THE INTERIM OF THE EMPEROR

 

But as the emperor's situation was much changed since that time, and he found it no longer necessary to manage the protestants with the same delicacy as at that juncture, the concessions in their favor were not now so numerous, nor did they extend to points of so much consequence. The treatise contained a complete system of theology, conformable in almost every article to the tenets of the Romish church, though expressed, for the most part, in the softest words, or in scriptural phrases, or in terms of studied ambiguity. Every doctrine, however, peculiar to popery, was retained, and the observation of all the rites, which the protestants condemned as inventions of men introduced into the worship of God, was enjoined. With regard to two points only, some relaxation in the rigor of opinion as well as some latitude in the practice were admitted. Such ecclesiastics as had married, and would not put away their wives, were allowed, nevertheless, to perform all the functions of their sacred office; and those provinces which had been accustomed to partake of the cup as well as of the bread in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, were still indulged in the privilege of receiving both. Even these were declared to be concessions for the sake of peace, and granted only for a season, in compliance with the weakness or prejudices of their countrymen.

This system of doctrine, known afterwards by the name of the Interim, because it contained temporary regulations, which were to continue no longer in force than until a free general council could be held, the emperor presented to the diet [May 15], with a pompous declaration of his sincere intention to re-establish tranquility and order in the church, as well as of his hopes that their adopting these regulations would contribute greatly to bring about that desirable event. It was read in presence of the diet, according to form. As soon as it was finished, the archbishop of Mentz, president of the electoral college, rose up hastily; and having thanked the emperor for his unwearied and pious endeavors in order to restore peace to the church, he, in the name of the diet, signified their approbation of the system of doctrine which had been read, together with their resolution of conforming to it in every particular.

The whole assembly was amazed at a declaration so unprecedented and unconstitutional, as well as at the elector's presumption in pretending to deliver the sense of the diet, upon a point which had not hitherto been the subject of consultation or debate. But not one member had the courage to contradict what the elector had said; some being overawed by fear, others remaining silent through complaisance. The emperor held the archbishop's declaration to be a full constitutional ratification of the Interim, and prepared to enforce the observance of it, as a decree of the empire.

During this diet, the wife and children of the landgrave, warmly seconded by Maurice of Saxony, endeavoured to interest the members in behalf of that unhappy prince, who still languished in confinement. But Charles, who did not choose to be brought under the necessity of rejecting any request that came from such a respectable body, in order to prevent their representations, laid before the diet an account of his transactions with the landgrave, together with the motives which had at first induced him to detain that prince in custody, and which rendered it prudent, as he alleged, to keep him still under restraint. It was no easy matter to give any good reason, for an action, incapable of being justified. But he thought the most frivolous pretexts might be produced in an assembly the members of which were willing to be deceived, arid afraid of nothing so much as of discovering that they saw his conduct in its true colors. His account of his own conduct was accordingly admitted to be fully satisfactory, and after some feeble entreaties that he would extend his clemency to his unfortunate prisoner, the landgrave's concerns were no more mentioned.

In order to counterbalance the unfavorable impression which this inflexible rigor might make, Charles, as a proof that his gratitude was no less permanent and unchangeable than his resentment, invested Maurice in the electoral dignity, with all the legal formalities. The ceremony was performed, with extraordinary pomp, in an open court, so near the apartment in which the degraded elector was kept a prisoner, that he could view it from his windows. Even this insult did not ruffle his usual tranquility; and turning his eyes that way, he beheld a prosperous rival receiving those ensigns of dignity of which he had been stripped, without uttering one sentiment unbecoming the fortitude that he had preserved amidst all his calamities.

Immediately after the dissolution of the diet, the emperor ordered the Interim to be published in the German as well as Latin language. It met with the usual reception of conciliating schemes, when proposed to men heated with disputation; both parties declaimed against it with equal violence. The protestants condemned it as a system containing the grossest errors of popery, disguised with so little art, that it could impose only on the most ignorant, or on those who, by willfully shutting their eyes, favored the deception. The papists inveighed against it, as a work in which some doctrines of the church were impiously given up, others meanly concealed, and all of them delivered in terms calculated rather to deceive the unwary, than to instruct the ignorant, or to reclaim such as were enemies to the truth. While the Lutheran divines fiercely attacked it on the one hand, the general of the Dominicans with no less vehemence impugned it on the other.

