“ When during the short reign of Matthias the question of the imperial succession demanded prompt attention, the bishop, although quite as anxious as his opponents to retain the empire in the house of Habsburg and to preserve the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, advised that this question should be shelved until some arrangement with the Protestant princes had been reached. This counsel was displeasing to the archduke Maximilian and to Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II. who believed that Klesl was hostile to the candidature of the latter prince. ”

“ Under the influence of the Jesuits he was converted to Roman Catholicism, and having finished his education at the universities of Vienna and Ingolstadt, he was made chancellor of the university of Vienna ”