Ludanic answered by entreating Ferdinand not to put down those who had attained to the knowledge of the purified Gospel; and he assured the King that Moravia would sooner perish in fire and ashes than submit to violence in this matter. He then appealed to the members of the Assembly; and the main body of them confirmed his words in a loud voice. Ferdinand then asked if any, there present, were ready to obey him. Only seven members of the Assembly responded to this appeal--five of them lords and two knights. Then Ludanic once more rose, and read to Ferdinand the oath which the King had taken, as Margrave of Moravia, to defend the liberties of that province. Ferdinand indignantly answered that he had kept his oath, and intended to keep it; upon which Ludanic explained that he had not accused the King of having _yet_ broken his oath; but that he had read it to him as a reminder for future use. Unable to accomplish his ends, Ferdinand was at last obliged to dismiss the Assembly, and to retire to his house. But, when he looked from his window a little later, he saw the members of the Assembly carrying Ludanic home in triumph. Thus, while crushed out in the province of Bohemia, the Bohemian Brotherhood grew and flourished in Moravia. About this time, the Brothers were enabled to renew their correspondence with Augusta, by the help of one of his gaolers whom they had succeeded in bribing. Unfortunately, this correspondence did not strengthen the friendly relations between the prisoner and the Elders of the Society. Always of a rather imperious disposition, and now embittered by his sufferings, Augusta attempted to assert his authority in a way which the Elders often resented. Indeed, they had begun to think that the exclusion of Augusta from the outer world disqualified him for his office as Elder of the Brotherhood. They consented indeed, in deference to his earnest appeals, to retain him a little longer in his former dignity; and at one time there seemed a hope that this painful dispute might end in the release of the imprisoned Brother, and his return to his former life. The second treachery of Moritz of Saxony had overthrown the hopes of the Imperialists; the treaty of Passau had raised anew the Protestant expectations of religious liberty; and in 1552 the Catholic and Protestant leaders of the Moravian Assembly united in such an earnest appeal for mercy to Ferdinand, that he consented to consider the question of the release of his Protestant prisoners.