One Bishop, John of Meissen, petitioned Charles to be freed from his allegiance to the Duke; but even the Catholic members of the Estates repudiated his action, and in 1540 the Estates sanctioned the Lutheran Reformation which Duke Henry had begun without their concurrence.
Besides the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Saxony, minor Princes and many towns threw in their lot with the Protestant cause. Joachim IPs brother, Margrave John of Brandenburg, who ruled in Cottbus and Peitz, joined the Schmalkaldic League in 1537. Batisbon, long a Catholic stronghold, relinquished its ancient faith; its monasteries had only one or two inmates apiece; and only some twenty people gathered to worship in its cathedral. In other Catholic States there were said to be more monasteries than monks, and the number of candidates for ordination sank to five in four years in the see of Passau, and to seventeen in eight years in that of Laibach. Heidelberg, the Elector Palatine's capital, was described as the most Lutheran city in Germany; and the Elector himself was, in the few moments he spared from the hunt and his cups, wavering between Luther and the Pope. Albrecht of Brandenburg, Luther's "devil of Mainz," was the only member of his family who remained Catholic, and he was compelled to flee from his palace at Halle. Mecklenburg-Schwerin was reformed by its episcopal Duke, and Brunswick-Calenberg by its Dowager-Duchess, Elizabeth of Brandenburg.
So the golden opportunity which the alliance with Paul and Francis at Nice appeared to afford to Charles for the reduction of German heresy passed away through no fault of the Emperor's. The zealous Held was suppressed; the negotiations with the Lutherans were entrusted to the moderate Archbishop of Lund, who had contrived the agreement between Zapolya and Ferdinand; and Charles accepted the mediation of the doubtful Catholic, the Elector Palatine Ludwig V, and the doubtful Protestant, Joachim II of Brandenburg. The parties met at Frankfort in April, 1539. Henry VIII sent envoys to stiffen the Lutheran demands and prevent an agreement if possible. The Protestant terms were high; they wanted a permanent peace which no Council and no assembly of Estates should have the power to break; the Nürnberg League was to receive no fresh accessions, its Protestant rival of Schmalkalden as many as chose to join it; and all processes in the Relchskammergerlcht were to be suspended for eighteen months. All that Charles ultimately conceded was a suspension for six months, and he quietly gave his consent to the Nürnberg League. But its immediate object of enforcing the decrees of the Supreme Court was baulked; and for half a year even the latest recruits to Protestantism were to enjoy complete immunity. Beyond that nothing was settled, and the peace of the Lutherans depended upon the extent of the Emperor's troubles in other directions.
At first the Emperor prospered. Ghent was crushed with ease in February, 1540. As soon as Henry VIII realised that the Catholic
