Further additions were made in the "libel," which was shortly afterward (January, 1563) presented by the French ambassador, and perfect harmony existed between the French and the imperial policy at the council. What decision, then, was to be expected on the crucial question as to the relations between papal and episcopal authority? How could a recognition of the Pope's claim to be regarded as rector universalis ecclesiae be expected from such a union of the ultramontane forces? The current was not likely to be stopped by the papal court, which about this time Pius IV announced on his own account at Rome; it seemed on the point of rising higher than ever when (February, 1563) the Cardinal of Lorraine and some other prelates waited upon the Emperor at Innsbruck. In truth, however, a turning-point in the history of the council was close at hand. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left Trent for Innsbruck with threats of a Gallican synod on his lips. Ferdinand I had arrived there very wroth with the council, and had received the Bishop of Zante (Commendone), whom the legates sent to deprecate his vexation, with marked coolness. The remedies proposed to the Emperor by the Cardinal were drastic enough; the council was to be swamped by French, German, and Spanish bishops, and the Emperor, by repairing to Trent in person, was to awe the assembly into discussing the desired reforms, whether with or without the approval of the legates. But Ferdinand I, by nature moderate in action, and taught by the example of his brother, Charles V, the danger of violent courses, preferred to resort to a series of direct and by no means tame appeals to the Pope. The latter, indisposed as he was to support a fresh proposition for the removal of the council to some German town, urged by France, but resisted by Spain, which at the same time persistently opposed the concession of the cup demanded by both France and the Emperor, saw his opportunity for taking his adversaries singly. The deaths about this time (March, 1563) of the presiding legate, Cardinal Gonzaga, and of his colleague Cardinal Seripando, both of whom had occasionally shown themselves inclined to yield to the reforming party, were likewise in his favor. Their places were filled by Cardinals Morone, formerly a prisoner indicted by the Inquisition, now an eager champion of papal claims, and Navagero, a Venetian by birth, but not in his political sentiments. Morone, though he had left Rome almost despairing of any favorable issue of the council, at once began to negotiate with the Emperor through the Jesuit Canisius. The leverage employed may, in addition to the distrust between Ferdinand and his Spanish nephew, and the ancient jealousy between Austria and France, have included some reference to the heterodox opinions and the consequently doubtful prospects of the Emperor's eldest son, Maximilian.

In a word, the papal government about this time formed and carried out a definite plan for inducing the Emperor to abandon his conciliar policy. The consideration offered for his assenting to a speedy termination of the council was the promise that, so soon as that event should have taken place, the desired concession of the cup should be made to his subjects. Ferdinand I, without becoming a thoroughgoing partisan of the papal policy, accepted the bargain as seemingly the shortest road to the end which, for the sake of the peace of the empire, he had at heart. Thus, notwithstanding the continued opposition of the French bishops, the decrees concerning the episcopate began to shape themselves more easily, and the Pope of his own accord submitted to the council certain canons of a stringent kind reforming in a similar way the discipline of the cardinalate (June). And when, in the course of a violent quarrel about precedence between the kings of France and Spain, the latter, enraged at his demands not being enforced by the Pope, had threatened, by insisting on the admission of Protestants to the council, indefinitely to prolong it, the Emperor intervened against the proposal. But the conflict between the papal and the episcopal authority seemed still incapable of solution, and, though Lainez audaciously demanded the reference of all questions of reform to the sole decision of the Pope, and denounced the opposition of the French bishops as proceeding from members of a schismatic church, this opposition steadily continued in conjunction with that of the Spaniards, and still found a leader in the Cardinal of Lorraine.

Yet at this very time a change began to be perceptible in the conduct of this versatile and ambitious prelate. The Cardinal was supposed to have himself aspired to the office of presiding legate, and, though he had missed this place of honor and power, the condition of things in France was such as naturally to incline him in the direction of Rome. The assassination of his brother Francis, Duke of Guise (February, 1563), deprived his family and interest of their natural chief, and inclined Catherine de' Medici to transact with the Huguenots. The Cardinal accordingly became anxious at the same time to return to France and prevent the total eclipse of the influence he had hitherto exercised at court, and to secure himself by an understanding with the Pope.

A letter which about this time arrived from Mary, Queen of Scots, declaring her readiness to submit to the decrees of the council, and, should she ascend the throne of England, to reduce that country to obedience to the holy see, may perhaps be connected with these overtures. Pius IV, delighted to meet the Cardinal half way, sent instructions in this sense to the legates, whom the recent display of Spanish arrogance had already disposed favorably toward France. Thus the decree on the sacrament of orders was passed in the colorless condition desired by the papal party, in a session held on July 15th, the Spanish bishops angrily declaring themselves betrayed by the French Cardinal. Other decrees were passed in this memorable session, among them one of substantial importance for the establishment of diocesan seminaries for priests. Clearly, the council had now become tractable and might speedily be brought to an end. In this sense the Pope addressed urgent letters to the three great Catholic monarchs, and found willing listeners except in Spain.

Meanwhile the remaining decrees, both of doctrine and of discipline, were eagerly pushed on. The sacrament of marriage gave rise to much discussion; but the proposal that the marriage of priests should be permitted, though formerly included in both the imperial and the French libel, was now advocated only by the two prelates who spoke directly in the name of the Emperor. But in the decree proposed on the all-important subject of the reformation of the life and morals of the clergy, the legates presumed too far on the yielding mood of the governments. It not only contained many admirable reforms as to the conditions under which spiritual offices, from the cardinalate downward, were to be held or conferred, but the papacy had wisely and generously surrendered many existing usages profitable to itself. At the same time, however, it was proposed not only to deprive the royal authority in the several states of a series of analogous profits, but to take away from it the nomination of bishops and the right of citing ecclesiastics before a secular tribunal. To the protest which the ambassadors of the powers inevitably raised against these proposals, the legates replied by raising a cry that the "reformation of the princes" should be comprehended in the decrees. It became necessary to postpone the objectionable article; but now the fears of the supporters of the existing system began to be excited, both at Rome and at Trent, and it was contrived to introduce so many modifications into the proposed decree as seriously to impair its value. Then, though the Cardinal of Lorraine himself, during a visit to Rome (September), showed his readiness to support the papal policy, the French ambassadors at the council carried their opposition to its encroachments upon the claims of their sovereign so far as to withdraw to Venice. And above all, the Spanish bishops, upheld by the persistency of their King, stood firmly by the original form of the reformation decree, and finally obtained its restoration to a very considerable extent. Thus the greater portion of the decree was at last passed in the penultimate session of the council (November 11th).

With the exception of Spain, all the powers now made known their consent to winding up the business of the council without further loss of time. But Count Luna still immovably resisted the closing of the council before the express assent of King Philip should have been received; nor was it till the news—authentic or not—arrived of a serious illness having befallen the Pope that the fear of the complications which might arise in the event of his death put an end to further delay.

Summoned in all haste, the fathers met on December 3d for their five-and-twentieth session, and on this and the following day rapidly discussed a series of decrees, some of which were by no means devoid of intrinsic importance. In the doctrinal decrees concerning purgatory and indulgences, as in those concerning the invocation of saints and the respect due to their relics and images, it was sought to preclude a reckless exaggeration or distortion of the doctrines of the Church on these heads, and a corrupt perversion of the usages connected with them.

Of the disciplinary decrees, the most important and elaborate related to the religious of both sexes. It contained a clause, inserted on the motion of Lainez, which the Jesuits afterward interpreted as generally exempting their society from the operation of this decree. Another decree enjoined sobriety and moderation in the use of the ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication. For the rest, all possible expedition was used in gathering up the threads of the work done or attempted by the council. The determination of the Index, as well as the revision of missal, breviary, ritual, and catechism, was remitted to the Pope. Then the decrees debated in the last session and at its adjourned meeting were adopted, being subscribed by 234 (or 255?) ecclesiastics; and the decrees passed in the sessions of the council before its reassembling under Pope Pius IV were read over again, and thus its continuity (1545-1563) was established without any use being made of the terms "approbation" and "confirmation." A decree followed, composed by the Cardinal of Lorraine and Cardinal Madruccio, solemnly commending the ordinances of the council to the Church and to the princes of Christendom, and remitting any difficulties concerning the execution of the decrees to the Pope, who would provide for it either by summoning another general council or as he might determine. A concluding decree put an end to the council itself, which closed with a kind of general thanksgiving intoned by the Cardinal of Lorraine.

The decrees of the council were shortly afterward (January 26, 1564) ratified by Pius IV, against the wish of the more determined Curialists, while others would have wished him to guard himself by certain restrictions. These were, however, unnecessary, as he reserved to himself the interpretation of doubtful or disputed decrees. This reservation remained absolute as to decrees concerning dogma; for the interpretation of those concerning discipline, Sixtus V afterward appointed a special commission under the name of the "congregation of the Council of Trent." While the former became ipso facto binding on the entire Church, the decrees on discipline and reformation could not become valid in any particular state till after they had been published in it with the consent of its government. This distinction is of the greatest importance. The doctrinal system of the Church of Rome was now enduringly fixed; the area which the Church had lost she could henceforth only recover if she reconquered it.

Many attempts at reunion by compromise have since been made from the Protestant side, and some of these have perhaps been met half way by the generous wishes of not a few Catholics; but the Council of Trent has doomed all these projects to inevitable sterility. The gain of the Church of Rome from her acquisition at Trent of a clearly and sharply defined "body of doctrine" is not open to dispute, except from a point of view which her doctors have steadily repudiated. And it is difficult to suppose but that, in her conflict with the spirit of criticism which from the first in some measure animated the Protestant Reformation and afterward urged it far beyond its original scope, the Church of Rome must have proved an unequal combatant had not the Council of Trent renewed the foundations of the authority claimed by herself and of that claimed by her head on earth.

