The position of the League of Schmalkalde on the proclamation of the imperial ban was a serious one. They had trusted too easily to the Emperor’s promises,Critical condition of the League of Schmalkalde. and now found themselves unprepared for war. The concessions of Charles had reduced their ranks, and the only members of the League who actually took up arms were John Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg, and the towns of Augsburg, Strasburg, Ulm, and Constance. None the less, had the Protestants boldly taken the offensive, they might have secured the Upper Inn and the outlet of the Brenner Pass, and thus prevented the march of troops from Italy, without which the Emperor could do little; or, again, they might have surrounded him in Ratisbon, where he had but few troops. But the organisation of the League was very faulty, there were many jealousies and quarrels, and John Frederick was no statesman, and no general. The army of the League, therefore, adopted a weak defensive attitude, and entrenched itself between the Danube and the Rhine. Charles, taking advantage of the dilatoriness of his enemies, had time to concentrate his troops from Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, and then by superior strategy, in which he was assisted by Alva, was able to avoid a decisive battle until events in the north forced his enemies to retire.
It was not until Maurice had received a definite promise of the Electorate that, on October 27, he declared himself. Armed with Charles’ orders to occupy the forfeited estates of John Frederick, he then approached his own subjects. He warned them of the danger of refusal, and by undertaking that their religion should not be interfered with, at last gained their consent to act. Finally, when John Frederick contemptuously rejected his proposal to occupy the Electorate quietly, he united his forces with those of Ferdinand and rapidly overran the whole territory, with the exception of Wittenberg,Maurice declares himself, Oct. 27, 1546. And overruns the Electorate, November. Eisenach, and Gotha (November 1546). The receipt of this news filled the members of the League with alarm, and their overtures of peace having been spurned by Charles, the Landgrave Philip and John Frederick hurried north, while the rest of the confederates dispersed to protect, if possible, their own territories. This enabled the Emperor to deal with his opponents in detail, and to make himself master in the south. The cities of the League were quickly occupied.Success of Charles in the South. The Duke of Würtemberg, and the Elector-Palatine, who, though taking no active part himself, had assisted the League with troops, submitted. They undertook to obey the Diet, and the decisions of the Imperial Chamber, and to pay a fine; and Charles, on his side, promised, as he had promised to Maurice, that with regard to religious matters they should be left in peace until the final settlement. At the same time, Herman von der Wied, the Archbishop of Cologne, resigned his see (January 1547), and a Catholic succeeded him.
Elsewhere, however, matters were not going so well for Charles. John Frederick, on his return, not only easily recovered his dominions,Successes of John Frederick in Saxony. but invaded the territories of Maurice, where he was well received; Ferdinand, recalled by a Protestant insurrection in Bohemia, could give no assistance; and Maurice in a few weeks lost all his lands except Leipsic and Dresden, which were too strong to be suddenly reduced.Quarrel of Charles with Paul III. prevents his assisting Maurice. Nor could Charles respond at once to Maurice’s call for help. His alliance with the Pope seemed likely to break up. The interests of Paul III. as an Italian potentate demanded that neither France nor Spain should become too powerful; as a Farnese, it was his aim to increase the power of his family. The refusal, therefore, of Charles to appoint Ottavio Farnese as Stadtholder of Milan on the death of the Marquis de Guasto in March 1546, and the appointment of Gonzaga, an old enemy of the Farnese and a strong supporter of the imperial claims in Italy, had irritated the Pope, while the imperial successes now alarmed him. Emperor and Pope differed, too, with regard to the Council of Trent. Charles was most anxious that the Council should proceed no further in the definition of dogma, lest thereby the apprehensions of the moderate Protestants should be too soon aroused; Paul, less careful of the position of Charles in Germany, wished to maintain the infallibility of the Pope and of the Church, and hesitated to touch the thorny question of internal reform; he also feared lest the Emperor, victorious in the north, might come to Trent and claim to preside. True, therefore, to the traditions of papal policy, Paul began to waver. The time having expired for which he had lent his troops (December 1546), he recalled them, and refused to send any more. He declined to sanction the grant of ecclesiastical revenues from Spain which Charles had demanded for the war;Council of Trent removed to Bologna. March 1549. and since Trent was surrounded by Austrian lands, in March he removed the Council to Bologna. Nor did the Pope stop here. He even entered into intrigues with Francis, who, disappointed in his hopes with regard to Milan by the death of the Duke of Orleans (September 1545), was negotiating again with the League of Schmalkalde, and stirring up revolts in Genoa, Siena, and Naples.
