One of these, high judge of the kingdom, was in the seventieth
year of his age. The Bloody Diet, as it has since been called, was
opened, and Ferdinand found all as pliant as he could wish. The royal
discipline had effected wonders. The slightest intimation of Ferdinand
was accepted with eagerness.
The execrable tyrant wished to impress the whole kingdom with a salutary
dread of incurring his paternal displeasure. He brought out the forty
prisoners who still remained in their dungeons. Eight of the most
distinguished men of the kingdom were led to three of the principal
cities, in each of which, in the public square, they were ignominiously
and cruelly whipped on the bare back. Before each flagellation the
executioner proclaimed--
"These men are punished because they are traitors, and because they
excited the people against their _hereditary_ master."
They then, with eight others, their property being confiscated, in utter
beggary, were driven as vagabonds from the kingdom. The rest, after
being impoverished by fines, were restored to liberty. Ferdinand adopted
vigorous measures to establish his despotic power. Considering the
Protestant religion as peculiarly hostile to despotism, in the
encouragement it afforded to education, to the elevation of the masses,
and to the diffusion of those principles of fraternal equality which
Christ enjoined; and considering the Catholic religion as the great
bulwark of kingly power, by the intolerance of the Church teaching the
benighted multitudes subjection to civil intolerance, Ferdinand, with
unceasing vigilance, and with melancholy success, endeavored to
eradicate the Lutheran doctrines from the kingdom.
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