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 Arragon in her grave. The war was continued during the two following years with various 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, in 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 towards 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.