es and landholders throughout the kingdom to send
in a confession of whatever aid they had rendered, or encouragement they
had given to the insurrection. And the most terrible vengeance was
threatened against any one who should afterward be proved guilty of any
act whatever of which he had not made confession. The consternation
which this decree excited was so great, that not only was every one
anxious to confess the slightest act which could be construed as
unfriendly to the emperor, but many, in their terror, were driven to
accuse themselves of guilt, who had taken no share in the movement.
Seven hundred nobles, and the whole body of Protestant landholders,
placed their names on the list of those who confessed guilt and implored
pardon.

The fiend-like emperor, then, in the mockery of mercy, declared that in
view of his great clemency and their humble confession, he would spare
their forfeited lives, and would only punish them by depriving them of
their estates. He took their mansions, their estates, their property,
and turned them adrift upon the world, with their wives and their
children, fugitives and penniless. Thus between one and two thousand of
the most ancient and noble families of the kingdom were rendered
houseless and utterly beggared. Their friends, involved with them in the
same woe, could render no assistance. They were denounced as traitors;
no one dared befriend them, and their possessions were given to those
who had rallied beneath the banners of the emperor. "To the victors
belong the spoils." No pen can describe the ruin of these ancient
families. No imagination can follow them in their steps of starvation
and despair, until death came to their relief.

Ferdinand considered Protestantism and rebellion as synonymous terms.
And well he might, for Protestantism has ever been arrayed as firmly
against civil as against religious despotism. The doctrines of the
reformers, from the days of Luther and Calvin, have always been
associated with political liberty. Ferdinand was determined to crush
Protestantism. The punishment of the Elector Palatine was to be a signal
and an appalling warning to all who in future should think of disputing
the imperial sway. The elector himself, having renounced the throne, had
escaped beyond the emperor's reach. But Ferdinand took possession of his
ancestral territories and divided them among his Roman Catholic allies.
The electoral vote which he held in the diet of the empir