to attack the hereditary domains of the Elector Palatine was rejected by Maximilian; he said that the Archduke was not a member of the "Liga," and that he had no right to give him orders. The Protestants did not insist, and shortly afterwards the Archduke Albert sent a Spanish army under Spinola to the Palatinate. The forces of Frederick were unable to resist this attack, so it hardly need be mentioned that the King of Bohemia had no hope of receiving aid from his hereditary territory.
Almost all the more important Catholic countries, therefore, for the moment supported the Emperor, either with their arms or at least by their diplomatic action. Ferdinand was also certain of the neutrality of the German Protestant princes,[1] and it was his good fortune even to obtain active aid from one of the most important of their number, the Elector of Saxony. It is not easy to account for the policy of the Elector. A zealous Lutheran, he was strongly opposed to the Calvinism of Frederick and the Bohemians; the intense dislike for that people which the influential court chaplain Hoe entertained must also be taken into account. The feeling that it was the duty of the Electors to aid their Emperor in retaining the Bohemian crown, now long connected with the Imperial dignity, together with jealousy of Frederick's increased power, may also have influenced the Elector. It is also probable that he entertained hopes of permanently acquiring Lusatia in return for his services. It is at any rate certain that from the beginning of the year 1620 the Elector of Saxony had cast in his lot with the Emperor, though it was only towards the end of the summer that a complete agreement as to a simultaneous attack on Bohemia from Austria, Bavaria, and Saxony was arrived at.
The prospects of the King of Bohemia were very different indeed from those of the Emperor. Little hope could from the first be placed on the Protestant princes of Germany, though the fatal treaty of Ulm was only signed in July. The only aid the Bohemians could seriously rely on was that of the Protestant nobles of Lower and Upper Austria, and that of Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transyl-
- ↑ They were not precluded from aiding Frederick in Bohemia by the treaty of Ulm, which had left that country entirely outside the sphere of its stipulations; it was, however, clear to Ferdinand that no such intervention would take place.
