No Great Expectations 17as much of their property as possible. Even so they were involved in
two legal actions and they staved off rather than defeated some of the
claimants, so that the issue surfaced again to trouble Wallenstein after
Lucretia’s death.^21
Other business matters indicate Wallenstein’s sense of his own place
in the world at this time. In 1610 he sold Hermanitz to an uncle, which
was a perfectly logical move as it was small and a long way from his new
Moravian interests, but the sale still kept the property within the family.
However in parting from it he lost his status as a Bohemian noble-
man, and while he had become a Moravian nobleman instead through
his new properties he had no personal links to the province. Family
meant more to him. It is reported that he had previously increased his
sister Katherina’s dowry when she married, over and above the mod-
est amount left for the purpose by their father, and also that he sold
Hermanitz for a nominal sum both to help out his uncle and because
the latter had been looking after his other sister Maria.^22
Wallenstein’s next few years were uneventful and are poorly recorded.
In June 1610, during the disturbances accompanying the conflict
between Rudolf and Matthias, he appears to have been appointed by
the Moravian Estates to command a regiment of musketeers, but during
this and the following year its role was to watch the Moravian border
and to ensure that the troubles did not spill over from Bohemia, so
that his command may have been more nominal than practical. Follow-
ing Matthias’s success Wallenstein, still a gentleman of the chamber,
formed part of his ceremonial escort to Prague for his coronation as king
of Bohemia in May 1611.^23 Then in the summer of 1612 he went on a
trip to Italy, on a pilgrimage to Loreto if an early account by the Jesuit
and historian Balbinus is to be believed. A recent researcher has discov-
ered a signature which may be Wallenstein’s in the register of German
students in the faculty of jurisprudence at Padua university in 1612, so
it is possible that he spent some time there.^24 His love for things Italian
is amply confirmed, not only by his fluency in the language but by his
later choice of Italians as architects and artists for his building works,
and indeed as senior officers in his armies. A year later, in August 1613,
he accompanied Matthias, by this time emperor, to the Imperial Diet in
Regensburg, but again as a courtier rather than having any political role
to play.^25 These things apart, he seems to have been content to perform
the few duties expected of a Moravian nobleman and member of the
Estates, and otherwise to live the life of a well-off country gentleman.
If he had any higher ambitions in this period they have not left any
evidence in the archives.