From Bohemia to the Thirty Years War 249reported only ten days after the battle of the White Mountain: ‘It is
conceived that that [the Upper Palatinate] with the electorate shall bee
the rewarde of his service.’^34
In early 1621, with Upper Austria in his hands, Maximilian had ade-
quate security for his expenses and he could afford to wait for an
eventual territorial settlement in lieu. However he was equally keen
to secure the electoral title but he had no corresponding hold over
Ferdinand about the transfer, and he was anxious in case political
pressures on the latter caused him to go back on their secret agree-
ment. A more political emperor than Ferdinand might well have done
so, pleading reasons of state, but he probably had both religious and
personal scruples about breaking his word to a Catholic prince and kins-
man. Moreover the transfer, could it be accomplished, was ultimately in
his own family interest as a means of consolidating the Catholic, and
hence Habsburg, hold on the Imperial crown, a point which he himself
made to the Spanish first minister Zúñiga.^35 In any case he could not
afford to offend Maximilian as long as Friedrich’s supporters were still
in arms and he needed the League army for his own defence.
As soon as the war in Bohemia had been won Maximilian began
pressing Ferdinand privately to honour his promise, while the latter
prevaricated, delaying action because of political opposition but also
seeking to use the prospective transfer as a bargaining counter to recover
his own territory from the Bavarian. In February 1621 Imperial emis-
saries attempted to persuade Maximilian to accept other securities,
including the property of rebels in Upper Austria, rather than the ter-
ritory itself, as a guarantee for his expenses, but he declined firmly.
In March 1621 the president of the Imperial privy council was sent
to Munich to confirm Ferdinand’s intention of transferring the title,
but seeking to impose new conditions. Maximilian was to conquer the
Upper Palatinate in pursuit of an Imperial mandate, but at his own
expense, and once he had done so he was to keep it as his security
and to return Upper Austria. Moreover he was then to make a signif-
icant cash payment to Ferdinand, in whose view the Upper Palatinate
was worth more than Maximilian’s total expenses, and further he was to
make no claim to the Lower Palatinate, which was instead to be offered
to Archduke Albrecht in return for his assistance and expenses.^36
Maximilian indignantly rejected these retrospective stipulations,
complaining that the original promise was given ‘without any con-
dition, limitation, restriction or exception’. He also argued that the
Golden Bull made an explicit link between the lands of the Lower
Palatinate and the electoral title, so that as the latter had been promised