[Sidenote: Failure of German Nationalism in the Sixteenth Century]
The Council of Regency lasted until 1531, though its inability to preserve domestic peace discredited it, and in its later years it enjoyed little authority. Left to themselves, many of the princes espoused Protestantism. In vain Charles V combated the new religious movement. In vain he proscribed it in several Diets after that of Worms. In vain he assailed its upholders in several military campaigns, such as those against the Schmalkaldic League, which will be treated more fully in another connection. But the long absences of Charles V from Germany and his absorption in a multitude of cares and worries, to say nothing of the spasmodic aid which Francis, the Catholic king of France, gave to the Protestants in Germany, contributed indirectly to the spread of Lutheranism. In the last year of Charles's rule (1555) the profession of the Lutheran faith on the part of German princes was placed by the peace of Augsburg [Footnote: See below, p. 136.] on an equal footing with that of the Catholic religion. Protestantism among the German princes proved a disintegrating, rather than a unifying, factor of national life. The rise of Protestantism was the last straw which broke German nationalism.
[Sidenote: Charles V and England]
With England the relations of Charles V were interesting but not so important as those already noted with the Germans, the Turks, and the French. At first in practical alliance with the impetuous self-willed Henry VIII (1509-1547), whose wife—Catherine of Aragon—was the emperor's aunt, Charles subsequently broke off friendly relations when the English sovereign asked the pope to declare his marriage null and void. Charles prevailed upon the pope to deny Henry's request, and the schism which Henry then created between the Catholic Church in England and the Roman See increased the emperor's bitterness. Towards the close of Henry's reign relations improved again, but it was not until the accession of Charles's cousin, Mary (1553-1558), to the English throne that really cordial friendship was restored. To this Queen Mary, Charles V married his son and successor Philip.
[Sidenote: Abdication of Charles V]
At length exhausted by his manifold labors, Charles V resolved to divide his dominions between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip and to retire from government. In the hall of the Golden Fleece at Brussels on 25 October, 1555, he formally abdicated the sovereignty of his beloved Netherlands. Turning to the representatives, he said: "Gentlemen, you must not be astonished if, old and feeble as I am in all my members, and also from the love I bear you, I shed some tears." At least in the Netherlands the love was reciprocal. In 1556 he resigned the Spanish and Italian crowns, [Footnote: He made over to his brother all his imperial authority, though he nominally retained the crown of the Holy Roman Empire until 1558] and spent his last years in preparation for a future world. He died in 1558. Personally, Charles V had a prominent lower jaw and a thin, pale face, relieved by a wide forehead and bright, flashing eyes. He was well formed and dignified in appearance. In character he was slow and at times both irresolute and obstinate, but he had a high sense of duty, honest intentions, good soldierly qualities, and a large amount of cold common sense. Though not highly educated, he was well read and genuinely appreciative of music and painting.
PHILIP II AND THE PREDOMINANCE OF SPAIN
For a century and a half after the retirement of Charles V in 1556, we hear of two branches of the Habsburg family—the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs, descended respectively from Philip II and Ferdinand. By the terms of the division, Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, received the compact family possessions in the East—Austria and its dependencies, Bohemia, that portion of Hungary not occupied by the Turks, and the title of Holy Roman Emperor,—while the remainder went to Charles's son, Philip II,—Spain, the Netherlands, Franche Comté (the eastern part of Burgundy), the Two Sicilies, Milan, and the American colonies.
Over the history of Ferdinand and his immediate successors, we need not tarry, because, aside from efforts to preserve religious peace and the family's political predominance within the empire and to recover Hungary from the Turks, it is hardly essential. But in western Europe Philip II for a variety of reasons became a figure of world-wide importance: we must examine his career.
[Sidenote: Character and policies of Philip II]