Maurice had married a daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel.

He was a man of commanding abilities, and as shrewd, sagacious and ambitious as the emperor himself.

He had been strongly inclined to the Lutheran doctrines, but had been bought over to espouse the cause of Charles V.
by the brilliant offer of the territories of Saxony.

Maurice, as he saw blow after blow falling upon his former friends; one prince after another ejected from his estates, Protestantism crushed, and finally his own uncle and his wife's father led about to grace the triumph of the conqueror; as he saw the vast power to which the emperor had attained, and that the liberties of the German empire were in entire subjection to his will, his pride was wounded, his patriotism aroused, and his Protestant sympathies revived.

Maurice, meeting Charles V.on the field of intrigue, was Greek meeting Greek.
Maurice now began with great guile and profound sagacity to plot against the despotic emperor.