Botskoi was a nobleman in every sense of the word.  He thought it best publicly to accept these honors in gratitude to the sultan for his friendship and aid, and also to encourage and embolden the Hungarians to retain what they had already acquired.  He knew that there were bloody battles still before them, for the emperor would doubtless redouble his efforts to regain his Hungarian possessions.  At the same time Botskoi, in the spirit of true patriotism, was not willing even to appear to have usurped the government through the energies of the sword.  He therefore declared that he should not claim the crown unless he should be freely elected by the nobles; and that he accepted these honors simply as tokens of the confidence of the allied army, and as a means of strengthening their power to resist the emperor.

The campaign was now urged with great vigor, and nearly all of Hungary was conquered.  Such was the first great disaster which the intolerance and folly of Rhodolph brought upon him.  The Turks and the Hungarians were now good friends, cordially cooeperating.  A few more battles would place them in possession of the whole of Hungary, and then, in their alliance they could defy all the power of the emperor, and penetrate even the very heart of his hereditary dominions of Austria.  Rhodolph, in this sudden peril, knew not where to look for aid.  The Protestants, who constituted one half of the physical force, not only of Bohemia and of the Austrian States, but of all Germany, had been insulted and oppressed beyond all hope of reconciliation.  They dreaded the papal emperor more than the Mohammedan sultan.  They were ready to hail Botskoi as their deliverer from intolerable despotism, and to swell the ranks of his army.  Botskoi was a Protestant, and the sympathies of the Protestants all over Germany were with him.  Elated by his advance, the Protestants withheld all contributions from the emperor, and began to form combinations in favor of the Protestant chief.  Rhodolph was astonished at this sudden reverse, and quite in dismay.  He had no resource but to implore the aid of the Spanish court.

Rhodolph was as superstitious as he was bigoted and cruel.  Through the mysteries of alchymy he had been taught to believe that his life would be endangered by one of his own blood.  The idea haunted him by night and by day; he was to be assassinated, and by a near relative.  He was afraid to marry lest his own child might prove his destined murderer.  He was afraid to have his brothers marry lest it might be a nephew who was to perpetrate the deed.  He did not dare to attend church, or to appear any where in public without taking the greatest precautions against any possibility of attack.  The galleries of his palace were so arranged with windows in the roof, that he could pass from one apartment to another sheltered by impenetrable walls.