Although this story shows that Roz̆mital’s power was confined within certain local limits, yet, within those limits, he could not only resist the remonstrances and commands of Louis, but could even hamper in an important way his general schemes of policy. This power for evil was shortly to receive a terrible manifestation. While the Bohemians and Hungarians had been wrangling, the Turks had been steadily advancing in Europe. Soliman the Great had considerably increased the military prestige of his race; and Louis was startled, in the middle of his domestic troubles, by the news that Belgrade had been captured by the Turks. Then the young king appealed to the Bohemians to stand by him and his Hungarian subjects in their resistance to this terrible invader. The Rosenbergs and other nobles responded to this appeal; but Roz̆mital and the Council of Prague, while ashamed to give a direct refusal, yet succeeded in inventing all manner of delays, so as to prevent their troops from coming in time to the king’s help. Some of the Bohemian nobles wished to wait till their whole forces were gathered, but the Hungarians soon grew impatient of delay, and on the 29th of August, 1526, they insisted on joining battle with the Turks at Mohács. Louis, anticipating a certain defeat, fled from the field before the battle began; but, in his flight, his horse fell into a swamp, and his unfortunate life of failure was cut short at the age of twenty. The result of the battle was as Louis had foreseen. The Hungarians were signally defeated, and the Turks speedily followed up their victory by the capture of the fortress of Buda. A long series of intrigues followed in Bohemia. The Austrian party were supported by the Rosenbergs, and the Saxon party were led by Lev of Roz̆mital; but the opposition of Lev was finally bought off, and the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor Charles, and brother-in-law of the unfortunate Louis, was elected king of Bohemia. XIV. REIGN OF FERDINAND I. (1526-1564.) Although Ferdinand was known, and to some extent feared, as a stern and rigid Spaniard, yet a belief in his desire for justice, and a wish to secure any strong protector against the champions of disorder in Bohemia, quite overbalanced any fears that might be caused by his Catholic tendencies. Indeed, although many stipulations were made before he was accepted as king, the fears of his subjects were far less excited about those religious liberties for which they had so long struggled than about questions of national independence. The dangers which seemed most to threaten Bohemian liberty were the possibility of Ferdinand’s election to the throne of Spain, and the extreme probability of his election to the throne of Hungary; while the subjects which ranked next in importance to these were the maintenance of the right of the Assembly to elect their future King, and the preservation of the supremacy of Bohemia over the dependent crown lands.