xcited surprise by the note of
general hostility which they struck, while the share of the Palatinate
and of Brandenburg in the election was treated in them as a formality
which could be dispensed with in case of necessity.[400]

It is quite intelligible that the Protestants should be agitated by
this discovery, and should entertain the idea of opposing the election
of Ferdinand. Not that one of them thought of acquiring the throne for
himself; they did not resist the election of a Catholic emperor as
such, but they wished to guard against the resumption of the
combination between the Austro-Spanish power and the prerogatives of
the imperial crown. At first their eyes fell upon Duke Maximilian of
Bavaria, whom they would by this means have for ever detached from
that power. The Elector Frederick controlled the jealousy which, as
Elector Palatine, he felt for a branch of the same house, and went to
Munich in order to prevail on his cousin to consent to this
arrangement; for, according to the plea advanced on grounds of
imperial right, the imperial crown could not be allowed to become
hereditary in the house of Austria. He hoped that the Archbishop
Ferdinand of Cologne, the brother of the Duke of Bavaria, would
support him, and that his influence would win over the other spiritual
electors also. The Union and the League would then have combined to
oppose the house of Austria.

But meanwhile open resistance to the claims of this family had already
broken out in its own provinces. While the Emperor Matthias was still
alive, the Archduke Ferdinand, through the combination, as prescribed
by Bohemian usage, of an election with the recognition of his
hereditary claims, had been acknowledged future King of Bohemia, and
had been already crowned, on condition that he would not mix in public
affairs before the death of his predecessor. But immediately after the
coronation people thought that they could discover his hand in every
act of the government. Cardinal Klesel, the man in whom the greatest
confidence was reposed, especially by the Protestant portion of the
Estates, had been overthrown owing to the influence of the Spanish
ambassador. In opposition to the influence thus exercised, 'against
the practices and snares of the Jesuits,' as the phrase ran, the
zealous Protestants who, when Ferdinand was accepted as King, had been
thrust into the background or had retired, now obtained the upper hand
in the country, and proceeded t