CHARLES AND THE REFORMATION.—It is Charles' relations to the Lutheran movement which constitute the significant feature of his life and work. Here his policies and acts concerned universal history. It would hardly be asserting too much to say that Charles, at the moment he ascended the Imperial throne, held in his hands the fortunes of the Reformation, so far as regards the countries of Southern Europe. Whether these were to be saved to Rome or not, seemed at this time to depend largely upon the attitude which Charles should assume towards the reform movement. Fortunately for the Catholic Church, the young emperor placed himself at the head of the Catholic party, and during his reign employed the strength and resources of his empire in repressing the heresy of the reformers.
[Illustration: THE SPANISH KINGDOMS And Their European Dependencies under
Charles the Fifth]
HIS TWO CHIEF ENEMIES.—Had Charles been free from the outset to devote all his energies to the work of suppressing the Lutheran heresy, it is difficult to see what could have saved the reform doctrines within his dominions from total extirpation. But fortunately for the cause of the reformers, Charles' attention, during all the first part of his reign, was drawn away from the serious consideration of Church questions, by the attacks upon his dominions of two of the most powerful monarchs of the times,—Francis I. (1515-1547) of France, and Solyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), Sultan of Turkey. Whenever Charles was inclined to proceed to severe measures against the Protestant princes of Germany, the threatening movements of one or both of these enemies, at times acting in concert and alliance, forced him to postpone his proposed crusade against heretics for a campaign against foreign foes.
RIVALRY AND WARS BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS [Footnote: Table of Wars:— First War (ended by Peace of Madrid). . 1521-1526 Second War (ended by Ladies' Peace) . . 1527-1529 Third War (ended by Truce of Nice). . . 1536-1538 Fourth War (ended by Peace of Crespy).. 1542-1544] (1521-1544).—Francis I. was the rival of Charles in the contest for Imperial honors. When the Electors conferred the title of emperor upon the Spanish monarch, Francis was sorely disappointed, and during all the remainder of his reign kept up a jealous and almost incessant warfare with Charles, whose enormous possessions now nearly surrounded the French kingdom. Italy was the field of much of the fighting, as the securing of dominion in that peninsula was the chief aim of each of the rivals.
The so-called First War between Francis and the emperor was full of misfortunes for Francis. His army was driven out of Northern Italy by the Imperial forces; his most skilful and trusted commander, the Constable of Bourbon, turned traitor and went over to Charles, and another of his most valiant nobles, the celebrated Chevalier Bayard, the knight sans peur, sans reproche, "without fear and without reproach," was killed; while, to crown all, Francis himself, after suffering a crushing defeat at Pavia, in Italy, was wounded and taken prisoner. In his letter to his mother informing her of the disaster, he is said to have laconically written, "All is lost save honor." He was liberated by the Peace of Madrid (1526).
The most memorable incident of the Second War between the king and the emperor, was the sack of Rome by an Imperial army, made up chiefly of Lutherans. Rome had not witnessed such scenes since the terrible days of the Goth and Vandal.
In the Third War Francis shocked all Christendom by forming an alliance with the Turkish Sultan, who ravaged with his fleets the Italian coasts, and sold his plunder and captives in the port of Marseilles. Thus was a Christian city shamefully opened to the Moslems as a refuge and a slave-market.
The Fourth War, which was the last between the rivals, left their respective possessions substantially the same as at the beginning of the strife, in 1521.
DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF THE WAR.—The results of these royal contentions had been extremely calamitous. For a quarter of a century they had kept nearly all Europe in a perfect turmoil, and by preventing alliances of the Christian states, had been the occasion of the severe losses which Christendom during this period suffered at the hands of the Turks. Hungary had been ravaged with fire and sword; Rhodes had been captured from the Knights of St. John; and all the Mediterranean shores pillaged, and thousands of Christian captives chained to the oars of Turkish galleys. [Footnote: The worst feature of this advance of the Sultan's authority in the Mediterranean was the growth, under his protection, of the power of the Algerian pirates. One of the chief strongholds of the pirates on the African coast was Tunis, which was held by the famous Barbarossa. In the interval between his second and third wars with Francis, Charles, with a large army and fleet, made an assault upon this place, defeated the corsair, and set free 20,000 Christian captives. For this brilliant and knightly achievement, the emperor received great applause throughout Europe. Just after his third war with Francis, the emperor made an unsuccessful and most disastrous assault upon Algiers, another stronghold of the corsairs.]
PERSECUTION OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS BY FRANCIS.—The cessation of the wars between Francis and Charles left each free to give his attention to his heretical subjects. And both had work enough on hand; for while the king and the emperor had been fighting each other, the doctrines of the reformers had been spreading rapidly in all directions and among all classes.