Welcome to the Thirty Years War...like you've never seen it before! Learn here how the personal rivalry and hatred between Emperor Ferdinand and his subject Frederick pushed Europe to the brink of the abyss... Over three decades, this history spat out a wide range of fascinating stories and tales, but in this episode I'm going to focus on one in particular - the incredible story of Frederick V's rise, fall then rise and then fall again! It's a winding tale, but it's also emblematic of the wider ...
Oct 07, 2021•55 min
NEW TO WDF? PLEASE START HERE! We've been on quite a journey over the last few episodes, and I think it's time we take stock. In this episode, for the benefit of new listeners, I'll explain not only what happens in this conflict, but also why it's fascinating and absolutely worth your time. We bring our story up to 1619, or Episode 18 of the Thirty Years' War back catalogue if you want to listen from the beginning of this incredible story! Matchlock is my new series set during the Thirty Years' ...
Oct 07, 2021•53 min
Our historical fiction series set during the Thirty Years' War is finally ready for you! Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. Although he had been lurking in the background for some time, as he sorted through France's internal problems, by 1629, Cardinal Richelieu was finally ready to make a bold strike in a determined anti-Habsburg direction. That story has since become immortalised, but what of those internal problems? And was this French Cardinal really as willing to...
Sep 22, 2021•33 min
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. In this special episode, I explain some details about Matchlock and the Embassy, which you can now access in all your favourite book vendors, online and off! Not sure about it ? I read our first review, which provides a brilliant analysis of what this novel brings to the table, and why you'll aring war on historical fiction, and I enjoy it if you enjoy Thirty Years War content. Want to dip your toe in ? Have a listen to the new and i...
Sep 19, 2021•22 min
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. 1629 was THE year of the Thirty Years War, when all the tributaries seemed to join the main river, and flow as one. The Swedish and Poles made their peace, under French sponsorship. The French expelled the Huguenots from La Rochelle. The Spanish continued their siege of Casale, in North Italy. The Danes made their peace with Wallenstein and the Emperor, and the Emperor let the ink dry on his Edict of Restitution, before releasing it ...
Sep 07, 2021•38 min
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. The war was going well for Emperor Ferdinand by 1629, fallout from the Edict of Restitution notwithstanding, but the Habsburg dynasty wasn't based in Vienna alone. Over in Madrid, things by 1629, with the Dutch war, were beginning to look increasingly dicey. How did such things happen, especially when the Dutch were brought to such a low ebb by 1625? Well, let's find out, we we trace the story of Dutch deliverance, beginning with a n...
Aug 25, 2021•30 min
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. Time to enlighten you on how our new content and plans will factor into our Patreon page going forward, and why you should be very excited indeed! Don't want to listen? Read instead! Join the Facebook group Read this blog post to learn more Read this blog post to learn how all this will be injected into Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 11, 2021•24 min
Order your copy of Matchlock and the Embassy by clicking here. After so many months preparing, I can finally announce what's happening, and why I'm so excited! I don't want to give anything away, but I will say, if you're a fan of history, storytelling and the Thirty Years War, then this will blow your mind! Join the Facebook group Read this blog post to learn more Read this blog post to learn how all this will be injected into Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...
Aug 11, 2021•47 min
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. Emperor Ferdinand had it all. The Habsburg dynasty had never been so supreme, and his enemies had been utterly vanquished. But it was not enough for him, or the Jesuits that whispered in his ear. They wanted more than victory, they wanted spiritual triumph as ...
Aug 11, 2021•33 min
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. Was the Thirty Years War a religious war? The long answer is no, the short answer is that religious issues were rarely far from the forefront of the conflict, especially before 1635. By the late 1620s, the Emperor had arrived at a point where the reorganisatio...
Jul 28, 2021•30 min
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. 1628 was a pivotal year of the Thirty Years War. Not only did it contain the final full year of war between the Emperor and the Danes, it also contained a total of three sieges running in very different theatres, with seriously consequential stakes for all inv...
Jul 14, 2021•37 min
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. By 1628, the Habsburgs seemed triumphant. The plan was then to reach the Baltic, and build a fleet of their own to terrify Scandinavia into submission. Would it work? The recent gift of Mecklenburg, along the Baltic shore, and Pomeranian weakness, suggested it...
Jun 30, 2021•36 min
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. By late 1626, Emperor Ferdinand was riding high. But this season of triumph was not enough. Ferdinand had bigger dreams than the mere destruction of his enemies. He imagined a new world order, where threats to the Habsburg dynasty ceased to exist, and the Cath...
