aBurntShip

                        Fiction set in the Thirty Years War Sack of Magdeburg 1631 -  by    Matthäus Merian de Oude   (1659)  In public domain courtesy of Wikipedia   The Thirty Years War 1618- 1648 currently does not receive a great deal of attention in Britain. James I and Charles I were both keen to keep their realm out of the conflict, and then the  British and Irish Civil Wars dominated the mid 17th century. England and Scotland may been have drawn in if James elder son and  heir apparent Henry, an enthusiastic Protestant who died in 1612, had ascended the throne,   Yet  the Thirty Years War brought devastating misery to central Europe.As well as hundreds of thousands of combatants being killed or wounded, the civilian casualties -caught in the conflict, but also facing famine and plague- numbered in their millions. The conflict is often portrayed as a religious war between Catholic forces  keen to maintain the centuries old privileges of the Holy Roman Empire ( covering modern da