Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/356

336 The imprisoned Duke of Saxony possessed the influence which would enable Charles to carry his point, and freedom, favour, and power were held out to him through Granvelle, as the reward of compliance. John Frederick answered, with a noble simplicity, that 'he was in the Emperor's power; his Majesty might do with him, and use his carcase as it liked him, he neither could nor would resist his pleasure therein; but he humbly besought his Majesty that he would not press him to grant this thing, which, he said, being against the word and law of God, he would not agree unto though he were to die for it.'

The Free Towns were less obedient than the princes. Magdeburg sent an open refusal; Constance refused almost as peremptorily; Strasburg sent a protest: and when Granvelle threatened, the Strasburg deputies said that a man's body might be burnt, but a burnt body was better than a damned soul.

In a worldly sense the Protestants would have been more prudent had they taken the Emperor at his word. The Interim was in theory as liberal as the scheme of belief as yet established in England. In practice it was even more liberal, for the marriage of the clergy, though censured, was not forbidden. In formulas of doctrine, as in all mechanical contrivances, looseness of construction becomes looser in the use; and a considerable liberty of opinion might have established itself under the shelter of the Interim. But the Germans, more