Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/260

 248 THE AGE OF HAPSBURG ASCENDENCY The peasant leaders had also raised the cry of religion; although Luther denounced them in unmeasured terms, and gave his whole support to the enforcement of law, the whole movement discredited the Reformation as being anarchical in its tendencies. On the other hand, the emperor and the pope were now in a state of keen antagonism. A diet, held at Speier or Spires, practically revoked the Edict of Worms, and left the settlement of religion in each state to its own prince. Charles, however, had no sooner obtained the mastery over the pope, and come to terms with him, than he made clear his The Protest intention of returning to his earlier attitude. The of Speier. protest issued by the Lutheran leaders gave to their party the title of Protestants. The Protestants then drew up their own creed in the confession of Augsburg, and formed the league of Schmalkald in their own defence in 1530. But hostilities were for the time deferred by the advance from the east of the Turks, who were actually threatening Vienna. To the princes the Reformation had already meant the suppression of monasteries, and secularisation of Church lands — that is, their appropriation to the state, chiefly, though not exclusively, for educational purposes. Meanwhile Switzerland had acted in something after the same fashion as Germany. The doctrines of the Swiss reformers M. , M were by no means identical with those of Luther, Switzerland. who denounced the Swiss leader Zwingli with great vigour. The Swiss had arrived among themselves at a com- promise, under which each canton was left to settle its own affairs. In Denmark and in Sweden the governments success- fully imposed Protestantism on their respective countries, not so much from any strength of religious conviction on the part of the rulers, or of religious fervour on the part of the people, as because the nobles in the one case and the impoverished state treasury in the other thus found a warrant for dispossessing the Church of its property. The advance of the Turks against Vienna was the natural outcome of the expansion of their power in the early years of « m ^ ™ the century. Their sultan Selim had resumed the 2. The Turks. . aggressive policy, which for a time had been in abeyance. He re-established his dominion over Persia, over