But what the Calvinist branch of the House of Wittelsbach had indeed long
been pursuing was to interrupt the succession of the House of Austria to
the German throne. That a Catholic prince must for the immediate future
continue to occupy it was conceded even by Frederic, but the electoral
votes might surely be now so manipulated as to prevent a slave of Spain
and a tool of the Jesuits from wielding any longer the sceptre of
Charlemagne.

On the other hand the purpose of the House of Austria was to do away with
the elective principle and the prescriptive rights of the Estates in
Bohemia first, and afterwards perhaps to send the Golden Bull itself to
the limbo of wornout constitutional devices. At present however their
object was to secure their hereditary sovereignty in Prague first, and
then to make sure of the next Imperial election at Frankfurt. Time
afterwards might fight still more in their favour, and fix them in
hereditary possession of the German throne.

The Elector-Palatine had lost no time. His counsellors even before the
coronation of Ferdinand at Prague had done their best to excite alarm
throughout Germany at the document by which Archdukes Maximilian and
Albert had resigned all their hereditary claims in favour of Ferdinand
and his male children. Should there be no such issue, the King of Spain
claimed the succession for his own sons as great-grandchildren of Emperor
Maximilian, considering himself nearer in the line than the Styrian
branch, but being willing to waive his own rights in favour of so ardent
a Catholic as Ferdinand. There was even a secret negotiation going on a
long time between the new king of Bohemia and Philip to arrange for the
precedence of the Spanish males over the Styrian females to the
hereditary Austrian states, and to cede the province of Alsace to Spain.