Ferdinand, having thus triumphed over all his foes, and having divided their domains among his own followers, called a meeting of the electors who were devoted to his cause, at Ratisbon, on the 25th of February, 1623, to confirm what he had done.  In every portion of the empire, where the arm of the emperor could reach them, the Protestants were receiving heavy blows.  They were now thoroughly alarmed and aroused.  The Catholics all over Europe were renewing their league; all the Catholic powers were banded together, and Protestantism seemed on the eve of being destroyed by the sword of persecution.

Other parts of Europe also began to look with alarm upon the vast power acquired by Austria.  There was but little of conciliation in the character of Ferdinand, and his unbounded success, while it rendered him more haughty, excited also the jealousy of the neighboring powers.  In Lower Saxony, nearly all the nobles and men of influence were Protestants.  The principal portion of the ecclesiastical property was in their hands.  It was very evident that unless the despotism of Ferdinand was checked, he would soon wrest from them their titles and possessions, and none the less readily because he had succeeded in bribing the Elector of Saxony to remain neutral while he tore the crown of Bohemia from the Elector of the Palatine, and despoiled him of his wide-spread ancestral territories.

James I. of England had been negotiating a marriage of his son, the Prince of Wales, subsequently Charles I., with the daughter of the King of Spain.  This would have been, in that day, a brilliant match for his son; and as the Spanish monarch was a member of the house of Austria, and a cooeperator with his cousin, the Emperor Ferdinand, in all his measures in Germany, it was an additional reason why James should not interfere in defense of his son-in-law, Frederic of the Palatine.  But now this match was broken off by the influence of the haughty English minister Buckingham, who had the complete control of the feeble mind of the British monarch.  A treaty of marriage was soon concluded between the Prince of Wales and Henrietta, a princess of France.  There was hereditary hostility between France and Spain, and both England and France were now quite willing to humble the house of Austria.  The nobles of Lower Saxony availed themselves of this new turn in the posture of affairs, and obtained promises of aid from them both, and, through their intercession, aid also from Denmark and Sweden.

Richelieu, the imperious French minister, was embarrassed by two antagonistic passions.  He was eager to humble the house of Austria; and this he could only do by lending aid to the Protestants.  On the other hand, it was the great object of his ambition to restore the royal authority to unlimited power, and this he could only accomplish by aiding the house of Austria to crush the Protestants, whose love of freedom all despots have abhorred.  Impelled by these conflicting