The effect of the disciplinary decrees of the council, though more far-reaching and enduring than has been on all sides acknowledged, was necessarily in the first instance dependent on the reception given to them by the several Catholic powers. The representatives of the Emperor at once signed the whole of the decrees of the council, though only on behalf of his hereditary dominions; and he had his promised reward when, a few months afterward (April), the German bishops were, under certain restrictions, empowered to accord the cup in the eucharist to the laity. But neither the Empire through its diet, nor Hungary, ever accepted the Tridentine decrees, though several of the Catholic estates of the Empire, both spiritual and temporal, individually accepted them with modifications. The example of Ferdinand was followed by several other powers; but in Poland the diet, to which the decrees were twice (1564 and 1578) presented as having been accepted by King Sigismund Augustus, refused to accord its own acceptance, maintaining that the Polish Church, as such, had never been represented at the council.

In Portugal and in the Swiss Catholic cantons the decrees were received without hesitation, as also by the Seigniory of Venice, whose representatives at Trent had rarely departed from an attitude of studied moderation, and who now merely safeguarded the rights of the republic. True to the part recently played by him, the Cardinal of Lorraine, on his own responsibility, subscribed to the decrees in the name of the King of France. But the Parliament of Paris was on the alert, and on his return home the Cardinal had to withdraw in disgrace to Rheims. Neither the doctrinal decrees of the council nor the disciplinary, which in part clashed with the customs of the kingdom and the privileges of the Gallican Church, were ever published in France. The ambassador of Spain, whose King and prelates had so consistently held out against the closing of the council, refused his signature till he had received express instructions. Yet as it was Spain which had hoped and toiled for the achievement at the council of solid results, so it was here that the decrees fell on the most grateful soil, when, after considerable deliberation and delay, their publication at last took place, accompanied by stringent safeguards as to the rights of the King and the usages of his subjects (1565). The same course was adopted in the Italian and Flemish dependencies of the Spanish monarchy.

The disciplinary decrees of the council, on the whole, fell short in completeness of the doctrinal. But while they consistently maintained the papal authority and confirmed its formal pretensions, the episcopal authority, too, was strengthened by them, not only as against the monastic orders, but in its own moral foundations. More than this, the whole priesthood, from the Pope downward, benefited by the warnings that had been administered, by the sacrifices that had been made, and by the reforms that had been agreed upon. The Church became more united, less worldly, and more dependent on herself. These results outlasted the movement known as the Counter-reformation, and should be ignored by no candid mind.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Pole became archbishop of Canterbury (1556) and chief adviser to Queen Mary, under whom he was largely responsible for the persecution of English Protestants.

[55] The Farnese were an illustrious Italian family. Alessandro Farnese was Pope Paul III.

[56] Count Carlo Borromeo, Italian cardinal, Archbishop of Milan, was one of the most noted of the ecclesiastical reformers. He was canonized in 1610.



PROTESTANT STRUGGLE AGAINST CHARLES V

THE SMALKALDIC WAR

A.D. 1546

EDWARD ARMSTRONG

In 1530 Charles V convened a diet at Augsburg for the settlement of religious disputes in Germany and preparation for war against the Turks, who were advancing into the empire. The diet issued a decree condemning most of the Protestant tenets. In consequence of this the Protestant princes of Germany at once entered into a league, known as the Smalkaldic League, from Smalkald, Germany, where it was formed. They bound themselves to assist each other by arms and money in defence of their faith against the Emperor, and to act together in all religious matters. They concluded an alliance with Francis I, King of France, and from Henry VIII of England they received moral support and some material assistance.

Charles was not yet ready to proceed to extremities. In 1531 terms of pacification were agreed upon, and the Emperor received earnest support from Protestant Germany in his preparations against the Turks, who after all withdrew without a battle. During the next few years there was no open hostility between the two religious parties, but all attempts at reconciliation failed. In 1538 the Catholic princes formed a counter-league, called the Holy League, and violent disputes continued.

At last Charles determined to crush the Reformation in Germany by military force. The German Protestants refused to be bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545), because it was held in a foreign country and presided over by the Pope. Their attitude confirmed the Emperor in his resolve, and in 1546 began the conflict known as the Smalkaldic War, of which Armstrong gives us a spirited and impartial account.

War was actually opened neither by Emperor nor princes, but by the Protestant towns. The capable condottiere Sebastian Schartlin von Burtenbach led the forces of Augsburg and Ulm briskly southward, seized Fussen in the Bishop of Augsburg's territory on July 9th, and then surprised the small force guarding the pass of Ehrenberg, which gave access to the Inn valley. The religious character of the war was emphasized by plunder of churches and ill usage of monks and clergy. Two obvious courses were now open to the insurgent princes. Either they could march direct on Regensburg, where a mere handful of troops protected Charles from a strongly Protestant population, or in support of Schartlin they could clear Tyrol of imperialists, close the passes to Spanish and Italian reenforcements, and even pay a domiciliary visit to the Council of Trent. This latter was Schartlin's programme; the Tyrolese had Protestant sympathies and dreaded the advent of the foreign troops; Charles averred that even their government was ill-affected. Schartlin would even have persuaded the Venetians and Grisons to forbid passage to the Emperor's troops, and have enlisted the services of Ercole of Ferrara, the enemy of the Pope. But either of the two strategic movements was too bold for the Smalkaldic council of war. The first would have violated the neutrality of Bavaria, in which the league still believed, while it had no quarrel with Ferdinand, who was ostensibly conciliatory. The towns, moreover, wished to keep their captain within hail, for they feared the possibility of attack either from Regensburg or from Ferdinand's paltry forces in the Vorarlberg.

Schartlin retired on Augsburg, but on July 20th, reenforced by a Wuertemberg contingent, occupied Donauworth, and was here joined on August 4th by the Elector and Landgrave. The insurgent army now numbered fifty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. The very size of this force, by far the largest that Germany could remember, is a disproof of the not uncommon assertion that Charles took the Lutherans by surprise.

On a rumor that the enemy were crossing the Danube to separate him from the troops on the march from Italy, Charles moved on Landshut with some six thousand men, not much more than a tenth of the opposing force. He was determined, he wrote, to remain in Germany alive or dead, rejecting as idle vanity the notion that it was beneath his dignity to lead a small force. At Landshut he met papal auxiliaries under Ottavio Farnese and Alessandro Vitelli, with detachments of light horse sent by the Dukes of Florence and Ferrara. When the Spanish foot and Neapolitan cavalry had joined, he could muster at Regensburg twenty-eight thousand men, over whom he placed Alba in command. The Elector and Landgrave, in renunciation of their fealty, had sent in a herald with a broken staff addressed to Charles self-styled the Fifth and Roman Emperor. To him was delivered the ban of the empire against his masters, condemning them, not for heresy, but for acts of violence and rebellion, for the Pack plot, the attack on Wuertemberg, and the seizure of Brunswick.

The campaign now began in earnest. While the Lutherans timidly wasted their opportunities, Charles with his greatly inferior force made a hazardous night march on Ingolstadt. The movement was executed with much disorder, resembling a flight rather than an advance. The league neglected the chance of making a flank attack on the hurrying, straggling line as it followed the right bank of the Danube until it was conveyed across the river at Neustadt. To add to the Emperor's danger, his German troops were mostly Lutherans, hating the priests and the Spanish and Italian regiments. Many had early deserted from their general, the Marquis of Marignano; all cherished ill-feeling against Charles' confessor as being the cause of the civil war. Even the population of Bavaria, professedly a friendly territory, was in great part a Lutheran.

At Ingolstadt Charles could draw supplies from Bavaria, whose neutrality the league had foolishly respected, and thither the Count of Buren with the Netherland army might find his way. He was by no means out of danger, encamped as he was with but feeble artillery outside the city walls. But the Lutheran princes with all their bluster had little stomach for stand-up fights. From August 31st to September 3d they bombarded the city with one hundred ten guns, to which Charles' thirty-two pieces could make scant reply. They did not dare attack the impoverished trenches. "I would have done it," wrote the Landgrave, "had I been alone." On the other hand it was reported that the Lutherans laid the blame on Philip, that he had refused to move, "for every fox must save his own skin." The Cockerel, as the confessor, De Soto, had contemptuously prophesied, had crowed better than he fought. Charles, on the other hand, was at his best. He rode round the trenches, exhorting his soldiers to stand firm, with the assurance that artillery made more noise than mischief. In vain Granvelle sent the confessor to persuade him that Christianity needed an emperor less gallant and more sensible. He answered that no king nor emperor had ever been killed by a cannon-ball, and, if he were so unfortunate as to make a start, it would be better so to die than to live. When Ferdinand afterward expostulated with his brother, Charles assured him that his self-exposure had been exaggerated, but that they were short of hands, and it was not a time to set bad example.

The division of Lutheran command was already giving Charles the expected opportunities. The princes withdrew westward, a palpable confession of weakness. They had been the aggressors, and yet they now surrendered the initiative to Charles. Their retirement enabled the Count of Buren to march in with his Netherland division, and with him the troops of Albert and Hans of Hohenzollern. This march of Buren was the strategic feat of the war. He had led the hostile forces which were watching him a dance up and down the Rhine, and slipped across it unopposed. He had brought his troops three hundred miles, mainly through the heart of Protestant Germany, with no certain knowledge where he should find the Emperor, for communications could only be maintained by means of long detours. Finally he marched boldly past the vastly superior army of the league, which had professedly retired from Ingolstadt to bar his passage.

Charles now took the offensive, pushing the enemy slowly up the Danube, and steadily forcing his way toward Ulm. The strongly Protestant Count Palatine of Neuburg, Otto Henry, was the first prince to lose his territory, which, indeed, his debts had already forced him to desert.

