But to carry out this project, a military force was requisite,
and Rodolph actually assembled an army in the bishopric of Passau.
The object of this force was hidden from all. An inroad, however,
which, for want of pay it made suddenly and without the Emperor's knowledge
into Bohemia, and the outrages which it there committed,
stirred up the whole kingdom against him. In vain he asserted his innocence
to the Bohemian Estates; they would not believe his protestations;
vainly did he attempt to restrain the violence of his soldiery;
they disregarded his orders. Persuaded that the Emperor's object
was to annul the Letter of Majesty, the Protectors of Liberty
armed the whole of Protestant Bohemia, and invited Matthias into the country.
After the dispersion of the force he had collected at Passau, the Emperor
remained helpless at Prague, where he was kept shut up like a prisoner
in his palace, and separated from all his councillors. In the meantime,
Matthias entered Prague amidst universal rejoicings, where Rodolph
was soon afterwards weak enough to acknowledge him King of Bohemia.
So hard a fate befell this Emperor; he was compelled, during his life,
to abdicate in favour of his enemy that very throne, of which he had been
endeavouring to deprive him after his own death. To complete his degradation,
he was obliged, by a personal act of renunciation, to release his subjects
in Bohemia, Silesia, and Lusatia from their allegiance, and he did it
with a broken heart. All, even those he thought he had most attached
to his person, had abandoned him. When he had signed the instrument,
he threw his hat upon the ground, and gnawed the pen which had rendered
so shameful a service.

While Rodolph thus lost one hereditary dominion after another,
the imperial dignity was not much better maintained by him.
Each of the religious parties into which Germany was divided,
continued its efforts to advance itself at the expense of the other,