CHAP. VII. The council prorogued 1543. July 6. situated on the confines between Germany and Italy. The catholic princes in the diet, after giving it as their opinion that the council might have been held with greater advantage in Ratisbon, Cologne, or some of the great cities of the empire, were at length induced to approve of the place which the pope had named. The protestants unanimously expressed their dissatisfaction, and protested that they would pay no regard to a council held beyond the precincts of the empire, called by the pope's authority, and in which he assumed the right of presiding. 1 "The pope, without taking any notice of their objections, published the bull of intimation, named three cardinals to preside as his legates, and appointed them to repair to Trent before the first of November, the day he had fixed for opening the council. But, if Paul had desired the meeting of a council as sincerely as he pretended, he would not have pitched on such an improper time for calling it. Instead of that general union and tranquillity, without which the deliberations of a council could neither be conducted with security, nor attended with authority, such a fierce war was just kindled between the emperor and Francis, as rendered it impossible for the ecclesiastics from many parts of Europe to resort thither in safety. The legates, accordingly, remained several months at Trent; but, as no person appeared there, except a few prelates from the ecclesiastical state, the pope, in order to avoid the ridicule and contempt which this drew upon him from the enemies of the church, recalled them and prorogued the council. 2 1 Sleid. 291. Seck. iii. 383 2 F. Paul, 97. Sleid. 296. A. D. 1542. the Pro "Unhappily for the authority of the papal see, at the very time that the German protestants took every occasion of pouring contempt upon The Empe it, the emperor and the king of the Romans ror courts found it necessary not only to connive at their testants. conduct, but to court their favour by repeated acts of indulgence. In the same diet of Spires, in which they had protested in the most disrespectful terms against assembling a council at Trent, Ferdinand, who depended on their aid for the defence of Hungary, not only permitted that protestation to be inserted in the records of the diet, but renewed in their favour all the emperor's concessions at Ratisbon, adding to them whatever they demanded for their further security. Among other particulars, he granted a suspension of a decree of the imperial chamber against the city of Goslar, (one of those which had entered into the league of Smalkalde,) on account of its having seized the ecclesiastical revenues within its domains, and enjoined Henry duke of Brunswick to desist from his attempts to carry that decree into execution. But Henry, a furious bigot, and no Henry of less obstinate than rash in all his undertakings, expelled. continuing to disquiet the people of Goslar by his incursions, the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse, that they might not suffer any member of the Smalkaldic body to be oppressed, assembled their forces, declared war in form against Henry, and in the space of a few weeks, stripping him entirely of his dominions, drove him as a wretched exile to take refuge in the court of Bavaria. By this act of vengeance, no less severe than sudden, they filled all Germany with dread of their power; and the confederates of Smalkalde appeared, by this first effort of their arms, to be as ready as they were Brunswick 1542. July. CHAP. able to protect those who had joined their association.1 VII. "Emboldened by so many concessions in their favour, as well as by the progress which their opinions daily made, the princes of the league of Smalkalde took a solemn protest against the imperial chamber, and declined its jurisdiction for the future, because that court had not been visited or reformed according to the decree of Ratisbon, and continued to discover a most indecent partiality in all its proceedings. Not long after this, they ventured a step further; and protesting against the recess of a diet held at Nuremberg, which provided Diet of for the defence of Hungary, refused to furnish Nuremberg, their contingent for that purpose, unless the imperial chamber were reformed, and full security were granted them in every point with regard to religion.2 April 23. 1543. Diet of Spires. 1544. "Such were the lengths to which the protestants had proceeded, and such their confidence in their own power, when the emperor returned from the Low Countries, to hold a diet, which he had summoned to meet at Spires. The respect due to the emperor, as well as the importance of the affairs which were to be laid before it, rendered this assembly extremely full. All the electors, a great number of princes ecclesiastical and secular, with the deputies of most of the cities, were present.”—The great 1 Sleid. 296. Commemoratio &c. ap. Scardium ii. 307. Sleid. 304, 307. Seck. iii. 404, 416, 417.-Christopher von Stadion, the same bishop of Augsburg who has before drawn our attention, was one of the emperor's representatives at the diet of Nuremberg; and he died there of apoplexy. He was a zealous friend to the liberties of Germany, and still continued not unfriendly to the protestants. He was succeeded in his bishopric by Otto Truchses a devoted Romanist. Seck. iii. 416 (2). object of the emperor in this diet was, to prevail on the Germanic body to afford him its hearty and united support in the war in which he was engaged with the king of France; and he succeeded in giving to the assembly such an impression of the conduct of that monarch, who had entered into alliance with Solyman, and of the obstruction which he occasioned to both the great designs, of procuring a general council, and of providing means for effectually checking the formidable progress of the Turkish arms, that all parties seemed well inclined to comply with his wishes. A. D. 1544. sions to the "Such being the favourable disposition of Concesthe Germans, Charles perceived that nothing Protestants could now obstruct his gaining all that he aimed at, but the fears and jealousies of the protestants, which he determined to quiet by granting every thing that the utmost solicitude of these passions could desire for the security of their religion. With this view, he consented to a recess, whereby all the rigorous edicts hitherto issued against the protestants were suspended; a council, either general or national, to be assembled in Germany, was declared necessary in order to reestablish peace in the church; until one of these should be held (which the emperor undertook to bring about as soon as possible,) the free and public exercise of the protestant religion was authorized; the imperial chamber was enjoined to give no molestation to the protestants; and, when the term for which the present judges in that court were elected should expire, persons duly qualified were then to be admitted as members, without any distinction on account of religion. In return for these extraordinary acts of indulgence, the protestants concurred with the other mem VII. Family of 1539 1541. 1540. bers of the diet in declaring war against Francis in the name of the empire," and in voting the requisite subsidies for carrying on both it and the war against the Turks. With the progress of the war we have here no concern. Its termination by the peace of Crespy, in September 1544, has been already mentioned. Some of the objects which the emperor had in view in concluding that peace will hereafter come under notice, when we speak of the important changes which followed it; but at present we will pause upon the period which has thus been reviewed, and present several details appropriate to the special design of this work. Henry duke of Saxony (whose death is mentioned near the beginning of the above extract,) was advanced in years, and but feeble in mind, when he succeeded his brother George: and, though he concurred with some vigour in the elector's plans for establishing the reformation in his dominions, yet he had feelings of jealousy towards that prince, which were cherished by his late brother's counsellors, whose assistance he found necessary, and whose influence with him increased during his short reign of little more than two years. Previously to his accession he had joined the protestant league, and he did not actually withdraw from it, though his attachment to it was evidently languid. 2 He had two sons, Maurice and Augustus, both of whom successively inherited his dignities. The marriage of the elder, Maurice, with the daughter of the landgrave was a sudden measure, and not thought 1 Robertson, iii. 221, 233, 255-265. Seck. iii. 214, 218, 223, 371. |
