unknown. But though now ready to take the field, he did not lay aside the arts which he had hitherto employed; and by one piece of craft more he deceived his enemies a few days longer. He gave out that he was about to begin that journey to Inspruck of which he had so often talked, and he took one of the ministers whom Granvelle had bribed, to attend him thither. After travelling post a few stages, he pretended to be indisposed by the fatigue of the journey, and dispatching the suspected minister to make his apology to the Emperor for this delay, and to assure him that he would be at Inspruck within a few days, he mounted on horseback as soon as this spy on his actions was gone, rode full speed towards Thuringia, joined his army, which amounted to twenty thousand foot and five thousand horse, and put it immediately in motion.

At the same time he published a manifesto, containing his reasons for taking arms. These were three in number: That he might secure the Protestant religion, which was threatened with immediate destruction; that he might maintain the constitution and laws of the empire, and save Germany from being subjected to the dominion of an absolute monarch; that he might deliver the Landgrave of Hesse from the miseries of a long and unjust imprisonment. By the first, he roused all the favorers of a Reformation, a party formidable by their zeal as well as numbers, and rendered desperate by oppression. By the second, he interested all the friends of liberty, Catholics no less than Protestants, and made it their interest to unite with him in asserting the rights and privileges common to both. The third, besides the glory which he acquired by his zeal to fulfill his engagements to the unhappy prisoner, was become a cause of general concern, not only from the compassion which the Landgrave's sufferings excited, but from indignation at the injustice and rigor of the Emperor's proceedings against him. Together with Maurice's manifesto, another appeared in the name of Albert, Marquis of Brandenburg Culmbach, who had joined him with a body of adventurers whom he had drawn together. The king of France added to these a manifesto in his own name, in which, after taking notice of the ancient alliance between the French and German nations, both descended from the same ancestors, and after mentioning the applications, which, in consequence of this, some of the most illustrious among the German princes had made to him for his protection, he eclared, that he now took arms to reëstablish the ancient con

stitution of the empire, to deliver some of its princes from captivity, and to secure the privileges and independence of all the members of the Germanic body.

Maurice had now to act a part entirely new, but his flexible genius was capable of accommodating itself to every situation. The moment he took arms, he was as bold and enterprising in the field as he had been cautious and crafty in the cabinet. He advanced by rapid marches towards the Upper Germany. All the towns in his way opened their gates to him. He reinstated the magistrates whom the Emperor had deposed, and gave possession of the churches to the Protestant ministers whom he had ejected. He directed his march to Augsburg; and as the Imperial garrison, which was too inconsiderable to think of defending it, retired immediately, he took possession of that great city, and made the same changes there as in the towns through which he had passed.

No words can express the Emperor's astonishment and consternation at events so unexpected. He saw a great number of the German princes in arms against him, and the rest either ready to join them, or wishing success to their enterprise. He beheld a powerful monarch united with them in close league, seconding their operations in person at the head of a formidable army, while he, through negligence and credulity, which exposed him no less to scorn than to danger, had neither made, nor was in condition to make, any effectual provision, either for crushing his rebellious subjects or resisting the invasion of the foreign enemy. Part of his Spanish troops had been ordered into Hungary against the Turks; the rest had marched back to Italy upon occasion of the war in the duchy of Parma. The bands of veteran Germans had been dismissed, because he was not able to pay them, or had entered into Maurice's service after the siege of Magdeburg; and he remained at Inspruck with a body of soldiers hardly strong enough to guard his own person. His treasury was as much exhausted as his army was reduced. He had received no remittances for some time from the new world. He had forfeited all credit with the merchants of Genoa and Venice, who refused to lend him money, though tempted by the offer of exorbitant interest. Thus Charles, though undoubtedly the most considerable potentate in Christendom, and capable of exerting the greatest strength, his power, notwithstanding the violent attack made upon it, being still unimpaired,— found himself in a situation which rendered

him unable to make such a sudden and vigorous effort as the juncture required, and was necessary to have saved him from the present danger.

In this situation, the Emperor placed all his hopes on negotiating, the only resource of such as are conscious of their own weakness. But thinking it inconsistent with his dignity to make the first advances to subjects who were in arms against him, he avoided that indecorum by employing the mediation of his brother Ferdinand. Maurice, confiding in his own talents to conduct any negotiation in such a manner as to derive advantage from it, and hoping that, by the appearance of facility in hearkening to the first overture of accommodation, he might amuse the Emperor, and tempt him to slacken the activity with which he was now preparing to defend himself, readily agreed to an interview with Ferdinand in the town. of Lintz in Austria; and having left his army to proceed on its march under the command of the Duke of Mecklenburg, he repaired thither.

