On the 21st of January Dr Saenz Pena at last perceived that his position was untenable, and he handed in his resignation.
The name is derived from the formal Protestatio handed in by the evangelical states of the empire, including some of the more important princes and 14 imperial cities, against the recess of the diet of Spires (1529), which decreed that the religious status quo was to be preserved, that no innovations were to be introduced in those states which had not hitherto made them, and that the mass was everywhere to be tolerated.
Later, the Variata of 1540 became the creed of the lVlelanchthonians and even of the Crypto-calvinists; so the framers of the Formula of Concord, promulgated in 1580, returned to the text handed in at the Diet.
At the same time he handed in the formal protest of Prussia to the federal diet.
Even after the discussion of the case with Bacon, he would not give his opinion until the others had handed in theirs.
