123Dismissal
Maximilian of Bavaria and his fellow Catholic electors had worked and
waited a long time for the chance to secure Wallenstein’s dismissal. In
1624 Maximilian had urged the emperor to raise troops to counter the
threat from the anti-Habsburg coalition, but he had envisaged these
being attached to Tilly’s Catholic League army, and hence ultimately
under his own control. The outcome had been quite different, a separate
Imperial army which freed the emperor from his military dependence
on the League, hence considerably diminishing Maximilian’s political
influence on Ferdinand. Wallenstein was the cause, as only his offer to
finance the raising of an army had made it possible. By the time the
new force reached north Germany in late 1625 Maximilian’s hostility
to its general was already apparent in his correspondence, and in the
following years this developed into something approaching paranoia.
As far as is known, neither Maximilian nor any of the other electors,
Catholic or Protestant, had actually met Wallenstein in person by 1630.^1
Hence their view of him was based mainly on gossip and rumour, col-
lated and passed on by self-seeking informants or by retainers anxious to
match their accounts to their masters’ prejudices. It is easier to demon-
ise someone who is not known personally, and hence Maximilian and
his fellows were only too ready to give credence to many of the lurid
and not infrequently contradictory reports which were in circulation
concerning Wallenstein’s character, motives and intentions. Moreover
these leading members of the German aristocracy viewed the Bohemian
upstart with the distaste and suspicion traditionally accorded to arriv-
istes by those who consider themselves their betters.
9. The Wheel Is Come Full Circle
( King Lear)