But the old rivalry between the nobles and the towns suddenly showed itself at this crisis. The Town Council of Brünn refused to support the lords in their action; and, when the lords adjourned to Ivanc̆ic̆e, the leading Moravian towns refused to send representatives to their discussions. Rudolf now summoned to Brünn the regular Assembly of the Moravian Estates; but he forbade them to consider any propositions, except those which should be laid before them by the royal Commissioners. Z̆erotin, however, protested so strongly against this limitation, that the commissioners left Brünn without being able to get their propositions considered. Z̆erotin now looked about for further allies in the struggle, and thereby became aware of the very different schemes which were being formed against the power of Rudolf. The Brotherhood had already shown an inclination to an alliance with the German Calvinistic princes, and particularly with the Elector Palatine of the Rhine; and they had excited some alarm, in 1577, by consenting to send representatives to a meeting of the Calvinists at Heidelberg. Z̆erotin had maintained a personal friendship with the Elector Palatine; but the policy of that Court was now being largely guided and controlled by a prince of another house, whose zeal for religious liberty was mixed with motives of a very different character. This was Christian, Prince of Anhalt, the most prominent and active of the Calvinistic leaders of Germany, whose restless personal ambition seemed almost to overshadow his zeal for Protestantism; and who might be considered one of the chief causes of the ruin of Bohemian independence and the miseries of the Thirty Years War. His great aim was to overthrow the House of Hapsburg; and he would have been willing, for that purpose, to absorb Bohemia and Hungary in the German Empire. Z̆erotin, though at first willing to negotiate with Christian as the leader of the German Protestants, soon found that his aims and those of that prince were totally opposed. For the present, however, everything was subordinated to the determination of the champions of constitutional liberty to combine against Rudolf.