1634: The Bavarian Crisis: Chapter Fifty Eight

POSTLUDE

Bohemia

    Duke Albrecht of Bavaria reread the letter that had just arrived. Mechthilde’s last surviving nephew, who had been considerably brighter and more competent than his unfortunate late older brother, Rudolf Philipp, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg, was dead. He had stayed behind to complete the inspection tour of Austria’s defenses against the Turks when Ferdinand III was called back to Vienna. Now he was dead, killed in a random minor skirmish on the Hungarian border, no different from any of a dozen others that occurred along the border with the Ottomans every day.

    He crossed himself. Contrary to all reasonable expectation, his own sons, wherever they might be and please God they were safe and well, would now unite Leuchtenberg with Bavaria-if, of course, they could expel the Swedish occupiers from Leuchtenberg. And if they some day inherited whatever might be left of Bavaria by the time Maximilian died.

    At the moment, it seemed highly improbable that Maximilian would remarry and beget sons. Duke Albrecht looked back, reflecting on the irony of it all. The situation could probably have been saved if they had simply permitted him to abdicate when he wanted to after Elisabeth Renata’s death.