a Catholic minority (Many of them associated with the Habsburg court) and various types of Protestants. The most radical leaders of the Protestant nobility and representatives of their overlord Matthias II, Holy Roman Emperor, leader of the Habsburg House of Austria, met on 22 May 1618. They determined to confront the regents on the following day. It was at that meeting that the regents (and a clerk in their employ) were flung from the window in the "Defenestration of Prague."
Matthias, like Rudolph, had no son and the Royal Family chose as his successor Ferdinand, the head of the Styrian branch of the Habsburgs, who had restored Catholicism in Styria. In 1617 the dynasty persuaded the Bohemians to accept Ferdinand as their future king, and in 1618 they prevailed upon the Hungarians to elect him king. Before this (May, 1618) the Bohemian nobles had revolted anew under the leadership of Count von Thurn on account of the alleged infringement of the charter granted by Rudolph. The dynasty was not yet ready for war. When Matthias died (March, 1619) the Hungarians and the inhabitants of Moravia joined the revolt, and in June Thurn advanced on Vienna with an army to persuade also the Austrians to join. However, Ferdinand prevented the insurrection and Thurn withdrew. Ferdinand was now able to go to Frankfurt, where his election as Emperor (28 August) secured the imperial dignity for his family. Two days before this the Bohemians had elected the leader of the Protestants, Frederick of the Palatinate, as rival King of Bohemia. p> The inhabitants of Lower Austria now joined the revolt. Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania (an administrative district of Hungary), made an alliance with its leaders, and in " composition " with them once more threatened Vienna at the close of 1619. Since this moment, however, discipline steadily declined in the Bohemian army, and the leaders disagreed. The expected aid was never received from the Protestant party, excepting that a few of the less important nobles of the empire joined the revolting forces. On the other hand, in October 1619, Ferdinand obtained the help of Maximilian of Bavaria, who had the largest army in the Empire, and of the Protestant Elector of Saxony. Spain and Poland also sent troops. Maximilian so greatly terrified the Protestant party, which since 1608 had formed the Union, that it was broken up. He then advanced into Bohemia supported by Austrian troops and decisively defeated the Bohemians in the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague. The Elector Frederick, called the "Winter King" on account of the brief duration of his rule, fled. Ferdinand took possession of his provinces and restored order there.
The News from the Eastern Europe
The war with Transylvania, however, was carried on with interruptions until 1626. As a gesture of defiance towards the Emperor's title of King of Hungary, Bethlen was elected King in 1620. His troops made incursions against Austrian strongholds in Bohemia, and into Austria itself, and by mid-September 1621 they lay within sight of the walls of Vienna.
The circulation of news-sheets of 1621 in London announcing the troops 'progress had been obviously the real source for the Middleton's adaptation. Anyhow, on 6 October Bethlen started the negotiation for a separate peace with the Emperor and by 13 December the Treaty of Nikolsbourg was signed. So, if the news sheet was issued on October 6, Middleton was writing at a time when the outcome was uncertain. King James and others in England were unquiet for the alliance between James's son-in-law Frederick and Bethlen, as the prince was supported by the Turks, and they were generally anxious for peace.
Some other testimony for adaptation
The testimony that Measure had been creatively remade is reinforced by the references to piracy. The actual Vienna, unlike London, was not a maritime city. Accordingly, the possibility of pirates was excluded. Meanwhile trade routs to England passed through the Low Countries, washed by the sea. The opening lines refer to pirates:
Lucio Thou concludes't like the sanctimonious pirate,
That went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but
Scrap'd one out of the table
I.ii.7-9
Only in 1609 did pirates become a regular menace to English shipping. In 1620, Sir Robert Mansell was appointed General of the Fleet destined to chastise the Algerine pirates, who still continued their depredations on the shipping in the Channel 1 . Between 22 September and 21 October of 1621 Sir Robert Mansell was at sea leading an expedition against pirates in the Mediterranean. In October 57 British merchant ships were captured by pirates. This ambiguity of messages proves that the author was trying to create a city that would refer a reader/spectator to both Vienna and Lo...
