Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/155

 council, but as a silent protégé. Ferdinand, under the extreme menaces of the Estates, no longer employed a mediator, but an energetic commander, and when victory declared in his favor, he employed courts of investigation and agencies of conversion which trampled into the dust the enemy who lay in complete prostration.

The business properly of the Moravian Estates, who formed themselves, on the 4th of May, into a Diet, began with the removal of several offensive persons from the highest offices, and taking full possession of the government. The Viceroy, Ladislas von Lobkowitz,was deprived of his office, and the Cardinal of his chief administration of the finances of the Estates. The several regiments were placed under command of Sedlnický, Frederic von Tiefenbach, and Ladislas Welen von Z̃erotín. A few days later the Estates organized their government, after the model of that of Bohemia, by placing it in the hands of thirty Directors, twelve of whom were chosen from the nobles, twelve from the knights, and six from the citizens. On the next day the Bohemian deputation, which had just arrived in Brünn, received the answer that the Moravians were ready to enter into an alliance with them and add their troops to those of Bohemia. Thus the Moravians joined the insurrection, and threw their weight into the balance against Ferdinand.

In further pursuit of the well-begun work, an order was sent to Thurn from Prague to push forward with his own troops and those of Moravia into Austria. The hope of being joined by the Austrian Estates was the more justified, because, since the Emperor’s death, the dissensions in Vienna and Lintz had increased. The Protestants were disposed to take possession of the government on the pretext that until their hereditary sovereign, the