Yet no threats nor tyrannies could induce the Estates to sanction the Transylvanian war; and Matthias’s insistence on this expedition only roused the suspicion of the German Princes, and once more drew Christian of Anhalt into alliance with the Protestants of Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary. Had Matthias been a shrewder politician, he would have abstained from giving artificial stimulus to the local jealousies of his subjects, and would have suffered them to grow into importance of their own accord. It soon appeared that, whatever reaction might be exerted by the king’s mischief-making policy, the rivalry between Moravia and Bohemia was still an important force in national politics. It is not easy to estimate the exact force of all the considerations which influenced the leaders of the rival provinces. The name of liberty, for instance, could be appealed to, with some sincerity, on either side of the controversy. Z̆erotin, for his part, was thoroughly convinced that a centralised administration at Prague would hinder the free play of the local institutions of Moravia, and would also weaken the possibilities of that independent alliance between Austria, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary, which seemed to him the best protection for the Protestants against the encroachments of the Catholic party. On the other hand, the Bohemians could justly maintain that Rudolf’s Letter of Majesty gave them, and all who united with them, wider liberties than any which were secured by the laws of Moravia; and, curiously enough, the most dependent classes of Moravia had been deprived by their separation from Bohemia of a right of appeal to a court at Prague which still gave them some slight protection against the power of their lords. But, important as all these questions were, they were gradually driven into the background by one of more immediate interest to the rival leaders. Z̆erotin had, as already mentioned, a special feeling of loyalty to the House of Hapsburg, which was not shared in the same degree by the leaders of the Bohemian Protestants. So Budovĕc and his friends were rapidly arriving at the conclusion that the best security for their liberties was to be found, not in the substitution of one Hapsburg for another, but in the deposition of the whole family in favour of some king who had a real respect for religious liberty. To such a step Z̆erotin could not consent; and it was no doubt because he was aware of this difference, that Matthias now began to recognise the Bohemian leaders as his chief enemies, and to devote himself to the special oppression of their province.