Chapter XV: Part 15

The emperor Ferdinand and the French Government, who persisted in treating the reunion of the Church as the primary object of the council, at first strongly urged the substitution for Trent of a genuinely German or French town, where the German bishops, and perhaps even the Protestants, would feel no scruple about attending. But a totally free and _new_ council of this description lay outside the horizon of the papacy; and Pius IV might have let fall the plan altogether but for the fear of the entire separation in that event of the Gallican Church from Rome. In France, Protestantism had made considerable strides during the reign of Henry II (1547-1559). About six weeks before the death of Henry the first national synod of Protestants was held at Paris (May, 1559). Under Francis II the Guise influence became paramount, and the persecution of the Protestants continued. But though the suppression, just before this, of the so-called conspiracy of Amboise had temporarily added to the power of the Guises, it had also made the Queen-mother, Catherine de' Medici, resolve not to let the power of the state pass wholly out of her hands. Hence the appointment of the large-hearted L'Hopital as chancellor, and the assembly of notables at Fontainebleau (August), where the grievances against Rome found full expression, and where arrangements were made for a meeting of the States-general and a national council of the French Church. This resolution determined Pius IV to lose no further time. On November 29, 1560, he issued a bull summoning all the prelates and princes of Christendom to Trent for the following Easter. The invitation included both Eastern schismatics and Western heretics, Elizabeth of England among the rest; but neither she nor the German Protestant princes assembled at Naumburg, nor the kings of the Scandinavian North, would so much as receive the papal summons. In France the death of Francis II (December 5, 1560) further depressed the Guise influence; and Catherine entered into negotiations with the Pope with a view to concessions such as would satisfy the Huguenots while approved by the French bishops. The "Edict of January" (1562), which followed, long remained a sort of standard of fair concessions to the Huguenots.

The first deliberations of the reassembled council were barren. The question which really came home to the fathers of the Church assembled at Trent presented itself again when the sacrament of orders had in due course to be debated. The imperial and French ambassadors still cooperated as actively as ever, and the episcopal party, the Spanish prelates in particular, entered upon the struggle with a full sense of its critical importance. If the right divine of episcopacy could be declared, with it would be established the divine obligation of residence. Pius IV accordingly showed considerable shrewdness in instructing the legates at once to formulate a decree on residence, which, while leaving the question of divine obligation open, imposed penalties on nonresidence--except for lawful reasons--sufficient to meet practical requirements. But though such a decree was passed by the council, the debates on the origin of the episcopal office, which involved nothing less than the origin and nature of the papal supremacy, continued (November); and the critical nature of the discussion was the more apparent when in the midst of it there at last arrived nearly a score of French bishops, headed by the Cardinal of Lorraine. Hitherto France had been represented at the council by spokesmen of the French court and of the Parliament of Paris; now the foremost among the prelates of the monarchy, whose abilities, however, unfortunately fell far short of his pretensions, announced in full conciliar assembly the demands of his branch of the Church. The recent January edict proved the strength of the Huguenots in France; and though the Cardinal's first speech at Trent breathed nothing but condemnation of these heretics, it suited him to pose as the advocate of as extensive a series of reforms as had yet been urged upon the council.

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.