But their gratitude to the House of Austria, strengthened in this instance by a dislike to the Calvinism of Rakoczi, kept them firm in their championship of the Austrian cause. The House of Austria, on the other hand, showed as little gratitude to the Serbs in the early part of the eighteenth century as they did to the Magyars in the nineteenth; and Joseph I. and Charles VI. steadily violated the promises which had been made by Leopold. The concession of religious liberty was found to be not inconsistent with a vigorous Jesuit propaganda for the crushing out of the Greek faith. A small émeute in a Serb town gave excuse for further interferences with liberty; and, as the Magyars gained in strength, Charles VI. resorted to the mean device of submitting to the Diet of Presburg the list of privileges which he had granted to the Serbs, and asking if the Diet would be pleased to approve them; and, on receiving the refusal which he had expected, he declared that he could not uphold these privileges against the wish of the Hungarian Diet. The Serbs in Hungary were, in many cases, reduced to the position of serfs; the districts of the Banat and Batschka, which had formed part of the Serb settlement, were given up to Hungary in 1741 by Maria Theresa; the Voyvodeschaft was abolished, and so, at a later period, was the Patriarchate also. Maria Theresa, indeed, would have desired to redress some of the grievances of the Serbs; but the need which she felt for the help of the Magyars, first in the War of Succession, and afterwards in the Seven Years' War, compelled her to disregard the interests of the subject-races when they clashed with those of her more powerful allies. In spite, therefore, of several insurrections and continual meetings of Congresses, the Serbs failed to recover their former privileges; and a few concessions which were made to them by Leopold II. were speedily withdrawn by Francis.