Maximilian left six sons, of whom the eldest, the Archduke Rodolph,
inherited his dominions, and ascended the imperial throne.  The other
brothers were put off with petty appanages.  A few mesne fiefs were held
by a collateral branch, which had their uncle, Charles of Styria, at its
head; and even these were afterwards, under his son, Ferdinand the
Second, incorporated with the rest of the family dominions.  With this
exception, the whole of the imposing power of Austria was now wielded by
a single, but unfortunately weak hand.

Rodolph the Second was not devoid of those virtues which might have
gained him the esteem of mankind, had the lot of a private station
fallen to him.  His character was mild, he loved peace and the sciences,
particularly astronomy, natural history, chemistry, and the study of
antiquities.  To these he applied with a passionate zeal, which, at the
very time when the critical posture of affairs demanded all his
attention, and his exhausted finances the most rigid economy, diverted
his attention from state affairs, and involved him in pernicious
expenses.  His taste for astronomy soon lost itself in those
astrological reveries to which timid and melancholy temperaments like
his are but too disposed.  This, together with a youth passed in Spain,
opened his ears to the evil counsels of the Jesuits, and the influence
of the Spanish court, by which at last he was wholly governed.  Ruled by
tastes so little in accordance with the dignity of his station, and
alarmed by ridiculous prophecies, he withdrew, after the Spanish custom,
from the eyes of his subjects, to bury himself amidst his gems and
antiques, or to make experiments in his laboratory, while the most fatal
discords loosened all the bands of the empire, and the flames of
rebellion began to burst out at the very footsteps of his throne.  All
access to his person was denied, the most urgent matters were neglected.
The prospect of the rich inheritance of Spain was closed against him,
while he was trying to make up his mind to offer his hand to the Infanta
Isabella.  A fearful anarchy threatened the Empire, for though without
an heir of his own body, he could not be persuaded to allow the election
of a King of the Romans.  The Austrian States renounced their
allegiance, Hungary and Transylvania threw off his supremacy, and
Bohemia was not slow in following their example.  The descendant of the
once so formidable Charles the Fifth was in perpetual danger, either of
losing one part of his possessions to the Turks, or another to the
Protestants, and of sinking, beyond redemption, under the formidable
coalition which a great monarch of Europe had formed against him.  The
events which now took place in the interior of Germany were such as
usually happened when either the throne was without an emperor, or the
Emperor without a sense of his imperial dignity.  Outraged or abandoned
by their head, the States of the Empire were left to help themselves;
and alliances among themselves must supply the defective authority of
the Emperor.  Germany was divided into two leagues, which stood in arms
arrayed against each other:  between both, Rodolph, the despised
opponent of the one, and the impotent protector of the other, remained
irresolute and useless, equally unable to destroy the former or to
command the latter.  What had the Empire to look for from a prince
incapable even of defending his hereditary dominions against its
domestic enemies?  To prevent the utter ruin of the House of Austria,
his own family combined against him; and a powerful party threw itself
into the arms of his brother.  Driven from his hereditary dominions,
nothing was now left him to lose but the imperial dignity; and he was
only spared this last disgrace by a timely death.

At this critical moment, when only a supple policy, united with a
vigorous arm, could have maintained the tranquillity of the Empire, its
evil genius gave it a Rodolph for Emperor.  At a more peaceful period
the Germanic Union would have managed its own interests, and Rodolph,
like so many others of his rank, might have hidden his deficiencies in a
mysterious obscurity.  But the urgent demand for the qualities in which
he was most deficient revealed his incapacity.  The position of Germany
called for an emperor who, by his known energies, could give weight to
his resolves; and the hereditary dominions of Rodolph, considerable as
they were, were at present in a situation to occasion the greatest
embarrassment to the governors.

The Austrian princes, it is true were Roman Catholics, and in addition
to that, the supporters of Popery, but their countries were far from
being so.  The reformed opinions had penetrated even these, and favoured
by Ferdinand's necessities and Maximilian's mildness, had met with a
rapid success.  The Austrian provinces exhibited in miniature what
Germany did on a larger scale.  The great nobles and the ritter class or
knights were chiefly evangelical, and in the cities the Protestants had
a decided preponderance.  If they succeeded in bringing a few of their
party into the country, they contrived imperceptibly to fill all places
of trust and the magistracy with their own adherents, and to exclude the
Catholics.  Against the numerous order of the nobles and knights, and
the deputies from the towns, the voice of a few prelates was powerless;
and the unseemly ridicule and offensive contempt of the former soon
drove them entirely from the provincial diets.  Thus the whole of the
Austrian Diet had imperceptibly become Protestant, and the Reformation
was making rapid strides towards its public recognition.  The prince was
dependent on the Estates, who had it in their power to grant or refuse
supplies.  Accordingly, they availed themselves of the financial
necessities of Ferdinand and his son to extort one religious concession
after another.  To the nobles and knights, Maximilian at last conceded
the free exercise of their religion, but only within their own
territories and castles.  The intemperate enthusiasm of the Protestant
preachers overstepped the boundaries which prudence had prescribed.  In
defiance of the express prohibition, several of them ventured to preach
publicly, not only in the towns, but in Vienna itself, and the people
flocked in crowds to this new doctrine, the best seasoning of which was
personality and abuse.  Thus continued food was supplied to fanaticism,
and the hatred of two churches, that were such near neighbours, was
farther envenomed by the sting of an impure zeal.

