Counter-Reformation 93though, the courts were not prepared to support those who attempted
to renege on their debts or to avoid their other obligations, finding
against them on the grounds that ‘the state constitution and the city law
make no distinction according to faith in cases of debt’.^18 Some individ-
ual members of the nobility received orders to dismiss their ‘heretical’
preachers, although few hastened to obey, and overall the measure had
only limited effect.
It did, however, arouse widespread anxiety and antagonism among
the Bohemian Protestants, who saw in it a parallel to the pressures being
applied to their co-religionists in Upper and Lower Austria. Hence when
the Estates were summoned in January 1603 in order to raise a tax for
the Turkish war the religious issue gave rise to a long and heated debate,
in which the learned and pious Wenzel Budowetz was for the first of
many times the principal spokesman for the Protestant nobility. In the
event they confined themselves to registering a protest to the emperor
and the tax was passed, while although the edict was not withdrawn
nor was it consistently implemented, not least because of the escalating
crisis in Hungary.
Three-quarters of a century under a Habsburg king had done little to
reconcile Hungary, and the nobility in particular, to outside rule. There
had been constant complaints and disputes about royal interference in
the legal system, and over the increasing prominence of ethnic Germans
as holders of the great offices of state and military commands, as well
as their acquisitions of Hungarian noble lands. These tensions were fur-
ther exacerbated by the near-permanent stationing of Imperial troops in
the territory for defence against the Turks, men who were often under-
paid and under-provisioned, and consequently provided for themselves
at the expense of the population. Hence Rudolf’s predecessors had pre-
ferred not to create further problems by making moves against the
Protestant religion, which in both its Lutheran and Calvinist forms was
dominant in Hungary. Rudolf was no longer inclined to be so reticent.
The Long Turkish War began with both successes and failures for the
Habsburgs, but in 1597 the sultan’s Christian tributaries, the prince of
Transylvania and his neighbours, took the opportunity to rebel and
change sides. With the military position much improved as a result,
Rudolf turned on his new allies and seized Transylvania for himself,
although only after a prolonged struggle, subsequently using his troops
as an army of occupation both there and in Hungary. With this back-
ing he then introduced measures aimed at recatholicisation, despite
the fact that there were very few Catholics left in either Hungary or
Transylvania.^19 In the process the Catholics sought to recover churches