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 incurring the hatred of their opponents, and that it was their endeavour, for the greater honour of God, to reduce all Christianity and the whole world to the obedience of the Pope.

While this literary contest was being waged, the "Directors" began to equip an army to meet the coming attack. They succeeded in raising a force of 16,000 men, but the want of an efficient commander was much felt already. The new Government was, on the whole, very favourably received by the country, which was then almost entirely Protestant. The towns of Budějovice and Plzeň alone maintained their allegiance to King Matthew.

The news of the Defenestration reached Matthew at Vienna while King Ferdinand was temporarily absent at Presburg, where he was anxious to secure his coronation as King of Hungary. Matthew, now entirely under the influence of Cardinal Khlesl, at first inclined to a peaceful policy. He had, during his struggle against his brother, been on terms of intimacy with Žerotin, the leader of the Moravian nobility, and a member of the Church of the Bohemian Brethren. It was not impossible that that noble, a staunch adherent of the house of Habsburg, might offer his services as mediator, particularly as Moravia had not yet declared for the new Government at Prague. Ferdinand, however, had from the first seen that war alone could finally decide the long contest between the king and the Estates of Bohemia. He also saw that if Bohemia were conquered by force of arms, the pledges of religious liberty reluctantly given at the moment of his coronation would become void. With the approval of the Emperor Matthew's brother, the Archduke Maximilian, Ferdinand caused Cardinal Khlesl to be forcibly removed from the Imperial court at Vienna, and the war-party was now in the ascendant. The Emperor entrusted the entire management of the Bohemian war to his cousin. As generals, Ferdinand chose Bouquoi and Dampierre, who by long service with the Spanish armies in the Netherlands had acquired a thorough knowledge of war.

Towards the end of July (1618) the Imperial forces—about 12,000 men—coming from Moravia and Austria, crossed the Bohemian frontier at several points. Their leaders, Bouquoi and Dampierre, effected a junction at Německý Brod on September 9. The first news of the