Titans of History

With the onset of the Danish War in 1625, Wallenstein raised an army of over 30,000 men to fight for the imperial Catholic League against the Protestant Northern League. A grateful Ferdinand—now emperor—immediately appointed him commander-in-chief. Wallenstein went on to achieve a series of brilliant victories, and Ferdinand rewarded him with the principality of Sagan and the duchy of Mecklenburg.

Power and success now seem to have gone to Wallenstein’s head. He was no longer satisfied to remain the emperor’s most dependable lieutenant; he wanted to be master of his own destiny. And to this end he opened negotiations with his erstwhile enemies—the Protestant Hanseatic ports of northern Germany. The growing cleavage between Wallenstein—who now styled himself Admiral of the North and the Baltic Seas—and the emperor was confirmed by the latter’s Edict of Restitution in 1629. This declared that all Catholic lands that had, since 1552, fallen under Protestant control were to be restored to their former owners. For a man keen to build his own personal empire by means of deals with the Protestant nobles of northern Germany, the edict was a threat, and Wallenstein opted to disregard Ferdinand’s orders. He had already aroused the jealousy of much of the imperial aristocracy, and they now took the opportunity to press for his dismissal—which came about in 1630. Wallenstein retired to Friedland and plotted his revenge.

With King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, a leading Protestant enemy of the emperor, Wallenstein hatched a plot that would have given him control of all Habsburg dominions. Ferdinand discovered Wallenstein’s treachery, but his military reversals made him so desperate that he asked Wallenstein to return to his service—for a suitably high price—to help him fight the Swedes and their Saxon allies. Wallenstein agreed, and in 1632 gave battle to the Swedes at Lützen. Although Gustavus Adolphus was killed, the Swedes won the day.

Having revealed his military fallibility, Wallenstein was aware that his position was vulnerable. Determined to avoid a second dismissal, he refused to disband his army, and, worse, he did nothing to stop the Swedes securing further victories in Germany. At the same time, he attempted to negotiate with the emperor’s enemies—Saxony, Sweden and France. Such double-dealing proved inconclusive, however, and Wallenstein resumed the offensive against these powers in late 1633.

But word of Wallenstein’s latest treachery had reached the imperial court at Vienna. At this point Wallenstein resolved on one last throw of the dice, and in January 1634 prepared to come out in open revolt against the emperor. However, as he found the support of his subordinates ebbing away, he tried to cut one final deal: he would resign in return for a substantial pay-off. This offer was rejected, and Wallenstein fled to the Saxons and Swedes in a fresh effort to link up with them against the Habsburgs. That enterprise was doomed to failure, however, and in February 1634 Wallenstein was assassinated by troops from within his own army.

CROMWELL

1599–1658

A man of a great, robust, massive mind, and an honest, stout English heart

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Thomas Carlyle, describing Cromwell in his edition Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845)

Oliver Cromwell took just twenty years to rise from obscure country gentleman to lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. His military genius was vital to Parliament’s victory over Charles I in the Civil Wars. His political management—sometimes cajoling—of Parliament and the respect he engendered in the army helped to stabilize the fragile country after the king was beheaded. As head of state in the new Commonwealth, he enforced rigid puritanism, tempered with toleration for Jews and intolerance for Catholics: his foreign policy was successful and prestigious. He turned down the crown, but his burning commitment to God and the English people, rather than any personal ambition, marks him as the greatest king that England never had.

Cromwell was by birth a relatively lowly gentleman farmer from Huntingdon, now in Cambridgeshire. Both his own family and that of his wife were connected to various networks of puritans, and throughout his life he was deeply and sincerely devoted to carrying out the will of God as he saw it.