The union of Protestant princes, formed at the beginning of the dispute over the duchies of the late and childless duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, still lacks several powerful Protestant rulers, such as the Elector of Saxony.

The conduct of the Union in the Jülich dispute and the warlike operations of the Union army in Alsace appear to make inevitable a battle between the Union and ...

...the military league of important Catholic states formed in response.

When Austria and Salzburg finally join in 1613, at Ratisbon, the assembly now appoints no less than three war-directors: Duke Maximilian, and Archdukes Albert and Maximilian of Austria.

The object of the League is now declared "a Christian legal defense."

The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg have sought to expand their power base from their relatively meager possessions, although this brought them into conflict with neighboring states.

After John William, Duke of Julich-Cleves-Berg, died childless in 1609. his eldest niece, Anna, Duchess of Prussia, the wife of John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, had promptly claimed the inheritance; Brandenburg had sent troops to take hold of some of John William's holdings in the Rhineland.

Unfortunately for John Sigismund, this effort will become tied up with the Thirty Years' War and the disputed succession of Julich.

The cities of Cleves, Mark, Jülich, Berg, and Ravensburg, after the month-long War of the Jülich Succession, had rejected the Dortmund Recess since the accord had been developed without the consent of all five cities.

Overall, the five cities prefer to be represented by one prince rather than two.

The Dortmund Recess is ultimately replaced by the Treaty of Xanten, signed on November 14, 1614, and ending the Julich-Cleves War, today recognized as a precursor to the Thirty Years' War.

Palatinate-Neuburg takes the duchies of ...

...Jülich and ...

...Cleves and ...

...the County of Mark.

The membership of Austria makes the Catholic League part of the struggles between the emperor and his Protestant vassals in Bohemia and Lower Austria, which will lead to the beginning of the Thirty Years War.

Duke Maximilian of Bavaria refuses to accept the resolutions of Ratisbon and even resigns the post as president, when Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the Prince Elector of Mainz, and the Prince Elector of Trier, protest the inclusion of the Bishop of Augsburg and the Provost of Ellwangen in the Bavarian Directory.

Bavaria, with the Prince-Bishops of Bamberg, Eichstädt, Würzburg, and the Prince-Provost of Ellwangen, form a separate league on May 27, 1617; it is to last for nine years.

Some members of the Bohemian aristocracy have rebelled following the 1617 election of Ferdinand (Duke of Styria and a Catholic) as King of Bohemia to succeed the aging Emperor Matthias.

Roman Catholic officials had in 1617 ordered the cessation of construction of some Protestant chapels on land of which the Catholic clergy claim ownership.

Protestants contend the land in question is royal, rather than owned by the Catholic Church, and is thus available for their own use.

Protestants interpret the cessation order as a violation of the right to freedom of religious expression granted in the Letter of Majesty issued by Emperor Rudolf II in 1609.

They also fear that the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand, a staunch supporter of the German Catholic League, will revoke the Protestant rights altogether once he comes to the throne.

An assembly of Protestants at Prague Castle, led by Count Jindrich Matyas Thurn, ‘try’ two Imperial governors, Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice, for violating the Letter of Majesty, find them guilty, and throw them, together with their scribe Philip Fabricius, out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery on May 23, 161.

They land on a large pile of manure in a dry moat and survive.

Philip Fabricius will later be ennobled by the emperor and granted the title von Hohenfall (lit. meaning "of Highfall").

Roman Catholic Imperial officials claim that the three men had survived due to the mercy of angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause.

Protestant pamphleteers assert that their survival had more to do with the horse excrement in which they landed than the benevolent acts of the angels.

This event, known as the Second Defenestration of Prague (the first had occurred in 1419), exacerbates a low-key rebellion into into armed conflict—the Bohemian Revolt—thus precipitating what is to become known as the Thirty Years’ War, which is to further polarize Europe on religious grounds.