Maurice’s manifesto

At the same time he published a manifesto containing his reasons for taking arms.

These were three in number: that he might secure the protestant religion, which was threatened with immediate destruction; that he might maintain the constitution and laws of the empire, and save Germany from being subjected to the dominion of an absolute monarch; that he might deliver the landgrave of Hesse from the miseries of a long and unjust imprisonment. By the first, he roused all the favorers of the reformation, a party formidable by their zeal as well as numbers, and rendered desperate by oppression. By the second, he interested all the friends of liberty, catholics no less than protestants, and made it their interest to unite with him in asserting the rights and privileges common to both. The third, besides the glory which he acquired by his zeal to fulfill his engagements to the unhappy prisoner, was become a cause of general concern, not only from the compassion which the landgrave’s sufferings excited, but from indignation at the injustice and rigor of the emperor’s proceedings against him. Together with Maurice’s manifesto, another appeared in the name of Albert marquis of Brandenburg Culmbach, who had joined him with a body of adventurers whom he had drawn together. The same grievances which Maurice had pointed out are mentioned in it, but with an excess of virulence and animosity suitable to the character of the prince in whose name it was published.

The king of France added to these a manifesto in his own name; in which, after taking notice of the ancient alliance between the French and German nations, both descended from the same ancestors; and after mentioning the applications which, in consequence of this, some of the most illustrious among the German princes had made to him for his protection; he declared, that he now took arms to re-establish the ancient constitution of the empire, to deliver some of its princes from captivity, and to secure the privileges and independence of all the members of the Germanic body. In this manifesto, Henry assumed the extraordinary title of Protector of the Liberties of Germany and of its captive Princes; and there was engraved on it a cap, the ancient symbol of freedom, placed between two daggers, in order to intimate to the Germans, that this blessing was to be acquired and secured by force of arms.

Maurice had now to act a part entirely new; but his flexible genius was capable of accommodating itself to every situation. The moment he took arms, he was as bold and enterprising in the field, as he had been cautious and crafty in the cabinet. He advanced by rapid marches towards the Upper Germany. All the towns in his way opened their gates to him. He reinstated the magistrates whom the emperor had deposed, and gave possession of the churches to the protestant ministers whom he had ejected. He directed his march to Augsburg, and as the Imperial garrison, which was too inconsiderable to think of defending it, retired immediately, he took possession of that great city [April 1], and made the same changes there as in the towns through which he had passed.

No words can express the emperor's astonishment and consternation at events so unexpected. He saw a great number of the German princes in arms against him, and the rest either ready to join them, or wishing success to their enterprise. He beheld a powerful monarch united with them in close league, seconding their operations in person at the head of a formidable army, while he, through negligence and credulity, which exposed him no less to scorn than to danger, had neither made, nor was in a condition to make, any effectual provision, either for crushing his rebellious subjects, or resisting the invasion of the foreign enemy. Part of his Spanish troops had been ordered into Hungary against the Turks; the rest had marched back to Italy upon occasion of the war in the duchy of Parma. The bands of veteran Germans had been dismissed, because he was not able to pay them; or had entered into Maurice’s service after the siege of Magdeburg; and he remained at Innsbruck with a body of soldiers hardly strong enough to guard his own person. His treasury was as much exhausted, as his army was reduced. He had received no remittances for some time from the new world. He had forfeited all credit with the merchants of Genoa and Venice, who refused to lend him money, though tempted by the offer of exorbitant interest. Thus Charles, though undoubtedly the most considerable potentate in Christendom, and capable of exerting the greatest strength, his power, notwithstanding the violent attack made upon it, being still unimpaired, found himself in a situation which rendered him unable to make such a sudden and vigorous effort as the juncture required, and was necessary to have saved him from the present danger.

In this situation, the emperor placed all his hopes upon negotiating; the only resource of such as are conscious of their own weakness. But thinking it inconsistent with his dignity to make the first advances to subjects who were in arms against him, he avoided that indecorum by employing the mediation of his brother Ferdinand. Maurice confiding in his own talents to conduct any negotiation in such a manner as to derive advantage from it, and hoping that, by the appearance of facility in hearkening to the first overture of accommodation, he might amuse the emperor, and tempt him to slacken the activity with which he was now preparing to defend himself, readily agreed to an interview with Ferdinand in the town of Lintz in Austria; and having left his army to proceed on its march under the command of the duke of Mecklenburg, he repaired thither.

Meanwhile the king of France punctually fulfilled his engagements to the allies. He took the field early, with a numerous and well-appointed army, and marching directly into Lorrain, Toul and Verdun opened their gates at his approach. His forces appeared next before Metz, and that city, by a fraudulent stratagem of the constable Montmorency, who having obtained permission to pass through it with a small guard, introduced as many troops as were sufficient to overpower the garrison, was likewise seized without bloodshed. Henry made his entry into all these towns with great pomp; he obliged the inhabitants to swear allegiance to him, and annexed those important conquests to the French monarchy. He left a strong garrison in Metz. From thence he advanced towards Alsace, in order to attempt new conquests, to which the success that had hitherto attended his arms invited him.

The conference at Lintz did not produce an accommodation. Maurice, when he consented to it, seems to have had nothing in view but to amuse the emperor; for he made such demands, both in behalf of his confederates and their ally the French king as he knew would not be accepted by a prince, too haughty to submit, at once, to conditions dictated by an enemy. But, however firmly Maurice adhered during the negotiation to the interest of his associates, or how steadily soever he kept in view the objects which had induced him to take arms, he often professed a strong inclination to terminate the differences with the emperor in an amicable manner. Encouraged by this appearance of a pacific disposition, Ferdinand proposed a second interview at Passau on the twenty-sixth of May, and that a truce should commence on that day, and continue to the tenth of June, in order to give them leisure for adjusting all the points in dispute.

Upon this, Maurice rejoined his army on the ninth of May, which had now advanced to Gundelfingen. He put his troops in motion next morning; and as sixteen days yet remained for action before the commencement of the truce, he resolved during that period, to venture upon an enterprise, the success of which would be so decisive, as to render the negotiations at Passau extremely short, and entitle him to treat upon his own terms. He foresaw that the prospect of a cessation of arms, which was to take place so soon, together with the opinion of his earnestness to re-establish peace, with which he had artfully amused Ferdinand, could hardly fail of inspiring the emperor with such false hopes, that he would naturally become remiss, and relapse into some degree of that security which had already been so fatal to him. Relying on this conjecture, he marched directly at the head of his army towards Innsbruck, 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 entrenched, 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.

Elated with this success, which exceeded his most sanguine hopes, Maurice pressed forward to Ehrenbergh, a castle situated on a high and steep precipice, which 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 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 valor and skill.

Maurice was now only two days march from Innsbruck, and without losing a moment he ordered his infantry 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 Ehrenbergh, 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 recompense 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

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 Innsbruck, 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 utmost confusion. In this miserable plight, very unlike the 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 at that remote inaccessible corner.

Maurice entered Innsbruck a few hours after the emperor 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 the ministers, to be plundered by the soldiers; while he preserved untouched everything 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.

Before Charles left Innsbruck, he withdrew the guards placed on the degraded elector of Saxony, whom, during five years, he had carried about with him as a prisoner, and set him entirely at liberty, either with an intention to 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 operations produced. It was no sooner known at Trent that he had taken arms, than a general consternation seized the fathers of the council. The German prelates immediately returned home, that they might provide for the safety of their respective territories. The rest were extremely impatient to be gone: and the legate, who had 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 reassembled in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-two, fall not within the period prescribed to this history.

 

History of the council of Trent