Christendom at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century - James Aitken Wylie

was the heir of twenty-eight kingdoms.
There was danger as well as safety in the vast
power of the man whom the Germans had elected
to wear a crown which had in it so much grandeur
and so little solid authority. The conqueror of the
East, Selim II., was perpetually hovering upon their
frontier. They needed a strong arm to repel the
invader, and thought they had found it in that of the
master of so many kingdoms; but the hand that
shielded them from Moslem tyranny might, who
could tell, crush their own liberties. It behooved
them to take precautions against this possible
catastrophe. They framed a Capitulation or claim
of rights, enumerating and guaranteeing the
privileges and immunities of the Germanic Body;
and the ambassadors of Charles signed it in the
name of their master, and he himself confirmed it
by oath at his coronation. In this instrument the
princes of Germany unconsciously provided for the
defense of higher rights than their own royalties
and immunities. They had erected an asylum to
which Protestantism might retreat, when the day
should come that the emperor would raise his
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