The Lutherans now showed more fight, and during the last fortnight of October the advance came almost to a standstill. Charles was ill, money and supplies were falling short, Spaniards and Italians were suffering from the cold rains of the Danube valley. The papal contingent was demoralized for want of pay; three thousand men deserted in a day, whereas the Lutherans were reenforced. Yet Charles, in spite of professional advice, refused to go into winter quarters. He counted on divisions in the League, on the selfish interests of the towns, on the penury of the princes, and reckoned aright. The fighting was never more than skirmishing; not arms but ducats were deciding the issue; the fate of war was literally hanging on a fortnight's pay.

The Emperor had said that a league between towns and princes could never last. The financial burden pressed mainly on the cities, and they refused to raise further subsidies. The richer classes had always disliked the war; the great merchants were often, as the Fuggers of Augsburg, zealous Catholics. Trade was at a standstill, and they could protest that all their capital was at the Emperor's mercy, at Antwerp, at Seville, in the Indies, or else in Portugal. It was convenient to forget the brisk traffic which still continued with friendly Lyons. Zeal for the Lutheran cause seemed limited to a Catholic, Piero Strozzi the Florentine exile, who in his hatred for the Hapsburgs was vainly spending his fortune on revenge, striving for aid from Venice, negotiating loans from France. There was, moreover, no real solidarity between Northern and Southern Germany. Neither the Protestant princes nor the wealthy cities of the Baltic had as yet stirred a finger for the cause. Under any circumstances the Lutheran army must have broken up. The leaders had resolved to retire to the Rhineland for the winter, live at free quarters on the ecclesiastical princes, and renew the struggle in the spring.

At this critical moment Maurice of Saxony came into action. Hitherto his conduct had been ambiguous. This was probably due less to deliberate deceit than to genuine hesitation. The incompetence of the Lutheran leaders and Ferdinand's expressed intention of invading Ernestine Saxony determined him. Persuading his estates with difficulty that it was necessary to save the Electorate for the house of Wettin, he undertook to execute the ban in his cousin's state. His reward was the title of elector and the Ernestine territories. The correspondence of Charles and his brother on the subject was characteristic of both. Ferdinand, always greedy of territory, had bargained for partition, but Charles persuaded him to be content with John Frederick's Bohemian fiefs.

Charles, cautious and suspicious, was unwilling to grant the title until Maurice had proved his loyalty; Ferdinand, more impetuous, induced him to pay the bribe and give credit for the service. The Albertine and Austrian troops soon overran the defenceless land. This determined the manner of the Danubian campaign, and the Saxon phase of the war began. John Frederick must withdraw his troops to defend their homes, and he plundered en route the neutral ecclesiastical territories through which he passed. "In a papal country," he told the burgomaster of Aschaffenburg, "there is nothing neutral." The campaign of the Danube was suddenly over. Philip of Hesse retired sullenly to his two wives, as Schartlin put it. As he passed through Frankfurt he hoisted banners with the crucifix, flails, and mattocks, to incite the lower classes to revolt; he had failed to bend the powers above him, he would fain stir Acheron.

Charles could now complete the subjection of Southern Germany. Granvelle, the last to be convinced of the necessity of war, was the first convert to the policy of peace, which the Landgrave and the towns desired. Peace would relieve the financial strain and prevent the Germans from becoming desperate; peace would enable Charles to turn his arms against the Turks. Charles thought it undignified to negotiate with an army in the field: peace entailed the abandonment of Maurice, and henceforth no other prince would dare serve him; Augsburg and Ulm, if they were persuaded that he had no wish to establish a tyranny in Germany, were likely to capitulate, and after a victory his generosity in leaving Germany her liberty would appear the greater. Charles did not at this moment fear the Turk, and it was in his power at any moment to propitiate the French. Pedro de Soto urged the continuance of the war, to avert the danger of a papal-French combination, which would be the natural result of Paul's indignation at a compromise with heretics.

The deserted princes and towns of South Germany now one by one made submission. Very pathetic was the Emperor's meeting with the Elector Palatine, the friend of his youth, the whilom lover of his sister, the husband of his niece. Charles did not extend his hand: the Elector made three low bows, after which Charles drew out a paper which he read and then spoke to him in French—"It has grieved me most of all that you in your old age should have been my enemies' companion, when we have been brought up together in our youth." The Elector answered almost in a whisper, and left "like a skinned cat," the Emperor half raising his cap, but no one else. He was ordered to go to Granvelle, and the minister played the doctor and healed the wound. He returned with tears in his eyes, and then Charles forgave him. "My cousin, I am content that your past deserts toward me should cancel the errors which you have recently committed." Henceforth the old friendship was renewed.

Ulrich of Wuertemberg escaped less lightly. He paid a large indemnity, received Spanish garrisons in his fortresses, and engaged to serve against his late allies. He had no resource, for his subjects hated him; from the windows of the cottages fluttered the red and white Burgundian colors as a token of what was in the peasants' hearts. Ferdinand pressed warmly for the restoration of the duchy to Austria, but Charles replied that the aim of the war was the service of God and the revival of imperial authority: to seek their private advantage would only quicken the envy with which neighboring powers regarded the house of Hapsburg. Farther north the octogenarian of the Elector of Cologne resigned his see, and the evangelization of the Middle Rhine was at an end. Ulm gave in with a good grace, but Augsburg long delayed. Charles' original intention was, apparently, to garrison these towns, as Milan and Naples, with reliable Spanish troops, and perhaps to destroy their walls and dominate them by fortresses. But he treated the cities leniently. He left here and there companies of imperial troops, levied moderate contributions, replaced at Ulm and Augsburg the democratic constitution of the trades by the old wealthy aristocracies, but promised to respect the existing religion. Strasburg, which, in spite of French entreaties, capitulated in February, 1547, was almost exempt from punishment; it was feared that the distant, wealthy, and headstrong city might hold out a hand to the Swiss and become a canton.

In Southern and Western Germany there was no longer an enemy in the field, but, in the North, Maurice's treachery had brought its penalty. John Frederick, acting with unusual vigor, recovered his dominions, received homage from the feudatories of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, and overran Maurice's territories, until he was checked before the walls of Leipsic. When Ferdinand prepared to aid Maurice, the German Protestants of Lusatia and Silesia refused their contingents, and the Bohemian Utraquists made common cause with the Lutherans. The Utraquist nobility and towns formed a league in defence of national and religious liberties; they convoked a diet and raised an army. Ferdinand was faced by a general Bohemian revolt. His position was weakened by his wife's death in February, for it was pretended that he was merely consort. Only the Catholic nobles were for the Hapsburg King; the roads were barricaded to prevent the passage of his artillery; and John Frederick, entering Bohemia, received a hearty welcome. The North German maritime and inland cities were now in arms, and the Lutheran princes of Oldenburg and Mansfield were threatening the Netherlands. Charles sent his best troops to Ferdinand's aid, and despatched Hans and Albert Hohenzollern in support of Maurice. But Germans could still beat Germans. Albert was surprised and taken at Rochlitz. Ferdinand eagerly pressed Charles to march north in person. The Emperor was unwilling, and Granvelle strongly dissuaded it. The despatch of Alba was the alternative, but Charles did not trust his generalship. He was delayed, partly by gout, and partly by fear of a fresh rising in the Swabian towns. Here he had left seven thousand men, but he could not himself safely stay in Nuremberg without a garrison of three thousand, and could not afford to lock these up. His sole presence in the North, wrote Piero Colonna, was worth twenty-five thousand foot, and Charles, ill as he was, must march.

The unexpected turn which the war had taken in Saxony was not Charles' only trouble. Paul III had been alarmed by the Emperor's progress, which had been more rapid and complete than he expected, and at the end of six months, for which he had promised his contingent, he withdrew it. The material loss was slight, but the whole aspect of the war was altered. Charles could scarcely now profess to be fighting for submission to Pope and council, for the council in March transferred itself, after violent altercations with the Spanish bishops and imperial envoys, to Bologna. Rome rejoiced at the successes of John Frederick. In the late French war the Turks had figured as the Pope's friends and had spared his shores; it now seemed possible that the Lutherans might be the Pope's allies. It was certain that, if time were given, the Pope's defection would stimulate the active hostility of France. Charles must have done with the rebellion, and that quickly.

Tortured by gout and fearing that his forces would prove inferior to the Saxons, Charles moved painfully from Nordlingen to Regensburg and thence to Eger, where he was joined by Ferdinand, Maurice, and the electoral prince of Brandenburg. Spending Easter at Eger, he crossed the Saxon frontier on April 13, 1547, with eighteen thousand foot and eight thousand horse. Ten days of incessant marching brought him within touch of the Elector, who was guarding the bridge of Meissen. John Frederick had foolishly frittered away his forces in Saxon and Bohemian garrisons. He now burned the bridge and retired down the Elbe to Muehlberg, hoping to concentrate his scattered forces under the walls of Wittenberg, while his bridge of boats would keep open communications with the left bank.

Charles was too quick for the ponderous Elector. He marched at midnight on April 23-24, and at 9 A.M. reached the Elbe, nearly opposite Muehlberg. As the mist cleared, Alba's light horse descried the bridge of boats swinging from the farther bank, and a dozen Spaniards, covered by an arquebuse fire, swam the river with swords between their teeth, routed the guard, and brought the boats across. Meanwhile Alba and Maurice found a ford by which the light horse crossed with arquebusiers en croupe. Charles and Ferdinand followed, with the water up to the girths, the Emperor pale as death and thin as a skeleton. The Elector, after attending his Sunday sermon, was enjoying his breakfast; he made no attempt to defend his strong position on the higher bank, but withdrew his guns and infantry, covering the retreat in person with his cavalry. The bulk of the imperial forces had crossed by the bridge of boats, and the day was passed in a running rear-guard action. It was a long-drawn sunset, and not till between six and seven did Alba, as ever making sure, deliver his decisive attack. The Saxon horse had turned fiercely on the pursuing light cavalry some nine miles from Muehlberg, and then the imperialists, striking home, converted the retreat into a headlong flight. More than a third of the Saxon forces were left upon the field; the whole of their artillery and baggage train was taken. John Frederick regained his timid generalship by his personal bravery. Left almost single-handed in the wood through which his troops retired, he slashed at the Neapolitan light-horsemen and Hungarian hussars who surrounded him, but at length surrendered to Ippolito da Porto of Vicenza, who led him, his forehead streaming with blood, to Charles.

