VIII

 

The Diet of Augsburg, [1547

 

Except for Constance and these outlying regions on the Baltic, Charles was now dictator in Germany. No Emperor since Frederick II had wielded such power, and at the Diet of Augsburg which was opened on September 1, 1547, he endeavored to reap the fruits of his victory. He never had a greater opportunity, but the inherent antagonism between the aims of the Habsburg dynasty and those of the German nation was too fundamental to be eradicated by the defeat of a section of Lutheran Princes. The constitutional reforms which he laid before the Diet were inspired by the same family motives which actuated Charles in 1521, and they provoked the same kind of national and territorial opposition. Bavaria reverted to its natural attitude, partly because Charles had quarreled with the Pope, but more because he had not repaid Bavaria for her exertions in the war by an increase of territory, nor shown any inclination to transfer the Electoral dignity of the Palatinate from his old friend, the Elector Frederick II, to Duke William. Maurice was not satisfied with the partial ruin of his cousin, and felt that Charles had purposely left his position insecure.

The Emperor's first object was to strengthen the executive with a view to preventing such outbreaks as the Peasants’ War, the Anabaptist revolt, the lawless enterprises of Lübeck, and Philip of Hesse’s conquests of Württemberg and Brunswick. A proposal for the preservation of peace would naturally meet with much support; but that support was neutralized by the conviction that the League, which Charles proposed to establish on the model of the old Swabian League, was really designed to strengthen the Habsburgs against other Princes and against the nation itself. The League was to embrace the whole of Germany, to be directed by a number of permanent officials who although representative of the various orders would tend to fall under government influence, and to have at its disposal an efficient military force. This League and its organization was to lie entirely outside the ordinary constitution of the Empire; and the Electors discovered the chief motive for it in the fact that the Habsburgs would command a far greater share of influence in it than they did in the three Councils which constituted the Diet.

However, the real flaw in the Emperor’s plan was that he did not seek to reform the Diet, but left it standing, while a new organization was introduced which was bound to come into conflict with existing institutions and could only supersede them after a long and wearisome constitutional struggle. Both its good points and its defects excited discontent. The territorial Princes feared to lose their hold over mediate lords when the latter would look not to them but to the League for protection; the cities dreaded the expense of having to keep internal and external peace in outlying lands like Burgundy and the Austrian Duchies. Bavaria had resolved to refuse, even if all the other Estates agreed; the College of Electors was unanimously hostile; the Diet as a whole disliked a measure which would bring its own authority into dispute, and Charles dropped the proposal without a struggle.

He was more fortunate in his reconstitution of the Reichskammergericht; he arrogated to himself the immediate nomination of its judges, reserved to his own Hofgericht questions of Church property and episcopal jurisdiction, and persuaded the Diet to adopt a codification of the principles by which the action of the Court should be governed, and to promise contributions for the Court’s support. He was able to defy the remonstrances addressed to him on account of the Spanish troops, which, contrary to his election pledges, he had quartered in the Empire. He secured the establishment of a fund for the maintenance of internal and external peace, which was not, however, to be used without the Diet’s consent; and obtained preferential treatment for the Netherlands by means of a perpetual treaty between them and the Empire. They were to contribute to national taxation but to be exempt from the national jurisdiction; they were thus partly removed from imperial control, though Germany was perpetually bound to the arduous task of their defence; the transfer of Utrecht and Gelders to the Burgundian circle was a mark of their incorporation in the Habsburg inheritance.

Meanwhile religion naturally occupied much of the attention of Charles and the Diet. The Emperor vowed that even when in the field against his enemies he had thought more about the Church than the war; and it was incumbent upon him to attempt some sort of solution at the Diet of Augsburg. The problem, difficult in any case, was rendered infinitely more so by his strained relations with the Pope; which the murder of Paul’s son, Pierluigi Farnese, on September 10, 1547, with the suspected connivance of Ferrante di Gonzaga, the governor of Milan, of Granvelle, and even of Charles himself, did nothing to improve. The Pope was hardened in his determination not to let the Council leave Bologna. The Emperor obtained a unanimous recognition from the Estates to the effect that the prelates remaining at Trent constituted the only true Council. They also approved of Charles’ refusal to publish the Tridentine decrees; and, going further than he desired, they demanded that Scripture, should be the test applied to all doctrines, and that the members of the Council should be released from their oaths to the Pope, in order that they might more effectually reform the Papacy. In the name of the German nation Charles formally required the return of the Council to Trent ; and when this was refused, his two representatives, Vargas and Velasco, solemnly protested on January 18, 1548, against all future acts of the Council at Bologna, declaring them null and void.

 

The Interim. [1548