Among the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, Hungary and
Transylvania were the most unstable, and the most difficult to retain.
The impossibility of holding these two countries against the
neighbouring and overwhelming power of the Turks, had already driven
Ferdinand to the inglorious expedient of recognizing, by an annual
tribute, the Porte's supremacy over Transylvania; a shameful confession
of weakness, and a still more dangerous temptation to the turbulent
nobility, when they fancied they had any reason to complain of their
master.  Not without conditions had the Hungarians submitted to the
House of Austria.  They asserted the elective freedom of their crown,
and boldly contended for all those prerogatives of their order which are
inseparable from this freedom of election.  The near neighbourhood of
Turkey, the facility of changing masters with impunity, encouraged the
magnates still more in their presumption; discontented with the Austrian
government they threw themselves into the arms of the Turks;
dissatisfied with these, they returned again to their German sovereigns.
The frequency and rapidity of these transitions from one government to
another, had communicated its influences also to their mode of thinking;
and as their country wavered between the Turkish and Austrian rule, so
their minds vacillated between revolt and submission.  The more
unfortunate each nation felt itself in being degraded into a province of
a foreign kingdom, the stronger desire did they feel to obey a monarch
chosen from amongst themselves, and thus it was always easy for an
enterprising noble to obtain their support.  The nearest Turkish pasha
was always ready to bestow the Hungarian sceptre and crown on a rebel
against Austria; just as ready was Austria to confirm to any adventurer
the possession of provinces which he had wrested from the Porte,
satisfied with preserving thereby the shadow of authority, and with
erecting at the same time a barrier against the Turks.  In this way
several of these magnates, Batbori, Boschkai, Ragoczi, and Bethlen
succeeded in establishing themselves, one after another, as tributary
sovereigns in Transylvania and Hungary; and they maintained their ground
by no deeper policy than that of occasionally joining the enemy, in
order to render themselves more formidable to their own prince.

Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Rodolph, who were all sovereigns of Hungary
and Transylvania, exhausted their other territories in endeavouring to
defend these from the hostile inroads of the Turks, and to put down
intestine rebellion.  In this quarter destructive wars were succeeded
but by brief truces, which were scarcely less hurtful:  far and wide the
land lay waste, while the injured serf had to complain equally of his
enemy and his protector.  Into these countries also the Reformation had
penetrated; and protected by the freedom of the States, and under the
cover of the internal disorders, had made a noticeable progress.  Here
too it was incautiously attacked, and party spirit thus became yet more
dangerous from religious enthusiasm.  Headed by a bold rebel, Boschkai,
the nobles of Hungary and Transylvania raised the standard of rebellion.
The Hungarian insurgents were upon the point of making common cause with
the discontented Protestants in Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia, and
uniting all those countries in one fearful revolt.  The downfall of
popery in these lands would then have been inevitable.

Long had the Austrian archdukes, the brothers of the Emperor, beheld
with silent indignation the impending ruin of their house; this last
event hastened their decision.  The Archduke Matthias, Maximilian's
second son, Viceroy in Hungary, and Rodolph's presumptive heir, now came
forward as the stay of the falling house of Hapsburg.  In his youth,
misled by a false ambition, this prince, disregarding the interests of
his family, had listened to the overtures of the Flemish insurgents, who
invited him into the Netherlands to conduct the defence of their
liberties against the oppression of his own relative, Philip the Second.
Mistaking the voice of an insulated faction for that of the entire
nation, Matthias obeyed the call.  But the event answered the
expectations of the men of Brabant as little as his own, and from this
imprudent enterprise he retired with little credit.

Far more honourable was his second appearance in the political world.
Perceiving that his repeated remonstrances with the Emperor were
unavailing, he assembled the archdukes, his brothers and cousins, at
Presburg, and consulted with them on the growing perils of their house,
when they unanimously assigned to him, as the oldest, the duty of
defending that patrimony which a feeble brother was endangering.  In his
hands they placed all their powers and rights, and vested him with
sovereign authority, to act at his discretion for the common good.
Matthias immediately opened a communication with the Porte and the
Hungarian rebels, and through his skilful management succeeded in
saving, by a peace with the Turks, the remainder of Hungary, and by a
treaty with the rebels, preserved the claims of Austria to the lost
provinces.  But Rodolph, as jealous as he had hitherto been careless of
his sovereign authority, refused to ratify this treaty, which he
regarded as a criminal encroachment on his sovereign rights.  He accused
the Archduke of keeping up a secret understanding with the enemy, and of
cherishing treasonable designs on the crown of Hungary.

The activity of Matthias was, in truth, anything but disinterested; the
conduct of the Emperor only accelerated the execution of his ambitious
views.  Secure, from motives of gratitude, of the devotion of the
Hungarians, for whom he had so lately obtained the blessings of peace;
assured by his agents of the favourable disposition of the nobles, and
certain of the support of a large party, even in Austria, he now
ventured to assume a bolder attitude, and, sword in hand, to discuss his
grievances with the Emperor.  The Protestants in Austria and Moravia,
long ripe for revolt, and now won over to the Archduke by his promises
of toleration, loudly and openly espoused his cause, and their
long-menaced alliance with the Hungarian rebels was actually effected.
Almost at once a formidable conspiracy was planned and matured against
the Emperor.  Too late did he resolve to amend his past errors; in vain
did he attempt to break up this fatal alliance.  Already the whole
empire was in arms; Hungary, Austria, and Moravia had done homage to
Matthias, who was already on his march to Bohemia to seize the Emperor
in his palace, and to cut at once the sinews of his power.

