At first there seemed no great need for these precautions.  The emperor, Charles V., chose Dominicans for his confessors, and his successor, Ferdinand, followed his example.  But Ferdinand held the Society in great esteem, and at his death Father Lainez, who was then General, ordered that each priest in the college at Dillingen should offer twelve Masses for the repose of his soul, and the lay-brothers were to say certain prayers with the same intention.  The Society was not only indebted to him for his unvarying friendship, but owed to his munificence the foundation of four colleges, viz., those of Vienna, Prague, Innsbruck, and Tyrnau.

Ferdinand’s son and successor, Maximilian, having Protestant leanings, dispensed with a confessor altogether, but his wife, Doha Maria, sister of Philip ii. of Spain, was provided with a Spanish Franciscan, who was chosen for her by her brother.  Maximilian’s sons all chose Jesuit confessors, as did also his daughter, the Queen of Bohemia.

At that time the Lutherans thought that Catholicism was at its last gasp, and they eagerly anticipated the banishment of the Jesuits.  But Maximilian, in spite of his Protestant tendencies, was well disposed towards them, and their college at Vienna received many marks of his favour, to the great disgust of his Lutheran subjects.  The Protestant nobles assembled at the Landtag held in Vienna, attached three conditions to their votes of supplies for his war against the Turks:—­The abolition of the procession of Corpus Christi, the confirmation of the Confession of Augsburg, and the banishment of the Jesuits.  They declared that if the emperor refused to grant these requests, they would not furnish him with the required subsidy for the war.  Maximilian replied that it was his business to repulse the Turks; the other things did not concern him, but the Pope.*

* Orig.  G. Epist., 6, 48 seq.

Disappointed in their hopes, the Lutherans, allying themselves with the enemies of the Jesuits within the Church, began to circulate false reports against the Society.  At one moment they accused Father Peter Canisius of prejudicing the Pope against the emperor, at another, the whole community at Vienna were declared guilty of openly insulting the Protestants.  Reiterated complaints poured into the emperor’s ears ended by alienating Maximilian from his former friends, and it was difficult, almost impossible for them to obtain a hearing.  But the empress remained loyal to them, and would perhaps have been termed by Lacordaire frenetique.

Father Maggio, who was then court preacher, seems to have been a man of great prudence and mildness, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of religion.  By degrees he not only convinced Maximilian of the injustice of the attacks made upon the Society, but the two became fast friends, so that when he was made Provincial of Austria in 1566, the appointment gave much satisfaction at court.  He was frequently summoned to private audiences, and the emperor treated him with so much confidence that Father Maggio would sometimes venture to address to him written words of exhortation, words which Maximilian invariably took in good part.  The empress, observing the affection of her husband for the Jesuit would consult Father Maggio as to the best means of confirming him in the Catholic religion.