Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
Francis devised new grounds for war, and allied himself with Sweden,
Denmark, and the Sultan Soliman. This is the first instance of a
confederacy with the North. But he had alienated the Protestants of
Germany by his severe measures against the Lutherans, and Henry VIII. by
crossing the marriage of his son Edward with Mary of Scotland, yet in
her cradle. Henry therefore leagued with the emperor, who found it
convenient to bury the injuries of Catherine of Aragon in her grave. The
war was continued during the two following years with varying success:
the most remarkable events were the capture of Boulogne by the English,
and the great victory won by the French over the Imperialists at
Cerisolles, Piedmont, in 1544. In the autumn of that year a treaty was
concluded at Crespi, between Charles and Francis, involving the ordinary
conditions of marriage and mutual renunciations, with the curious clause
that both should make joint war against the Turks. In the same year the
embarrassments created by the war, and the imminent danger of Hungary,
increased the boldness of the German Protestants belonging to the league
of Smalkald, and the emperor, while presiding at the diet of Spire, won
them over by consenting to the free exercise of their religion.
The Catholics had always demanded a council, which was convened at Trent
in 1545. The Protestants refused to acknowledge its authority, and the
emperor no longer affected fairness toward them. In 1546 he joined Pope
Paul III. in a league against them, by a treaty in terms contradictory
to his own public protestations. Paul himself was so imprudent as to
reveal the secret, and it enabled the Protestants to raise a formidable
army in defence of their religion and liberties. But the Electors of
Cologne and Brandenburg, and the Elector Palatine, resolved to remain
neuter. Notwithstanding this secession, the war might have been ended at
once, had the confederates attacked Charles while he lay at Ratisbon
with very few troops, instead of wasting time by writing a manifesto,
which he answered by putting the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of
Hesse under the ban of the empire. He foresaw those divisions which soon
came to pass by Maurice of Saxony's seizure of his cousin's electorate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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