A Short History of Germany Part 5

The two great aims of the Emperor were to restore papal supremacy over Christendom and firmly to unite Germany and Spain. But how could he do the one, when at the hour of a great schism in the Church, a jealous Pope was trying to weaken his hands? Or the other, when Germany was always suspicious of him because he was a Spaniard, and Spain because he was a Hapsburg?

Charles was profound in his methods, crafty and powerful; but circ.u.mstances were stronger than he. In order to succeed at one point, he had to weaken himself at another. He could do nothing in repelling the Turks or the French, unless aided by the Protestant states. And these states would only give a.s.sistance in exchange for concessions to their cause, while Francis I., as crafty as he, found a sure way to circ.u.mvent his rival in giving aid to the Protestants.

The new faith was spreading not only in Germany, but in Denmark, Sweden, and England. The movement in Switzerland diverged somewhat in character under Zwingli, another Reformer, and the new Protestantism began to have its own schismatics.

Calvin in Geneva rejected Luther's doctrine of _justification by faith_, and for it subst.i.tuted that of _election_. The doctrine that men were predestined to heaven or h.e.l.l was thereafter held by that branch of the Church known as Reformers, as distinguished from the Lutherans, while from the _protest_ of Saxony, Brandenburg, Brunswick, Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities against the decree outlawing Luther and his doctrines, the name Protestants took its rise, which included Lutherans and Reformers alike.

The famous Schmalkaldian League was so called from the little Hessian town where the Protestant princes a.s.sembled in 1530 and made a solemn promise of mutual support against the Emperor; when they also entered into a secret treaty with Francis I., and received promises of support from the Kings of England, Sweden, and Denmark.

In 1540 the strength of the Catholics had been re-enforced by the order of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola. This order made the suppression of Protestant doctrines its chief task.

Meyerbeer has, by his great opera, made so famous the strange tragedy enacted at Munster in 1534 that it must have brief mention, although it was only a bit of driftwood in the great current of events. A religious sect called the Anabaptists was led by a Dutch tailor, John of Leyden, who claimed to be inspired. The chief things he was inspired to do were to crown himself king, to introduce polygamy, and to cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees! For more than a year the city was held by this madman and his a.s.sociates; and then the tragedy was concluded by the torturing to death of the tailor-king and his chief abettors; their bodies being left suspended in iron cages over the Cathedral door at Munster. This grewsome story is the one used by Meyerbeer in his opera of "Le Prophete."

In 1552 Charles saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world failing at every point. By the treaty of Pa.s.sau, religious freedom had been conceded to the Protestants; and while his army was needed to fight the Turks in Hungary, Henry II. of France (who had succeeded Francis I., 1547), in league with the Protestant states, was invading Lorraine.

Sick at heart and failing in health, the weary Emperor (1556) resolved to lay down the heavy crown he had worn for thirty-six years.

To his son Philip II. he gave the Netherlands, Naples, Spain, and the American Colonies, while the Imperial t.i.tle, and the German-Austrian lands pa.s.sed to his brother Ferdinand I.

The singular cause of his death, two years later, makes us wonder whether his unfortunate mother Joanna could have transmitted to her son the insanity which darkened her own life.

At the monastery at St. Juste to which the Imperial monk had retired after his abdication, he yielded to a morbid whim to rehea.r.s.e his own funeral. The grave-clothes were damp. He was seized with a chill, and after a brief illness died (1558).

Charles had been thwarted in his two great aims of establishing the supremacy of his Church, and the permanent union of Germany and Spain.

But perhaps his bitterest disappointment was in not being permitted to leave the Imperial crown to his son Philip.

His brother Ferdinand, although firmly Catholic, was a just and moderate prince, who had always favored conciliatory measures to the Protestants while the course of Philip II., in the Netherlands, soon showed how heavily his hand would have rested upon Germany. He appointed the Duke of Alva Spanish governor in that unfortunate territory. Never had cruel king more cruel agent in carrying out his policy. Torture, fire, and sword were the instruments intended to subjugate, but which in the end brought about the independence of Holland.

