Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/190

 In connection with England he set his hopes upon the Union, and so summoned its members to Rothenburg on the Tauber, in order to assure himself of the aid upon which he might reckon from that source. The action of the Rothenburg meeting was to the effect that the Union would support the Palsgrave in maintaining his hereditary lands in case he should be attacked in them on account of his acceptance of the Bohemian crown. Frederic might therefore hope that his relation to Bohemia would, at the worst, cost him only the loss of the funds which he should expend in the contest for its possession.

After the close of the meeting at Rothenburg, the presumptive King, then in Heidelberg, took counsel with his most intimate friends, especially Christian of Anhalt, and Count John of Nassau, in regard to the answer which he should return to the Bohemians. Most of them advised him to give no definitive assurance so long as he was without intelligence from James; and he wrote in this sense to the Bohemian Estates, thanking them for his election, and at the same time declaring that he could give no affirmative answer until he should have received a promise of support from his father-in-law. Such an answer did not, however, suit the taste of the Prince of Anhalt. He knew the King of England too well not to fear that he might be slow in sending the desired answer, for the mere purpose of shifting upon the Palsgrave alone the responsibility of any subsequent misfortunes. Anhalt, therefore, urgently insisted that Frederic should come to an independent and decisive conclusion. If he should, after doing so much to secure the election, recede—such was the import of his warning words—he would load himself with perpetual shame. This energetic exhortation had the desired effect; perhaps, too, the wife of the