Although the people of Germany did not share to any great extent in the passion for travel and adventure which followed the discovery of America in 1492 and the circumnavigation of Africa in 1498, they were directly affected by the changes which took place in the commerce of the world. The supremacy of Venice in the South and of the Hanseatic League in the North of Europe, began slowly to decline, while the powers which undertook to colonize the new lands—England, Spain and Portugal—rose in commercial importance.
1518.
The last years of Maximilian promised new splendors to the house of Hapsburg. In 1515 his younger grandson, Ferdinand, married the daughter of Ladislas, king of Bohemia and Hungary, whose only son died shortly afterwards, leaving Ferdinand heir to the double crown. In 1516, the Emperor's elder grandson, Karl, became king of Spain, Sicily and Naples, in addition to Burgundy and Flanders, which he held as the great-grandson of Charles the Bold. At a Diet held at Augsburg, in 1518, Maximilian made great exertions to have Karl elected his successor, but failed on account of the opposition of Pope Leo X. and Francis I. of France, whose agents were present with heavy bribes in their pockets.
Disappointed and depressed, the Emperor left Augsburg, and went to Innsbruck, but the latter city refused to entertain him until some money which he had borrowed of it should be refunded. His strength had been failing for years before, and he always travelled with a coffin among his baggage. He now felt his end approaching, took up his abode in the little town of Wels, and devoted his remaining days to religious exercises. There he died, on the 11th of January, 1519, in the sixtieth year of his age.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE REFORMATION.
(1517—1546.)
- Martin Luther.
- —Signs of the Coming Reformation.
- —Luther's Youth and Education.
- —His Study of the Bible.
- —His Professorship at Wittenberg.
- —Visit to Rome.
- —Tetzel's Sale of Indulgences.
- —Luther's Theses.
- —His Meeting with Cardinal Cajetanus.
- —Escape from Augsburg.
- —Meeting with the Pope's Nuncio.
- —Excitement in Germany.
- —Luther burns the Pope's Bull.
- —Charles V. elected German Emperor.
- —Luther before the Diet at Worms.
- —His Abduction and Concealment.
- —He Returns to Wittenberg.
- —Progress of the Reformation.
- —The Anabaptists.
- —The Peasants' War.
- —Luther's Manner of Translating the Bible.
- —Leagues For and Against the Reformation.
- —Its Features.
- —The Wars of Charles V.
- —Diet at Speyer.
- —The Protestants.
- —The Swiss Reformer, Zwingli.
- —His Meeting with Luther.
- —Charles V. returns to Germany.
- —The Augsburg Confession.
- —Measures against the Protestants.
- —The League of Schmalkalden.
- —The Religious Peace of Nuremberg.
- —Its Consequences.
- —John of Leyden.
- —Another Diet.
- —Charles V. Invades France.
- —The Council of Trent.
- —Luther's last Years.
- —His Death and Burial.
1519. MARTIN LUTHER.
When the Emperor Maximilian died, a greater man than himself or any of his predecessors on the Imperial throne had already begun a far greater work than was ever accomplished by any political ruler. Out of the ranks of the poor, oppressed German people arose the chosen Leader who became powerful above all princes, who resisted the first monarch of the world, and defeated the Church of Rome after an undisturbed reign of a thousand years. We must therefore leave the succession of the house of Hapsburg until we have traced the life of Martin Luther up to the time of Maximilian's death.