The prelates of the Church in 1543 had come together in what was called the "Council of Trent," with the avowed object of reforming abuses which had crept into the Church. The real purpose, however, was to examine the foundations of that venerable structure, to discover where it had been injured in the a.s.saults made upon it since 1517, and to strengthen it where it seemed to need new supports.

In 1563, after eighteen years' deliberation, the work of this Council was finished. The cardinal doctrines of purgatory, absolution, celibacy, invocation of saints, censorship of press, etc., etc., were reaffirmed, and terrible anathemas p.r.o.nounced against such as should reject them.

Thus was created a chasm which nothing could ever bridge, eternally dividing the old religion from the new.

Another tremendously re-enforcing agent was at work in Loyola's Society of Jesus, which was to be to the Church what the brain is to the human body. In 1540 Loyola's ten disciples received the papal blessing. In 1600 there were ten million Jesuits, and in 1700 twenty millions!

CHAPTER X.

It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth which brought about this b.u.t.tressing of the old belief and this adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.

When Ferdinand died in 1564 the great majority of the German people had become Protestants. The Empire was honeycombed with the new faith.

Even in Austria, that everlasting stronghold of Papacy, the Catholics were in a minority. True to the traditions of the past, Bavaria, the home of the ancient Welfs, was the one thoroughly zealous and obedient champion of the Pope in all Germany.

It seemed as if the great conflict was almost over. But it had not even commenced!

The history of this great movement would have been very different, had it been carried on steadily under one leader. But it had four! Those devout souls who believed they had found in the simple gospel truths of Protestantism a religion in which all might unite were soon convinced of their mistake.

Lulled by the apparent triumph of the new faith, reformers set about the task of defining the belief and correcting the errors of Protestant doctrine. To the followers of Calvin the belief of the Lutherans became almost as abhorrent as Papacy itself, while the Lutherans were again subdivided into an extreme and a moderate party; the one following to the letter the doctrines of Luther, and the other the more modified views of Melancthon. Not only men but states were divided and in bitter strife over these differences, so that the Emperor Ferdinand had said, "Instead of being of one mind they are so disunited, have so many different beliefs, the G.o.d of truth surely cannot be with them!"

It is apparent now that the issue underlying all this upheaval was deeper than anyone then knew. The real struggle was not for the supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not to determine whether this dogma or that was true and should prevail, but to establish the right of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship. The great battle for human liberty had commenced, and the Romish Church had been shaken to its foundations not because its doctrine was false, but because it was a _despotism_!

From the abdication of Charles V. to 1600 was a period of political tranquillity in Germany. The reign of two conciliatory sovereigns, Ferdinand I., and his son Maximilian II., tended to produce a surface-calm, which, although ruffled, was not broken by the stern and despotic reign of Rudolf II., who succeeded in 1576.

It was a half century of unfruitful and sullen waiting--waiting for a future which no one could divine. Protestantism was not blossoming; but the seed was germinating amid elements good and evil, strangely mingled together.

While the Reformation was the leading fact in Europe at this period, another event had created a new and pervading atmosphere, in which all else existed. The impulse given to civilization by the taking of Constantinople by the Turks (1452), and the consequent disseminating of Greek culture throughout Europe, was a transforming event in the history of civilization. Literature, art, music, took on new forms and thrilled with a new life. The activity of the human mind manifested itself in everything. It was an age of great men and great things.

Copernicus, followed by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler, brought order into the heavens. The Medici in Italy, who were guiding these new and enriching streams which had set in from the East, helped to produce a wonderful art period, which swept in successive tides over Europe.

Fainting and sculpture reached their climacteric. Music, still in its infancy, developed into the new forms of opera and oratorio.[1] And while these things were happening, a mysteriously inspired man--seeming to hold as in a crucible the wisdom distilled from all ages and all human experiences--was writing immortal plays in England!

The Teuton race does not take on the graces of life very quickly. The serious and sincere German mind must inspect the idea first, and then become thoroughly imbued with it, before the hand will act! But when the Teuton roots do begin to draw upon the soil, they strike deep and hold firmly, and know just what they are going to do with the rising sap; concerning themselves much more about that than the foolish branches and leaves!

