their privileges. This undoubtedly proves how crafty was Ferdinand’s policy. The Bohemian nobles had sometime previously established serfdom in Bohemia, thus rendering helpless the peasants who had supplied the Hussites with their best soldiers. Ferdinand’s decrees now rendered the townsmen defenceless. As defenders of the nation and its church there remained only the knights and nobles, whom Ferdinand’s grandson was afterwards to subdue. Pursuing his policy, Ferdinand in 1556 established the Jesuits in Bohemia, and in 1562 the Roman archbishopric of Prague was re-established after an interval of more than a century.
The re-establishment of the Roman church made little progress during the reign of Maximilian, who after Ferdinand’s death in 1564 succeeded to the Bohemian throne. Maximilian’s son, Rudolph II., the second who became King of Bohemia in 1576, also at first showed little interest in religious matters, and during the prolonged struggle between him and his brother Matthias both brothers made use of the religious divergences to further their own ambitious purposes. Rudolph in 1609 very reluctantly signed the “Letter of
Majesty,” which granted the Protestants—a name that at this period included Lutherans, members of the Bohemian brotherhood, and utraquists—considerable privileges. Rudolph, as the so-called “incursion of the men of Passau” proves, had determnied to free himself from this onerous obligation as soon as circumstances permitted it, and the same may be said of his brother Matthias, though he confirmed the letter of majesty when he succeeded his brother in 1612. Both Rudolph and Matthias being childless, Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, a grandson of Ferdinand I., became heir to the Bohemian throne, and under great pressure the majority of the Bohemian estates recognised him as such in 1617. Ferdinand, who had for some time ruled over Styria, had in that country relentlessly persecuted and driven from the land all who did not profess the Roman creed. He made
