th this object, the oppression of the
Protestants was inseparably connected. More favourable circumstances
for its accomplishment could not offer than those which presented
themselves at the close of the Bohemian war. Neither the power, nor a
pretext of right, were now wanting to enable him to place the Palatinate
in the hands of the Catholics, and the importance of this change to the
Catholic interests in Germany would be incalculable. Thus, in rewarding
the Duke of Bavaria with the spoils of his relation, he at once
gratified his meanest passions and fulfilled his most exalted duties; he
crushed an enemy whom he hated, and spared his avarice a painful
sacrifice, while he believed he was winning a heavenly crown.

In the Emperor's cabinet, the ruin of Frederick had been resolved upon
long before fortune had decided against him; but it was only after this
event that they ventured to direct against him the thunders of arbitrary
power. A decree of the Emperor, destitute of all the formalities
required on such occasions by the laws of the Empire, pronounced the
Elector, and three other princes who had borne arms for him at Silesia
and Bohemia, as offenders against the imperial majesty, and disturbers
of the public peace, under the ban of the empire, and deprived them of
their titles and territories. The execution of this sentence against
Frederick, namely the seizure of his lands, was, in further contempt of
law, committed to Spain as Sovereign of the circle of Burgundy, to the
Duke of Bavaria, and the League. Had the Evangelic Union been worthy of
the name it bore, and of the cause which it pretended to defend,
insuperable obstacles might have prevented the execution of the
sentence; but it was hopeless for a power which was far from a match
even for the Spanish troops in the Lower Palatinate, to contend against
the united strength of the Emperor, Bavaria, and the League. The
sentence of proscription pronounced upon the Elector soon detached the
free cities from the Union; and the princes quickly followed their
example. Fortunate in preserving their own dominions, they abandoned
the Elector, their former chief, to the Emperor's mercy, renounced the
Union, and vowed never to revive it again.

But while thus ingloriously the German princes deserted the unfortunate
Frederick, and while Bohemia, Silesia, and Moravia submitted to the
Emperor, a single man, a soldier of fortune, whose only treasure was his
sword, Ernest Count