200 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
in arrears, as the pope expected the revolt to be quickly put down.
In autumn 1619 Ferdinand despatched a councillor to Rome to ask for
a much-increased subsidy, together with a large loan and a tax levy on
the Italian clergy, but without success. He tried again in December, this
time pointing out the danger to Vienna itself, in response to which the
pope finally agreed to a doubling of his modest monthly contribution.
Maximilian also sought financial support for the League army but met
with an equally grudging response, causing him to write in frustration
to Philip III that if the head of the church was asleep to the danger it was
up to the Catholic princes to wake him up. As his ambassadors cooled
their heels at the papal court at the beginning of 1620 the duke noted
that ‘all the signs are that Rome does not understand the situation, as
they delude themselves that it will be an easy matter to wipe out the
[Bohemian] confederates in the Empire’. Eventually the pope was per-
suaded to authorise a special tax on the German clergy, but not until
July 1620, and even then the yield was limited, as the Germans proved
reluctant to pay as well as disputing the pope’s authority to impose the
tax on them. Funds collected from a similar tax on the Italian clergy, as
well as a direct contribution from the pope to the League, did not arrive
until 1621, well after the defeat of the revolt at the battle of the White
Mountain.^41
In the newly reconstituted Catholic League itself Maximilian was soon
confronted with the same money problems which had contributed to
its former demise. Many ecclesiastical princes did not join immediately,
and some not at all, among them previous members.^42 Reluctance to
pay their contributions was a principal reason, and many who did join
proved equally unforthcoming in this respect. As recruiting progressed
and the League army grew larger the financial situation became increas-
ingly pressing, as the resources not only of the southern directorate
of the League and the Bavarian Circle, but also of Maximilian’s own
treasury, neared exhaustion, while attempts to raise loans from interna-
tional bankers met with either polite temporisation or outright refusal.
By the first week of June 1620, with the army complete and encamped
only some twenty miles from its Union opponents, the problem was so
critical that Maximilian was forced to write to the elector of Cologne, the
bishops of Bamberg and Würzburg, and other leading prelates, threaten-
ing to resign his position and to break off the military action, however
damaging this might be for the common cause.^43
Finding men was intrinsically easier, as many of the Catholic princes,
including Maximilian himself, had long been strengthening their own
defence forces, so that there was a core upon which to build. These units