“Most powerful and gracious emperor, the fortune of war has now rendered me your prisoner, and I hope to be treated—­”

Here the emperor indignantly interrupted him, saying—­

“I am now your gracious emperor!  Lately you could only vouchsafe me the title of Charles of Ghent!”

Then turning abruptly upon his heel, he consigned his prisoner to the custody of one of the Spanish generals.  The emperor marched immediately to Wittemberg, which was distant but a few miles.  It was a well fortified town, and was resolutely defended by Isabella, the wife of the elector.  The emperor, maddened by the resistance, summoned a court martial, and sentenced the elector to instant death unless he ordered the surrender of the fortress.  He at first refused, and prepared to die.  But the tears of his wife and his family conquered his resolution, and the city was surrendered.  The emperor took from his captive the electoral dignity, and extorted from him the most cruel concessions as the ransom for his life.  Without a murmur he surrendered wealth, power and rank, but neither entreaties nor menaces could induce him in a single point to abjure his Christian faith.

Charles now entered Wittemberg in triumph.  The great reformer had just died.  The emperor visited the grave of Luther, and when urged to dishonor his remains, replied—­

“I war not with the dead, but with the living.  Let him repose in peace; he is already before his Judge.”

The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, now the only member of the Protestant league remaining in arms, was in a condition utterly hopeless, and was compelled to make an unconditional submission.

The landgrave, ruined in fortune, and crushed in spirit, was led a captive into the imperial camp at Halle, in Saxony, the 19th of June, 1547.  He knelt before the throne, and made an humble confession of his crime in resisting the emperor; he resigned himself and all his dominions to the clemency of his sovereign.  As he rose to kiss the hand of the emperor, Charles turned contemptuously from him and ordered him to be conveyed to one of the apartments of the palace as a prisoner.  Most ignobly the emperor led his two illustrious captives, the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, as captives from city to city, exhibiting them as proofs of his triumph, and as a warning to all others to avoid their fate.  Very strong jealousies had now sprung up between the emperor and the pope, and they could not cooperate.  The emperor, consequently, undertook to settle the religious differences himself.  He caused twenty-six articles to be drawn up as the basis of pacification, which he wished both the Catholics and the Protestants to sign.  The pope was indignant, and the Catholics were disgusted with this interference of the emperor in the faith of the Church, a matter which in their view belonged exclusively to the pope and the councils which he might convene.