When, on May 19, 1608, Rudolf, for the first time for many years, met the Assembly of Bohemia, Budovĕc at once demanded that, as Rudolf had already made concessions to the Protestants of Hungary, he should now grant the liberties required by the Protestants of Bohemia. The Bohemian Confession of 1575 was to be recognised. Defenders were to be chosen to protect the interests of the Protestants. Offices were to be granted in equal proportion to Protestants and Catholics. No foreigners were to be allowed to manage Bohemian affairs. And, above all, no one _of any rank_ was to be interfered with in matters of religious liberty. The importance of this last clause is not perhaps easy to realise in our time; for, in fact, this is one of the very first assertions of the rights of _all_ men to religious liberty. Although it is probable that expressions may have been often used which, if logically interpreted, would have involved principles of the most complete spiritual independence, yet both in Germany and Bohemia the maxim “Cujus regio ejus religio,” had always been accepted as the legal and natural rule in religious affairs. In Bohemia, as already mentioned, the condition of the peasantry had become more dependent during the 16th century; and, in 1585, the Estates had distinctly forbidden servants to leave their masters for the purpose of entering trades, unless with the written permission of those masters. The struggle described above, in the earlier years of Rudolf’s reign, had been mainly a struggle between landed proprietors; and even a lady, who professed allegiance to the Brotherhood, had so far misunderstood their doctrines as to drive a Utraquist preacher from her estates, and to compel her peasantry to attend the sermons of a member of the Brotherhood. The principle, therefore, which Budovĕc asserted, was emphatically a new one; and he connected it, as will be seen, with appeals to the national feeling of Bohemia. Besides the revival of the old and often repeated claim for the exclusion of foreigners from Bohemian offices, the petitioners emphasised their national position by a reference to the memories of their last national king. They demanded that the sword and crown which had been taken from the statue of King George, in the Teyn Church, should at once be restored to it. On this point alone Rudolf yielded. To the other demands he refused to give an immediate answer. Yet even this failure could not at once induce the Bohemian Estates to abandon the cause of Rudolf for that of a prince who was invading Bohemia at the head of a Hungarian army. This feeling was shared by the peasantry of Bohemia; and several collisions took place between them and the soldiers of Matthias.