Ferdinand understood all this, and shrewdly availed himself of it. He
plied the elector with arguments and promises, assuring him that the
points in dispute were political merely and not religious; that he had
no intention of opposing the Protestant religion, and that if the
elector would abandon the Protestant league, he would reward him with a
large accession of territory. It seems incredible that the Elector of
Saxony could have been influenced by such representations. But so it
was. Averring that he could not in conscience uphold a man who did not
embrace the vital doctrine of the spiritual presence, he abandoned his
Protestant brethren, and drew with him the Landgrave of Hesse, and
several other Lutheran princes. This was a very serious defection, which
disheartened the Protestants as much as it encouraged Ferdinand.
The wily emperor having succeeded so admirably with the Protestant
elector, now turned to the Roman Catholic court of France--that infamous
court, still crimsoned with the blood of the St. Bartholomew massacre.
Then, with diplomatic tergiversation, he represented that the conflict
was not a political one, but purely religious, involving the interests
of the Church.
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