The Treaty of Passau

Maurice, notwithstanding the prosperous situation of his affairs, was strongly inclined to listen to this advice.

The emperor, though over­reached and surprised, had now begun to assemble troops, and however slow his motions might be, while the first effects of his consternation remained, he was sensible that Charles must at last act with vigor proportional to the extent of his power and territories, and lead into Germany an army formidable by its numbers, and still more by the terror of his name, as well as the remembrance of his past victories. He could scarcely hope that a confederacy composed of so many members would continue to operate with union and perseverance sufficient to resist the consistent and well-directed efforts of an army, at the absolute disposal of a leader accustomed to command and to conquer. He felt, already, although he had not hitherto experienced the shock of any adverse event, that he himself was at the head of a disjointed body. He saw, from the example of Albert of Brandenburg, how difficult it would be, with all his address and credit, to prevent any particular member from detaching himself from the whole, and how impossible to recall him to his proper rank and subordination. This filled him with apprehensions for the common cause.

Another consideration gave him no less disquiet with regard to his own particular interests. By setting at liberty the degraded elector, and by repealing the act by which that prince was deprived of his hereditary honors and dominions, the emperor had it in his power to wound him in the most tender part. The efforts of a prince beloved by his ancient sub­jects, and revered by all the protestant party, in order to recover what had been unjustly taken from him, could hardly have failed of exciting commotions in Saxony, which would endanger all that he had acquired at the expense of so much dissimulation and artifice. It was no less in the emperor's power to render vain all the solicitations of the confederates in behalf of the landgrave. He had only to add one act of violence more to the injustice and rigor with which he had already treated him; and he had accordingly threatened the sons of that unfortunate prince, that if they persisted in their present enterprise, instead of seeing their father restored to liberty, they should hear of his having suffered the punishment which his rebellion had merited.

Having deliberated upon all these points with his associates, Maurice thought it more prudent to accept of the conditions offered, though less advantageous than those which he had proposed, than again to commit all to the doubtful issue of want. He repaired forthwith to Passau, and signed the treaty of peace; of which the chief articles were:

That before the twelfth day of August, the confederates shall lay down their arms, and disband their forces;

That on or before that day the landgrave shall be set at liberty, and conveyed in safety to his castle of Rheinfels;

That a diet shall be held within six months [August 2], in order to deliberate concerning the most proper and effectual method of preventing for the future all disputes and dissensions about religion;

That in the mean time, neither the emperor, nor any other prince, shall upon any pretext whatever, offer any injury or violence to such as adhered to the confession of Augsburg, but allow them to enjoy the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion;

That, in return, the protestants shall not molest the catholics either in the exercise of their ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or in performing their religious ceremonies;

That the Imperial chamber shall administer justice impartially to persons of both parties, and protestants be admitted indiscriminately with the catholics to sit as judges in that court;

That if the next diet should not be able to terminate the disputes with regard to religion, the stipulations in the present treaty in behalf of the protestants shall continue forever in full force and vigour;

That none of the confe­derates shall be liable to any action on account of what had happened during the course of the war;

That the consideration of those encroachments which had been made, as Maurice pretended, upon the constitution and liberties of the empire, shall be remitted to the approaching diet;

That Albert of Brandenburg shall be comprehended in the treaty, provided he shall accede to it, and disband his forces before the twelfth of August.

Such was the memorable treaty of Passau, that overturned the vast fabric, in erecting which Charles had employed so many years, and had exerted the utmost efforts of his power and policy; that annulled all his regulations with regard to religion; defeated all his hopes of rendering the Imperial authority absolute and hereditary in his family; and established the protestant church, which had hitherto subsisted precariously in Germany, through connivance, or by expedients, upon a firm and secure basis. Maurice reaped all the glory of having concerted and completed this unexpected revolution. It is a singular circumstance, that the reformation should be indebted for its security and full establishment in Germany, to the same hand which had brought it to the brink of destruction, and that both events should have been accomplished by the same arts of dissimulation. The ends, however, which Maurice had in view, at those different junctures, seem to have been more attended to than the means by which he attained them; and he was now as universally extolled for his zeal and public spirit as he had lately been condemned for his indifference and interested policy. It is no less worthy of observation, that the French king, a monarch zealous for the catholic faith, should employ his power in order to protect and maintain the reformation in the empire, at the very time when he was persecuting his own protestant subjects with all the fierceness of bigotry, and that the league for this purpose, which proved so fatal to the Romish church, should be negotiated and signed by a Roman catholic bishop.

So wonderfully does the wisdom of God superintend and regulate the caprice of human passions, and render them subservient towards the accomplishment of his own purposes.

Little attention was paid to the interests of the French king during the negotiations at Passau. Maurice and his associates, having gained what they had in view, discovered no great solicitude about an ally, whom, perhaps, they reckoned to be overpaid for the assistance which he had given them, by his acquisitions in Lorrain. A short clause which they procured to be inserted in the treaty, importing that the king of France might communicate to the confederates his particular pretensions or causes of hostility, which they would lay before the emperor, was the only sign that they gave of their remembering how much they had been indebted to him for their success. Henry experienced the same treatment which every prince who lends his aid to the authors of a civil war may expect. As soon as the rage of faction began to subside, and any prospect of accommodation to open, his services were forgotten, and his associates made a merit with their sovereign of the ingratitude with which they abandoned their protector.

But how much soever Henry might he enraged at the perfidy of his allies, or at the impatience with which they hastened to make their peace with the emperor, at his expense, he was perfectly sensible that it was more his interest to keep well with the Germanic body, than to resent the indignities offered him by any particular members of it. For that reason, he dismissed the hostages which he had received from Maurice and his associates, and affected to talk in the same strain as formerly, concerning his zeal for maintaining the ancient constitution and liberties of the empire.