Lutheran movement in england during the reigns of henry VIII. And edward VI

CHAPTER III. THE POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS.

Henry VIII, a retarding factor. The Divorce Question. Relations to Charles V and Francis I. Wolsey’s Antipathy to Catherine. The Pope’s embarrassment. Wolsey’s Overthrow. The Rise of Cranmer. His Connection with the Cambridge Lutherans, and with the Boleyns. Ambassador to Germany. At Nümberg. The Reformation, Reformers and Literati of Nürnberg. Cranmer finds a wife at Nürnberg. His description of the Order of Worship in one of the Nürnberg churches. The Brandenburg- Nürnberg Order of 1533. Opinions of Theologians and Universities on the Divorce. Melanchthon’s Diplomacy. Luther, the Advocate of Catherine. The Smalcald League, and its Confessional Basis. Francis I and the French Lutherans. Melanchthon and Margaret of Navarre. Henry’s efforts to enter the League.

The Evangelical leaven, thus working at the English universities, and carried forth thence, to return to those centers with increased power, was far more influential, than either the indignation deeply felt at the exemption from secular jurisdiction claimed by the Romish clergy, which found expression especially in the protests of Henry Standish, or the resentment of the King at the Pope’s refusal to grant him a divorce. The latter factor seems at first sight to overshadow all else, and to have been the actual determining cause which effected the break with Rome. No one can deny that the movement was thereby accelerated. But the interference of the government on the Protestant side, before this had sufficiently matured by a true inward growth, was in the end a misfortune rather than a benefit. If Henry had remained the champion of Rome ten years longer, the independent development of English Protestantism would have been retarded, and been tempered by the fires of persecution until it might have [[@Page:40]]been ready for a complete rejection of hierarchical claims and tendencies. As things were, the external rupture occurring before the inner separation was complete, it had to meet a crisis prematurely, and has ever since suffered from the confusion and compromise between diametrically opposing elements within the same communion, which resulted.

The zeal of Henry VIII on the Pope’s side, when Luther’s hammer startled a sleeping world, is well known. His controversy with Luther in 1521, instigated probably by Cardinal Wolsey, and entered into by the King in order to exhibit his acquaintance with scholastic theology, obtained as its reward the Papal title of Defensor fidei, but with it such a severe handling from the miner’s son that it is doubtful whether he felt himself repaid. Only a few years elapse, before we find him in negotiation with the Wittenberg Reformers, in order to support himself against the Pope.

The political side of the question is so important as to demand somewhat extended consideration. Henry VIII, had ascended the throne of England in 1509, being at that time eighteen years old. Seven years before, his elder brother Arthur, had died after a marriage of four months with Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Political motives doubtless conspired with those of the sordid avarice generally alleged, viz., the retention of the dowry, to influence Henry VII, to marry her to his second son. But as marriage with a brother’s wife was clearly forbidden by the canonical law, a dispensation of the Pope was asked, and readily granted in 1503. In 1505 already, when sixteen years old, Henry VIII, had entered protest in these words; “That whereas he, being under age was married to the princess Katherine, yet now coming to be of age, he did not confirm that marriage, but retracted and annulled it, and would not proceed in it, but intended in full form of law to void it and break it off.”⁵¹ After his accession, he had the case learnedly argued before him on both sides. The [[@Page:41]]desirability of a close alliance with Spain, and the attractive character of Catherine, for the time silenced all scruples; and the marriage was publicly celebrated June 3d, 1509. Two sons born of this marriage died shortly after birth. Only Mary, afterwards Queen, survived infancy.

It was the great ambition of Henry to control the politics of Europe. His great rival, who in large measure gained the position to which Henry aspired, was the Emperor Charles V. In Charles opinion, Francis I of France was a more formidable antagonist. Both rulers, therefore, competed for Henry’s favor. Charles repeatedly made promises which were never fulfilled. Cardinal Wolsey was twice assured that he would succeed to the Papacy at the very next vacancy; and twice, Charles saw to it that the promise was broken. In 1522, Charles promised to marry his cousin, the princess Mary; but five years later, not being inclined to wait for a bride who was only ten years old, excused himself upon the ground that she was the child of an unlawful marriage.

