X. 1551. BOOK own advantage. They saw with amazement, that after hav ing afflicted the Magdeburgers during many months with. all the calamities of war, he was at last, by their voluntary election, advanced to the station of highest authority in that city which he had so lately besieged; that after hav ing been so long the object of their satirical invectives as an apostate, and an enemy to the religion which he professed, they seemed now to place unbounded confidence in his zeal and good-will". At the same time the public articles in the treaty of capitulation were so perfectly conformable to those which the Emperor had granted to the other Protestant cities, and Maurice took such care to magnify his merit in having reduced a place which had defended itself with so much obstinacy, that Charles, far from suspecting any thing fraudulent or collusive in the terms of accommodation, ratifi→ ed them without hesitation, and absolved the Magdeburgers from the sentence of ban which had been denounced against them.. His expedient for keeping an army on foot. THE only point that now remained to embarrass Maurice was how to keep together the veteran troops which had serv➡ ed under him, as well as those which had been employed in the defence of the town. For this, too, he found an expedient with singular art and felicity. His schemes against the Emperor were not yet so fully ripened, that he durst venture to disclose them, and proceed openly to carry them into execution. The winter was approaching, which made it impossible to take the field immediately. He was afraid that it would give a premature alarm to the Emperor, if he should retain such a considerable body in his pay until the season of action returned in the spring. As soon then as Magdeburg opened its gates, he sent home his Saxon subjects, whom he could command to take arms and re-assemble on the shortest warning; and at the same time, paying part of the arrears due to the mercenary troops, who had followed his standard, as well as to the soldiers who had served in the garrison, he absolved them from their respective oaths of fidelity, and disbanded them. But the moment u Arnoldi vita Maurit. apud Menken, ii. 1227. X. 1551. he gave them their discharge, George of Mecklenburg, BOOK who was now set at liberty, offered to take them into his service, and to become surety for the payment of what was still owing to them. As such adventurers were accustomed often to change masters, they instantly accepted the offer. Thus these troops were kept united, and ready to march wherever Maurice should call them, while the Emperor, deceived by this artifice, and imagining that George of Mecklenburg had hired them with an intention to assert his claim to a part of his brother's territories by force of arms, suffered this transaction to pass without observation, as if it had been a matter of no consequence *. concealing the empe ror. HAVING ventured to take these steps, which were of so His admuch consequence towards the execution of his schemes, dress in Maurice, that he might divert the Emperor from observing his intentheir tendency too narrowly, and prevent the suspicions tions from which that must have excited, saw the necessity of employing some new artifice in order to engage his attention, and to confirm him in his present security. As he knew that the chief object of the Emperor's solicitude at this juncture, was how he might prevail with the Protestant States of Germany to recognize the authority of the council of Trent, and to send thither ambassadors in their own name, as well as deputies from their respective churches, he took hold of this predominating passion in order to amuse and to deceive him. He affected a wonderful zeal to gratify Charles in what he desired with regard to this matter; he nominated ambassadors, whom he empowered to attend the council; he made choice of Melancthon and some of the most eminent among his brethren to prepare a confession of faith, and to lay it before that assembly. After his example, and probably in consequence of his solicitations, the Duke of Wurtemberg, the city of Strasburg, and other Protestant States, appointed ambassadors and divines to attend the council. They all applied to the Emperor for his safe-conduct, which they obtained in the most ample form. This x Thuan. 278. Struv. corp. hist. Germ. 1064. Arnoldi vita Mauritii, apud Menken, ii. 1227. X. BOOK was deemed sufficient for the security of the ambassadors, and they proceeded accordingly on their journey; but a 'se1551. parate safe-conduct from the council itself was demanded for the Protestant divines. The fate of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, whom the council of Constance, in the preceding century, had condemned to the flames without regarding the Imperial safe-conduct which had been granted them, rendered this precaution prudent and necessary. But as the Pope was no less unwilling that the Protestants should -be admitted to an hearing in the council, than the Emperor had been eager in bringing them to demand it, the legate by promises and threats prevailed on the fathers of the council to decline issuing a safe-conduct in the same form with that which the council of Basil had granted to the followers of Huss. The Protestants, on their part, insisted upon the council's copying the precise words of that instrument. The Imperial ambassadors interposed, in order to obtain what would satisfy them. Alterations in the form of the writ were proposed; expedients were suggested; protests and counterprotests were taken: the legate, together with his