Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/57

 portunity to put an end to their dominion in its several territories. In the contest which broke out between the two brothers in the year 1608, the younger was victor, and entered, while the elder still lived, upon the possession of all the countries of Austria. As he had no children by his cousin, the Archduchess Anna, of Tyrol, the Hapsburg princes, after his entry upon the government, apprehending that the Estates of Hungary and Bohemia might take advantage of his dying without immediate heirs, and dispose of the throne at pleasure, made the same demand of Matthias that he had made of Rudolph, that he should, in his own lifetime, place the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia upon the head of the presumptive heir. His heirs were his two brothers, Maximilian and Albert; but as they were old and infirm, they renounced their rights in favor of their nearest relative and cousin, the Archduke Ferdinand, of Styria. Difficulties, however, started partly by the King of Spain, and partly by the imperial favorite and minister, Bishop Khlesl, stood in the way of his immediate recognition.

Philip III., of Spain, claimed that he had more rights than Ferdinand to Hungary and Bohemia, since, as son of a daughter of Maximilian II., he was in the direct line from that Emperor; while Ferdinand was descended but from a brother of the same. Philip would, indeed, have had the prior claim to Hungary and Bohemia, had the direct female line in these lands, as in Spain and England, been preferred to the indirect male line. This, however, was not so, and still the rights in the case were not incontestable. The Hapsburgs themselves had allowed the Estates of Hun-