of the army's officials, with the emperor's approval. Early life Wallenstein was born on 24 September 1583 in Heřmanice, Bohemia, which is the easternmost and largest region in what was then the Holy Roman Empire, in the present-day Czech Republic, into a poor Protestant Wallenstein branch of the Waldstein family who owned Heřmanice Castle and seven surrounding villages. His mother, Markéta Smiřická of Smiřice, died in 1593; his father, Vilém, died in 1595. They had raised him bilingually – the father spoke German while his mother preferred Czech – yet Wallenstein in his childhood had a better command of Czech than of German. His parents' religious affiliations were Lutheranism and Utraquist Hussitism. After their deaths, Albrecht for two years lived with his maternal uncle Heinrich (Jindřich) Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk, a member of the Unity of the Brethren (Bohemian Brethren), and adopted his uncle's religious affiliation. His uncle sent him to the brethren's school at Košumberk Castle in Eastern Bohemia. In 1597, Albrecht was sent to the Protestant Latin school at Goldberg (now Złotoryja) in Silesia, where the then-German environment led him to hone his German language skills. While German became Wallenstein's main language, he is said to have continued to curse in Czech. On 29 August 1599, Wallenstein continued his education at the Protestant University of Altdorf near Nuremberg, Franconia, where he was often engaged in brawls and épée fights, leading to his imprisonment in the town prison. He beat his servant so badly he had to purchase him a new suit of clothes on top of paying compensation. In February 1600, Albrecht left Altdorf and travelled around the Holy Roman Empire, France and Italy, where he studied at the universities of Bologna and Padua. By this time, Wallenstein was fluent in German, Czech, Latin and Italian, was able to understand Spanish, and spoke some French. Wallenstein then joined the army of the Emperor Rudolf II in Hungary, where, under the command of Giorgio Basta, he saw two years of armed service (1604–1606) in the Long Turkish War against the Ottoman Turks and Hungarian rebels. In 1604, his sister, Kateřina Anna, married the leader of the Moravian Protestants, Karel the Older of Zierotin. He then studied at the University of Olomouc (matriculating in 1606). His contact with the Olomouc Jesuits is considered to be at least partially responsible for his conversion to Catholicism that same year. The contributory