Of the interview between the Emperor and his enemy there are several versions, but none inconsistent. "Most powerful and gracious Emperor," said the Elector, vainly endeavoring to dismount, "I am your prisoner." "You recognize me as Emperor now?" rejoined Charles. "I am to-day a poor prisoner; may it please your majesty to treat me as a born prince." "I will treat you as you deserve," said Charles. Then broke in Ferdinand, "You have tried to drive me and my children from our lands."

The evidence as to the angry scene seems conclusive. Charles had been twenty-one hours in the saddle; he had been exasperated by the insolence of the Princess, who had addressed him as "Charles of Ghent, self-styled Emperor." Yet his harsh reception of a wounded prisoner contrasts unpleasantly with the generosity which his biographers have ascribed to him.

Muehlberg was little more than a skirmish, and yet it was decisive. In a far more murderous battle the imperialists were beaten. The forces of the maritime towns had compelled Eric of Brunswick to raise the siege of Bremen, and on his retreat had defeated him near Drakenberg with a heavy loss. But victories belated or premature do not turn the scale against an opportune success. The sole result of the battle was to delay the Landgrave's surrender a little longer. Philip had sworn to die like a mad-dog before he would surrender his fortresses, but he yielded ultimately without a blow. He found discontent rife among his nobles; he was threatened alike from the Netherlands and by the Count of Buren; for months he wavered between capitulation and resistance. Arras assured the nuncio that he was a scoundrel and a coward; that he had implored Maurice to intercede, first for all Lutheran Germany, then for John Frederick and himself, and finally for himself alone. "See what men these are," added the Bishop later. "Philip has even offered to march against the Duke of Saxony; he is a sorry fellow and of evil nature: he is such a scoundrel that his majesty cannot trust him in any promise that he may make, for he has never kept one yet."

The imperial minister's judgment upon the Landgrave was too severe. He long struggled for honor against fear, and, but for his son-in-law, Maurice's influence might have made a better fight. Maurice had from the first striven to detach Philip from John Frederick, while in turn he was expected by the Landgrave to strike in for a free Germany and a free gospel against the Hungarian hussars and the black Spanish devils. When the two Lutheran leaders parted in November, 1546, on no good terms, Philip warned his son-in-law that the Elector was on the march against him, but begged to intercede with Charles for a general peace. Maurice would have no peace with his Ernestine cousins, but offered to use all his influence on behalf of Philip, who must hasten to decide, for Buren was "on his legs" and the Emperor was an obstinate man. From this moment the Landgrave's irresolution was piteous; the negotiations crippled all enterprise, and yet he could not persuade himself to abandon his ally, although the natural expiry of the League of Smalkald on February 27, 1547, gave him a tolerable pretext. Maurice waxed impatient at the recurring hesitation, at the perpetual amendment of all suggested terms: Philip could not bargain with Charles as though he were a tradesman; he need have no fear for religion, but he must make it clear to the Emperor and Ferdinand that he was against John Frederick. Then came the defeat of Muehlberg, which at least relieved Philip from obligations to his late ally. It was now the surrender of his fortresses and his artillery that he could not stomach, and the victory of Drakenberg raised his once martial ardor to a final flicker.

The flicker died away, and at length Philip yielded to the pressure of Maurice and Joachim of Brandenburg. Charles insisted on unconditional surrender, but promised the mediators that punishment should not extend to personal injury or perpetual imprisonment—this only, however, on their pledge that Philip should not be informed of these limitations. It was agreed that he should dismantle his fortresses with one exception, surrender his artillery, and pay an indemnity, but that his territory should remain intact and its religion undisturbed.

With Philip's surrender the war seemed virtually at an end. Magdeburg, indeed, still held out, for fear of falling again under its Catholic Hohenzollern Archbishop. There was no reason to believe that the city would prove more courageous than its fellows. Charles did not dare spend his four thousand Spaniards in the assault, but in this case extravagance would have proved to be economy. When he knew his subject, his opinion was usually well founded; he had little knowledge, however, of North Germany, and confused Magdeburg with Ulm or Augsburg. It were better for Charles had his Spaniards been decimated on its parapet than that they should lord it in security over the churches and taverns of Southern Germany.

Apart from his two last mistakes, in the campaign against the league, Charles, whether as a soldier or statesman, is seen at his best. When once the drums beat to arms there was an end to irresolution. He had that reserve of energy upon which an indolent, lethargic nature can sometimes at a crisis draw. The Netherlands seemed threatened from east to west; yet in perfect calm he ordered his agitated sister Mary to watch her frontiers, but to send every man and gun that could be spared under Buren to the front. Taking advantage of his enemies' delays, he made with greatly inferior forces the forward move on Ingolstadt, and was there seen under heavy fire "steady as a rock and smiling." Racked by gout he now sought sleep in his litter behind a bastion, now warmed his aching limbs in a little movable wooden room heated by a stove. In the cold, wet November, when generals and ministers fell sick, and soldiers of every nationality deserted, he resolutely rejected expert advice to withdraw into winter quarters. He would not give his enemies, he said, the least chance of outstaying him. All success, wrote the Marquis of Marignano, was due to the Emperor's resolution to keep the field. Charles vexed the fiery Buren by shrinking from a general engagement, because he knew that his combinations would break up the league without the risk of a battle. But when once danger really pressed, ill as he was, he marched across Germany, and followed fast upon the Elector's heels until he tripped and took him.



INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO JAPAN

A.D. 1549

JOHN H. GUBBINS

Lands discovered or settled by Europeans after the founding of the Jesuits were quickly chosen by the zealous members of that order as scenes of missionary work. In the case of Japan, missions followed discovery with unusual rapidity.

Excepting what was told by Marco Polo, who visited the coast of Japan in the thirteenth century, nothing was learned of that country by the Western World until its discovery by the Portuguese. In 1541 King John III requested Francis Xavier, one of the Jesuit founders, with other members of his order, to undertake missionary work in the Portuguese colonies. Through his labors in India, Xavier became known as the "Apostle of the Indies." Before sailing to Japan he had established a flourishing mission with a school, called the Seminary of the Holy Faith, at Goa, on the Malabar coast of India.

It was to Portuguese enterprise that Christianity owed its introduction into Japan in the sixteenth century. As early as 1542 Portuguese trading vessels began to visit Japan, where they exchanged Western commodities for the then little-known products of the Japanese islands; and seven years afterward three Portuguese missionaries (Xavier, Torres, and Fernandez) took passage in one of these merchant ships and landed at Kagoshima.

The leading spirit of the three, it need scarcely be said, was Xavier, who had already acquired considerable reputation by his missionary labors in India. After a short residence the missionaries were forced to leave Satsuma, and after as short a stay in the island of Hirado, which appears to have been then the rendezvous of trade between the Portuguese merchants and the Japanese, they crossed over to the mainland and settled down in Yamaguchi in Nagato, the chief town of the territories of the Prince of Choshiu. After a visit to the capital, which was productive of no result, owing to the disturbed state of the country, Xavier (November, 1551) left Japan with the intention of founding a Jesuit mission in China, but died on his way in the island of Sancian.

In 1553 fresh missionaries arrived, some of whom remained in Bungo, where Xavier had made a favorable impression before his departure, while others joined their fellow-missionaries in Yamaguchi. After having been driven from the latter place by the outbreak of disturbances, and having failed to establish a footing in Hizen, we find the missionaries in 1557 collected in Bungo, and this province appears to have become their headquarters from that time. In the course of the next year but one, Vilela made a visit to Kioto, Sakai, and other places, during which he is said to have gained a convert in the person of the daimio, of the small principality of Omura, who displayed an imprudent excess of religious zeal in the destruction of idols and other extreme measures, which could only tend to provoke the hostility of the Buddhist priesthood. The conversion of this prince was followed by that of Arima-no-Kami (mistakenly called the Prince of Arima by the Jesuits).

Other missionaries arriving in 1560, the circle of operations was extended; but shortly afterward the revolution, headed by Mori, compelled Vilela to leave Kioto, where he had settled, and a simultaneous outbreak in Omura necessitated the withdrawal of the missionaries stationed there. Mori, of Choshiu, was perhaps the most powerful noble of the day, possessing no fewer than ten provinces, and, as he was throughout an open enemy to Christianity, his influence was exercised against it with much ill result.

On Vilela's return to Kioto from Sakai, where a branch mission had been established, he succeeded in gaining several distinguished converts. Among these were Takayama, a leading general of the time, and his nephew. He did not, however, remain long in the capital. The recurrence of troubles in 1568 made it necessary for him to withdraw, and he then proceeded to Nagasaki, where he met with considerable success. In this same year we come across Valegnani preaching in the Goto Isles, and Torres in the island of Seki, where he died. Almeida, too, about this time founded a Christian community at Shimabara, afterward notorious as the scene of the revolt and massacre of the Christians.

Hitherto we find little mention of Christianity in Japanese books. This may partly be explained by the fact that the labors of the missionaries were chiefly confined to the southern provinces, Christianity having as yet made little progress at Kioto, the seat of literature. But the scarcity of Japanese records can scarcely be wondered at in the face of the edict issued later in the next century, which interdicted not only books on the subject of Christianity, but any book in which even the name of Christian or the word Foreign should be mentioned.

Short notices occur in several native works of the arrival in Kioto at this date of the Jesuit missionary Organtin, and some curious details are furnished respecting the progress of Christianity in the capital and the attitude of Nobunaga in regard to it.

