Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/62

42 of the Diet to meddle with religion had been as earnestly claimed by them as it had been passionately denied by the Pope. The Imperial Chamber, as the supreme court of appeal, and as governed by the traditional laws inherited from the period of an undisputed Roman supremacy, had been the chief instrument of persecution in the hands of the Catholic clergy, and the chief difficulty in the legal establishment of the Reformation.

But smooth language from the Emperor and appearances of concession were no sufficient guarantee of his intentions. He possessed in perfection the statesman's accomplishment of moving in one direction while looking in the other, and it was necessary to test his sincerity. The Duke of Brunswick had appeared in his train, and had taken his seat in the Diet. The Landgrave rose, and in his own name and the Elector's protested that Henry of Brunswick, having broken the laws of the Empire, had been deposed from his principality, and had therefore neither right nor place there. The Duke retorted; the Landgrave replied more resolutely, and, inasmuch as the Emperor in the preceding autumn had commanded the Duke's restoration, to forsake him now would be equivalent to a declared apostasy. The representatives of the Catholic States heard with dismay that their champion and martyr would not be defended. The difficulty was waived. The Emperor declared that the cause was too complicated to admit of settlement in the pressure of more urgent interests. He begged that it might be indefinitely postponed; and, to turn the current and conciliate the anti-Papal party still further, he