THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION 255 country a new political power, since the distribution of the mon- astic lands had brought into being a large new class of landed gentry which greatly strengthened the Commons House of Parliament. The Peace of Augsburg left Charles practically defeated in all his ambitions. He had failed in his attempt to make him- self, as emperor, the real master of Germany. He Abdication had failed to suppress Protestantism, as he had of Charles v. failed to effect a religious compromise. He had failed to secure the succession in the empire to his son. He had married that son to the English Queen Mary in the hope of thus adding another kingdom to the dominions of his house, and in this too he had failed since there was no offspring of the marriage. There was every probability that Scotland would be attached to France, as he had hoped to attach England to Spain, by the approaching marriage of the French Dauphin to the young Queen of Scots. In 1556 Charles abdicated, and his son Philip succeeded to the throne of Spain, to all his possessions in Italy, and to the Burgundian inheritance. His brother Ferdinand was in due course elected emperor, and Charles himself died two years later. In the interval England, involved by the Spanish marriage in a war with France, had lost Calais. Two months after the death of Charles, Elizabeth was Queen of England, and her long contest with her Spanish brother-in-law began.
