rebellion began to burst out at the very footsteps of his throne. All
access to his person was denied, the most urgent matters were neglected.
The prospect of the rich inheritance of Spain was closed against him,
while he was trying to make up his mind to offer his hand to the Infanta
Isabella. A fearful anarchy threatened the Empire, for though without
an heir of his own body, he could not be persuaded to allow the election
of a King of the Romans. The Austrian States renounced their
allegiance, Hungary and Transylvania threw off his supremacy, and
Bohemia was not slow in following their example. The descendant of the
once so formidable Charles the Fifth was in perpetual danger, either of
losing one part of his possessions to the Turks, or another to the
Protestants, and of sinking, beyond redemption, under the formidable
coalition which a great monarch of Europe had formed against him. The
events which now took place in the interior of Germany were such as
usually happened when either the throne was without an emperor, or the
Emperor without a sense of his imperial dignity. Outraged or abandoned
by their head, the States of the Empire were left to help themselves;
and alliances among themselves must supply the defective authority of
the Emperor. Germany was divided into two leagues, which stood in arms
arrayed against each other: between both, Rodolph, the despised
opponent of the one, and the impotent protector of the other, remained
irresolute and useless, equally unable to destroy the former or to
command the latter. What had the Empire to look for from a prince
incapable even of defending his hereditary dominions against its
domestic enemies? To prevent the utter ruin of the House of Austria,
his own family combined against him; and a powerful party threw itself
into the arms of his brother. Driven from his hereditary dominions,
nothing was now left him to lose but the imperial dignity; and he was
only spared this last disgrace by a timely death.