Protestant princes into their interests, and set themselves seriously to
work to accomplish their object by force of arms.

With the more exorbitant demands of the Hungarians Matthias had not
hesitated to comply. For Hungary was an elective monarchy, and the
republican constitution of the country justified to himself their
demands, and to the Roman Catholic world his concessions. In Austria,
on the contrary, his predecessors had exercised far higher prerogatives,
which he could not relinquish at the demand of the Estates without
incurring the scorn of Roman Catholic Europe, the enmity of Spain and
Rome, and the contempt of his own Roman Catholic subjects. His
exclusively Romish council, among which the Bishop of Vienna, Melchio
Kiesel, had the chief influence, exhorted him to see all the churches
extorted from him by the Protestants, rather than to concede one to them
as a matter of right.

But by ill luck this difficulty occurred at a time when the Emperor
Rodolph was yet alive, and a spectator of this scene, and who might
easily have been tempted to employ against his brother the same weapons
which the latter had successfully directed against him--namely, an
understanding with his rebellious subjects. To avoid this blow,
Matthias willingly availed himself of the offer made by Moravia, to act
as mediator between him and the Estates of Austria. Representatives of
both parties met in Vienna, when the Austrian deputies held language
which would have excited surprise even in the English Parliament. "The
Protestants," they said, "are determined to be not worse treated in
their native country than the handful of Romanists. By the help of his
Protestant nobles had Matthias reduced the Emperor to submission; where
80 Papists were to be found, 300 Protestant barons might be counted.
The example of Rodolph should be a warning to Matthias. He should take