s
are to be consulted with, for we neither have time to treat, nor will
half of them dare to negotiate the matter, the Imperialists being
quartered in their very bowels." "But may not some expedient be found
out," says the doctor, "to bring them all together to treat of it in
a general meeting?" "'Tis well proposed," says the duke, "but in what
town or city shall they assemble where the very deputies shall not
be besieged by Tilly or Wallenstein in fourteen days' time, and
sacrificed to the cruelty and fury of the Emperor Ferdinand?" "Will
your highness be the easier in it," replies the doctor, "if a way may
be found out to call such an assembly upon other causes, at which the
emperor may have no umbrage, and perhaps give his assent? You know the
Diet at Frankfort is at hand; 'tis necessary the Protestants should
have an assembly of their own to prepare matters for the General Diet,
and it may be no difficult matter to obtain it." The duke, surprised
with joy at the motion, embraced the doctor with an extraordinary
transport. "Thou hast done it, doctor," said he, and immediately
caused him to draw a form of a letter to the emperor, which he did
with the utmost dexterity of style, in which he was a great master,
representing to his Imperial Majesty that, in order to put an end to
the troubles of Germany, his Majesty would be pleased to permit the
Protestant princes of the empire to hold a Diet to themselves, to
consider of such matters as they were to treat of at the General
Diet, in order to conform themselves to the will and pleasure of his
Imperial Majesty, to drive out foreigners, and settle a lasting peace
in the empire. He also insinuated something of their resolutions
unanimously to give their suffrages in favour of the King of Hungary
at the election of a king of the Romans, a thing which he knew the
emperor had in his thought, and would push at with all his might at
the Diet. This letter was sent, and the bait so neatly concealed, that
the Electors of Bavaria and Mentz, the King of Hungary, and several
of the Popish princes, not foreseeing that the ruin of them all lay in
the bottom of it, foolishly advised the emperor to consent to it.

In consenting to this the emperor signed his own destruction, for here
began the conjunction of the German Protestants with the Swede, which
was the fatalest blow to Ferdinand, and which he could never recover.

Accordingly the Diet was held at Leipsic, February 8, 1630, where