Imperial Politics and the Failure of the Authorities to Stop Lutheranism
The Hapsburg-Valois Wars
Political circumstances were responsible for the failure of the authorities to stop Luther,
thus for the spread of Lutheranism and the proliferation of Protestantism, and they
were responsible for the failure of Charles V and all that he stood for. By the Diet of
Worm's end, Luther had been outlawed. But the fear of the princes that their so-called
"liberty" would be threatened or destroyed, they refused to let any men like Luther be
tried outside of the Empire. Furthermore, the princes also feared the masses of people
because they seemed to be in a very bad temper and Luther was their spiritual leader in
the years 1518 through 1525.
A major circumstance was the dynastic and territorial conflict of the Hapsburgs
and the Empire with the Valois and France. This conflict manifest itself most savagely
in four wars known as the Hapsburg-Valois Wars. Lands or territories in dispute were
the following for all four wars. Francis claimed Navarre, Flanders, Artois, and Naples.
Charles claimed Cardagne, Roussillon, Burgundy, and Milan.
The First Hapsburg-Valois War, 1520-1525:
In 1519-20, it was Francis who started the wars. Francis was roundly defeated in
Italian campaign at the Battle of Pavia, in 1525. In the war, Charles was aided by
Adrian VI, his former tutor who died in 1523, and by Venice. He was able to capture
Milan. Since Francis was captured he was forced to sign a disastrous treaty, the Treaty
of Madrid by which he renounced claims to Milan, Genoa, Naples, Flanders, Artois,
Tournais, and Burgundy were given to Charles. Also, as assurance that he would keep
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the treaty, he was forced to leave his two sons in Charles custody in return for his own
release. The major effect of these wars was that Charles was out of central Europe from
1521 to 1530, not once appearing north of the Alps. Nevertheless, Charles had to
conduct his affairs somehow in central Europe. This was done through agents and his
brother Ferdinand. The princes, however, fearing the growth of the Hapsburgs and any
precedents to inheritance, refused to recognize Ferdinand as having y special authority
for year and demanded that Reichsregiment, or council of regency, be set up. The latter
was set up by the princes but ignored by Charles and then it was disbanded in 1523 as
the Knights’ War wreaked havoc. In the aftermath of this war, Charles declared his
brother, Ferdinand, viceroy. Ferdinand, thus, held the status of a regent. But Charles
wanted more.
Also, Charles needed support, physical and monetary, to fight the
advance of the Turk in the east (as well as the War with Francis).
Three diets were held from 1522 -24 at the city of Nuremberg which
was becoming Lutheran and ironically allowing and defending the rights
of preachers to preach the Gospel; that is, Nuremberg was not enforcing the Edict of
Worms. The results of these diets follows:
Diet 1--Emperor got aid against Turk, that's all
Diet 2—Emperor, warned of popular unrest in Luther thing, let Luther alone and
permitted the demand for a "German" Council. The princes also undertook to limit
monopolies and establish a 4 % sales tax, which Emperor vetoed later. (He was, of
course, dependent on the Fuggers.)
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Diet 3--Abolished the impotent Council of regency, and again called for a German
council.
The Knights’ War (1522-23) was an important phenomenon showing the
breakdown or dysfunction of feudal society. This group was distressed for long-term
social and economic reasons. There were two important consequences of the war. The
knights attempted to combine Reformation and Knights’ ambitions. They attacked
Trier, an important archbishopric. But they also offended other territorial rulers who
came to the aid of Trier; most singnificant were the Palatinate and Hesse. Because of
the religious overtones, Catholics everywhere blamed Luther, while Lutherans became
more conservative. But above all it led to: 1) another victory for the territorial princes
in their drive to power, & 2) the formation of military leagues to keep secure in fear of
attack. (The later Peasants’ Revolt, 1524-25, had the same impacts.) As is the case with
most such leagues for defense, they lead to further insecurity, not their intended
purpose. The author of the first such league was Cardinal Campeggio, a papal legate,
who had pressured Charles to act on Edict of Worms. Campeggio organized the
Regensburg Union of 1524 to provide political support to the papacy in enforcing the
Edict of Worms, as well as to check the spread of unrest connected with Knights' War.