The Saikoku Kirishitan Bateren Jitsu Roku, or "True Record of Christian Padres in Kiushiu," gives a minute account of the appearance and dress of Organtin, and goes on to say: "He was asked his name and why he had come to Japan, and replied that he was the Padre Organtin and had come to spread his religion. He was told that he could not be allowed at once to preach his religion, but would be informed later on. Nobunaga accordingly took counsel with his retainers as to whether he should allow Christianity to be preached or not. One of these strongly advised him not to do so, on the ground that there were already enough religions in the country. But Nobunaga replied that Buddhism had been introduced from abroad and had done good in the country, and he therefore did not see why Christianity should not be granted a trial. Organtin was consequently allowed to erect a church and to send for others of his order, who, when they came, were found to be like him in appearance. Their plan of action was to tend the sick and relieve the poor, and so prepare the way for the reception of Christianity, and then to convert everyone and make the sixty-six provinces of Japan subject to Portugal."

The Ibuki Mogusa gives further details of this subject, and says that the Jesuits called their church Yierokuji, after the name of the period in which it was built, but that Nobunaga changed the name to Nambanji, or "Temple of the Southern Savages." The word Namban was the term usually applied to the Portuguese and Spaniards.

During the next ten years Organtin and other missionaries worked with considerable success in Kioto under Nobunaga's immediate protection. This period is also remarkable for the conversion of the Prince of Bungo, who made open profession of Christianity and retired into private life, and for the rapid progress which the new doctrine made among the subjects of Arima-no-Kami. This good fortune was again counterbalanced by the course of events in the Goto Islands, where Christianity lost much ground owing to a change of rulers.

Ten years thus passed away, when the Christian communities sustained great loss in the disgrace of Takayama, who was banished to Kaga for taking part in an unsuccessful intrigue against Nobunaga which was headed by the Prince of Choshiu. Takayama's nephew, Ukon, however, declared for Nobunaga, and the latter gave a further proof of his friendly feeling toward Christianity by establishing a church in Adzuchi-no-Shiro, the castle town which he had built for himself in his native province of Omi.

In 1582 a mission was sent to the papal see on the part of the Princes of Bungo and Omura, and Arima-no-Kami. This mission was accompanied by Valegnani, and reached Rome in 1585, returning five years later to Japan.

In the following year Nobunaga was assassinated and Hideyoshi, who succeeded him in the chief power, was content, for the first three or four years of his administration, to follow in the line of policy marked out by his predecessor. Christianity, therefore, progressed in spite of the drawbacks caused by the frequent feuds between the southern daimios, and seminaries were established under Hideyoshi's auspices at Osaka and Sakai. During this period Martinez arrived in the capacity of bishop; he was charged with costly presents from the Viceroy of Goa to Hideyoshi, and received a favorable audience.

Hideyoshi's attitude toward Christianity at this time is easily explained. The powerful southern barons were not willing to accept him as Nobunaga's successor without a struggle, and there were other reasons against the adoption of too hasty measures. Two of his generals, Kondera and Konishi Setsu-no-Kami, who afterward commanded the second division of the army sent against Corea, the Governor of Osaka, and numerous other officers of state and nobles of rank and influence, had embraced Christianity, and the Christians were therefore not without influential supporters. Hideyoshi's first act was to secure his position. For this purpose he marched into Kiushiu at the head of a large force and was everywhere victorious. This done, he threw off the mask he had been wearing up to this time, and in 1587 took the first step in his new course of action by ordering the destruction of the Christian church at Kioto—which had been in existence for a period of eighteen years—and the expulsion of the missionaries from the capital.

It will be seen by the following extract from the Ibuki Mogusa that Nobunaga at one time entertained designs for the destruction of Nambanji.

"Nobunaga," we read, "now began to regret his previous policy in permitting the introduction of Christianity. He accordingly assembled his retainers and said to them: 'The conduct of these missionaries in persuading people to join them by giving money does not please me. It must be, I think, that they harbor the design of seizing the country. How would it be, think you, if we were to demolish Nambanji?' To this Mayeda Tokuzenin replied: 'It is now too late to demolish the temple of Nambanji. To endeavor to arrest the power of this religion now is like trying to arrest the current of the ocean. Nobles both great and small have become adherents of it. If you would exterminate this religion now, there is fear lest disturbances be created even among your own retainers. I am, therefore, of opinion that you should abandon your intention of destroying Nambanji.' Nobunaga in consequence regretted exceedingly his previous action with regard to the Christian religion, and set about thinking how he could root it out."

The Jesuit writers attribute Hideyoshi's sudden change of attitude to three different causes, but it is clear that Hideyoshi was never favorable to Christianity, and that he only waited for his power to be secure before taking decided measures of hostility. His real feeling in regard to the Christians and their teachers is explained in the Life of Hideyoshi, from which work we learn that even before his accession to power he had ventured to remonstrate with Nobunaga for his policy toward Christianity.

Hideyoshi's next act was to banish Takayama Ukon to Kaga, where his uncle already was, and he then in 1588 issued a decree ordering the missionaries to assemble at Hirado and prepare to leave Japan. They did so, but finding that measures were not pushed to extremity they dispersed and placed themselves under the protection of various nobles who had embraced Christianity. The territories of these princes offered safe asylums, and in these scattered districts the work of Christianity progressed secretly while openly interdicted.

In 1591 Valegnani had a favorable audience of Hideyoshi, but he was received entirely in an official capacity, namely, in the character of envoy of the Viceroy of Goa.

Christianity was at its most flourishing stage during the first few years of Hideyoshi's administration. We can discern the existence at this date of a strong Christian party in the country, though the turning-point had been reached, and the tide of progress was on the ebb. It is to this influence probably, coupled with the fact that his many warlike expeditions left him little leisure to devote to religious questions, that we must attribute the slight relaxation observable in his policy toward Christianity at this time.

"Up to this date," says Charlevoix, "Hideyoshi had not evinced any special bitterness against Christianity, and had not proceeded to rigorous measures in regard to Christians. The condition of Christianity was reassuring. Rodriguez was well in favor at court, and Organtin had returned to Kioto along with several other missionaries, and found means to render as much assistance to the Christians in that part of the country as he had been able to do before the issue of the edict against Christianity by Hideyoshi."

The inference which it is intended should be drawn from these remarks, taken with the context, is clear; namely, that, had the Jesuits been left alone to prosecute the work of evangelizing Japan, the ultimate result might have been very different. However, this was not to be.

Hitherto, for a period of forty-four years, the Jesuits had it all their own way in Japan; latterly, by virtue of a bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1585—the date of the appointment of the first bishop and of the arrival at Rome of the Japanese mission—and subsequently confirmed by the bull of Clement III in 1600, by which the religieux of other orders were excluded from missionary work in Japan. The object of these papal decrees was, it seems, to insure the propagation of Christianity on a uniform system. They were, however, disregarded when the time came, and therefore, for a new influence which was brought to bear upon Christianity at this date—not altogether for its good, if the Jesuit accounts may be credited—we must look to the arrival of an embassy from the Governor of the Philippines, whose ambassador was accompanied by four Franciscan priests.

These new arrivals, when confronted by the Jesuits with the papal bull, declared that they had not transgressed it, and defended their action on the ground that they had come attached to an embassy and not in the character of missionaries; but they argued at the same time, with a casuistry only equalled by their opponents, that, having once arrived in Japan, there was nothing to hinder them from exercising their calling as preachers of Christianity.

The embassy was successful, and Baptiste, who appears to have conducted the negotiations in place of the real envoy, obtained Hideyoshi's consent to his shrewd proposal that, pending the reference to Manila of Hideyoshi's claim to the sovereignty of the Philippines, he and his brother missionaries should remain as hostages. Hideyoshi, while consenting, made their residence conditional on their not preaching Christianity—a condition which it is needless to say was never observed.

Thus, at one and the same time, the Spaniards, who had long been watching with their jealous eyes the exclusive right of trade enjoyed by the Portuguese, obtained an opening for commerce, and the Franciscans a footing for their religious mission.

It was not long before the newly-arrived missionaries were called upon to prove their devotion to their cause. In 1593, in consequence of the indiscreet statements of the pilot of a Spanish galleon, which, being driven by stress of weather into a port of Tosa, was seized by Hideyoshi, nine missionaries—namely, six Franciscans and three Jesuits—were arrested in Kioto and Osaka, and, having been taken to Nagasaki, were there burned. This was the first execution carried out by the government.

Hideyoshi died in the following year (1594), and the civil troubles which preceded the succession of Iyeyasu to the post of administrator, in which the Christians lost their chief supporter, Konishi, who took part against Iyeyasu, favored the progress of Christianity in so far as diverting attention from it to matters of more pressing moment.

Iyeyasu's policy toward Christianity was a repetition of his predecessor's. Occupied entirely with military campaigns against those who refused to acknowledge his supremacy, he permitted the Jesuits, who now numbered one hundred, to establish themselves in force at Kioto, Osaka, and Nagasaki. But as soon as tranquillity was restored, and he felt himself secure in the seat of power, he at once gave proof of the policy he intended to follow by the issue of a decree of expulsion against the missionaries. This was in 1600. The Jesuit writers affirm that he was induced to withdraw his edict in consequence of the threatening attitude adopted by certain Christian nobles who had espoused his cause in the late civil war, but no mention is made of this in the Japanese accounts.

So varying, and indeed so altogether unintelligible, was the action of the different nobles throughout Kiushiu in regard to Christianity during the next few years, that we see one who was not a Christian offering an asylum in his dominions to several hundred native converts who were expelled from a neighboring province; another who had systematically opposed the introduction of Christianity actually sending a mission to the Philippines to ask for missionaries; while a third, who had hitherto made himself conspicuous by his almost fanatical zeal in the Christian cause, suddenly abandoned his new faith, and, from having been one of its most ardent supporters, became one of its most bitter foes.

