A very fierce war
instantly blazed forth, the Duke of Parma and Henry II. on one side, the
pope and the emperor on the other. At the same time the Turks, under the
leadership of the Sultan Solyman himself, were organizing a formidable
force for the invasion of Hungary, which invasion would require all the
energies of Ferdinand, with all the forces he could raise in Austria,
Hungary and Bohemia to repel.
Next to Hungary and Bohemia, Saxony was perhaps the most powerful State
of the Germanic confederacy. The emperor placed full reliance upon
Maurice, and the Protestants in their despair would have thought of him
as the very last to come to their aid; for he had marched vigorously in
the armies of the emperor to crush the Protestants, and was occupying
the territories of their most able and steadfast friend. Secretly,
Maurice made proposals to all the leading Protestant princes of the
empire, and having made every thing ready for an outbreak, he entered
into a treaty with the King of France, who promised large subsidies and
an efficient military force.
Maurice conducted these intrigues with such consummate skill that the
emperor had not the slightest suspicion of the storm which was
gathering.
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