Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/283

1546.] electorate, deserted his party, and came over to Charles, bringing with him the Duke of Wurtemberg and half the military power of the reforming States. The religious aspect of the war was thus exchanged for a political one. The reforming princes, in joining the Emperor, imagined that they were tying his hands, and it is true that the connection had its embarrassments for him. But the League of Smalcalde was broken up. The Landgrave and the Elector were placed under the ban of the Empire, and Saxony was bestowed on Maurice as a reward of his treachery. Paul III., indignant at the return of a carnal policy, withdrew his contingent, discontinued his supplies of money, and cancelling his sanction for the appropriation of the Spanish benefices, began to look in despair towards France; France in turn began to meditate supporting the Elector, in order to prevent Charles from conquering Germany; and it was at this crisis, as all things appeared to be relapsing into confusion, that Henry VIII. died—'The most miserable of princes,' says Pallavicino; 'cursed in the extinction of his race, as if God would punish those distracted marriages, from which, in spite of fortune, he laboured to beget sons to succeed him; cursed in his country, which ever since has been an Africa, fertile only in monsters.'

In the autumn, while the league was yet unbroken between the Pope and the Emperor, Henry had offered to join the Protestants. The Elector, confident in his