Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/64

44 silence he brought forward his own resolutions. It was essential for him to secure a majority in the Diet, and he was prepared to pay for it in promissory notes which might or might not be honoured at his future convenience. He decided that, until the next meeting of the Diet and the final settlement of religion, the Catholics should not be allowed either to persecute or make proselytes among the Protestants, nor the Protestants among the Catholics. The religious houses suppressed already should remain suppressed; those which were standing should remain standing. The clergy of neither profession should be molested in person or property. The Confession of Augsburg should remain a permitted declaration of faith. The laws of the Empire, when conflicting with it, should be placed in abeyance; and all decrees affecting property, hitherto given in the Chamber against the acts of the Protestant princes, should be declared null and void. The Duke of Brunswick and the Catholic princes and prelates entered their protest against a judgment which appeared to them so monstrous; but their remonstrance was not accepted: they withdrew in real or pretended indignation, and the Diet, freed from its disturbing element, was now compliant. A letter was