Britain, Prussia,
Holland, &c., sent deputies to the elector, to represent the injustice
of his proceedings, and to threaten, unless he changed his behaviour to
the protestants in the Palatinate, that they would treat their Roman
catholic subjects with the greatest severity. Many violent disputes took
place between the Protestant powers and those of the elector, and these
were greatly augmented by the following incident; the coach of the Dutch
minister standing before the door of the resident sent by the prince of
Hesse, the host was by chance carrying to a sick person; the coachman
took not the least notice, which those who attended the host observing,
pulled him from his box, and compelled him to kneel: this violence to
the domestic of a public minister, was highly resented by all the
protestant deputies; and still more to heighten these differences, the
protestants presented to the deputies three additional articles of
complaint.

1. That military executions were ordered against all protestant
shoemakers who should refuse to contribute to the masses of St. Crispin.

2. That the protestants were forbid to work on popish holydays even in
harvest time, under very heavy penalties, which occasioned great
inconveniences, and considerably prejudiced public business.

3. That several protestant ministers had been dispossessed of their
churches, under pretence of their having been originally founded and
built by Roman Catholics.

The protestant deputies, at length became so serious, as to intimate to
the elector, that force of arms should compel him to do the justice he
denied to their representations. This menace brought him to reason, as
he well knew the impossibility of carrying on a war against the powerful
states who threatened him. He, therefore, agreed, that the body of the
church of the Holy Ghost should be restored to the protestants. He
restored the Heidelburg catechism, put the protestant ministers again in
possession of the churches of which they had been dispossessed, allowed
the protestants to work on popish holydays, and, ordered, that no person
should be molested for not kneeling when the host passed by.

These things he did through fear; but to show his resentment to his
protestant subjects, in other circumstances where protestant states had
no right to interfere, he totally abandoned Heidelburg, removing all the
courts of justice to Manheim, which was entirely inhabited by Roman
catholics. He likewise b