But it is your bidding under God, not against God.

Ask us not, O gracious Kaiser! I cannot, and we cannot; and we must not, and dare not.

And "before I would deny my God and his Evangel," these are George's own words, "I would rather kneel down here before your Majesty, and have my head struck off,"-- hitting his hind-head, or neck, with the edge of his hand, by way of accompaniment; a strange radiance in the eyes of him, voice risen into musical alt: _"Ehe Ich wolte meinen Gott und sein Evangelium verlaugnen, ehe wolte Ich hier vor Eurer Majestat niderknien, und mir den Kopf abhauen lassen."-- "Nit Kop ab, lover Forst, nit Kop ab!"_ answered Charles in his Flemish-German; "Not head off, dear Furst, not head off!" said the Kaiser, a faint smile enlightening those weighty gray eyes of his, and imperceptibly animating the thick Austrian under-lip.

[Rentsch, p.637.Marheineke, _Geschichte der Teutschen Reformation _ (Berlin, 1831), ii.

487.] Speaker and company attended again on the morrow; Margraf George still more eloquent.