It was now only a year since Charles had released Francis, whom he had taken prisoner at Pavia, after making a solemn compact with him; yet Francis was already intriguing against him. Francis had induced the Pope of all people--the Pope whom Charles had so helped against Francis--to be his ally against Charles. Charles's reply was to send a strong force into Italy which sacked Rome and took the Pope prisoner. Thus he disposed of that trouble. He then again made peace with Francis on liberal {45} terms. The Pope was soon set at liberty and returned to his see, but he seems to have learnt his lesson--namely, that Charles held a power far too great to be opposed, if he cared to put that power forth. In 1530 Charles was crowned King of Italy by the Pope and at the same time he received the Pope's consecration as Emperor. [Sidenote: Spread of Reformation] Meanwhile the Turks had been extending their aggressions and besieged Venice. And the Reformation, that schism, or cleaving off, which denied the authority of the Pope, spread more widely and took deeper root. Its direction of growth was chiefly northward, from Saxony which is one of the Southern German states. It worked up through Germany and so to Scandinavia and Denmark, to the Netherlands and to France. The help of those German princes who had formed themselves into a Protestant league was essential to Charles if he was to be successful in repelling the Turks, and he consented to withdraw the edicts condemning the so-called "heretics" which had been passed by his own authority. Finally he did march against the Turks, and though he did not gain any striking victory, a peace on favourable terms was made with them in 1538, after their fleet had suffered a heavy defeat from the Venetians. For the Turks were constantly at war at various points of their wide empire. On the eastern, the Persian side, there was continual fighting, with the result that they maintained their hold on Bagdad, the capital; but it was a possession which they always had to keep strongly defended. Their pirate fleets had established themselves in Tunis and Algiers on the North African coast. Charles made two naval expeditions against them, in the first of which he succeeded tolerably, but in the second had no success at all. The Moslem corsairs remained dominant in {46} the Mediterranean until they suffered a notable defeat in the famous battle of Lepanto in 1571. Luther died in 1546, boldly uttering, both by speech and writing, his doctrines until the last. He lived to see them firmly grounded in Germany, and spreading north and west. On the Continent of Europe the kings were in opposition to them. In England, exceptional circumstances arose which disposed Henry VIII. to receive them with favour.