Fortunately for Charles, the dilatoriness and want of generalship of John Frederick saved Maurice from ruin, until the death of Francis I. (March 1547),Charles marches North. April 1547. relieved the Emperor from the fear of a French attack; and he was able, although tortured with gout and pale as a ghost, to march north, in April 1547. Even then the imperial army only numbered some 16,000 men, mostly Italians, Spaniards, and Hungarians; while the Elector had a much larger force at his disposal. This deficiency in numbers was, however, fully compensated for by the superiority of Charles’ veterans, and by the utter want of generalship displayed by his opponent. Not only had the Elector despatched a considerable detachment to aid the Bohemians against Ferdinand, but he further weakened his forces by attempting to hold open towns. When the success of Charles, who entered Saxony from the south and rapidly reduced these positions, forced him at last to concentrate on Mühlberg, a town to the east of the Elbe not far from Dresden, he did not even then use all his troops to dispute the passage of the river, where Charles might, perhaps, have been successfully resisted. When the Emperor had crossed the river, the Elector in vain attempted to retreat.Battle of Mühlberg. April 24, 1547. He was forced to accept a battle, in which his personal courage and that of his troops was of no avail against the well-disciplined veterans of his foe. After a short struggle, the Saxons gave way; the Elector, surrounded and wounded, had no alternative but to surrender; and Charles and his foreign army had won a decisive victory with the loss of some fifty men. It was earnestly debated whether John Frederick should not answer with his head for his rebellion. Such condign punishment, urged Pedro de Soto, Charles’ confessor, would have an excellent effect. But Wittenberg was strong, and too severe a treatment might raise further opposition; accordingly, by the advice of Granvelle and of Alva, his life was spared. Even so, the terms were hard enough. The city of Wittenberg was to surrender at once; John Frederick was to resign the electoral dignity and most of his territories, of which those in Bohemia were to go to Ferdinand; he was to submit to the decision of the Imperial Chamber, and remain a prisoner for the rest of his life. On these conditions the city of Gotha and the district around it, with a pension to be paid out of the other territories, were secured to his heirs, and a provision was to be made for his own support.
The capture of John Frederick was shortly followed by the submission of the Landgrave. Hitherto he had rejected the offers made by Charles. Now that opposition seemed hopeless, he was persuaded by Ferdinand and Maurice to accept the Emperor’s terms, severe though they were. Most of the Hessian strongholds were to be delivered, and their fortifications demolished; the Landgrave was to acknowledge the imperial authority, and submit to the decrees of the Imperial Chamber; he was to set the Duke of Brunswick free, to pay a fine, and to place himself in the Emperor’s hands. Charles, it is said, once master of the person of the Landgrave, took advantage of some looseness in the agreement, and, contrary to the distinct undertaking of Ferdinand and Maurice, refused to grant him his liberty, declaring that he had only promised not to keep him in prison for ever.[55] It does not appear that Charles actually broke his word, and the chief blame of the mistake must apparently fall on Ferdinand and Maurice, who gave promises to Philip without full authority. None the less, Maurice had understood Charles otherwise. He considered that he had been duped, and Germany believed it. Maurice never forgave the Emperor, and Germany did not forget.
§ 2. From the Diet of Augsburg to the Peace of Augsburg.
When on September 1, 1547, Charles met his Diet at Augsburg, he seemed at last about to realise his dream of re-establishing the unity of the Church.Diet of Augsburg. Sept. 1547 to June 1548. All his opponents were either defeated or had come to terms, and all had agreed to accept the decisions of a General Council. The Diet unanimously declared itself to the same effect, and demanded that the Council should be recalled to Trent. The Chamber of the Princes further insisted that the decisions already published by the Council should be reconsidered. The lay Electors held that Scripture should be the only authority on matters of dogma, and wished for reform of the Church in ‘Head, and members’; the deputies from the imperial cities requested that the Council should be composed of learned men of all orders. Some desired that the Council should be under the presidency of the Emperor, and although this was not demanded by the whole Diet, nothing was said of the necessity of papal approval.
