X. 1551. matter; he nominated ambassadors, whom he empowered BOOK to attend the council; he made choice of Melancthon and some of the most eminent among his brethren to prepare a confession of faith, and to lay it before that assembly. After his example, and probably in consequence of his solicitations, the duke of Wurtemberg, the city of Strasburg, and other Protestant states, appointed ambassadors and divines to attend the council. They all applied to the emperor for his safe-conduct, which they obtained in the most ample form. This was deemed sufficient for the security of the ambassadors, and they procceded accordingly on their journey; but a separate safe-conduct from the council itself was demanded for the Protestant divines. The fate of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, whom the council of Constance, in the preceding century, had condemned to the flames, without regarding the imperial safeconduct which had been granted them, rendered this precaution prudent and necessary. But as the pope was no less unwilling that the Protestants should be admitted to an hearing in the council, than the emperor had been eager in bringing them to demand it, the legate, by promises and threats, prevailed on the fathers of the council to decline issuing a safe-conduct in the same form with that which the council of Basil had granted to the followers of Huss. The Protestants, on their part, insisted upon the council's copying the precise words of that instrument. The imperial ambassadors interposed, in order to obtain what would satisfy them. Alterations in the form of the writ were proposed; expedients were suggested; protests and counter-protests were taken; the legate, together with his associates, laboured to gain their point by artifice and chicane; the Protestants adhered to theirs with firmness and obstinacy. An account of every thing that passed in Trent was transmitted to the emperor at Inspruck, who, attempting, from an excess of zeal, or of confidence in his own address, to reconcile the contending parties, was involved in a labyrinth of inextricable negociations. By means of this, however, Maurice gained all that he had X. 1551. BOOK in view; the emperor's time was wholly engrossed, and his attention diverted; while he himself had leisure to mature his schemes, to carry on his intrigues, and to finish his preparations, before he threw off the mask, and struck the blow which he had so long meditated ". The affirs of Hun gary. Martinuzzi favours. Ferdi But previous to entering into any farther detail concerning Maurice's operations, some account must be given of a new revolution in Hungary, which contributed not a little towards their producing such extraordinary effects. When Solyman, in the year 1541, by a stratagem which suited the base and insidious policy of a petty usurper, rather than the magnanimity of a mighty conqueror, deprived the young king of Hungary of the dominions which his father had left him, he had granted that unfortunate prince the country of Transylvania, a province of his paternal kingdom. The government of this, together with the care of educating the young king, for he still allowed him to retain that title, though he had rendered it only an empty name, he committed to the queen and Martinuzzi bishop of Waradin, whom the late king had appointed joint guardians of his son, and regents of his dominions, at a time when those officers were of greater importance. This co-ordinate jurisdiction occasioned the same dissensions in a small principality as it would have excited in a great kingdom; an ambitious young queen, possessed with an high opinion of her own capacity for governing, and an high-spirited prelate, fond of power, contending who should engross the greatest share in the administration. Each had their partisans among the nobles; but as Martinuzzi, by his great talents, began to acquire the ascendant, Isabella turned his own arts against him, and courted the protection of the Turks. The neighbouring bashas, jealous of the bishop's power as well as abilities, readily promised her the aid which nand's pre- she demanded, and would soon have obliged Martinuzzi teusions in to have given up to her the sole direction of affairs, if his ambition, fertile in expedients, had not suggested to him that Ling dom. Sleid. 526, 529. F. Paul, 323, 338. Thuần. 286. X. a new measure, and one that tended not only to preserve BOOK but to enlarge his authority. Having concluded an agree-. ment with the queen, by the mediation of some of the 1551. nobles, who were solicitous to save their country from the calamities of a civil war, he secretly dispatched one of his confidents to Vienna, and entered into a negociation with Ferdinand. As it was no difficult matter to persuade Ferdinand, that the same man whose enmity and intrigues had driven him out of a great part of his Hungarian dominions, might, upon a reconciliation, become equally instrumental in recovering them, he listened eagerly to the first overtures of an union with that prelate. Martinuzzi allured him by such prospects of advantage, and engaged, with so much confidence, that he would prevail on the most powerful of the Hungarian nobles to take arms in his favour, that Ferdinand, notwithstanding his truce with Solyman, agreed to invade Transylvania. The command of the troops destined for that service, consisting of veteran Spanish and German soldiers, was given to Castaldo marquis de Piadena, an