alarmed the members of the Council of Trent, then in session there, that they fled from the town, and the sit- tings were thenceforth suspended for some years. Fi- nally came the day of convocation of the electors and princes of the empire at Passau ; Maurice directing the cause of the Protestants, and Ferdinand attending to the imperial interests. To the Protestants this meeting must ever be memorable. It was here that a treaty of peace was established which secured to Protestants free exercise of worship ; and it was by the Passau treaty that the Romanists of Germany agreed that the impe- rial chamber, from which Lutherans were not to be ex- cluded, shoidd render justice irrespective of religion; and that the Aulic Council shoidd be composed exclu- sively of German ministers. These conditions, which in political matters secured "Germany for the Germans," and in religious affairs permanently established the principles of toleration, were embodied in the agreement called the Peace of Passau (Aug. 22, 1552). Charles, though he professed reconciliation, never lost an oppor- tunity to wreak his vengeance on the elector. The lat- ter, with his usual subtlety and address, patched up a reconciliation with the emperor, and engaged in the campaign of 1553 against the Turks, who were gradu- ally gaining ground in Hungarj-. Returning soon, he found that one of his former allies, Albert, margrave of Kulmbach, had refused to accede to the treaty of Pas- sau, and continued the war on his own account, making raids on the ecclesiastical princes of the Rhine and Fran- conia. INIaurice also speedily discovered that behind the margrave stood the emperor, who had secured the services of the margrave because he had found in him a general and an army capable of wreaking his ven- geance on the perfidious Saxon prince. But INIaurice was equal to the occasion. Putting himself at the head of 20,000 men, he marched to protect his bishopric of INIag- deburg against the ecclesiastical spoliator, and, falling in with him at Sievershausen, completely defeated him (July 9, 1553), but fell himself in the conflict, mortallj^ wounded, and died July 11, 1553. " So thoughtful and ' reticent, so enterprising and energetic, so correct in I judgment and unfailing in action, and at the same time I wholly devoid of moral sentiment, he is one of the most prominent instances of power without principle which the world's history has ever presented." Kohl- rausch has perhaps furnished the most moderate com- ment on the perjured life of Maurice of Saxony. "The final efforts he so patriotically made for the promotion and establishment of general tranquillity, and his love for peace and order, which he sealed with his own blood, have in a great degree served to throw the mantle of oblivion over his earlier proceedings, and conciliated the critical voice of public opinion" (Hist. Gernuiny, p. 296). Robertson appears to be equally anxious to laud the last act of Maurice, and to let it stand forth only as the life- work of this faithless prince. He excuses him on the ground that " his long and intimate union with the em- peror had afforded him many opportunities of observing narro\vly the dangerous tendency of that monarch's (Charles) schemes. He saw the yoke that was prepar- ing for his country, and was convinced that but a few steps more remained to be taken in order to render Charles as absolute a 'monarch in Germany as he had become in Spain. At the same time he perceived that Charles was bent on exacting a rigid conformity to the doctrines and rites of the Romish Church, instead of al- lowing liberty of conscience, the promise of which had allured several Protestant princes to assist him in the war against the confederates of Smalcald. As he him- self, notwithstanding all the compliances which he had made from motives of interest, or an excess of confi- dence in the emperor, was sincerely attached to the Lu- theran tenets, he determined not to be a tame spectator of the overthrow of a system which he believed to be founded in truth" (p. 386). Though we would gladly- like to concede this point, truth compels us to dissent from the opinion of the noted historian. We doubt very
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much whether Maurice of Saxony, in any period of his life, liclicvcd either Konianism or Protestantism "to be founileil ill truth ;" we doubt even that he ever believed himself '• to be founded in truth." Let us say, rather, that he was possessed of an ambition which knew no bounds, and that, scekmg honor for himself, he reaped all the glory of having concerted and completed that iniexpected revolution which closed with the treaty of Passaii — " that overturned the vast fabric in erecting which Charles had employed so many years, and had exerted the utmost efforts of his power and policy ; that annulled all his regulations with regard to rehgion ; de- feated all his hopes of rendering the imperial authority absolute and hereditary in his family ; and established the Protestant Church, which had hitherto subsisted precariously in Germany, through connivance or by ex- pedients, upon a firm and secure basis" (p. 415 ; comp. p. 424, 425). It is indeed a singular circumstance that the IJeformation should be uidebted for its securitj' and full establishment in Germany to the same hand which had brought it to the brink of destruction, and that both events should have been accompanied by the same acts of dissimulation. See J. Camerarius, Vita Mauniii Ekctoris Saxonke (15G9) ; Georg Arnold, Vita Matiritii (1719) ; F. A. von Langemi, Moritz Ilerzog unci Chur- Jtirst von Sacksen (1841, 2 vols.); Schlenkert, Moritz Churfurst von Saclisen (1798-1800, 4 vols.) ; K. von We- ber, Montz, Graf von Sachsen, etc. (Lps. 1863) ; Taillan- dier, Maurice dii Saxe (Paris, 1865) ; Coxe, House of Austria, i, 450 sq.; Vehse, Memoirs Court of Austria, i, 254; Kohlrausch, Hist, of Germany, ch. iv; Eobertson, Charles V, book x. See also Cilvrles V; Interim; Keformatios.