Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/231

 Estates the recognition of his hereditary right to the throne. At the moment of his accession he had been obliged to recognize the elective character of the Bohemian crown. When a great fire at Prague (1541) destroyed all the State documents, Ferdinand obtained the consent of the Estates to the substitution of a charter formulating the theory that he had, in consequence of the hereditary rights of his wife. Queen Anna, been accepted as king in the place of the former charter, which had declared that he had become king by election. This innovation, however, caused great dissatisfaction in Bohemia.

In the year 1545 King Ferdinand, by the Peace of Constantinople, put at least a temporary stop to the war with Turkey, which had continued almost uninterruptedly since the beginning of his reign. His brother, the Emperor Charles V, had in the previous year concluded peace with France. The Emperor now attempted to stem the tide of Lutheranism, which had risen very high in consequence of his inability to devote his attention to German internal affairs during the prolonged war with France. Hostilities broke out in Germany in the summer of 1546 between the Emperor Charles V and the Protestant princes; the latter had met at Schmalkalden and formed a league, the leaders of which were John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. Ferdinand undertook to aid his brother by attacking the lands of the Elector of Saxony from the adjoining districts of Bohemia. The Estates of Bohemia, the great majority of w^hich were either old-utraquists, Lutherans, or members of the union of the Bohemian Brethren, were naturally opposed to the Church of Rome. They were therefore now in a very difficult position. There was little doubt that by aiding King Ferdinand and the Emperor in their attempt to suppress Protestantism in Germany they would greatly increase the power of their king; in case of success there was every probability that Ferdinand would abandon his former moderation, and strive forcibly to re-establish the Church of Rome in Bohemia. On the other hand, many were unwilling to rise in arms against their "elected and crowned" king, while the old dislike to the Germans rendered an alliance with the Elector of Saxony distasteful to others. The Estates therefore adopted an undecided and vacillating policy—with the results that such a policy almost invariably produces.