The Union included Ferdinand (roughly, Austria), the two Dukes of Bavaria, the
Cardinal AB of Salzburg, and certain Bishops of Southern Germany.
Further north, Duke George of Saxony created the Union of Dessau in 1525, another
Catholic league, which included the electorates of Mainz and Brandenburg. Hence, by
early 1525, there were two Catholic leagues.
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These leagues called forth the League of Torgau by the Lutherans, 24 February 1525.
The Torgau was organized by Elector John of Saxony1 and Landgrave Philip of Hesse.
And it grew rapidly following the imperial victory at Pavia and the peace of Madrid.
Protestants feared that the now powerful Charles might act on the Edict of Worms.
Whatever Charles might have done, or could have done, he did not do, however.
Here’s why:
1--the Battle of Mohács in the East (1526; all of Hungary was overrun by the Ottomans)
had all the impact of the Fall of France in 1939, or the impact that the Fall of Berlin
during Cold War would have had.
2--No sooner that Francis was freed than he broke the Treaty of Madrid leaving his sons
to rot in jail, while he was supported by the new League of Cognac and started the
Second Hapsburg-Valois war.
3--A low point of affairs for Charles was the sacking of Rome by Charles’ own troops in
1527, while he was forced to imprison Clement VIII in the Castel Sant'Anglelo (in Rome)
until the fall of 1528. Poor Charles!
4—the Diet of Speyer (1526) change the rules.
The Diet of Speyer (1526):
By its notorious recess, the 1526 Diet of Speyer gave authority over religious matters to
the territorial magistrates (princely and urban) until a great, ecumenical church council
could settle the religious issue! This was the revolutionary moment, in 1526. After
1
Frederick the Wise died in 1525. He was succeeded by his brother, Johann, who reigned from 1525 to
1532. Johann Friedrich, Johann’s son, ruled from 1532 to 1547, when he lost the electorate. John Frederick,
continued to rule as simply Duke of Saxony until his death in 1554.
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Recess of Speyer, there was no turning back. The Middle Ages and the single Latin or
Western European Church had ended.
The second Hapsburg-Valois War, (1526-1529):
This time Francis attacked even though he had left his two sons in Spanish captivity.
He was a true Renaissance prince, Machiavelli's prince, the fox. Francis was joined by
the new Pope, Clement the VII headed up the League of Cognac including Florence,
Milan, and Venice. In addition, Charles was attacked by Suleiman. Suleiman won
immediately in Hungary where he enjoyed the Victory of Mohács. Although the war
went poorly in the east, it went well for Charles in the South. The League of Cognac
was put to route (22.V.1526) and Clement was captured and imprisoned in the Castel
St. Angelo. Unhappily, Imperial troops sacked Rome in this year, 1527.
Peace was arranged by Louise of Savoy (mother of Francis) and Margarette (aunt
of Charles) representing the two sides initially, and thus called the women's peace. The
Peace of Cambrai (5.VIII.1529) saw Francis give up claims to Flanders, Artois, and
South Italy, while Charles gave up Burgundy. As for Charles, he was finally crowed
emperor by Clement in 1530 at Bologna.
Now even before peace had been completely secured, especially on the Eastern front,
Charles decided to call the Imperial Diet again, to meet this time at Speyer in the Spring
of 1529. He was determined to enforce the Edict of Worms given his improving
situation, his plan was to have this Diet of Speyer in 1529 revoke the Recess if the Diet
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of Speyer in 1526. Since only Catholics met at first, they called for allowing the mass
everywhere and suppression of Zwinglianism and Anabaptism. But when the
Protestant princes arrived under the leadership of John of Saxony and Philip of Hesse,
the story changed. Especially Philip of Hesse played an essential role here when on
April 19, 1529, the Lutheran estates--Electoral Saxony, dukes of Brunswick, Margrave
of Brandenburg, Hesse, prince of Anhalt, and fourteen lmperial cities drew up a strong
protest in which they pointed out that the 1526 Recess was a legal treaty between the
estates which could not be repealed without the consent of both parties in this case,
Lutheran as well as, Catholic. And the protest also spelled out the Lutheran conviction
that they could not be compelled to act contrary to faith or conscience. That in any
event, they (the Lutherans), would act obeying God, and not man. Thus they came to
be called the protesting estates.
