tholic princes, so hostile were the Protestants to any
thing whatever which originated from the pope. In their list of
grievances they mentioned this most salutary reform as one, stating that
the pope and the Jesuits presumed even to change the order of times and
years.

This confederacy of the Calvinists, unaided by the Lutherans,
accomplished nothing; but still, as year after year the disaffection
increased, their numbers gradually increased also, until, on the 12th of
February, 1603, at Heidelberg they entered into quite a formidable
alliance, offensive and defensive.

Rhodolph, encouraged by success, pressed his measure of intolerance with
renovated vigor. Having quite effectually abolished the Protestant
worship in the States of Austria, he turned his attention to Bohemia,
where, under the mild government of his father, the Protestants had
enjoyed a degree of liberty of conscience hardly known in any other part
of Europe. The realm was startled by the promulgation of a decree
forbidding both Calvinists and Lutherans from holding any meetings for
divine worship, and declaring them incapacitated from holding any
official employment whatever. At the same time he abolished all their
schools, and either closed all their churches, or placed in them
Catholic preachers. These same decrees were also promulgated and these
same measures adopted in Hungary. And still the Protestants, insanely
quarreling among themselves upon the most abstruse points of theological
philosophy, chose rather to be devoured piecemeal by their great enemy
than to combine in self-defense.

The emperor now turned from his own dominions of Austria, Hungary and
Bohemia, where he reigned in undisputed sway, to other States of the
empire, which were governed by their own independent rulers and laws,
and where the power of the emperor was shadowy and limited. He began
with the city of Aix-la-Chapelle, in a Prussian province on the Lower
Rhine; sent an army there, took possession of the town, expelled the
Protestants from the magistracy, driving some of them into exile,
inflicting heavy fines upon others, and abolishing entirely the exercise
of the Protestant religion.

He then turned to Donauworth, an important city of Bavaria, upon the
Upper Danube. This was a Protestant city, having within its walls but
few Catholics. There was in the city one Catholic religious
establishment, a Benedictine abbey. The friars enjoyed unlimited freedom
of conscience