Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/180

 royal cities, voted for the deposition. Count Albin Schlick reported to the Silesian and Lusatian deputies the result of this voting, and called upon them for their opinion, while Ruppa brought the same question to the test of a vote with the Moravians. They asked for one day to think upon the subject, and the next day concurred in the vote of the Bohemian Estates.

With the deposition of Ferdinand came now into the foreground the question who should be chosen to the throne. Three princes were proposed and considered: the Duke of Savoy and the Electors of the Palatinate and Saxony. Upon the prospects of these candidates, and the negotiations which had been carried on with them up to the moment, the following narrative will throw some light.

It will be remembered that, in November of the previous year, Ruppa made to the ambassador of the Palatinate, then present in Prague, a proposal in regard to the election of his sovereign as King of Bohemia, and requested his concurrence. But when the Duke of Savoy expressed to the ambassador of the Palatinate his desire for the Bohemian throne, and suggested Hither-Austria as the Palsgrave’s part of the spoils, the Heidelberg cabinet felt bound to support the Savoyan plans, and sent, when the proposed meeting of the Prince of Anhalt with Ruppa and Hohenloe had come to nought on account of the Emperor Matthias’ death, Ahaz von Dohna to Prague again to work there for the Savoyan candidate. Dohna revealed to the astonished Ruppa that the merit of sending Mansfeld’s auxiliaries belonged, not to the Palsgrave, but to the Duke of Savoy, and that the latter alone had really aided Bohemia. This intelligence cooled down somewhat the enthusiasm for the Palsgrave, and Ruppa