An Inevitable War? 63Matthias was no paragon, but he was inclined to leave matters to
Khlesl, under whose influence Imperial policy turned towards a search
for compromise. The negotiations at the Reichstag of 1613 were ulti-
mately unsuccessful, but at least the parties were talking, which was
a significant advance on 1608. Khlesl also advocated the issue of an
ImperialLehnsindultto allow representation for Magdeburg, and hence
implicitly for other secularised bishoprics, and although this was not
implemented due to Catholic resistance the proposition itself repre-
sented movement.^73 This, like the offer of a confessionally balanced
meeting of the Deputation and the half-offer, albeit with strings, of the
restitution of Donauwörth would scarcely have been forthcoming under
Rudolf. Opposition remained, but the change in the Imperial position,
given time, might have shifted the dividing lines.
One argument sometimes put forward for the traditional view of
escalation towards conflict in 1618 is that contemporaries themselves
believed that war was looming. Thus Parker notes that by about 1615
‘there was a widespread conviction, both inside the territories of the
Holy Roman Empire and beyond, that another major war in Europe was
imminent’.^74 To set against this, however, in April 1615 the Brandenburg
chancellor reported to his elector on a visit to Heidelberg, the capital
city of the militant Calvinist Palatinate: ‘As far as ideas of war are con-
cerned, we found no-one there that way inclined. On the contrary from
the highest to the lowest they are much more interested in peace and
tranquillity.’^75 Nevertheless, continues Parker, ‘by the summer of 1617
war certainly seemed to be in the air’. In one respect this is clearly true,
in that it was well known that the truce between the Spanish and the
Dutch was due to expire in 1621, and that although it had held rela-
tively well, indeed surprisingly well, little or no progress towards any
form of settlement had been made. That situation became even clearer
in the autumn of 1618, when both Lerma in Spain and Oldenbarnevelt
in the Dutch Republic lost office as a result of the defeat of the respective
peace parties. This was obviously a matter of concern for neighbouring
territories, particularly in the Rhineland, where there had been military
incursions by both sides in the past. On the other hand, although some
people undoubtedly had fears that a major European war would result,
there was no clear foundation for this. The war in the Netherlands had,
after all, already been going on for some forty years before the truce
without becoming a general conflict or directly involving the Empire.
Fears of war in the Empire itself developed quickly once the revolt in
Bohemia became a military conflict involving outside forces, but before
1618 such anxieties as there were may well have derived largely from