hopes of the Emperor with regard to the Council were not fulfilled. It did not open its session till December. It was not well attended; only some forty bishops came, and among them the Spaniards and Italians were in a decided majority. The Protestants therefore refused to acknowledge it as a free and general Council, more especially as it was decided that its members should vote as individuals and not by nations, a course of procedure which would ensure the victory of the papal party. Moreover, the wish of Charles that the Council should postpone the consideration of dogma, and first proceed to the reform of abuses, was rejected. It was agreed that both subjects should be taken together; and on the question as to the authority of tradition, and the doctrine of Justification, the views of Rome prevailed. | Charles succeeds in gaining over many of the princes | of Germany, especially Maurice of Saxony. Charles, meanwhile, had met with more success in Germany in his attempts to gain the German Princes to his side. William, Duke of Bavaria, who, by the death of his brother (1545), had become sole ruler in the duchy, had hitherto, although a Roman Catholic, coqueted with the League of Schmalkalde. He was now brought over by the promise of the hand of Ferdinand’s daughter for his son, with the reversion of Bohemia should Ferdinand die without male heirs, and by the hopes held out to him, that, if the Elector-Palatine remained obdurately Protestant, the electoral dignity should be transferred from the Palatine to the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbach family. John of Brandenburg-Küstrin, Margrave of the Neumark, and Albert Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Culmbach, two of the younger members of the House of Hohenzollern, annoyed at the reinstatement of the Duke of Würtemberg (cf. p. 210), also joined the Emperor. Charles was further successful in securing the neutrality of Joachim, Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick, the Elector-Palatine, and of some of the cities who had been members of the League.