of fraternal equality which
Christ enjoined; and considering the Catholic religion as the great
bulwark of kingly power, by the intolerance of the Church teaching the
benighted multitudes subjection to civil intolerance, Ferdinand, with
unceasing vigilance, and with melancholy success, endeavored to
eradicate the Lutheran doctrines from the kingdom. He established the
most rigorous censorship of the press, and would allow no foreign work,
unexamined, to enter the realm. He established in Bohemia the fanatic
order of the Jesuits, and intrusted to them the education of the young.

It is often impossible to reconcile the inconsistencies of the human
heart. Ferdinand, while guilty of such atrocities, affected, on some
points, the most scrupulous punctilios of honor. The clearly-defined
privileges which had been promised the Protestants, he would not
infringe in the least. They were permitted to give their children
Protestant teachers, and to conduct worship in their own way. He
effected his object of changing Bohemia from an elective to a hereditary
monarchy, and thus there was established in Bohemia the renowned
doctrine of regal legitimacy; of the _divine right_ of kings to govern.
With such a bloody hand was the doctrine of the sovereignty, not of the
_people_, but of the _nobles_, overthrown in Bohemia. The nobles are not
much to be commiserated, for they trampled upon the people as
mercilessly as the king did upon them. It is merely another illustration
of the old and melancholy story of the strong devouring the weak: the
owl takes the wren; the eagle the owl.

Bohemia, thus brought in subjection to a single mind, and shackled in
its spirit of free enterprise, began rapidly to exhibit symptoms of
decline and decay. It was a great revolution, accomplished by cunning
and energy, and maintained by the terrors of confiscation, exile and
death.

The Emperor Charles V., it will be remembered, had attempted in vain to
obtain the reversion of the imperial crown for his son Philip at his own
death. The crown of Spain was his hereditary possession, and that he
could transmit to his son. But the crown of the empire was elective.
Charles V. was so anxious to secure the imperial dignity for his son,
that he retained the crown of the empire for some months after
abdicating that of Spain, still hoping to influence the electors in
their choice. But there were so many obstacles in the way of the
recognition of the young Philip as em