X. on this conjecture, he marched directly at the head of his BOOK army towards Inspruck, and advanced with the most rapid motion that could be given to so great a body of troops. On the eighteenth, he arrived at Fiessen, a post of great consequence, at the entrance into the Tyrolese. There he found a body of eight hundred men, whom the emperor had assembled, strongly intrenched, in order to oppose his progress. He attacked them instantly with such violence and impetuosity, that they abandoned their lines precipitately, and, falling back on a second body posted near Ruten, communicated the panic terror with which they themselves had been seized to those troops; so that they likewise took to flight, after a feeble resistance. castle of Elated with this success, which exceeded his most san- Takes the guine hopes, Maurice pressed forward to Ehrenbergh, a Ehrencastle situated on an high and steep precipice, which bergh. commanded the only pass through the mountains. As this fort had been surrendered to the Protestants at the beginning of the Smalkaldic war, because the garrison was then too weak to defend it, the emperor, sensible of its importance, had taken care, at this juncture, to throw into it a body of troops sufficient to maintain it against the greatest army. But a shepherd, in pursuing a goat which had strayed from his flock, having discovered an unknown path by which it was possible to ascend to the top of the rock, came with this seasonable piece of intelligence to Maurice. A small band of chosen soldiers, under the command of George of Mecklenburg, was instantly ordered to follow this guide. They set out in the evening, and clambering up the rugged track with infinite fatigue as well as danger, they reached the summit unperceived; and at an hour which had been agreed on, when Maurice began the assault on the one side of the castle, they appeared on the other ready to scale the walls, which were feeble in that place, because it had been hitherto deemed inaccessible. The garrison, struck with terror at the sight of an enemy on a quarter where BOOK X. 1552. retards his they had thought themselves perfectly secure, immediately threw down their arms. Maurice, almost without bloodshed, and, which was of greater consequence to him, without loss of time, took possession of a place, the reduction of which might have retarded him long, and have required the utmost efforts of his valour and skill ". A mutiny Maurice was now only two days march from Inof his troops spruck, and, without losing a moment, he ordered his inmarch. fantry to advance thither, having left his cavalry, which was unserviceable in that mountainous country, at Fiessen, to guard the mouth of the pass. He proposed to advance with such rapidity as to anticipate any accounts of the loss of Ehrenberg, and to surprise the emperor, together with his attendants, in an open town incapable of defence. But just as his troops began to move, a battalion of mercenaries mutinied, declaring that they would not stir until they had received the gratuity which, according to the custom of that age, they claimed as the recompence due to them for having taken a place by assault. It was with great difficulty, as well as danger, and not without some considerable loss of time, that Maurice quieted this insurrection, and prevailed on the soldiers to follow him to a place where he promised them such rich booty as would be an ample reward for all their services. The empe ror flies in confusion from Ins pruck. To the delay occasioned by this unforeseen accident, the emperor owed his safety. He was informed of the approaching danger late in the evening; and knowing that nothing could save him but a speedy flight, he instantly left Inspruck, without regarding the darkness of the night, or the violence of the rain which happened to fall at that time; and, notwithstanding the debility occasioned by the gout, which rendered him unable to bear any motion but that of a litter, he travelled by the light of torches, taking his way over the Alps, by roads almost impassable. His courtiers and attendants followed him with equal precipitation, some of them on such horses as they could hastily procure, many of them on foot, and all in the ut Arnoldi vita Maurit. 123. Χ. 1552 most confusion. In this miserable plight, very unlike the BOOK pomp with which Charles had appeared during the five preceding years as the conqueror of Germany, he arrived at length with his dejected train at Villach in Carinthia, and scarcely thought himself secure even in that remote inaccessible corner. enters that town. Maurice entered Inspruck a few hours after the empe- Maurice ror and his attendants had left it; and, enraged that the prey should escape out of his hands when he was just ready to seize it, he pursued them some miles; but finding it impossible to overtake persons to whom their fear gave speed, he returned to the town, and abandoned all the emperor's baggage, together with that of his ministers, to be plundered by the soldiers; while he preserved untouched every thing belonging to the king of the Romans, either because he had formed some friendly connection with that prince, or because he wished to have it believed that such a connection subsisted between them. As there now remained only three days to the commencement of the truce (with such nicety had Maurice