Habsburg authority in the Empire was threatened with one of the most serious checks it experienced.
The restoration of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg was not merely a favourite design of the Protestants for the extension of the Reformation in south Germany; it was regarded by German Catholic Princes and by the Emperor's foreign foes as an invaluable means of undermining the Habsburg power. It is even believed that Clement VII himself in his anger at Charles' persistent demand for a General Council, discussed the execution of this plan at his interview with Francis I at Marseilles in the autumn of 1533. At any rate the French King went from Marseilles to Bar-le-duc, where in January, 1534, he agreed with Philip of Hesse to give the enterprise extensive financial support, cloaked under a fictitious sale of Montbeliard (the property of Ulrich) to the French King. The moment was opportune. Ferdinand was busy in Bohemia and Hungary; the outbreak of the Anabaptist revolution gave Philip of Hesse an excuse for arming; and the decrepitude of the Swabian League neutralised the force by which Württemberg had been won and maintained for the Austrian House. Religious divisions had impaired the harmony of the League, and political jealousies had transformed it from a willing tool of the Habsburgs into an almost hostile power, In November, 1532, the Electors of Trier and the Palatinate and Philip of Hesse had agreed to refuse a renewal of the League; and in May, 1533, some of its most important city members, Ulm, Nürnberg, and Augsburg, formed a separate alliance for the defence of freedom of conscience. The strictly defensive Catholic confederation established at Halle in ducal Saxony in the following November between the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, Dukes George of Saxony, Eric and Henry of Brunswick, was neither a match for the Schmalkaldic League, nor had it any interest in the perpetuation of Austrian rule in Württemberg. Joachim told Philip that Ferdinand would get no help from the Electors; and his words proved true indeed. The Archbishops of Mainz and Trier observed a strict neutrality; the Elector Palatine's promise of aid was delusive; while the Catholic bishop of Münster and Duke Henry of Brunswick, possibly on the understanding that Philip would assist them to put down the Münster Anabaptists, consented to help him in Württemberg, and assurances of support were also forthcoming from Henry VIII, Christian III of Denmark, and Zapolya.
In 1532 Ulrich's son Christopher, alarmed at the prospect of being carried off to Spain, escaped from the Emperor's Court during the Turkish campaign, and in the following year appeared at a meeting of the Swabian League at Augsburg. His cause was warmly advocated by a French envoy and almost unanimously approved by the League. Bavaria, indeed, wished to restore Christopher, who had been educated as a Catholic, instead of his father, a strenuous Protestant, and on this score quarrelled with Philip of Hesse. But French aid enabled Philip
