The Siege of Magdeburg

As the hopes of booty drew many adventurers to the camp of this young prince, Maurice of Saxony began to be jealous of the power which he possessed by being at the head of such a numerous body, and marching towards Magdeburg with his own troops, assumed the supreme command of the whole army, an honor to which his high rank and great abilities as well as the nomination of the diet, gave him an indisputable title. With this united force, he invested the town, and began the siege in form; claiming great merit with the emperor on that account, as from his zeal to execute the Imperial decree, he was exposing himself once more to the censures and maledictions of the party with which he agreed in religious sentiments. But the approaches to the town went on slowly; the garrison interrupted the besiegers by frequent sallies, in one of which George of Mecklenburg was taken prisoner, leveled part of their works, and cut off the soldiers in their advanced posts. While the citizens of Magdeburg, animated by the discourses of their pastors, and the soldiers, encouraged by the example of their officers, endured all the hardships of a siege without murmuring, and defended themselves with the same ardor which they had at first discovered; the troops of the besiegers acted with extreme remissness, repaving at everything that they suffered in a service which they disliked. They broke out more than once into an open mutiny, demanding the arrears of their pay, which, as the members of the Germanic body sent in their contributions towards defraying the expenses of the war sparingly, and with great reluctance, amounted to a considerable sum. Maurice, too, had particular motives, though such as he durst not avow at that juncture, which induced him not to push the siege with vigour, and made him choose rather to continue at the head of an army exposed to all the imputations which his dilatory proceedings drew upon him, than to precipitate a conquest that might have brought him some accession of reputation, but would have rendered it necessary to disband his forces.

At last, the inhabitants of the town beginning to suffer distress from want of provisions, and Maurice, finding it impossible to protract matters any longer without filling the emperor with such suspicions as might have disconcerted all his measures, he concluded a treaty of capitulation with the city [Novem. 3], upon the following conditions; that the Magdeburgers should humbly implore pardon of the emperor; that they should not for the future take arms, or enter into any alliance against the house of Austria; that they should submit to the authority of the Imperial chamber; that they should conform to the decree of the diet at Augsburg with respect to religion; that the new fortifications added to the town should be demolished; that they should pay a fine of fifty thousand crowns, deliver up twelve pieces of ordnance to the emperor, and set the duke of Mecklenburg, together with their other prisoners, at liberty, without ransom. Next day their garrison marched out, and Maurice took possession of the town with great military pomp.

Before the terms of capitulation were settled, Maurice had held many conferences with Albert count Mansfeldt, who had the chief command in Magdeburg. He consulted likewise with count Heideck, an officer who had served with great reputation in the army of the league of Smalkalde, whom the emperor had proscribed on account of his zeal for that cause, but whom Maurice had, notwithstanding, secretly engaged in his service, and admitted into the most intimate confidence. To them he communicated a scheme, which he had long revolved in his mind, for procuring liberty to his father-in-law the landgrave, for vindicating the privileges of the Germanic body, and setting bounds to the dangerous encroachments of the Imperial power.

Having deliberated with them concerning the measures which might be necessary for securing the success of such an arduous enterprise, he gave Mansfeldt secret assurances that the fortifications of Magdeburg should not be destroyed, and that the inhabitants should neither be disturbed in the exercise of their religion, nor be deprived of any of their ancient immunities. In order to engage Maurice more thoroughly: from considerations of interest to fulfill these engagements, the senate of Magdeburg elected him their burgrave, a dignity which had formerly belonged to the electoral house of Saxony, and which entitled him to a very ample jurisdiction not only in the city but in its dependencies.

Thus the citizens of Magdeburg, after enduring a siege of twelve months, and struggling for their liberties, religious and civil, with an invincible fortitude, worthy of the cause in which it was exerted, had at last the good fortune to conclude a treaty which left them in a better condition than the rest of their countrymen, whom their timidity or want of public spirit had betrayed into such mean submissions to the emperor. But while a great part of Germany applauded the gallant conduct of the Magdeburgers, and rejoiced in their having escaped the destruction with which they had been threatened, all admired Maurice’s address in the conduct of his negotiation with them, as well as the dexterity with which he converted every event to his own advantage.

They saw with amazement, that after having afflicted the Magdeburgers during many months with all the calamities of war, he was at last, by their voluntary election, advanced to the station of highest authority in that city which he had so lately besieged; that after having been so long the object of their satirical invectives as an apostate and an enemy to the religion which he professed, they seemed now to place unbounded confidence in his zeal and good will. At the same time, the public articles in the treaty of capitulation were so perfectly conformable to those which the emperor had granted to the other protestant cities, and Maurice took such care to magnify his merit in having reduced a place which had defended itself with so much obstinacy, that Charles, far from suspecting anything fraudulent or collusive in the terms of accommodation, ratified them without hesitation, and absolved the Magdeburgers from the sentence of ban which had been denounced against them.

The only point that now remained to embarrass Maurice was how to keep together the veteran troops which had served under him, as well as those which had been employed in the defence of the town. For this, too, he found an expedient with singular art and felicity. His schemes against the emperor were not yet so fully ripened, that he durst venture to disclose them, and proceed openly to carry them into execution. The winter was approaching, which made it impossible to take the field immediately. He was afraid that it would give a premature alarm to the emperor, if he should retain such a considerable body in his pay until the season of action returned in the spring.

As soon then as Magdeburg opened its gates, he sent home his Saxon subjects, whom he could command to take arms and reassemble on the shortest warning; and at the same time, paying part of the arrears due to the mercenary troops, who had followed his standard, as well as to the soldiers who had served in the garrison, he absolved them from their respective oaths of fidelity, and disbanded them.

But the moment he gave them their discharge, George of Mecklenburg, who was now set at liberty, offered to take them into his service, and to become surety for the payment of what was still owing to them. As such adventurers were accustomed often to change masters, they instantly accepted the offer. Thus these troops were kept united, and ready to march wherever Maurice should call them, while the emperor, deceived by this artifice, and imagining that George of Mecklenburg had hired them with an intention to assert his claim to a part of his brother’s territories by force of arms, suffered this transaction to pass without observation, as if it had been a matter of no consequence.

Having ventured to take these steps, which were of so much consequence towards the execution of his schemes, Maurice, that he might divert the emperor from observing their tendency too narrowly, and prevent the suspicions which that must have excited, saw the necessity of employing some new artifice in order to engage his attention, and to confirm him in his pre­sent security. As he knew that the chief object of the emperor’s solicitude at this juncture, was how he might prevail with the protestant states of Germany to recognize the authority of the council of Trent, and to send thither ambassadors in their own name, as well as deputies from their respective churches, he took hold of this predominating passion in order to amuse and to deceive him. He affected a wonderful zeal to gratify Charles in what he desired with regard to this matter; he nominated ambassadors whom he empowered to attend the council; he made choice of Melanchthon 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 Württemberg, 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 journey; security of the ambassadors, and they proceeded 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 safe-conduct 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 a 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, labored to gain their point by artifice and chicane; the protestants adhered to theirs with firmness and obstinacy. An account of everything that passed in Trent was transmitted to the emperor at Innsbruck, 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 negotiations. By means of this, however, Maurice gained all that he had 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.

 

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