th solicitude, for the parties
were very equally matched, and results of most momentous importance were
dependent upon the issue.

In this state of affairs the Protestant league, which extended through
Europe, entered into a truce with the Catholic league, which also
extended through Europe, that they should both withdraw from the
contest, leaving Ferdinand and the Bohemians to settle the dispute as
they best could. This seemed very much to narrow the field of strife,
but the measure, in its practical results, was far more favorable to
Ferdinand than to the Bohemians. The emperor thus disembarrassed, by
important concessions, and by menaces, brought the Protestants of Lower
Austria into submission. The masses, overawed by a show of power which
they could not resist, yielded; the few who refused to bow in homage to
the emperor were punished as guilty of treason.

Ferdinand, by these cautious steps, was now prepared to concentrate his
energies upon Bohemia. He first attacked the dependent provinces of
Bohemia, one by one, sending an army of twenty-five thousand men to take
them unprepared. Having subjected all of Upper Austria to his sway, with
fifty thousand men he entered Bohemia. Their march was energetic and
sanguinary. With such an overpowering force they took fortress after
fortress, scaling ramparts, mercilessly cutting down garrisons,
plundering and burning towns, and massacreing the inhabitants. Neither
sex nor age was spared, and a brutal soldiery gratified their passions
in the perpetration of indescribable horrors. Even the Duke of Bavaria
was shocked at such barbarities, and entered his remonstrances against
them. Many large towns, terrified by the atrocities perpetrated upon
those who resisted the imperial arms, threw open their gates, hoping
thus, by submission, to appease the vengeance of the conqueror.

Frederic was a weak man, not at all capable of encountering such a
storm, and the Bohemians had consequently no one to rally and to guide
them with efficiency. His situation was now alarming in the extreme. He
was abandoned by the Protestant league, hemmed in on every side by the
imperial troops, and his hereditary domains of the Palatinate were
overrun by twenty thousand Spaniards. His subjects, alarmed at his utter
inefficiency, and terrified by the calamities which were falling, like
avalanche after avalanche upon them, became dissatisfied with him, and
despairing respecting their own fate. He was a C