associates, laboured to gain their point by artifice and chicane; the Protestants adhered to theirs with firmness and obstinacy. An account of every thing that passed in Trent was transmitted to the Emperor at Inspruck, who, attempting, from an excess of zeal, or of confidence in his own address, to reconcile the contending parties, was involved in a labyrinth of inextricable negociations. By means of this, however, Maurice gained all that he had in view; the Emperor's time was wholly engrossed, and his attention diverted; while he himself had leisure to mature his schemes, to carry on his intrigues, and to finish his preparations, before he threw off the mask, and struck the blow which he had so long meditated". The affairs of Hunga ry. BUT previous to entering into any farther detail concerning Maurice's operations, some account must be given of a new revolution in Hungary, which contributed not a little towards their producing such extraordinary effects. When y Sleid. 526. 529. F. Paul, 323. 338. Thuan. 286. X. 1551. Solyman, in the year 1541, by a stratagem, which suited the B O O K base and insidious policy of a petty usurper, rather than the magnanimity of a mighty conqueror, deprived the young King of Hungary of the dominions which his father had left him, he had granted that unfortunate Prince the country of Transylvania, a province of his paternal kingdom. The government of this, together with the care of educating the young King, for he still allowed him to retain that title, though he had rendered it only an empty name, he committed to the Queen and Martinuzzi bishop of Waradin, whom the late King had appointed joint-guardians of his son, and regents of his dominions, at a time when those offices were of greater importance. This co-ordinate jurisdiction occasioned the same dissentions in a small principality as it would have excited in a great kingdom; an ambitious young Queen, possessed with an high opinion of her own capacity for governing, and an high-spirited prelate, fond of power, contending who should engross the greatest share in the administration. Each had their partizans among the nobles; but as Matinuzzi, by his great talents, began to acquire the ascendant, Isabella turned his own arts against him, and courted the protection of the Turks. Ferdi THE neighbouring Bashas, jealous of the bishop's power Martinuzzi as well as abilities, readily promised her the aid which she favours demanded, and would soon have obliged Martinuzzi to have nand's pregiven up to her the sole direction of affairs, if his ambition, tensions in fertile in expedients, had not suggested to him a new mea- dom. sure, and one that tended not only to preserve but to enlarge his authority. Having concluded an agreement with the Queen, by the mediation of some of the nobles, who were solicitous to save their country from the calamities of a civil war, he secretly dispatched one of his confidants to Vienna, and entered into a negociation with Ferdinand. As it was no difficult matter to persuade Ferdinand, that the same man whose enmity and intrigues had driven him out of a great part of his Hungarian dominions, might, upon a reconciliation, become equally instrumental in recovering them, he listened eagerly to the first overtures of an union with that prelate. Martinuzzi allured him by such prospects X. 1551. BOOK of advantage, and engaged, with so much confidence, that he would prevail on the most powerful of the Hungarian nobles to take arms in his favour, that Ferdinand, notwithstanding his truce with Solyman, agreed to invade Transylvania. The command of the troops destined for that service, consisting of veteran Spanish and German soldiers, was given to Castaldo Marquis de Piadena, an officer formed by the famous Marquis de Pescara, whom he strongly resembled both in his enterprising genius for civil business, and in his great knowledge in the art of war. This army, more formidable by the discipline of the soldiers, and the abilities of the general, than by its numbers, was powerfully seconded by Martinuzzi and his faction among the Hungarians. As the Turkish Bashas, the Sultan himself being at the head of his army on the frontiers of Persia, could not afford the Queen such immediate or effectual assistance as the exigency of her affairs required, she quickly lost all hopes of being able to retain any longer the authority which she possessed as regent, and even began to despair of her son's safety. The suc measures. MARTINUZZI did not suffer this favourable opportunity of cess of his accomplishing his own designs to pass unimproved, and ventured, while she was in this state of dejection, to lay before her a proposal, which at any other time she would have rejected with disdain. He represented how impossible it was for her to resist Ferdinand's victorious arms; that even if the Turks should enable her to make head against them, she would be far from changing her condition to the better, and could not consider them as deliverers, but as masters, to whose commands she must submit; he conjured her therefore, as she regarded her own dignity, the safety of her son, or the security of Christendom, rather to give up Transylvania to Ferdinand, and to make over to him her son's title to the crown of Hungary, than to allow both to be usurped by the inveterate enemy of the Christian faith. At the same time he promised her, in Ferdinand's name, a compensation for herself, as well as for her son, suitable to their rank, and proportional to the value of what they were to sacrifice. Isabella, deserted by some of her adherents, dis |