Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/233

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Aragon. The Emperor also wanted Catholic help to restore his brother-in-law, Christian II of Denmark, deposed by his Lutheran subjects; he desired papal recognition for Ferdinand's new kingdoms; and his own imperial authority in Germany could not have survived the secularisation of the ecclesiastical electorates Empire and Papacy, said Zwingli, both emanated from Rome; neither could stand if the other fell. At the same time the issue of the war in Italy in 1528-9 convinced Clement that he could not stand without Charles, and paved the way for the mutual understanding which was sealed by the Treaty of Barcelona (June 29, 1529). It was almost a family compact; the Pope's nephew was to marry the Emperor's illegitimate daughter, the Medici tyranny was to be re-established in Florence, the divorce of Catharine to be refused, the papal countenance to be withdrawn from Zapolya, and Emperor and Pope were to unite against Turks and heretics. The Treaty of Cambray (August 3) soon afterwards released Charles from his war with France and left him free for a while to turn his attention to Germany.

The growing intimacy between the Emperor and Pope had already smoothed the path of reaction, and reinforced the antagonism of the Catholic majority to the Lutheran princes. In 1528 Charles sent the Provost of Waldkirch to Germany to strengthen the Catholic cause; Duke Henry of Mecklenburg returned to the Catholic fold; the wavering Elector Palatine forbade his subjects to attend the preaching of Lutherans; and at the Diet of Speier, which met on February 21, 1529, the Evangelicals found themselves a divided and hopeless minority opposed to a determined and solid majority of Catholics. Only three of their number were chosen to sit on the committee appointed to discuss the religious question. Charles had sent instructions denouncing the Recess of 1526 and practically dictating the terms of a new one. The Catholics were not prepared to admit this reduction of the Diet to the status of a machine for registering imperial rescripts; but their modifications were intended rather to show their independence than to alter the purport of Charles' proposals, and their resolutions amounted to this: there was to be complete toleration for Catholics in Lutheran States, but no toleration for Lutherans in Catholic States, and no toleration anywhere for Zwinglians and Anabaptists; the Lutherans were to make no further innovations in their own dominions, and clerical jurisdictions and property were to be inviolate.

The differentiation between Lutherans and Zwinglians was a skilful attempt to drive a wedge between the two sections of the anti-Catholic party,—an attempt which Melanchthon's pusillanimity nearly brought to a successful issue. The Zwinglian party included the principal towns of south Germany; but Melanchthon was ready to abandon them as the price of peace for the Lutheran Church. Philip of Hesse, however, had none of the theological narrowness which characterised Luther and