BISHOP AUGUSTA

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reformer at Wittenberg, and also had, in 1546, an interview with the Protestant Elector of Saxony. In the following year war broke out in Germany between the Emperor Charles V. and the German Protestants, whose leaders were the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.i After the defeat of the Protestants at the battle of Miihlberg, Charles's brother, Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, dealt severely with their Bohemian sympathisers. Augusta was arrested and imprisoned for a long time in the castle of Piirglitz or Kfivoklat. His companion, the young priest Bflek, has left us a very interesting account of Augusta's prison hfe.^ During the whole term of his imprisonment, which only ended in 1564, Augusta maintained his claim to the leadership of the Unity. When the only other bishop died, the brethren, who had established secret communications with him, asked if they should elect new bishops, but Augusta refused his consent. After his liberation he resumed his rule over the community, residing first at Brandeis-on-the-Adler, aftei-wards at Jungbunzlau. The obstinacy and tenacity, not to say narrow-mindedness, which is ever characteristic of Augusta, involved him in incessant controversies during the last years of his life. It is perhaps to his opponents that should be traced the rather unfavourable account of his last years, according to which he " found great pleasure in expensive clothes and furs, as well as in select dishes, handsome carriages, and generally in an ostentatious manner of Hving."

Like so many members of the Unity, Augusta was

a

voluminous writer, but some of his works have been lost, and many of the others have remained in MS. Of ' See Chapter VI.

^

See Chapter

VI.