Deduction Concerning the Free Exercise of the Augsburg Confession in Silesia

It is of a similar nature with the Electoral Saxon Accord, established in Dresden in the year 1621 and most powerfully confirmed by the most gracious confirmation of the highly-mentioned Ferdinand II, Imperial and Royal Majesty. In this Accord, all the Estates and inhabitants of the land of Silesia—and thus also the Hereditary Principalities of the countryside and the cities—were included and assured of their existing religious and secular privileges, and especially of the aforementioned Letter of Majesty The Majestätsbrief of 1609, which granted religious freedom to Protestants in Bohemia and Silesia.. For this very reason, they also delegated certain persons from their own body original: ex suo corpore to the negotiations (regarding whose credentials His Electoral Highness was particularly careful). These included Siegemund von Bock of Habendorff and Rosenbach, the Hereditary Court Judge of the Reichenbach district and Provincial Elder of the Principalities of Schweidnitz and Jauer; Reinhard Rosen, Doctor of Both Laws meaning he held a doctorate in both Civil and Canon law and Syndicate of the city of Breslau; Johann Wirth, member of the Council at Schweidnitz; and Johann Richter, Mayor of Glogau. These men attended all and every treaty session from beginning to end and, no less than the other Silesian envoys, sealed and signed the Accord.

Following this, various stately assurances of sincerity original: Sincerationes; these were formal diplomatic declarations of honest intent and guarantees of safety were issued both by His Imperial and Royal Majesty and by His Electoral Highness of Saxony. In particular, in that same year of 1621, under the date of Vienna, July 17th, an Imperial and Royal Patent was publicly proclaimed throughout the entire land by the Imperial High Office. In this patent, His Imperial and Royal Majesty most graciously assured and promised His faithful Princes and Estates, as well as all private persons who remained in most humble devotion, loyalty, and steadfastness, that they would be left fully and inviolably protected and maintained by His Majesty in all that the Accord concluded with the Elector of Saxony contained and encompassed. Furthermore, no one should or may fear any punishment whatsoever that would contrary to the included General Pardon The General-Perdon was an amnesty granted to those who had rebelled during the early stages of the Thirty Years' War, provided they returned to loyalty.. Likewise, His most highly-mentioned Imperial Majesty most graciously wrote back to the Administrator of the Imperial High Office in Upper and Lower Silesia, His Grace the Duke of Liegnitz, as late as October 3rd in the year 1626. He stated that although a new Patent of Sincerity (as the Duke had faithfully reminded him) was hopefully not necessary, He nevertheless took great pleasure in the diligence applied by the Duke in Imperial and Royal grace. He wished that the Duke should continue such diligence in constant loyalty and obedience and might be certain that His Majesty would in no way allow His obedient and faithful subjects to be burdened in any way contrary to the Saxon Accord...

Although the enemies of religion now wish to argue the contrary: that the Hereditary Principalities had supposedly committed a great offense against Your Imperial and Royal Majesty, both during the Mansfeld invasion Referring to the campaigns of Ernst von Mansfeld, a Protestant mercenary commander and at the time when His Electoral Highness of Saxony himself sent his army—reinforced by a conjunction with the Swedish King and the Elector of Brandenburg—into the land, and had thereby forfeited the Saxon Accord, the Letter of Majesty, and all privileges; and beyond this also the...