CHAP.

XI.

Treatment of the

to their proceedings: but they were overawed; and they likewise could not but feel, that nothing was to be hoped for from their appearing in the council!1

All these preparations, as might have been Protestants. expected, were of no avail. The ambassadors indeed of Maurice and of the duke of Würtemberg, and the deputies of Strasburg and some other cities associated with it, repaired to Trent, and acted there a firm and manly part: but for the divines no such safeconduct, as the protestant princes, warned by the case of John Huss, demanded from the council itself,2 could ever be obtained. The fathers, while they pretended to grant it, constantly limited it by the introduction of the words, "So far as they were empowered," or, "So far as belonged to them to grant it"which sufficiently indicated, as Father Paul ob

1 Sleid. 515. Cam. in vit. Mel. § 90. Mel. Epist. ii. 243, 245. About this time the elector of Brandenburg sent ambassadors to the council, aiming, it is to be presumed, to further the object which he had in view with respect to his son. They made in their master's name high professions of duty and reverence for the assembly, "but without declaring what was his opinion in point of religion." The fathers answered by their speaker, that they "heard with great content the ambassador's discourse, especially in that part where their prince submitted himself to the council, and promised to observe its decrees." This answer, says F. Paul, excited much astonishment, as it "claimed ten thousand where the bargain was but for ten "-the elector having really promised no such thing as was assumed. But it was pleaded, that "the council regarded not what was, but what should have been said-as holy church, yielding to the infirmities of her children, maketh shew to believe that they have done their duty. A fair gentle means this," remarks our author, "to make men speak that in silence which they will not in words." F. Paul, 322. Courayer, i. 552. Sleid. 526.

2 44 Alleging that in the council of Constance it was decreed and acted upon, that a council is not bound by the safeconduct of any one whatever." F. Paul, 307.

A. D.

1552.

serves, that they were "leaving a gate open to the pope," and devising means to excuse themselves, should it be thought expedient to violate their guarantee.1 Brentius and some other divines from Würtemberg and Strasburg ventured to Trent without it; but they could never procure a hearing: and the principal legate, Crescentio, expressed to the emperor's ambassador violent indignation at the idea of their being allowed to present a confession to the assembly. Melancthon likewise, by Maurice's command, proceeded on his way as far as Nuremberg, there to await further orders.-But in the mean time Maurice's Maurice's designs were matured, and his deter- designs mination was to adopt measures very different from that of sending divines to carry on useless discussions with the haughty representatives of the Roman-catholic church.2

By a tissue of the most consummate artifice and duplicity, Maurice, though but a young man, had, for nearly two years, so completely imposed upon Charles, the most practised and wary politician of his age, as to dissipate every suspicion that might have arisen in his mind, and to inspire him to the last with the most entire confidence; while he actually formed leagues with several German princes, collected troops, and kept them ready on the instant to obey his summons, and even entered into an effective alliance with the king of France, for the subversion of all that overgrown power which Charles had established in Germany. The emperor, who at this time laboured under an attack of the gout, was reposing at Inspruck,

1 Ib. 321-324.

2 Sleid. 516, 526, 528–531, 537, 539–541, 543—547. F. Paul. 334, 338-9, 341–350, 352-3.

matured.

XI.

1552.

March.

He makes war on the

Emperor.

within three days journey of Trent, watching the proceedings of the council there, and superintending the progress of a petty war in which he was engaged in Italy; while, with scarcely sufficient troops about him to form his guard, he daily expected a friendly visit from Maurice. Instead of paying him this visit, the latter suddenly sounded the trumpet of war; rushed with a well-appointed army from Thuringia; seized upon Augsburg, from which the imperial garrison fled before him; took by storm the castle of Ehrenberg which commanded the passes of the mountains; and, but for a sudden mutiny among a part of his troops, would have captured the emperor at Inspruck almost before he was aware of his danger. Charles heard of his approach only late in the evening, and, though unable to bear the motion of any other vehicle than a litter, he was obliged to set out immediately by torchlight, and in the midst of a heavy rain, and to be carried across the mountains to hide himself in the fastnesses of Carinthia ; while Maurice arriving a few hours after, and finding his prey escaped, abandoned the baggage of the emperor and his ministers to be plundered by his soldiers. Thus taken unprepared, by a foe who would not allow himself for a moment to be trifled with, to whose enterprise almost all Germany wished well, and who was powerfully seconded by the military operations of the French king in another quarter, Charles, now destitute of all hope of again forming such a confederation as he had brought to act for the overthrow of the Smalkaldic league, was compelled to have recourse to negotiation, and in fact to surrender all the great designs which he had so long been maturing, and

A. D.

1552.

seemed to have successfully carried into effect against the liberties, both civil and religious, of Germany. The particulars of what followed must be sought elsewhere. Suffice it for us to say, that Maurice, when he first took up arms, had avowed three objects as those which he aimed to accomplish, namely to secure the protestant religion-to maintain the ancient laws and constitution of the empire-and to procure the liberation of the landgrave of Hesse. By the first proposal he roused all the favourers of the reformation to support him; by the second he interested all the friends of liberty in his cause; and by the last he engaged on his side all the sympathy which had been universally excited by the landgrave's unhappy situation, and all the indignation raised against the base injustice and cruelty by which he had been betrayed into that situation, and for five years detained in it, after he had fulfilled every condition prescribed, and notwithstanding every intercession that could be made in his behalf.1 And all these objects Maurice ultimately secured. By the treaty of Passau, concluded August 2, Treaty of 1552, under the mediation of Ferdinand, the Passau. emperor's brother, it was agreed, That on or before the twelfth of that month the landgrave should be set at liberty, and conveyed in safety into his own dominions; that within six months a diet should be held to deliberate on the best means of terminating the existing religious dissensions, and that in the mean time no molestation whatever should be offered to those who adhered to the Confession of Augsburg; that, if the diet, thus to be held, should not be able to effect an amicable adjustment of the

XI.

CHAP. religious disputes, the stipulations of the present treaty in behalf of the protestants should continue in full force for ever; and that the encroachments complained of, on the constitution and liberties of the empire, should also be referred to the approaching diet.'

Its effects.

Thus was laid the basis of the religious liberties of Germany; thus was the fabric of absolute power, of which Charles imagined himself to be laying the top stone, subverted at a stroke; and thus was the protestant church, which had been brought to the verge of extinction, raised again, and placed in safety; and all this, under the controlling influence of divine providence, by the hands of the same man who had been the chief instrument of establishing what he now demolished, and apparently destroying what he now restored. It is remarkable also that the king of France, a zealous Romanist, and a persecutor of the protestants in his own dominions, should have borne a large share in giving permanence and stability to protestantism within the empire; and that a Roman-catholic bishop2 should have been the negociator of the league between him and Maurice, which proved so fatal to the Romish church. "So wonderfully," observes Dr. Robertson-thus giving utterance to a sentiment which it would shew the grossest insensibility not to form on such an occasion-" So wonderfully doth the wisdom of God superintend and

1 Sleidan, b. xxiv. Robertson, book x. It is remarkable that neither Sleidan (p. 572,) nor Melancthon, (Epist. ii. 539,) in reciting the substance of this treaty, mentions the last article but one-the most important of all. It seems, however, to have been evidently included and acted upon; and Robertson (iv. 92.) gives it without hesitation, referring to Receuil des Traitez, ii. 261, as his authority.

2 John de Fienne, bishop of Bayonne.