It was not, then, a mere fancy for Anne Boleyn which suggested the thought of divorce. The same desire to secure an undisputed succession (for so far England had never been ruled by a queen) which led Napoleon to his wrong against Josephine, undoubtedly had much force, augmented, as it was, by the superstitious inferences which he drew from the death of his sons, as a divine judgment because of the supposed unlawful marriage, and by the dogmatic statements of his favorite schoolman, Thomas Aquinas. We have no doubt that he read every sentence of the chapters in the supplement to the Summa Summarum, treating “Of the Impediments to Marriage,” and that his eye lingered on the conclusion of Art. VI. Quest. LV.: “Preceding affinity not only hinders marriage that is to be contracted but also destroys that which has been already contracted;” and that he weighed carefully the arguments of Art. IX., which insist that the same rule must be applied to affinity as to consanguinity, and that in both cases, the continuance of the marriage, when [[@Page:42]]the original wrong has been discovered, is a mortal sin. Not necessarily a tender conscience, but a regard for that consistency, in which, as the sworn defender of Roman orthodoxy he prided himself, contributed much to the result, and led him even to doubt the Pope’s authority to give any dispensation.

But there was a power behind the throne. Wolsey’s coarse and licentious character, and his arrogant and arbitrary proceedings were in the highest degree offensive to the pure minded queen; and a personal antagonism between them was the result. Besides she was not without considerable political influence, the Privy Council being summoned before her at times for the discussion of pending questions. She was a Spaniard; and her sympathies were against France. It was Wolsey’s policy, at this period, to make the separation from the Emperor the widest, and, if possible, to form an alliance with France. “If a definitive rupture was to take place between England and the Burgundo-Spanish power, Henry’s marriage with Catherine must be dissolved, and room thus made for a French princess. Wolsey formed the plan of marrying his King in Catherine’s stead, with the sister or even the daughter of Francis I. When he was in France in 1527, he said to the Regent, the King’s mother, that within a year she would live to see two things, the most complete separation of his sovereign from Spain, and his indissoluble union with France.”⁵²

Such being the case, it was not wonderful that Wolsey’s influence with his subordinates, determined the opinion of all the bishops in England, the bishop of Rochester (Fisher) alone excepted, in favor of the divorce. The queen, however, refused to recognize any authority capable of deciding the question, below that of the Pope. Clement VII was reluctant to interfere on either side, and advised Henry to act on his own responsibility; but, at length, after an ineffectual attempt, through his legate, Cardinal Campeggi, to induce Catherine to yield her claims, was compelled to decide against the King, partly in order to [[@Page:43]]maintain the sanctity of papal dispensations, and partly because of the overpowering influence of the Emperor, who in 1527 had humbled his spiritual father, captured Rome and held him prisoner for months. Charles was unyielding in his opposition to the divorce, not only because of their political rivalry, but also because Queen Catherine was his aunt, and, however inconsistent with his own repudiation of Princess Mary in 1522, he regarded Henry’s course as an indignity to his family. As the Pope was thus subservient to the Emperor, Henry took matters into his own hands in a sense far different from that to which he had been previously advised by the former. Wolsey fell, horrified that, instead of a French princess, Anne Boleyn was in view, and Thomas Cromwell rose (1530). Archbishop Warham died; and Cranmer was summoned from Germany to succeed, with much reluctance, to the see of Canterbury.

As this brings before us the most prominent figure in the English Reformation, it is fitting that some account of Cranmer should be here given. He was born of an ancient family in Nottingham, July 2d, 1489. His boyhood was largely devoted to the sports and exercises of the English gentry, to which his father belonged. After his father’s death, he was sent, at the age of fourteen, to Cambridge, where, until he was twenty-two, his attention was given almost exclusively to the subtilties of scholasticism. After 1511, he fell under the influence of Erasmus. “He gave himself to the reading of Faber, Erasmus, and good Latin authors, four or five years together, unto the time that Luther began to write. And then, considering what great controversy was in matters of religion, not only in trifles, but in the chiefest articles of our salvation, be bent himself to try out the truth therein. And forasmuch as he perceived he could not judge indifferently in such weighty matters, without the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; therefore, before he was infected with any man’s opinions or errors, he applied his whole study three years therein. After this, he gave his mind to good writers, both new and old; not rashly running over them; for [[@Page:44]]he was a slow reader, but a diligent marker of whatsoever he read, seldom reading without pen in hand. And whatsoever made either for the one part, or the other, of things in controversy, he wrote it out, if it were short, or at least noted the author, and the place, that he might find it, and write it out at leisure; which was a great help to him in debating of matters ever after. This kind of study, he used till he was made doctor of divinity: which was about the thirty-fourth year of his age. and about the year 1523.”⁵³

