Francis I. at the moment when he was most zealously engaged in uniting England, Germany and Italy against Spain was stricken by death at Rambouillet after a twenty years’ conflict with the increasing power of Charles Fifth. The emperor now saw himself without a rival and hastened to take advantage of the occasion. He renewed hostilities against the Duke of Saxony, though his army had been thinned by the withdrawal of the Papal troops. It is not our purpose to recount the story of this Germanic war. Charles conducted it to a successful termination because the affairs of Italy no longer distracted his attention. But his victories over the league of Smacalda increased the suspicions and fears of Paul III. who saw that if Charles was successful in Germany he would be master at the council of Trent. It was no secret that the emperor designed to take that occasion for avenging himself on the Pope for sympathy with the Fieschi and France. The Roman court was too jealous of its prerogatives not to be alarmed at the prospect of having its power limited by an ambitious monarch favourably disposed towards the policy of the German reformers. It was thought necessary to remove the seat of the council to some city nearer to Rome and more under Papal influence, where Charles could not intrigue nor display his arms with so much effect. Fortune favoured the Pope. Some of the assembled prelates fell sick and the physicians, especially Fracastoro who was employed by Rome for the business, reported that a fierce contagion had broken out in the city. Many of the prelates abandoned Trent in great haste and the council was removed to Bologna. The cardinals and bishops of the imperial faction remained in Trent by express order of Charles. The remainder, thirty-four in number, accompanied the Papal legates. There were mutual recriminations and the very council assembled to destroy scism was menaced with a scism in its own bosom. Cæsar made angry appeals and intrigued adroitly to secure the reassembling of the Synod in Trent. The Pope refused, and Charles avenged himself by that decree of _Interim_, in which he declared that until the council should be reconvoked in Trent every one was at liberty to think as he pleased in matters of religion. The decree occasioned great scandal in the church.