No Way Back 171of money; he would undoubtedly have the support of England, France,
the United Provinces, Sweden, Venice, the Swiss confederation, Hungary
and Transylvania; he was director of the Protestant Union, which was
wealthy and had full power in Germany; he was in good standing with
Saxony and especially with Bavaria, so that there would be no threat
from that quarter; in short there could be no one better. ‘And’, his sup-
porters added, ‘should anyone object that his religion [as a Calvinist]
is questionable, the answer is that there is no known instance of any-
one being led astray by this lord’, with the further observation that at
his court in Heidelberg there were no more than three members of the
nobility who belonged to his religion, as virtually everyone else sub-
scribed to the Augsburg Confession. Seldom, says Golo Mann, have
more illusions been assembled in a single argument.^35
When it came to the election only the Bohemians took part in the
vote, the other provinces being left to confirm their agreement with
the choice on the following day, 27 August, when the decision was
announced by an artillery salvo. The Brethren, it is said, had outma-
noeuvred Schlick and his party by sending them off to Dresden to lobby
the Saxons while holding the election in their absence, but the vote
would have been decisive in any case.^36 Johann Georg received only
eight votes, and the duke of Savoy none, as the overwhelming major-
ity supported Friedrich. The big question was whether he would in fact
accept, and it took over a month before this was answered. Whether
by accident or design, Christian of Anhalt, who was governor of the
Upper Palatinate, was entertaining his young master there, well away
from the more cautious council in Heidelberg, when the news arrived
from Prague, and it seems that over the course of the next few days he
calmed Friedrich’s fears and convinced him that it was his religious duty
to accept. Nevertheless the latter made no official response, maintain-
ing that he was still taking advice, which did indeed flood in from all
sides. The Catholic elector of Mainz, the Protestant elector of Saxony,
and many others, including Friedrich’s relative Duke Maximilian of
Bavaria all warned him not to accept the crown. Maximilian’s observa-
tions are worth quoting, because although he was ultimately the biggest
winner from Friedrich’s later misfortune his analysis and advice were
sound.
In a letter of 24 September Maximilian argued that the disturbances
in Bohemia posed greater dangers for Friedrich’s own house, for many
provinces and principalities, for the Empire, and indeed for virtually
the whole of Christendom, than most were inclined to believe. The
greatest danger of all, however, awaited Friedrich himself if he accepted