Before this, by marrying, he had lost his fellowship in Jesus College, and became lecturer in another of the colleges of Cambridge; but his wife dying, he had soon been restored to his old fellowship. He had been selected among the band of scholars (Clark, Cox, Taverner, etc.,) to be transferred to Cardinal Wolsey’s new College at Oxford, but declined. He became lecturer on divinity in Jesus College, and examiner of candidates for theological degrees; and his examination laid special stress upon the candidates proficiency in Holy Scripture. At this time, Henry called upon the theologians of the Universities for their opinions concerning his divorce. Cranmer was found to be one of the few who from the beginning favored it. The King at once demanded his services, and had him assigned a home at Durham with Sir Thomas Boleyn, father of the future queen, while he wrote a book in the cause of Henry. Boleyn was also an earnest student of the Word of God, as Strype⁵⁴ quotes from Erasmus, who, in a letter to Sir Thomas, says: “I do the more congratulate your happiness, when I observe the sacred scriptures to be so dear to a man, as you are, of power, one of the laity and a courtier.” Cranmer’s home in her father’s house, had much to do with Anne Boleyn’s future connection with the cause of the Reformation. After this, he had to personally appear and argue the matter in both universities. We next find him engaged in answering a book of Cardinal Pole’s against the divorce. Then, [[@Page:45]]in 1530, he was sent on the same mission to France, Italy and Germany. At Rome he remained for several months, but with no success. He soon appears as ambassador from England to Germany.

The Emperor being a long time during the year 1532 at Ratisbon (Regensburg), in attendance on the Diet, Cranmer was with him there, and made visits to the city of Nurnberg, fifty-three miles distant, to confer with the Elector of Saxony, where, of course, he became a deeply interested spectator of all the changes which the Reformation had wrought in that city since its introduction in 1524. At Nürnberg, he found the place of which Luther had written, that it “shines throughout all Germany, like the sun amidst moon and stars,” and which Melanchthon had called “Lumen, oculum, decus et ornamentum praecipuum Germaniae” Longfellow has sung of it:

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,

Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,

Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old.

In the church of sainted Sebald, sleeps enshrined his holy dust,

And, in bronze, the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust

In the church of sainted Lawrence, stands a pix of sculpture rare,

Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.

Here when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,

Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;

Dead he is not—but departed—for the artist never dies.

Here was the Gymnasium that boasted of Melanchthon, as its founder, and at whose dedication, he had delivered the address. Here Staupitz had preached years before, and Luther had visited on his way to Augsburg in 1518. It had been the home of the humanist Perkheimer, who, on account of his friendship for Luther, had been named in the Pope’s bull against the reformer. Here Albrecht Dürer the great painter had died in 1528. Among [[@Page:46]]those whom Cranmer doubtless met, was the jurist, Lazarus Spengler, who had been a deputy from Nürnberg to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. He was the author of the hymn Durch Adam’s Fall ist ganz verderbt, and had shared Perkheimer’s honor of being included in the bull against Luther. Another celebrity of Nürnberg then living, was Hans Sachs.

“Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard;

But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.”

Among the theologians, were Camerarius, the intimate friend, correspondent and biographer of Melanchthon, who was Professor in the Gymnasium, and also had been a deputy to Augsburg; Wenceslaus Link, preacher of St. Sebald’s church, and the intimate friend of the Wittenberg reformers; and Andrew Osiander, preacher in St. Lorenz church, who had participated both in the Marburg Colloquy and in the conferences of the theologians at the Diet of Augsburg, with John Brentz, sharing the part of Melanchthon’s chief counselor. With Osiander, Cranmer soon became especially intimate. He persuaded him to write in favor of Henry’s divorce, and Cranmer, in turn, urged the preparation for publication, of Osiander’s “Harmony of the Gospels.” Then Osiander’s niece captivated the heart of the English ambassador, so that the future Archbishop of Canterbury took to himself a Lutheran wife. The intimacy thus begun, was continued for years. The correspondence was frequent and extended. Long afterwards (1540) Cranmer wrote to Osiander that he was always reproached for whatever faults could be charged upon the German reformers, and “that he was fain to make the best answers he could, either out of their books or out of his own invention.”⁵⁵

