But his Catholic training, strengthened by the circumstances of his brother’s struggle against the German Protestants, had produced in Ferdinand two strong aspirations, which had been enormously strengthened by the difficulties of the Turkish wars. These were the desire for the consolidation of the power of the Hapsburgs, by the union of the different hereditary dominions of their House; and the desire for union of the Church by the crushing down of the various sects. These two objects were to be carried out side by side, and each was to be brought into prominence as opportunity occurred. It was to the latter object that he first desired to address himself; and certain circumstances had at this time specially directed his attention to the Bohemian Brotherhood.
The peasant rising in Germany had produced great dread of the teaching of the Anabaptists; and, after the peasants had been crushed, many of this sect had fled to Bohemia to escape persecution. The Brotherhood had noticed that the new-comers agreed with them on the question of the necessity of a second baptism; and Lukas and other leaders of the Brotherhood had desired, on this ground, to negotiate further with the Anabaptists. A closer inspection proved that no two bodies had less of spiritual sympathy than the fiery revolutionists who followed Thomas Münzer and the peaceable and orderly inheritors of the traditions of Peter of Chelc̆ic. But this negotiation had called unfriendly attention to the proceedings of the Brothers; and the alarm which it excited was further increased by the action of one of those noblemen who had begun to patronise the Brotherhood. This was Conrad of Krajek, the member of a family who had defended the Brotherhood against Ladislaus. Conrad had granted to the Brotherhood a church on his estate, which had long been left without a pastor, and the new clergyman had removed from it the ornaments which the Brothers considered idolatrous. Ferdinand demanded the restoration of the ornaments, and Conrad refused to obey. The Turkish wars hindered Ferdinand from pressing his demand at this time; but Conrad felt his danger, and resolved to take further steps for the protection of the Brotherhood. He saw that the German Protestants had greatly strengthened their position by their recent publication of the Confession of Augsburg; and it occurred to him that, if a similar publicity were given to the doctrines of the Brotherhood, they also might be placed in a better position in the eyes of the world.