a prince of Bavaria.

A civil war now commenced, which, from the strong interest
which both religious parties in Germany necessarily felt in the conjuncture,
was likely to terminate in a general breaking up of the religious peace.
What most made the Protestants indignant, was that the Pope
should have presumed, by a pretended apostolic power, to deprive
a prince of the empire of his imperial dignities. Even in the golden days
of their spiritual domination, this prerogative of the Pope had been disputed;
how much more likely was it to be questioned at a period when his authority
was entirely disowned by one party, while even with the other it rested
on a tottering foundation. All the Protestant princes took up the affair
warmly against the Emperor; and Henry IV. of France, then King of Navarre,
left no means of negotiation untried to urge the German princes
to the vigorous assertion of their rights. The issue would decide for ever
the liberties of Germany. Four Protestant against three Roman Catholic voices
in the Electoral College must at once have given the preponderance
to the former, and for ever excluded the House of Austria
from the imperial throne.

But the Elector Gebhard had embraced the Calvinist, not the Lutheran religion;
and this circumstance alone was his ruin. The mutual rancour
of these two churches would not permit the Lutheran Estates
to regard the Elector as one of their party, and as such to lend him their
effectual support. All indeed had encouraged, and promised him assistance;
but only one appanaged prince of the Palatine House,
the Palsgrave John Casimir, a zealous Calvinist, kept his word.
Despite of the imperial prohibition, he hastened with his little army
into the territories of Cologne; but without being able to effect any thing,
because the Elector, who was destitute even of the first necessaries,