Ferdinand was now in trouble and disgrace. His plans had signally failed. The Protestants all over Germany were in arms, and their spirits roused to the highest pitch; many of the moderate Catholics refused to march against them, declaring that the Protestants were right in resisting such oppression. They feared Ferdinand, and were apprehensive that his despotic temper, commencing with religious intolerance, would terminate in civil tyranny. It was evident to all that the Protestants could not be put down by force of arms, and even Ferdinand was so intensely humiliated that he was constrained to assent to the proposal which Matthias made to refer their difficulty to arbitration. Four princes were selected as the referees--the Electors of Mentz, Bavaria, Saxony and Palatine. They were to meet at Egra the 14th of April, 1619. But Matthias, the victim of disappointment and grief, was now rapidly approaching his end. The palace at Vienna was shrouded in gloom, and no smiles were seen there, and no sounds of joy were heard in those regal saloons. The wife of Matthias, whom he tenderly loved, oppressed by the humiliation and anguish which she saw her husband enduring, died of a broken heart. Matthias was inconsolable under this irretrievable loss. Lying upon his bed tortured with the pain of the gout, sinking under incurable disease, with no pleasant memories of the past to cheer him, with disgrace and disaster accumulating, and with no bright hopes beyond the grave, he loathed life and dreaded death. The emperor in his palace was perhaps the most pitiable object which could be found in all his realms. He tossed upon his pillow, the victim of remorse and despair, now condemning himself for his cruel treatment of his brother Rhodolph, now inveighing bitterly against the inhumanity and arrogance of Ferdinand and Maximilian. On the 20th of March, 1619, the despairing spirit of the emperor passed away to the tribunal of the "King of kings and the Lord of lords." CHAPTER XVI. FERDINAND II. From 1619 to 1621. Possessions of the Emperor.--Power of the Protestants of Bohemia.--General Spirit of Insurrection.--Anxiety of Ferdinand.-- Insurrection led by Count Thurn.--Unpopularity of the Emperor.-- Affecting Declaration of the Emperor.--Insurrection in Vienna.--The Arrival of Succor.--Ferdinand seeks the imperial Throne.--Repudiated by Bohemia.--The Palatinate.--Frederic offered the Crown of Bohemia.-- Frederic crowned.--Revolt in Hungary.--Desperate Condition of the Emperor.--Catholic League.--The Calvinists and the Puritans.--Duplicity of the Emperor.--Foreign Combinations.--Truce between the Catholics and the Protestants.--The Attack upon Bohemia.--Battle of the White Mountain.