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ciations of

Passau

Bavaria, and having published a proclamation, enjoining BOOK the Lutheran clergy and instructors of youth to resume the exercise of their functions in all the cities, schools, 1552. The nego and universities from which they had been ejected, met Ferdinand at Passau on the twenty-sixth day of May. peace at As matters of the greatest consequence to the future peace and independence of the empire were to be settled in this congress, the eyes of all Germany were fixed upon it. Besides Ferdinand and the imperial ambassadors, the duke of Bavaria, the bishops of Saltzburg and Aichstadt, the ministers of all the electors, together with deputies from most of the considerable princes and free cities, resorted to Passau. Maurice, in the name of his associates, and the king of the Romans as the emperor's representative, opened the negociation. The princes who were present, together with the deputies of such as were absent, acted as intercessors or mediators between them.

Maurice

Maurice, in a long discourse, explained the motives of The terms his own conduct. After having enumerated all the un-which constitutional and oppressive acts of the emperor's admi- proposed. nistration, he, agreeably to the manifesto which he had published when he took arms against him, limited his demands to three articles; that the landgrave of Hesse should be immediately set at liberty; that the grievances in the civil government of the empire should be redressed; and that the Protestants should be allowed the public exercise of their religion without molestation. Ferdinand and the imperial ambassadors discovering their unwillingness to gratify him with regard to all these points, the mediators wrote a joint letter to the emperor, beseeching him to deliver Germany from the calamities of a civil war, by giving such satisfaction to Maurice and his party as might induce them to lay down their arms; and at the same time they prevailed upon Maurice to grant a prolongation of the truce for a short time, during which they undertook to procure the emperor's final answer to his demands.

This request was presented to the emperor in the name of all the princes of the empire, Popish as well as Protest

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BOOK ant, in the name of such as had lent an helping hand to forward his ambitious schemes, as well as of those who had viewed the progress of his power with jealousy and dread. Powerfully supported The uncommon and cordial unanimity with which they by the concurred at this juncture in enforcing Maurice's de princes of the empire. mands, and in recommending peace, flowed from different causes. Such as were most attached to the Roman Catholic church could not help observing, that the Protestant confederates were at the head of a numerous army, while the emperor was but just beginning to provide for his own defence. They foresaw that great efforts would be required of them, and would be necessary on their part, in order to cope with enemies who had been allowed to get the start so far, and to attain such formidable power. Experience had taught them, that the fruit of all these efforts would be reaped by the emperor alone; and the more complete any victory proved which they should gain, the faster would they bind their own fetters, and render them the more intolerable. These reflections made them cautious how they contributed a second time, by their indiscreet zeal, to put the emperor in possession of power which would be fatal to the liberties of their country. Notwithstanding the intolerant spirit of bigotry in that age, they chose rather that the Protestants should acquire that security for their religion which they demanded, than, by assisting Charles to oppress them, to give such additional force to the imperial prerogative as would overturn the constitution of the empire. To all these considerations, the dread of seeing Germany laid waste by a civil war added new force. Many states of the empire already felt the destructive rage of Albert's arms, others dreaded it, and all wished for an accommodation between the emperor and Maurice, which they hoped would save them from that cruel scourge.

The mo

Such were the reasons that induced so many princes, tives which influenced notwithstanding the variety of their political interests, and the empe the opposition in their religious sentiments, to unite in juncture. recommending to the emperor an accommodation with

