He raised one army in the Low Countries to
march upon Germany. He gathered another army in his hereditary States of
Austria. His brother Ferdinand, as King of Hungary and Bohemia, raised a
large army in each of those dominions. The King of France mustered his
legions, and boasted of the condign punishment to which he would consign
the heretics. The pope issued a decree offering the entire pardon of all
sins to those who should engage in this holy war for the extirpation of
the doctrines of the reformers.
The Protestants were for a moment in consternation in view of the
gatherings of so portentous a storm. The emperor, by false professions
and affected clemency, had so deceived them that they were quite
unprepared for so formidable an attack. They soon, however, saw that
their only salvation depended upon a vigorous defense, and they
marshaled their forces for war. With promptness and energy which even
astonished themselves, they speedily raised an army which, on the
junction of its several corps, amounted to eighty thousand men. In its
intelligence, valor, discipline and equipments, it was probably the best
army which had ever been assembled in the States of Germany.
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