Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/426

Rh 414 CHARLES V. [EMPEROR. Spanish conquest of Navarre, and chagrined by his defeat in the contest for the imperial crown, Francis ruled a com pact and united kingdom, not capable certainly of matching the vast empire of Charles, yet not easily accessible to attack, and formidable on the battle-field. About the same time that Charles was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, the throne of Turkey was ascended by Soliman the Magnificent, who himself the heir of mighty conquests and of well-dis ciplined armies, carried the Ottoman empire to the very pinnacle of its power (1520-66); his progress through Hungary up to the walls of Vienna was marked by an ever-advancing line of fire and blood ; his fleets commanded the Mediterranean, and threatened the coasts of Italy and Spain, while the corsairs of Tunis and Algiers, under the renowned Barbarossa, who was soon to acknowledge his allegiance, infested the seas, and, spreading terror all along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, carried thousands of Christians into slavery. The Pope was a doubtful and suspicious ally or an open enemy, as the interests or passions of the Holy See seemed to dictate, and Henry of England, aspiring to be the arbiter of Europe, pursued an equally capricious course of vacillation. In Spain itself the discontent of the commons broke into open revolt, while the haughty nobles required to be skilfully managed. Above all, on the very year of the coronation, Martin Luther had burned the papal bull which condemned him at the gate of Wittenberg. No one could yet foresee the extent of the chasm opened up in the Christian world by the heroic defiance thus hurled at its spiritual chief ; but it soon became clear that the heart of Germany was with the Augustinian monk, and that many powerful influences, in the empire and out of it, religious, social, and national, science, culture, patriotism, morality, and piety were work ing towards the overthrow of priestly domination. On all sides, then. Charles had difficult work to do. In Italy and Navarre, and on the Flemish frontier, he had to make head against the armies of Francis ; in Hungary and in the Mediterranean he had to arrest the progress of the Turks ; he required to watch the wayward king of England and the crafty popes, to manage the haughty susceptibility of Spanish grandees and the boisterous independent spirit of the Flemish cities, to compose the religious troubles, and to stay the growing spirit of revolt against the old state of things. From his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles pro ceeded to the Diet of Worms, which opened on the 28th of January 1521. After a council of regency had been appointed, which under the presidency of his brother Ferdinand was to govern during the emperor s absence, and other business had been disposed of, the religious difficulty was taken up. Though political considerations always prevailed with Charles during his active career, he was a j Catholic by conviction, and was by no means disposed to encourage the hopes entertained of him by the liberal party in Germany. Besides, the old traditions of the empire, in which he firmly believed, required that he should support the church. At the same time, the Reformation was too strongly supported to admit of the summary measures most congenial to his character and most suitable to his political position. Luther was therefore heard, and his safe-conduct respected ; but at the close of the diet Charles had the ban of the empire pronounced upon Tiim and his adherents. This edict, however, which had been obtained by unfair means, remained inoperative. The war with Francis which now broke out, and occupied the emperor for eight years, prevented him from obstructing the Refor mation. In the meantime, disturbances had been going on in another part of his dominions (1519-21). The discon tent of the commons of Castile at the summary proceedings of Ximenes, at the excessive preference given to Flemish officials in the government of Spain, and at the other uncon stitutional measures of the newGovernment, broke into open revolt. Toledo was the first to rise, and the insurgent cause soon became powerful in Castille. Even many of the nobles sympathized with the movement ; one of their number, Don John de Padilla, placed himself at the head of it ; but divisions among the commons, and their aliena tion from the nobility, weakened their strength. An army was brought up against them, which defeated Padilla, and took Toledo after a hard siege. Like disturbances took place in Valencia. Ou his return from Germany, Charles treated the insurgents with great clemency, and wisely attached the nobility to his person ; but the old liberties of Castile became little more than a dead letter. After his return from the Diet of Worms, Charles remained in Spain till 1529, directing the war against Francis. The emperor was upon the whole decidedly victorious. The French were foiled in Navarre, and expelled from Milan and from the whole of Italy. The failure of the imperialists in an invasion of Provence and the siege of Marseilles was compensated by the splendid victory of Pavia, in which the French sustained enormous losses, and Francis himself was made prisoner (1525). The triumph was, indeed, too decisive, as it made Charles oblivious of every chivalrous principle in his treatment of the captive king, and alarmed his allies, Henry of England and Clement VII., into espousing the French cause. Francis nominally accepted, but immediately after his liberation repudiated the humiliating peace of Madrid, and with his allies recommenced the war. Thus Charles lost the fruits of his victory; but he was again successful. The mercenary army of Bourbon plundered Rome, and kept the Pope a prisoner in the castle of St Angelo, while the efforts of Francis to maintain himself in Italy proved a failure. At length the rival monarchs composed their differences for a, time at the peace of Cambray 1529, by which Francis renounced his pretensions to Milan, and retained the duchy of Burgundy. The superior generalship of the Spaniards, the deeper and more persevering policy of Charles, and the defection of Bourbon (who, grievously injured at the French court, carried over to the enemies of his country his military skill and a thirst for revenge) had given him the foremost place in Christendom, in reality as well as in name, while the peace left him free for other labours. Leaving Spain under the regency of his beloved queen, Isabella of Portugal, whom he had wedded in 1526, he proceeded to Italy. At Bologna, where he had an interview 7 with the Pope ; he was crowned emperor and king of Italy; and Florence, which had expelled the Medici, was taken after a long siege, deprived of its republican constitution, and placed under a member of that celebrated family. After having arranged the affairs of Italy, the emperor crossed the Tridentine Alps into Germany to attend the diet which had been summoned to meet at Augsburg (1530). Notwithstanding the Peasants War, the fanaticism of the Anabaptists, and the strenuous, often threatening, opposition of the powers temporal and spiritual, especially of Southern Germany, the Reformation had made marvellous progress during the nine years which had elapsed since the Edict of Worms, and was rapidly overspreading the whole empire. It was clear that if the influence of the church beyond the Alps was not altogether to be lost, the emperor must interpose with the whole weight of his authority. Accordingly, at Augsburg, Charles made every effort to bring about a peaceful arrangement of the religious differences ; but he soon found that he had quite mistaken the strength and firmness of the new movement. The Protestants held resolutely by the confession they had presented ; and when Charles proceeded to issue a hostile edict against them, they formed