Bohemia was not a more peaceable possession for Austria than Hungary;
with this difference only, that, in the latter, political
considerations, in the former, religious dissensions, fomented
disorders.  In Bohemia, a century before the days of Luther, the first
spark of the religious war had been kindled; a century after Luther, the
first flames of the thirty years' war burst out in Bohemia.  The sect
which owed its rise to John Huss, still existed in that country;--it
agreed with the Romish Church in ceremonies and doctrines, with the
single exception of the administration of the Communion, in which the
Hussites communicated in both kinds.  This privilege had been conceded
to the followers of Huss by the Council of Basle, in an express treaty,
(the Bohemian Compact); and though it was afterwards disavowed by the
popes, they nevertheless continued to profit by it under the sanction of
the government.  As the use of the cup formed the only important
distinction of their body, they were usually designated by the name of
Utraquists; and they readily adopted an appellation which reminded them
of their dearly valued privilege.  But under this title lurked also the
far stricter sects of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, who differed
from the predominant church in more important particulars, and bore, in
fact, a great resemblance to the German Protestants.  Among them both,
the German and Swiss opinions on religion made rapid progress; while the
name of Utraquists, under which they managed to disguise the change of
their principles, shielded them from persecution.

In truth, they had nothing in common with the Utraquists but the name;
essentially, they were altogether Protestant.  Confident in the strength
of their party, and the Emperor's toleration under Maximilian, they had
openly avowed their tenets.  After the example of the Germans, they drew
up a Confession of their own, in which Lutherans as well as Calvinists
recognized their own doctrines, and they sought to transfer to the new
Confession the privileges of the original Utraquists.  In this they were
opposed by their Roman Catholic countrymen, and forced to rest content
with the Emperor's verbal assurance of protection.

As long as Maximilian lived, they enjoyed complete toleration, even
under the new form they had taken.  Under his successor the scene
changed.  An imperial edict appeared, which deprived the Bohemian
Brethren of their religious freedom.  Now these differed in nothing from
the other Utraquists.  The sentence, therefore, of their condemnation,
obviously included all the partisans of the Bohemian Confession.
Accordingly, they all combined to oppose the imperial mandate in the
Diet, but without being able to procure its revocation.  The Emperor and
the Roman Catholic Estates took their ground on the Compact and the
Bohemian Constitution; in which nothing appeared in favour of a religion
which had not then obtained the voice of the country.  Since that time,
how completely had affairs changed! What then formed but an
inconsiderable opinion, had now become the predominant religion of the
country.  And what was it then, but a subterfuge to limit a newly
spreading religion by the terms of obsolete treaties?  The Bohemian
Protestants appealed to the verbal guarantee of Maximilian, and the
religious freedom of the Germans, with whom they argued they ought to be
on a footing of equality.  It was in vain--their appeal was dismissed.

Such was the posture of affairs in Bohemia, when Matthias, already
master of Hungary, Austria, and Moravia, appeared in Kolin, to raise the
Bohemian Estates also against the Emperor.  The embarrassment of the
latter was now at its height.  Abandoned by all his other subjects, he
placed his last hopes on the Bohemians, who, it might be foreseen, would
take advantage of his necessities to enforce their own demands.  After
an interval of many years, he once more appeared publicly in the Diet at
Prague; and to convince the people that he was really still in
existence, orders were given that all the windows should be opened in
the streets through which he was to pass--proof enough how far things
had gone with him.  The event justified his fears.  The Estates,
conscious of their own power, refused to take a single step until their
privileges were confirmed, and religious toleration fully assured to
them.  It was in vain to have recourse now to the old system of evasion.
The Emperor's fate was in their hands, and he must yield to necessity.
At present, however, he only granted their other demands--religious
matters he reserved for consideration at the next Diet.

The Bohemians now took up arms in defence of the Emperor, and a bloody
war between the two brothers was on the point of breaking out.  But
Rodolph, who feared nothing so much as remaining in this slavish
dependence on the Estates, waited not for a warlike issue, but hastened
to effect a reconciliation with his brother by more peaceable means.  By
a formal act of abdication he resigned to Matthias, what indeed he had
no chance of wresting from him, Austria and the kingdom of Hungary, and
acknowledged him as his successor to the crown of Bohemia.

Dearly enough had the Emperor extricated himself from one difficulty,
only to get immediately involved in another.  The settlement of the
religious affairs of Bohemia had been referred to the next Diet, which
was held in 1609.  The reformed Bohemians demanded the free exercise of
their faith, as under the former emperors; a Consistory of their own;
the cession of the University of Prague; and the right of electing
`Defenders', or `Protectors' of `Liberty', from their own body.  The
answer was the same as before; for the timid Emperor was now entirely
fettered by the unreformed party.  However often, and in however
threatening language the Estates renewed their remonstrances, the
Emperor persisted in his first declaration of granting nothing beyond
the old compact.  The Diet broke up without coming to a decision; and
the Estates, exasperated against the Emperor, arranged a general meeting
at Prague, upon their own authority, to right themselves.

