30YearsWar #15: 'The Right to Conspire'

Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents.

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Episode 15 - what's in the box?

Well, Bohemia continues to descend into rebellion, but its activism did not stop merely on the local, national level. Instead, Bohemians contacted known advocates of an anti-Habsburg conspiracy, and they landed on Ferdinand’s arch-rival, Frederick V, the Elector Palatine and sworn foe of the Habsburg supremacy. In the years since he had come to the office of Elector Palatine, Frederick’s regime had distinguished itself thanks to the policies of Christian of Anhalt, a radical anti-Habsburg, and charger of policy in Frederick’s stead. Anhalt arranged the more controversial agreements, and guaranteed that the British marriage went ahead, but Frederick was very far from his puppet. The Elector Palatine was more than willing and able to make moves himself, and Bohemia seemed to present the ideal opportunity to strike.

It wasn’t as though the Bohemians wished to instigate the Thirty Years War – above all, they wished to be able to trust their new King, Ferdinand. But try as they might, something seemed off. In a fit of optimism, their leaders made the cardinal error of approving Ferdinand’s position, only to regret it soon after. The new king had made a public show of accepting the Letters of Majesty, thereby accepting Bohemia’s claim to tolerations and privileges which made Ferdinand’s skin crawl. So how had he agreed to it? Well, to put it simply, he lied his head off. Princes might be required to honour agreements and treat honestly with their subjects, but Ferdinand’s religious advisors had assured him that breaking such deals with the Bohemian heretics was not a sin at all, and was in fact to be encouraged. Thus duped, the Bohemians were bound to do what Bohemians did best, and launch a rising for the third time in a decade. The writing was on the wall, but Ferdinand ignored it, and thus the first phase of a conflict which was to end in three decades at Westphalia was begun.

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