[4] The crushed Banat Uprising (1594) had been aided by Serbian Orthodox metropolitans Rufim Njeguš of Cetinje and Visarion of Trebinje (s.
[6] A Ragusan document from the beginning of 1596 claims that many Herzegovinian chieftains with the metropolitan gathered in the Trebinje Monastery where they swore oath "to give up and donate 20,000 heroes to the emperors' light.
In March 1608, after the assembly at the Kosijerevo monastery, Grdan, the chieftains of Herzegovina and Patriarch Jovan II sent a letter to Spanish king Emanuel I, supporting his liberation plans.
In April 1608, at the assembly held at the Morača monastery, the rebels sent a letter to Pope Paul V, encouraging him to influence the Spanish decision to aid them.
In the next assembly at Morača, held December 13, 1608, the chieftains (of South Herzegovina, Brda, Old Montenegro, Zadrima and Metohija) proclaimed the Duke of Savoy for their only king and lord.
However, the Spanish court, having other plans in the West and being threatened by the Republic of Ragusa and the Ottoman Navy, did not want to start a crusade war in the Balkans.
In 1610 and again in 1612, Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua sent envoys to Dalmatian coast near Ragusa (Dubrovnik), to meet with Serb and Montenegrin chieftains.