of Count von Spiegel, the incumbent of the metropolitan see of Cologne, the Prussian government, to the surprise of Catholics and Protestants alike, desired Clemens August as his successor. This unexpected move on the part of the government was intended to conciliate the Catholic nobility of Westphalia and Rhenish Prussia as well as the Catholic clergy and laity, who began to lose confidence in the fairmindedness of the government and protested against the open favouritism shown to Protestants in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. The cathedral chapter of Cologne, primarily at the request of Crown Prince (later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV), elected Clemens August as Archbishop of Cologne on 1 December 1835. He received the papal confirmation on 1 February 1836, and was solemnly enthroned by his brother, Maximilian, Bishop of Münster, on 29 May. Soon after this he came into conflict with the adherents of Georg Hermes (died 1831), whose doctrines had been condemned by Pope Gregory XVI on 26 September 1835. When many professors at the University of Bonn refused to submit to the papal bull, Clemens August refused the imprimatur to their theological magazine, forbade the students of theology to attend their lectures, and drew up a list of anti-Hermesian theses to which all candidates for sacerdotal ordination and all pastors who wished to be transferred to new parishes were obliged to swear adherence. The government was angered because the archbishop had enforced the papal bull without the royal approbation, but gave him to understand that it would allow him free scope in this affair, provided he would accede to its demands concerning mixed marriages. Before Clemens August became archbishop he was asked by an agent of the government whether, if he should be set over a diocese, he would keep in force the agreement regarding mixed marriages, which was made "in accordance with the papal Brief of 25 March 1830", between Archbishop von Spiegel and Minister Bunsen on 19 June 1834. Clemens August did not then know in what this agreement consisted. Lipgen states that he deliberately failed to apprise himself of the contents. Relying on the words "in accordance with the papal Brief", he answered in the affirmative. After becoming archbishop he discovered that the agreement in question, far from being in accordance with the papal Brief, was in some essential points in direct opposition to it. The papal Brief forbade Catholic priests to celebrate mixed