his cousin Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Culmbach was also brought into the Emperor's net. But these accessions of strength were trifling compared with the advantages secured by Charles through the reconciliation of Duke Maurice of Saxony.
Maurice's uncle Duke George (1500-39), the main representative of the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin, had been the staunchest Catholic in the north of Germany; but his father Duke Henry (1539-41) had been a no less zealous Protestant. Maurice, who succeeded to the duchy in 1541, when twenty-one years of age, was neither. The hereditary jealousy between the Albertine and Ernestine Houses of Saxony was neutralised to some extent by Duke Henry's adoption of the Protestant cause and by Maurice's marriage with Agnes, the daughter of Philip of Hesse. But Maurice was less influenced perhaps by religious motives than any other Prince of the age; and he poured scorn on those who thought that the interests of the State should be subordinate to theological dogma. His Protestant education at the Elector John Frederick's Court did not prevent his recalling the Catholic counsellors of his uncle Duke George. He readily followed his father-in-law, Philip of Hesse, in making a compact with Charles in 1541, though he had not Philip's personal motive of fear; and he assisted the Emperor to reduce John Frederick's brother-in-law, Duke William of Cleves. This first aroused enmity between him and the Elector; the dispute concerning the bishoprics of Meissen and Merseburg increased it; and a fresh source of discord arose in the question of the protectorate of the sees of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, which Maurice wanted for himself and declared that John Frederick coveted. Carlowitz, an old adviser of Duke George and a member of one of the noble families of Meissen, which had sided against John Frederick as to the question of the bishopric, was untiring in his efforts to win over Maurice from the Elector's side to that of the Emperor; and the attempts of the Archbishop of Cologne to reconcile the cousins in the summer of 1546 proved futile. Luther had succeeded in allaying their quarrels about Meissen; but Luther was now no more. He passed away on February 18, 1546, full of forebodings of evil to come, and more dominated than ever by wrath against Sacramentaries on the one hand and the Pope on the other; and revenge was taken for his diatribes against Rome by the invention of a legend that the great reformer died by his own hand.
Luther had ample justification for gloomy vaticinations, and the internal weakness of the Schmalkaldic League was doubtless one of Maurice's most powerful motives for refusing to trust his fortunes in so ill-found a vessel. Bucer proposed a dictatorship as the only cure, and Philip of Hesse would naturally be his choice for the office. Maurice, on the other hand, who could not expect to rank above Philip or John Frederick, suggested a triumvirate, and refused Philip's invitation to enter the League as it was then constituted. A prolonged diet of the