officer formed by the famous marquis de Pescara, whom he strongly resembled both in his enterprising genius for civil business, and in his great knowledge in the art of war. This army, more formidable by the discipline of the soldiers, and the abilities of the general, than by its numbers, was powerfully seconded by Martinuzzi and his faction among the Hungarians. As the Turkish bashas, the sultan himself being at the head of his army on the frontiers of Persia, could not afford the queen such immediate or effectual assistance as the exigency of her affairs required, she quickly lost all hopes of being able to retain any longer the authority which she possessed as regent, and even began to despair of her son's safety. sures. Martinuzzi did not suffer this favourable opportunity of The success accomplishing his own designs to pass unimproved, and of his meaventured, while she was in this state of dejection, to lay before her a proposal, which, at any other time, she would have rejected with disdain. He represented how impos X. 2551. BOOK sible it was for her to resist Ferdinand's victorious arms; that even if the Turks should enable her to make head against them, she would be far from changing her condition to the better, and could not consider them as deliverers, but as masters, to whose commands she must submit; he conjured her, therefore, as she regarded her own dignity, the safety of her son, or the security of Christendom, rather to give up Transylvania to Ferdinand, and to make over to him her son's title to the crown of Hungary, than to allow both to be usurped by the inveterate enemy of the Christian faith. At the same time he promised her, in Ferdinand's name, a compensation for herself, as well as for her son, suitable to their rank, and proportional to the value of what they were to sacrifice. Isabella, deserted by some of her adherents, distrusting others, destitute of friends, and surrounded by Castaldo's and Martinuzzi's troops, subscribed these hard conditions, though with a reluctant hand. Upon this, she surrendered such places of strength as were still in her possession, she gave up all the ensigns of royalty, particularly a crown of gold, which, as the Hungarians believed, had descended from Heaven, and conferred on him who wore it an undoubted right to the throne. As she could not bear to remain a private person, in a country where she had once enjoyed sovereign power, she instantly set out with her son for Silesia, in order to take possession of the principalities of Oppelen and Ratibor, the investiture of which Ferdinand had engaged to grant her son, and likewise to bestow one of his daughters upon him in marriage. governor of that part which was Appointed Upon the resignation of the young king, Martinuzzi, hat part of and after his example the rest of the Transylvanian granHungary dees, swore allegiance to Ferdinand; who, in order to tessubject to tify his grateful sense of the zeal as well as success with Ferdinand. which that prelate had served him, affected to distinguish him by every possible mark of favour and confidence. He appointed him governor of Transylvania, with almost unlimited authority; he publicly ordered Castaldo to pay the greatest deference to his opinion and commands; he increased his revenues, which were already very great, by new appointments; he nominated him archbishop of Gran, and prevailed on the pope to raise him to the dignity of a cardinal. All this ostentation of good-will, however, was void of sincerity, and calculated to conceal sentiments the most perfectly its reverse. Ferdinand dreaded Martinuzzi's abilities; distrusted his fidelity; and foresaw, that as his extensive authority enabled him to check any attempt towards circumscribing or abolishing the extensive privileges which the Hungarian nobility possessed, he would stand forth on every occasion the guardian of the liberties of his country, rather than act the part of a viceroy devoted to the will of his sovereign. BOOK 1551. against For this reason, he secretly gave it in charge to Castaldo Ferdinand to watch his motions, to guard against his designs, and to form debegins to thwart his measures. But Martinuzzi, either because he signs did not perceive that Castaldo was placed as a spy on his him. actions, or because he despised Ferdinand's insidious arts, assumed the direction of the war against the Turks with his usual tone of authority, and conducted it with great magnamimity, and no less success. He recovered some places of which the infidels had taken possession; he rendered their attempts to reduce others abortive; and established Ferdinand's authority not only in Transylvania, but in the Bannat of Temeswar, and several of the countries adjacent. In carrying on these operations, he often differed in sentiments from Castaldo and his officers, and treated the Turkish prisoners with a degree not only of humanity, but even of generosity, which Castaldo loudly condemned. This was represented at Vienna as an artful method of courting the friendship of the infidels, that, by securing their protection, he might shake off all dependence upon the sovereign whom he now acknowledged. Though Martinuzzi, in justification of his own conduct, contended that it was impolitic, by unnecessary severities, to exasperate an enemy prone to revenge, Castaldo's accusations gained credit with Ferdinand, prepossessed already against Martinuzzi, and jealous of every thing that could |