The fiend-like emperor, then, in the mockery of mercy, declared that in view of his great clemency and their humble confession, he would spare their forfeited lives, and would only punish them by depriving them of their estates.  He took their mansions, their estates, their property, and turned them adrift upon the world, with their wives and their children, fugitives and penniless.  Thus between one and two thousand of the most ancient and noble families of the kingdom were rendered houseless and utterly beggared.  Their friends, involved with them in the same woe, could render no assistance.  They were denounced as traitors; no one dared befriend them, and their possessions were given to those who had rallied beneath the banners of the emperor.  “To the victors belong the spoils.”  No pen can describe the ruin of these ancient families.  No imagination can follow them in their steps of starvation and despair, until death came to their relief.

Ferdinand considered Protestantism and rebellion as synonymous terms.  And well he might, for Protestantism has ever been arrayed as firmly against civil as against religious despotism.  The doctrines of the reformers, from the days of Luther and Calvin, have always been associated with political liberty.  Ferdinand was determined to crush Protestantism.  The punishment of the Elector Palatine was to be a signal and an appalling warning to all who in future should think of disputing the imperial sway.  The elector himself, having renounced the throne, had escaped beyond the emperor’s reach.  But Ferdinand took possession of his ancestral territories and divided them among his Roman Catholic allies.  The electoral vote which he held in the diet of the empire, Ferdinand transferred to the Duke of Bavaria, thus reducing the Protestant vote to two, and securing an additional Catholic suffrage.  The ban of the empire was also published against the Prince of Anhalt, the Count of Hohenloe, and the Duke Jaegendorf, who had been supporters of Frederic.  This ban of the empire deprived them of their territories, of their rank, and of their possessions.

The Protestants throughout the empire were terrified by these fierce acts of vengeance, and were fearful of sharing the same fate.  They now regretted bitterly that they had disbanded their organization.  They dared not make any move against the emperor, who was flushed with pride and power, lest he should pounce at once upon them.  The emperor consequently marched unimpeded in his stern chastisements.  Frederic was thus deserted entirely by the Protestant union; and his father-in-law, James of England, in accordance with his threat, refused to lend him any aid.  Various most heroic efforts were made by a few intrepid nobles but one after another they were crushed by the iron hand of the emperor.