So this new light did not at once flood Germany, but its influence was felt there. Thought was quickened, knowledge increased, art and science began to flourish, wealth acc.u.mulated, and the people became less simple and more luxurious in their ways of living. The King of Spain was occupied in his hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands, and Hungary and Austria were still struggling with the Turkish invasion.

Such was the condition at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In spite of the material advance there was a feeling of impending misfortune. But the magnitude of the coming disaster none then could have imagined or dreamed.

The fatal circ.u.mstance was that the Protestants were divided into two angry and hostile camps, at the very time when the Catholics, under the teachings of the Jesuits, were uniting with solid front against them.

The Thirty Years' War would never have been undertaken against a united adversary who held four-fifths of Germany!

During the despotic reign of Rudolf II. the Protestants for their protection formed a Union with the Elector Palatine Frederick at its head. Thereupon the Catholic princes also united in a _Catholic League_ under Maximilian of Bavaria. The forces were now gathering for the great explosion. Matthias had succeeded his brother Rudolf as Emperor.

When a great storm is impending, it takes only a trifling disturbance in equilibrium to precipitate it.

Such a disturbance occurred in Prague (1618) over a church which the Protestants were erecting. An angry mob armed itself, burst into the Imperial Castle at Prague, and flung out of the window two Catholic Bohemian n.o.bles.

With this act of violence commenced the Thirty Years' War, which lasted through three reigns, those of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand III., and caused unparalleled misery in Germany.

Two years from that day the Protestant faith was obliterated in the realm of Austria, and the progress of a hundred years was wiped out.

In three years more, not only Austria, but Germany, was in a worse condition than she had known for centuries--the wretched people, a prey to both parties, were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither, and a country only recently rejoicing in its material prosperity was a waste and a ruin.

The Imperial troops were splendidly led by two great generals--Tilly and Wallenstein. The Protestant nations--England, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden--looked on in dismay as they saw a powerful and triumphant Protestantism being wiped out of existence in the land of its birth.

By 1629 Ferdinand II. considered his power re-established absolutely over all Germany. He issued what was called the "Edict of Rest.i.tution," which ordered the restoration of all Protestant territory to Catholic hands. Wallenstein, in addition to this, declared that reigning princes and a national diet should be abolished and all power centered in the Emperor! Indeed this Wallenstein was minded to play the dictator as well as general. He traveled in regal state, with his one hundred carriages, one thousand horses, fifteen cooks, and fifteen young n.o.bles for his pages!

This taste for splendor was, like Wolsey's, his undoing. People began to fear the ambitious leader, and Ferdinand dismissed him. With rage and hate in his heart he retired to Prague to await developments.

Twelve years of war in horrible form had wrought utter ruin and broken the spirit of the Protestants. But help and hope suddenly came in 1630.

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with his heart all aflame with zeal to defend the falling cause of Protestantism in Germany, is the knightliest figure which adorns the pages of history.

We in this present age have reached a point of development when, without the quivering of an eyelash, we can hear of the destruction of suffering peoples, even if it involves the principles and things most sacred to us. Whether it be the effacing of Christianity in Crete, or of liberty in Cuba, the motto of practical men and nations is--"hands off."

Gustavus Adolphus had not learned that potent phrase. He was still in that undeveloped condition when the elemental impulses of the heart sway men's action. And without a regret, without an enfeebling doubt, he could turn his back upon a throne and an adoring people, in defense of an imperiled Protestantism in another land.

From the moment his foot touched the soil of Germany on that 4th of July, 1630, life and hope revived. The Emperor Ferdinand laughed and called him the "Snow King," who would melt away after one winter. But when one city after another was stormed and taken, when he left behind him a path of religious liberty and rejoicing--when Tilly was no longer able to cope with this Snow King and Wallenstein had to be recalled, and when it looked as if the work of twelve years might be undone, then Ferdinand no longer laughed!

Wallenstein would only return upon conditions which actually made him the lord and Ferdinand the subject. Having thus become absolute master of the Imperial cause, he confidently set about the task of defeating Gustavus.