So Matthias came to Prague at the invitation of the Estates, entering the city with all the airs of a conqueror.  Rudolph received his brother with enforced politeness, and invited him to reside in the Hradschin.  This proposal was declined by Matthias, who sent a colonel however, with six pieces of artillery, to guard and occupy that palace.  The Passau prisoners were pardoned and released, and there was a general reconciliation.  A month later, Matthias went in pomp to the chapel of the holy Wenceslaus, that beautiful and barbarous piece of mediaeval, Sclavonic architecture, with its sombre arches, and its walls encrusted with huge precious stones.  The Estates of Bohemia, arrayed in splendid Zchech costume, and kneeling on the pavement, were asked whether they accepted Matthias, King of Hungary, as their lawful king.  Thrice they answered Aye.  Cardinal Dietrichstein then put the historic crown of St. Wenceslaus on the King’s head, and Matthias swore to maintain the laws and privileges of Bohemia, including the recent charters granting liberty of religion to Protestants.  Thus there was temporary, if hollow, truce between the religious parties, and a sham reconciliation between the Emperor and his brethren.  The forlorn Rudolph moped away the few months of life left to him in the Hradschin, and died 1612 soon after the new year.  The House of Austria had not been divided, Matthias succeeded his brother, Leopold’s visions melted into air, and it was for the future to reveal whether the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise had been written on very durable material.

And while such was the condition of affairs in Germany immediately following the Cleve and Julich campaign, the relations of the Republic both to England and France were become rapidly more dangerous than they ever had been.  It was a severe task for Barneveld, and enough to overtax the energies of any statesman, to maintain his hold on two such slippery governments as both had become since the death of their great monarchs.  It had been an easier task for William the Silent to steer his course, notwithstanding all the perversities, short-comings, brow-beatings, and inconsistencies that he had been obliged to endure from Elizabeth and Henry.  Genius, however capricious and erratic at times, has at least vision, and it needed no elaborate arguments to prove to both those sovereigns that the severance of their policy from that of the Netherlands was impossible without ruin to the Republic and incalculable danger themselves.

But now France and England were both tending towards Spain through a stupidity on the part of their rulers such as the gods are said to contend against in vain.  Barneveld was not a god nor a hero, but a courageous and wide-seeing statesman, and he did his best.  Obliged by his position to affect admiration, or at least respect, where no emotion but contempt was possible, his daily bread was bitter enough.  It was absolutely necessary to humour those whom knew to be traversing his policy and desiring his ruin, for there was no other way to serve his country and save it from impending danger.  So long as he was faithfully served by his subordinates, and not betrayed by those to whom he gave his heart, he could confront external enemies and mould the policy of wavering allies.