e
beautiful, and the more wonderful, as having occurred in a dark age of
bigotry, intolerance and persecution. And let us be sufficiently candid
to confess, that it was professedly a Roman Catholic monarch, a member
of the papal church, to whom the world is indebted for this first
recognition of true mental freedom. It can not be denied that Maximilian
II. was in advance of the avowed Protestants of his day.

Pope Pius V. was a bigot, inflexible, overbearing; and he determined,
with a bloody hand, to crush all dissent. From his throne in the Vatican
he cast an eagle eye to Germany, and was alarmed and indignant at the
innovations which Maximilian was permitting. In all haste he dispatched
a legate to remonstrate strongly against such liberality. Maximilian
received the legate, Cardinal Commendon, with courtesy, but for a time
firmly refused to change his policy in obedience to the exactions of the
pope. The pope brought to bear upon him all the influence of the Spanish
court. He was threatened with war by all the papal forces, sustained by
the then immense power of the Spanish monarchy. For a time Maximilian
was in great perplexity, and finally yielded to the pope so far as to
promise not to permit any further innovations than those which he had
already allowed, and not to extend his principles of toleration into any
of his States where they had not as yet been introduced. Thus, while he
did not retract any concessions he had made, he promised to stop where
he was, and proceed no further.

Maximilian was so deeply impressed with the calamities of war, that he
even sent an embassy to the Turks, offering to continue to pay the
tribute which they had exacted of his father, as the price of a
continued armistice. But Solyman, having made large preparations for the
renewed invasion of Hungary, and sanguine of success, haughtily rejected
the offer, and renewed hostilities.

Nearly all of the eastern and southern portions of Hungary were already
in the hands of the Turks. Maximilian held a few important towns and
strong fortresses on the western frontier. Not feeling strong enough to
attempt to repel the Turks from the portion they already held, he
strengthened his garrisons, and raising an army of eighty thousand men,
of which he assumed the command, he entered Hungary and marched down the
Danube about sixty miles to Raab, to await the foe and act on the
defensive. Solyman rendezvoused an immense army at Belgrade, and
comme