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tered as if it were the private property of an individual, the task would have been perhaps as well accomplished by Charles as by any man. He had not the absurdity of supposing it possible for him to attend to the details of every individual affair in every one of his realms; and he therefore intrusted the stewardship of all specialities to his various ministers and agents. It was his business to know men and to deal with affairs on a large scale, and in this he certainly was superior to his successor. His correspondence was mainly in the hands of Granvelle the elder, who analyzed letters received, and frequently wrote all but the signatures of the answers. The same minister usually possessed the imperial ear, and farmed it out for his own benefit. In all this there was of course room for vast deception, but the Emperor was quite aware of what was going on, and took a philosophic view of the matter as an inevitable part of his system. Granvelle grew enormously rich under his eye by trading on the imperial favor and sparing his majesty much trouble. Charles saw it all, ridiculed his peculations, but called him his "bed of down." His knowledge of human nature was, however, derived from a contemplation mainly of its weaknesses, and was therefore one-sided. He was often deceived, and made many a fatal blunder, shrewd politician though he was. He involved himself often in enterprises which could not be honorable or profitable, and which inflicted damage on his greatest interests. He often offended men who might have been useful friends, and converted allies into enemies. "His Majesty," said a keen observer who knew him well, "has not in his career shown the prudence which was necessary to him. He has often offended those whose love he might have conciliated, converted friends into enemies, and let those perish who were his most faithful partisans." Thus it must be acknowledged that even his boasted knowledge of human nature and his power of dealing with men was rather superficial and empirical than the real gift of genius.

His personal habits during the greater part of his life were those of an indefatigable soldier. He could remain in the saddle day and night, and endure every hardship but hunger. He was addicted to vulgar and miscellaneous incontinence. He was an enormous eater. He breakfasted at five, on a fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices. After this he went to sleep again. He dined at twelve, partaking always of twenty dishes. He supped twice; at first, soon after ves

pers, and the second time at midnight or one o'clock, which meal was, perhaps, the most solid of the four. After meat he ate a great quantity of pastry and sweetmeats, and he irrigated every repast by vast draughts of beer and wine. His stomach, originally a wonderful one, succumbed after forty years of such labor. His taste, but not his appetite, began to fail, and he complained to his major-domo that all his food was insipid. The reply is perhaps among the most celebrated of facetiæ. The cook could do nothing more unless he served his Majesty a pasty of watches. The allusion to the Emperor's passion for horology was received with great applause. Charles "laughed longer than he was ever known to laugh before, and all the courtiers (of course) laughed as long as his Majesty."

OVERTHROW OF CHARLES V. BY MAURICE.

BY WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

[WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D., Scotch historian, was born at Borthwick in 1721; studied theology at Edinburgh University and acquired rapid distinction as a pulpit orator. His " History of Scotland " (1759) at once gave him a place among the leading historians of the country, especially for its lucid and pleasing style, and gained him the positions of principal of Edinburgh University and historiographer royal of Scotland. He died in 1793. His other chief works are the "History of Charles V." and "History of America."]

[MAURICE OF SAXONY, born 1521, succeeded at twenty to the headship of the younger branch of the Saxon house; gained Charles's favor first by assisting him against the Turks, and then far more by helping him crush in 1546 the Smalkaldic League of Protestant princes, (though himself a Protestant,) and claimed the electorate of Saxony, the spoil of the elder branch, for his reward. He used this to do the very work which the League was too anarchic to accomplish, and forced Charles to make the Peace of Passau, which secured the Protestants' position till the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War.]

BY AN artful dissimulation of his own sentiments; by address in paying court to the Emperor; and by the seeming zeal with which he forwarded all his ambitious schemes, Maurice had raised himself to the electoral dignity; and having added the dominions of the elder branch of the Saxon family to his own, he was become the most powerful prince in Germany. But his long and intimate union with the Emperor had afforded him many opportunities of observing narrowly the dangerous tendency of that monarch's schemes. He saw the yoke that

was preparing for his country; and from the rapid as well as formidable progress of the Imperial power, was convinced that but a few steps more remained to be taken, in order to render Charles as absolute a monarch in Germany as he had become in Spain. The more eminent the condition was to which he himself had been exalted, the more solicitous did Maurice naturally become to maintain all its rights and privileges, and the more did he dread the thoughts of descending from the rank of a prince almost independent, to that of a vassal subject to the commands of a master. At the same time, he perceived that Charles was bent on exacting a rigid conformity to the doctrines and rites of the Romish church, instead of allowing liberty of conscience, the promise of which had allured several Protestant princes to assist him in the war against the confederates of Smalkalde. As he himself, notwithstanding all the compliances which he had made from motives of interest, or an excess of confidence in the Emperor, was sincerely attached to the Lutheran tenets, he determined not to be a tame spectator of the overthrow of a system which he believed to be founded in truth.

