Report and Answer to the Bavarian-Anhalt Secret Chancellery

Bericht vnd antwort

...then also afterwards the executionIn this context, an "execution" (Exekution) refers to the legal enforcement of an Imperial ban, often involving the military seizure of a city or territory. against the poor city of Donauwörth followed; through this deed it was sufficiently felt that this was not a general decree, as the Compiler claims, but rather it hit them specifically original Latin: in specie so hard that the poor citizens have been plunged from being free citizens of the Roman Empire original Latin: ex civibus liberis Imperii Romani into a deep servitude, in body and soul, and find themselves almost entirely robbed of all human help and hope of ever being rescued from it, etc. So one also well remembers what was negotiated at that same time in the name of Emperor Rudolf by the Count of Zollern, President of the Imperial Court CouncilThe Reichshofrat, one of the two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire., with the Duke of Bavaria, regarding a general and universal execution against the Protestant Estates. It is remembered in what manner the said President made two different reports original Latin: relationes: in the first one (which was spread about original Latin: spargiret to pull the wool over the eyes of the Protestants), he reported to Emperor Rudolf original Latin: Cæsari Rudolpho that despite all applied diligence, he had been able to obtain nothing from his Princely Serenity in Bavaria, and that the Duke would not allow himself to be burdened with such a commission and execution in the slightest.

In the other and quite secret report, however, it is recorded original Latin: referiret that the Duke of Bavaria had declared himself thus: provided that His Imperial Majesty would show and supply original Latin: subministriren him the necessary means for the execution, and would also sufficiently assure original Latin: assecuriren him of his own assistance as well as that of the other Roman Catholics—promising not to leave him in the lurch—that in such a case, and not otherwise, he would be offering to burden himself with and take upon himself the general execution against the Protestants original Latin: general execution contra Protestantes. Therefore, there is no doubt that if the Union The Protestant Union, a coalition of Protestant German states formed in 1608. had not intervened back then, and if this plot of a general executor against the Protestants had not been somewhat held back by it, the neighboring Evangelical estates and cities—especially the smaller ones—would have fared just like Donauwörth. Indeed, even the more powerful ones, such as the Duke of Württemberg, and the cities of Ulm, Nuremberg, and others, would likely not have remained unchallenged.

What the Compiler on page 22 speciously alleges original Latin: speciose allegieret regarding Otto Pack Otto von Pack was involved in a 1528 scandal where he produced forged documents claiming a Catholic conspiracy to launch a preemptive war against Protestants. does not conclude as well as he pretends. For Sleidanus Johannes Sleidanus, the foremost historian of the Reformation at the time. expressly writes that although Duke George of Saxony and others attempted to excuse themselves, it was nonetheless the common opinion and rumor original Latin: communis opinio & fama that it was not for nothing original Latin: non fuisse de nihilo. Furthermore, the circumstances of time, place, and persons original Latin: circumstantiæ temporis, loci, personarum, etc., and other particulars were described by the said Otto Pack in such a way that any sensible person, skilled in the public affairs and actions of that time original Latin: & rerum & actionum publicarum illius temporis peritus, can easily perceive that Pack did not simply suck such things out of his thumb A German idiom meaning to invent something out of thin air.. What he further introduces regarding Cardinal Truchses, the city of Nuremberg against Margrave Albert, and the Gotha execution—these are things that [relate to] the points...