The year 1619 opened still more darkly for the House of Austria. The worn-out Emperor sank at last into his grave on the 20th of March, and men felt that with the accession of Ferdinand the time for compromise had passed. If they wanted to win the day, they must strike quickly before he could rally to his aid the unwieldy forces of the Empire and of Spain. Negotiations which had been begun at Eger were at once stopped. The diets of Silesia Moravia and Lusatia openly joined the Bohemian cause, and arranged with Bohemia the contingent which they should each provide for the common army, and the proportion of votes which they were to have in the election of a new Bohemian king. [Sidenote: =Revolt in Austria.=] The estates of Upper and Lower Austria, who were mainly Protestant, adopted the cause of the Bohemians as their own, voted men for the war, seized and administered the archducal estates, and summoned Thurn and the Bohemian army to their aid. Nothing loth Thurn, leaving Hohenlohe to watch Bucquoi, swooped down upon Vienna hoping to end the war and secure the success of the revolution by a brilliant _coup de main_. On June 2d, Ferdinand, defenceless, harassed, hopeless, had consented to give audience to a deputation of the estates, who were to urge upon him, as the only chance of deliverance, the recognition of the Bohemian revolution, and the establishment in Austria of a separately organised Protestant government. None knew better than Ferdinand himself that if he refused those terms the gates of Vienna would be opened to Thurn and his army. That very night might find him a prisoner in the hands of his greatest foe. Yet at this crisis of his life, and of the fate of Europe, he never faltered. ‘If it be God’s will,’ he said, ‘let me perish in the struggle.’ He was ready to perish, not an inch would he yield. The deputation became excited. They pressed round him clamorously. Eagerly they urged, imperiously they demanded the acceptance of their terms. One deputy had actually, it is said, his hand upon the archduke’s person, when suddenly there rang through the hall a trumpet blast, and the streets were alive with the confused noise which heralds the arrival of soldiers. It was a regiment of loyal cavalry, the vanguard of reinforcements ordered up from the country by Ferdinand.