mperor had thrown his foes upon the ground and
bound them.

All the Protestant princes but two were vanquished, the Elector of
Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. It was evident that they must soon
yield to the overwhelming force of the emperor. It was a day of
disaster, in which no gleam of light seemed to dawn upon the Protestant
cause. But in that gloomy hour we see again the illustration of that
sentiment, that "the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to
the strong." Unthinking infidelity says sarcastically, "Providence
always helps the heavy battalions." But Providence often brings to the
discomfited, in their despair, reinforcements all unlooked for.

There were in the army of Ferdinand, gathered from the Austrian
territories by the force of military conscription, many troops more or
less influenced by the reformed religion. They were dissatisfied with
this warfare against their brothers, and their dissatisfaction increased
to murmurs and then to revolt. Thus encouraged, the Protestant nobles in
Bohemia rose against Ferdinand their king, and the victorious Ferdinand
suddenly found his strong battalions melting away, and his banners on
the retreat.

The other powers of Europe began to look with alarm upon the vast
ascendency which Charles V. was attaining over Europe. His exacting and
aggressive spirit assumed a more menacing aspect than the doctrines of
Luther. The King of France, Francis I., with the characteristic perfidy
of the times, meeting cunning with cunning, formed a secret league
against his ally, combining, in that league, the English ministry who
governed during the minority of Edward VI., and also the cooeperation of
the illustrious Gustavus Vasa, the powerful King of Sweden, who was then
strongly inclined to that faith of the reformers which he afterwards
openly avowed. Even the pope, who had always felt a little jealous of
the power of the emperor, thought that as the Protestants were now put
down it might be well to check the ambition of Charles V. a little, and
he accordingly ordered all his troops to return to Italy. The holy
father, Paul III., even sent money to the Protestant Elector of Saxony,
to enable him to resist the emperor, and sent ambassadors to the Turks,
to induce them to break the truce and make war upon Christendom, that
the emperor might be thus embarrassed.

Charles thus found himself, in the midst of his victories, suddenly at a
stand. He could no longer carry on o