Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/67

 exhibited a perseverance and an energy quite in contrast with his usual laxity, and in this attained to great results: we refer to the execution of his vow made at Loretto, that is, to the contest with the Protestants. On his assumption of the government of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, the people of these lands were mostly Protestants; only a few of the nobility still adhered to the Catholic Church; this was true alike in the cities and among the peasantry. While yet in his youth, this ruler ventured upon a struggle with the enemies of his faith to drive them step by step from his possessions. He began the execution of his purpose by expelling Protestant preachers from the cities, and putting Catholics in their places and compelling the citizens to accept the Catholic faith. From this he passed over to the domains of the nobility, forcing the peasantry upon these to attend Catholic worship, and allowing only to the nobles themselves a little personal consideration. That he would also extend his aggressive action to them could not be doubted, for already he tolerated no Protestant in his service or about his person. Those noblemen who had as yet sunned themselves in the favor of the court, but would not renounce their faith, must relinquish their places. His mother—the Archduchess Mary—was, in the first year of his reformatory work, on a journey to Spain, whither she accompanied her daughter, who afterwards became the wife of Philip III. In her letters she exhorted her son to perseverance, gave him divers counsels, forwarding to the best of’ her ability the longed-for work of reformation. Her exhortations were at least superfluous; her son devoted himself to the discharge of his vow, disregarding the perils which beset the resort to compulsory