Insurrection 135to summon a wider meeting of representatives of the estates and towns
to consider any apparent breaches and to make representations to the
emperor accordingly. The long series of individually minor Catholic
pressures had not provided a clear case for such action, but the jailing
of the Braunau citizens and the razing of the Klostergrab church, occur-
ring as they did almost simultaneously, made such a response inevitable.
Not everyone was ready to risk taking part, and there were many absen-
tees, particularly from the towns, when the assembly met in Prague in
early March 1618. The event itself increased the tension, as the debates
dealt not only with the issue of the two churches but also provided the
opportunity for airing a whole range of more local grievances, thereby
strengthening the feeling that Protestantism was under pressure on all
sides. The resulting anger led to calls for a determined response, so that
the meeting not only prepared a comprehensive complaint, which was
despatched to the emperor in Vienna on 11 March, but also agreed to
meet again on 21 May to consider his reply.
That reply came much more quickly than had been expected, sent
out from Vienna only ten days later, and it, rather than the original
complaints, soon became the principal subject of the escalating crisis.
In Vienna the calling of the meeting by the defensors and the wide-
ranging protest arising from it were seen as challenges requiring a show
of strength in return, rather than a considered response on the issues
themselves, and Khlesl accordingly advised Matthias that it was time
‘to play the lion rather than the fox’. It was a disastrous decision, as
Khlesl had completely misjudged the Protestant mood in Bohemia, to
the extent that even the Catholic hardliner Slavata later recorded that
he had been ‘astonished by the hard, sharp tone of the letter’ sent in
the emperor’s name in reply.^3 The assembly, it said, had been directed
against the emperor, and all royal officials and representatives of the
royal towns were directed to take no part in any further meeting. More-
over the proposed second gathering on 21 May was prohibited, all
consideration of the actual complaints was to be deferred until such
time as the emperor returned to Prague, and the leading figures were
threatened with personal punishment.
This rapid response, and its unexpected and uncompromising nature,
caused consternation among the defensors. Moreover it gave rise
to a significant further misunderstanding. Correctly concluding that
Matthias would only have adopted such an intransigent position on the
prompting of his advisers, the defensors mistakenly identified not Khlesl
but the men on the spot in Prague as the likely culprits, specifically