248 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
himself escaped. Maximilian refused to allow a pursuit into Dutch ter-
ritory, as the League was as anxious to avoid entanglement in the war
in the Netherlands as the Spanish and the Dutch were to limit their
involvement in Germany.^33
During this campaign Mansfeld had remained on the defensive in
a strong position in Ostfriesland, on the Dutch border in north-west
Germany. Tilly did not have sufficient resources to mount an attack after
his own losses over the summer, so instead the two armies settled into
winter quarters in the region, but in January 1624 the local Estates, anx-
ious to be rid of the troops, offered Mansfeld enough money to pay off
his men, most of whom promptly re-enlisted with the Dutch. Mansfeld
himself slipped away too, but before the year was out he had recruited a
new army with James I of England’s money, for service in the next phase
of the war.
Into the Thirty Years War
Ultimately more significant than these last military campaigns of the
Palatine struggle were the political developments and international
manoeuvrings which were taking place at the same time. Paradoxically,
Tilly’s military triumphs soon began to work against the position of the
Catholic party, as with each successive victory concerns mounted fur-
ther, both in the Empire and abroad, about the prospect of a powerful
Imperialist and League army establishing dominance in Germany. More-
over with the campaigning moving into Westphalia and Ostfriesland
during 1623, Tilly was no longer far away in the south, but on the
doorsteps of the north-German Protestant princes, the Dutch, and King
Christian IV of Denmark.
Friedrich also attracted more sympathy the worse his situation
became. Few princes, even in the Protestant Union, had looked
favourably on his Bohemian adventure, but they had not anticipated
that he would be totally dispossessed by way of punishment. Applying
the Imperial ban to a renegade minor nobleman such as Mansfeld was
one thing, but to do so to the senior secular elector of the Holy Roman
Empire seemed to them to be quite another. Even Charles V, three-
quarters of a century before, had not stripped the Schmalkalden rebels of
all their territories, and for Ferdinand to proceed so far against Friedrich
would set a precedent which made even Catholic princes uncomfort-
able. Maximilian’s designs on Friedrich’s lands were also rather obvious,
while there had been speculation about a possible transfer of the elec-
toral title from an early stage, as the English ambassador in Prague