But at Rome, as soon as the contents of the Interim came to be known, the indignation of the courtiers and ecclesiastics rose to the greatest height. They exclaimed against the emperor's profane encroachment on the sacerdotal function, in presuming, with the concurrence of an assembly of laymen, to define articles of faith and to regulate modes of worship. They compared this rash deed to that of Uzziah, who, with an unhallowed hand, had touched the ark of God; or to the bold attempts of those emperors, who had rendered their memory detestable, by endeavoring to model the Christian church according to their pleasure. They even affected to find out a resemblance between the emperor's conduct and that of Henry VIII, and expressed their fear of his imitating the example of that apostate, by usurping the title as well as jurisdiction belonging to the head of the church. All therefore, contended with one voice, that as the foundations of ecclesiastical authority were now shaken, and the whole fabric ready to be overturned by a new enemy, some powerful method of defence should be provided, and a vigorous resistance must be made, in the beginning, before he grew too formidable to be opposed.

The pope, whose judgment was improved by longer experience in great transactions, as well as by a more extensive observation of human affairs, viewed the matter with more acute discernment, and derived comfort from the very circumstance which filled them with apprehension. He was astonished that a prince of such superior sagacity as the emperor, should be so intoxicated with a single victory, as to imagine that he might give law to mankind, and decide even in those matters, with regard to which they are most impatient of dominion. He saw that by joining any one of the contending parties in Germany, Charles might have had it in his power to have oppressed the other, but that the presumption of success had now inspired him with the vain thought of his being able to domineer over both. He foretold that a system which all attacked, and none defended, could not be of long duration ; and that, for this reason, there was no need of his interposing in order to hasten its fall ; for as soon as the powerful hand which now upheld it was withdrawn, it would sink of its own accord, and be forgotten, forever.

The emperor, fond of his own plan, adhered to his resolution of carrying it into full execution. But though the elector Palatine, the elector of Brandenburg, and Maurice, influenced by the same considerations as formerly, seemed ready to yield implicit obedience to whatever he should enjoin, he met not everywhere with a like obsequious submission. John marquis of Brandenburg Anspach, although he had taken part with great zeal in the war against the confederates of Smalkalde, refused to renounce doctrines which he held to be sacred; and reminding the emperor of the repeated promises which he had given his protestant allies, of allowing them the free exercise of their religion, he claimed, in consequence of these, to be exempted from receiving the Interim. Some other princes, also, ventured to mention the same scruples, and to plead the same indulgence. But on this, as on other trying occasions, the firmness of the elector of Saxony was most distinguished, and merited the highest praise.

Charles, well knowing the authority of his example with all the protestant party, labored with the utmost earnestness, to gain his approbation of the Interim, and by employing sometimes promises of setting him at liberty, sometimes threats of treating him with greater harshness, attempted alternately to work upon his hopes and his fears. But he was alike regardless of both. After having declared his fixed belief in the doctrines of the reformation, "I cannot now," said he, "in my old age, abandon the principles for which I early contended; nor, in order to procure freedom during a few declining years, will I betray that good cause, on account of which I have suffered so much, and am still willing to suffer. Better for me to enjoy, in this solitude, the esteem of virtuous men, together with the approbation of my own conscience, than to return into the world, with the imputation and guilt of apostasy, to disgrace and embitter the remainder of my days." By this magnanimous resolution, he set his countrymen a pattern of conduct so very different from that which the emperor wished him to have exhibited to them, that it drew upon him fresh marks of his displeasure. The rigor of his confinement was increased; the number of his servants abridged; the Lutheran clergymen, who had hitherto been permitted to attend him, were dismissed; and even the books of devotion, which had been his chief consolation during a tedious imprisonment, were taken from him. The landgrave of Hesse, his companion in misfortune, did not maintain the same constancy. His patience and fortitude were both so much exhausted by the length of his confinement, that, willing to purchase freedom at any price, he wrote to the emperor, offering not only to approve of the Interim, but to yield an unreserved submission to his will in every other particular. But Charles who knew that whatever course the landgrave might hold, neither his example nor his authority would prevail on his children or subjects to receive the Interim, paid no regard to his offers. He was kept confined as strictly as ever; and while he suffered the cruel mortification of having his conduct set in contrast to that of the elector, he derived not the smallest benefit from the mean step which exposed him to such deserved censure.

