All the Protestant princes but two were vanquished, the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.  It was evident that they must soon yield to the overwhelming force of the emperor.  It was a day of disaster, in which no gleam of light seemed to dawn upon the Protestant cause.  But in that gloomy hour we see again the illustration of that sentiment, that “the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.”  Unthinking infidelity says sarcastically, “Providence always helps the heavy battalions.”  But Providence often brings to the discomfited, in their despair, reinforcements all unlooked for.

There were in the army of Ferdinand, gathered from the Austrian territories by the force of military conscription, many troops more or less influenced by the reformed religion.  They were dissatisfied with this warfare against their brothers, and their dissatisfaction increased to murmurs and then to revolt.  Thus encouraged, the Protestant nobles in Bohemia rose against Ferdinand their king, and the victorious Ferdinand suddenly found his strong battalions melting away, and his banners on the retreat.

The other powers of Europe began to look with alarm upon the vast ascendency which Charles V. was attaining over Europe.  His exacting and aggressive spirit assumed a more menacing aspect than the doctrines of Luther.  The King of France, Francis I., with the characteristic perfidy of the times, meeting cunning with cunning, formed a secret league against his ally, combining, in that league, the English ministry who governed during the minority of Edward VI., and also the cooeperation of the illustrious Gustavus Vasa, the powerful King of Sweden, who was then strongly inclined to that faith of the reformers which he afterwards openly avowed.  Even the pope, who had always felt a little jealous of the power of the emperor, thought that as the Protestants were now put down it might be well to check the ambition of Charles V. a little, and he accordingly ordered all his troops to return to Italy.  The holy father, Paul III., even sent money to the Protestant Elector of Saxony, to enable him to resist the emperor, and sent ambassadors to the Turks, to induce them to break the truce and make war upon Christendom, that the emperor might be thus embarrassed.

Charles thus found himself, in the midst of his victories, suddenly at a stand.  He could no longer carry on offensive operations, but was compelled to prepare for defense against the attacks with which he was threatened on every side.

Again, the kaleidoscope of political combination received a jar, and all was changed.  The King of France died.  This so embarrassed the affairs of the confederation which Francis had organized with so much toil and care, that Charles availed himself of it to make a sudden and vigorous march against the Elector of Saxony.  He entered his territories with an army of thirty-three thousand men, and swept all opposition before him.  In a final and desperate battle the troops of the elector were cut to pieces, and the elector himself, surrounded on all sides, sorely wounded in the face and covered with blood, was taken prisoner.  Charles disgraced his character by the exhibition of a very ignoble spirit of revenge.  The captive elector, as he was led into the presence of his conqueror, said—­