The difficulties of his position had been somewhat mitigated during his first triumphs in Moravia by the judicious statesmanship, administrative ability, and personal popularity of Z̆erotin. On the one hand he had persuaded his friends to keep in the background their extremer demands for religious liberty; and on the other hand he had contrived, by ingenious exercises of administrative power, to strain the actual concessions of the new ruler to such an extent that they proved a better check on the tyranny of nobles and priests than the (verbally) larger concessions of Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty. Illyezhazy and the Hungarian Protestants had consented to follow the lead of Z̆erotin in these matters; but in Austria Matthias had already had a foretaste of the embarrassments which were to be increased by his conquest of Bohemia. Tschernembl, who led the Protestants of Upper Austria, was by no means disposed to be content with half measures, either in civil or religious liberty. He was a strong Calvinist; and while he had none of Z̆erotin’s scruples about religious wars, he was also far more indifferent than the Moravian noble to kings in general, and to the House of Hapsburg in particular. Under his leadership the Protestants of Upper Austria demanded the fullest securities for their liberties, before they would accept Matthias as their Duke; and they seized on a castle in Linz, as a pledge for future concessions. In Lower Austria the Protestants were, at this time, less numerous or less determined; for when, in September, 1608, Matthias summoned representatives of both the Austrian provinces to meet at Vienna, he found himself able to resist and defeat the demands of the Protestants. Upon this, Tschernembl and his friends at once left the city, and took up their quarters at Horn, from which step they became known as the “Horner.” This policy of Tschernembl’s produced some coolness between him and Z̆erotin; Tschernembl was in consequence thrown into closer relations with the German Protestants; so when, in November, 1608, Peter Vok von Rosenberg invited Christian of Anhalt to meet Z̆erotin and Tschernembl at Tr̆ebon̆, the Austrian consented to come, but the Moravian refused. Z̆erotin, however, while anxious to hinder violent opposition to Matthias, had no wish to hinder the growth of Austrian liberty nor to break the link between the Austrian and Bohemian Protestants; so he strongly urged Matthias to concede the demands of Tschernembl and his friends, in a peaceable manner. This advice was the more important because Tschernembl was inclined, in a moment of irritation, to listen to advances from Rudolf; but he soon discovered the folly of that course, and at the same time he began to lose faith in the promises of Christian of Anhalt. Thus Z̆erotin was able once more to bring his king and his friend together; and in March, 1609, Matthias granted much wider liberties to the Austrian Protestants than he had yet conceded in Moravia.