e negotiations in Germany after a time resulted in the victory of
the house of Austria, which in spite of all opposition carried the day
in the election of the Emperor. The Elector Palatine acknowledged
Ferdinand II without hesitation. But almost at the same moment he
received the news that he had himself been elected king by the Estates
of Bohemia. It cannot be proved that he was privy to this beforehand:
even the rumour that his wife urged him to accept the crown because
she was a king's daughter meets with no confirmation. They were not so
blind as not to perceive the enormous danger in which the acceptance
of this offer would involve them. In reply to a question of the
Elector, his wife answered that she regarded the election as a divine
dispensation, that if he determined to accept it, which she left
entirely to his consideration, she for her part was resolved to
undergo everything that might follow from it. We must not regard as
hypocrisy the prominence which the prince and the princess alike gave
to religious considerations. Such was the fashion of the times
generally, and especially of the party to which they belonged.

The Elector Frederick however did not yet declare his decision. The
question of the acceptance of the crown of Bohemia was debated from
every point of view by the very councillors who had just been present
at the election of the Emperor. Their decision was in favour of the
prince inviting first of all the advice of his friends in the empire,
of the States-General, but especially of the King of England, and
making sure of their support.[401] The Bohemian envoys, who most
urgently requested an immediate answer, were put off with the reply
that the Elector must first of all be certain of the consent of the
father of his consort. Count Christopher Dohna was sent to England to
persuade King James to give it. He was commissioned to deliver to him
a letter from the Princess-Electress in which she most urgently
entreated her father to support her husband and to prove his paternal
love to them both.

King James came now face to face with the greatest question of his
life, which summed up and brought to light, so to speak, all the cross
purposes and conflicting political aims among which he had long moved.
A word from him was now of the greater consequence, as the
States-General declared that they would act as he did. But what was
his decision to be? He was not unmoved by the thought that the
prospect of