The Duke displayed no eagerness for the crown of Germany, while approving the election of Frederic, but expressed entire sympathy with the enterprise.  It was indispensable however to form a general federation in Europe of England, the Netherlands, Venice, together with Protestant Germany and himself, before undertaking so mighty a task.  While the negotiations were going on, both Anspach and Anhalt were in great spirits.  The Margrave cried out exultingly, “In a short time the means will be in our hands for turning the world upside down.”  He urged the Prince of Anhalt to be expeditious in his decisions and actions.  “He who wishes to trade,” he said, “must come to market early.”

There was some disappointment at Heidelberg when the first news from Turin arrived, the materials for this vast scheme for an overwhelming and universal European war not seeming to be at their disposition.  By and by the Duke’s plans seem to deepen and broaden.  He told Mansfeld, who, accompanied by Secretary Neu, was glad at a pause in his fighting and brandschatzing in Bohemia to be employed on diplomatic business, that on the whole he should require the crown of Bohemia for himself.  He also proposed to accept the Imperial crown, and as for Frederic, he would leave him the crown of Hungary, and would recommend him to round himself out by adding to his hereditary dominions the province of Alsace, besides Upper Austria and other territories in convenient proximity to the Palatinate.

Venice, it had been hoped, would aid in the great scheme and might in her turn round herself out with Friuli and Istria and other tempting possessions of Ferdinand, in reward for the men and money she was expected to furnish.  That republic had however just concluded a war with Ferdinand, caused mainly by the depredations of the piratical Uscoques, in which, as we have seen, she had received the assistance of 4000 Hollanders under command of Count John of Nassau.  The Venetians had achieved many successes, had taken the city of Gortz, and almost reduced the city of Gradiska.  A certain colonel Albert Waldstein however, of whom more might one day be heard in the history of the war now begun, had beaten the Venetians and opened a pathway through their ranks for succour to the beleaguered city.  Soon afterwards peace was made on an undertaking that the Uscoques should be driven from their haunts, their castles dismantled, and their ships destroyed.

Venice declined an engagement to begin a fresh war.

She hated Ferdinand and Matthias and the whole Imperial brood, but, as old Barbarigo declared in the Senate, the Republic could not afford to set her house on fire in order to give Austria the inconvenience of the smoke.

Meantime, although the Elector-Palatine had magnanimously agreed to use his influence in Bohemia in favour of Charles Emmanuel, the Duke seems at last to have declined proposing himself for that throne.  He knew, he said, that King James wished that station for his son-in-law.  The Imperial crown belonged to no one as yet after the death of Matthias, and was open therefore to his competition.