The Empire of Austria - John S. C. Abbott (best books to read now TXT) 📗

customs of the hereditary monarchy of Bohemia. The States immediately proceeded to his coronation. Every effort was made to dazzle the multitude with the splendors of the coronation, and to throw a halo of glory around the event, not merely as the accession of a new monarch to the throne, but as the introduction of a great reform in reinstating the nation in its pristine rights.

While the capital was resounding with these rejoicings, Rhodolph had retired to a villa at some distance from the city, in a secluded glen among the mountains, that he might close his ears against the hateful sounds. The next day Matthias, fraternally or maliciously, for it is not easy to judge which motive actuated him, sent a stinging message of assumed gratitude to his brother, thanking him for relinquishing in his brother's favor his throne and his palaces, and expressing the hope that they might still live together in fraternal confidence and affection.

Matthias and the States consulted their own honor rather than Rhodolph's merits, in treating him with great magnanimity. Though Rhodolph had lost, one by one, all his own hereditary or acquired territories, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, he still retained the imperial crown of Germany. This gave him rank and certain official honors, with but little real power. The emperor, who was also a powerful sovereign in his own right, could marshal his own forces to establish his decrees. But the emperor, who had no treasury or army of his own, was powerless indeed.

The emperor was permitted to occupy one of the palaces at Prague. He received an annual pension of nearly a million of dollars; and the territories and revenues of four lordships were conferred upon him. Matthias having consolidated his government, and appointed the great officers of his kingdom, left Prague without having any interview with his brother, and returned to his central capital at Vienna, where he married Anne, daughter of his uncle Ferdinand of Tyrol.

The Protestants all over the German empire hailed these events with public rejoicing. Rhodolph had been their implacable foe. He was now disarmed and incapable of doing them any serious injury. Matthias was professedly their friend, had been placed in power mainly as their sovereign, and was now invested with such power, as sovereign of the collected realms of Austria, that he could effectually protect them from persecution. This success emboldened them to unite in a strong, wide-spread confederacy for the protection of their rights. The Protestant nobles and princes, with the most distinguished of their clergy from all parts of the German empire, held a congress at Rothenburg. This great assembly, in the number, splendor and dignity of its attendants, vied with regal diets. Many of the most illustrious princes of the empire were there in person, with imposing retinues. The emperor and Matthias both deemed it expedient to send ambassadors to the meeting. The congress at Rothenburg was one of the most memorable movements of the Protestant party. They drew up minute regulations for the government of their confederacy, established a system of taxation among themselves, made efficient arrangements for the levying of troops, established arsenals and magazines, and strongly garrisoned a fortress, to be the nucleus of their gathering should they at any time be compelled to appeal to arms.

Rhodolph, through his ambassadors, appeared before this resplendent assembly the mean and miserable sycophant he ever was in days of disaster. He was so silly as to try to win them again to his cause. He coaxed and made the most liberal promises, but all in vain. Their reply was indignant and decisive, yet dignified.

"We have too long," they replied, "been duped by specious and deceitful promises. We now demand actions, not words. Let the emperor show us by the acts of his administration that his spirit is changed, and then, and then only, can we confide in him."

Matthias was still apprehensive that the emperor might rally the Catholic forces of Germany, and in union with the pope and the formidable power of the Spanish court, make an attempt to recover his Bohemian throne. It was manifest that with any energy of character, Rhodolph might combine Catholic Europe, and inundate the plains of Germany with blood. While it was very important, therefore, that Matthias should do every thing he could to avoid exasperating the Catholics, it was essential to his cause that he should rally around him the sympathies of the Protestants.

The ambassadors of Matthias respectfully announced to the congress the events which had transpired in Bohemia in the transference of the crown, and solicited the support of the congress. The Protestant princes received this communication with satisfaction, promised their support in case it should be needed, and, conscious of the danger of provoking Rhodolph to any desperate efforts to rouse the Catholics, recommended that he should be treated with brotherly kindness, and, at the same time, watched with a vigilant eye.

Rhodolph, disappointed here, summoned an electoral meeting of the empire, to be held at Nuremburg on the 14th of December, 1711. He hoped that a majority of the electors would be his friends. Before this body he presented a very pathetic account of his grievances, delineating in most melancholy colors the sorrows which attend fallen grandeur. He detailed his privations and necessities, the straits to which he was reduced by poverty, his utter inability to maintain a state befitting the imperial dignity, and implored them, with the eloquence of a Neapolitan mendicant, to grant him a suitable establishment, and not to abandon him, in his old age, to penury and dishonor.

The reply of the electors to the dispirited, degraded, downtrodden old monarch was the unkindest cut of all. Much as Rhodolph is to be execrated and despised, one can hardly refrain from an emotion of sympathy in view of this new blow which fell upon him. A deputation sent from the electoral college met him in his palace at Prague. Mercilessly they recapitulated most of the complaints which the Protestants had brought against him, declined rendering him any pecuniary relief, and requested him to nominate some one to be chosen as his successor on the imperial throne.

