No Great Expectations 11frontier areas. Whether he was subsequently appointed and if so how
far he got with this is not clear, but a later deterioration of the situation
in Hungary led the Bohemians to increase their military strength, in
course of which Wallenstein was nominated as colonel of a regiment
of infantry which was to be raised. Again events moved on, and before
the men could be recruited the campaign was brought to an end by a
settlement with the Turks and the Hungarian rebels. Although he may
not have achieved much as a commissioner and a colonel the fact that
he was put forward for these roles at around the age of 22, and with
only one short period of active service behind him, suggests both that
he was well regarded and that there was little competition in this field
among the Bohemian nobility.^11
The peace left the young soldier without practical employment, and
not until 1607 does the next step in his career appear in the archives.
At some point before then Wallenstein had become a Catholic, as by
February of that year he was reported to be an attendee at Mass.^12
Joining the Catholic church required no great ceremony, and hence we
know neither the date nor anything of Wallenstein’s motivation, but
many have seen his conversion as inspired by ambition and prospec-
tive personal advantage. That possibility cannot be excluded, but two
questions arise. Was Wallenstein in fact particularly ambitious at this
stage in his life, and if he was, would turning Catholic have seemed an
appropriate way to further his aims? For this purpose ambition can be
considered in terms of property and of career, and in the former respect
Wallenstein probably was ambitious. His estate at Hermanitz would
have provided only a very modest noble lifestyle, and for a young man
in that position seeking an advantageous marriage was an obvious and
indeed expected first priority. However a reported 90 per cent of the
nobility in the Bohemian lands were Protestant at that time, so turn-
ing Catholic was more likely to reduce than to increase Wallenstein’s
chances of finding an eligible heiress.^13 It might have been different had
there been a specific marriage prospect in the offing but this was not the
case, and indeed the husband of the Catholic widow who later became
his wife was still alive and well at this time.
The concept of a career is something of an anachronism for an early-
seventeenth-century nobleman. Those who could were inclined first
and foremost to live off their lands, perhaps spending time on admin-
istering, improving and adding to them, or perhaps simply spending
the income. Those who could not, whether as landless younger sons
where primogeniture was the rule, or as owners of unviably small
estates where inheritances had been divided and sub-divided between