Author’s Note:
William Crowne was part of the entourage of Thomas Howard, the Early of Arundel, who in 1636 was sent as a special envoy by King Charles I of England to Emperor Ferdinand II in Vienna. The earl’s task was to negotiate the restitution of the family of the deposed and deceased Winter King, Frederick V of Bohemia and elector of the Palatinate (1596-1632), and his wife, Elizabeth Stuart (Charles’s sister), to the succession in the Palatine. In connection with this negotiation, he was also charged with seeking an end to the ongoing war in the Holy Roman Empire. Crowne and the rest of the earl’s sizable entourage journeyed over eight months all the way from the Netherlands across Central Europe and back. Along with lengthy descriptions of their ultimately unsuccessful diplomatic efforts, Crowne’s travel journal includes details about the hazards of travel during the Thirty Years War. Crowne witnessed and described the widespread and appalling effects of plague, famine, and plundering, and he made repeated mention of the dangers posed by the armies on both sides – even the danger that his party would be mistaken for marauding troops.
[…]
From here, on the left side we passed Kaub, which is the first town in the “Pfalz.” So difficult are conditions here that poor people are found dead with grass in their mouths…
Next we passed the fine town of Bingen on the right side and Ehrenfels Castle on the left, to Rüdesheim, a town on the left side of the Rhine into which I entered and saw poor people praying in a little old house where dead bones lay. Here His Excellency gave some relief to these poor wretches who were so starved that they struggled with one another for the food which he gave them…
[…]
It was in a pleasant corner house near the river that the King of Bohemia had died and here, likewise, the poor people were almost dying of starvation, those who had been able, before, to relieve the suffering of others now humbly begging for food and clothing for themselves. So violently did these poor people struggle when provisions were sent from our ship that some of them fell into the Rhine and were in danger of being drowned…
From Cologne to Frankfurt all the towns, villages, and castles are battered, pillaged, and burnt and [during] every one of our halts we remained on board, every man taking his turn on guard duty…
[…]
…After passing through a wood, [we] came to a wretched little village called Neunkirchen [in Franconia], which we found quite uninhabited yet with one house on fire. Here, since it was late, we were obliged to stay all night, for the nearest town was four miles away; but we spent that night walking up and down with carbines [rifles] in our hands, and listening fearfully to the sound of shots in the woods around us. We did, however, make use of some of the burning fragments of the house that was on fire for we used them to roast the meat that was prepared for His Excellency’s supper.
Early next morning, His Excellency went to inspect the church and found that it had been plundered and that the pictures and the altar had been desecrated. In the churchyard we saw a dead body, scraped out of the grave, while outside the churchyard we found another dead body. Moreover, we entered many houses but found that all were empty. We hurried on from this unhappy place and learnt later that the villagers had fled on account of the plague and had set that particular house on fire in order to prevent travelers from catching the infection…
Here [at Neustadt on the Aisch River], seeing wretched children sitting at their doors almost dying of hunger, His Excellency ordered that food and money should be given to their parents. Next we came to Emskirchen, a miserable village where we dined on food of our own for there was no food to be had there; and after dinner we passed a succession of pillaged and devastated villages and so entered Nüremberger-Land…
Early next morning we set off, passing churches razed to the ground, and fearing attacks from Croats who lurked in the woods through which has been pillaged twenty-eight times in the space of two years and has been sacked twice in a single day….
This day [August 29, 1636], after a widespread search, the corpses of His Excellency’s Gentleman of Horse and his Trumpeter, together with the corpse of their guide, the Postmaster, were found. They had been barbarously murdered five days before, as they were returning to Regensburg, and their bodies were found tied to separate trees about pistol shot range from the highway, at a point within four miles of Nuremberg. It appeared that each must have witnessed the death agonies of his companions. The head of the Gentleman of the Horse had been shattered by a pistol shot, the Trumpeter’s head had been cut off and the guide’s head had been split open…
Source:
Medick, Hans, and Benjamin Marschke. “Scourges of War: Plague, Starvation, and Cannibalism.” Experiencing the Thirty Years War: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 115-117. Print.
Further Reading:
Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel KG
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor
Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia / Winter Queen
Sacrum Imperium Romanum (Holy Roman Empire)
[Burg Ehrenfels (Ehrenfels Castle)]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenfels_Castle_(Hesse)
Neunkirchen, Baden-Württemberg
This reminded me a little of the accounts of the group sent by the pope to make contact with the Mongols. I vaguely remember them describing seeing a snowy mountain in the distance, only to get there and see that it was a huge pile of human bones.
That would probably make a good post now that I think about it.