Julius III. was of no account; Marcellus, an excellent and earnest man, might have done much had he not died in three weeks. His election, and that of his successor, Caraffa, as Paul IV., both pointed to a real intention of reform. Caraffa had all his life been a passionate advocate of moral reform, but even he was swept away by the political conditions and his hatred of Spain, which was an obsession. Professed detestation of Spain was a sure way to his favour, which, his kinsfolk recognising, they won his confidence only to their own ultimate destruction when he discovered that he had been deceived. Half his reign was worse than wasted in a futile contest with Spain; when it was done, he turned rigorously to energetic disciplinary reforms, but death stayed his hand. A very different man was Pius IV., the pontiff under whom the Council of Trent was brought to a close. Far from rigid himself, he still could not, if he would, have altogether deserted the paths of reform. But most conspicuously he was inaugurator of a new policy, not asserting claims to supremacy, but seeking to induce the Catholic powers to work hand in hand with the papacy--Spain and the German Empire being now parted under the two branches of the House of Hapsburg. In this policy he was most ably assisted by the diplomatic tact of Cardinal Moroni, who succeeded in bringing France, Spain, and the empire into a general acceptance of the positions finally laid down by the Council of Trent, whereby the pope's ecclesiastical authority was not impaired, but rather strengthened. On his death, he was succeeded by one of the more rigid school, Pius V. (1563-1572). This pope continued to maintain the monastic austerity of his own life; his personal virtue and piety were admirable; but, being incapable of conceiving that anything could be right except on the exact lines of his own practice, he was both extremely severe and extremely intolerant; especially he was, in harmony with Philip of Spain, a determined persecutor. But to his idealism was largely due that league which, directed against the Turk, issued in one of the most memorable checks to the Ottoman arms, the battle of Lepanto. Gregory XIII. succeeded him immediately before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. It was rather the pressure of his surroundings than his personal character that gave his pontificate a spiritual aspect. An honourable care in the appointment of bishops and for ecclesiastical education were its marks on this side. He introduced the Gregorian Calendar. He was a zealous promoter of war, open and covert, with Protestantism, especially with Elizabeth; his financial arrangements were effective and ingenious. But he failed to obtain control over the robber bands which infested the Papal States.