battle of Cerizoles, but drew no benefit from this partial advantage. The imperialists, on the whole, had a decided superiority; and France must have been undone, had not the disorders of Germany, from the contending interests of the Catholics and Protestants, forced the emperor to conclude the treaty of Crépi with Francis (1544); who, at the same time, purchased a peace with Henry VIII., who had once more taken part with his rival. Francis died soon after (1547); a prince of great spirit and abilities, and of a generous and noble mind, unfortunate only from the necessity of struggling against a power which overmatched him both in policy and in resources.

11. A short time before this period was founded (1535) the order of the Jesuits (or the Society of Jesus), by Ignatius Loyola, which was approved of and confirmed by the pope in 1540. The principle of the order (besides the three vows of poverty, chastity, and monastic obedience, which are common to all the orders of regulars) was implicit obedience and submission to the pope. The brethren were not confined to their cloisters, but allowed to mix with the world; and thus, by gaining the confidence of princes and statesmen, they were enabled to direct the policy of nations to the great end of establishing the supreme authority of the Holy See. The wealth they accumulated, the extent of their power, and the supposed consequences of their intrigues to the peace of nations, excited at length a general hostility to their order; [and the institution was totally suppressed and abolished by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773. In 1801, Pius VII. re-established the order for Russia only; and in 1814, for re-establishment throughout the whole earth.]

12. If Charles V. aimed at universal empire, he was ever at a distance from the object of his wishes. The formidable confederacy of the Protestants to preserve their liberties and their religion, gave him perpetual disquiet in Germany. He never could form his dominions into a well-connected body, from the separate national interests of the Spaniards, Flemish, and Germans; and even the imperial states were divided by their jealousies, political and religious. The hostilities of foreign powers gave him continual annoyance. He found in Henry II., the successor of Francis, an antagonist as formidable as his father. His cares and difficulties increased as he advanced in life, and at length entirely broke the vigour of his mind. In a state of melancholy despondency, he retired from the world (to the monastery of St. Justus in Placentia) at the age of fifty-six, resigning first the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip II. (1556), and afterwards the imperial crown in favour of his brother Ferdinand, who was elected emperor, 24th February, 1558. His death was hastened by his monastic severities, and occurred on the day after the rehearsal of the recemonial of his own obsequies, Sept. 21, 1558.*

Robertson gives the following account of this singular and extraordinary act of

SECTION IV.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

1. PREVIOUS to the reign of Maximilian I., the Germanic empire was subject to all the disorders of the feudal governments. The general diets of the states were tumultuous and indecisive, and their constant wars with each other kept the whole in anarchy and barbarism. Wenceslaus, in 1383, endeavoured to remedy these evils by the enactment of a general peace; but no effectual means were taken for securing it. Albert II. attempted to accomplish the same end, and had some success. He divided Germany into six circles, each regulated by its own diet. But the jealousies of the states prompted them constantly to hostilities, which there was no superior power sufficient to restrain.

2. At length, however, Maximilian I. succeeded in procuring that solemn enactment (drawn up at the diet of Worms in 1495) which established a perpetual peace among the Germanic states, under the cogent penalty of the aggressor being treated as a common enemy. He also obtained the establishment of the Imperial Chamber, for the settlement of all differences, [which sat at first at Spire, and afterwards at Wetzlar It was composed of a chief or head, called the Judge of the Chamber, and of a certain number of assessors chosen from among the jurists and independent nobility. The institution of the Aulic Council, another sovereign court of the empire, followed soon after that of the Imperial Chamber. Its origin is generally referred to the diet of Cologne (1512).] Of the same date also was the plan of dividing the empire anew into ten circles, each sending its representatives to the Imperial Chamber, and bound to enforce the public laws through its own territory. A regency was appointed to subsist in the intervals of the diet, composed of twenty members, over whom the emperor presided.

3 These regulations, however wise, would probably have failed of their end, but for the influence of the house of Austria, which for three centuries continued to occupy the imperial throne. The ambition and policy of Charles V.

so remarkable a man. "He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monastery. His domestics marched thither in formal procession, with black tapers in their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. The service for the dead was chanted; and Charles joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprinkling holy water on the coffin, in the usual form; and all the assistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out of the coffin, and withdrew to his appartment, full of those awful sentiments which such a singular solemnity was calculated to inspire. But either the fatigu ing length of the ceremony, or the impression which the image of death left on his mind, affected him so much that next day he was seized with a fever. His feeble frame could not long resist its violence; and he expired on the twenty-fifth of September, after a life of fifty-eight years, six months, and twenty-five days.”

would have been dangerous to the freedom of the German princes, had not the new system of preserving a balance of power in Europe, made these princes find allies and protectors sufficient to traverse the emperor's schemes of absolute dominion. He attained, however, an authority far beyond that of any of his predecessors. The succeeding emperors imitated his policy, but without his talents, and therefore found yet stronger obstacles to their encroachments on the freedom of the states.

4. The Germanic liberties were finally settled by the treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, which fixed the emperor's prerogatives, and the privileges of the states. The constitution of the empire was not framed for the ordinary ends of government, the prosperity and happiness of the people. It regarded not the rights of the subjects, but only the independence of the several princes; and its sole object was to maintain each in the enjoyment of their sovereignty, and prevent usurpations and encroachments on each others' territories. It had no relation to the particular government of the states, each of which had its own laws and constitution-some more free, and others more despotic.

