Wallenstein Assassinated

JAN 01 1634 · 12:00

Anonymous 17th century copper engraving of the murder of Albrecht von Wallenstein at Eger (Cheb), 25 February 1634. The Irish dragoon Walter Devereux pins him with a partisan in his nightshirt. Place: Cheb (Eger), western Bohemia; his palace stands in Malá Strana, Prague Figures: Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna (Wallenstein) · Walter Devereux, Irish dragoon captain · Ferdinand II, who signed the order in Vienna Wallenstein, born Protestant in northern Bohemia, converts in 1606, marries a wealthy widow, marries another, and emerges from the White Mountain confiscations as the largest single beneficiary in the kingdom. He buys sixty-four estates at fire-sale prices, mints his own coin (debased; he is fined), and assembles a private duchy in Friedland. From 1623 he assembles, in Malá Strana, the first secular palace of monumental scale in Prague: twenty-three houses demolished, a Sala Terrena and pleasure garden carved in, five courtyards, a riding school. It is finished in 1630. He moves in for a single year. The Emperor needs him in the field: Ferdinand II has lost Magdeburg, lost Tilly, lost the north. Wallenstein takes the army back, fights Gustavus Adolphus to a Swedish tactical victory at Lützen in November 1632 (Gustavus dies on the field; Wallenstein withdraws in good order to Bohemia), but spends 1633 negotiating with Saxony, France, and Sweden simultaneously. The Emperor concludes he is treating.