In the year 1526 king Louis died in the battle of Mohaez. According to a matrimonial treaty, he was succeeded by his brother-in-law Ferdinand, archduke of Austria and brother of the emperor Charles V. This prince was received by the Bohemians with reluctance as their king, and only on the condition, insisted on by the Estates, that he should subscribe the compact of Basle, by which their religious liberties were secured to them. So long as Ferdinand was occupied in Hungary against the Turks, all went well in Bohemia; but when, in the war which followed the league of Smalkalde (1547), the Protestants of this country refused to fight against their brethren, a new and unremitted persecution began against all, who could in any way be comprised under the name of _sectarians_. The compact of Basle was strictly only in favour of the Utraquists or Calixtins; the Lutherans and Taborites, or, as they were then called, United Brethren, as also the Picardites and Grubenheimer, were considered as _sects_, and did not belong to the indulged.[29] Their churches were shut up; their preachers arrested; and all who did not prefer to exchange their religion for the Roman Catholic, were compelled to emigrate. The scene altered under Maximilian II, Ferdinand's successor, a friend of the Reformation, and in every respect one of the most excellent princes who ever took upon himself the responsibility of directing the destinies of a nation; to use Schaffarik's happy metaphor, the benefits of his administration fell on the field, which Ferdinand's strength had ploughed, like a mild and fertilizing rain. During his life, and the first ten years of his son Rudolph's reign, Bohemia was in peace: the different denominations were indulged; literature flourished, and the Bohemian language was at the summit of its glory. But we regret to add, that the Protestants, instead of improving this fortunate period by uniting to acquire a legal foundation for their church, instead of a mere indulgence depending on the will of the sovereign, lived in constant mutual warfare, and attempted only to supplant each other. An ordinance in 1586 against the Picardites, a name under which the Bohemian Brethren were then comprehended; and still more the strict censorship introduced in 1605; first aroused them to unite their strength against oppression; and in 1609 they compelled the emperor to subscribe the celebrated _Literæ Imperatoriæ_, or edict, by which full liberty in matters of religion was secured to them. During the rest of this period, the Protestants remained the ruling party. The university of Prague, by the side of which from A.D. 1556 another of the Jesuits existed, was by that treaty given entirely into their hands. This institution, although in consequence of the foundation of so many similar schools it never recovered completely from the shock it received in 1410, and though for more than a hundred years it had been