The year 1602 is remarkable for the despatch of an embassy by Iyeyasu to the Philippines, and for the large number of religieux of all orders who flocked to Japan.

Affairs remained in statu quo for the next two or three years, during which the Christian cause was weakened by the death of two men which it could ill afford to lose. One of these was the noble called Kondera by Charlevoix, but whose name we have been unable to trace in Japanese records. The other was Organtin, who had deservedly the reputation of being the most energetic member of the Jesuit body.

The number of Christians in Japan at this time is stated to have been one million eight hundred thousand. The number of missionaries was of course proportionally large, and was increased by the issue in 1608 of a new bull by Pope Paul V allowing to religieux of all orders free access to Japan.

The year 1610 is remarkable for the arrival of the Dutch, who settled in Hirado, and for the destruction in the harbor of Nagasaki of the annual Portuguese galleon sent by the traders of Macao. In this latter affair, which rose out of a dispute between the natives and the people of the ship, Arima-no-Kami was concerned, and his alliance with the missionaries was thus terminated.

In 1611 no less than three embassies arrived in Japan from the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese respectively, and in 1613 Saris succeeded in founding an English factory in Hirado, where the Dutch had already established themselves. It was early in the following year that Christianity was finally proscribed by Iyeyasu. The decree of expulsion directed against the missionaries was followed by a fierce outbreak of persecution in all the provinces in which Christians were to be found, which was conducted with systematic and relentless severity.

The Jesuit accounts attribute this resolution on the part of Iyeyasu to the intrigues of the English and Dutch traders. Two stories, by one of which it was sought to fix the blame on the former and by the other on the latter, were circulated, and will be found at length in Charlevoix's history.

We have no wish to enter upon a defence either of our countrymen or of the Dutch, and fully admit the possibility of such intrigues having occurred. Indeed, considering in what relations both Spanish and Portuguese stood at that time to both of the other nations, and how high religious feeling ran in the seventeenth century, it would be strange if some intrigue had not taken place. Still we should like to point out that there were, we think, causes, other than those to which the Jesuit writers confine themselves, quite sufficient in themselves to account for the extreme measures taken against Christianity at this date.

There was the predetermination against Christianity already shown by Iyeyasu; there were the new avenues of trade opened up by the arrival of the English and Dutch; there was the increased activity displayed by the missionaries at a time when Christianity was in a weak state, and lastly there was the influence of the Buddhist priesthood.

That this edict of expulsion issued by Iyeyasu was the effect of no sudden caprice on his part, is clear from the general view which we have of his whole policy, which was similar to that of his predecessor. His early tolerance of Christianity is susceptible of the same explanation as that shown by Hideyoshi. His mind was evidently made up, and he was only biding his time.

It is also highly probable that the new facilities for trade offered by the advent of the Dutch and English may have had some influence upon the action of Iyeyasu. It is impossible that he can have been altogether blind to the fact that the teaching of Christianity had not been unattended with certain evils, dangerous, to say the least, to the tranquillity of the country; and it cannot have escaped his notice that, whereas the respective admissions of Portuguese and Spaniards had been followed by the introduction of Christian missionaries, who in numbers far exceeded the traders, the same feature was not a part of the policy of the two other nations, whose proceedings had no connection whatsoever with religion. Possibly, too, reports may have reached his ears of the growing supremacy of the Dutch in the East, and have induced him to transfer his favor from the Portuguese and Spaniards to the new arrivals.

As regards the condition of Christianity at this time, the Jesuit accounts supply us with facts which show that, numerically speaking, the Christian cause was never so strong as at this period. There were some two millions of converts, whose spiritual concerns were administered by no fewer than two hundred missionaries, three-fourths of whom were Jesuits. According to the Kerisuto-Ki, a native work, there were Christian churches in every province of Kiushiu except Hiuga and Osumi, and also in Kioto, Osaka, Sendai, and Kanagawa in Kaga; and it was only in eight provinces of Japan that Christianity had gained no footing. An increased activity in the operations of the missionaries is discernible about this time. The Dominicans in Satsuma, the Franciscans in Yedo (Tokio), and the Jesuits in the capital and southern provinces, seem to have been vying with each other which should gain most converts; and the circuit made by Cerqueyra, in which he visited all the Jesuit establishments throughout the country, was probably not without effect in exciting fresh enthusiasm among the converts everywhere, which, again, would naturally draw attention to the progress of Christianity. But, strong as the position of the Christians was numerically, we must not judge of the strength of their cause merely by the number of converts, or by the number of missionaries resident in Japan. If we consider the facts before us, we find that Christianity lacked the best of all strength—influence in the state. All its principal supporters among the aristocracy were either dead, had renounced their new faith, or were in exile; and here we have the real weakness of the Christian cause. While, therefore, circumstances combined to draw attention to its progress, it was in a state which could ill resist any renewed activity of persecution which might be the result of the increased interest which it excited. Without influence at the court and without influence in the country, beyond what slight influence the mass of common people scattered through various provinces, who were Christians, might be said to possess, Christianity presented itself assailable with impunity.

The last cause we have mentioned, as being probably connected with the decisive measures adopted by Iyeyasu, is the influence of the Buddhist priesthood. Japanese history mentions the great power attained by the priesthood prior to Nobunaga's administration. Although that power was broken by Nobunaga, Hideyoshi did not inherit the former's animosity toward the priests, and Iyeyasu from the first came forward as their patron. And, again, we must not lose sight of the fact that a deep-rooted suspicion of foreigners was ever present in the minds of the Japanese Government; a suspicion which the course of events in China, of which we may presume the Japanese were not altogether ignorant—the jealousy of the native priests; the control of their converts exercised by the missionaries, which doubtless extended to secular matters; the connection of Christianity with trade; and the astounding progress made by it in the space of half a century—all tended to confirm. Enough has been said to show that we need not go so far as the intrigues, real or imaginary, of the English and Dutch, to look for causes for the renewed stimulus given at this date to the measures against Christianity.

In 1614 the edict was carried into effect, and the missionaries, accompanied by the Japanese princes who had been in exile in Kaga, and a number of native Christians, were made to embark from Nagasaki. Several missionaries remained concealed in the country, and in subsequent years not a few contrived to elude the vigilance of the authorities and to reenter Japan. But they were all detected sooner or later, and suffered for their temerity by their deaths.

Persecution did not stop with the expulsion of the missionaries, nor at the death of Iyeyasu was any respite given to the native Christians. And this brings us to the closing scene of this history—the tragedy of Shimabara. In the autumn of 1637 the peasantry of a convert district in Hizen, driven past endurance by the fierce ferocity of the persecution, assembled to the number of thirty thousand, and, fortifying the castle of Shimabara, declared open defiance to the Government; their opposition was soon overborne; troops were sent against them, and after a short but desperate resistance all the Christians were put to the sword. With the rising of Shimabara, and its sanguinary suppression by the Government, the curtain falls on the early history of Christianity in Japan.



COLLAPSE OF THE POWER OF CHARLES V

FRANCE SEIZES GERMAN BISHOPRICS

A.D. 1552

LADY C. C. JACKSON

Henry II, son of Francis I, ascended the throne of France in 1547. It had been the ambition of the French to establish the eastern boundary of their country on the Rhine, and thence along the summit of the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea. Jealousy of the growing power of his father's old enemy, the emperor Charles V, probably added to the French King's eagerness to fulfil the desire of his people for extension of their borders.

Charles was now occupied with the religious wars in Germany, and Henry prepared to improve his opportunity by taking full advantage of the Emperor's situation. The fact that the Protestants among his own subjects were cruelly persecuted did not deter the French monarch from furthering his ambition by consenting to assist the German Protestants against their own sovereign.

In 1551, when for six years there had been no actual war between France and the empire, Henry entered into an alliance with German princes against the Emperor. Several of those princes, headed by Maurice of Saxony, had secretly formed a league to resist by force of arms the "measures employed by Charles to reduce Germany to insupportable and perpetual servitude."

Charles V was on the point of becoming as despotic in Germany as he was in Spain. The long interval of peace, though not very profound—war being always threatened and attempts to provoke it frequent—yet was sufficiently so to enable him to devote himself to his favorite scheme of humbling the princes and free states of the empire. He had sown dissension among them, succeeded in breaking up the League of Smalkald, and detained in prison, threatened with perpetual captivity, the Landgrave of Hesse and the elector John Frederick of Saxony. They had been sentenced to death, having taken up arms against him. Frequently appealed to to release them, Charles declared that to trouble him further on their account would be to bring on them the execution of the sentence they so richly merited.

His political aims he believed to be now accomplished, and the spirit of German independence nearly, if not wholly, extinguished. But with this he was not content. The time had arrived, he thought, for the full and final extirpation of heresy, and the carrying out of his grand scheme of "establishing uniformity of religion in the empire." The formula of faith, called the "Interim," which he had drawn up for general observance until the council reassembled, had been for the sake of peace accepted with slight resistance, except at Magdeburg, which, for its obstinate rejection of it, was placed under the ban of the empire. But the prelates were assembling at Trent, and the full acquiescence of all parties in their decisions—given, of course, in conformity with the views of Charles V—was to be made imperative.

Henry II had already renewed the French alliance with Sultan Solyman, and was urged to send his lieutenants to ravage the coast of Sicily—a suggestion he was not at all loath to follow. Yet the proposal of an alliance with the heretic German princes—though the league was not simply a Protestant one—met with strenuous opposition from that excellent Catholic, Anne de Montmorency. The persecuting King, too, anxious as he was to oppose his arms to those of the Emperor, feared to do so in alliance with heretics, lest he should compromise his soul's salvation.

