Plot Summary
Early revelations detail machinations by the Habsburg heiress Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria to gather information as aided and abetted by a dowager aunt and her younger sister behind the backs of her father Emperor Ferdinand II and his Jesuit watchdogs. Duke Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria becomes a widower in need of a suitable Catholic bride, while the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand whose armies have reconquered 80–85% of the Low Countries by the summer of 1634 is contemplating a dynastic move of his own which his brother King Philip IV of Spain will find a bit disconcerting. Veronica Dreeson and Mary Simpson meanwhile plan a trip to tend to personal matters to the Upper Palatinate border region conquered by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and administered for him from Amberg by ally Duke Ernest of Saxe-Gotha, one of the four Wettin dukes that were supplanted by Grantville's (formation of the NUS) actions in 1631 and 1632. Events in the other 1634 novels (1634: The Galileo Affair, 1634: The Ram Rebellion, 1634: The Baltic War) are integrated into the action and political events behind the scenes, and this book ties a host of little oddities into a coherent canvas capturing a snapshot of the state of Europe in early summer of 1634.
Concurrent with their pet projects, the formidable Dreeson and Simpson women are accompanied by a trade delegation with the strategic goal of restoring the iron production of the Upper Palatinate to feed the war needs of the USE.
Read more about this topic: 1634: The Bavarian Crisis
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:
“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)