An Inevitable War? 51the Palatinate in the revolt and arguably causing its escalation from a
localised issue into the start of a disastrous general war.
Nevertheless it seems likely that historians have overestimated
Christian’s wider significance, registering his tireless efforts to orches-
trate anti-Habsburg activity across Europe, including in Bohemia before
the revolt, without fully evaluating what actual influence or effect he
had. Outside the Palatinate Christian’s successes were mainly limited to
encouraging people to do things which they were inclined to do any-
way, whereas most of his more ambitious schemes achieved little. His
biographer summed it up: ‘Christian was a theoretician whose political
plans deviated from the possible. His diplomatic efforts often failed due
to flawed assessments of the other parties, and to insufficient awareness
of their motives and premises.’^43
League and Union
In December 1607 Donauwörth was seized by Maximilian of Bavaria,
acting in his capacity as the commissioner appointed to enforce the
Imperial ban on the city. A few months later Protestant militants
brought the Reichstag to a halt, walking out in protest to back up their
complaints, prominent among them Donauwörth and the legal pro-
ceedings in the ‘four cloisters’ cases. The Protestant Union was formed
in May 1608 as an immediate reaction, and the Catholic League was
founded in July 1609, apparently in reply, although in fact discussions
had already been going on for several years.^44 By mid-1610 Union forces
were involved in the conflict around Jülich, and by the autumn of that
year a League army had been raised to oppose them. Although that
crisis was defused, a pattern of escalation and confrontation had been
established, which, it is said, paved the way to the Thirty Years War.
To investigate how valid this is we must look in more depth at the
history of both alliances.
There had been a number of previous associations of princes or terri-
tories, mainly localised, and these were tolerated in the Empire provided
that they were purely defensive in character. The definitive ruling was
given in the Golden Bull of 1356, which prohibited such associations in
general but made an exception for those specifically and solely intended
for the maintenance of peace in their regions, although even here the
emperor reserved the right of approval or disapproval. The League had
a predecessor in the Landsberg League of 1556, the principal members
of which were the duke of Bavaria, the archbishop of Salzburg and the
archduke of Austria, although the Protestant cities of Augsburg and