But the princes had offered him an irresistible bribe. They proposed—even declared they thought it right—that the seigneur King should take possession of those imperial cities which were not Germanic in language—as Metz, Cambray, Toul, Verdun, and similar ones—and retain them in quality of vicar of the Holy Empire. As a further inducement, they promised—having accomplished their own objects—to aid him with their troops to recover from Charles his heritage of Milan. This was decisive.

On October 5th a pact was signed with France by the Lutheran elector Maurice, in his own name and that of the confederate princes, Henry's ambassador being the Catholic Bishop of Bayonne. Extensive preparations for war were immediately set on foot and new taxes levied; for the King had promised aid in money also—a considerable sum monthly as long as hostilities continued.

He, however, deemed it expedient, before joining his army, to give some striking proof of his continued orthodoxy; first, by way of counterbalancing his heretical alliance with the Lutherans and his infidel one with the Mussulmans; next, to destroy the false hopes founded on them by French reformers. The heretics, during his absence, were therefore to be hunted down with the utmost rigor. The Sorbonne was charged "to examine minutely all books from Geneva, and no unlettered person was permitted to discuss matters of faith." All cities and municipalities were strictly enjoined to elect none but good Catholics to the office of mayor or sheriff, exacting from them a certificate of Catholicism before entering on the duties of their office. Neglect of this would subject the electors themselves to the pains and penalties inflicted on heretics.

A grand inquisitor was appointed to take care of the faith in Lyons, and the daily burnings on the Place de Greve went on simultaneously with the preparations in the arsenals, and no less vigorously. Thus the King was enabled to enter on this war with a safe conscience. Montmorency,[57] unwilling always to oppose the Emperor, was compelled, lest he should seem less patriotic than his rivals, to add his voice also in favor of the project that promised the realization of the views of Charles VII and Francis I that the natural boundary of France was the Rhine.

To return to Germany and the Emperor—whose complicated affairs are so entangled with those of France that they cannot be wholly separated, each in some measure forming the complement of the other. The command-in-chief of the German army was given to Maurice of Saxony—an able general, full of resource, daring and dauntless in the field, crafty and cautious in the cabinet as Charles himself. Throughout the winter he secretly assembled troops, preparing to take the field early in the spring, yet adroitly concealing his projects, and lulling into security "the most artful monarch in Europe."

The Emperor had left Augsburg for Innspruck that he might at the same time watch over the council and the affairs of Germany and Italy. He was suffering from asthma, gout, and other maladies, chiefly brought on by his excesses at table, and rendered incurable by his inability to put any restraint on his immoderate appetite.

In his retreat some rumors had reached him that the movements of Maurice of Saxony were suspicious, and that he was raising troops in Transylvania. But he gave little heed to this, or to warnings pressed on him by some of his partisans. For Maurice, to serve his own ambitious views, had in fact, though professing the reformed faith, aided Charles to acquire that power and ascendency, that almost unlimited despotism in Germany he now proposed to overthrow. For his services he had obtained the larger part of the electoral dominions of his unfortunate relative, John Frederick of Saxony, whose release, as also that of the Landgrave, now formed part of his programme for delivering Germany from her fetters ere the imperial despot could—as Maurice saw he was prepared to do—rivet them on her. To renew the Protestant league, to place himself at its head and defy the despot, was more congenial to Maurice's restless, aspiring mind than to play the part of his lieutenant.

The winter passed away without any serious suspicions on Charles' part. To throw him off his guard Maurice had undertaken to subdue the Magdeburgers. The leniency of his conduct toward "those rebels" with whom he was secretly in league did at last excite a doubt in Charles' mind. Maurice was summoned to Innspruck, ostensibly to confer with him respecting the liberation of his father-in-law, the Landgrave of Hesse. But Maurice was far too wary to put himself in his power, and readily found some plausible excuse to delay his journey from time to time. But when, early in March, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, thoroughly equipped, he announced that he was about to set out on his journey, the information was accompanied with a declaration of war. "It was a war," he said, "for the defence of the true religion, its ministers and preachers; for the deliverance of prisoners detained against all faith and justice; to free Germany from her wretched condition, and to oppose the Emperor's completion of that absolute monarchy toward which he had so long been aiming."

To this manifesto was appended another from the King of France. Therein Henry announced himself the "defender of the liberties of Germany, and protector of her captive princes"; further stating "that, broken-hearted [le coeur navre] at the condition of Germany, he could not refuse to aid her, but had determined to do so to the utmost power of his ability, even to personally engaging in this war, undertaken for liberty and not for his personal benefit." This document—written in French—was headed by the representation of a cap between two poniards, and around it the inscription "The Emblem of Liberty." It is said to have been copied from some ancient coins, and to have been appropriated as the symbol of freedom by Caesar's assassins. Thus singularly was brought to light by a king of the French Renaissance that terrible cap of liberty, before which the ancient crown of France was one day destined to fall.

The declaration of the German princes and that of their ally, the King of France, fell like a thunderbolt on the Emperor—so great was his astonishment and consternation at the events so unexpected. With rapid marches Maurice advanced on Upper Germany, while other divisions of the army, headed by the confederate princes, hastened on toward Tyrol, by way of Franconia and Swabia, everywhere being received with open arms as "Germany's liberators." Maurice reached Augsburg on April 1st, and took possession of that important city—the garrison offering no resistance, and the inhabitants receiving him joyfully. There, as in other towns on his march which had willingly opened their gates to him, the Interim was abolished; the churches restored to the Protestants; the magistrates appointed by the Emperor displaced, and those he had rejected reinstated. Money, too, was freely offered him, and the deficiency in his artillery supplied. At Trent the news that the Protestant princes, joined by several of the Catholics and free states, "had taken up arms for liberty," caused a terrible panic. The fathers of the council, Italian, Spanish, and German, at once made a precipitate retreat, and this famous council, without authority from pope or emperor, dissolved itself, to reassemble only after even a longer interval than before. When Maurice began his march Henry II had joined his army at Chalons, and was on his way to Lorraine. Toul, on his approach, presented the keys of the city to the constable commanding the vanguard—the King afterward making his entry, and receiving the oath of fidelity from the inhabitants, having previously sworn to maintain their rights and privileges inviolate. After this easy conquest the French army continued its march toward Metz. This old free republican city did not so readily as Toul yield to the French. The municipal authorities very politely offered provisions to the army, but declined to deliver the keys of the city to the constable. They were, however, willing to admit the King and the princes who accompanied him within their walls. "Troops were not permitted to enter Metz, whatever their nation." This was one of their privileges.

Montmorency cared little for privileges, and violence would probably have been used but that the Bishop of Metz, who was a Frenchman, prevailed on the principal burgesses to allow the constable to enter with an escort of two ensigns, each with his company of infantry. Montmorency availed himself of this permission to give his ensigns fifteen hundred of his best troops. The city gates were thrown open, and the burgesses then perceived their error, but too late to remedy it. They were firmly repulsed when attempting to exclude the unwelcome visitors; there was, however, no bloodshed. The people were soon reconciled to the change; and the chief sheriff and town council on the King's entry having assembled on the cathedral porch, Henry there, in the presence of an anxious multitude who crowded around him to hear him, made oath strictly to maintain their franchises and immunities. Thus easily was captured the former capital of the ancient Austrian kings, which remained under the dominion of France until separated from her by the misfortunes of the second empire.

The city of Verdun followed the example of Toul; so that Henry's defence of the liberties of Germany was thus far nothing more than a military promenade, with grand public entries, banquets, and general festivity. The inhabitants of Metz—like the rest of his conquests, French in language and manners—petitioned the King not to restore their city to the empire, of which it had been a vassal republic from the beginning of the feudal era; they feared the Emperor's revenge. Henry, however, had no thought of relinquishing Metz; he was too well pleased with his new possession, and "proposed to make it one of the ramparts of France."

But while Henry for the defence of German independence was making conquests and annexing them to his dominions, Charles V had fled before Maurice's vigorous pursuit, and had only escaped capture by a mere mischance that briefly retarded his pursuers' progress. When Augsburg was taken, Charles felt that he was not safe at Innspruck. He was neither in a position to crush the rebellious princes nor to resist the invasion of the King of France. Want of means had induced him to disband a large part of his army; Mexico and Peru for some time had failed to make any remittances to his treasury; the bankers of Venice and Genoa were not willing to lend him money, and it was only by placing Piombino in the hands of Cosmo de' Medici that he obtained from him the small sum of two hundred thousand crowns.

His first impulse was to endeavor to pass over the route of the Netherlands by the valleys of the Inn and the Rhine; but as he could only move, owing to his gout, from place to place in a litter, he was compelled, from physical suffering, after proceeding a very short distance on his journey, to return to Innspruck. There he remained with a small body of soldiers sufficient to guard himself personally—having sent all he could possibly spare to hold the mountain pass leading to the almost inaccessible castle of Ehrenberg. But, guided by a shepherd, the heights of Ehrenberg were reached by the troops under George of Brandenburg, after infinite fatigue and danger. The walls were scaled, and the garrison, terrified by the appearance of this unlooked-for enemy, threw down their arms and surrendered.

A few hours only separated Innspruck from Ehrenberg, and Maurice proposed to push on rapidly so as to anticipate the arrival there of any accounts of the loss of the castle, hoping to surprise the Emperor and his attendants in an open, defenceless town, and there to dictate conditions of peace. The dissatisfaction of a portion of the troops at not immediately receiving the usual gratuity for taking a place by assault occasioned a short delay in the advance of Maurice's army. He arrived at Innspruck in the middle of the night, and learned that the Emperor had fled only two hours before to Carinthia, followed by his ministers and attendants, on foot, on horses, in litters, as they could, but in the greatest hurry and confusion.

