When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Long lists of characters are much easier to manage in fiction, and that's where my new series comes in! Matchlock is a historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War, beginning in 1622, when Matthew Lock lands in Europe to investigate the brutal murder of his parents. Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. If you thought you properly understood how the Empire worked at long last – then think again! There was always some wrinkle or exception to the rule, but perhaps no rules were more important than those concerning the role of Electors. We touched on them in the last episode, but here we place them in their proper context, and unwrap what specifically made them so important to the functioning of the Empire. The Habsburgs, powerful though they were, depended upon the Electors for their legitimacy, and after the Reformation, the seven invaluable votes which could be offered were split along these lines. What was the solution? To a generation of Habsburg rulers, it was quite s