her as one condition of peace that she should make
no allies within the Empire. In November of the same year he made an
alliance with Paul III, receiving 200,000 ducats in support of his
effort to extirpate the heresy.

Other considerations impelled him to attack at once. The secession of
Cologne and the Palatinate from the Catholic communion gave the
Protestants a majority in the Electoral College. Still more decisive
was it that Charles was able at this time by playing upon the
jealousies and ambitions of the states, to secure important allies
within the Empire, including some of the Protestant faith. First,
Catholic Bavaria forgot her hatred of Austria far enough to make common
cause against the heretics. Then, two great Protestant princes,
Maurice of Albertine Saxony and John von Kuestrin--a brother of Joachim
II, Elector of Brandenburg--abandoned their coreligionists and bartered
support to the emperor in return for promises of aggrandizement.

[Sidenote: January 1546]

A final religious conference held at Ratisbon demonstrated more clearly
than ever the hopelessness of conciliation. Whereas a semi-Lutheran
doctrine of justification was adopted, the Protestants prepared two
long memoirs rejecting the authority of the council recently convened
at Trent. And then, in the summer, war broke out. At this moment the
forces of the Schmalkaldic League were superior to those of its
enemies. But for poor leadership and lack of unity in command they
would probably have won.

Towards the last of August and early in September the Protestant troops
bombarded the imperial army at Ingolstadt, but failed to follow this up
by a decisive {128} attack, as was urged by General Schaertlin of
Augsburg. Lack of equipment was partly responsible for this failure.
When the emperor advanced, the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of
Hesse retired each to his own land. Another futile attempt of the
League was a raid on the Tyrol, possibly influenced by the desire to
strike at the Council of Trent, certainly by no sound military policy.
The effect of these indecisive counsels was that Charles had little
trouble in reducing the South German rebels, Augsburg, Ulm, Nuremberg,
and Wuerttemberg. The Elector Palatine hastened to come to terms by
temporarily abandoning his religion. [Sidenote: February, 1547] A
counter-reformation was also effected in Cologne. Augsburg bought the
emperor's pardon by material concessions.

[Sideno