This resolution, flowing from the love of liberty, or zeal for religion, was strengthened by political and interested considerations. In that elevated station in which Maurice was now placed, new and more extensive prospects opened to his view. His rank and power entitled him to be the head of the Protestants in the empire. His predecessor, the degraded Elector, with inferior abilities, and territories less considerable, had acquired such an ascendant over the councils of the party; and Maurice neither wanted discernment to see the advantage of this preeminence, nor ambition to aim at attaining it. But he found himself in a situation which rendered the attempt no less difficult than the object of it was important. On the one hand, the connection which he had formed with the Emperor was so intimate, that he could scarcely hope to take any step which tended to dissolve it, without alarming his jealousy and drawing on himself the whole weight of that power which had crushed the greatest confederacy ever formed in Germany. On the other hand, the calamities which he had brought on the Protestant party were so recent as well as great, that it seemed almost impossible to regain their confidence, or to rally and reanimate a body, after he himself had been the chief instrument in breaking its union and vigor. These considerations

were sufficient to have discouraged any person of a spirit less adventurous than Maurice's. But to him the grandeur and difficulty of the enterprise were allurements; and he boldly resolved on measures, the idea of which a genius of an inferior order could not have conceived, or would have trembled at the thoughts of the danger that attended the execution of them. . . . The utmost caution as well as the most delicate address were requisite in taking every step towards this end; as he had to guard, on the one hand, against giving a premature alarm to the Emperor; while, on the other, something considerable and explicit was necessary to be done, in order to regain the confidence of the Protestant party. Maurice had accordingly applied all his powers of art and dissimulation to attain both these points. As he knew Charles to be inflexible with regard to the submission which he required to the Interim, he did not hesitate one moment whether he should establish that form of doctrine and worship in his dominions: but being sensible how odious it was to his subjects, instead of violently imposing it on them by the mere terror of authority, as had been done in other parts of Germany, he endeavored to render their obedience a voluntary deed of their own.

[He called an assembly of the Protestant clergy of Saxony at Leipsic, and hence subject to state authority, induced the bulk of them, including Melanchthon, to class several doctrines which Luther held vital errors as "matters indifferent," and urge obedience to the Interim.]

By this dexterous conduct, the introduction of the Interim excited none of those violent convulsions in Saxony which it occasioned in other provinces. But though the Saxons submitted, the more zealous Lutherans exclaimed against Melanchthon and his associates, as false brethren, who were either so wicked as to apostatize from the truth altogether; or so crafty as to betray it by subtle distinctions; or so feeble-spirited as to give it up from pusillanimity and criminal complaisance to a prince capable of sacrificing to his political interest that which he himself regarded as most sacred. Maurice, being conscious what a color of probability his past conduct gave to those accusations, as well as afraid of losing entirely the confidence of the Protestants, issued a declaration containing professions of his zealous attachment to the Reformed religion and of his resolution to guard against all the errors or encroachments of the Papal See.

Having gone so far in order to remove the fears and jealousies of the Protestants, he found it necessary to efface the impression which such a declaration might make upon the Emperor. For that purpose, he not only renewed his professions of an inviolable adherence to his alliance with him, but as the city of Magdeburg still persisted in rejecting the Interim, he undertook to reduce it to obedience, and instantly set about levying troops to be employed in that service. This damped all the hopes which the Protestants began to conceive of Maurice, in consequence of his declaration, and left them more than ever at a loss to guess at his real intentions. Their former suspicion and distrust of him revived, and the divines of Magdeburg filled Germany with writings in which they represented him as the most formidable enemy of the Protestant religion, who treacherously assumed an appearance of zeal for its interest, that he might more effectually execute his schemes for its destruction.

This charge, supported by the evidence of recent facts, as well as by his present dubious conduct, gained such universal credit that Maurice was obliged to take a vigorous step in his own vindication. As soon as the reassembling of the Council of Trent was proposed in the Diet, his ambassadors protested that their master would not acknowledge its authority, unless all the points which had been already decided there were reviewed, and considered as still undetermined; unless the Protestant divines had a full hearing granted them, and were allowed a decisive voice in the council; and unless the Pope renounced his pretensions to preside in the council, engaged to submit to its decrees, and to absolve the bishops from their oath of obedience, that they might deliver their sentiments with greater freedom. These demands, which were higher than any that the Reformers had ventured to make, even when the zeal of their party was warmest, or their affairs most prosperous, counterbalanced in some degree the impression which Maurice's preparations against Magdeburg had made upon the minds of the Protestants, and kept them in suspense with regard to his designs. At the same time, he had dexterity enough to represent this part of his conduct in such a light to the Emperor, that it gave him no offense, and occasioned no interruption of the strict confidence which subsisted between them. What the pretexts were which he employed, in order to give such a bold declaration an innocent appearance, the contemporary historians

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