and perhaps give his assent?  You know the Diet at Frankfort is at hand; ’tis necessary the Protestants should have an assembly of their own to prepare matters for the General Diet, and it may be no difficult matter to obtain it.”  The duke, surprised with joy at the motion, embraced the doctor with an extraordinary transport.  “Thou hast done it, doctor,” said he, and immediately caused him to draw a form of a letter to the emperor, which he did with the utmost dexterity of style, in which he was a great master, representing to his Imperial Majesty that, in order to put an end to the troubles of Germany, his Majesty would be pleased to permit the Protestant princes of the empire to hold a Diet to themselves, to consider of such matters as they were to treat of at the General Diet, in order to conform themselves to the will and pleasure of his Imperial Majesty, to drive out foreigners, and settle a lasting peace in the empire.  He also insinuated something of their resolutions unanimously to give their suffrages in favour of the King of Hungary at the election of a king of the Romans, a thing which he knew the emperor had in his thought, and would push at with all his might at the Diet.  This letter was sent, and the bait so neatly concealed, that the Electors of Bavaria and Mentz, the King of Hungary, and several of the Popish princes, not foreseeing that the ruin of them all lay in the bottom of it, foolishly advised the emperor to consent to it.

In consenting to this the emperor signed his own destruction, for here began the conjunction of the German Protestants with the Swede, which was the fatalest blow to Ferdinand, and which he could never recover.

Accordingly the Diet was held at Leipsic, February 8, 1630, where the Protestants agreed on several heads for their mutual defence, which were the grounds of the following war.  These were the famous Conclusions of Leipsic, which so alarmed the emperor and the whole empire, that to crush it in the beginning, the emperor commanded Count Tilly immediately to fall upon the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Saxony as the principal heads of the union; but it was too late.

The Conclusions were digested into ten heads:—­

1.  That since their sins had brought God’s judgments upon the whole Protestant Church, they should command public prayers to be made to Almighty God for the diverting the calamities that attended them.

2.  That a treaty of peace might be set on foot, in order to come to a right understanding with the Catholic princes.

3.  That a time for such a treaty being obtained, they should appoint an assembly of delegates to meet preparatory to the treaty.

4.  That all their complaints should be humbly represented to his Imperial Majesty and the Catholic Electors, in order to a peaceable accommodation.

5.  That they claim the protection of the emperor, according to the laws of the empire, and the present emperor’s solemn oath and promise.