of the eastern frontiers of his
dominions. Charles V. about the same time concluded his war with France,
and the brothers determined to adopt a firmer policy towards the
Protestants of Germany, whose power had recently greatly increased. The
latter had, about the time of the recognition of Ferdinand as king of
the Romans, and partly in consequence of that event, formed at
Schmalkalden a league, of which John Frederick, elector of Saxony, and
Philip, landgrave of Hesse, were the leaders. War broke out in Germany
in the summer of 1546, and Charles relied on the aid of his brother,
while the German Protestants on the other hand appealed to their
Bohemian co-religionists for aid.

Struggles in the war against German Protestantism.

Since the beginning of the Reformation in Germany the views of the
Bohemian reformers had undergone a considerable change. Some of the more
advanced Utraquists differed but little from the German Lutherans, while
the Bohemian Brethren, who at this moment greatly increased in influence
through the accession of several powerful nobles, strongly sympathized
with the Protestants of Germany. Ferdinand's task of raising a Bohemian
army in support of his brother was therefore a difficult one. He again
employed his usual tortuous policy. He persuaded the estates to vote a
general levy of the forces of the country under the somewhat
disingenuous pretext that Bohemia was menaced by the Turks; for at that
period no armed force could be raised in Bohemia without the consent of
the estates of the realm. Ferdinand fixed the town of Kaaden on the
Saxon frontier as the spot where the troops were to meet, but on his
arrival there he found that many cities and nobles--particularly those
who belonged to the community of the Bohemian Brethren--had sent no men.
Of the soldiers who arrived many were Protestants who sympathized with
their German co-religionists. The Bohemian army refused to cross the
Saxon frontier, and towards the end of the year 1546 Ferdinand was
obliged to disband his Bohemian forces. Early in the following year he
again called on his Bohemian subjects to furnish an army in aid of his
brother. Only a few of the Romanists and more retrograde Utraquists
obeyed his order. The large majority of Bohemians, on the other hand,
considered the moment opportune for recovering the ancient liberties of
Bohemia, on which Ferdinand had encroached in various ways by claiming
hereditary right to the crown and