The impetuous landgrave, taking a spring, cleared, as at one bound, the country which separated him from the Neckar, arrived unexpectedly on the banks of that river near Laufen, where the imperial army was posted, and attacked it with spirit. At first the Austrians courageously sustained the fight; but the count palatine, their commander, having been wounded by a cannon-shot, they retired precipitately. Early the next morning, the landgrave, putting himself at the head of his cavalry and artillery, fell upon them as they were beginning to retreat, and drove part of them into the Neckar.[603]

Wurtemberg was gained, and Duke Ulrich, accompanied by Prince Christopher, reappeared in the country of his fathers. The people, excited at the thought of seeing their national princes once more after so many years, assembled in the open country near Stuttgard, and received them with immense acclamation. The landgrave, not allowing himself to be retarded by the warm reception of the people whom he had restored to independence, followed up his plan, and on the 18th of June reached the Austrian frontier. Everybody thought that he would march on Vienna, and overthrow that insolent dynasty which desired to be the master of the world.

=ALARM AT THE VATICAN.=

Great was the consternation in all the catholic world, but particularly in the Vatican. On the 10th of June, 1534, Clement, who was sick, went sorrowful, downcast, and tottering, to the college of cardinals, and laid before them the pitiful letters he had received from King Ferdinand.[604] The cardinals, as they read them, were struck with terror. Would Vienna, that had resisted the Turks, fall under the assault of the protestants? Would a victorious army, crossing the Alps, come and perpetrate a second sack of Rome which, as the work of heretics, might not be more compassionate than that of the catholic Charles V.? The cardinals saw no other remedy than that to which Rome had recourse when her ducats and arquebuses were gone. 'A general council,' they exclaimed, 'is the only remedy that can save us from heresy and all the calamities by which christendom is distressed.'

While there was mourning at Rome, there were great rejoicings at the Louvre. It was a long time since the emperor had received such a check. About the end of June a courier from Germany brought Francis the despatches announcing the arrival of Philip of Hesse on the Austrian frontier. He could not repress the outburst of his joy. He spoke to himself, to his councillors, to his courtiers.... 'My friends,' he exclaimed, 'my friends have conquered Wurtemberg.' Then, as if the landgrave and his victorious army were before him, he exclaimed in a tone of command: 'Forward! forward!' His dream was about to be realised; the war would become general; he already saw the landgrave at Vienna; and, what was better still, he saw himself at Genoa, Urbino, Montferrat, and Milan. All his life through he forgot France for Italy, which he never possessed. But he was mistaken as to the landgrave's intentions. Much as Francis desired to see the war become general, Philip of Hesse laboured to keep it local. Satisfied with having restored Wurtemberg to its princes, he meant to respect the empire. The kings of France and England were seriously vexed: 'The Duke of Wurtemberg, restored by my help and yours,' said Henry VIII. to Francis I., 'is only seeking how to make peace with the emperor.'[605] It would appear by the evidence derived from the State Papers, that the gold of England as well as of France had contributed to despoil Austria of Wurtemberg. Henry, more perhaps than Francis I., had hoped that the blow struck upon the banks of the Neckar would be, to emperor as well as to pope, the commencement of sorrows; but they were both mistaken. The temptation, no doubt, was great for a prince of thirty, full of decision and energy, who believed that nothing would make the triumph of protestantism so secure as the humiliation of Austria; but Philip's loyalty resisted the temptation.

=WURTEMBERG RESTORED.=

On the 27th of June the peace of Cadan put an end to all differences, and restored Wurtemberg to its national princes, with a voice in the council of the empire. If there had never been a war more energetically conducted, there had never been a peace so promptly concluded. The landgrave had displayed a spirit and talents which, men thought, might in future prove troublesome to the puissant Charles.[606]

The emperor having received his lesson, the pope's turn came next. As the state of Wurtemberg had been wrested from the hands of Austria, the Church was to be saved from the clutches of the papacy. At the diet of Augsburg, in 1530, Duke Christopher had seen the landgrave, his relation and friend, come forward as the most intrepid champion of the Reformation. His generous heart had been won to a cause which included such a noble defender, and his desire was to see it triumph in Wurtemberg. On the other hand, King Ferdinand, when renouncing his authority over the duchy, desired at least to maintain that of the pope; and he therefore proposed to insert in the treaty of peace an article forbidding any change in religious matters. But the dukes, the landgrave, and the Elector of Saxony unanimously declared that the Gospel ought to have free course in the duchy, and the electoral chancellor wrote this word on the margin, by the side of the article proposed by the King of the Romans: Rejected.[607] 'You are in no respect bound as to the faith,' said the evangelical princes to Ulrich; while the papal nuncio Vergerio entreated King Ferdinand not to give way to the Lutherans. All the efforts of the Romish party were useless. The important victory of the landgrave (and of Francis I.) was about to open the gates of Wurtemberg to the Reformation, and consequently those of other Roman-catholic countries.

Ulrich and Christopher, being quite as desirous of bringing souls to the knowledge of the Word of God as of replacing their subjects under the sceptre of the ancient house of Emeric,[608] set to work immediately. They invited to their states Ambrose Blaarer, the friend of Zwingle and Bucer, and Ehrard Schnepf, the friend of Luther, converted by his means at Heidelberg at the beginning of the Reformation.[609] Their labours and those of other servants of God spread the evangelical light over the country.[610] Nor was that all: if the defeat at Cappel had restored many cities to the Romish creed,[611] the victory of Laufen allowed many to come to the evangelical faith. Baden, Hanau, Augsburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and other places began, advanced, or completed their reformation about this time. French money had never before returned such good interest.

=A KINGLY PROJECT.=