The Origins of the Thirty Years War? 27than the Netherlands, and the resulting diversion of their attention may
indeed have been one of Henri’s objectives.
Spain had in any case been very reluctant to become involved in mil-
itary action over Cleves-Jülich, not least because of financial difficulties,
while Archduke Albrecht had troops available but no money for their
wages, so that he feared to mobilise them in case this provoked another
of their recurrent pay mutinies. Nor did Emperor Rudolf II, locked in
a power struggle with his brother Matthias, have any resources to send
to help Leopold, so that the latter’s increasingly desperate appeals for
men and money met with no response.^26 Hefarednobetterwiththe
Catholic League. The developing dispute had been an additional fac-
tor in its foundation in July 1609 and in persuading further members
to join later in that year, but the majority held to their view of the
League as a purely defensive organisation, and they resisted Leopold’s
pleas for help in Jülich. He did raise some troops in his own bishopric
of Strasbourg, but these were neutralised by two incursions into Alsace
by forces from member princes of the Union, although little more than
minor skirmishes took place.
The key question was whether Henri IV would actually intervene, and
if so what response this would provoke from Spain. By the spring of 1610
he had his large army ready for action, and many contemporaries feared
that a local inheritance dispute might be about to develop into a full-
scale war fought on Empire territory, but mainly by outsiders who had
no actual involvement in the initial issue. Then on 10 May Henri was
assassinated in Paris by a Catholic extremist, his widow became regent
for his young son, and the army did not march.
Left to playHamletwithout the prince of Denmark, the coalition
engaged in frantic diplomatic activity in order to persuade the new
French government to participate nevertheless, while the Spanish made
corresponding efforts to have the attack on Leopold in Jülich called off,
but took no military action apart from reinforcing their own defences.
Eventually France did provide a much reduced army, rather smaller
than Henri had originally promised, but this set out late and made
slow progress towards Jülich. Meanwhile a combined force of a reported
16,000 men reached the city from Holland at the end of July, two-thirds
of them provided by the Dutch and most of the remainder by England,
together with a smaller French contingent, although both the latter
units were already serving in the Netherlands rather than being newly
despatched. At Jülich they were joined by the Union army, combining
to make a force much larger than necessary for the siege and reduc-
tion of the fortifications, which nevertheless took five weeks, during