wear the crown of a Roman emperor?) bound the successors of Ferdinand I.
to the See of Rome. Ferdinand himself was, from conscientious motives,
heartily attached to it. Besides, the German princes of the House of Austria
were not powerful enough to dispense with the support of Spain, which,
however, they would have forfeited by the least show of leaning towards
the new doctrines. The imperial dignity, also, required them to preserve
the existing political system of Germany, with which the maintenance
of their own authority was closely bound up, but which it was the aim
of the Protestant League to destroy. If to these grounds we add
the indifference of the Protestants to the Emperor's necessities
and to the common dangers of the empire, their encroachments on
the temporalities of the church, and their aggressive violence
when they became conscious of their own power, we can easily conceive
how so many concurring motives must have determined the emperors
to the side of popery, and how their own interests came to be
intimately interwoven with those of the Roman Church. As its fate seemed
to depend altogether on the part taken by Austria, the princes of this house
came to be regarded by all Europe as the pillars of popery. The hatred,
therefore, which the Protestants bore against the latter,
was turned exclusively upon Austria; and the cause became gradually confounded
with its protector.

But this irreconcileable enemy of the Reformation -- the House of Austria --
by its ambitious projects and the overwhelming force which it could bring
to their support, endangered, in no small degree, the freedom of Europe,
and more especially of the German States. This circumstance could not fail
to rouse the latter from their security, and to render them vigilant
in self-defence. Their ordinary resources were quite insufficient
to resist so formidable a power. Extraordinary exertions were required
from their subjects; and when even these proved far from adequate,