til the Emperor should decide
to whom they belonged, and, then, rushing back to Bohemia, should
annihilate Matthias, seize Prague, and deliver Rudolph from bondage. It
was further agreed that Leopold, in requital of these services, should
receive the crown of Bohemia, be elected King of the Romans, and declared
heir to the Emperor, so far as Rudolph could make him his heir.

The first point in the program he had only in part accomplished. He had
taken Julich, proclaimed the intentions of the Emperor, and then been
driven out of his strong position by the wise policy of the States under
the guidance of Barneveld and by the consummate strategy of Maurice. It
will be seen therefore that the Republic was playing a world's game at
this moment, and doing it with skill and courage. On the issue of the
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
comprom