a year, no material changes had taken place in the Saxon churches. The same doctrines, it is affirmed, were preached, and divine ordinances administered in the same manner. Others of Melancthon's letters and papers carry down the like information to a later period, and extend it to other places. And within this period the emperor began to relax in his zeal for his new form of doctrine. "He wished," says Camerarius, the friend and biographer of Melancthon, "to have it acknowledged, but he daily more and more connived at the failure of conformity to it, if only his authority were not impeached." We may hence infer, that less change was effected in the Lutheran church by the promulgation of the Interim than is sometimes apprehended.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Proceedings of Maurice-He attacks and surprises the Emperor-Treaty of Passau-Death of Maurice-Peace of Religion-Extracts from Melancthon's Writings-Progress of Reformation-Controversies-Reflections.

ONLY four cities of note now held out against the authority of the emperor. These were Magdeburg, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck; the first relying on its strength, and the others encouraged by their proximity to the Protestant kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden. The resistance of Magdeburg, standing connected with events which changed the whole face of affairs in Germany, demands our particular notice.* The ban of prescription had been some time before published against the city, in the same irregular manner as against the Elector of Saxony and the landgrave: but, when it added to its other offences that of resolutely refusing the Interim, Charles further proclaimed it a prey to any one who could make himself master of it. Though the citizens in consequence suffered many calamities, they bore them with an undaunted spirit, and met the

For the fuller detail of particulars, see Robertson, book x.

émperor's proclamations with the most vigorous manifestoes, justifying their own conduct, declaring that they contended only for retaining their ancient liberties, and the unmolested exercise of their religion, and that in all other things they were ready to yield the most dutiful submission to the emperor's authority. At length, in the diet held at Augsburg in the year 1550, after Charles's return from the Low Countries, it was resolved to despatch an army against the place, and to besiege it in form; and, on the recommendation of the diet, the conduct of the war was, with the emperor's full approbation, committed to Maurice of Saxony. Maurice's undertaking this service (perhaps procuring his own appointment to it) was another stroke of that artful and ambitious prince's policy. By successive previous' measures calculated to regain the confidence of the Protestants which he had entirely forfeited in the Smalkaldic war, he had done much to risk the emperor's favour, and to excite his jealousy; but now, by his apparent zeal against the citizens of Magdeburg, whose spirit and resolution had gained them the general admiration of the Protestant party, he allayed every suspicion, and inspired the emperor with confidence; while he at the same time took a most important step towards the execution of the mighty schemes which he was meditating.

By Charles's late successes not only the religion, but` the liberties, of Germany were prostrated at his feet, and he had but to advance a little further in order to make himself and his successors as absolute in that country as he had become in Spain. This could not fail to be most offensive and alarming to the princes of the empire, and to none more so than to Maurice now become the most powerful among them, and as such, the most impatient of a state of entire dependence on a superior. He appears also to have been sincerely attached to the Protestant religion; and he was personally irritated by the cruel imprisonment of the landgrave his father-in-law, who by his persuasion had put himself into the emperor's hands. All these motives conspired to make him seek the overthrow of that despotic power, which he had so essentially contributed to raise. The conduct of the siege of Magdeburg not only blinded the emperor to his designs, but gave him the command of a powerful army, which he made it his business to keep to VOL. II.-Y

gether till his plans were ripe for execution. With this view, though he made a show of vigour, he allowed the siege to be protracted throughout a whole year; and at the close of it granted the besieged such terms, as both secured their religion and so much attached them to him as to induce them to elect him their burgrave: and all this he at the same time managed with such dexterity as to avoid exciting any distrust in the breast of the emperor.

But before we proceed to the development of Maurice's designs, we must take some notice of the transactions which took place with reference to the council of Trent.

In consequence of the death of Paul III., and the succession of Julius III. to the papal chair, the emperor had a better prospect of succeeding in his wishes with respect to the restoration of the council. A principal object, therefore, proposed in the diet opened at Augsburg, July 26, 1550 (which was again overawed by the presence of the imperial troops), was to procure from its members an explicit acknowledgment of the council, with an engagement to obey its decrees; and in the mean time, more effectually to provide for the observance of the Interim. But here Maurice acted a part which was to gain him credit again with the Protestants. He boldly avowed by his deputies that he would not acknowledge the council unless all points previously decided in it were reviewed; unless the Protestant divines were both fully heard, and allowed to vote in the assembly; and unless the pope renounced his pretensions to preside in it, engaged to submit himself to its decrees, and absolved the bishops from the oath by which they were bound to him, that they might speak and vote with freedom. Yet, in some way not sufficiently explained, he contrived so to represent this daring proceeding, which alone gave any courage and confidence to the Protestants, as still to create no distrust in the emperor's mind. The diet, however, concluded in February, 1551, with a recess, in which the affairs of religion were referred to the council, and all parties were required to send their deputies thither-the emperor engaging to give his safe-conduct to such as demanded it.

The council reassembled at Trent in May, 1551; but all the preparations which the Protestant divines, at the instance of the princes, had made for it 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 safe-conduct as the Protestant princes, warned by the case of John Huss, demanded from the council itself could ever be obtained. Brentius and some other divines from Würtemberg and Strasburg ventured to Trent without it; but they could never procure a hearing and the legate Crescentio expressed 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 others.-But in the mean time Maurice's designs were matured, and his determination 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.

By a tissue of the most consummate artifice and duplicity, Maurice, though but a young man, had for nearly two years so completely duped 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, 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 wellappointed 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 torch-light, 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 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 of these proposals 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, notwithstanding every intercession that could be made in his behalf. And all these objects Maurice ultimately secured. By the treaty of Passau, concluded August 2, 1552, under the mediation of Ferdinand, the emperor's brother, it was agreed, That on or before the 12th 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