They met on equal terms in the palace of the
monarch, shared alike in his confidence and his favors, and cooperated
cordially in the festivities of the banqueting room, and in the toils of
the camp. We love to dwell upon the first beautiful specimen of
toleration which the world has seen in any court. It is the more
beautiful, and the more wonderful, as having occurred in a dark age of
bigotry, intolerance and persecution. And let us be sufficiently candid
to confess, that it was professedly a Roman Catholic monarch, a member
of the papal church, to whom the world is indebted for this first
recognition of true mental freedom. It can not be denied that Maximilian
II. was in advance of the avowed Protestants of his day.
Pope Pius V. was a bigot, inflexible, overbearing; and he determined,
with a bloody hand, to crush all dissent. From his throne in the Vatican
he cast an eagle eye to Germany, and was alarmed and indignant at the
innovations which Maximilian was permitting. In all haste he dispatched
a legate to remonstrate strongly against such liberality. Maximilian
received the legate, Cardinal Commendon, with courtesy, but for a time
firmly refused to change his policy in obedience to the exactions of the
pope.
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