They appeared at Prague in great force.  In defiance of the imperial
prohibition, they carried on their deliberations almost under the very
eyes of the Emperor.  The yielding compliance which he began to show,
only proved how much they were feared, and increased their audacity.
Yet on the main point he remained inflexible.  They fulfilled their
threats, and at last resolved to establish, by their own power, the free
and universal exercise of their religion, and to abandon the Emperor to
his necessities until he should confirm this resolution.  They even went
farther, and elected for themselves the DEFENDERS which the Emperor had
refused them.  Ten were nominated by each of the three Estates; they
also determined to raise, as soon as possible, an armed force, at the
head of which Count Thurn, the chief organizer of the revolt, should be
placed as general defender of the liberties of Bohemia.  Their
determination brought the Emperor to submission, to which he was now
counselled even by the Spaniards.  Apprehensive lest the exasperated
Estates should throw themselves into the arms of the King of Hungary, he
signed the memorable Letter of Majesty for Bohemia, by which, under the
successors of the Emperor, that people justified their rebellion.

The Bohemian Confession, which the States had laid before the Emperor
Maximilian, was, by the Letter of Majesty, placed on a footing of
equality with the olden profession.  The Utraquists, for by this title
the Bohemian Protestants continued to designate themselves, were put in
possession of the University of Prague, and allowed a Consistory of
their own, entirely independent of the archiepiscopal see of that city.
All the churches in the cities, villages, and market towns, which they
held at the date of the letter, were secured to them; and if in addition
they wished to erect others, it was permitted to the nobles, and
knights, and the free cities to do so.  This last clause in the Letter
of Majesty gave rise to the unfortunate disputes which subsequently
rekindled the flames of war in Europe.

The Letter of Majesty erected the Protestant part of Bohemia into a kind
of republic.  The Estates had learned to feel the power which they
gained by perseverance, unity, and harmony in their measures.  The
Emperor now retained little more than the shadow of his sovereign
authority; while by the new dignity of the so-called defenders of
liberty, a dangerous stimulus was given to the spirit of revolt.  The
example and success of Bohemia afforded a tempting seduction to the
other hereditary dominions of Austria, and all attempted by similar
means to extort similar privileges.  The spirit of liberty spread from
one province to another; and as it was chiefly the disunion among the
Austrian princes that had enabled the Protestants so materially to
improve their advantages, they now hastened to effect a reconciliation
between the Emperor and the King of Hungary.

But the reconciliation could not be sincere.  The wrong was too great to
be forgiven, and Rodolph continued to nourish at heart an
unextinguishable hatred of Matthias.  With grief and indignation he
brooded over the thought, that the Bohemian sceptre was finally to
descend into the hands of his enemy; and the prospect was not more
consoling, even if Matthias should die without issue.  In that case,
Ferdinand, Archduke of Graetz, whom he equally disliked, was the head of
the family.  To exclude the latter as well as Matthias from the
succession to the throne of Bohemia, he fell upon the project of
diverting that inheritance to Ferdinand's brother, the Archduke Leopold,
Bishop of Passau, who among all his relatives had ever been the dearest
and most deserving.  The prejudices of the Bohemians in favour of the
elective freedom of their crown, and their attachment to Leopold's
person, seemed to favour this scheme, in which Rodolph consulted rather
his own partiality and vindictiveness than the good of his house.  But
to carry out this project, a military force was requisite, and Rodolph
actually assembled an army in the bishopric of Passau.  The object of
this force was hidden from all.  An inroad, however, which, for want of
pay it made suddenly and without the Emperor's knowledge into Bohemia,
and the outrages which it there committed, stirred up the whole kingdom
against him.  In vain he asserted his innocence to the Bohemian Estates;
they would not believe his protestations; vainly did he attempt to
restrain the violence of his soldiery; they disregarded his orders.
Persuaded that the Emperor's object was to annul the Letter of Majesty,
the Protectors of Liberty armed the whole of Protestant Bohemia, and
invited Matthias into the country.  After the dispersion of the force he
had collected at Passau, the Emperor remained helpless at Prague, where
he was kept shut up like a prisoner in his palace, and separated from
all his councillors.  In the meantime, Matthias entered Prague amidst
universal rejoicings, where Rodolph was soon afterwards weak enough to
acknowledge him King of Bohemia.  So hard a fate befell this Emperor; he
was compelled, during his life, to abdicate in favour of his enemy that
very throne, of which he had been endeavouring to deprive him after his
own death.  To complete his degradation, he was obliged, by a personal
act of renunciation, to release his subjects in Bohemia, Silesia, and
Lusatia from their allegiance, and he did it with a broken heart.  All,
even those he thought he had most attached to his person, had abandoned
him.  When he had signed the instrument, he threw his hat upon the
ground, and gnawed the pen which had rendered so shameful a service.

