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 though subsequently half of Darmstadt was transferred from Hesse to the House of Nassau.

In the north-east of Germany the Dukes of Pomerania made peace with Charles through their agent Bartholomew Sastrow, whose memoirs present a gloomy picture of the condition of Germany during the war. Bremen held out, but more important was the resistance of Magdeburg, which ultimately defied all the force which Maurice was able or willing to bring against it. A proposal to bring Albrecht of Prussia to terms was rejected lest warlike measures should precipitate a conflict with his suzerain Sigismund of Poland; but in Bohemia Ferdinand used his opportunity to crush its remaining constitutional liberties, and to reduce it to a footing more nearly resembling that of his own hereditary lands.

Except for Constance and these outlying regions on the Baltic, Charles was now dictator in Germany. No Emperor since Frederick II had wielded such power, and at the Diet of Augsburg which was opened on September 1, 1547, he endeavoured to reap the fruits of his victory. He never had a greater opportunity, but the inherent antagonism between the aims of the Habsburg dynasty and those of the German nation was too fundamental to be eradicated by the defeat of a section of Lutheran Princes. The constitutional reforms which he laid before the Diet were inspired by the same family motives which actuated Charles in 1521, and they provoked the same kind of national and territorial opposition. Bavaria reverted to its natural attitude, partly because Charles had quarrelled with the Pope, but more because he had not repaid Bavaria for her exertions in the war by an increase of territory, nor shown any inclination to transfer the Electoral dignity of the Palatinate from his old friend, the Elector Frederick II, to Duke William. Maurice was not satisfied with the partial ruin of his cousin, and felt that Charles had purposely left his position insecure.

The Emperor's first object was to strengthen the executive with a view to preventing such outbreaks as the Peasants' War, the Anabaptist revolt, the lawless enterprises of Lübeck, and Philip of Hesse's conquests of Württemberg and Brunswick. A proposal for the preservation of peace would naturally meet with much support; but that support was neutralised by the conviction that the League, which Charles proposed to establish on the model of the old Swabian League, was really designed to strengthen the Habsburgs against other Princes and against the nation itself. The League was to embrace the whole of Germany, to be directed by a number of permanent officials who although representative of the various orders would tend to fall under government influence, and to have at its disposal an efficient military force. This League and its organisation was to lie entirely outside the ordinary constitution of the Empire; and the Electors discovered the chief motive for it in the fact that the Habsburgs would command a far greater share of influence in it than they did in the three Councils which constituted the Diet.