138 STATESMEN AND SAGES taken prisoner, and condemned to death by a court-martial composed of Italians and Spaniards, in contempt of the laws of the empire. The sentence was com- municated to the prisoner while playing at chess ; his firmness was not shaken, - and he tranquilly said, " I shall die without reluctance, if my death will save the honoi of my family and the inheritance of my children." He then finished his game. But his wife and family could not look at his death so calmly ; at their entreaty he surrendered his electorate into the emperor's hands. The other chief of the Protestant league, the Landgrave of Hesse, was also forced to sub- mit, and detained in captivity, contrary to the pledged word of the emperor; who, fearless of any further resistance to his supreme authority, convoked a diet at Augsburg in 1548. At that assembly Maurice was invested with Saxony, and the emperor, in the vain hope of enforcing a uniformity of religious practice, published by his own authority a body of doctrine called the " Interim," to be in force till a general council should be assembled. This necessarily was unsatis- factory to both parties, but its observance was enforced by a master with whom terror was the engine of obedience. These measures, however, did not preserve tranquillity long in Germany. Maurice of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg urged the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, as having made themselves sureties against violence to his person. Charles answered by absolving them from their pledges. The Protes- tants, of course, charged him as arrogating the same spiritual authority with the popes. And Maurice, offended at the slight put upon him, directed his artful policy to the humiliation of Charles. He had compelled his subjects to conform to the Interim by the help of the timid Melancthon, who was no longer sup- ported by the firmness of Luther. On the other hand, he had silenced the clam- ors of the more sturdy by a public avowal of his zeal for the Reformation, In the meantime the diet of Augsburg, completely at the emperor's devotion, had named him general of the war against Magdeburg, which had been placed under the ban of the empire for opposition to the Interim. He took that Lutheran city, but by private assurances regained the good-will of the inhabitants. He also engaged in a league with France, but still wore the mask. He even de- ceived the able Granville, Bishop of Arras, afterward cardinal, who boasted that "a drunken German could never impose on him ; " yet was he of all others most imposed en. At last, in 1552, Maurice declared himself; and Henry II. of France published a manifesto, assuming the title of " Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes." He began with the conquest of the three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he had lain a plan t^r surprising Charles at Innspruck, and getting possession of his person ; and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. These disputes were adjusted in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies, and scarcely named in the treaty. Henry resolved to defend his acquisition of the three bishoprics, and Charles