The night was stormy; rain was falling in torrents when the modern Charlemagne, unable to move, was borne in a litter by the light of torches across steep mountain paths with a swiftness most surprising; terror adding wings to the footsteps of his bearers, lest they and their gouty burden should fall into the hands of the heretic army, said to be in pursuit. But pursuit was soon given up, for the troops were worn and weary with forced marches and climbing the heights of Ehrenberg; they needed rest, and there was the imperial palace of Innspruck to pillage, Maurice having given it up to them.

Negotiations for peace were opened on May 20th at Passau on the Danube. The King of France was informed of this, it being found necessary to put some check on his proceedings; to remind him that he was the "defender of the liberties of Germany," not Germany's oppressor. He and his army had advanced into Alsace, and Montmorency had assured him that it would be "as easy to enter Strasburg and other cities of the Rhine as to penetrate butter." However, when they knocked at the gates of Strasburg and courteously requested that the Venetian, Florentine, and other ambassadors might be permitted to enter and admire the beautiful city, they found the Strasburgers insensible to these amenities—butter by no means easily melted; for not only they refused to gratify the soi-disant ambassadors with a sight of their fine city, but mounted and pointed their cannon, as a hint to their visitors that they would do well to withdraw.

Henry, perceiving that he would be unable in the present campaign to extend his dominions to the banks of the Rhine, contented himself, "before turning his back on it, with the fact that the horses of his army had drunk of the waters of that stream." The Austrasian expedition was less brilliant in its results than he had expected; nevertheless, whether he was to be included in the peace then negotiating or not, he resolved to retain the three bishoprics—Toul, Metz, and Verdun.

Meanwhile the conference of Passau, between Maurice with his princes of the league on the one part; Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and the Emperor's plenipotentiaries on the other, proceeded less rapidly than Maurice desired. By prolonging the negotiation Charles hoped to gain time to assemble an army, when the Catholic princes might rally around him. But even those who had joined the league were exceedingly lukewarm toward their Emperor; his despotism, they considered, being as dangerous to them as to the Protestants. Even his brother Ferdinand—who was on such excellent terms with Maurice that it would almost seem that he had connived at an enterprise he could not openly join in—is said to have seen with satisfaction the check put on Charles by the dauntless leader of the league.

But Maurice's propositions being at first rejected, and no counter ones proposed, he at once set off for his army to renew hostilities, as though the negotiations were closed. Charles doubtless renounced the realization of the dream of his life with a pang of despair. That it should vanish at the very moment when he looked for its fulfilment was anguish to him. But pressed by Ferdinand, convinced, too, that resistance is useless, Charles yields an unwilling assent to the demands of the princes, and the "Treaty of Public Peace" is signed on August 2d. Henceforth "the two religions are to be on a footing of equality in the empire"; Germany divided between Luther and the Pope, who are to live side by side in peace, neither interrupting the other. The ban of the empire to be withdrawn from all persons and places; the captive princes, detained for five years in prison if not in fetters, released; while many other matters relating to imperial encroachments are to be satisfactorily settled within six months.

"The defender of German liberty" was not included in this treaty. As he proposed to keep the cities he was to occupy but as vicar of the empire, he would have to fight a battle for them with Charles himself. Though compelled to renounce absolute sway over Germany, he yet thought it incumbent on him to reestablish the territory of the empire in its full integrity. His valiant sister, the Dowager-queen of Hungary, who governed the Netherlands so ably for him, was diligently collecting an army for the destitute monarch of many kingdoms, and troops were on their way from Spain.

In spite of his infirmities, Charles was in such haste to chastise the French, and revenge himself on Henry—having succeeded in raising an army sixty thousand strong, besides seven thousand pioneers—that he rejected the prudent counsels of his generals, who begged him to wait until the spring, when Metz might be attacked with much greater advantage. But his excessive obstinacy, which had led to so many of his disasters, again prevailed. The Duc de Guise, now Governor of Metz, had put the citadel into a state of defence. The garrison was numerous, and, as was usual wherever he commanded, thither followed all the young, ardent spirits among the great families of France.

The siege of Metz was a terrible disaster for the Emperor. The extreme severity of the winter, a scant supply of clothing and other necessaries, were soon followed by sickness, typhus, and many deaths. Desertions were numerous; for the sufferings of the troops had quenched all war and subverted all discipline. Desperate efforts to take Metz were continued for nearly three months without avail, when Charles, thoroughly disheartened, and unable to rise from his couch except for removal to his litter, raised the siege—abandoning the greater part of his artillery, which was half buried in the mud. "Fortune," he exclaimed, "I perceive is indeed a woman; she prefers a young king to an old emperor." The spectacle that met the eyes of the victorious defenders of Metz, on issuing forth in pursuit of the enemy, is said to have been one of so harrowing a nature that even rough soldiers, accustomed to the horrors of war, looked on the misery around them with emotions of deepest pity. There lay the dying and the dead heaped up together; the wounded and those who had been stricken down by fever stretched side by side on the gory, muddy earth. Others had sunk into it, and, unable to extricate themselves, were frozen to their knees, and plaintively asked for death to put an end to their wretchedness. Scattered along the route of the retreat lay dead horses, tents, arms, portions of the baggage, and many sick soldiers who had fallen by the way in their efforts to keep up with the hasty march of the remnant of the army—a sad and terrible scene indeed in a career called one of glory.

Francois de Guise greatly distinguished himself as a general, and added to his military renown by his defence of Metz; but far greater glory attaches to his name for his humane and generous conduct to the suffering, abandoned troops of Charles' army. All whose lives could be saved, or sufferings relieved, received every care and attention that he and the surgeons of his army could bestow on them. Following his example, instead of the savage brutality with which the victors were then accustomed to treat their fallen foes, kindness and good offices were rendered by all to the poor victims of the Emperor's revenge for the loss of Metz. So utterly contrary was such treatment to the practice of the age that the generosity and humanity of Francois de Guise toward an enemy's troops passed into a proverb as the "Courtoisie de Metz."

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Anne de Montmorency, Marshal and Constable of France. He was distinguished in the wars against Charles V.



THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF AUGSBURG

ABDICATION OF CHARLES V

A.D. 1555

WILLIAM ROBERTSON

By the victory of Charles V at Muehlberg, in 1547, the Emperor obtained a decided advantage over the Smalkaldic League, and seemed to be master of the situation in Germany. He convened a diet at Augsburg, and promulgated an "interim," or provisional arrangement for peace, but it was imperfectly carried out. Later interims also proving unsatisfactory, various other attempts at settlement were made, and finally, by the Peace of Passau (1552), religious liberty was granted to the Protestants.

Charles now appeared to be at the height of his power; but new danger threatened him from France. The alliance of King Henry II with Maurice of Saxony, and other Protestant princes, was followed by what is sometimes called the second Smalkaldic War. Charles was quickly worsted, and only escaped capture by fleeing into Switzerland. In a later attack upon France he gained but little success.

The Emperor was now more than ever anxious for peace, and only awaited the meeting of a diet which had been summoned soon after the Treaty of Passau. This meeting was delayed by violent commotions raised in Germany by Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg. It was further delayed by the engrossment in his own affairs of Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary. He was the brother of Charles, had exerted himself, though with slight success, to settle the religious disputes in Germany, and Charles needed his presence at the Diet, whereby he hoped to secure a final pacification.

As a diet was now necessary on many accounts, Ferdinand, about the beginning of the year 1555, had repaired to Augsburg. Though few of the princes were present either in person or by their deputies, he opened the assembly by a speech, in which he proposed a termination of the dissensions to which the new tenets and controversies with regard to religion had given rise, not only as the first and great business of the diet, but as the point which both the Emperor and he had most at heart. He represented the innumerable obstacles which the Emperor had to surmount before he could procure the convocation of a general council, as well as the fatal accidents which had for some time retarded, and had at last suspended, the consultations of that assembly. He observed that experience had already taught them how vain it was to expect any remedy for evils which demanded immediate redress from a general council, the assembling of which would either be prevented, or its deliberations be interrupted, by the dissensions and hostilities of the princes of Christendom; that a national council in Germany, which, as some imagined, might be called with greater ease, and deliberate with more perfect security, was an assembly of an unprecedented nature, the jurisdiction of which was uncertain in its extent, and the form of its proceedings undefined; that in his opinion there remained but one method for composing their unhappy differences, which, though it had been often tried without success, might yet prove effectual if it were attempted with a better and more pacific spirit than had appeared on former occasions, and that was, to choose a few men of learning, abilities, and moderation, who, by discussing the disputed articles in an amicable conference, might explain them in such a manner as to bring the contending parties either to unite in sentiment, or to differ with charity.

This speech being printed in common form, and dispersed over the empire, revived the fears and jealousies of the Protestants; Ferdinand, they observed with much surprise, had not once mentioned, in his address to the Diet, the Treaty of Passau, the stipulations of which they considered as the great security of their religious liberty. The suspicions to which this gave rise were confirmed by the accounts which were daily received of the extreme severity with which Ferdinand treated their Protestant brethren in his hereditary dominions; and as it was natural to consider his actions as the surest indication of his intentions, this diminished their confidence in those pompous professions of moderation, and of zeal for the reestablishment of concord, to which his practice seemed to be so repugnant.

The arrival of the cardinal, Morone, whom the Pope had appointed to attend the Diet as his nuncio, completed their conviction, and left them no room to doubt that some dangerous machination was forming against the peace or safety of the Protestant Church. Julius, elated with the unexpected return of the English nation from apostasy, began to flatter himself that, the spirit of mutiny and revolt having now spent its force, the happy period was come when the Church might resume its ancient authority, and be obeyed by the people with the same tame submission as formerly. Full of these hopes, he had sent Morone to Augsburg with instructions to employ his eloquence to excite the Germans to imitate the laudable example of the English, and his political address in order to prevent any decree of the Diet to the detriment of the Catholic faith. But Julius died, and as soon as Morone heard of this he set out abruptly from Augsburg, where he had resided only a few days, that he might be present at the election of the new pontiff.