confederated forces were defeated, and the Protestants lost all that they had acquired since the peace of Augsburg. At this dark hour in the fortunes of the league, Gustavus Adolphus, with an army of thirty thousand veterans, espoused its cause. His heroism, strategetic skill, and indomitable valor soon annihilated Tilly's army, reduced the imperial allies to extreme distress, conquered Lower Saxony and Bavaria, and delivered the Protestants from their perilous situation. Tilly having died, Wallenstein assumed command. Having raised an immense and formidable army, the new general was enabled to attack Adolphus with such overwhelming force that he compelled him to retire from Bavaria. In 1642, at Lutzen, the two powerful armies came to a general and decisive engagement; the genius of Adolphus crowned his arms with victory, but his intrepidity cost him his life. Through a wise policy the Swedes still continued a triumphant career, victoriously marching through the empire with incredible rapidity, and finally, after the battle of Prague, dictating the peace of Westphalia. By the terms of the peace of Westphalia Calvinists acquired the same rights with Lutherans; princes were bound not to persecute subjects on account of religious differences; all acquisitions of Protestants since the peace of Augsburg were confirmed; entire equality of sect, liberty of conscience, and the exercise of all modes of religion were guaranteed, and the independence of Switzerland and of the Netherlands acknowledged. Pope Innocent X. strenuously protested against this peace, complaining in bitter terms of the deep injury it inflicted on the church. Though the consequences of the treaty have been of the most benignant nature to Europe, still the Papal See has, through all periods maintained, with unabated animosity, its original opposition to the invaluable treaty. The papal intrigues, so prolific of disastrous wars, were no less pernicious to Austria than they had been to other powers. Upon the death of Duke Frederic, its ruler, Frederic II., of Germany, declared the duchy a vacant fief of his empire, and appointed over it a governor. Pope Innocent V. persuaded Margaret, the sister of the deceased duke, and Gertrude, his neice, to claim the duchy as their inheritance. The Margrave Hermann, by the aid of the pope and his machinery, was enabled to command a strong party in support of the project. After a war of thirty-six years the dispute was settled by the interference of the emperor Rodolph, who gave it to his two sons, Albert and Ro-dolph.