Gothenburg 1623

["Sinclair" <labehotiere@wanadoo.fr>]

The thirty years war was a dynastic and religious struggle for European hegemony in the first half of the seventeenth century. The centre stage was the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, it was not Roman and it was not an Empire. It was a loose federation of hundreds of principalities and free cities
Anti-Catholic Hussites, followers of executed reformer Jan Hus, stormed the town hall in Prague and pitched two Catholic councillors out the window. This was "The Defenestration in Prague". The out-the-window gentlemen all landed in a manure pile, safely.  The Defenestration in Prague is frequently considered as the opening of the thirty-years war in Europe.  The religious issue was the instant cause for war but at the centre was political struggle between the Emperor and the princes who ruled over a mismatch of German States.  Gustav Adolf entered the war in 1630.  Propaganda portrayed him the White Knight of the North who came to the rescue of the hard-pressed Protestants in Germany.  The Swedish entrance into the war (as defender of the evangelical faith!) was subsidised by (Catholic!) France.  Europe had a good supply of mercenary soldiers predominantly Swiss and Scots. Gustav Adolf fell in the battle of Lützen in 1632, but the war was carried on under the leadership of Axel Oxenstierna. The treaty of Westphalia 1648 ended the war and Sweden found itself in possession of considerable territories in northern Germany. Gustav Adolf fell in the battle of Lützen the crown passed to his daughter the six-year-old Kristina.
Gustav Adolf founded the city of Gothenburg in 1623. He invited Dutch architects to plan and build the city.  The First City Council was comprised of four Swedes, three Germans, two Dutch, two Scots, one a Sinclair. The name Sinclair was associated with many successful commercial enterprises.

Sinclair


Ref: The Cambridge Modern History, Volume IV, The Thirty Years' War Ward, Sir A.W.; Prothero, Sir G.W.; Leathes, Sir Stanley KCB Cambridge University Press