It must be said, that Philip of Hesse above all was courageous for his Gospel. He
and John of Saxony rode into the city with the motto emblazoned on their arms-Verbum Dominae manet in aeternae.
Philip refused to obey the laws against preaching
and had his court preach ers preach publicly. He refused to eat fish on Friday and
banqueted in Lent.
Already, in 1526, Philip had become convinced that there must be a league and
political agreement to protect the gospel. (Thus the Torgau League had been created in
1526 between Saxony and Hesse.) But Philip wanted more. He caused quite a stir in
1528, with the notorious Pack Affair. On the advice of a counselor, Otto von Pack,
Philip had convinced Saxony to mobilize for war against the Catholic leagues, which he
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claimed were poised and planning to attack the Lutherans in the name of enforcing the
Edict.
Now when, at the beginning of the diet, things did not go well at Speyer in 1529
and the emperor's agents had their way, even though the Emperor was again unable to
make it personally, Philip started negotiating with Francis I, John Zapolya and the
South German cities for a political union. But the Saxons and other north German
evangelicals wouldn’t join such an alliance because Luther insisted that a league of that
kind must be based on a common confession. Hence, Brandenburg, Electoral Saxony,
and Nürnberg drew up their ideas of a proper set of religious articles for political union,
which was called the Schwabic Articles.
The Schwabic Articles comprised 16 articles
of faith based on Lutheran teachings on the Supper. South Germans evangelicals,
however, were unable to accept it. What was at issue here was a great split between the
Lutherans and the Zwinglians on several articles of faith, but especially the
interpretation of the Lord’s Supper.
It was to overcome this Lutheran objection to defensive leagues that Philip of
Hesse's Marburg Colloquy was an attempt to end this split, which the Catholics were
exploiting, so that the Protestants could unite politically. A defensive alliance was
arranged after the "Protest" at Speyer and the Marburg Colloquy was called to iron out
differences over the Supper which divided Protestants.
In any event, the Second Diet of Speyer of 1529 was not a success for the emperor
because he was unable to attend. In fact, the Turk began a siege of Vienna which forced
him to compromise. But when his situation improved by the end of 1529 on all fronts,
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he ignored the protest and prepared to meet another Diet in the following year of 1530.
This Diet he was actually able to meet personally, for the first time since 1521.
In the meantime, at the Marburg Colloquy, Philip of Hesse had led Zwingli to take
definite steps toward creating a vast anti-Hapsburg force in Europe. It included the
Swiss cities, France, and even Denmark and Venice. Some of the Swiss towns, like
Berne, refused to make an alliance with Hesse, however.
The Diet of Augsburg (1530):
Elector John was one of the first to arrive at Augsburg. John presented the
Schwabach Articles to Charles V. Then, on the 25 June 1530, he had the Saxon
chancellor, Beyer, read the Confession Augustana, or the Augsburg Confession,
publicly, in both Latin and German translation before the diet. He wanted the laity to
understand the confession.
Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s right-hand man at
Wittenberg, was the author of this document, but it was approved by Luther, who
could not enter the town of Augsburg.
The Papal legate, Cardinal Campeggio demanded that the emperor and estates
enforce the Edict of Worms, of course. Campeggio also insisted that Protestant preacing
in Augsburg should cease. John Eck, meanwhile, published a new pamphlet in which
he claimed to identify Four Hundred Protestant errors.
Charles, then, with the backing of those Catholic states that supported him,
called upon Campeggio, with the aid of Eck, Fabner and Cochlaeus (all enemies of
Luther and his movement) to draw up a Confutatio or Refutation, which they then did.
