ve adversaries. And the aggressive adversaries,
chiefly Calvinists, for Lutherans combined more easily with Catholics,
constituted what was called the Union. For some time they had
expected hostilities, and were preparing recruits. There was no lack
of fighting material; but the nation was poor in organisation, and ill
supplied with money, and was therefore insufficiently armed. They
looked abroad for auxiliaries--the Union, to Savoy and Venice, Holland
and England; the League, to Spain. Henry IV had been on the point of
seizing the occasion of this open rivalry, and of a disputed
succession, to invade the Empire in the summer of 1610. After his
death France dropped for a time out of European complications, and
thereby helped to postpone the outbreak of expected war. After the
insane and stupid outrage at Prague it became an immediate certainty,
and Maximilian of Bavaria, the ablest prince who ever reigned in that
country, came to the aid of his cousin the emperor, with his own
statesmanship, the forces of the League, and an ever-victorious
general. The Bohemians had the support of the Union; and the chief of
the Union, the elector Palatine, was elected to be their king. As his
wife was the Princess Elizabeth, King James's only daughter, there was
hope of English aid. Without waiting to verify that expectation, the
elector quitted his castle at Heidelberg, and assumed the proffered
crown. But the coalition between Rhenish Calvinists and the Lutherans
of Prague did not work. The new subjects exhibited none of the
warlike vigour which, under Ziska, had made the Empire tremble; and
the Scottish father-in-law was too good a conservative and professor
of kingcraft to abet revolution.

When the army of the League, under Tilly, appeared before Prague, on
the slopes of what is called the White Mountain, there was no real
resistance, and the new king became a fugitive and an exile, dependent
on friends. As he spent but one winter in his capital, he is
remembered as the Winter King. For us, he is the father of Rupert and
of the Electress Sophia, from whom the king has his crown. Bohemia
was treated as a conquered country. The Protestant religion was
gradually suppressed, and the insurgents punished by immense
confiscations. The country, which had been civilised and prosperous,
was the first portion of the empire ruined by the outbreak of
hostilities. Ferdinand made the most of the Catholic triumph. Tilly
led h