5. The general diet had the power of enacting the public laws of the empire. It consisted of three colleges, the electors, the princes, and the free cities. All such public laws, and all general measures, were the subject of the separate deliberation of the electoral college, and that of the princes. When jointly approved by them, the resolution was canvassed by the college of the free cities, and, if agreed to, became a placitum of the empire. If approved finally by the emperor, it was a conclusum, or general law. If disapproved, the resolution is of no effect. Moreover, the emperor must be the proposer of all general laws. Still further, no complaint or request could be made by any of the princes to the diet, without the approbation of the elector archbishop of Mentz, who might refuse it at his pleasure. These constitutional defects were the more hurtful in their consequences from the separate and often contending interests of the princes, who had all the rights of sovereignty, the power of contracting foreign alliances, and were frequently possessed of foreign dominions of far greater value than their imperial territories.

6. The Germanic constitution had, however, in some respects, its advantages. The particular diets of each circle tended to unite those princes in all matters of national concern, whatever might be the discordance of their individual interests. The regulations made in those diets make up for the want of a general legislative power. Besides the circular diets, the electors, the princes, the free cities, the Catholics, and the Protestants, held their particular diets, when their common interests required it; and these powers balanced each other. Considered, therefore, solely in the light of a league of several independent princes and states associating for their common benefit, the Germanic consti

tution had many advantages in promoting general harmony, securing the rights of its members, and preventing the weak from being oppressed by the strong.*

SECTION V.

OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND, AND THE REVOLUTION IN DENMARK AND SWEDEN.

1. THE age of Charles V. is the era of great events and important revolutions in the history of Europe. It is the era of the reformation of religion-of the discovery of the New World -and of the highest splendour of the fine arts in Italy and the south of Europe. Of each of these great objects we shall treat in order; and, first, of the Reformation.

The voluptuous taste and splendid projects of Pope Leo X. demanding large supplies of money (particularly for the building of St. Peter's at Rome), he instituted through all the Christian kingdoms a sale of indulgences, or remittances from the pains of purgatory. This traffic being abused to the most shocking purposes, Martin Luther, an Augustine friar of undaunted resolution, took upon him to preach against it, and to inveigh with acrimony against the power (the pope) which authorized it. He found many willing hearers, particularly in the electorate of Saxony, of which the prince Frederick was his friend and protector. Leo X. condemned his tenets by a papal bull, which only increased the zeal and indignation of the preacher. In a book he published, called The Babylonish Captivity, he applied all the scriptural attributes of the whore of Babylon to the papal hierarchy, and attacked with equal force and virulence the doctrines of transubstantiation, purgatory, the celibacy of the priests, and the refusal of wine in the communion to the people. The book being condemned to the flames, Luther took upon him to burn the pope's bull of excommunication, and the decretals, at Wittemberg (1520).

2. One of the first champions who took up the pen against Luther was Henry VIII. of England, whose book (A Treatise in Defence of the Seven Sacraments), presented to Pope Leo, procured him the title, now annexed to the crown, of "Defender of the Faith." The rest of Europe seemed to pay little attention to these rising controversies. Charles V., studious of the friend

The confederation of independent states which comprised the German empire, continued until 1805, when it was dissolved by the treaty of Presburg; and on the establishment of the confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon in 1806 (of which he made himself the protector), Francis II. relinquished the title of emperor of Germany, and assumed that of emperor of Austria, as Francis I. By the treaty of Vienna (1815), a new confederation of the German states was entered into, which will be particularized when treating of that period.

ship of the pope, took part against Luther, and summoned him to answer for his doctrines in the diet of Worms (1521). The Reformer defended himself with great spirit, and, aided by his friend the elector, made a safe escape into Saxony, where the mass was now universally abolished, the images destroyed, and the convents shut up. The friars and nuns returned to the world, and Luther took a nun for his wife (1526). Nor did these secularized priests abuse their new freedom; for their manners were decent, and their lives exemplary.

3. Erasmus has justly censured the impolicy of the Catholic clergy in their modes of resisting and suppressing the new doctrines. They allowed them to be discussed in sermons before the people, and employed for that purpose, furious and bigoted declaimers, who only increased and widened differences. They would not yield in the most insignificant trifle, nor acknowledge a single fault; and they persecuted with the utmost cruelty all whose opinions were not agreeable to their own standard of faith. How wise is the counsel of Lord Bacon! "There is no better way to stop the rise of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses, compound the lesser differences, proceed mildly from the first, refrain from sanguinary persecutions, and rather to soften and win the principal leaders, by gracing and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness.”—(Bac. Mor. Ess., Sect. 1, Ess. 12.)

4. Switzerland followed in the path of reformation: Zuinglius of Zurich (1519) preached forth the new tenets with such zeal and effect, that the whole canton were his converts; and the senate publicly abolished the mass, and purified the churches. Berne took the same measures with yet greater solemnity, after a discussion in the senate which lasted two months. Bâle imitated the same example. Others of the cantons armed in defence of their faith; and in a desperate engagement, in which the Protestants were defeated, Zuinglius was slain by the Catholics, in the battle of Cappel, 1531.

5. Lutheranism was now making its progress towards the north of Europe. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, were at this time governed by Christiern II., the Nero of the north. The Swedes, reluctantly submitting to the yoke, were kept in awe by Troll, archbishop of Upsal, a faithful minister of the tyrant in all his schemes of oppression and cruelty. On intelligence of a revolt, the king and his primate, armed with a bull from Pope Leo X., massacred the whole body of the nobles and senators, amidst the festivity of a banquet (1520). Gustavus Vasa, grand-nephew of Charles Canutson, formerly king of Sweden, escaped from this carnage, and concealed himself in the mines of Dalecarlia. By degrees assembling a small army, he defeated the generals of Christiern, whose cruelties at length determined the united nations to vindicate their rights by a solemn sentence of deposition. The tyrant fled to Flanders; and Frederick, duke of Holstein, was