to mingle
unperceived and travel for two or three days with the leaders of the
Landsknechte, to find out whether they spoke ill or mockingly of his
Imperial Majesty; if so, they were to call assistance and bring the men
back prisoners to Augsburg. The second or third evening the
Landsknechte had a jovial bout at an inn, for they had money in their
pockets, and thought themselves as safe as if they were in the land of
Prester John, and had no idea that there were traitors sitting with
them: then they spoke of the Emperor in this fashion: 'Yes indeed! one
ought to allow this Charles of Ghent to take soldiers and not to pay
them! But we would have taught him better, and have paid him for it;
may God confound him.' After these words they were seized, taken back
to Augsburg, and hanged at Berlach on the gallows, and a tiny little
flag stuck on the breast of each."--So far Sastrow.

By his account of the revolt of the German Landsknechte it may be seen
how insecure was then the highest earthly power. A few years later the
new Elector, Maurice of Saxony, was able in a moment by a sudden
expedition to overpower the experienced master of foreign politics.
Neither the Emperor nor any other prince maintained a large standing
army; even the Imperial power stood on a rotten foundation, and the
Emperor Charles was in a difficult position with respect to the German
soldiery. However easy was the conscience of the Landsknechte, and
however ready they were to sell themselves for money, they were yet not
entirely without political tendencies. Most of them were well disposed
towards the Protestants, and even those who had helped to overthrow
their comrades of the Saxon service at the battle of Muehlberg,
discovered with vexation after the combat, that they had given a deadly
blow to the Protestant cause. The memory of Luther was dear to them;
but far deeper lay their hatred for the Spanish soldiers of Charles,
that faithful invincible infantry who had bled for their king on the
battle-fields of half Europe. The Emperor had himself excited the civil
war in Germany; a few years later, the German soldiers marched
defiantly against his anointed head. Most of the German princes, even
the enemies of the Ernestine and Hesse, felt like these soldiers. The
great Emperor had made an irreparable rent in the loose tissue of the
German empire; for this had been no exercise of Imperial power, as once
against the mad Wuertemberger; but it was a civil wa