While Rodolph thus lost one hereditary dominion after another, the
imperial dignity was not much better maintained by him.  Each of the
religious parties into which Germany was divided, continued its efforts
to advance itself at the expense of the other, or to guard against its
attacks.  The weaker the hand that held the sceptre, and the more the
Protestants and Roman Catholics felt they were left to themselves, the
more vigilant necessarily became their watchfulness, and the greater
their distrust of each other.  It was enough that the Emperor was ruled
by Jesuits, and was guided by Spanish counsels, to excite the
apprehension of the Protestants, and to afford a pretext for hostility.
The rash zeal of the Jesuits, which in the pulpit and by the press
disputed the validity of the religious peace, increased this distrust,
and caused their adversaries to see a dangerous design in the most
indifferent measures of the Roman Catholics.  Every step taken in the
hereditary dominions of the Emperor, for the repression of the reformed
religion, was sure to draw the attention of all the Protestants of
Germany; and this powerful support which the reformed subjects of
Austria met, or expected to meet with from their religious confederates
in the rest of Germany, was no small cause of their confidence, and of
the rapid success of Matthias.  It was the general belief of the Empire,
that they owed the long enjoyment of the religious peace merely to the
difficulties in which the Emperor was placed by the internal troubles in
his dominions, and consequently they were in no haste to relieve him
from them.

Almost all the affairs of the Diet were neglected, either through the
procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant
Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of
the Empire till their own grievances were removed.  These grievances
related principally to the misgovernment of the Emperor; the violation
of the religious treaty, and the presumptuous usurpations of the Aulic
Council, which in the present reign had begun to extend its jurisdiction
at the expense of the Imperial Chamber.  Formerly, in all disputes
between the Estates, which could not be settled by club law, the
Emperors had in the last resort decided of themselves, if the case were
trifling, and in conjunction with the princes, if it were important; or
they determined them by the advice of imperial judges who followed the
court.  This superior jurisdiction they had, in the end of the fifteenth
century, assigned to a regular and permanent tribunal, the Imperial
Chamber of Spires, in which the Estates of the Empire, that they might
not be oppressed by the arbitrary appointment of the Emperor, had
reserved to themselves the right of electing the assessors, and of
periodically reviewing its decrees.  By the religious peace, these
rights of the Estates, (called the rights of presentation and
visitation,) were extended also to the Lutherans, so that Protestant
judges had a voice in Protestant causes, and a seeming equality obtained
for both religions in this supreme tribunal.

But the enemies of the Reformation and of the freedom of the Estates,
vigilant to take advantage of every incident that favoured their views,
soon found means to neutralize the beneficial effects of this
institution.  A supreme jurisdiction over the Imperial States was
gradually and skilfully usurped by a private imperial tribunal, the
Aulic Council in Vienna, a court at first intended merely to advise the
Emperor in the exercise of his undoubted, imperial, and personal
prerogatives; a court, whose members being appointed and paid by him,
had no law but the interest of their master, and no standard of equity
but the advancement of the unreformed religion of which they were
partisans.  Before the Aulic Council were now brought several suits
originating between Estates differing in religion, and which, therefore,
properly belonged to the Imperial Chamber.  It was not surprising if the
decrees of this tribunal bore traces of their origin; if the interests
of the Roman Church and of the Emperor were preferred to justice by
Roman Catholic judges, and the creatures of the Emperor.  Although all
the Estates of Germany seemed to have equal cause for resisting so
perilous an abuse, the Protestants alone, who most sensibly felt it, and
even these not all at once and in a body, came forward as the defenders
of German liberty, which the establishment of so arbitrary a tribunal
had outraged in its most sacred point, the administration of justice.
In fact, Germany would have had little cause to congratulate itself upon
the abolition of club-law, and in the institution of the Imperial
Chamber, if an arbitrary tribunal of the Emperor was allowed to
interfere with the latter.  The Estates of the German Empire would
indeed have improved little upon the days of barbarism, if the Chamber
of Justice in which they sat along with the Emperor as judges, and for
which they had abandoned their original princely prerogative, should
cease to be a court of the last resort.  But the strangest
contradictions were at this date to be found in the minds of men.  The
name of Emperor, a remnant of Roman despotism, was still associated with
an idea of autocracy, which, though it formed a ridiculous inconsistency
with the privileges of the Estates, was nevertheless argued for by
jurists, diffused by the partisans of despotism, and believed by the
ignorant.

To these general grievances was gradually added a chain of singular
incidents, which at length converted the anxiety of the Protestants into
utter distrust.  During the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands,
several Protestant families had taken refuge in Aix-la-Chapelle, an
imperial city, and attached to the Roman Catholic faith, where they
settled and insensibly extended their adherents.  Having succeeded by
stratagem in introducing some of their members into the municipal
council, they demanded a church and the public exercise of their
worship, and the demand being unfavourably received, they succeeded by
violence in enforcing it, and also in usurping the entire government of
the city.  To see so important a city in Protestant hands was too heavy
a blow for the Emperor and the Roman Catholics.  After all the Emperor's
requests and commands for the restoration of the olden government had
proved ineffectual, the Aulic Council proclaimed the city under the ban
of the Empire, which, however, was not put in force till the following
reign.

Of yet greater importance were two other attempts of the Protestants to
extend their influence and their power.  The Elector Gebhard, of
Cologne, (born Truchsess--[Grand-master of the kitchen.]--of Waldburg,)
conceived for the young Countess Agnes, of Mansfield, Canoness of
Gerresheim, a passion which was not unreturned.  As the eyes of all
Germany were directed to this intercourse, the brothers of the Countess,
two zealous Calvinists, demanded satisfaction for the injured honour of
their house, which, as long as the elector remained a Roman Catholic
prelate, could not be repaired by marriage.  They threatened the elector
they would wash out this stain in his blood and their sister's, unless
he either abandoned all further connexion with the countess, or
consented to re-establish her reputation at the altar.  The elector,
indifferent to all the consequences of this step, listened to nothing
but the voice of love.  Whether it was in consequence of his previous
inclination to the reformed doctrines, or that the charms of his
mistress alone effected this wonder, he renounced the Roman Catholic
faith, and led the beautiful Agnes to the altar.