Jun 16, 2021•36 min
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. As 1626 dawned, two saviours were on the march to the rescue of their respective camps. King Christian IV of Denmark looked poised to save the princes and cities of the Lower Saxon Circle from a looming Habsburg threat, and guarantees and supplies from the oth...
Jun 02, 2021•41 min
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. With the King of Denmark on the march, and the net closing in on him, Emperor Ferdinand was forced to go big or go home. So instead, he went big, VERY big. He turned to Albrecht von Wallenstein, thus far his most important loan shark and self-made millionaire,...
May 05, 2021•31 min
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. King Christian IV of Denmark had more than a lot on his plate by 1625. He was the King of Denmark, and the Duke of Holstein. Yet he was also an important Protestant figure, the leader of a German dynasty, and a father determined to acquire the best inheritance...
Apr 21, 2021•33 min
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. The Hague Alliance of 1625 was only the latest in a long series of things that Frederick couldn't afford to get his hopes up about. It involved England, the Netherlands and Denmark in a mutual defensive alliance, and England even went to war with Spain shortly...
Apr 07, 2021•39 min
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. Have I got a story for you, or rather, a play. With the failure of the Spanish Match, the anti-Spanish sentiments were bound to soar in England, but when a not so subtle play - A Game at Chess - was released to the Globe theatre in August 1624, this was too fa...
Mar 24, 2021•35 min
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. Stop me if you think you've heard it. Guy travels incognito to a girl in far off land. Confirms girl will marry him. Girl's father agrees to marriage. Girl's father is actually the King of Spain. Incognito guy is actually King Charles I of Britain, before he l...
Mar 10, 2021•40 min
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. The early 1620's were a period of strange diplomatic behaviour for Britain, trapped as it was between the visions of a perpetual peace forged by marriage, and the realities of European political interest. Here we learn of an individual who went through this ex...
Feb 24, 2021•29 min
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. King James of Britain was a complex fellow, and while his son is arguably more infamous, the father had some issues of his own to get through too. Most particularly, in the Spanish Match, the king's quest to balance Europe with a Palatine Protestant marital al...
Feb 10, 2021•37 min
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. What happened when the most intensive, bitter conflict Europe had to offer spilled over into the other conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Elector Palatine? The Spanish and Dutch had fought for many decades, but the latest chapter in their war look...
Jan 27, 2021•36 min
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. In today's episode we look at the story of the Dutch in a time of peace and tranquility - or at least, peace - and ask what went wrong. The problem was that the United Provinces were not so united after all, and were in fact beset by divisions on numerous leve...
Jan 13, 2021•35 min
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. After many episodes examining Frederick's woes, here we change our focus and look at that conflict long in the background - the Spanish Dutch War, which was resuming after twelve years of truce, in 1621. What had the truce done for both parties, and why did th...
Dec 16, 2020•35 min
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. Welcome to our coverage of the 30 Years War, where we cover the period 1622-23. It was a time of significant defeats and changes, but also of moments of great triumph and success for the Holy Roman Emperor. In the aftermath of his enemy's disaster, Ferdinand w...
Dec 02, 2020•45 min
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. In this episode, we examine the years between roughly 1620-22, as Frederick moved into his new home in The Hague, just as the war between Spain and the Dutch was about to resume. Like many others at the time, Frederick believed that the Eighty Years War had th...
Nov 18, 2020•36 min
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. In this episode, the Battle of White Mountain shatters Frederick's regime, but how did we get here? Let's roll back the clock a bit.... Frederick’s prospects were fair so long as his allies came to aid him against the Emperor. Yet, once these allies refused to...
Nov 04, 2020•42 min
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. The Winter King had to carry on, and over November 1619- April 1620, he did just that. Frederick embarked on his royal progress, doing his best to persuade those he met that he was legit, and that his regime was here to stay. He had no other choice - Emperor F...
Oct 21, 2020•35 min
Great news history friends - I've finally done it, and taken a large weight off my shoulders by joining up with Teepublic, a podcaster's favourite merchandise company! This is where you come in, because you guys can now make this a success by heading over to our Teepublic storefront. As an added incentive, we arranged to launch when a 35% off sale was already on! All you have to do is click here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 15, 2020•4 min
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. Last time in our 30 Years War story, Frederick V, a big time German ruler with small time power, accepted the Crown of Bohemia, and Europe seemed to breathe a sigh of shock. Some were shocked of course, but others were positively bouncing, and excited for the ...
Oct 07, 2020•41 min
