Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/274

* THIBTY TYRANTS. 230 THIRTY YEARS' WAR. of Athens, hoped to rule the city through the agency of the latter. Their governmcut was a reign of terror, marked by the most in- famous cruelties. One of the most rabid and unscrupulous members of the body was Critias (q.v.), while Theramenes (q.v.) headed the more moderate division. The rule of the Thirty Ty- rants lasted only one year, when it was over- thrown by the "return of the Athenian exiles under Thrasybulus (q.v.), and the surviving members were expelled from the city. THIRTY TYRANTS. The collective title given to a set of military usurpers who sprang up in difl'erent parts of the Roman Empire during the fifteen years (..n. 254-208) occupied by the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, and, amid the wretched confusions of the time, endeavored to establish themselves as independelit princes. The name is borrowed from the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, but, in reality, historians can only reckon nineteen — Cyriades, Macrianus, Balista, Odena- thus, and Zenobia, in the East ; Postumus, Lol- lianus, Victorinus (with his motlier, Victoria), Marius, and Tetricus, in the West; Ingenuus, Regillianus (more properly Regalianus, as the name appears on coins), and Aureolus, in Illyri- eum and the countries about the Danube; Saturni- nus, in Pontus : Trebellianus, in Isauria ; Piso, in Thessaly; Valens, in Achfea ; .^milianus, in Egypt; and Celsus, in Africa. THIRTY YEARS' WAR. The name given to the great European struggle (1618-48) which marked the climax of the Reformation (q.v.), closing the period of distinctively religious poli- ties and opening that in which secular statecraft took the place of ecclesiastical. The Religious Peace of Augsburg (15.5.5) afforded no permanent settlement of the questions that had been stirred up by the Protestant revolution. Its terms rec- ognized only Lutherans and Catholics, and mean- while the Calvinists had grown strong, and, un- fortxinately for the Protestant cause, the most violent enmity existed between them and the Lutherans. The relations of the Emperor and the German princes were ill-defined and such adjustment as had been reached was hardly tenable. France had already separated her natu- ral interests from the affiliations of religion and aided the German Protestant princes in their insubordination toward their Imperial Catholic head. The Reformation, by overthrowing the idea of Christ's inity in the Church, broke down the theory of a Holy Roman Empire and put forward in its place the Germanic idea of autonomy for individual States. In the turmoil of sixteenth-century Europe it was inevitable that the solvent for these and many collateral issues should be found in a general war. The outbreak came in an unexpected way. Tlie liberal reign of Maximilian II. (15fi4 76) was favorable to the growth of Protestant- ism in the Austrian dominions. His successor, Rudolph II. (157r)-lfil2). brought in the reac- tionary .lesuit influence and allowed full play to the forces of the Comtpr-Reformation. Open interference with the practice of the Protestant religion M'as permitted and numbers of Protestant churches were destroyed. In 1607 Maximilian I., the Catholic Duke of Bavaria, made himself master of the free Imperial city of Donauworth, whose inhabitants were mainly Protestants. A number of Protestant princes and cities founded in 1608 the Evangelical Union for the defense of their interests and their faith, and this was met by the formation of the Catholic League under the leadersliip of Maximilian of Bavaria in 1609. In that year the Emperor was forced to publish his Mujtstdtsbrief, by which the Protestants of Bohemia were guaranteed the free exercise of their religion. At this time the political state of the Empire was further unsettled by the .liilich-Cleves war of succession. (See Julich.) In 1012 the Emperor Rudolph II. died and was succeeded by his brother ilatthias. to whom the Archduchy of Austria, Moravia, Hungary, and Bohemia had previously been transferred as a result of Rudolph's reckless rule." In 1617 the Bohemian estates were called upon to crown, as their prospective King, Duke Ferdinand of Styria, the Hapsburg heir presumptive, in ac- cordance with a custom which had become estab- lished. Ferdinand had made himself prominent by the relentless manner in which he had rooted out Protestantism in his paternal Styrian dominions. His attitude encouraged the Catho- lic Church in Bohemia in its aggressions, and soon a dispute regarding the interpretation of the iliijesHitsbrief brought on an open conflict. On May 2.3, 1618, a body of Protestants, led by Count Thurn, entered the roval palace at Prague, and hiirled two odious representatives of the Crown, Martinitz and Slavata, from its windows. This 'defenestration,' the victims of which escaped with their lives, inaugurated a struggle which was to convulse Europe for thirty years. The Bohemians rose in arms under Thurn, and the insurrection spread into the adjoining Haps- l)urg dominions. A body of troops of the Union, under Count Mansfeld. appeared on the scene, and Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, pre- pared to make war on Austria. Matthias was wholly unprepared to meet the onslaught. Spain alone came to his aid, but the Spanish force was too weak to stay the advance of the enemy. The Emperor died in March, 1619, and Ferdinand, who succeeded him as the head of the House of Hapsburg. found himself beleaguered in Vienna by the victorious Thurn. Through his indomitable firmness he succeeded in averting the fall of his capital, and made his way to Frankfort, where he was elected Hol.v Roman Emperor as Ferdinand II. (August, 1619). The Bohemians, having declared their throne vacant, placed their crown iipon the head of the Elector Palatine Frederick V., the son-in-law of .Tames I. of England. Ferdinand, whose capital was in the meanwhile again threatened, this time by the Prince of Transylvania, was enabled to at- tack Frederick by means of the forces of the Catholic League, whose leader, Maximilian of Bavaria, was offered a rich indemnitv. .John George, the Lutheran Elector of Saxony, eager for territorial acquisitions, entered the field against the Bohemians, while the Spaniards in- vaded the Lower Palatinate. The Protestant T^nion dared not move, and .Tames I. kept aloof from Frederick. On November R. 1620. a battle was fought at the White Hill, before the walls of Prague, in which the army of the League, under Tilly, was completely victorious: Fred- erick fled from Bohemia, which was chastised in a fearful manner bv the Emperor, and forced back into the fold oJE hhe Catholic Church. The