This event was of the greatest importance.  By the letter of the clause
reserving the ecclesiastical states from the general operation of the
religious peace, the elector had, by his apostacy, forfeited all right
to the temporalities of his bishopric; and if, in any case, it was
important for the Catholics to enforce the clause, it was so especially
in the case of electorates.  On the other hand, the relinquishment of so
high a dignity was a severe sacrifice, and peculiarly so in the case of
a tender husband, who had wished to enhance the value of his heart and
hand by the gift of a principality.  Moreover, the Reservatum
Ecclesiasticum was a disputed article of the treaty of Augsburg; and all
the German Protestants were aware of the extreme importance of wresting
this fourth electorate from the opponents of their faith.--[Saxony,
Brandenburg, and the Palatinate were already Protestant.]--The example
had already been set in several of the ecclesiastical benefices of Lower
Germany, and attended with success.  Several canons of Cologne had also
already embraced the Protestant confession, and were on the elector's
side, while, in the city itself, he could depend upon the support of a
numerous Protestant party.  All these considerations, greatly
strengthened by the persuasions of his friends and relations, and the
promises of several German courts, determined the elector to retain his
dominions, while he changed his religion.

But it was soon apparent that he had entered upon a contest which he
could not carry through.  Even the free toleration of the Protestant
service within the territories of Cologne, had already occasioned a
violent opposition on the part of the canons and Roman Catholic
`Estates' of that province.  The intervention of the Emperor, and a
papal ban from Rome, which anathematized the elector as an apostate, and
deprived him of all his dignities, temporal and spiritual, armed his own
subjects and chapter against him.  The Elector assembled a military
force; the chapter did the same.  To ensure also the aid of a strong
arm, they proceeded forthwith to a new election, and chose the Bishop of
Liege, a prince of Bavaria.

A civil war now commenced, which, from the strong interest which both
religious parties in Germany necessarily felt in the conjuncture, was
likely to terminate in a general breaking up of the religious peace.
What most made the Protestants indignant, was that the Pope should have
presumed, by a pretended apostolic power, to deprive a prince of the
empire of his imperial dignities.  Even in the golden days of their
spiritual domination, this prerogative of the Pope had been disputed;
how much more likely was it to be questioned at a period when his
authority was entirely disowned by one party, while even with the other
it rested on a tottering foundation.  All the Protestant princes took up
the affair warmly against the Emperor; and Henry IV.  of France, then
King of Navarre, left no means of negotiation untried to urge the German
princes to the vigorous assertion of their rights.  The issue would
decide for ever the liberties of Germany.  Four Protestant against three
Roman Catholic voices in the Electoral College must at once have given
the preponderance to the former, and for ever excluded the House of
Austria from the imperial throne.

But the Elector Gebhard had embraced the Calvinist, not the Lutheran
religion; and this circumstance alone was his ruin.  The mutual rancour
of these two churches would not permit the Lutheran Estates to regard
the Elector as one of their party, and as such to lend him their
effectual support.  All indeed had encouraged, and promised him
assistance; but only one appanaged prince of the Palatine House, the
Palsgrave John Casimir, a zealous Calvinist, kept his word.  Despite of
the imperial prohibition, he hastened with his little army into the
territories of Cologne; but without being able to effect any thing,
because the Elector, who was destitute even of the first necessaries,
left him totally without help.  So much the more rapid was the progress
of the newly-chosen elector, whom his Bavarian relations and the
Spaniards from the Netherlands supported with the utmost vigour.  The
troops of Gebhard, left by their master without pay, abandoned one place
after another to the enemy; by whom others were compelled to surrender.
In his Westphalian territories, Gebhard held out for some time longer,
till here, too, he was at last obliged to yield to superior force.
After several vain attempts in Holland and England to obtain means for
his restoration, he retired into the Chapter of Strasburg, and died dean
of that cathedral; the first sacrifice to the Ecclesiastical
Reservation, or rather to the want of harmony among the German
Protestants.

To this dispute in Cologne was soon added another in Strasburg.  Several
Protestant canons of Cologne, who had been included in the same papal
ban with the elector, had taken refuge within this bishopric, where they
likewise held prebends.  As the Roman Catholic canons of Strasburg
hesitated to allow them, as being under the ban, the enjoyment of their
prebends, they took violent possession of their benefices, and the
support of a powerful Protestant party among the citizens soon gave them
the preponderance in the chapter.  The other canons thereupon retired to
Alsace-Saverne, where, under the protection of the bishop, they
established themselves as the only lawful chapter, and denounced that
which remained in Strasburg as illegal.  The latter, in the meantime,
had so strengthened themselves by the reception of several Protestant
colleagues of high rank, that they could venture, upon the death of the
bishop, to nominate a new Protestant bishop in the person of John George
of Brandenburg.  The Roman Catholic canons, far from allowing this
election, nominated the Bishop of Metz, a prince of Lorraine, to that
dignity, who announced his promotion by immediately commencing
hostilities against the territories of Strasburg.

