As for the Thirty Years` War, historians of the early modern period do not agree on many things, but in regard to Wallenstein`s personality, they appear curiously unanimous: The Kaiser`s Warlord was far ahead of his time. Unlike most of his contemporaries among the feudal nobility of Baroque Europe, Wallenstein managed to organize his scattered landed possessions - what otherwise would have been a multitude of more or less well-kept estates - into a centralized and semi-sovereign political unit, the Duchy of Friedland in the heart of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Insofar as Wallenstein, in his capacity as a free prince of the Holy Roman Empire, had formed his landed possessions into a political entity, he was both the political ruler and the proprietor of the territory and therefore didn`t have to pay deference to vassals of his own whereas even the most powerful among the great princes of the realm - the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria, for example - had to deal with vassals some of whom, rivalling their princely overlord in terms of wealth and prestige, couldn`t be treated as mere vasalls, just as the Holy Roman Emperor, as the overlord of the Reich`s territorial rulers, could by no means afford to treat the latter other than as his equals.
Being a HOMO NOVUS among the ancient circle of the German Imperial princes, Wallenstein who had been born a member of Moravia`s lesser nobility had to make up with energy and diligence what he lacked in pedigree. Even Wallenstein`s staunchest enemy among the German Princes of the Realm, the Bavarian Duke Maximilian I., harboured a grudging respect for the "dubious Duke Wallenstein" s` ruthless efficiency and razor-sharp intellect. Being himself, by a wide margin, the ablest among the Holy Roman Empire`s great German princes, Maximilian was endowed with a keen and unbiased sense for Wallenstein`s qualities which enabled him to identify the latter as a future enemy at a time when, for example, his brother-in-law, Archduke Ferdinand (the later Emperor) was still misty-eyed about Wallenstein`s seemingly unflinching loyalty toward HIM, the House of Habsburg and the Catholic Cause.