatinate. Both knew, however, that this would represent a blatant breach of the Golden Bull , one of the most important imperial laws of the time, and they negotiated in secret. However, one of the messengers carrying letters with the corresponding content was intercepted and the letters ended up with the leader of the Palatinate government in exile, Ludwig Camerarius .
publication
Camerarius immediately recognized the explosiveness of the documents and looked for a way to use them in the best possible way for his master Friedrich. He wrote a devastating commentary on the letters in which he relentlessly portrayed Ferdinand's intended breach of law, and published the book as a book in March 1622 with a significant edition of 500 copies.
consequences
The news sparked a wave of outrage inside and outside the empire, and many Protestant rulers, such as the Margrave of Brandenburg, the King of England, and the King of Denmark pledged support to Frederick. In particular, Denmark's entry into the war and the outbreak of war between France and Spain suddenly changed the situation for the Protestants. The emperor was forced to revise his promises to Maximilian and, among other things, to transfer him the electoral dignity only for life, but not hereditary. This annoyed the Duke, his most important ally, very much.
reception
The armies of Mansfeld and Christian were defeated by the general of the League Johann t'Serclaes von Tilly and the general of the emperor Albrecht von Wallenstein , especially in the battle of the Dessau Elbe bridge and in the battle of Lutter am Barenberge , and Denmark had to Peace of Lübeck retired from the war. Nevertheless, the possibility of limiting the Bohemian uprising to a regional war was gone forever. The great Protestant princes, especially of Brandenburg and Saxony, now supported the struggle against the emperor and received support from the foreign powers England, France and the Netherlands. When the Swedish King Gustav Adolf landed in Germany in 1630 and, after the victories against Tilly near Breitenfeld and Rain am Lech, gave the war a decisive turn, he invoked the imperial breach of law as presented in the 'Cancellaria Hispanica'. Cardinal Richelieu also resorted to this when France officially declared war on the Emperor in 1635.
According to historians, the book is largely responsible for the fact that the Thirty Years' War developed from a local war in Bohemia and the Palatinate to a pan-European war.
expenditure
literature
- Peter Englund: The devastation of Germany. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-91734-9 .
- Helmut Neuhold: The Thirty Years War. Marixverlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-86539-960-1 .