From Bohemia to the Thirty Years War 243the Union the fighting in the latter territory might spill over into his
own domains.
More personal still was the threat of being deprived of part of his
lands. Back in 1594 his family’s Catholic relatives ruling Baden-Baden
had become so over-indebted that Emperor Rudolf II had threatened an
Imperial intervention, which Georg’s own brother and predecessor had
forestalled by occupying and taking over their territory. Thisde facto
amalgamation had never been formally recognised within the Empire,
the relatives were trying to recover their lands, and the matter had
already been before the Imperial courts for ten years when Georg became
the ruling duke.^27 Although he secured an administrative lien on the
territory from Rudolf II in 1605 this was only against an undertaking to
transfer it to the claimants should the court find in their favour, as well
as not to interfere with the Catholic religion of the inhabitants in the
meantime. The Hofrat did indeed find in their favour, but Georg sought
every possible means to dispute and delay the judgement, as well as
repeatedly trying to enlist the support of the Union with the claim that
this was an issue of general concern for the Protestants. Long-drawn-out
negotiations for a settlement collapsed in 1617, but Georg continued
further legal manoeuvres, including challenging the competence of the
court in the matter. By 1621 the possibilities were exhausted, and feeling
himself defenceless after the collapse of the Union in April of that year
Georg started to build up his own army and to establish contacts with
Mansfeld. In December 1621 the emperor dismissed his final appeal,
and on 22 April 1622 he abdicated in favour of his son to protect his
duchy from sequestration, before taking the field against Tilly with a
small army, half of which was formed from local militia, while most of
the more professional units were recently recruited, probably including
many soldiers from the disbanded Union army.^28
One other Protestant prince took up arms, but entirely on his own
behalf rather than even nominally in support of ‘Winter King’ Friedrich,
and although politically irrelevant at the time this is worth mention-
ing as a further illustration of the personal motives which underlay
many princely involvements in the Thirty Years War. Landgrave Moritz
of Hessen-Kassel had seized the city of Marburg and its environs from
his Hessen-Darmstadt relations in 1604, resulting in a feud which was
still running and which ran for many years subsequently. Both sides
were Lutheran, but whereas Moritz joined the Protestant Union his
opponent Ludwig V of Darmstadt aligned himself with the Imperial-
ists, rallying support for them, carefully cultivating first Rudolf’s and
then Ferdinand’s favour, and biding his time. Moritz retained a small