![]() The aging emperor, who was increasingly mentally unstable, was distrusted by both Catholics and Protestants. ![]() This was very much Rudolf II's (ruled 1576 –1612) fate during the last decade of his reign. The emperor's prerogatives had never been clearly defined a ruler who knew how to exploit his considerable informal powers of patronage could enjoy a great deal of authority, but a weak monarch could easily be reduced to a mere figurehead. The crisis had a constitutional and political as well as a religious dimension. THE CAUSES OF THE WARįor the outbreak of the war the deepening crisis of the Holy Roman Empire was of crucial importance. However, in central Europe, in particular in the Holy Roman Empire, the military and political events of the thirty years between the defenestration of Prague in May 1618 and the signing of the Westphalian peace treaties in October 1648 formed one continuous conflict and were in fact already perceived as such by most contemporaries. If one looks at the Thirty Years' War in a European context, there is some truth in this argument. ![]() Some historians have argued that it was a series of separate wars that happened to overlap in time and space rather than one coherent sequence of military campaigns in which a clearly defined set of issues was at stake throughout. ![]() The Thirty Years' War was one of the greatest and longest armed contests of the early modern period. ![]()
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