But it was in the Imperial cities that Charles met with the most violent opposition to the Interim. These small commonwealths, the citizens of which were accustomed to liberty and independence, had embraced the doctrines of the reformation when they were first published, with remarkble eagerness; the bold spirit of innovation being peculiarly suited to the genius of free government. Among them, the protestant teachers had made the greatest number of proselytes. The most eminent divines of the party were settled in them as pastors. By having the direction of the schools and other seminaries of learning, they bad trained up disciples, who were as well instructed in the articles of their faith, as they were zealous to defend them. Such persons were not to be guided by example, or swayed by authority but having been taught to employ their own understanding in examining and deciding with respect to the points in controversy, they thought that they were both qualified and entitled to judge for themselves. As soon as the contents of the Interim were known. they, with one voice, joined in refusing to admit it. Augsburg, Ulm, Strasburg, Constance, Bremen, Magdeburg, together with many other towns of less note, presented remonstrances to the emperor, setting forth the irregular and unconstitutional manner in which the Interim had been enacted, and beseeching him not to offer such violence to their consciences, as to require their assent to a form of doctrine and worship, which appeared to them repugnant to the express precepts of the divine law. But Charles having prevailed on so many princes of the empire to approve of his new model, was not much moved by the representations of those cities, which, how formidable soever they might have proved, if they could have been formed into one body, lay so remote from each other, that it was easy to oppress them separately, before it was possible for them to unite.

In order to accomplish this, the emperor saw it to be requisite that his measures should be vigorous, and executed with such rapidity as to allow no time for concerting any common plan of opposition. Having laid down this maxim as the rule of his proceedings his first attempt was upon the city of Augsburg, which, though overawed by the presence of the Spanish troops, he knew to be as much dissatisfied with the Interim as any in the empire. He ordered one body of these troops to seize the gates; he posted the rest in different quarters of the city; and assembling all the burgesses in the town-hall [Aug. 3], he, by his sole absolute authority, published a decree abolishing their present form of government, dissolving all their corporations and fraternities, and nominating a small number of persons, in whom he vested for the future all the powers of government. Each of the persons, thus chosen, took an oath to observe the Interim. An act of power so unprecedented as well as arbitrary, which excluded the body of the inhabitants from any share in the government of their own community, and subjected them to men who had no other merit than their servile devotion to the emperor's will, gave general disgust; but as they durst not venture upon resistance, they were obliged to submit in silence. From Augsburg, in which he left a garrison, he proceeded to Ulm, and new-modeled its government with the same violent hand; he seized such of their pastors as refused to subscribe the Interim, committed them to prison, and at his departure carried them along with him in chains. By this severity he not only secured the reception of the Interim, in two of the most powerful cities, but gave warning to the rest what such as continued refectory had to expect. The effect of the example was as great as he could have wished; and many towns, in order to save themselves from the like treatment, found it necessary to comply with what he enjoined. This obedience, extorted by the rigor of authority, produced no change in the sentiments of the Germans, and extended no farther than to make them conform so far to what he required, as was barely sufficient to screen them from punishment. The protestant preachers accompanied those religious rites, the observation of which the Interim prescribed, with such an explication of their tendency, as served rather to confirm than to remove the scruples of their hearers with regard to them. The people, many of whom had grown up to mature years since the establishment of the reformed religion, and never known any other form of public worship, beheld the pompous pageantry of the popish service with contempt or horror; and in most places the Romish ecclesiastics who returned to take possession of their churches, could hardly be protected from insult, or their ministrations from interruption.

Thus, notwithstanding the apparent compliance of so many cities, the inhabitants being accustomed to freedom, submitted with reluctance to the power which now oppressed them. Their understanding as well as inclination revolted against the doctrines and ceremonies imposed on them; and though, for the present, they concealed their disgust and resentment, it was evident that these passions could not always be kept under restraint, but would break out at last in effects proportional to their violence.

