The prospect of such a meeting alarmed both Pope and Emperor more than all the demands for a General Council; for in a General Council the Germans would be a minority, and General Councils afforded unlimited scope for delay. But a German Synod would mean business, and its business was not likely to please either Clement or Charles. It would probably organise a German national Church with slight dependence on Rome; it might establish a national government with no more dependence on Charles. Both these threatened interests took action; the Pope instigated Henry VIII to take away from the German merchants of the Steelyard their commercial privileges, and to urge upon Charles the prohibition of the meeting at Speier; he also suggested the deposition of the Elector Frederick as a warning to other rebellious Princes. The Emperor was nothing loth; on July 15 he forbade the proposed assembly at Speier, and, although there is no evidence that he would have proceeded to so dangerous and violent a measure as the deposition of Frederick, he broke off former friendly relations and insulted the whole Saxon House by marrying his sister Catharine to King John of Portugal instead of to Frederick's nephew, John Frederick, to whom she had been betrothed as the price of the Elector's support of Charles' candidature for the Empire in 1519.
Before the news of these steps had reached Germany both sides had begun preparations for the struggle. Campeggio had been empowered, in case of the failure of his mission to the Diet, to organise a sectional gathering of Catholic Princes in order to frustrate the threatened national Council. This assembly, the first indication of the permanent religious disruption of Germany, met at Ratisbon towards the end of June. Its principal members were the Archduke Ferdinand, the two Dukes of Bavaria, and nine bishops of southern Germany; and the anti-national character of the meeting was emphasised by the abstinence of every elector, lay or clerical. It was, however, something more than a particularist gathering; it sought to take the wind out of the sails of the Reformation by reforming the Church from within, and it was in fact a Counter-Reformation in miniature. The spiritual lords consented to pay a fifth of their revenues to the temporal authority as the price of the suppression of Lutheran doctrine. The grievances of the laity with respect to clerical fees and clerical morals were to some extent redressed; the excessive number of saints' days and holy days was curtailed. The use of excommunication and interdict for trivial matters was forbidden; and while the reading of Lutheran books was prohibited, preachers were enjoined to expound the Scriptures according to the teaching, not of medieval schoolmen, but of the great Fathers of the Church, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Gregory. Eck published a collection of Lad Communes to counteract Melanchthon's, and Emser a version of the Bible to correct Luther's, and a systematic persecution of heretics was commenced in the territories of the parties to the conference.
