110 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
not included in the latter, a telling reflection of the nobility’s determi-
nation to secure rights for themselves but to avoid concessions to their
own vassals.^25
With an eye on 1618 it is also worth noting here that although
the Bohemians had appealed for support to both Christian of Anhalt
and the Estates of the other lands of the Bohemian crown at the
height of their confrontation with Rudolf, once they had secured the
Letter of Majesty they quickly reverted to their independent stance.
Christian had arrived in Prague during the crisis with a proposal that
the Bohemians and Silesians should unite with the Estates in Matthias’s
Austrian lands, and then all affiliate to the Protestant Union in order
to form a powerful Protestant bloc in central Europe. With the Letter
in their hands, however, the Bohemians felt their position sufficiently
secured and declined to participate, although informal contacts contin-
ued between the others and the Union. Zierotin was no more successful
with his efforts to unite the Estates of the Habsburg lands during
the summer and autumn of 1609, complaining bitterly in November
that Budowetz, Thurn and other leading Bohemians responded to his
proposals only with evasions and excuses.^26
The Passau army, 1611
Rudolf never gave up hope of recovering his lands and titles from his
brother, but for this he needed help. Matthias’s continuing friction with
his Estates suggested one possibility, while Rudolf also looked optimisti-
cally towards Spain and the papacy, but in the event none of these
offered him any practical assistance. Hence he was more than will-
ing to respond to the efforts of his cousin Leopold, a younger brother
of Ferdinand of Styria, to win his favour. Although only 23 in 1609,
Leopold had already been bishop of both Passau and Strasbourg for
several years, but his inclinations were not religious, while his worldly
ambitions aimed much higher. His chance to make his mark came, or so
he thought, as the dispute over the Cleves-Jülich inheritance flared up
following the death of the duke in March 1609. That conflict has been
described in Chapters 1 and 2, where it was also noted that it occurred
at the lowest point so far in Rudolf’s fortunes, after he had been humil-
iated by Matthias a year earlier and was facing a further defeat at the
hands of the Bohemian Estates. Thus his ill-considered interventions
in Cleves-Jülich in his capacity as emperor can be seen as attempts to
reassert himself at the centre of affairs, as well as to win favour with
influential potential supporters, notably the elector of Saxony.