sidered the proposal as sufficient reparation, and the grandees returned to court. But the people of Ghent made a more serious resistance to authority, on account of a tax which infringed their privileges. They offered to transfer their allegiance to Francis, who did not avail himself of the proposal, not from either conscientious or chivalrous scruples, but because his views were all centred in Milan : he therefore betrayed his Flemish clients to the Emperor, in hopes of obtaining the investiture of the Italian duchy. By holding out the expectation of this boon, Charles obtained a safe-conduct for his passage through France into Flanders, whither he was anxious to repair without loss of time. His presence soon reduced the insurgents. The inhabitants of Ghent opened their gates to him on his fortieth birthday, in 1540; and he entered his native city, in his own words, "as their sovereign and their judge, with the sceptre and the sword." He punished twenty-nine of the principal citizens with death, the town with the forfeiture of its privileges, and the people by a heavy fine for the building of a citadel to coerce them. He broke his word with Francis by bestowing the Milanese on his own son, afterwards Philip II. If his duplicity be hateful, the credulity of Francis is contemptible.

Our limits will not allow of our detailing the circumstances of the Emperor's calamitous expedition against Algiers; but his courage, constancy, and humanity in distress and danger, claim a sympathy for his misfortunes, which is withheld from the selfish and wily career of his prosperity.

and allied himself with This is the first instance

Francis devised new grounds for war, Sweden, Denmark, and the Sultan Soliman. of a confederacy with the North. But he had alienated the Protestants of Germany by his severe measures against the Lutherans, and Henry VIII. by crossing the marriage of his son Edward with Mary of Scotland, yet in her cradle. Henry therefore leagued with the Emperor, who found it convenient to bury the injuries of Catherine of Arragon in her grave. The war was continued during the two following years with various success: the most remarkable events were the capture of Boulogne by the English, and the great victory won by the French over the Imperialists at Cerisolles, in Piedmont, in 1544. In the autumn of that year a treaty was concluded at Crespi, between Charles and Francis, involving the ordinary conditions of marriage and mutual renunciations, with the curious clause that both should make joint war against the Turks. In the same year the embarrassments created by the war, and the imminent danger of Hungary, increased the boldness of the German Protestants belonging to the league of Smalkald, and the

Emperor, while presiding at the diet of Spire, won them over by consenting to the free exercise of their religion.

The Catholics had always demanded a council, which was convened at Trent in 1545. The Protestants refused to acknowledge its authority, and the Emperor no longer affected fairness towards them. In 1546 he joined Pope Paul III. in a league against them, by a treaty in terms contradictory to his own public protestations. Paul himself was so imprudent as to reveal the secret, and it enabled the Protestants to raise a formidable army in defence of their religion and liberties. But the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg, and the Elector Palatine, resolved to remain neuter. Notwithstanding this secession, the war might have been ended at once, had the confederates attacked Charles while he lay at Ratisbon with very few troops, instead of wasting time by writing a manifesto, which he answered by putting the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse under the ban of the empire. He foresaw those divisions which soon came to pass, by Maurice of Saxony's seizure of his cousin's electorate.

Delivered by the death of Francis in 1547, in which year Henry VIII. also died, from the watchful supervision of a jealous and powerful rival, and relieved from the fear of the Turks by a five years truce, Charles was at liberty to bend his whole strength against the revolted princes of Germany. He marched against the Elector Frederic of Saxony, who was defeated at Mulhausen, taken prisoner, and condemned to death by a court-martial composed of Italians and Spaniards, in contempt of the laws of the empire. The sentence was communicated to the prisoner while playing at chess: his firmness was not shaken, and he tranquilly said, "I shall die without reluctance, if my death will save the honour of my family and the inheritance of my children." He then finished his game. But his wife and family could not look at his death so calmly: at their entreaty he surrendered his electorate into the Emperor's hands. The other chief of the Protestant league, the Landgrave of Hesse, was also forced to submit, and detained in captivity, contrary to the pledged word of the Emperor; who, fearless of any further resistance to his supreme authority, convoked a diet at Augsburg in 1548. At that assembly Maurice was invested with Saxony: and the Emperor, in the vain hope of enforcing a uniformity of religious practice, published by his own authority a body of doctrine called the "Interim," to be in force till a general council should be assembled. The divines by whom that "Interim" was composed, had inserted the fundamentals of Catholic doctrine, and preserved the ancient form of worship; but they allowed the communion in both kinds, and permitted married priests to per

form sacerdotal functions. This necessarily was unsatisfactory to both parties; but its observance was enforced by a master, with whom terror was the engine of obedience.

