But, though Matthias could not succeed in the conquest of Bohemia, Rudolf, on his part, was unable to defend or recover the rest of his hereditary dominions; nor is it probable that Budovĕc and his friends were at all prepared to engage in a war against their fellow-Protestants in Moravia, Hungary, and Austria. Rudolf, therefore, after vainly attempting a compromise, consented to renounce Hungary and Austria in favour of Matthias, and to allow him to administer Moravia during his lifetime. Matthias thereupon evacuated Bohemia; but Rudolf’s resistance was not yet at an end. He resented bitterly both the loss of his territories and the demands of the Bohemian Protestants; and, as he was not yet able to take any steps to recover his lost lands, he proceeded to turn his bitterness against Budovĕc and his allies. In this course he was encouraged by three councillors, who were to play a memorable part in the history of Bohemia--the Chancellor Lobkovic and the ministers Slavata and Martinic. The first proposal of the Emperor was not merely to reject the petition of the Protestants, but to treat their agreement to stand by each other as a conspiracy; and he demanded that the document which contained the agreement should be handed to him to be destroyed. The Protestants chose a Committee of Twelve to remonstrate with Rudolf on this demand; and at the head of that committee they placed a man who was to become only too well known in Bohemian history, Count Matthias of Thurn. They waited on the King with the document for which he had asked, but told him that they had only produced it that he might know the names of his faithful subjects. Rudolf seems, for the moment, to have been impressed with this protest, and consented not to destroy the petition. Budovĕc, however, and his friends were determined on using their opportunity to the utmost; and they were all the more eager in their pressure, because they found that the official leader of the Assembly, Adam of Sternberg, was entirely out of sympathy with their efforts, and that he was continually endeavouring, on the one hand, to make divisions between the Utraquists, the Lutherans, and the Brotherhood; while, on the other hand, he represented the Assembly to the Emperor as really willing to accept as satisfactory the offers which they in reality repudiated. The difficulties, which might have arisen from this latter part of Sternberg’s policy, were obviated by the attitude of uncompromising resistance which was taken up by Lobkovic, Slavata, and Martinic. At last, on the advice of these councillors, Rudolf decided to dissolve the Assembly. Then Budovĕc saw that the time for constitutional agitation was nearly over; and on April 1, 1609, he gathered his friends together, and gave notice to the chief Burggraf of Prague that they were resolved to use force to resist all injustice.