The Madness of the Pope Paul the Fourth

 

During these various operations, Ferdinand assembled the college of electors at Frankfort [Feb. 24], in order to lay before them the instrument whereby Charles V had resigned the Imperial crown, and transferred it to him.

This he had hitherto delayed on account of some difficulties which had occurred concerning the formalities requisite in supplying a vacancy occasioned by an event, to which there was no parallel in the annals of the empire. These being at length adjusted, the prince of Orange executed the commission with which he had been entrusted by Charles; the electors accepted of his resignation; declared Ferdinand his lawful successor; and put him in possession of all the ensigns of the Imperial dignity.

But when the new emperor sent Gusman his chancellor to acquaint the pope with this transaction, to testify his reverence towards the holy see, and to signify that, according to form, he would soon dispatch an ambassador extraordinary to treat with his holiness concerning his coronation; Paul, whom neither experience nor disappointments could teach to bring down his lofty ideas of the papal prerogative to such a moderate standard as suited the genius of the times, refused to admit the envoy into his presence, and declared all the proceedings at Frankfort irregular and invalid.

He contended that the pope, as the vicegerent of Christ, was entrusted with the keys both of spiritual and of civil government; that from him the Imperial jurisdiction was derived; that though his predecessors had authorized the electors to choose an emperor whom the holy see confirmed, this privilege was confined to those cases when a vacancy was occasioned by death; that the instrument of Charles's resignation had been presented in an improper court, as it belonged to the pope alone to reject or to accept of it, and to nominate a person to fill the Imperial throne; that setting aside all these objections, Ferdinand's election labored under two defects which alone were sufficient to render it void, for the protestant electors had been admitted to vote, though, by their apostasy from the catholic faith, they had forfeited that and every other privilege of the electoral office: and Ferdinand, by ratifying the concessions of several diets, in favor of heretics, had rendered himself unworthy of the Imperial dignity, which was instituted for the protection, not for the destruction of the church.

But after thundering out these extravagant maxims, he added, with an appearance of condescension, that if Ferdinand would renounce all title to the Imperial crown, founded on the election at Frankfort, make professions of repentance for his past conduct, and supplicate him, with due humility, to confirm Charles's resignation, as well as his own assumption to the empire, he might expect every mark of favor from his paternal clemency and goodness. Gusman, though he had foreseen considerable difficulties in his negotiation with the pope, little expected that he would have revived those antiquated and wild pretensions, which astonished him so much that he hardly knew in what tone he ought to reply.

He prudently declined entering into any controversy concerning the nature or extent of the papal jurisdiction, and confined himself to the political considerations, which should determine the pope to recognize an emperor already in possession, he endeavored to place them in such a light, as he imagined could scarcely fail to strike Paul, if he were not altogether blind to his own interest.

Philip seconded Gusman's arguments with great earnestness, by an ambassador whom he sent to Rome on purpose, and besought the pope to desist from claims so unseasonable, as might not only irritate and alarm Ferdinand and the princes of the empire, but furnish the enemies of the holy see with a new reason for representing its jurisdiction as incompatible with the rights of princes, and subversive of all civil authority.

But Paul, who deemed it a crime to attend to any consideration suggested by human prudence or policy, when he thought himself called upon to assert the prerogatives of the papal see, remained inflexible; and during his pontificate, Ferdinand was not acknowledged as emperor by the court of Rome.

 

The Road to the Peace of the Kings