tinued imprisonment of the Landgrave, against the spirit of the stipulations given on the occasion of his surrender, for the fulfillment of which Maurice was held to be answerable, were not only personally displeasing to him, but they brought upon him increasing unpopularity.. His applications to the Emperor for the release of the Landgrave, Maurice's father-in-law, had proved ineffectual. The Spaniards were threatening that the German princes should be put down, and intimations that Maurice himself might have to be dealt with as the Elector had been, were occasionally thrown out. The siege of Magdeburg which Maurice, who had undertaken to execute the imperial ban against that city, was languidly prosecuting, served as a cover for military preparations. Having secured the coöperation of several Protestant princes on whom he could rely; having convinced with difficulty the families of the captive princes that he might be trusted; having, also, negotiated an alliance with Henry II., who was to make a diversion against Charles, in the Netherlands; having come to an understanding with Magdeburg, which was to serve as a refuge in case of defeat; having made these and all other needful preparations with profound secrecy, he suddenly took the field, and marching at the head of an army which increased at every step of his advance, he crossed the Alps, and forced the Emperor, who was suffering from an attack of the gout, to fly from Innspruck.1 This triumph was followed by the treaty of Passau. Charles left his brother Ferdinand to negotiate with the princes. The demand of Maurice and of his associates was that the Protestants should have an assurance of toleration and of an equality of rights with the Catholics, whether the efforts to secure religious unanimity in the nation should succeed or not. To this Ferdinand gave his assent; but the Emperor,

1 Maurice did not capture Charles: "He had no cage," he said, "for so large a bird." Charles fled from Innspruck, May 19, 1552.

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impelled alike by conscience and by pride, notwithstanding his humiliating defeat, could not be brought to concur in this stipulation. The Protestants obtained the pledge of amnesty, of peace, and equal rights, until the religious differences should be settled by a national assembly or a general council. The captive princes were set at liberty. Charles was obliged to see his long-cherished plan for the destruction of Protestantism terminate in a mortifying failure. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1555, the celebrated Religious Peace was concluded. Every prince was to be allowed to choose between the Catholic religion and the Augsburg Confession, and the religion of the prince was to be that of the land over which he reigned. The Catholics wanted to except ecclesiastical princes from the first article; the Protestants objected to the second. nally the ecclesiastical reservation was adopted into the treaty, according to which every prelate on becoming Protestant should resign his benefice; and by an accompanying declaration of Ferdinand, the subjects of ecclesiastical princes were to enjoy religious liberty. The Imperial Chamber, which had been a principal instrument of oppression in the hands of the Catholics, was reconstituted in such a way that the rights of the Protestants were protected. Charles took no part personally in the proceedings which led to the religious peace. It involved a concession to the adherents of the Augsburg Confession the liberty to practice their religion without molestation or loss of civil privileges, whether a council should or should not succeed in uniting the opposing partiesa concession which he had intended never to grant. But the progress of thought and the strength of religious convictions were too mighty to be overcome by force. Mediæval imperialism was obliged to give way before the forces arrayed against it. The abdication of Charles, who felt himself physically unequal to the cares of his office, followed, and the imperial station devolved on his brother (1556).

PEACE OF AUGSBURG.

169

Thus Protestantism obtained a legal recognition. During the next few years, the Protestant faith rapidly spread even in Bavaria and Austria. Had it not been for the Ecclesiastical Reservation, says Gieseler, all Germany would have soon become Protestant. 1

1 Gieseler, IV. i. 1, § 11.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REFORMATION IN THE SCANDINAVIAN KINGDOMS, IN THE SLAVONIC NATIONS, AND IN HUNGARY.

WHEN we inquire into the means by which the German Reformation extended itself into the adjacent countries, the agency of the Germans who were settled in these lands constantly appears. One is reminded of the diffusion of the ancient Hebrews, and of the part taken by them in opening a way for Christianity beyond the bounds of Palestine. Another very conspicuous instrument in the spread of the Lutheran doctrine was Wittenberg, the renowned school to which young men were attracted out of all the neighboring lands. The use of Latin as a vehicle of teaching and as the common language of educated persons of whatever nationality, rendered this practicable. But the Scandinavians were themselves a branch of the great Teutonic family, near kinsmen of the Germans, and connected with them, besides, by the bonds of commercial intercourse.

In 1397, the three Scandinavian kingdoms, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, were united by the Union of Calmar, in which it was provided that each nation should preserve its laws and institutions, and share in the election of the common sovereign. The result, however, was a long struggle for Danish supremacy over Sweden. When the Reformation in Germany began, Christian II. of Denmark was engaged in a contest for the Swedish throne. In all these countries the prelates were possessed of great

THE REFORMATION IN DENMARK.

171 wealth, and very much restricted the authority of the sovereign as well as the power of the secular nobles.1

Christian II. was surrounded, in Denmark, by a body of advisers who sympathized with the Lutheran movement in Saxony, He was himself disposed to depress the power of the ecclesiastical and lay aristocracy, and, for this end, though not without the admixture of other and better motives, set to work to enlighten and elevate the lower classes. The encouragement of Protestantism accorded with his general policy. In 1520, he sent for a Saxon preacher to serve as chaplain at his court and as a religious instructor of the people, and subsequently invited Luther himself into his kingdom. At the same time that Christian availed himself of the papal ban as a warrant for his tyranny and cruelty in Sweden, he continued. in Denmark to promote the establishment of Protestantism. In 1521 he put forth a book of laws, which contained enactments of a Protestant tendency; among them one to encourage the marriage of all prelates and priests, and another for dispensing with all appeals to Rome.2 After his sanguinary proceedings against Sweden, finding that his crown was in danger, he retracted his reformatory measures, at the instigation of a papal legate. But he was deposed by the prelates and nobles of Denmark, and his uncle, Frederic I., Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, was made king, in 1523.

Frederic at his accession, though personally inclined to Protestantism, was obliged to pledge himself to the Danish magnates to resist its introduction, and to grant it no toleration. The exiled Christian identified himself with the Protestant cause, though not with constancy; for if the charge lacks proof that, at Augsburg, in 1530, in

1 Münter, Kirchengeschichte v. Dänemark u. Norwegen, Th. iii.; Gieseler, IV. i. c. 2, § 17; Geijer, History of the Swedes; Herzog, Real-Encycl., articles "Schweden,' ""Dänemark."

2 Münter, p. 56 seq.