The winter passed away without any serious suspicions on Charles' part. To throw him off his guard Maurice had undertaken to subdue the Magdeburgers. The leniency of his conduct toward "those rebels" with whom he was secretly in league did at last excite a doubt in Charles' mind. Maurice was summoned to Innspruck, ostensibly to confer with him respecting the liberation of his father-in-law, the Landgrave of Hesse. But Maurice was far too wary to put himself in his power, and readily found some plausible excuse to delay his journey from time to time. But when, early in March, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, thoroughly equipped, he announced that he was about to set out on his journey, the information was accompanied with a declaration of war. "It was a war," he said, "for the defence of the true religion, its ministers and preachers; for the deliverance of prisoners detained against all faith and justice; to free Germany from her wretched condition, and to oppose the Emperor's completion of that absolute monarchy toward which he had so long been aiming."
To this manifesto was appended another from the King of France. Therein Henry announced himself the "defender of the liberties of Germany, and protector of her captive princes"; further stating "that, broken-hearted [le cœur navre] at the condition of Germany, he could not refuse to aid her, but had determined to do so to the utmost power of his ability, even to personally engaging in this war, undertaken for liberty and not for his personal benefit." This document—written in French—was headed by the representation of a cap between two poniards, and around it the inscription "The Emblem of Liberty." It is said to have been copied from some ancient coins, and to have been appropriated as the symbol of freedom by Cæsar's assassins. Thus singularly was brought to light by a king of the French Renaissance that terrible cap of liberty, before which the ancient crown of France was one day destined to fall.
The declaration of the German princes and that of their ally, the King of France, fell like a thunderbolt on the Emperor—so great was his astonishment and consternation at the events so unexpected. With rapid marches Maurice advanced on Upper Germany, while other divisions of the army, headed by the confederate princes, hastened on toward Tyrol, by way of Franconia and Swabia, everywhere being received with open arms as "Germany's liberators." Maurice reached Augsburg on April 1st, and took possession of that important city—the garrison offering no resistance, and the inhabitants receiving him joyfully. There, as in other towns on his march which had willingly opened their gates to him, the Interim was abolished; the churches restored to the Protestants; the magistrates appointed by the Emperor displaced, and those he had rejected reinstated. Money, too, was freely offered him, and the deficiency in his artillery supplied. At Trent the news that the Protestant princes, joined by several of the Catholics and free states, "had taken up arms for liberty," caused a terrible panic. The fathers of the council, Italian, Spanish, and German, at once made a precipitate retreat, and this famous council, without authority from pope or emperor, dissolved itself, to reassemble only after even a longer interval than before. When Maurice began his march Henry II had joined his army at Châlons, and was on his way to Lorraine. Toul, on his approach, presented the keys of the city to the constable commanding the vanguard—the King afterward making his entry, and receiving the oath of fidelity from the inhabitants, having previously sworn to maintain their rights and privileges inviolate. After this easy conquest the French army continued its march toward Metz. This old free republican city did not so readily as Toul yield to the French. The municipal authorities very politely offered provisions to the army, but declined to deliver the keys of the city to the constable. They were, however, willing to admit the King and the princes who accompanied him within their walls. "Troops were not permitted to enter Metz, whatever their nation." This was one of their privileges.
Montmorency cared little for privileges, and violence would probably have been used but that the Bishop of Metz, who was a Frenchman, prevailed on the principal burgesses to allow the constable to enter with an escort of two ensigns, each with his company of infantry. Montmorency availed himself of this permission to give his ensigns fifteen hundred of his best troops. The city gates were thrown open, and the burgesses then perceived their error, but too late to remedy it. They were firmly repulsed when attempting to exclude the unwelcome visitors; there was, however, no bloodshed. The people were soon reconciled to the change; and the chief sheriff and town council on the King's entry having assembled on the cathedral porch, Henry there, in the presence of an anxious multitude who crowded around him to hear him, made oath strictly to maintain their franchises and immunities. Thus easily was captured the former capital of the ancient Austrian kings, which remained under the dominion of France until separated from her by the misfortunes of the second empire.