"The emperor," said the delegation in conclusion, "is himself the principal author of his own distresses and misfortunes. The contempt into which he has fallen and the disgrace which, through him, is reflected upon the empire, is derived from his own indolence and his obstinacy in following perverse counsels. He might have escaped all these calamities if, instead of resigning himself to corrupt and interested ministers, he had followed the salutary counsels of the electors."

They closed this overwhelming announcement by demanding the immediate assembling of a diet to elect an emperor to succeed him on the throne of Germany. Rhodolph, not yet quite sufficiently humiliated to officiate as his own executioner, though he promised to summon a diet, evaded the fulfillment of his promise. The electors, not disposed to dally with him at all, called the assembly by their own authority to meet on the 31st of May.

This seemed to be the finishing blow. Rhodolph, now sixty years of age, enfeebled and emaciated by disease and melancholy, threw himself upon his bed to die. Death, so often invoked in vain by the miserable, came to his aid. He welcomed its approach. To those around his bed he remarked,

"When a youth, I experienced the most exquisite pleasure in returning from Spain to my native country. How much more joyful ought I to be when I am about to be delivered from the calamities of human nature, and transferred to a heavenly country where there is no change of time, and where no sorrow can enter!"

In the tomb let him be forgotten.


CHAPTER XV.

MATTHIAS.

From 1612 to 1619.

Matthias Elected Emperor of Germany. - His despotic Character. - His Plans thwarted. - Mulheim. - Gathering Clouds. - Family Intrigue. - Coronation of Ferdinand. - His Bigotry. - Henry, Count of Thurn. - Convention at Prague. - The King's Reply. - The Die cast. - Amusing Defense of an Outrage. - Ferdinand's Manifesto. - Seizure of Cardinal Kleses. - The King's Rage. - Retreat of the King's Troops. - Humiliation of Ferdinand. - The Difficulties referred. - Death of Matthias.


Upon the death of Rhodolph, Matthias promptly offered himself as a candidate for the imperial crown. But the Catholics, suspicious of Matthias, in consequence of his connection with the Protestants, centered upon the Archduke Albert, sovereign of the Netherlands, as their candidate. Many of the Protestants, also, jealous of the vast power Matthias was attaining, and not having full confidence in his integrity, offered their suffrages to Maximilian, the younger brother of Matthias. But notwithstanding this want of unanimity, political intrigue removed all difficulties and Matthias was unanimously elected Emperor of Germany.

The new emperor was a man of renown. His wonderful achievements had arrested the attention of Europe, and it was expected that in his hands the administration of the empire would be conducted with almost unprecedented skill and vigor. But clouds and storms immediately began to lower around the throne. Matthias had no spirit of toleration in his heart, and every tolerant act he had assented to, had been extorted from him. He was, by nature, a despot, and most reluctantly, for the sake of grasping the reins of power, he had relinquished a few of the royal prerogatives. He had thus far evaded many of the claims which had been made upon him, and which he had partially promised to grant, and now, being both king and emperor, he was disposed to grasp all power, both secular and religious, which he could attain.

Matthias's first endeavor was to recover Transylvania. This province had fallen into the hands of Gabriel Bethlehem, who was under the protection of the Turks. Matthias, thinking that a war with the infidel would be popular, summoned a diet and solicited succors to drive the Turks from Moldavia and Wallachia, where they had recently established themselves. The Protestants, however, presented a list of grievances which they wished to have redressed before they listened to his request. The Catholics, on the other hand, presented a list of their grievances, which consisted, mainly, in privileges granted the Protestants, which they also demanded to have redressed before they could vote any supplies to the emperor. These demands were so diametrically hostile to each other, that there could be no reconciliation. After an angry debate the diet broke up in confusion, having accomplished nothing.

Matthias, disappointed in this endeavor, now applied to the several States of his widely extended Austrian domains - to his own subjects. A general assembly was convened at Lintz. Matthias proposed his plans, urging the impolicy of allowing the Turks to retain the conquered provinces, and to remain in the ascendency in Transylvania. But here again Matthias was disappointed. The Bohemian Protestants were indignant in view of some restrictions upon their worship, imposed by the emperor to please the Catholics. The Hungarians, weary of the miseries of war, were disposed on any terms to seek peace with the Turks. The Austrians had already expended an immense amount of blood and money on the battle-fields of Hungary, and urged the emperor to send an ambassador to treat for peace. Matthias was excessively annoyed in being thus thwarted in all his plans.

Just at this time a Turkish envoy arrived at Vienna, proposing a truce for twenty years. The Turks had never before condescended to send an embassage to a Christian power. This afforded Matthias an honorable pretext for abandoning his warlike plan, and the truce was agreed to.

The incessant conflict between the Catholics and Protestants allowed Germany no repose. A sincere toleration, such as existed during the reign of Maximilian I., established