Cranmer’s first visit to Nürnberg was before March 14th, and even then, he closely observed and criticized the Order of Service in use. We learn this from an interesting letter of Sir Thomas Eliot: “Touching Nurenberg, it is the moste propre towne and best ordered publike weale that ever I beheld. … Although I had a chaplayn, yet could I not be suffred to have [[@Page:47]]him sing Mass, but was constrayned to here there Mass, which is but one in a churche, and that is celebrate in forme folowing: The Preeste in vestments, after oure manner, singith everi thing in Latine, as we use, omitting suffrages. The Epistel he readeth in Latin. In the meane time, the sub-Deacon goeth into the pulpite and readeth to the people the Epistle in their vulgare; after thei peruse other things as our prestes doo. Than the Preeste redith softly the Gospell in Latine. In the meane space the Deacon goeth into the pulpite, and readith aloude the Gospell in the Almaigne tung. Mr. Cranmere sayith it was shewid to him that in the Epistles and Gospels, thei kept not the ordre that we doo, but doo peruse every daye one chapitre of the New Testament. After, the preste and the quere do sing the Credo as we doo; the secretes and preface they omitt, and the priest singith, with a high voyce, the wordes of the consecration; and after the Levation, the Deacon torneth to the people, telling to them in Almaigne tunge a longe process how thei shold prepare theim selfes to the communion of the flesh and blode of Christ; and than may every man come that listith, without going to any confession. But I, lest I sholde be partaker of their communyon, departid than, and the Ambassador of Fraunce, which caused all the people in the churche to wonder at us as though we had been gretter heretikes than thei. One thing liked me well (to shew your Grace freely my hart.) All the preestes hadd wyves; and thei were the fayrist women of the towne.”⁵⁶

The service, thus described was to be replaced the next year by the Brandenburg-Nürnberg Kirchenordnung, in course of preparation that very summer, during which the Würtemberg reformer, John Brentz, spent six weeks in joint labor with Osiander, in the very house where Cranmer met his bride. He heard there the Exhortation to the Communion composed by Wolfgang Volprecht († 1528) who in 1524, had administered the Holy Communion for the first time in both forms, to three thousand persons. This “Exhortation” is familiar to us, from its use in a [[@Page:48]]somewhat condensed form in the “Church Book” and “Common Order of Service.”

Cranmer having gained the confidence of Osiander was probably admitted into the full knowledge of the grievances from which Osiander was then complaining. Notoriously arbitrary and head-strong, he at first had regarded it his right to prepare a liturgy without any aid or assistance; and the interference of Spengler, in an attempt to secure the co-operation of others, was indignantly resented, until Osiander was at length obliged to yield, and Brentz was called in to mediate. Nor is it improbable that Cranmer learned much of the details of the work in contemplation or even in progress. He certainly knew of the great desire of the Lutheran theologians to unite upon one Common Order of Service, and thus remove the reproach that in our Church, there was nothing but disorder.⁵⁷ Cranmer’s presence in Nürnberg, therefore, was destined to bear rich fruit in England in years to come.

As Bucer in 1536 dedicated to Cranmer his “Metaphrasis et Enarratio” on the Epistle to the Romans, in a flattering letter, it is probable that about the same time as that of the events above mentioned, they also had met.

