conflict which had been begun and was to be long protracted in the
duchies, and to spread over nearly all Christendom besides, would depend
the existence of the United Netherlands and the fate of Protestantism.

The discomfited Leopold swept back at the head of his mercenaries, 9000
foot and 3000 horse, through Alsace and along the Danube to Linz and so
to Prague, marauding, harrying, and black-mailing the country as he went.
He entered the city on the 15th of February 1611, fighting his way
through crowds of exasperated burghers. Sitting in full harness on
horseback in the great square before the cathedral, the warlike bishop
compelled the population to make oath to him as the Emperor's commissary.
The street fighting went on however day by day, poor Rudolph meantime
cowering in the Hradschin. On the third day, Leopold, driven out of the
town, took up a position on the heights, from which he commanded it with
his artillery. Then came a feeble voice from the Hradschin, telling all
men that these Passau marauders and their episcopal chief were there by
the Emperor's orders. The triune city--the old, the new, and the Jew--was
bidden to send deputies to the palace and accept the Imperial decrees. No
deputies came at the bidding. The Bohemians, especially the Praguers,
being in great majority Protestants knew very well that Leopold was
fighting the cause of the Papacy and Spain in Bohemia as well as in the
duchies.

And now Matthias appeared upon the scene. The Estates had already been in
communication with him, better hopes, for the time at least, being
entertained from him than from the flaccid Rudolph. Moreover a kind of
compromise had been made in the autumn between Matthias and the Emperor
after the defeat of Leopold in the duchies. The real king had fallen at
the feet of the nominal one by proxy of his brother Maximilian. Seven
thousand men of the army of Matthias now came before Prague under command
of Colonitz. The Passauers, receiving three months pay from the Emperor,
marched quietly off. Leopold disappeared for the time. His chancellor and
counsellor in the duchies, Francis Teynagel, a Geldrian noble, taken
prisoner and put to the torture, revealed the little plot of the Emperor
in favour of the Bishop, and it was believed that the Pope, the King of
Spain, and Maximilian of Bavaria were friendly to the scheme. This was
probable, for Leopold at last made no mystery of his resolve to fight
Protestantism to the dea