The conference at Lintz did not produce any accommodation. Maurice, when he consented to it, seems to have had nothing in view but to amuse the Emperor; for he made such demands, both in behalf of his confederates and their ally the French king, as he knew would not be accepted by a prince too haughty to submit at once to conditions dictated by an enemy. But, however firmly Maurice adhered during the negotiation to the interests of his associates, or how steadily soever he kept in view the objects which had induced him to take arms, he often professed a strong inclination to terminate the differences with the Emperor in an amicable manner. Encouraged by this appearance of a pacific disposition, Ferdinand proposed a second interview at Passau on the twenty-sixth of May, and that a truce should commence on that day, and continue to the tenth of June, in order to give them leisure for adjusting all the points in dispute.

Upon this Maurice rejoined his army on the ninth of May, which had now advanced to Gundelfingen. He put his troops in motion next morning; and as sixteen days yet remained for action before the commencement of the truce, he resolved during that period to venture upon an enterprise, the success of which would be so decisive as to render the negotiations at Passau extremely short, and entitle him to treat upon his own terms. He foresaw that the prospect of a cessation of arms,

which was to take place so soon, together with the opinion of his earnestness to reëstablish peace, with which he had artfully amused Ferdinand, could hardly fail of inspiring the Emperor with such false hopes that he would naturally become remiss, and relapse into some degree of that security which had already been so fatal to him. Relying on this conjecture, he marched directly at the head of his army towards Inspruck, and advanced with the most rapid motion that could be given to so great a body of troops. On the eighteenth he arrived at Fiessen, a post of great consequence, at the entrance into the Tyrolese. There he found a body of eight hundred men, whom the Emperor had assembled, strongly intrenched, in order to oppose his progress. He attacked them instantly with such violence and impetuosity 'that they abandoned their lines precipitately, and falling back on a second body posted near Ruten, communicated the panic terror with which they themselves had been seized to those troops, so that they likewise took to flight after a feeble resistance.

Elated with this success, which exceeded his most sanguine hopes, Maurice pressed forward to Ehrenberg, a castle situated on an high and steep precipice, which commanded the only pass through the mountains. As this fort had been surrendered to the Protestants at the beginning of the Smalkaldic war, because the garrison was then too weak to defend it, the Emperor, sensible of its importance, had taken care at this juncture to throw into it a body of troops sufficient to maintain it against the greatest army. But a shepherd, in pursuing a goat which had strayed from his flock, having discovered an unknown path by which it was possible to ascend to the top of the rock, came with this seasonable piece of intelligence to Maurice. A small band of chosen soldiers, under the command of George of Mecklenburg, was instantly ordered to follow this guide. They set out in the evening, and clambering up the rugged track with infinite fatigue as well as danger, they reached the summit unperceived; and at an hour which had been agreed on, when Maurice began the assault on the one side of the castle, they appeared on the other, ready to scale the walls, which were feeble in that place, because it had been hitherto deemed inaccessible. The garrison, struck with terror at the sight of an enemy on a quarter where they had thought themselves perfectly secure, immediately threw down their arms. Maurice, almost without bloodshed, and, which was of greater consequence to him, without loss of time, took possession of a place

the reduction of which might have retarded him long, and have required the utmost efforts of his valor and skill.

Maurice was now only two days' march from Inspruck, and without losing a moment he ordered his infantry to advance thither, having left his cavalry, which was unserviceable in that mountainous country, at Fiessen, to guard the mouth of the pass. He proposed to advance with such rapidity as to anticipate any accounts of the loss of Ehrenberg, and to surprise the Emperor, together with his attendants, in an open town incapable of defense. But just as his troops began to move, a battalion of mercenaries mutinied, declaring that they would not stir until they had received the gratuity which, according to the custom of that age, they claimed as the recompense due to them for having taken a place by assault. It was with great difficulty, as well as danger, and not without some considerable loss of time, that Maurice quieted this insurrection, and prevailed on the soldiers to follow him to a place where he promised them such rich booty as would be an ample reward for all their services.

To the delay occasioned by this unforeseen accident the Emperor owed his safety. He was informed of the approaching danger late in the evening, and knowing that nothing could save him but a speedy flight, he instantly left Inspruck, without regarding the darkness of the night or the violence of the rain which happened to fall at that time; and notwithstanding the debility occasioned by the gout, which rendered him unable to bear any motion but that of a litter, he traveled by the light of torches, taking his way over the Alps by roads almost impassable. His courtiers and attendants followed him with equal precipitation, some of them on such horses as they could hastily procure, many of them on foot, and all in the utmost confusion. In this miserable plight, very unlike the pomp with which Charles had appeared during the five preceding years as the conqueror of Germany, he arrived at length with his dejected train, at Villach in Carinthia, and scarcely thought himself secure even in that remote, inaccessible corner.

Maurice entered Inspruck a few hours after the Emperor and his attendants had left it: and, enraged that the prey should escape out of his hands when he was just ready to seize it, he pursued them some miles; but finding it impossible to overtake persons to whom their fear gave speed, he returned to the town, and abandoned all the Emperor's baggage, together with that of his ministers, to be plundered by the soldiers.