62 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
history of the League and the Union, from foundation in 1608 and
1609, through confrontation in 1610, to decline by 1613 and virtual
dissolution in 1617.
There were of course very real problems and tensions, both
confessional and political, in the Empire in 1617, but neither the courts
nor the Reichstag were paralysed, significantly less than half of the
estates of Germany, and very few north of Frankfurt, had joined the
alliances, and those alliances were themselves in terminal decline. There
were still some militants on both sides, but they were more isolated than
before, with the majority of members and former members of the Union
and League focused strictly on defence. The events of 1610 had also
provided all concerned with a sharp reminder of the enormous costs of
military ventures, including those of short duration or where the army
did not actually take the field, and many of the debts incurred were
still outstanding.^72 Even the militants recognised that nothing of the
kind could be undertaken again without substantial outside support,
both financial and probably also military. The theory of a progressive
escalation towards a flashpoint in 1618 is thus clearly unsustainable,
and moreover there is some evidence of tentative progress towards an
accommodation in the immediately preceding years.
One relevant factor was the death of Emperor Rudolf II in Jan-
uary 1612. While he was not himself responsible for the problems,
most of the traditional list of conflicts occurred during his reign and
some of them were aggravated by his approach. This started at his
first Reichstag meeting in 1582, where his abandonment of the accom-
modative approach of his father Maximilian II caused the exclusion of
the administrator of Magdeburg, and thereby the subsequent problem
with the Visitation Commission and the Kammergericht appeals system.
By the early 1600s Rudolf was decidedly eccentric and under extreme
pressure from his family, particularly in the dispute with his brother
Matthias, which was moving towards a crisis just as the Donauwörth
incident escalated in 1607. Hence it has been argued that Rudolf’s hard
line was intended to improve his own standing with the Catholic party
and to elicit support from Maximilian of Bavaria. He was under even
greater family pressure and fighting to hold on to his crown when the
duke of Jülich died in 1609, so that his provisional endorsement of the
claim of the elector of Saxony may likewise reflect his search for personal
support, while allowing or encouraging Archduke Leopold to intervene
was a major misjudgement both of the situation and of the man. Hence
Rudolf’s demise removed one divisive and unpredictable factor from the
political equation.