Matthias was watching all the events with the intensest eagerness, as affording a brilliant prospect to him, to obtain the crown of Bohemia, and the scepter of the empire.  This ambition consumed his days and his nights, verifying the adage, “uneasy lies the head which wears a crown.”

CHAPTER XIV.

RHODOLPH III.  AND MATTHIAS.

From 1609 to 1612.

Difficulties as to the Succession.—­Hostility of Henry IV. to the House of Austria.—­Assassination of Henry IV.—­Similarity in Sully’s and Napoleon’s Plans.—­Exultation of the Catholics.—­The Brothers’ Compact.—­How Rhodolph Kept It.—­Seizure of Prague.—­Rhodolph a Prisoner.—­The King’s Abdication.—­Conditions Attached to the Crown.—­Rage of Rhodolph.—­Matthias Elected King.—­The Emperor’s Residence.—­Rejoicings of the Protestants.—­Reply of the Ambassadors.—­The Nuremburg Diet.—­The Unkindest Cut of All.—­Rhodolph’s Humiliation And Death.

And now suddenly arose another question which threatened to involve all Europe in war.  The Duke of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg died without issue.  This splendid duchy, or rather combination of duchies, spread over a territory of several thousand square miles, and was inhabited by over a million of inhabitants.  There were many claimants to the succession, and the question was so singularly intricate and involved, that there were many who seemed to have an equal right to the possession.  The emperor, by virtue of his imperial authority, issued an edict, putting the territory in sequestration, till the question should be decided by the proper tribunals, and, in the meantime, placing the territory in the hands of one of his own family as administrator.

This act, together with the known wishes of Spain to prevent so important a region, lying near the Netherlands, from falling into the hands of the Protestants, immediately changed the character of the dispute into a religious contest, and, as by magic, all Europe wheeled into line on the one side or the other, Every other question was lost sight of, in the all-absorbing one, Shall the duchy fall into the hands of the Protestants or the Catholics?

Henry IV. of France zealously espoused the cause of the Protestants.  He was very hostile to the house of Austria for the assistance it had lent to that celebrated league which for so many years had deluged France in blood, and kept Henry IV. from the throne; and he was particularly anxious to humble that proud power.  Though Henry IV., after fighting for many years the battles of Protestantism, had, from motives of policy, avowed the Romish faith, he could never forget his mother’s instructions, his early predilections and his old friends and supporters, the Protestants; and his sympathies were always with them.  Henry IV., as sagacious and energetic as he was ambitious, saw that he could never expect a more favorable moment to strike the house of Austria than the one then presented.  The Emperor Rhodolph was weak, and universally unpopular, not only with his own subjects, but throughout Germany.  The Protestants were all inimical to him, and he was involved in desperate antagonism with his energetic brother Matthias.  Still he was a formidable foe, as, in a war involving religious questions, he could rally around him all the Catholic powers of Europe.