"There had been rumors of that, already, so it shouldn't have upset Papa so much to hear it again."
"This time there is more. There is a reliable report that the regent herself, Isabella Clara Eugenia, has asked that a meeting be arranged between her and this… young woman."
"Young agitator," Mariana said. "Young revolutionary."
"She is that," the empress agreed. "But your Tante Isabella has expressed a wish to meet her, nevertheless. According to the despatch, she is coming to Brussels, with her husband."
"The man who torpedoed a Spanish warship and sank it?" Mariana frowned.
"Mariana was very displeased." Maria Anna crossed her arms in front of her chest and leaned against the mantel.
Cecelia Renata plopped down into the pillows on her bed.
"You can scarcely blame her," Dona Mencia replied.
"Do you have to be so reasonable?"
"It's part of my job. I note that you have just pointed out that your sister-in-law was displeased. With whom, do you think? With the young man Higgins, for destroying the ship. Or with her brother and aunt, for meeting with the destroyer's wife? Or with the wife for upsetting the political order of things, first in the Germanies and now in Amsterdam? Now that you are to be the duchess of Bavaria, you must accustom yourself to being precise in your analysis of political events."
"Mariana was probably somewhat displeased with all of those things. And very displeased by the combination of them."
Cecelia Renata stretched. "Oh, please do sit down, Dona Mencia. Your knees must be killing you. I think it would be fascinating to meet die Richterin."
"Papa would be unlikely to agree with you, Sissy. You're old enough to remember how much trouble the Fadinger revolt caused him, just a couple of years ago."
"Probably not. But it sounds like Tante Isabella agrees with me."
That brought the conversation to a temporary halt.
"She must be very different from Papa," Maria Anna said a few moments later. "It would be interesting to meet her." Then, shaking her head, she threw up her arms in a dramatic gesture. "What? What? Did I just agree with my sister about something?" She brought the back of one hand to her forehead. "What have I done?"
Dona Mencia smiled.
"But…" Maria Anna paused. "But it was the Cardinal-Infante, Don Fernando, who met with her first." She looked at Dona Mencia. "Did you ever meet him? What is he like?"
"I saw him quite frequently when I was at the court in Madrid. He is a clever young man. Although I have not seen him for nearly four years, I have not been… surprised… by his successes in the Netherlands."
Maria Anna hopped up onto the bed next to her sister. "Tell us more."
Chapter 12
Exercitium Religionis Privatum
Mary and Veronica begged off from going to church on the perfectly valid grounds that neither of them was at present of the Reformed, or Calvinist, religious persuasion. Mary wanted to go sight-seeing; Toby Snell, who was not a church member of any variety, said that he would be delighted to escort her. Veronica wanted to lie down in her room. Preferably on her stomach.
Keith decided to go with the guys. He had a vague recollection that his own denomination, the Disciples of Christ, had split off from the mainstream of Calvinism somewhere along the line, and thought it might be interesting to see the service. He didn't mind that this involved getting up at five o'clock in the morning. He got up at five o'clock every morning. By six, they were outside the gates of Nurnberg.
"I don't deny that there have been tensions," Durre was saying. "To be perfectly honest, both the Lutheran city council of Nurnberg and the relatively few Reformed whom they have accepted as citizens of the city over the past seventy-five years or so were used to Calvinists who were prosperous businessmen. Very prosperous businessmen from the Netherlands and France, for the most part; merchants, silk manufacturers, dyers, goldsmiths and bankers, other businessmen with substantial fortunes. That was what made them acceptable as citizens of a Lutheran polity." He shrugged expressively. "The city council has always been cautious, of course. It is responsible to a Catholic emperor, who could use any toleration of 'sects' not permitted by the Peace of Augsburg to deprive the city of its independence. It's not paranoia-think of what Maximilian of Bavaria did to Donauworth on a similar pretext. So Nurnberg hasn't permitted a Calvinist congregation to be founded in the city."
"Isn't that a bit inconvenient?" Keith Pilcher asked.
"In the last century, it was a three-day trip to places in the Upper Palatinate where we could worship. Not legally, of course. And if Nurnberg's Calvinists had their children baptized by Reformed clergy in the Oberpfalz, they were fined."
Keith contemplated a three day trip to church while Durre kept talking. Keith thought that the man could have probably made his fortune as a tour bus guide if he'd been born up-time.
"But that was in the last century. The last twenty years, it got easier for us. Jacob Geuder, a member of one of Nurnberg's patrician families, had a fight with the city council. He renounced his citizenship, bought a couple of little estates called Neunhof and Heroldsberg that conveyed him the status of an imperial knight, and took service with the Elector Palatine. He and his wife Sabina Welser accepted the Reformed faith. Their palace, Neunhof bei Lauf, which is where we are headed, is only four hours northeast of the city. Since Geuder died, his son has maintained a Calvinist minister and held services in his palace at Heroldsberg as well. He's not home right now, however. He's serving in the Swedish army. Frau Sabina continued to host them at Neunhof as well, until she died two years ago. She was tenacious in defending the right of her 'guests from elsewhere' to take part in them, insisting that as members of the free imperial knighthood, they had the right to private exercise of religion."
Durre smiled reminiscently at his memories of Frau Sabina's tenacity. Her defense of exercitium religionis privatum had been a wonder to behold. Then he added, reluctantly, "Of course, it could be said that the Geuder family has been less than generous in allowing the same privilege to their Lutheran subjects. We'll be able to see the castle from just around this bend. It's still quite a long distance by road from here, though."
Keith looked up at the castle with interest. When he heard "castle," he still thought, automatically, "pile of dank gray stone." This was a three-story house. Big, all right, but a house. The bottom floor was painted red, with the shutters trimmed with red and pink zigzag stripes; the middle floor was painted pink, with the shutters ditto; the top floor was a positive explosion of gables and Fachwerk beams painted red, with the stucco in between them painted pink. There was a lost commercial opportunity for Grantville right in front of him. Whoever built this place would have paid a fortune for pink plastic lawn flamingos.
In a way, he was sorry that Mrs. Simpson had missed it. If she wanted to see sights, this was certainly a sight to see.
"The city council protested, of course," Durre was continuing. "But considering that in 1609 it had entered the Protestant Union along with the Calvinist Elector Palatine, it's position was not as strong as it might have been. Considering that the elector's regent in Amberg was Geuder's boss. But with this business in the Upper Palatinate these last few years, things have changed. Most of the people who took exile were professionals: administrators, clergy, teachers, physicians, apothecaries. Not independently wealthy, most of them. People who gain their livelihood, primarily, through being paid by someone else. They brought some money with them, true. Most of the Palatines who had no money at all couldn't even afford to emigrate. Plus, there's a limit to the ability of other Protestant territories to absorb refugees. Bayreuth took some; so did Ansbach; a few, mostly clergy, went to Leiden. Most stayed where they were and accepted Maximilian's forced conversions. But I don't mind saying-it's been a challenge for those of us who make money to make enough of it to support the refugees who did arrive in Nurnberg until they could find some way to support themselves. Sometimes there have been four hundred or more on our charity rolls. And, because they have little money, the council has been very sparing with granting them citizenship rights, which makes it even harder for them to find work."