The refusal of the Protestants to join the Council of Trent brought matters to a crisis. It placed them definitely outside the pale of the Church, and Charles V could no longer find excuse in his not over-troublous conscience, to avoid taking measures against them. They themselves realized this, and formed a league for mutual support, the Smalkald League; but it was never very harmonious. Thought, made suddenly free, could not be expected to run all in the same channel. The Protestants had divided into Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and a dozen minor sects, some of which opposed one another more bitterly than they did the Catholics. Toleration was as yet a thing unknown.[14] The state of affairs was thus one peculiarly fitted for the genius of Charles, who managed so to divide the members of the league that only one of them, the Elector of Saxony, successor to Frederick the Wise, met the Emperor's forces in battle. He was easily overthrown. The league dissolved, and Charles, supported by his Spanish forces, was undisputed master of Germany. He used his power mildly, insisting indeed on the Protestants returning to the Church, but promising them many of the reforms they demanded. This was the moment of Charles' greatest power (1547). His ancient rivals Henry and Francis both died in this year, the one sunk in sensual sloth, the other in shame and gloom and savage cruelty. In his hatred of Charles, Francis had even in his latter years allied himself with Solyman the Magnificent, and encouraged the Turks in their assault on Germany. Henry's crown fell to a child, Edward VI; that of Francis, to his son, another Henry, the second of France, a young man apparently immersed in sports and pleasures. The Turks had been defeated by Charles' fleets in the Mediterranean. The Council of Trent, at first refractory, seemed yielding to his wishes. Spain, where at one time he had faced a violent revolt against his absolutism, was now wholly submissive. Germany seemed equally overcome. The Emperor was at the summit of his ambitions. Europe lay at his feet. In 1552, with the suddenness of an earthquake, the Protestant princes of Germany burst into a carefully planned revolt.[15] Maurice, another member of the Saxon house, was their leader. Charles, caught unprepared, had to flee from Germany, crossing the Alps in a litter, while he groaned with gout. Henry of France, in alliance with the rebels, proclaimed himself "Defender of the Liberties of Germany," and invading the land, began seizing what cities and strong places he could. The princes, amazed at their own complete success, sent Henry word that their liberties were now fully secured, and he might desist. But he concluded to keep what he had won. So began the series of aggressions by which France gradually advanced her frontier to the Rhine.