CHARLES'S DISSATISFACTION.
There was but one opinion on the Papist Refutation; it was found confused, violent, thirsting for blood.[655] Charles the Fifth had too much good taste not to perceive the difference that existed between this coarse work and the noble dignity of Melancthon's Confession. He rolled, handled, crushed, and so damaged the 280 pages of his doctors, that when he returned them two days after, says Spalatin, there were not more than twelve entire. Charles would have been ashamed to have such a pamphlet read in the diet, and he required, in consequence, that it should be drawn up anew, shorter and more moderate.[656] That was not easy, "for the adversaries, confused and stupified," says Brenz, "by the noble simplicity of the Evangelical Confession, neither knew where to begin nor where to end; they accordingly took nearly three weeks to do their work over again."[657]
Charles and his ministers had great doubts of its success; leaving, therefore, the theologians for a moment, they imagined another manœuvre. "Let us take each of the Protestant princes separately," said they: "isolated, they will not resist." Accordingly, on the 15th July, the Margrave of Brandenburg was visited by his two cousins, the Electors of Mentz and of Brandenburg, and by his two brothers the Margraves Frederick and John Albert. "Abandon this, new faith," said they to him, "and return to that which existed a century ago. If you do so, there are no favours that you may not expect from the Emperor; if not, dread his anger."[658]
THE SWISS AT AUGSBURG
Shortly after, the Duke Frederick of Bavaria, the Count of Nassau, De Rogendorf, and Truchses were announced to the Elector on the part of Charles. "You have solicited the Emperor," said they, "to confirm the marriage of your son with the Princess of Juliers, and to invest you with the electoral dignity; but his majesty declares, that if you do not renounce the heresy of Luther, of which you are the principal abettor, he cannot accede to your demand." At the same time the Duke of Bavaria, employing the most urgent solicitations, accompanied with the most animated gestures[659] and the most sinister threats,[660] called upon the Elector to abandon his faith. "It is asserted," added Charles's envoys, "that you have made an alliance with the Swiss. The Emperor cannot believe it; and he orders you to let him know the truth."
The Swiss! it was the same thing as rebellion. This alliance was the phantom incessantly invoked at Augsburg to alarm Charles the Fifth. And in reality deputies or at least friends of the Swiss, had already appeared in that city, and thus rendered the position still more serious.
ZWINGLE'S CONFESSION.
Bucer had arrived two days before the reading of the Confession, and Capito on the day subsequent to it.[661] There was even a report that Zwingle would join them.[662] But for a long time all in Augsburg, except the Strasburg deputation, were ignorant of the presence of these doctors.[663] It was only twenty-one days after their arrival that Melancthon learnt it positively,[664] so great was the mystery in which the Zwinglians were forced to enshroud themselves. This was not without reason: a conference with Melancthon having been requested by them: "Let them write," replied he; "I should compromise our cause by an interview with them."
Bucer and Capito in their retreat, which was like a prison to them, had taken advantage of their leisure to draw up the Tetrapolitan Confession, or the confessions of the four cities. The deputies of Strasburg, Constance, Nemmingen, and Lindau, presented it to the Emperor.[665] These cities purged themselves from the reproach of war and revolt that had been continually objected against them. They declared that their only motive was Christ's glory, and professed the truth "freely, boldly, but without insolence and without scurrility."[666]
Zwingle about the same time caused a private confession to be communicated to Charles,[667] which excited a general uproar. "Does he not dare to say," exclaimed the Romanists, "that the mitred and withered race (by which he means the bishops) is in the Church what hump-backs and the scrofula are in the body?"[668]—"Does he not insinuate," said the Lutherans; "that we are beginning to look back after the onions and garlic of Egypt?"—"One might say with great truth that he had lost his senses," exclaimed Melancthon.[669] "All ceremonies, according to him, ought to be abolished; all the bishops ought to be suppressed. In a word, all is perfectly Helvetic, that is to say, supremely barbarous."