The Treaty of Passau represented, there cannot be a doubt, the general wish of Germany, both Catholic and Protestant. It received the hearty assent of all except a few devoted Catholics, and those who, like John Frederick, hoped to regain what they had lost, or, like Albert Alcibiades of Culmbach, looked to benefit by a continuation of the war. Much as Charles disliked the peace, any attempt to join the disaffected would have been madness. Yet with that doggedness which seemed to grow upon him with years, he did not abandon hope. The French had not been included in the treaty. A successful war waged against them might yet regain him popularity, and place him in a position to make one more struggle for all that he held dear.
Fortunately for the cause of Protestantism and the interests of Germany, Charles’ military enterprises failed. He secured, indeed, the assistance of Albert of Culmbach,Ill success of Charles prevents his breaking the Treaty. and in October, 1552, laid siege to Metz. But the skill and energy of the Duke of Guise, who here won his military name, baulked the efforts of Charles. The winter came on, and sorely tried the Spanish and Italian troops; and, in December, 1552, Charles abandoned the attempt, bitterly declaring that ‘Fortune, like women, favoured a young King rather than an old Emperor.’ Nor were his arms more successful in Italy. The republic of Siena, torn by internal dissensions, had put itself under the Emperor’s protection, and admitted a body of soldiers under Mendoza, the imperial ambassador at Rome. But the severity of Mendoza’s rule soon caused the Sienese to repent; they applied to France for aid, drove out the Spanish troops, and transferred their allegiance to France; while Solyman, again in alliance with the French, sent a fleet which threatened, though unsuccessfully, the city of Naples. In 1553, the Emperor, who had retired to the Netherlands, was somewhat more fortunate, and took the town of Terouenne. But in Italy, all the attempts of the Viceroy of Naples, and of Cosimo, Duke of Florence, to oust the French from Siena were vain; Naples was again threatened by a Turkish fleet, and the French conquered a part of Corsica. In Hungary, Isabella the widow of Zapolya, and her son, leaning on Turkish support, finally secured Transylvania; and Vienna itself might have been attacked once more if Solyman had not been called off by a Persian war, and distracted by the domestic troubles which led to the execution of his own favourite son Mustapha.
At this moment occurred the death of Maurice, an event which, under more prosperous circumstances, might have offered Charles an opportunity of final victory. In the midst of the foreign war, Charles had not ceased to intrigue with the disaffected, more especially with Albert of Culmbach. In return for the assistance that prince had given him before Metz, he had confirmed those grants of money and of land which Albert had extorted from the Bishops of Bamberg and Wurzburg. These claims Albert now proceeded to enforce with arms, in spite of the order of the Imperial Chamber; whereupon, in February 1553, Ferdinand and Maurice, who, with other Princes of the south of Germany, formed the League of Heidelberg to enforce the Treaty of Passau, marched against him and defeated him at Sievershausen, in the Duchy of Luneburg (July 9). The victory, however, was dearly bought, for Maurice died two days afterwards of his wounds.Death of Maurice at Sievershausen. July 9, 1553. Thus, at the age of thirty-two, a Prince passed away who had played the leading part in the history of Germany since 1546. To this day his aims and his character are matters of hot dispute. By some he is looked upon as the apt pupil of Machiavelli, a man devoid of religious conviction, or of any principle beyond that of calculating self-interest. Others represent him as the greatest statesman of the day; as the man who first guessed the designs of Charles, and whose treachery in 1546 was really only the first and necessary move towards the final vindication of the cause of Protestantism, forced upon him by the necessity of gaining a strong position before he could hope to resist the Emperor. As is so often the case with violent partisanship, the truth lies midway between these two extreme views. Although Maurice had no very strong convictions on the points at issue between the adherents of the two hostile creeds, and was, no doubt, influenced by ambition, yet it is unjust to accuse him of sacrificing the religion of his subjects to personal ends. In any case, whatever we may think of his motives, the ability of his statesmanship is beyond dispute. Once deceived by Charles, he quickly learnt of him, and finally succeeded in outmanœuvring that master of diplomacy. To Maurice, at least, Protestantism owed its final recognition, and Germany her escape from the Spanish tyranny of Charles. Nor did the electorate of Saxony suffer under his hands. The country was well ruled, and education advanced. Nay, had Maurice lived longer or been succeeded by men of like calibre with himself, Saxony would probably not have seen herself eclipsed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by her neighbours, the Hohenzollern Electors of Brandenburg. Whether it be true that, at the moment of his death, he dreamt of even greater things, and that he, in conjunction with Ferdinand, was intriguing with France to secure the imperial dignity for himself, we cannot say. Maurice was too good a diplomatist to show his hand before the decisive moment. But at least we may believe that Germany would not have fared ill under him as Emperor.
Neither Albert nor Charles benefited from the death of Maurice. The former was shortly driven from Germany to end his days as a pensioner of the French King, while his dominions in Franconia fell to his cousin, George Frederick of Anspach; and Charles, despairing of resisting the united will of Germany, at last bowed to the inevitable. He abandoned his scheme of succession, and ceased to oppose a permanent settlement of the religious difficulties. To this course he was the more inclined, because he now thought of marrying Philip to Mary, the Catholic Queen of England, and thus uniting England with the Spanish monarchy. With this change of policy, the rivalry between him and his brother was at an end, and Ferdinand was given a free hand in Germany.
The affairs of Saxony first demanded attention. John Frederick, in spite of his remonstrances, was forced to rest content with some territorial concessions; while the rest of the dominions, with the electoral titles, went to Augustus, the brother of Maurice.
