Out of the "Freedom of the Gospel," which was the first watch-word of the Reformers, smaller sects continued to arise, notwithstanding they met with almost as much opposition from the Protestants as the Catholics. The Anabaptists obtained possession of the city of Münster in 1534, and held it for more than a year, under the government of a Dutch tailor, named John of Leyden, who had himself crowned king of Zion, introduced polygamy, and cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees. When the Bishop of Münster finally took the city, John of Leyden and two of his associates were tortured to death, and their bodies suspended in iron cages over the door of the cathedral. About the same time Simon Menno, a native of Friesland, founded a quiet and peaceful sect which was named, after him, the Mennonites, and which still exists, both in Germany and the United States. [Sidenote: 1544.] While, therefore, Charles V. was carrying on his wars, alternately with the Barbary States, and with Francis I. of France, the foundations of the Protestant Church, in spite of all divisions and disturbances, were permanently laid in Germany. Although he had been brilliantly successful in Tunis, in 1535, he failed so completely before Algiers, in 1541, that Francis I. was emboldened to make another attempt, in alliance with Sultan Solyman of Turkey, Denmark and Sweden. So formidable was the danger that the Emperor was again compelled to seek the assistance of the German Protestants, and even of England. He returned to Germany for the second time and called a Diet to meet in Speyer, which renewed the Religious Peace of Nuremberg, with the assurance that Protestants should have equal rights before the Imperial courts, and that they would be left free until the meeting of a _Free_ Council of the Church.