Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/177



While these events were taking place at Frankfort, the Directors had summoned a General Diet of the Bohemian crown, to be attended by representatives of the adjacent lands, at which Diet not only further measures of defence were to be decided upon, but also the question of the attitude to be assumed towards Ferdinand and that in regard to the election of a new King in his stead, were to be settled. The business was opened on the 8th of July, and centred at first around the drafting of the articles of Confederation, which were not only to govern the relations of the lands of the Bohemian crown, but to include also certain provisions in regard to the rights of the States. The first and weightiest subject of deliberation was the right to elect a King. All agreed that the kingly office was not to be regarded as hereditary, but as elective, and that the elective right should not thereafter belong to Bohemia alone, but be shared in common with the other lands. Bohemia should have in the election two votes, Moravia and Silesia each one, and Upper and Lower Lusatia, together, two votes.

The further business related to the religious Confessions. The old name, “Utraquist,” which the Bohemian Protestants were obliged still, at the time the Royal Charter was granted, to retain, was dropped, and for it was substituted the title, “Adherents of the Evangelic Confession of Faith.” The Bohemian State was impressed with a Protestant character; it was provided that none but Protestants should hold the higher offices, and that a preference should be given to these in filling the places of counsellors in the royal cities. In regard to the royal chancery—corresponding with the department of the interior for the lands of