Having settled this question satisfactorily, Ferdinand prevailed on his brother to summon the Diet to Augsburg in February, 1555.Diet of Augsburg. Feb.–Sept. 1555. Charles, however, refused to take any part in the negotiations, and left Ferdinand to preside and to settle matters as he would, with the warning that he should do nothing against his conscience.
With a few exceptions all in Germany, both Catholic and Protestant, earnestly desired a settlement of the religious question, and the establishment of a peace which might protect them from such turbulent spirits as Albert of Brandenburg. And yet the attempt to reconcile the conflicting interests of the two religions—always a difficult matter—was rendered doubly so by the complicated character of the imperial constitution. No sooner, therefore, did discussion begin than dissensions appeared, and these were fostered by the papal party.Death of Julius III., March 1555, facilitates matters. Fortunately, the death of Julius III., in March, forced his legate, Cardinal Morone, to retire from Augsburg. The next Pope, Marcellus II., only lived twenty days; and although his successor, Paul IV. (Caraffa), attempted to put every obstacle in the way, he was only able to limit the concessions granted to the Protestants.
On two points, agreement was comparatively easy. It was declared that hereafter all religious disputes should be settled by peaceful means, and to this end, in all causes between a Catholic and a Lutheran, the Imperial Chamber was to be composed of an equal number of assessors from either party. The remaining questions presented greater difficulties. The Lutherans had originally wished that every individual should be allowed to conform to the Confession of Augsburg, whether the subject of a Protestant state or no. But this was dreaded by those Catholic Princes in whose dominions Lutheranism had made great strides, and the Reformers were forced to rest content with the stipulation, that every secular Prince or imperial city should be allowed to decide which of the two religions should be adopted within their jurisdiction, and that those who could not conform should be allowed to depart with their goods. A compromise was also arrived at with regard to the secularisation of ecclesiastical property within the jurisdiction of secular Princes. All such property as had been secularised before the Treaty of Passau, 1552, was to remain so, but no further exercise of the right was to be allowed. The Protestants, while conceding this point, demanded that ecclesiastical Princes should, like the secular Princes, be allowed to establish what religion they liked within their jurisdictions, and that any ecclesiastical Prince or Bishop who adopted the Lutheran Confession should retain his dignities and his revenues. This would, however, have dealt a fatal blow at the whole fabric of the Empire, and was stoutly resisted by the Catholics, and by Ferdinand himself. As the Lutherans stood out, Ferdinand thought seriously of postponing the consideration of this question, lest the rest of the treaty might be lost. Finally, however, an unsatisfactory compromise was arrived at. It was enacted, that if any ecclesiastic should hereafter abandon the Catholic religion, he should relinquish his office, with the revenues and patronage appertaining thereto. This clause the Lutherans allowed to be inserted in the treaty, but only under protest that they did not consider the reservation binding on them; and further obtained the concession that those subjects of ecclesiastical Princes, who had already embraced Lutheranism, should be unmolested, and that those who might subsequently become Lutherans should be allowed to emigrate.
By the Peace of Augsburg, the attempt of Charles to re-establish the unity of the Church on the basis of a revived Empire of the West, received its final death-blow; and the principle of autonomy in ecclesiastical matters was definitely recognised. Had Charles been victorious over his foreign enemies, in all probability he would, for a time at least, have gained his end. Had he been less ambitious, and confined his attention to Germany, he might possibly have succeeded in crushing out Lutheranism. But the very magnificence of his aims prevented their realisation. Again and again, when he was about to strike, some exigency of politics intervened to thwart him; and eventually the principle of territorialism, when supported by the foreigner, proved too strong. Yet it would not be fair to charge the Protestants with having used a religious cry to further their political ends. In Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, the religious element perforce connected itself with politics. The Reformation furnished a creed and a new enthusiasm to the political aspirations already existing, and eventually gave the victory to those political tendencies which were the strongest. Had Charles been a different man, he might have adopted Protestantism and thereon founded a united kingdom in Germany. But this his character and his Spanish sympathies prevented, and, short of complete victory on his part, there was no alternative but that of decentralisation. Henceforth, Germany abandoned all hope of reconciling the two religions by means of a general or even a national Council in Germany. The Lutheran Church obtained a legal recognition, and the Protestant states claimed to pursue their course without the intervention of any external ecclesiastical authority. In this way the mediæval conception of Church and State was completely revolutionised, and the temporal authority gained an independence it had not enjoyed before. Nevertheless, the settlement was by no means final, and bore in it the seeds of future discord. The principle of individual toleration was not conceded. If the Princes usually adopted the religion of the majority of their subjects, the rights of the minority were not respected. The ‘ecclesiastical reservation’ was certain hereafter to lead to serious disputes. Above all, the Calvinists, who were shortly to become the most active of the Reformers, were not included in the peace. The religious quarrels which ensued between them and the Lutherans embittered the political jealousies already existing. The Catholics took advantage of this, and Germany had yet to undergo the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War, before the religious question should receive its final settlement.
While Germany had been absorbed in these momentous issues, the war with France had been continued on the borders of the Netherlands, and in Italy, with varying results.Truce of Vaucelles. Feb. 1556. In April 1555, Siena was regained for the Imperialists by Cosimo, Duke of Florence. Elsewhere the events were unimportant, and, in 1556, a truce concluded at Vaucelles, led to a brief cessation of arms. By that date, however, Charles had ceased to be King of Spain.