and the Netherlands passed to his legitimate son, Philip II., while after some delay his brother, Ferdinand, was recognised as his successor in the Empire. Charles V. was a man of sound judgment and liberal views, of great energy and prudence, as skilful in war as he was in the arts of diplomacy, and immensely superior in nearly every respect to his contemporaries, Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England. Yet in spite of all his admitted qualifications, and notwithstanding the fact that he was the ruler of three-fourths of Western Europe, he lived to witness the overthrow of his dearest projects and the complete failure of his general policy. But his want of success was not due to personal imprudence or inactivity. It is to be attributed to the circumstances of the times, the rebellion in Spain, the open revolt of some and the distrust of others in Germany, the rapid advance of the Turks towards the west, and, above all, the struggle with France. Despite his many quarrels with the Holy See, and in face of the many temptations held out to him to arrive at the worldwide dictatorship to which he was suspected of aspiring, by putting himself at the head of the new religious movement, he never wavered for a moment in his allegiance to the Catholic Church. ---------- [1] Grisar, /Luther/ (Eng. Trans.), i., p. 4. [2] /Id./ p. 8. [3] Grisar, /Luther/ (Eng. Trans.), i., p. 14. [4] Id. chap. iv. [5] Keller, /Johann von Staupitz und die Anfange der Reformation/, 1888. [6] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., 34, 323. [7] Id. i., 34, Bd. iii., 957-8. [8] Paulus, /Johann Tetzel, der Ablassprediger/, 1899. /Die Deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen Luther/, 1903. [9] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., pp. 341-55. [10] Kidd, /Documents of the Continental Reformation/, pp. 20-6. [11] Specially, Nos. 43, 45, 59, 86. [12] /Dialogus . . . in presumptuosas M. Lutheri conclusiones de potestate Papae./ [13] Greving, /Johann Eck/, etc., 1906. [14] "/Beatissime Pater, prostratum me pedibus tuae beatitudinis offero cum omnibus quae sum et habeo. Vivifica, occide, voca, revoca, approba, reproba, ut placuerit. Vocem tuam vocem Christi in te praesidentis et loquentis agnoscam. Si mortem merui, mori non recusabo./" [15] Pastor, op. cit., iv., 177-9. [16] Creutzberg, /Karl von Miltitz/, 1907. [17] "/Coram Deo et tota creatura sua testor, me neque voluisse neque hodie velle Ecclesiae Romanae ac Beatitudinis Tuae potestem ullo modo tangere aut quacunque versutia demoliri; quin plenissime confiteor huius ecclesiae potestatem esse super omnia, nec ei praeferendum quidquid sive in coelo sive in terra praeter unum Jesum Christum Dominum omnium/" (3rd March, 1519). Kidd, op. cit., p. 43. [18] Grisar, op. cit. (Eng. Trans.), i., 359. [19] /Cambridge Modern History/, ii., chaps. ii., iii. [20] /Imperatorum nationis Germanicae gravamina ad Sadem Romanam/, 1725.