Though Ferdinand, as these facts prove, showed more moderation--at least at the beginning of his reign--than the Bohemians had expected, he was yet unable to establish religious tranquillity in the country. He was more successful in his endeavours to strengthen the Royal prerogative and limit the power of the Estates. That power was to a great extent founded on their right of electing the Sovereign. It was, therefore, a great success for the Royalist cause when the King, skilfully using the circumstance that a great fire in Prague (1541) destroyed all the ancient State documents, succeeded in persuading the Estates to recognise a new charter, which declared that Ferdinand had been accepted as King in consequence of the hereditary rights of his wife, Queen Anna, who was a sister of King Louis. It must, however, be mentioned that this curtailing of the privileges of the Bohemian Estates contributed to the revolutionary movement of 1547. In that year troubles broke out in Bohemia in connection with the war that Charles V. and his brother Ferdinand were waging against the leaders of the German Protestants, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and Philip, Landgrave of Hessé. Ferdinand claimed military aid from his Bohemian subjects, which the then almost entirely Protestant population of the country was not unnaturally unwilling to grant. Sixt of Ottersdorf, who, as clerk, and afterwards chancellor of the old town, played a considerable part in these events, has left us an interesting account of these troubles.[30] In 1546 Ferdinand assembled the Estates and urged them to equip an armed force against the Turks. They consented, but when it appeared that their levies were to attack, not the Turks, but Saxony, the largest part of the Bohemian army refused to cross the Saxon frontier. On January 1, 1547, Sixt of Ottersdorf presented to King Ferdinand--who, during the then customary interruption of hostilities in winter, had returned to Prague--the usual new-year gifts on the part of the citizens, 'expressing in a Latin speech hopes that the coming year would end all disturbances and wars in the Christian world; for they were caused only by some unquiet men.' In reply to this ambiguous speech the King stated that he accepted their gifts and good wishes, and that he hoped that with the aid of the Praguers and his other subjects he would shortly be able to restore peace to the empire. On the following day the King ordered the citizens of the old and new towns to equip 300 armed men each. This, as the contemporary writers state, caused great displeasure, as the citizens had no doubt that they were ordered to arm against the men of their own faith.