The beginning of the seventeenth century found the Protestants in Germany still divided. The followers of Zwingli, it is true, had accepted the Augsburg Confession as the shortest means of acquiring freedom of worship; but the Calvinists, who were now rapidly increasing, were not willing to take this step, nor were the Lutherans any more tolerant towards them than at the beginning. The Dutch, in conquering their independence of Spain, gave the Calvinistic, or, as it was called in Germany, the Reformed Church, a new political importance; and it was not long before the Palatinate of the Rhine, Baden, Hesse-Cassel and Anhalt also joined it. The Protestants were split into two strong and unfriendly sects at the very time when the Catholics, under the teaching of the Jesuits, were uniting against them. Duke Ferdinand of Styria, a young cousin of Rudolf II., began the struggle. Styria was at that time Protestant, and refused to change its faith at the command of the Duke, whereupon he visited every part of the land with an armed force, closed the churches, burned the hymn-books and Bibles, and banished every one who was not willing to become a Catholic on the spot. He openly declared that it was better to rule over a desert than a land of heretics. Duke Maximilian of Bavaria followed his example: in 1607 he seized the free Protestant city of Donauwörth, on the Danube, on account of some quarrel between its inhabitants and a monastery, and held it, in violation of all laws of the Empire. A protest made to the Diet on account of this act was of no avail, since a majority of the members were Catholics. The Protestants of Southern Germany formed a "Union" for mutual protection, in May, 1608, with Frederick IV. of the Palatinate at their head; but, as they were mostly of the Reformed Church, they received little sympathy or support from the Protestant States in the North. [Sidenote: 1609. THE "SUCCESSION OF CLEVES."]