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from the benefits of the Peace of Augsburg, which knew of no Protestant body except the Lutheran, the Calvinists were apt to talk about the institutions of the Empire in a manner so disparaging as to give offence to Lutherans and Catholics alike.

      § 9. Frederick IV., Elector Palatine.

      Of this Calvinist feeling Christian of Anhalt became the impersonation. The leadership of the Calvinist states in the beginning of the seventeenth century would naturally have devolved on Frederick IV., Elector Palatine. But Frederick was an incapable drunkard, and his councillors, with Christian at their head, were left to act in his name.

      § 10. Christian of Anhalt.

      Christian of Anhalt possessed a brain of inexhaustible fertility. As soon as one plan which he had framed appeared impracticable, he was ready with another. He was a born diplomatist, and all the chief politicians of Europe were intimately known to him by report, whilst with many of them he carried on a close personal intercourse. His leading idea was that the maintenance of peace was hopeless, and that either Protestantism must get rid of the House of Austria, or the House of Austria would get rid of Protestantism. Whether this were true or false, it is certain that he committed the terrible fault of underestimating his enemy. Whilst Maximilian was drilling soldiers and saving money, Christian was trusting to mere diplomatic finesse. He had no idea of the tenacity with which men will cling to institutions, however rotten, till they feel sure that some other institutions will be substituted for them, or of the strength which Maximilian derived from the appearance of conservatism in which his revolutionary designs were shrouded even from his own observation. In order to give to Protestantism that development which in Christian's eyes was necessary to its safety, it would be needful to overthrow the authority of the Emperor and of the Diet. And if the Emperor and the Diet were overthrown, what had Christian to offer to save Germany from anarchy? If his plan included, as there is little doubt that it did, the seizure of the lands of the neighbouring bishops, and a fresh secularization of ecclesiastical property, even Protestant towns might begin to ask whether their turn would not come next. A return to the old days of private war and the law of the strongest would be welcome to very few.

      1607

      § 11. The occupation of Donauwörth.

      In 1607 an event occurred which raised the alarm of the southern Protestants to fever heat. In the free city of Donauwörth the abbot of a monastery saw fit to send out a procession to flaunt its banners in the face of an almost entirely Protestant population. Before the starting-point was regained mud and stones were thrown, and some of those who had taken part in the proceedings were roughly handled. The Imperial Court (Reichskammergericht), whose duty it was to settle such quarrels, was out of working order in consequence of the religious disputes; but there was an Imperial Council (Reichshofrath), consisting of nominees of the Emperor, and professing to act out of the plenitude of imperial authority. By this council Donauwörth was put to the ban of the Empire without due form of trial, and Maximilian was appointed to execute the decree. He at once marched a small army into the place, and, taking possession of the town, declared his intention of retaining his hold till his expenses had been paid, handing over the parish church in the meanwhile to the Catholic clergy. It had only been given over to Protestant worship after the date of the Convention of Passau, and Maximilian could persuade himself that he was only carrying out the law.

      1608

      § 12. The Diet of 1608.

      It was a flagrant case of religious aggression under the name of the law. The knowledge that a partial tribunal was ready to give effect to the complaints of Catholics at once threw the great Protestant cities of the South – Nüremberg, Ulm, and Strasburg into the arms of the neighbouring princes of whom they had hitherto been jealous. Yet there was much in the policy of those princes which would hardly have reassured them. At the Diet of 1608 the representatives of the Elector Palatine were foremost in demanding that the minority should not be bound by the majority in questions of taxation or religion; that is to say, that they should not contribute to the common defence unless they pleased, and that they should not be subject to any regulation about ecclesiastical property unless they pleased. Did this mean only that they were to keep what they had got, or that they might take more as soon as it was convenient? The one was the Protestant, the other the Catholic interpretation of their theory.

      § 13. Formation of the Union.

      On May 14, 1608, the Protestant Union, to which Lutherans and Calvinists were alike admitted, came into existence under the guidance of Christian of Anhalt. It was mainly composed of the princes and towns of the south. Its ostensible purpose was for self-defence, and in this sense it was accepted by most of those who took part in it. Its leaders had very different views.

      § 14. Formation of the League.

      A Catholic League was at once formed under Maximilian. It was composed of a large number of bishops and abbots, who believed that the princes of the Union wished to annex their territories. Maximilian's ability gave it a unity of action which the Union never possessed. It, too, was constituted for self-defence, but whether that word was to include the resumption of the lands lost since the Convention of Passau was a question probably left for circumstances to decide.

      § 15. Revolutionary tendencies of the Union.

      Whatever the majority of the princes of the Union may have meant, there can be no doubt that Christian of Anhalt meant aggression. He believed that the safety of Protestantism could not be secured without the overthrow of the German branch of the House of Austria, and he was sanguine enough to fancy that an act which would call up all Catholic Europe in arms against him was a very easy undertaking.

      1609

      § 16. The succession of Cleves.

      Scarcely had the Union been formed when events occurred which almost dragged Germany into war. In the spring of 1609 the Duke of Cleves died. The Elector of Brandenburg and the son of the Duke of Neuburg laid claim to the succession. On the plea that the Emperor had the right to settle the point, a Catholic army advanced to take possession of the country. The two pretenders, both of them Lutherans, made common cause against the invaders. 1610.Henry IV. of France found in the dispute a pretext for commencing his long-meditated attack upon Spain and her allies. But his life was cut short by an assassin, and his widow only thought of sending a small French force to join the English and the Dutch in maintaining the claims of the two princes, who were ready to unite for a time against a third party.

      1613

      § 17. The box on the ear.

      It was not easy to bring the princes to an arrangement for the future. One day the young Prince of Neuburg proposed what seemed to him an excellent way out of the difficulty. 'He was ready,' he said, 'to marry the Elector's daughter, if only he might have the territory.' Enraged at the impudence of the proposal, the Elector raised his hand and boxed his young rival's ears. The blow had unexpected consequences. The injured prince renounced his Protestantism, and invoked, as a good Catholic, the aid of Spain and the League. The Elector passed from Lutheranism to Calvinism, and took a more active part than before in the affairs of the Union. That immediate war in Germany did not result from the quarrel is probably the strongest possible evidence of the reluctance of the German people to break the peace.

      1612

      § 18. John George, Elector of Saxony.

      The third party, the German Lutherans, looked with equal abhorrence upon aggression on either side. Their leader, John George, Elector of Saxony, stood aloof alike from Christian of Anhalt, and from Maximilian of Bavaria. He was attached by the traditions of his house as well as by his own character to the Empire and the House of Austria. But he was anxious to obtain security for his brother Protestants. He saw there must be a change; but he wisely desired to make the change as slight as possible. In 1612, therefore, he proposed that the highest jurisdiction should still be retained by the Imperial Council, but that the Council, though still nominated by the Emperor, should contain an equal number of Catholics and Protestants. Sentences such as that which had deprived Donauwörth of its civil rights would be in future impossible.

      § 19. His weakness of character.

      Unhappily,

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