As long as the tide was flowing in the direction of Protestantism the Protestant view of these matters naturally prevailed, as being that of the stronger party, and the Catholics had to content themselves with protests. [Sidenote: =Danger of the Rhineland Calvinists.=] But with the advent of the Counter-Reformation things became very different. The division in the Protestant party was so envenomed, that no Lutheran would stir a finger to claim the privileges of the religious peace for Calvinists. The Catholics had now powerful friends to back them in demanding back the secularised lands. It was almost certain if the question could be brought before the imperial courts that the decision would be in their favour. The Calvinists of the upper Rhineland therefore found themselves in a dangerous position. Situated between the Spanish power on the one side and Bavaria on the other, without a shadow of legal claim to the protection of the religious peace of Augsburg, without the chance of deriving any assistance from the Lutheran princes of the north, they were in danger of being the next victims of the Emperor and Maximilian, just flushed with their triumph over heresy at home. [Sidenote: =The troubles of Donauwörth, 1607.=] A little incident showed how real the danger was. In 1607, at Donauwörth, a free city on the Danube, in which the Protestants were in a large majority, a Catholic procession was insulted and a religious quarrel excited. The matter was at once brought to the notice of the Imperial (Aulic) Council, a body entirely composed of nominees of the Emperor. The ban of the Empire was pronounced against Donauwörth, and Maximilian of Bavaria appointed to carry it out. He at once occupied the town with his troops, but not content with establishing order and taking security for the payment of his army, he proceeded to eject the Protestants from the churches and restore the Catholic worship, on the plea that the establishment of Protestantism there had been illegal, and was not protected by the peace of Augsburg. The immediate result of this action on the part of Maximilian, which was looked upon by the Protestants as a distinct and indefensible act of aggression, was to bring about the organisation of the two parties in two rival camps. Christian of Anhalt, one of those sanguine and turbulent spirits, whose advent to the leadership of affairs is a sure presage of war and dissension, seized the opportunity to bind together the Protestant states of the Rhineland in 1608 into a Union for self-defence, which, when once formed, he hoped to be able to lead to the attack against the House of Austria. [Sidenote: =Formation of the Calvinist Union, 1608.=] In the next year the Union was joined by the important free cities of Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm. The Elector Palatine was acknowledged as its head, and Christian of Anhalt and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach appointed its generals, and German Calvinism thus stood