Charles, however, highly pleased with having bent the stubborn spirit of the Germans to such general submission, departed for the Low-Countries, fully determined to compel the cities, which still stood out, to receive the Interim. He carried his two prisoners, the elector of Saxony and landgrave of Hesse, along with him, either because he durst not leave them behind him in Germany, or because he wished to give his countrymen the Flemings this illustrious proof of the success of his arms, and the extent of his power. Before Charles arrived at Brussels [Sept. 17], he was informed that the pope’s legates at Bologna had dismissed the council by an indefinite prorogation, and that the prelates assembled there had returned to their respective countries. Necessity had driven the pope into this measure. By the secession of those who had voted against the translation, together with the departure of others, who grew weary of continuing in a place where they were not suffered to proceed to business, so few and such inconsiderable members remained, that the pompous appellation of a General Council could not, with decency, be bestowed any longer upon them. Paul had no choice but to dissolve an assembly which was become the object of contempt, and exhibited to all Christendom a most glaring proof of the impotence of the Romish see. But unavoidable as the measure was, it lay open to be unfavorably interpreted, and had the appearance of withdrawing the remedy, at the very time when those for whose recovery it was provided, were prevailed on to acknowledge its virtue, and to make trial of its efficacy. Charles did not fail to put this construction on the conduct of the pope; and by an artful comparison of his own efforts to suppress heresy, with Paul's scandalous inattention to a point so essential, he endeavored to render the pontiff odious to all zealous catholics. At the same time he commanded the prelates of his faction to remain at Trent, that the council might still appear to have a being, and might be ready, whenever it was thought expedient, to resume its delibe­rations for the good of the church.

The motive of Charles’s journey to the Low-Countries, besides gratifying his favorite passion of travelling from one part of his dominions to another, was to receive Philip his only son, who was now in the twenty-first year of his age, and whom he had called thither, not only that he might be recognized by the states of the Netherlands as heir-apparent, but in order to facilitate the execution of a vast scheme, the object of which, and the reception it met with, shall be hereafter explained. Philip having left the government of Spain to Maximilian, Ferdinand’s eldest son, to whom the emperor had given the princess Mary his daughter in marriage, embarked for Italy, attended by a numerous retinue of Spanish nobles. The squadron which escorted him, was commanded by Andrew Doria, who, notwithstanding his advanced age, insisted on the honor of performing, in person, the same duty to the son, which he had often discharged towards the father. He landed safely at Genoa [Nov. 25]; from thence he went to Milan, and proceeding through Germany, arrived at the Imperial court in Brussels [April, 1549]. The states of Brabant, in the first place, and those of the other provinces in their order, acknowledged his right of succession in common form, and he took the customary oath to preserve all their privileges inviolate. In all the towns of the Low-Countries through which Philip passed, he was received with extraordinary pomp. Nothing that could either express the respect of the people, or contribute to his amusement, was neglected; pageants, tournaments, and public spectacles of every kind, were exhibited with that expensive magnificence which commercial nations are fond of displaying, when, on any occasion, they depart from their usual maxims of frugality. But amidst these scenes of festivity and pleasure, Philip's natural severity of temper was discernible. Youth itself could not render him agreeable, nor his being a candidate for power form him to courtesy. He maintained a haughty reserve in his behavior, and discovered such manifest partiality towards his Spanish attendants, together with such an avowed preference to the manners of their country, as highly disgusted the Flemings, and gave rise to that antipathy, which afterwards occasioned a revolution so fatal to him in that part of his dominions.

Charles was long detained in the Netherlands by a violent attack of the gout, which returned upon him so frequently, and with such increasing violence, that it had broken, to a great degree, the vigour of his constitution. He nevertheless did not slacken his endeavors to enforce the Interim. The inhabitants of Strasburg, after a long struggle, found it necessary to yield obedience; those of Constance, who had taken arms in their own defence, were compelled by force, not only to conform to the Interim, but to renounce their privileges as a free city, to do homage to Ferdinand as archduke of Austria, and as his vassals, to admit an Austrian governor and garrison. Magdeburg, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck, were the only Imperial cities of note that still continued refractory