160 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
having started at barely fifteen, but the loss of his inheritance and his
subsequent inability to find preferment in the Netherlands embittered
him and began the process of turning him from an adherent of the
Habsburgs into an enemy.^12
Peace with the Turks and the truce in the Netherlands left him with-
out military employment, so that he was glad to enlist with Archduke
Leopold at the beginning of the Cleves-Jülich conflict in 1609, but
he was soon captured and held prisoner. Unable to raise the ransom
demanded, and with the Habsburg side unwilling to pay it, he even-
tually changed sides and took service as a colonel with the Protestant
Union’s general, Margrave Joachim Ernst of Ansbach. In 1616 the Union
allowed Mansfeld to recruit a force of some 4000 men for the duke of
Savoy, who with French and Venetian support was engaged in a war
with Spain over the succession to the neighbouring Italian duchy of
Montferrat, and he continued to serve the duke until the final Spanish
withdrawal in June 1618. He and his men were then despatched to
Bohemia, where he was engaged by the Estates with a rank equivalent
to major-general.^13
During the early stages of the revolt Khlesl essentially prevaricated,
and his correspondence of the period shows him being all things
to all men, alternately confrontational or conciliatory depending on
whom he was addressing. On the one hand the remaining regents in
Prague were advising concessions, while on the other Ferdinand and
Archduke Maximilian, Matthias’s brother, were pressing for a strong mil-
itary response. Khlesl himself was still seeking hisKompositionwith the
Protestants in the Empire, which would have been further prejudiced by
harsh action against the Bohemians, while as chief minister he was more
sharply aware than his critics of the severe financial and military limita-
tions facing the government. Although he railed against the perfidy of
the ‘heretics’ he may nevertheless not have seen Bohemia as his most
pressing problem, despite which he was clearly aware that losing the
province would be highly detrimental to the Habsburgs, and particularly
to their prospects of holding on to the Imperial crown when Matthias
died.^14 On 18 June, four weeks after the defenestration and when Thurn
was already on the march south, under Khlesl’s guidance the age-
ing emperor issued a proclamation calling for an end to the revolt,
promising that the Letter of Majesty would be respected, and offering
a commission to investigate the underlying problems, but also insisting
that troop recruitment should be halted and the militia sent home.^15
Such a limited response was not acceptable to Ferdinand and
Maximilian. Until then Ferdinand had adhered to his promise not to