The city of Verdun followed the example of Toul; so that Henry's defence of the liberties of Germany was thus far nothing more than a military promenade, with grand public entries, banquets, and general festivity. The inhabitants of Metz—like the rest of his conquests, French in language and manners—petitioned the King not to restore their city to the empire, of which it had been a vassal republic from the beginning of the feudal era; they feared the Emperor's revenge. Henry, however, had no thought of relinquishing Metz; he was too well pleased with his new possession, and "proposed to make it one of the ramparts of France."
But while Henry for the defence of German independence was making conquests and annexing them to his dominions, Charles V had fled before Maurice's vigorous pursuit, and had only escaped capture by a mere mischance that briefly retarded his pursuers' progress. When Augsburg was taken, Charles felt that he was not safe at Innspruck. He was neither in a position to crush the rebellious princes nor to resist the invasion of the King of France. Want of means had induced him to disband a large part of his army; Mexico and Peru for some time had failed to make any remittances to his treasury; the bankers of Venice and Genoa were not willing to lend him money, and it was only by placing Piombino in the hands of Cosmo de' Medici that he obtained from him the small sum of two hundred thousand crowns.
His first impulse was to endeavor to pass over the route of the Netherlands by the valleys of the Inn and the Rhine; but as he could only move, owing to his gout, from place to place in a litter, he was compelled, from physical suffering, after proceeding a very short distance on his journey, to return to Innspruck. There he remained with a small body of soldiers sufficient to guard himself personally—having sent all he could possibly spare to hold the mountain pass leading to the almost inaccessible castle of Ehrenberg. But, guided by a shepherd, the heights of Ehrenberg were reached by the troops under George of Brandenburg, after infinite fatigue and danger. The walls were scaled, and the garrison, terrified by the appearance of this unlooked-for enemy, threw down their arms and surrendered.
A few hours only separated Innspruck from Ehrenberg, and Maurice proposed to push on rapidly so as to anticipate the arrival there of any accounts of the loss of the castle, hoping to surprise the Emperor and his attendants in an open, defenceless town, and there to dictate conditions of peace. The dissatisfaction of a portion of the troops at not immediately receiving the usual gratuity for taking a place by assault occasioned a short delay in the advance of Maurice's army. He arrived at Innspruck in the middle of the night, and learned that the Emperor had fled only two hours before to Carinthia, followed by his ministers and attendants, on foot, on horses, in litters, as they could, but in the greatest hurry and confusion.
The night was stormy; rain was falling in torrents when the modern Charlemagne, unable to move, was borne in a litter by the light of torches across steep mountain paths with a swiftness most surprising; terror adding wings to the footsteps of his bearers, lest they and their gouty burden should fall into the hands of the heretic army, said to be in pursuit. But pursuit was soon given up, for the troops were worn and weary with forced marches and climbing the heights of Ehrenberg; they needed rest, and there was the imperial palace of Innspruck to pillage, Maurice having given it up to them.
Negotiations for peace were opened on May 20th at Passau on the Danube. The King of France was informed of this, it being found necessary to put some check on his proceedings; to remind him that he was the "defender of the liberties of Germany," not Germany's oppressor. He and his army had advanced into Alsace, and Montmorency had assured him that it would be "as easy to enter Strasburg and other cities of the Rhine as to penetrate butter." However, when they knocked at the gates of Strasburg and courteously requested that the Venetian, Florentine, and other ambassadors might be permitted to enter and admire the beautiful city, they found the Strasburgers insensible to these amenities—butter by no means easily melted; for not only they refused to gratify the soi-disant ambassadors with a sight of their fine city, but mounted and pointed their cannon, as a hint to their visitors that they would do well to withdraw.