That city now took up arms in defence of its Protestant chapter and the
Prince of Brandenburg, while the other party, with the assistance of the
troops of Lorraine, endeavoured to possess themselves of the
temporalities of the chapter.  A tedious war was the consequence, which,
according to the spirit of the times, was attended with barbarous
devastations.  In vain did the Emperor interpose with his supreme
authority to terminate the dispute; the ecclesiastical property remained
for a long time divided between the two parties, till at last the
Protestant prince, for a moderate pecuniary equivalent, renounced his
claims; and thus, in this dispute also, the Roman Church came off
victorious.

An occurrence which, soon after the adjustment of this dispute, took
place in Donauwerth, a free city of Suabia, was still more critical for
the whole of Protestant Germany.  In this once Roman Catholic city, the
Protestants, during the reigns of Ferdinand and his son, had, in the
usual way, become so completely predominant, that the Roman Catholics
were obliged to content themselves with a church in the Monastery of the
Holy Cross, and for fear of offending the Protestants, were even forced
to suppress the greater part of their religious rites.  At length a
fanatical abbot of this monastery ventured to defy the popular
prejudices, and to arrange a public procession, preceded by the cross
and banners flying; but he was soon compelled to desist from the
attempt.  When, a year afterwards, encouraged by a favourable imperial
proclamation, the same abbot attempted to renew this procession, the
citizens proceeded to open violence.  The inhabitants shut the gates
against the monks on their return, trampled their colours under foot,
and followed them home with clamour and abuse.  An imperial citation was
the consequence of this act of violence; and as the exasperated populace
even threatened to assault the imperial commissaries, and all attempts
at an amicable adjustment were frustrated by the fanaticism of the
multitude, the city was at last formally placed under the ban of the
Empire, the execution of which was intrusted to Maximilian, Duke of
Bavaria.  The citizens, formerly so insolent, were seized with terror at
the approach of the Bavarian army; pusillanimity now possessed them,
though once so full of defiance, and they laid down their arms without
striking a blow.  The total abolition of the Protestant religion within
the walls of the city was the punishment of their rebellion; it was
deprived of its privileges, and, from a free city of Suabia, converted
into a municipal town of Bavaria.

Two circumstances connected with this proceeding must have strongly
excited the attention of the Protestants, even if the interests of
religion had been less powerful on their minds.  First of all, the
sentence had been pronounced by the Aulic Council, an arbitrary and
exclusively Roman Catholic tribunal, whose jurisdiction besides had been
so warmly disputed by them; and secondly, its execution had been
intrusted to the Duke of Bavaria, the head of another circle.  These
unconstitutional steps seemed to be the harbingers of further violent
measures on the Roman Catholic side, the result, probably, of secret
conferences and dangerous designs, which might perhaps end in the entire
subversion of their religious liberty.

In circumstances where the law of force prevails, and security depends
upon power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place
itself in a posture of defence.  This was now the case in Germany.  If
the Roman Catholics really meditated any evil against the Protestants in
Germany, the probability was that the blow would fall on the south
rather than the north, because, in Lower Germany, the Protestants were
connected together through a long unbroken tract of country, and could
therefore easily combine for their mutual support; while those in the
south, detached from each other, and surrounded on all sides by Roman
Catholic states, were exposed to every inroad.  If, moreover, as was to
be expected, the Catholics availed themselves of the divisions amongst
the Protestants, and levelled their attack against one of the religious
parties, it was the Calvinists who, as the weaker, and as being besides
excluded from the religious treaty, were apparently in the greatest
danger, and upon them would probably fall the first attack.

Both these circumstances took place in the dominions of the Elector
Palatine, which possessed, in the Duke of Bavaria, a formidable
neighbour, and which, by reason of their defection to Calvinism,
received no protection from the Religious Peace, and had little hope of
succour from the Lutheran states.  No country in Germany had experienced
so many revolutions in religion in so short a time as the Palatinate.
In the space of sixty years this country, an unfortunate toy in the
hands of its rulers, had twice adopted the doctrines of Luther, and
twice relinquished them for Calvinism.  The Elector Frederick III.
first abandoned the confession of Augsburg, which his eldest son and
successor, Lewis, immediately re-established.  The Calvinists throughout
the whole country were deprived of their churches, their preachers and
even their teachers banished beyond the frontiers; while the prince, in
his Lutheran zeal, persecuted them even in his will, by appointing none
but strict and orthodox Lutherans as the guardians of his son, a minor.
But this illegal testament was disregarded by his brother the Count
Palatine, John Casimir, who, by the regulations of the Golden Bull,
assumed the guardianship and administration of the state.  Calvinistic
teachers were given to the Elector Frederick IV., then only nine years
of age, who were ordered, if necessary, to drive the Lutheran heresy out
of the soul of their pupil with blows.  If such was the treatment of the
sovereign, that of the subjects may be easily conceived.

