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.

Anhalt demanded of Savoy 15,000 men for the maintenance of the good cause, asserting that “it would be better to have the Turk or the devil himself on the German throne than leave it to Ferdinand.”

The triumvirate ruling at Prague-Thurn, Ruppa, and Hohenlohe—­were anxious for a decision from Frederic.  That simple-hearted and ingenuous young elector had long been troubled both with fears lest after all he might lose the crown of Bohemia and with qualms of conscience as to the propriety of taking it even if he could get it.  He wrestled much in prayer and devout meditation whether as anointed prince himself he were justified in meddling with the anointment of other princes.  Ferdinand had been accepted, proclaimed, crowned.  He artlessly sent to Prague to consult the Estates whether they possessed the right to rebel, to set aside the reigning dynasty, and to choose a new king.  At the same time, with an eye to business, he stipulated that on account of the great expense and trouble devolving upon him the crown must be made hereditary in his family.  The impression made upon the grim Thurn and his colleagues by the simplicity of these questions may be imagined.  The splendour and width of the Savoyard’s conceptions fascinated the leaders of the Union.  It seemed to Anspach and Anhalt that it was as well that Frederic should reign in Hungary as in Bohemia, and the Elector was docile.  All had relied however on the powerful assistance of the great defender of the Protestant faith, the father-in-law of the Elector, the King of Great Britain.  But James had nothing but cold water and Virgilian quotations for his son’s ardour.  He was more under the influence of Gondemar than ever before, more eagerly hankering for the Infanta, more completely the slave of Spain.  He pledged