While these negotiations had been going on, Charles had been holding diets and entertaining schemes of compromise. His attempts, however, to gain comprehension either through a Council or a Diet had failed, and at last the moment for action had arrived. A truce had been effected with Solyman; France and the Pope were friendly, and Charles’ concessions had brought over several of his opponents. Against the wish of Granvelle he therefore threw off the mask, and at Ratisbon published the imperial ban against those who refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber. Even now he did not speak of the war as a religious one; he proceeded, he declared, not against those who were dutiful subjects, but against those who would not submit to imperial laws; he was about to check insubordination, not to punish heresy. It is not necessary to accuse Charles of deliberate falsehood; indeed, as long as Maurice was on his side, it could scarcely be called a war against the Protestants. Nor, on the other hand, is it just to accuse the Protestants of having taken up the question of reform solely from political motives, in pursuance of their old struggle against the Emperor. Nevertheless, the cause of religious independence was now so closely identified with that of territorial independence, and the unity of the Church so intimately connected in Charles’ mind with that of the Empire, that the religious and political issues could no longer be distinguished. The question at stake was this: should Germany be forced to accept the mediæval system of one Empire and one Church, or should the princes vindicate their rights to political and religious autonomy? | Death of Luther. Feb. 18, 1546.