LEAGUE OF SMALKALDE AND RETREAT OF SOLYMAN

 

The severity of this decree, which was considered as a prelude to the most violent persecutions, alarmed the protestants, and convinced them that the emperor was resolved on their destruction. The dread of those calamities which were ready to fall on the church, oppressed the feeble spirit of Melanchthon; and, as if the cause had already been desperate, he gave himself up to melancholy and lamentation. But Luther, who during the meeting of the diet had endeavored to confirm and animate his party by several treatises which he addressed to them, was not disconcerted or dismayed at the prospect of this new danger. He comforted Melanchthon, and his other desponding disciples, and exhorted the princes not to abandon those truths which they had lately asserted with such laudable boldness. His exhortations made the deeper impression, upon them, as they were greatly alarmed at that time by the account of a combination among the popish princes of the empire for the maintenance of the established religion, to which Charles himself had acceded. This convinced them that it was necessary to stand on their guard; and that their own safety, as well as the success of their cause, depended on union. Filled with this dread of the adverse party, and with these sentiments concerning the conduct proper for themselves, they assembled at Smalkalde. There they concluded a league of mutual defence against all ag7essorsb [Dec. 221], by which they formed the protestant states of the empire into one regular body, and beginning already to consider themselves as such, they resolved to apply to the kings of France and England, and to implore them to patronize and assist their new confederacy.

An affair not connected with religion furnished them with a pretence for courting the aid of foreign princes. Charles, whose ambitious views enlarged in proportion to the increase of his power and grandeur, had formed a scheme of continuing the Imperial crown in his family, by procuring his brother Ferdinand to be elected king of the romans. The present juncture was favorable for the execution of that design. The emperor's arms had been everywhere victorious; he had given law to all Europe at the late peace; no rival now remained in a condition to balance or to control him; and the electors, dazzled with the splendor of his success, or overawed by the greatness of his power, durst scarcely dispute the will of a prince, whose solicitations carried with them the authority of commands. Nor did he want plausible reasons to enforce the measure. The affairs of his other kingdoms, he said, obliged him to be often absent from Germany; the growing disorders occasioned by the controversies about religion, as well as the formidable neighborhood of the Turks, who continually threatened to break in with their desolating armies into the heart of the empire, required the constant presence of a prince endowed with prudence capable of composing the former, and with power as well as valor sufficient to repel the latter. His brother Ferdinand possessed these qualities in an eminent degree; by residing long in Germany, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of its constitution and manners; having been present almost from the first rise of the religious dissensions, he knew what remedies were most proper, what the Germans could bear, and how to apply them; as his own dominions lay on the Turkish frontier, he was the natural defender of Germans against the invasions of the infidels, being prompted by interest no less than he would be bound in duty to oppose them.

These arguments made little impression on the protestants. Experience taught them, that nothing had contributed more to the undisturbed progress of their opinions, than the interregnum after Maximilian’s death, the long absence of Charles, and the slackness of the reins of government which these occasioned. Conscious of the advantages which their cause had derived from this relaxation of government, they were unwilling to render it more vigorous, by giving themselves a new and a fixed master. They perceived clearly the extent of Charles’s ambition, that he aimed at rendering the Imperial crown hereditary in his family, and would of course establish in the empire an absolute dominion, to which elective princes could not have aspired with equal facility. They determined therefore to oppose the election of Ferdinand with the utmost vigor, and to rouse their countrymen, by their example and exhortations, to withstand this encroachment on their liberties. The elector of Saxony, accordingly, not only refused to be present at the electoral college, which the emperor summoned to meet at Cologne [January 5, 1531], but instructed his eldest son to appear there, and to protest against the election as informal, illegal, contrary to the articles of the golden bull, and subversive of the liberties of the empire. But the other electors, whom Charles had been at great pains to gain, without regarding either his absence or protest, chose Ferdinand king of the Romans, who a few days after was crowned at Aix-la­Chapelle.

When the protestants, who were assembled a second time at Smalkalde, received an account of this transaction, and heard at the same time, that prosecutions were commenced, in the Imperial chamber, against some of their number, on account of their religious principles, they thought it necessary, not only to renew their former confederacy, but immediately to dispatch their ambassadors into France and England [Feb. 29]. Francis had observed, with all the jealousy of a rival, the reputation which the emperor had acquired by his seeming disinterestedness and moderation in settling the affairs of Italy; and beheld with great concern the successful step which he had taken towards perpetuating and extending his authority in Germany by the election of a king of the Romans. Nothing, however, would have been more impolitic than to precipitate his kingdom into a new war when exhausted by extraordinary efforts, and discouraged by ill success, before it had got time to recruit its strength, or to forget past misfortunes. As no provocation had been given by the emperor, and hardly a pretext for a rupture had been afforded him, he could not violate a treaty, a peace which he himself had so lately solicited, without forfeiting the esteem of all Europe, and being detested as a prince void of probity and honor. He observed, with great joy, powerful factions beginning to form in the empire; he listened with the utmost eagerness to the complaints of the protestant princes, and, without seeming to countenance their religious opinions, determined secretly to cherish those sparks of political discord which might be afterwards kindled into a flame. For this purpose, he sent William de Bellay, one of the ablest negotiators in France, into Germany, who, visiting the courts of the malecontent princes, and heightening their ill humor by various arts, concluded an alliance between them and his master, which, though concealed at that time, and productive of no immediate effects, laid the foundation of a union fatal en many occasions to Charles's ambitious Projects; and showed the discontented princes of Germany, where, for the future, they might find a protector no less able than willing to undertake their defence against the encroachments of the emperor.