But to return to the question of the divorce. The negotiations in which Cranmer was engaged met with varied results. Oxford, after three months controversy, decided just as the King wished. Cambridge, with much difficulty, was induced to follow, the Lutheran element there having been, in Burnet’s opinion, a most serious obstacle. Richard Crook was sent to Italy to make researches, examine Greek manuscripts, copy everything in the Fathers relating to degrees of marriage and obtain the opinions of learned Jews. Money was freely used, and bought precisely such opinions as suited Henry. Franciscans, Dominicans, Servites, Conventuals, the University of Padua, the divines of Bononia and Ferrara, the faculty of the Canon Law at Paris, that at the Sorbonne, that of Law at Angiers, of Divinity of Bourges, [[@Page:49]]and the whole University of Toulouse, coincided with wonderful harmony. Among the Reformed, Oecolampadius favored, but Bucer opposed the king; Zwingli advised that the marriage be dissolved, yet with the legitimization of the issue born in it. Calvin also declared the marriage void, and advised that the queen be put away. Fortified by these opinions, Cranmer, who, during his stay in Germany, had not succeeded in gaining for his side any Lutheran opinions, except that of Osiander, after holding an ecclesiastical court for the trial of the case, pronounced the marriage null and void (May 23d, 1533). In the succeeding year, 1534, the Papal authority was completely abolished by the necessary legislation, “The Act of Supremacy,” investing the King with the supreme headship on earth of the Church of England; while in 1535, Crumwell was made vicegerent for the King in all ecclesiastical matters, outranking even the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Wittenberg theologians had not been neglected in the request for opinions concerning the divorce. In August and September, 1531, Dr, Robert Barnes, whose open advocacy of Lutheranism already in 1526 has been noticed, appears at Wittenberg on a commission from the king. Melanchthon’s opinion of Aug. 23d, shows the general character of this great scholar as an ecclesiastical diplomatist, in seeking a most unfortunate com promise between two antagonistic positions. First he attempts to demonstrate that the prohibition of marriage with the wife of a deceased brother given in Leviticus, belongs to the Ceremonial Law, and is no longer binding. If it were binding, he argues that the other provision compelling a brother to marry his brother’s widow, if the first marriage be without children, must also be enforced. Regarding the marriage, therefore, as entirely lawful, he urges that a divorce would be sinful, on the ground that the divine law is immutable in its prohibition of divorce extra casum adulterii. The queen must always have the place of a lawful wife; and Mary be regarded a legitimate daughter. But if the succession is to be guarded, he has another remedy to [[@Page:50]]propose. “This can be done without any peril to the conscience or reputation of any one, by polygamy (! ! !). Although I would not concede polygamy as a common matter, yet in this emergency, on account of its great advantage to the kingdom, possibly on account of the conscience of the king, I say that it would be safest for the king to marry a second, without repudiating his first wife. . . . Abraham, David and other holy men had many wives,” etc.⁵⁸ In our admiration of the rare gifts of Melanchthon, and the eminent service which he rendered the cause of Christ, we ought not to close our eyes to the mistakes into which he was often betrayed whenever he entered the field of politics, and allowed considerations of temporary expediency to prevail. Luther’s judgment of two weeks later shows how deeply he was exercised by the wrong proposed. “If the adversaries carry the king with them, let our men try with all their might at least to keep the queen from in any way consenting to the divorce. Let her rather die than become an accomplice to such a crime in God’s sight, and let her most firmly believe that she is the true and legitimate Queen of England, made so by God himself. If they cannot save the king (which may God avert), let them at least save the soul of the queen, so that if the divorce cannot be prevented she may bear this great evil as her cross, but in no way approve or consent to it. Since I can do nothing else, my prayer is directed to God that Christ may hinder this divorce and make void the counsels of Ahithopel in persuading it, and that the queen may have firm faith and constant assurance that she is and will be Queen of England, even though the gates of the world and of hell may oppose.”⁵⁹ As to the succession, Luther suggests what Henry may have recalled years afterwards, when he asks as to what assurance the king has that the child of any other marriage would be a son.⁶⁰ While there is one clause in his opinion of eleven pages, declaring that even polygamy [[@Page:51]]would be preferable to a divorce, there is no more evidence of such an expedient being seriously proposed by Luther as it was by Melanchthon, than that he advised suicide when he declared that the queen should die rather than become an accomplice to a crime. We are at once impressed by the candor of Luther, when contrasted with the course of the Pope. The latter sought to evade the difficulty by persuading the queen to surrender her claims; the former urges that the queen especially must be urged not to yield an hair’s-breadth. To him it is a question neither of ecclesiastical nor civil policy, but one of fidelity in his testimony to the truth involved. There is another judgment given by the entire body of Wittenberg theologians, found in Burnet’s History, Vol. II: Doc. No. 35, and in Melanchthon’s Works, C. R. II: 523, which shows such a divergence in the character of the arguments adduced, so that though the conclusion is the same, some of the premises have been entirely changed, that the difference would be inexplicable, if we had not the clue given in Seckendorf,⁶¹ that in the archives at Weimar, the original is dated 1536, a suggestion which is confirmed by the fact that it is not the single legate of 1531, but the three legates of 1535 and 1536, who are there mentioned.

