| Maurice declares himself, and marches south, March | 18. Henry II. invades Lorraine.
While Maurice had been raising this formidable coalition against the Emperor, the relations between the two had been strictly amicable. Yet it is a mistake to suppose that Charles remained in ignorance of what was going forward. At this moment, however, Charles was ill, and in one of his fits of irresolution and lassitude. Dazzled, moreover, by the success of his policy since the battle of Mühlberg, he thought too lightly of the conspiracy, and hoped to deal with his opponents as he had done in 1546. He believed that he could either win over Maurice by further concessions, or ruin him by freeing John Frederick, and restoring to him his electoral dominions. The Emperor did not understand how circumstances had changed since 1546; he did not realise how unpopular his Spanish rule, his highhandedness, and his succession scheme had become in Germany, even with his brother Ferdinand; he omitted the French alliance in his calculations; finally, he mistook the man with whom he had to deal. With all his ambition Maurice really cared for the cause of Protestantism, and was determined to protect his subjects in their religion. It was improbable that he would ever have sacrificed that to any personal gains. Charles also forgot that he had taught a lesson in diplomatic tactics, which his pupil had learnt too well; a master of diplomacy himself, he was fairly beaten by this young man of thirty. Maurice to the last kept up appearances; he even pretended compliance with the Emperor's request that he would come to Innsbruck to discuss the situation. Then suddenly gathering his army, which he had held together since the siege of Magdeburg, he marched southward (March 18), and was joined by the young William of Hesse at Bischofsheim. At the same moment Henry II. invaded Lorraine. The French King declared he came to protect German liberty, and the Princes issued a manifesto in which they denounced 'the infamy and unreasonableness of the imprisonment of the Landgrave,' and 'the foreign beastly (_viehische_) hereditary servitude,' religious and political, which Charles had attempted to force on Germany. At Rothenburg, Maurice was joined by Albert Alcibiades of Culmbach, and advanced to Augsburg, 'the watch-tower of the imperial power,' which was hastily evacuated by the imperial garrison.