The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire which assembled at Speyer in 1526 saw the German princes divided into a Lutheran and a Roman Catholic party, but left the legal status of the new faith still in doubt, contenting itself with the vague declaration that "each prince should so conduct himself as he could answer for his behavior to God and to the emperor." But at the next Diet, held at the same place in 1529, the emperor directed that the edict against heretics should be enforced and that the old ecclesiastical revenues should not be appropriated for the new worship. The Lutheran princes drafted a legal protest, in which they declared that they meant to abide by the law of 1526. From this protest came the name _Protestant_. [Sidenote: Confession of Augsburg, 1530] The next year, Luther's great friend, Melancthon, presented to the Diet of Augsburg an account of the beliefs of the German reformers, which later became known as the Confession of Augsburg and constitutes to the present day the distinctive creed of the Lutheran Church. The emperor was still unconvinced, however, of the truth or value of the reformed doctrine, and declared his intention of ending the heresy by force of arms. [Sidenote: Religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555] In this predicament, the Lutheran princes formed a league at Schmalkald for mutual protection (1531); and from 1546 to 1555 a desultory civil war was waged. The Protestants received some assistance from the French king, who, for political reasons, was bent on humiliating the emperor. The end of the religious conflict appeared to have been reached by the peace of Augsburg (1555), which contained the following provisions: (1) Each prince was to be free to dictate the religion of his subjects [Footnote: _Cuius regio eius religio_.]; (2) All church property appropriated by the Protestants before 1552 was to remain in their hands; (3) No form of Protestantism except Lutheranism was to be tolerated; (4) Lutheran subjects of ecclesiastical states were not to be obliged to renounce their faith; (5) By an "ecclesiastical reservation" any ecclesiastical prince on becoming a Protestant was to give up his see. [Sidenote: Lutheranism in the Germanies] Thus, between 1520 and 1555, Martin Luther [Footnote: He died in 1546, aged 62.] had preached his new theology at variance with the Catholic, and had found general acceptance for it throughout the northern half of the Germanies; its creed had been settled and defined in 1530, and its official toleration had been recognized in 1555. The toleration was limited, however, to princes, and for many years Lutheran rulers showed themselves quite as intolerant within their own dominions as did the Catholics. [Sidenote: Lutheranism in Scandinavia]