calculated his operations), he set out for Passau, that he might meet Ferdinand on the day appointed. elector of Before Charles left Inspruck, he withdrew the guards The empe placed on the degraded elector of Saxony, whom, during ror sets the five years, he had carried about with him as a prisoner, Saxony at and set him entirely at liberty, either with an intention to liberty. embarrass Maurice, by letting loose a rival who might dispute his title to his dominions and dignity, or from a sense of the indecency of detaining him a prisoner, while he himself run the risk of being deprived of his own liberty. But that prince, seeing no other way of escaping than that which the emperor took, and abhorring the thoughts of falling into the hands of a kinsman whom he justly considered as the author of all his misfortunes, chose rather to accompany Charles in his flight, and to expect the final decision of his fate from the treaty which was now approaching. These were not the only effects which Maurice's opera 1552. BOOK tions produced. It was no sooner known at Trent that X. he had taken arms, than a general consternation seized The coun- the fathers of the council. The German prelates immecil of Trent diately returned home, that they might provide for the breaks up in great safety of their respective territories. The rest were exconsterna tremely impatient to be gone; and the legate, who had tion. The effect of its decrees. hitherto disappointed all the endeavours of the imperial ambassadors to procure an audience in the council for the Protestant divines, laid hold with joy on such a plausible pretext for dismissing an assembly which he had found it so difficult to govern. In a congregation held on the twenty-eighth of April, a decree was issued, proroguing the council during two years, and appointing it to meet at the expiration of that time, if peace were then re-established in Europe. This prorogation, however, continued no less than ten years; and the proceedings of the council, when re-assembled in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-two, fall not within the period prescribed to this history. The convocation of this assembly had been passionately desired by all the states and princes in Christendom, who, from the wisdom as well as piety of prelates representing the whole body of the faithful, expected some charitable and efficacious endeavours towards composing the dissensions which unhappily had arisen in the church. But the several popes by whose authority it was called, had other objects in view. They exerted all their power or policy to attain these; and by the abilities as well as address of their legates, by the ignorance of many of the prelates, and by the servility of the indigent Italian bishops, acquired such influence in the council, that they dictated all its decrees, and framed them, not with an intention to restore unity and concord to the church, but to establish their own dominion, or to confirm those tenets upon which they imagined that dominion to be founded. Doctrines which had hitherto been admitted upon the credit of tradition alone, and received with some latitude F. Paul, 353. X. 1552. of interpretation, were defined with a scrupulous nicety, BOOK and confirmed by the sanction of authority. Rites which had formerly been observed only in deference to custom supposed to be ancient, were established by the decrees of the church, and declared to be essential parts of its worship. The breach, instead of being closed, was widened, and made irreparable. In place of any attempt to reconcile the contending parties, a line was drawn with such studied accuracy, as ascertained and marked out the distinction between them. This still serves to keep them at a distance; and, without some signal interposition of Divine Providence, must render the separation perpetual. torians of cil. Our knowledge of the proceedings of this assembly is Character derived from three different authors. Father Paul of of the his Venice wrote his history of the council of Trent, while the his coun memory of what had passed there was recent, and some who had been members of it were still alive. He has exposed the intrigues and artifices by which it was conducted with a freedom and severity which have given a deep wound to the credit of the council. He has described its deliberations, and explained its decrees, with such perspicuity and depth of thought, with such various erudition and such force of reason, as have justly entitled his work to be placed among the most admired historical compositions. About half a century thereafter, the jesuit Paliavicini published his history of the council, in opposition to that of Father Paul; and by employing all the force of an acute and refining genius, to invalidate the credit, or to confute the reasonings of his antagonist, he labours to prove, by artful apologies for the proceedings of the council, and subtile interpretations of its decrees, that it deliberated with impartiality, and decided with judgment as well as candour. Vargas, a Spanish doctor of laws, who was appointed to attend the imperial ambassadors at Trent, sent the bishop of Arras a regular account of the transactions there, explaining all the arts which the legate employed to influence or overawe the council. His letters have been published, in which he inveighs against the |