These answers, however, did not repel the king of England from seeking further aid at Wittenberg when he needed it. Although the Pope had been defied, Henry dreaded far more the wrath of the Emperor, and sought for such Continental alliances as might strengthen his position. The Smalcald League had been formed, March 29th, 1531, between the Lutheran confederates, the Elector of Saxony, the Dukes Philip Ernst and Franz of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, Counts Gebhardt and Albrecht of Mansfeld, and the cities of Strassburg, Ulm, Constance, Reutlingen, Memmingen, Lindau, Biberach, Jssni, Lübeck, Magdeburg and Bremen. On July 23d, 1532, the league concluded with the Emperor the Religious Peace of Nürnberg, guaranteeing, until [[@Page:52]]the convening of a General Council, peace to all the Confederates by name, upon the stipulation that “they make no further and other innovation beyond the Confession, Assent⁶² and Apology presented at Augsburg, and that which agrees therewith, according to a lawful, Christian and just sense, and that they introduce no ceremonies adverse to, or which do not agree with the Augsburg Confession and the Apology.”⁶³

These terms by no means satisfied the Landgrave, and a number of the theologians, as Urbanus Riegius, Erhard Schnepf, Antony Corvinus, etc., who were averse to the acceptance of any pledge of peace which did not secure protection also for all who should hereafter accept the Confessional basis, Riegius maintaining that the peace proposed was worse than war.⁶⁴ But Luther urged the more moderate course, and succeeded in having it adopted.⁶⁵

The League thus formed became a very important factor in the politics of Europe. It was to the interest of both Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII., to have its sympathy and co-operation in their plans against the Emperor, or, at least, to prevent its members from giving the Emperor their support. Francis, in order to break the confederacy between the Pope and the Emperor, had in October, 1533, formed a compact with the former at Marseilles, according to which his son, Henry, married Catherine de Medici, the niece of the Pope. But his plans failed by the death of Clement VII. in the succeeding October. Foiled thus in his efforts to use the Papal power against the Emperor, he next turned to the Lutheran princes. In February, 1535, he wrote to them a long letter, among other things apologizing for the persecution of the French Lutherans, by the assurance that no German within his realm has suffered.⁶⁶ Then follows some [[@Page:53]]correspondence between Melanchthon and Cardinal Bellay, resulting in an invitation to the former to visit France in order to effect an agreement in doctrine with the French theologians. Even prior to these negotiations, in the preceding August, Melanchthon, possibly at the suggestion of Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis, and favorably disposed to the Lutheran cause, had transmitted an outline of doctrine according to which he proposed to reconcile the differences. But as cruelties towards Protestants in France were not abated, and the princes deemed the pledges even of the Emperor more trustworthy than any that could be offered by the king, Melanchthon’s desire to accept the invitation was denied by the Elector. At the meeting of the Smalcald League in December, Cardinal Bellay is present with new propositions,⁶⁷ only to hear his schemes, intended purely for political expediency, answered by the admirable Confession that “the League had been established among them for no other reasons than for the pure Word of God, and for preserving and propagating the sound doctrine of faith.” Bent on war, however, Francis at last found an ally in the Turks; and hostilities began in 1536.

These difficulties of the Emperor were propitious to Henry, and he hastened to make the best of them. If he could only be admitted into the Smalcald League, and be made its chief, he imagined that he would soon humble both Pope and Emperor, and that Francis also might be made pay a severe penalty for not having espoused his cause. For the League had begun to show an aggressive spirit. The Emperor’s brother, Ferdinand, had been compelled by the Landgrave to surrender the royal power of Würtemberg, and to restore it to Duke Ulrich, who in 1534, introduced the Reformation. The League itself was just about extending its provisions to the limits for which Riegius and his associates had so urgently plead to no effect in 1532. The purpose was being formed which at last was regularly adopted in December, 1535, in the enactment “that all be received into the [[@Page:54]]League who have applied for admission, or shall hereafter apply, provided that they purely, freely and openly confess God and his Gospel, love peace, and live as becomes honorable and upright men.”⁶⁸ [[@Page:55]]