To resist them the signers promised each other mutual support.

In this as in subsequent developments the Calvinist minority took the lead, but was supported by strong Catholic forces.

Among the latter was the Prince of Orange, not yet a Protestant.

His conversion really made little difference in his program; both before and after it he wanted tolerance or reconciliation on Cassander's plan of compromise.

He would have greatly liked to have seen the Peace of Augsburg, now the public law of the Empire, extended to the Low Countries, but this was made difficult even to advocate because the Peace of Augsburg provided liberty only for the Lutheran confession, whereas the majority of Protestants in the Netherlands were now Calvinists.