The Habsburg Brothers’ Feud 105The Letter of Majesty,
In Bohemia the demands of the Protestants had been staved off by
their reference to an Estates meeting promised for November 1608,
but this did not in fact meet until 28 January 1609, when a much
larger number of members than usual presented themselves. Two weeks
passed with little progress, during which the emperor’s advisers argued
among themselves as to what concessions might be made, the hardest
line being taken by the chancellor, Zden ̆ek Lobkowitz, together with
Wilhelm Slavata and Jaroslav Martinitz. Rudolf’s eventual response was
uncompromising, stressing that the only permitted confessions were the
Catholic church and the neo-Catholic Utraquists, while the Bohemian
Brethren in particular was and remained forbidden, and he went on to
demand the expulsion of ‘heretical’ preachers.
During the remainder of February and all through March a series of
confrontational documents went backwards and forwards between the
Protestant-dominated Estates and the emperor and his councillors. In
these the former presented both reasoned arguments to support their
demands and polemical statements of their grievances, illustrated by
many reported injustices to Protestants in Bohemia, while the latter
countered with reiterations of the emperor’s unyielding position and
instructions to the Estates to move on to its other normal business.
Within Rudolf’s council the hardliners, although a minority, continued
to hold sway with their argument that any concession to the Lutherans
would inevitably open the door for the Bohemian Brethren, while the
latter, with Budowetz to the fore, became increasingly influential among
the Estates as the efforts of the more moderate leadership demonstrably
failed to achieve any progress. On 31 March Rudolf, flanked by his offi-
cials, met a delegation, telling them firmly that he did not intend to
change his mind on the religious question, while one of the most senior
Catholic Bohemian office-holders, Adam Sternberg, privately informed
the delegates that if the Estates did not proceed to its other business
on the following day he had instructions to prorogue it. This he duly
did when on the next morning Budowetz merely read out a long let-
ter refusing on behalf of the Protestants to move on while the religious
issues remained unresolved.
The Protestant members of the Estates had already agreed to respond
with action rather than talk, calling their own meeting in the city hall
of the Prague New Town for 4 May 1609, while in the interim they
sought support from their compatriots, as well as from Matthias, the