he founded
upon the practice of his ancestors, and its previous recognition even by
Protestant states. Saxony had actually acknowledged this right of the
Emperor; and it now became evident how deeply this court had injured the
Protestant cause by its dependence on the House of Austria. But though
the meaning of the religious treaty was really ambiguous, as a century
of religious disputes sufficiently proved, yet for the Emperor, who must
be either a Protestant or a Roman Catholic, and therefore an interested
party, to assume the right of deciding between the disputants, was
clearly a violation of an essential article of the pacification. He
could not be judge in his own cause, without reducing the liberties of
the empire to an empty sound.

And now, in virtue of this usurpation, Ferdinand decided, "That every
secularization of a religious foundation, mediate or immediate, by the
Protestants, subsequent to the date of the treaty, was contrary to its
spirit, and must be revoked as a breach of it." He further decided,
"That, by the religious peace, Catholic proprietors of estates were no
further bound to their Protestant subjects than to allow them full
liberty to quit their territories." In obedience to this decision, all
unlawful possessors of benefices--the Protestant states in short
without exception--were ordered, under pain of the ban of the empire,
immediately to surrender their usurped possessions to the imperial
commissioners.

This sentence applied to no less than two archbishoprics and twelve
bishoprics, besides innumerable abbacies. The edict came like a
thunderbolt on the whole of Protestant Germany; dreadful even in its
immediate consequences; but yet more so from the further calamities it
seemed to threaten. The Protestants were now convinced that the
suppression of their religion had been resolved on by the Emperor and
the League, and that the overthrow of German liberty would soon follow.
Their remonstrances were unheeded; the commissioners were named, and an
army assembled to enforce obedience. The edict was first put in force
in Augsburg, where the treaty was concluded; the city was again placed
under the government of its bishop, and six Protestant churches in the
town were closed. The Duke of Wirtemberg was, in like manner, compelled
to surrender his abbacies. These severe measures, though they alarmed
the Protestant states, were yet insufficient to rouse them to an active
resistance. Their fear of