240 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
with their territories potentially at risk, were much more wary about
open involvement in the conflict. On the other hand younger sons
did not have the resources to raise armies, and their opportunities for
military employment depended on others being willing and able to
do so. By the end of 1621 the prospects on the anti-Habsburg side
seemed slim. Bethlen Gabor had made peace with the emperor, at least
for the time being, and Jägerndorf’s unpaid army was fading away, so
that Ferdinand’s forces were no longer under immediate pressure in the
east, although the ever-present Turkish threat precluded their full trans-
fer to Germany. There, after the demise of the Union, only Mansfeld
was still in contention, and he was licking his wounds after his nar-
row escape from the Upper Palatinate. How long the Dutch would
continue to provide Friedrich with the money to pay him was doubt-
ful, and it was even more doubtful whether on his own he would be
a match for Tilly and the full League army in the following spring.
By then, however, two new ‘champions’ had attached themselves to
the Palatine cause, although, as Wilson suggests, with decidedly mixed
motives.
The first to declare himself was yet another younger son, in this
case Christian, brother of the ruling duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel,
although he had been fortunate to secure a personal domain as the
Lutheran administrator of the secularised bishopric of Halberstadt at the
age of seventeen. Nevertheless he had little enthusiasm for a religious or
administrative career, and two years later, in December 1618, he gained
his first military post when his brother appointed him as a Brunswick
colonel, but this was a well-paid sinecure unless it actually became
necessary to recruit troops. Then in March 1619 the Bohemian Estates
offered him a commission to raise a regiment for their service, but again
this would have been a purely nominal appointment to which he was
expected to contribute only his name, money and credit-worthiness,
without the authority even to appoint the officers. Christian apparently
did make some initial moves towards gathering men and equipment,
but he soon declined to proceed further, complaining that he had not
been given any assurance of repayment of his initial outlay, and adding
that he was in any case going to take service elsewhere. This was in
Holland, where he had relatives in the influential Nassau family, but the
truce with Spain still had two years to run. Hence although he was a cap-
tain in a dragoon regiment for a time he can have seen little action, apart
from taking part in the largely bloodless and correspondingly unsuccess-
ful Dutch foray to support the Union army in the Lower Palatinate in
late 1620.^20