From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

proportion. They saw the gates of the North
opening a second time, and the German hosts in
full march upon the Eternal City. What was to be
done? Campeggio was on the spot; and it was
fortunate for Rome that he was so, otherwise the
subsequent intervention of the Pope and the
emperor might have come too late. The legate
adopted the old policy of "divide and conquer."
Withdrawing from a Diet which contemplated
usurping the most august functions of his master,
Campeggio retired to Ratisbon, and there set to
work to form a party among the princes of
Germany. He succeeded in drawing around him
Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, the Dukes of
Bavaria, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the
Bishops of Trent and Ratisbon. These were
afterwards joined by most of the bishops of
Southern Germany. Campeggio represented to this
convention that the triumph of Wittenberg was
imminent, and that with the fall of the Papacy was
bound up the destruction of their own power, and
the dissolution of the existing order of things. To
avert these terrible evils, they resolved, the 6th of
106