The king of England, highly incensed against Charles, in complaisance to whom the pope had long retarded, and now openly opposed his divorce, was no less disposed than Francis to strengthen a league which might be rendered so formidable to the emperor. But his favorite project of the divorce led him into such a labyrinth of schemes and negotiations. and he was, at the same time, so intent on abolishing the papal jurisdiction in England, that he had no leisure for foreign affairs. This obliged him to rest satisfied with giving general promises, together with a small supply in money, to the confederates of Smalkalde.

Meanwhile, many circumstances convinced Charles that this was not a juncture when the extirpation of heresy was to be attempted by violence and rigor; that in compliance with the pope's inclinations, he had already proceeded with imprudent precipitation; and that it was more his interest to consolidate Germany into one united and vigorous body, than to divide and enfeeble it by a civil war. The protestants, who were considerable as well by their numbers as by their zeal, had acquired additional weight and importance by their joining in that confederacy into which the rash steps taken at Augsburg had forced them. Having now discovered their own strength, they despised the decisions of the Imperial chamber; and being secure of foreign protection, were ready to set the head of the empire at defiance.

At the same time the peace with France was precarious, the friendship of an irresolute and interested pontiff was not to be relied on; and Solyman, in order to repair the discredit and loss which his arms had sustained in the former campaign, was preparing to enter Austria with more numerous forces. On all these accounts, especially the last, a speedy accommodation with the malcontent princes became necessary; not only for the accomplishment of his future schemes, but for ensuring his present safety. Negotiations were, accordingly, carried on by his direction with the elector of Saxony and his associates; after many delays, occasioned by their jealousy of the emperor, and of each other, after innumerable difficulties, arising from the inflexible nature of religious tenets, which cannot admit of being altered, modified, or relinquished in the same manner as points of political interest, terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremberg [July 23], and ratified solemnly in the diet at Ratisbon [Aug. 31]. In this treaty it was stipulated,

That universal peace be established in Germany, until the meeting of a general council, the convocation of which within six months the emperor shall endeavor to procure;

That no person shall be molested on account of religion;

That a stop shall be put to all processes begun by the Imperial chamber against protestants, and the sentences already passed to their detriment shall be declared void.

On their part, the protestants engaged to assist the emperor with all their forces in resisting the invasion of the Turks. Thus, by their firmness in adhering to their principles, by the unanimity with which they urged all their claims, and by their dexterity in availing themselves of the emperor's situation, the protestants obtained terms which amounted almost to a toleration of their religion; all the concessions were made by Charles, none by them; even the favorite point of their approving his brother's election was not mentioned; and the protestants of Germany, who had hitherto been viewed only as a religious sect, came henceforth to be considered as a political body of no small consequence.

1532.] The intelligence which Charles received of Solyman’s having entered Hungary at the head of three hundred thousand men, brought the deliberations of the diet at Ratisbon to a period; the contingent both of troops and money, which each prince was to furnish towards the defence of the empire, having been already settled. The protestants, as a testimony of their gratitude to the emperor, exerted themselves with extraordinary zeal, and brought into the field forces which exceeded in number the quota imposed on them; the catholics imitating their example, one of the greatest and best appointed armies that had ever been levied in Germany, assembled near Vienna. Being joined by a body of Spanish and Italian veterans under the marquis del Guasto; by some heavy armed cavalry from the Low-Countries; and by the troops which Ferdinand had raised in Bohemia, Austria, and his other territories, it amounted in all to ninety thousand disciplined foot, and thirty thousand horse, besides a prodigious swarm of irregulars. Of this vast army, worthy the first prince in Christendom, the emperor took the command in person, and mankind waited in suspense the issue of a decisive battle between the two greatest monarchs in the world. But each of them dreading the other’s power and good fortune, they both conducted their operations with such excessive caution, that a campaign, for which such immense preparations had been made, ended without any memorable event [September and October]. Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground upon an enemy always attentive and on his guard, marched back to Constantinople towards the end of autumn. It is remarkable, that in such a martial age, when every gentleman was a soldier, and every prince a general, this was the first time that Charles, who had already carried on such extensive wars, and gained so many victories, appeared at the head of his troops. In this first essay of his arms, to have opposed such a leader as Solyman was no small honor; to have obliged him to retreat, merited very considerable praise.

 

HENRY VIII IS DECLARED GOD ON EARTH