ror at this

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Maurice, not only as a salutary, but as a necessary mea- BOOK The motives which prompted Charles to desire it, were not fewer or of less weight. He was perfectly sensible of the superiority which the confederates had acquired through his own negligence; and he now felt the insufficiency of his own resources to oppose them. His Spanish subjects, disgusted at his long absence, and weary of endless wars, which were of little benefit to their country, refused to furnish him any considerable supply either of men or money; and although by his address or importunity he might have hoped to draw from them at last more effectual aid; that, he knew, was too distant to be of any service in the present exigency of his affairs. His treasury was drained; his veteran forces were dispersed or disbanded, and he could not depend much either on the fidelity or courage of the new levied soldiers whom he was collecting. There was no hope of repeating, with success, the same artifices which had weakened and ruined the Smalkaldic league. As the end at which he aimed was now known, he could no longer employ the specious pretexts which had formerly concealed his ambitious designs. Every prince in Germany was alarmed, and on his guard; and it was vain to think of blinding them a second time to such a degree, as to make one part of them instruments to enslave the other. The spirit of a confederacy, whereof Maurice was the head, experience had taught him to be very different from that of the league of Smalkalde; and from what he had already felt, he had no reason to flatter himself that its councils would be as irresolute, or its efforts as timid and feeble. If he should resolve on continuing the war, he might be assured, that the most considerable states in Germany would take part in it against him; and a dubious neutrality was the utmost he could expect from the rest. While the confederates found full employment for his arms in one quarter, the king of France would seize the favourable opportunity, and push on his operations in another, with almost certain success. That monarch had already made conquests in the empire,

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BOOK which Charles was no less eager to recover than impa tient to be revenged on him for aiding his malecontent subjects. Though Henry had now retired from the banks of the Rhine, he had only varied the scene of hostilities, having invaded the Low Countries with all his forces. The Turks, roused by the solicitations of the French king, as well as stimulated by resentment against Ferdinand, for having violated the truce in Hungary, had prepared a powerful fleet to ravage the coasts of Naples and Sicily, which he had left almost defenceless, by calling thence the greatest part of the regular troops to join the army which he was now assembling.

Ferdinand

promote an

dation.

Ferdinand, who went in person to Villach, in order to zealous to lay before the emperor the result of the conferences at Pasaccommo- sau, had likewise reasons peculiar to himself for desiring an accommodation. These prompted him to second, with the greatest earnestness, the arguments which the princes assembled there had employed in recommending it. He had observed, not without secret satisfaction, the fatal blow that had been given to the despotic power which his brother had usurped in the empire. He was extremely solicitous to prevent Charles from recovering his former superiority, as he foresaw that ambitious prince would immediately resume, with increased eagerness, and with a better chance of success, his favourite scheme of transmitting that power to his son, by excluding his brother from the right of succession to the imperial throne. On this account he was willing to contribute towards circumscribing the imperial authority, in order to render his own possession of it certain. Besides, Solyman, exasperated at the loss of Transylvania, and still more at the fraudulent arts by which it had been seized, had ordered into the field an army of an hundred thousand inen, which, having defeated a great body of Ferdinand's troops, and taken several places of importance, threatened not only to complete the conquest of the province, but to drive them out of that part of Hungary which was still subject to his jurisdiction. He was unable to resist such a mighty eng

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my; the emperor, while engaged in a domestic war, could BOOK afford him no aid; and he could not even hope to draw from Germany the contingent either of troops or money usually furnished to repel the invasions of the infidels. Maurice, having observed Ferdinand's perplexity with regard to this last point, had offered, if peace were reestablished on a secure foundation, that he would march in person with his troops into Hungary against the Turks. Such was the effect of this well-timed proposal, that Ferdinand, destitute of every other prospect of relief, became the most zealous advocate whom the confederates could have employed to urge their claims, and there was hardly any thing that they could have demanded which he would not have chosen to grant, rather than have retarded a pacification, to which he trusted as the only means of saving his Hungarian crown.

When so many causes conspired in rendering an ac-Circumcommodation eligible, it might have been expected that it anc which rewould have taken place immediately; but the inflexibility card it. of the emperor's temper, together with his unwillingness at once to relinquish objects which he had long pursued with such earnestness and assiduity, counterbalanced, for some time, the force of all the motives which disposed him to peace, and not only put that event at a distance, but seemed to render it uncertain. When Maurice's demands, together with the letter of the mediators at Passau, were presented to him, he peremptorily refused to redress the grievances which were pointed out, nor would he agree to any stipulation for the immediate security of the Protestant religion, but proposed referring both these to the determination of a future diet. On his part, he required that instant reparation should be made to all who, during the present war, had suffered either by the licentiousness of the confederate troops, or the exactions of their leaders.

operations

Maurice, who was well acquainted with the emperor's Maurice's arts, immediately concluded that he had nothing in view gerous by these overtures but to amuse and deceive; and, there-facilitate fore, without listening to Ferdinand's entreaties, he left"