The Last Valley (J. Clavell, 1971) is set in 1641, during the end of the The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)
The Thirty Years’ War began primarily as a religious war between Protestants and Catholics within the Holy Roman Empire.
It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, wiping out up to 20% to 40% of the population in parts of modern-day Germany due to combat, famine, and disease.
The Holy Roman Empire
The peace established by the 1555 Peace of Augsburg—which allowed German princes to choose whether their lands would be Lutheran or Catholic—was failing. Tensions boiled over in 1618 with the Defenestration of Prague, where angry Protestant nobles threw Catholic royal officials out of a castle window.
This act of rebellion against the fiercely Catholic Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, triggered an open revolt. Initially, the war pitted the Protestant Union (a coalition of German Protestant states) against the Catholic League (backed by the Emperor and the Spanish Empire).
The war shifted from a religious crusade into a power struggle to stop the Catholic Habsburg dynasty (which ruled both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) from dominating Europe.
Catholic France, fering being surrounded, entered the war led by the Cardinal Richelieu on the Protestant side.
| Catholic Side | Protestant Side |
|---|---|
| - Holy Roman Empire (Habsburgs) - Spanish Empire - Catholic League (Bavaria, etc.) | - Protestant German States (Bohemia, Saxony, etc.) - Kingdom of Sweden - Kingdom of France - Dutch Republic & Denmark |
The war relied on mercenary armies. Governments could not afford to pay these soldiers regularly, so armies survived by “living off the land.”
This meant bands of armed mercenaries, often composed of a mix of religions and nationalities, which plundered, raped, and burned down civilian villages for food and supplies.
Religious hatred was frequently used by leaders as an excuse to justify these acts.