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    Transcriber's Note:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
    possible, including Anglicized spellings of the names of some places
    and people. Some changes have been made. They are listed at the end
    of the text, apart from some changes of puctuation in the Index.

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 EPOCHS OF HISTORY

 EDITED BY

 EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A.




 THE ERA
 OF
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648.

 S. R. GARDINER.




_EPOCHS SELECTED._


 =THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION.= By F. SEEBOHM, Author of 'The
   Oxford Reformers.'--_Now ready._

 =THE CRUSADES.= By the Rev. G. W. COX, M.A.; Author of the 'History of
   Greece.'--_Now ready._

 =THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648.= By SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER.--_Nearly
   ready._

 =THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES=; CHARLES the GREAT and ALFRED; the
   HISTORY of ENGLAND in its connexion with that of EUROPE in the NINTH
   CENTURY. By the Very Rev. R. W. CHURCH, M.A. Dean of St. Paul's.

 =THE NORMAN KINGS AND THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.= By the Rev. A. H. JOHNSON,
   M.A.

 =THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS= and their relation to the HISTORY of EUROPE;
   the foundation and growth of CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. By the Rev.
   WILLIAM STUBBS, M.A. &c. Regius Professor of Modern History in the
   University of Oxford.

 =EDWARD III.= By the Rev. W. WARBURTON, M.A.

 =THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK=; with the CONQUEST and LOSS of
   FRANCE. By JAMES GAIRDNER of the Public Record Office.

 =THE AGE OF ELIZABETH.= By the Rev. M. CREIGHTON, M.A.

 =THE STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION.= By J. LANGTON SANFORD, Author
   of 'Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion.'

 =THE FALL OF THE STUARTS=; and WESTERN EUROPE from 1678 to 1697. By the
   Rev. EDWARD HALE, M.A. Assistant-Master at Eton.

 =THE AGE OF ANNE=. By EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. Editor of the Series.

 =FREDERICK THE GREAT= and the =SEVEN YEARS' WAR=. By F. W. LONGMAN, of
   Balliol College, Oxford.

 =THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.= By JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW.

 EACH 1 VOL. 16MO., CLOTH, UNIFORM. PRICE, $1.00.

 New York: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.




 THE
 THIRTY YEARS' WAR
 1618-1648


 BY

 SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER

 _Late Student of Christ Church
 Author of 'History of England from the Accession of James I. to the
 Disgrace of Justice Coke' and 'Prince Charles and the
 Spanish Marriage'_

 NEW YORK:
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
 1874.

 JAS. B. RODGERS CO.,
 Electrotypers and Printers,
 52 & 54 N. SIXTH ST.,
 PHILADELPHIA.




PREFACE.


If the present work should appear to be written for more advanced
students than those for whom most if not all the other books of the
series are designed, the nature of the subject must be pleaded in
excuse. The mere fact that it relates exclusively to Continental history
makes it unlikely that junior pupils would approach it in any shape, and
it is probably impossible to make the very complicated relations between
the German states and other European nations interesting to those who
are for the first time, or almost the first time, attempting to acquire
historical knowledge. Every history, to be a history, must have a unity
of its own, and here we have no unity of national life such as that
which is reflected in the institutions of England and France, not even
the unity of a great race of sovereigns handing down the traditions of
government from one generation to another. The unity of the subject
which I have chosen must be sought in the growth of the principle of
religious toleration as it is adopted or repelled by the institutions
under which Germany and France, the two principal nations with which we
are concerned, are living. Thus the history of the period may be
compared to a gigantic dissolving view. As we enter upon it our minds
are filled with German men and things. But Germany fails to find the
