However indifferent Rudolf might have seemed to his duties as King of Bohemia, he was as anxious as most of his predecessors had been to maintain his ground in Hungary both against Turks and rebels. And during the closing years of the sixteenth century he had gained new hopes of success in the struggle, from the submission which was at last offered to him by the Prince of Transylvania. Unfortunately, however, for Rudolf, the cruelty of his general, Basta, produced such disorders in the newly conquered province, that the Transylvanians rose against the Emperor, joined themselves to the discontented nobles of Hungary, and once more called in the Turks, who gained several victories over the Imperial forces. Rudolf, like his predecessors, had been irritated at the opposition which had been offered by the various Assemblies of the Bohemian kingdom to his continual demands for money for the Turkish war; and this opposition had been greatly increased by his attempt to extend the powers of that Hof-Kammer which had been instituted by Ferdinand. That body, no longer contented with inquiring into the debts and credits of the king, now wished to pry into the incomes of his subjects, and even to make its own arrangements for the collecting of taxes. These encroachments were naturally resented by the Bohemians; and the continual friction thus produced roused Rudolf to more energetic action. Nor were the differences with his subjects and the danger from the Turk the only causes of this apparent change of disposition in the sluggish Emperor. The Austrian Archdukes had noticed the growing disorders in Bohemia, as well as the neglect by Rudolf of the affairs of the Empire; and, on further inquiries, they found evidence that much of this neglect was due to the strange state of mind into which the Emperor was falling. That shy and melancholy disposition which had led him, in the early part of his reign, to withdraw so much from public life, was now ripening into a condition of morbid suspicion which had in it a strong taint of insanity. It is a curious sign of the extent to which superstition affected even great minds in the sixteenth century, that this tendency in Rudolf was largely encouraged by a prophecy of the great Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. The recent murder of Henry III. of France by the monk, Jacques Clément, had impressed the imagination both of the Emperor and the astronomer; and the latter had prophesied that the same fate which had overtaken the French king also awaited Rudolf. This prophecy had increased the Emperor’s tendency to morbid suspicion, and had led him still further to withdraw from the public gaze. The Archdukes now inclined to believe that the only hope for good government was in the removal of Rudolf from power, and the substitution of his brother Matthias on the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary and Austria. Rudolf resented this proposal with all the fierceness of a half crazy man; and this interference of his brothers,