The Emperor, armed with this support, requested Paul to recall the Council from Bologna to Trent. He expressly stated that he did not approve of all that had been said against the papal authority,Renewed quarrel between Pope and Emperor. but urged the Pope to take advantage of this unlooked-for submission on the part of Germany. It cannot be denied that a serious question of principle was involved in this request. Although the Emperor did not definitely claim the right of presidency, yet the demand that the Council should return to Trent, where still some of the Spanish and Neapolitan bishops remained, practically assumed that the Council at Bologna was no true Council. Compliance with the demand of Charles would have emphasised the control of the temporal over the spiritual power, and dealt a blow at the independence of the Church, which claimed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. And yet if the Pope had really been in complete harmony with the Emperor on other matters, one of the many compromises which were suggested could probably have been carried out by the clever diplomacy of Mendoza, the imperial ambassador at Rome. Unfortunately, the affairs of Italy once more stood in the way of that reconciliation between Pope and Emperor which was so desirable for the welfare of the Church. On September 10 Pierluigi Farnese, to whom his father Paul had granted Parma and Piacenza, fell a victim to a conspiracy. He had been the centre of anti-imperialist intrigues during the winter and spring of 1546–1547; and Gonzaga, the imperial governor at Milan, who, with the consent of the Emperor, had supported the conspiracy though not the assassination, forthwith occupied Piacenza, ostensibly to preserve the peace, but really in pursuit of ambitious views of extending the imperial authority in north Italy. The angry Pope at once entered into negotiations with Henry II. of France. He was even heard to say that he would call hell itself to avenge him of his enemy. At the same time the prelates at Bologna, influenced, it must be allowed, by more worthy motives, replied to the Emperor’s demand by summoning those ecclesiastics who had remained at Trent to join them at Bologna, whereby they might show that Germany meant to obey the Council. Charles might now have attempted to form a Council of his own at Trent; but he was too good a Catholic to think of starting a schism. Declaring therefore that he must take measures for the protection of that Church which the Pope neglected, he determined to settle matters in his own way. His confessor, Pedro de Soto, suggested that he should forbid all Lutheran preaching, insist on the restoration of secularised property, and of the Catholic ritual, and then leave every one to think as he pleased. But this, said Ferdinand, would require another war. The Emperor therefore fell back on the suggestion of his brother, that he should try to find some ground of union in Germany independently of the Pope.The Interim. May 19, 1548. The Interim followed, a document drawn up by theologians from both sides, and accepted without debate by the Diet, May 19. It affirmed that ‘There is but one Church, of which the Pope is chief Bishop; but the power lies in the Church under the guardianship of the Holy Spirit, rather than in the Pope.’ While insisting on the seven Sacraments in the Catholic sense, it agreed to the doctrine of Justification by Faith in somewhat vague terms, and declared that the questions of the celibacy of the clergy and of the Communion in both kinds should be left undecided until the calling of the future free Christian Council. It must not be supposed that Charles intended this settlement to be permanent; he only looked on it as a temporary measure which might entice the Protestants back to obedience to the Church and to the Empire. Nevertheless, had the whole Empire, Catholic and Protestant, accepted the Interim, a decided step would have been taken towards the establishment of a national Church under the control of the Emperor rather than of the Pope. Any such result as this was, however, prevented by the refusal of the Catholics to acknowledge the Interim as binding on them in their dealings with their subjects, and the only question was, how far Charles would be successful with the Protestants.
The attempts of Charles to re-establish his authority were not confined to the ecclesiastical sphere. He had also approached the Diet with schemes for strengthening the imperial power. He did not succeed in obtaining all he wished. His desire to revive, and, if possible, extend the organisation of the Suabian League (which had died out of late), though approved of by the smaller Princes, was resolutely opposed by many of the larger, even Maurice himself, and had to be abandoned. Nevertheless Charles gained much. He was allowed to nominate, for this term, the assessors to the Imperial Chamber, so long as they were Catholics, and was granted ‘a Roman month,’ as a fund for future contingencies. He also obtained his aim with respect to the Netherlands, which were now definitely organised as one of the Circles of the Empire, were put under imperial protection, and were to contribute to imperial taxation. But while in this way Charles hoped to gain for these hereditary possessions the support of the Empire, yet they were to retain their own privileges; and though their ruler was to have a seat in the Diet, they were to be free from its control, and from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber. In June, 1548, the Diet was dismissed, and Charles proceeded to enforce the Interim on the Protestants. In the south, where the events of the previous year had made him master, he was able, partly by expelling the Lutheran preachers, partly by revolutionising the town councils, partly by means of his Spanish soldiery, to secure obedience. In the north, he had more difficulty. But even there, except in the case of Magdeburg and a few imperial towns, he eventually obtained a general assent to a modified form of the Interim, drawn up by Melanchthon, and termed the ‘Leipsic Interim.’
In November 1549, the position of the Emperor was much strengthened by the death of Paul III.The death of Paul in Nov. 1549, and the election of Julius III., strengthen the position of Charles. That Pope, in the vain hope of prevailing on the Emperor to free Parma and Piacenza from their dependence on Milan, had assumed for a moment a conciliatory attitude, and spoke of confirming the Interim, and recalling the Council to Trent. Many at Rome thought these concessions dangerous and opposed such a policy, and on Charles’ refusal to comply with his demands with respect to Parma and Piacenza, the Pope had declared them annexed to the papal see and turned to France for aid. His death, therefore, was welcome news to Charles, more especially as Cardinal Monte, who succeeded as Julius III. in February 1550, contrary to all expectations, declared for the imperialists.Second Session of Diet of Augsburg. July 1550. He promised to recall the Council to Trent, to consider the question of internal reform, and to come to terms with regard to the Interim. Fortified by this unwonted alliance Charles found little difficulty in influencing the Diet (which was re-summoned to Augsburg in July), to submit to the Council of Trent; the Protestants even undertaking to appear there and plead their cause.