No Way Back 177there were even thoughts of employing force to prevent the electoral
meeting taking place. The Catholic electors, and particularly the Impe-
rial chancellor, the archbishop-elector of Mainz, rejected this argument
completely, holding firmly to the date which had been set in accor-
dance with the electoral procedure laid down in the Golden Bull of
- In July, with time running out, the Bohemians approached the
archbishop with a long and learned exposition of how the Golden Bull
and numerous precedents from the last three hundred years established
that an elector who no longer exercisedde factopower in his own lands
had thereby lost the right to vote. This, they said, was Ferdinand’s sit-
uation in Bohemia, but they were rebuffed with a brief, cool dismissal
of their claim.^48 They did not give up even then, and as the electors
gathered in Frankfurt a delegation from the Bohemian Estates arrived
in nearby Hanau to demand Ferdinand’s exclusion from the electoral
college and their own admission in his place. Ferdinand objected suc-
cessfully, thus establishing his position as the legally recognised king of
Bohemia for the purposes of the election. Interestingly, the point has
been made that had Friedrich been recognised in his stead this would
have changed the religious balance in favour of the Protestants, but it
would also have been in breach of the Imperial constitution as he would
then have had two votes, those of both Bohemia and the Palatinate.^49
Ferdinand had started on his way to Frankfurt almost as soon as the
lifting of Thurn’s first siege of Vienna had freed him to travel, and the
three ecclesiastical electors also attended the meeting in person, whereas
the electors of Brandenburg, Saxony and the Palatinate sent only repre-
sentatives. Ferdinand discreetly took no part in the debate about his
own standing as an elector, but in any case only the Palatine delegate
supported the rebels. Thus when the election was held in the chapel of
St Bartholomew’s cathedral Ferdinand received not only his own vote on
behalf of Bohemia, but also those of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, Brandenburg
and Saxony. The Palatine representative voted initially for the duke of
Bavaria, despite having received no indication that he was willing to
be a candidate, but thereafter, showing a somewhat surprising respect
for tradition, he switched his vote to Ferdinand in order to achieve the
customary unanimity.