It was under this Frederick that the Palatine Court exerted itself so
vigorously to unite the Protestant states of Germany in joint measures
against the House of Austria, and, if possible, bring about the
formation of a general confederacy.  Besides that this court had always
been guided by the counsels of France, with whom hatred of the House of
Austria was the ruling principle, a regard for his own safety urged him
to secure in time the doubtful assistance of the Lutherans against a
near and overwhelming enemy.  Great difficulties, however, opposed this
union, because the Lutherans' dislike of the Reformed was scarcely less
than the common aversion of both to the Romanists.  An attempt was first
made to reconcile the two professions, in order to facilitate a
political union; but all these attempts failed, and generally ended in
both parties adhering the more strongly to their respective opinions.
Nothing then remained but to increase the fear and the distrust of the
Evangelicals, and in this way to impress upon them the necessity of this
alliance.  The power of the Roman Catholics and the magnitude of the
danger were exaggerated, accidental incidents were ascribed to
deliberate plans, innocent actions misrepresented by invidious
constructions, and the whole conduct of the professors of the olden
religion was interpreted as the result of a well-weighed and systematic
plan, which, in all probability, they were very far from having
concerted.

The Diet of Ratisbon, to which the Protestants had looked forward with
the hope of obtaining a renewal of the Religious Peace, had broken up
without coming to a decision, and to the former grievances of the
Protestant party was now added the late oppression of Donauwerth.  With
incredible speed, the union, so long attempted, was now brought to bear.
A conference took place at Anhausen, in Franconia, at which were present
the Elector Frederick IV., from the Palatinate, the Palsgrave of
Neuburg, two Margraves of Brandenburg, the Margrave of Baden, and the
Duke John Frederick of Wirtemburg,--Lutherans as well as Calvinists,--
who for themselves and their heirs entered into a close confederacy
under the title of the Evangelical Union.  The purport of this union
was, that the allied princes should, in all matters relating to religion
and their civil rights, support each other with arms and counsel against
every aggressor, and should all stand as one man; that in case any
member of the alliance should be attacked, he should be assisted by the
rest with an armed force; that, if necessary, the territories, towns,
and castles of the allied states should be open to his troops; and that,
whatever conquests were made, should be divided among all the
confederates, in proportion to the contingent furnished by each.

The direction of the whole confederacy in time of peace was conferred
upon the Elector Palatine, but with a limited power.  To meet the
necessary expenses, subsidies were demanded, and a common fund
established.  Differences of religion (betwixt the Lutherans and the
Calvinists) were to have no effect on this alliance, which was to
subsist for ten years, every member of the union engaged at the same
time to procure new members to it.  The Electorate of Brandenburg
adopted the alliance, that of Saxony rejected it.  Hesse-Cashel could
not be prevailed upon to declare itself, the Dukes of Brunswick and
Luneburg also hesitated.  But the three cities of the Empire, Strasburg,
Nuremburg, and Ulm, were no unimportant acquisition for the league,
which was in great want of their money, while their example, besides,
might be followed by other imperial cities.

After the formation of this alliance, the confederate states,
dispirited, and singly, little feared, adopted a bolder language.
Through Prince Christian of Anhalt, they laid their common grievances
and demands before the Emperor; among which the principal were the
restoration of Donauwerth, the abolition of the Imperial Court, the
reformation of the Emperor's own administration and that of his
counsellors.  For these remonstrances, they chose the moment when the
Emperor had scarcely recovered breath from the troubles in his
hereditary dominions,--when he had lost Hungary and Austria to Matthias,
and had barely preserved his Bohemian throne by the concession of the
Letter of Majesty, and finally, when through the succession of Juliers
he was already threatened with the distant prospect of a new war.  No
wonder, then, that this dilatory prince was more irresolute than ever in
his decision, and that the confederates took up arms before he could
bethink himself.

The Roman Catholics regarded this confederacy with a jealous eye; the
Union viewed them and the Emperor with the like distrust; the Emperor
was equally suspicious of both; and thus, on all sides, alarm and
animosity had reached their climax.  And, as if to crown the whole, at
this critical conjuncture by the death of the Duke John William of
Juliers, a highly disputable succession became vacant in the territories
of Juliers and Cleves.

Eight competitors laid claim to this territory, the indivisibility of
which had been guaranteed by solemn treaties; and the Emperor, who
seemed disposed to enter upon it as a vacant fief, might be considered
as the ninth.  Four of these, the Elector of Brandenburg, the Count
Palatine of Neuburg, the Count Palatine of Deux Ponts, and the Margrave
of Burgau, an Austrian prince, claimed it as a female fief in name of
four princesses, sisters of the late duke.  Two others, the Elector of
Saxony, of the line of Albert, and the Duke of Saxony, of the line of
Ernest, laid claim to it under a prior right of reversion granted to
them by the Emperor Frederick III., and confirmed to both Saxon houses
by Maximilian I.  The pretensions of some foreign princes were little
regarded.  The best right was perhaps on the side of Brandenburg and
Neuburg, and between the claims of these two it was not easy to decide.
Both courts, as soon as the succession was vacant, proceeded to take
possession; Brandenburg beginning, and Neuburg following the example.
Both commenced their dispute with the pen, and would probably have ended
it with the sword; but the interference of the Emperor, by proceeding to
bring the cause before his own cognizance, and, during the progress of
the suit, sequestrating the disputed countries, soon brought the
contending parties to an agreement, in order to avert the common danger.
They agreed to govern the duchy conjointly.  In vain did the Emperor
prohibit the Estates from doing homage to their new masters; in vain did
he send his own relation, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau and
Strasburg, into the territory of Juliers, in order, by his presence, to
strengthen the imperial party.  The whole country, with the exception of
Juliers itself, had submitted to the Protestant princes, and in that
capital the imperialists were besieged.