The Interim, of course, satisfied neither party. The Catholics regarded it as an unauthorized reformation, the Protestants as disguised popery. Charles, however, in the plenitude of his power, obliged many of the Lutheran states to accept it; while, as regards the Catholics, he was perhaps not sorry to show the pope that he, too, like Henry VIII., could regulate the consciences of his subjects, and prescribe their religious faith. He had broken with Paul III.; the council of Trent, against his wishes, had been removed to Bologna on a frivolous pretext; and a schism like that of England was apparently impending. At the least, Charles might not unreasonably desire to manifest that at last he was independent of that papal power with which mutual necessities had so long enforced the closest relations, and to prove that deference to his wishes was henceforth to be the price of his all-important support. He demanded that legates should be sent to Germany armed with extraordinary powers, among which was included authority to grant dispensations to married priests. Paul III. referred the request to the Sacred College and to the council then sitting at Bologna, and it was unanimously replied that it should be granted, with the limitations that monks should not be included, and that priests thus permitted to retain their wives should not exercise their functions or enjoy the fruits of their benefices.[1113] That Paul forthwith dispatched three nuncios entrusted with authority to do this shows not only the disposition which then existed to relax the rigor of the canons respecting celibacy, but also the importance which the question had assumed in the religious disputes of the time,[1114] though an absolute refusal was soon afterwards returned to the request of a German prince (supposed to be the Duke of Bavaria) requesting for his subjects the use of the cup, priestly marriage, and the relaxation of the obligation of fasting.[1115]
Temporary expedients and compromises such as these are interesting merely as they mark the progress of opinion. Paltry makeshifts to elude the decision of that which had to be decided, they exercised little real influence on the history of the time. It is true that when Charles, in 1551, at the Diet of Augsburg, issued a call for the reassembling of the council of Trent, he confirmed the Interim until that council should decide all unsettled questions,[1116] yet this confirmation was destined to be effective for a period ludicrously brief. A fresh treason of Maurice of Saxony undid all that his former plotting had accomplished; and, while Henry II. was winning at the expense of the empire the delusive title of Conqueror, Charles found himself reduced to the hard necessity of restoring all that his crooked policy had for so many years been devoted to extorting. The Transaction of Passau, signed August 2d, 1552, gave full liberty of conscience to the Lutheran states, until a national council or Diet should devise means of restoring the unity of the church; and in case such means could not be agreed upon, then the rights guaranteed by the Transaction were granted in perpetuity.[1117] If Charles was disposed to withdraw the concessions thus exacted of him, the miserable siege of Metz and the increasing desire for abdication prevented him from attempting it; and, at the Diet of Augsburg, in 1555, the states and cities of the Augsburg Confession were confirmed in their right to enjoy the practices of their religion in peace.[1118]
The long struggle thus was over. The public law of Germany at last recognized the legality of the transactions based upon the Reformation, and not the least in importance among those transactions were the marriages of the ministers of Christ.
[XXVI.]
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
The abrogation of celibacy in England was a process of far more perplexity and intricacy than in any other country which adopted the Reformation. Perhaps this may be partially explained by the temperament of the race, whose fierce spirit of independence made them quick to feel and impatient to suffer the manifold evils of the sacerdotal system, while their reverential conservatism rendered them less disposed to adopt a radical cure than their Continental neighbors.
In no country of Europe had the pretensions of the papal power been so resolutely set aside. In no country had ecclesiastical abuses been more earnestly attacked or more persistently held up for popular odium, and the applause which greeted all who boldly denounced the shortcomings of priest and prelate shows how keenly the people felt the evils to which they were exposed. William Langlande, the monk of Malvern, was no heretic, yet he was unsparing in his reprobation of the corruptions of the church:—
“Right so out of holi chirche,
Alle yveles springeth,
There inparfit preesthode is,