the attitude of the Bohemian people during the subsequent short campaign. Returning the Imperial "patent," the Estates declared that "they would—should an entirely unprovoked attack be made on them—defend their king, who had been elected and crowned in accordance with the old privileges and rights of Bohemia; and that they would fight to the utmost for the lands of the Bohemian crown, and for their beloved country, at the risk of their estates and their lives; they therefore confidently entrusted the decision to the justice of God." On the day he addressed his letter to the Estates, Maximilian also wrote to King Frederick, summoning him immediately to leave Bohemia. The king returned an answer similar to that of the Estates.[1] On September 8 the army of the "Liga" united with that of Bouquoi in Lower Austria, and the combined forces, crossing the Bohemian frontier (September 20), marched on Budějovice.
Bouquoi nominally retained his separate command, but he henceforth played a minor part, as the influence and importance of the Duke of Bavaria were far superior to his. A few days before (September 13) the troops of the Elector of Saxony had crossed the frontier of Lusatia, to reduce this dependency of Bohemia to Ferdinand's rule.
Never was Bohemia less prepared to resist the vast forces now on the march against her. It would indeed have required the enthusiasm of the Hussite times to render a successful defence possible. The Bohemians of this period were, however, very different from their heroic ancestors. There was nothing also in the person of the German king whom they had chosen to carry away the masses as Žižka and Prokop had done in the days of old. Frederick, though the charm of his manners secured for him a certain degree of popularity to which Queen Elizabeth never attained, soon proved himself utterly deficient as ruler of the country in a moment of almost unexampled difficulty. As already noted, the former "Directors" had, while abandoning that title, retained almost all their former power. At a moment when a dictator with uncontested authority could perhaps have saved the country, constant quarrels between the new German generals, Anhalt and Hohenlohe, and
- ↑ Lontorp (Lontorpius) (Acta publica der Kaiserlichen und zu Hungern und Böhmen Königlichen Majestät weiland Matthiae und Ferdinandi, 1621) prints these four letters.
