Reason of State, Stände and Estates in German and English Exchanges over the Crisis in the Palatinate, 1618-1624

When in 1619 Frederick V of the Palatinate accepted the crown of Bohemia, he justified his political action that challenged the authority of Emperor Ferdinand II and precipitated the Thirty Years' War by the need to uphold the public order, rights and responsibilities embodied by “the estates” of the Reich. English engagements with the German vocabulary of “estates” drew upon the concept of “reason of state”— those amoral political calculations needed to maintain a group’s “estate” or standing. The article examines the significance of these differences in vocabularies of “estates” and “state.”