estates, Protestantism crushed, and finally his
own uncle and his wife's father led about to grace the triumph of the
conqueror; as he saw the vast power to which the emperor had attained,
and that the liberties of the German empire were in entire subjection to
his will, his pride was wounded, his patriotism aroused, and his
Protestant sympathies revived. Maurice, meeting Charles V. on the field
of intrigue, was Greek meeting Greek.

Maurice now began with great guile and profound sagacity to plot against
the despotic emperor. Two circumstances essentially aided him. Charles
coveted the dukedoms of Parma and Placentia in Italy, and the Duke
Ottavia had been deposed. He rallied his subjects and succeeded in
uniting France on his side, for Henry II. was alarmed at the
encroachments the emperor was making in Italy. A very fierce war
instantly blazed forth, the Duke of Parma and Henry II. on one side, the
pope and the emperor on the other. At the same time the Turks, under the
leadership of the Sultan Solyman himself, were organizing a formidable
force for the invasion of Hungary, which invasion would require all the
energies of Ferdinand, with all the forces he could raise in Austria,
Hungary and Bohemia to repel.

Next to Hungary and Bohemia, Saxony was perhaps the most powerful State
of the Germanic confederacy. The emperor placed full reliance upon
Maurice, and the Protestants in their despair would have thought of him
as the very last to come to their aid; for he had marched vigorously in
the armies of the emperor to crush the Protestants, and was occupying
the territories of their most able and steadfast friend. Secretly,
Maurice made proposals to all the leading Protestant princes of the
empire, and having made every thing ready for an outbreak, he entered
into a treaty with the King of France, who promised large subsidies and
an efficient military force.

Maurice conducted these intrigues with such consummate skill that the
emperor had not the slightest suspicion of the storm which was
gathering. Every thing being matured, early in April, 1552, Maurice
suddenly appeared before the gates of Augsburg with an army of
twenty-five thousand men. At the same time he issued a declaration that
he had taken up arms to prevent the destruction of the Protestant
religion, to defend the liberties of Germany which the emperor had
infringed, and to rescue his relatives from their long and unjust
imprisonment. The King of France