Catholic landholders and their admission to city offices and to the university. These and other demands were denied by the Catholics, and the parties stood thus in an attitude of as great mutual hostility as if they had not been the sons of a common country, but hereditary foes. On the Protestant side there was now hope of forcing matters, by the aid of Thurn, who finally, in the beginning of May, 1619, advanced into Lower Austria and encamped before the city of Laa, to a decision. After Ferdinand, as the result of negotiations to which he had resorted in order to gain time, had withdrawn his troops from this city, Thurn could garrison Laa and advance further without danger. In order to take possession of the passage of the Danube, he dispatched the two Moravian regiments of Tiefenbach and Z̃erotín towards Fischamend, where they arrived before the break of day, and by stratagem seized all the boats, including four large flat-bottomed ferry-boats. A secret understanding with the proprietor of Fischamend, Baron von Teufel, facilitated this undertaking, and removed nearly all its danger. When Thurn was informed of this success, he followed with the rest of his army and passed over with it to the right bank of the river. He drove back several thousand Hungarian cavalry, who were just then approaching to Ferdinand’s aid, and then drew near the suburbs of Vienna, and as he found these without garrisons, he took possession of the parts which lay nearest, and waited for a signal from Vienna to direct his further action.
II.
When it became known in Vienna that Thurn had marched from Laa, the city presented a picture of the
