Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/160

 sired the Catholics also to join them. So the business ended in mutual irritation. The Protestants determined to give up all connection with the Catholics, to have their separate system of finance, and institute a government for the management of their own affairs. On the sth of June, towards 10 o’clock in the forenoon, they went to the castle to inform Ferdinand of these determinations, and hand him a paper in which they attempted to justify their alliance with Bohemia. They made Herr Paul Jacob von Starhemberg their spokesman for the audience, though several others took part in this remarkable interview, which, both in the reco’'ections of contemporaries and in later historic works, plays so prominent a part.

When these Protestants of Lower Austria were received by the King, and Starhemberg handed in the paper referred to, and added some words of compliment, some other noblemen broke in, and especially Andrew Thonradel, with caustic words. The interview soon became heated; the deferential tone which marksthe intercourse of sovereign and subject gave way to defiant language, in which Thonradel was especially prominent. The later tradition charges him with having been so disrespectful to the King as to take hold of the buttons of his waistcoat press him to yield what the Protestants demanded. This much only is certain: the Estates demanded that Ferdinand should abandon the further prosecution of the war against Bohemia, and that they brought the charge against their Catholic fellow-citizens of having caused the division.

The violent language of the Protestants, and their demands in regard to the Bohemian question, looking as they did to his ruin, left the King in no doubt that the situation was one of fearful gravity. He stood alone