ohemian
church reformers, while the Romanists and retrograde Utraquists were
traditionally on the side of the house of Habsburg. The reign of
Maximilian did not fulfil the hopes that met it. Though he published new
decrees against the Bohemian Brethren, he generally refused to sanction
any measures against the Protestants, in spite of the advice of the
Jesuits, who were gradually obtaining great influence in Bohemia. He did
nothing, however, to satisfy the expectations of the partisans of church
reform, and indeed after a time began again to assist at the functions
of the Roman church, from which he had long absented himself.
Indifference, perhaps founded on religious scepticism, characterized the
king during the many ecclesiastical disputes that played so large a part
in his reign. In 1567 Maximilian, who had also succeeded his father as
king of Hungary and emperor, visited the Bohemians for the first time
since his accession to the throne. Like most princes of the Habsburg
dynasty, he was constantly confronted at this period by the difficulty
of raising funds for warfare against the Turks. When he asked the
Bohemians to grant him supplies for this purpose, they immediately
retorted by bringing forward their demands with regard to matters of
religion. Their principal demand appears somewhat strange in the light
of the events of the past. The estates expressed the wish that the
celebrated Compacts should cease to form part of the laws of the
country. These enactments had indeed granted freedom of worship to the
most moderate Utraquists--men who, except that they claimed the right to
receive the communion in both kinds, hardly differed in their faith from
the Roman church. On the other hand Ferdinand I. had used the Compacts
as an instrument which justified him in oppressing the Bohemian
Brethren, and the advanced Utraquists, whose teaching now differed but
little from that of Luther. He had argued that all those who professed
doctrines differing from the Church of Rome more widely than did the
retrograde Utraquists, were outside the pale of religious toleration.
Maximilian, indifferent as usual to matters of religious controversy,
consented to the abolition of the Compacts, and these enactments, which
had once been sacred to the Bohemian people, perished unregretted by all
parties. The Romanists had always hated them, believing them not to be
in accord with the general custom of the papal church, while the
Lutherans and