These measures, however, did not preserve tranquillity long in Germany. Maurice of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg urged the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, as having made themselves sureties against violence to his person, Charles answered by absolving them from their pledges. The Protestants of course charged him as arrogating the same spiritual authority with the popes. And Maurice, offended at the slight put upon him, directed his artful policy to the humiliation of Charles. He had compelled his subjects to conform to the Interim by the help of the timid Melancthon, who was no longer supported by the firmness of Luther. On the other hand, he had silenced the clamours of the more sturdy by a public avowal of his zeal for the Reformation. In the meantime, the diet of Augsburg, completely at the Emperor's devotion, had named him general of the war against Magdeburg, which had been placed under the ban of the empire for opposition to the Interim. He took that Lutheran city, but by private assurances regained the good will of the inhabitants. He also engaged in a league with France, but still wore the mask. He even deceived the able Granville, Bishop of Arras, afterwards cardinal, who boasted that "a drunken German could never impose on him;" yet was he of all others most imposed on. At last, in 1552, Maurice declared himself, and Henry II. published a manifesto, assuming the title of "Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes." He began with the conquest of the three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he laid a plan for surprising Charles at Inspruck, and getting possession of his person; and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. In the subsequent conferences at Passau, the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, the abolition of the Interim, and the assembling of a diet within six months, to end all religious differences, were the conditions imposed upon the Emperor. In the meantime, liberty of conscience was to be enjoyed in the fullest manner, and Protestants were made admissible into the imperial chamber. The examination of grievances affecting the liberties of the empire was to be referred to the approaching diet; and if the ecclesiastical disputes were not then adjusted, the treaty now concluded was to remain in perpetual force. These disputes were adjusted, in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies,

and scarcely named in the treaty. Dr. Robertson's remark on this is worth quoting: "Henry experienced the same treatment which every prince who lends his aid to the authors of a civil war may expect. As soon as the rage of faction began to subside and any prospect of accommodation to open, his services were forgotten, and his associates made a merit with their sovereign of the ingratitude with which they abandoned their protector." Henry resolved to defend his acquisition of the three bishoprics, and Charles to employ his whole force for their recovery. The Duke of Guise made adequate preparations for the defence of Metz, the siege of which the Emperor was compelled to raise, after sixty-five days spent in fruitless efforts, with the loss of 30,000 men by skirmishes and battles, and by diseases incident to the severity of the season. I perceive," said he, "that Fortune, like other females, forsakes old men, to lavish her favours on the young." This sentiment probably sunk deeper into his reflections, than might be inferred from the sarcastic terms in which it was clothed: for in the year 1556, after various events of war, alternately calamitous to the subjects of both nations, he astonished Europe by his abdication in favour of his son. In an assembly of the states at Brussels, he addressed Philip in a speech which melted the audience into tears. The concluding passage, as given by Robertson, is worth transcribing, to show how much easier it is to utter the suggestions of wisdom and virtue than to act up to them, and how much an experienced observer of human character may be misled to gratuitous assumptions by parental affection. "Preserve an inviolable regard for religion; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity; let the laws of your country be sacred in your eyes; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people; and if the time should ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you!" Charles retired into a monastery, where he died, after more than two years passed in deep melancholy, and in practices of devotion inconsistent with sound intellect, when only between fifty-eight and fifty-nine years of age. His activity and talents had been the theme of universal admiration: the ardour of his ambitious policy had been extreme, and his knowledge of mankind profound: but he should have followed up the objects of his high aspiring by a straighter road. His glory would have been truly enviable had he devoted his efforts to the happiness of his subjects, instead of harassing their minds by dissensions, and mowing down their lives by hundreds of thousands in war.

To the statesman or the politician the history of this period is an inexhaustible fund of instruction and interest, and to the general reader it is rendered more than usually attractive by the almost dramatic contrast of character among the principal actors in the scene. Francis seems to have been the representative of the expiring school of chivalry; Charles was not the representative, but the founder of the modern system of state policy: Henry was the representative of ostentation, violence, and selfishness, to be found in all ages.

We are absolved from the necessity of dilating on the state of the fine arts at this era of their glory, by referring the reader to the lives of the artists of the time scattered through our volumes. The life of Titian affords the most ample evidence of Charles's personal taste, and feeling of painting; and his warm and generous friendship for that great artist is at once a proof of his discernment, and perhaps the most attractive feature in his character.

It is scarcely necessary to name Robertson as the modern historian of Charles, and his work is the best direction to original authorities. Sismondi may also be consulted.