Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/89

1552.] be admitted to vote; the past resolutions of the council must be reconsidered where they were at variance with the Confession of Augsburg. Finally, he desired to know what was to be said of the other resolution of the Council of Constance, that a council was above a Pope. This last question, says Pallavicino, drove the fathers at once among the reefs and breakers, of which Clement VII. long before had warned the Emperor.

Thus the time wore away till March, when the match had burnt to the powder. Maurice moved on Augsburg, which opened its gates to him. A French army appeared on the Rhine, and Protestant Germany was once more openly in arms.

Panic-stricken a second time, the bishops at Trent melted like the snow before the returning sun. Maurice, after restoring the expelled preachers, summoned a Diet to meet at Passau in July; and while the French took possession of Verdun and Metz, he himself, with the Duke of Mecklenburg, made his way by rapid marches into the Tyrol. Charles had invited him to Innspruck, and to Innspruck he would go. The mountain passes were fortified, but the hatred of the Tyrolese for the Spaniards was so intense, that they offered their services as guides, and betrayed the defences. The detachments which had been set to guard them were cut in pieces; and so swift were the movements of the German army, that the first intimation which Charles received that they had left Augsburg was the sound of their guns but a few miles distant. It was said that a mutiny among the Lanzknechts delayed the