Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/302

282 there are costumes which may be worse than nakedness, it is one thing to do what is right—it is another to do it rightly and at the right opportunity.

The Book of Homilies was a further element of discord. It was a perilous risk to throw abroad upon the world, as authoritative, a body of doctrine sanctioned neither by Convocation nor by Parliament. The Protector would have done better if he had waited till the political horizon was less clouded before he threw fresh fuel on the doctrinal controversies; and two calamities in the first half-year of his government, one of which it was his immediate duty to have attempted to avert, had not improved the prospects of the well-wishers of the Reformation.

On the evening of the 21st of April Charles V., with his Spanish infantry, was on the banks of the Elbe at Muhlberg. The Elector, who had driven Maurice out of Saxony in March, was across the river falling leisurely back upon Wittenberg, while the rafts and barges which had formed the floating bridge were drifting in flames down the stream, and the water was between himself and the enemy. John Frederick pitched his camp at a few miles' distance with no thought of danger. In the darkness the Castilians swam after the blazing boats, quenched the fire, and secured them, and before dawn there was again a bridge passable for artillery. The Emperor, on his bay horse, glittering in gilded armour, rode breast-high through the river, and caught the Protestants in their sleep. By the evening they were a