doctrines were spreading, were not at all disposed to humble themselves
before their opponents, but with their hands upon the hilts of their
swords, declared that they would not bow their necks to intolerance.

It was indeed a formidable power which the emperor was now about to
marshal against the Protestants. He had France, Spain, all the roused
energies of the pope and his extended dominions, and all the Catholic
States of the empire. But Protestantism, which had overrun Germany, had
pervaded Switzerland and France, and was daily on the increase. The pope
and the more zealous papists were impatient and indignant that the
emperor did not press his measures with more vigor. But the sagacious
Charles more clearly saw the difficulties to be surmounted than they
did, and while no less determined in his resolves, was more prudent and
wary in his measures.

With the consent of the pope he summoned a general council to meet at
Trent on the confines of his own Austrian territories, where he could
easily have every thing under his own control. He did every thing in his
power, in the meantime to promote division among the Protestants, by
trying to enter into private negotiations with the Protestant princes.
He had the effrontery to urge the Protestants to send their divines to
the council of Trent, and agreed to abide by its decisions, even when
that council was summoned by the pope, and was to be so organized as to
secure an overwhelming majority to the papists. The Protestants, of
course, rejected so silly a proposition, and refused to recognize the
decrees of such a council as of any binding authority.

In preparation for enforcing the decrees which he intended to have
enacted by the council of Trent, Charles obtained from the pope thirteen
thousand troops, and five hundred thousand ducats (one million one
hundred thousand dollars). He raised one army in the Low Countries to
march upon Germany. He gathered another army in his hereditary States of
Austria. His brother Ferdinand, as King of Hungary and Bohemia, raised a
large army in each of those dominions. The King of France mustered his
legions, and boasted of the condign punishment to which he would consign
the heretics. The pope issued a decree offering the entire pardon of all
sins to those who should engage in this holy war for the extirpation of
the doctrines of the reformers.

The Protestants were for a moment in consternation in view of the
gatherings of so portent