Counter-Reformation 89factions supporting respectively Maximilian and the son of the king of
Sweden, in which Maximilian was both defeated and captured, being
released only after intercession by the pope. Rudolf’s failure to assist
him effectively in either the election or the fighting added to the ten-
sions between the brothers, but he did finally appoint Maximilian as
governor of Tyrol when this province reverted to the emperor in the
absence of a legally entitled heir. Albrecht, the youngest brother, was
also brought up in Spain, and he prospered there without help from
Rudolf. He originally went into the church, being designated as a car-
dinal at the age of seventeen, but he later left holy orders to serve as
Spanish governor, first in Portugal and then in the Netherlands. In 1599
he married Philip II of Spain’s daughter Isabella, Rudolf’s ex-fiancée, the
couple becoming joint regents of the Netherlands thereafter.
Troubles in Austria
In the early years of Rudolf’s reign it was not in Bohemia or Hungary,
but in Austria that the religious conflict became sharpest.^15 The con-
cessions made by Emperor Maximilian II had not only allowed the
nobility personal religious freedom but had extended this to churches
which belonged to them, a loose definition which they had progres-
sively extended and exploited, particularly in Upper Austria, to bring
a large number of churches in the countryside under Protestant con-
trol. Moreover, despite the fact that the concessions did not include the
cities, many urban churches had also adopted an increasingly Protes-
tant approach, notably in Linz and Vienna. Rudolf made attempts early
in his reign to roll back these Protestant advances, although he and his
advisers quickly realised that some caution was needed in the face of
strong opposition from the nobility who dominated the Estates, partic-
ularly in Upper Austria, where there was scarcely a Catholic left amongst
them. Hence the stern decrees he issued against Protestant encroach-
ments beyond Maximilian’s concessions went unenforced and largely
unobserved outside the cities, while the townsmen flocked to attend
Protestant services in noble-controlled churches in the surrounding
countryside.
This uneasy status quo continued for a number of years before Rudolf
renewed his efforts to restore the Catholic position in the mid-1580s,
prompting Ernst, his brother and deputy in Upper and Lower Austria, to
appoint a commission to drive through the process. One of its leading
members was Melchior Khlesl, the son of a Protestant Viennese mas-
ter baker but himself a Catholic convert and a priest, and who was