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This confutatio was read to the assembled estates on 3 August. Charles then threatened
to enforce the edict of worms. But the majority of the estates were not ready to follow
him and conciliatory feelings were stimulated by the presentation of Melanchthon’s
Apology. This was an apology or justification of the view presented in the Augustana
and a refutation of the Confutatio. So, Charles became more conciliatory and succeeded
in winning the election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans (he was crowned on 5
January 1531, at Köln). Charles also won promises of war aid against the Turks in the
East.
Having achieved these goals, the emperor turned adamant regarding the Luther
affair, again. He announced to the Protestants that they would have only until 15 April
1531 to renounce Protestantism and to return to the Church. If not, he would use
military force. The Protestants called this deadline the “dreaded day”; that is, it was a
confirmation of their long-held fears that, sooner or later, force would be used against
them and they dreaded this prospect. Of course, on the positive side, it forced the
Protestants to band together in spite of continuing religious differences. As a result
Philip of Hesse had his way.
With anticipation of the dreaded day, Philip of Hesse found a much readier
acceptance of his arguments for the necessity of political alliance. In February 1531,
expecting the Emperor to attack in April, the Protestants created the Schmalkaldic
League, a defensive alliance within the Empire. The members of this new agreement
were Hesse, Electoral Saxony, the two dukes of Brunswick-Lüneberg, Anhalt, 2 counts
of Mansfield, Magdeburg and Bremen originally. The Irenics Bucer and Philip of Hesse
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brought more South German towns into it a little later. The irenic Bucer softened up
Luther at Coburg Castle while the diet met and, hence, prepared the way for the
Wittenberg Concord between the South and North German Evangelicals.
The Emperor, however, never was able to enforce the Dreaded Day because he
fell into a dispute with the papacy over calling a council and because of the move of the
Turk in the East. In fact the Turk was able to besiege Vienna again in 1532. For this
reason, when another diet met at Regensburg in 1532, a truce was arranged (the Peace
of Nürnberg). Again, compromise was reached. Religious settlement was postponed.
All court proceedings in the Imperial Supreme Court were thrown out. The Emperor
promised there would be no attacks. There will be no other attacks on Lutheran estates
until a general council could resolve the Luther Matter.
In the decade that followed, Philip of Hesse was the undisputed leader of the
Protestants and the Schmalkaldic league. The new elector of Saxony was John
Frederick, reigned 1532-1547, died 1554, died he was an unambitious, extremely
cautious person.
Since the time of the Diet of Augsburg, or perhaps even earlier, Philip had been
preparing the groundwork for restoring deposed prince Ulrich to the Duchy of
Württemberg. In fact, he involved himself in negotiations at the Diet and even
disappeared for several days during 1530 to cement an alliance with Denmark. Then, in
1534, Philip restored Duke Ulrich to his Duchy by war. This ended Hapsburg control
there since 1520. The overall geopolitical importance was to prevent the Westward
growth of real Hapsburg power. It denied a land bridge between the Burgundian and
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Austrian lands of the Hapsburgs. In the final arrangements, Philip even got the aid of
French troops for this war. Moreover, he got Catholic Bavaria to keep the Swabian
League, a catholic and conservative league, which had supported the Emperor in 1520,
to stay out of the war. In May 1534, Ferdinand's troops in Württemberg were badly
beaten and Ulrich took his throne, as simply a fief of Austria. All claims in Imperial
Supreme court were thrown out. Protestants agreed to recognize Ferdinand King of the
Romans, as a sop to Charles.
The Third Hapsburg-Valois War (1535-1538):
No sooner than the Wuertemberg War was over than the Third Hapsburg-Valois
War sparked up. A renegade French pirate named Kheireddin Barbarosa and his
Barbary Corsairs or privateers (armed private ships commissioned by Ottoman Turkey
to attack Charles V) forced the Emperor to take action. Charles V attacked Tunis in
1535, but failed to capture or put Barbarosa out of commission. He did, however,
capture most of the pirate's ships, some eighty of them. It might have been over but for
the fact that Francis I saw a splendid opportunity to better his position and so offered
aid to Barbarosa while he signed a treaty with Suleiman. [An interesting sidelight of
this treaty was that French subjects were given extraterritorial rights in Turkey, or
capitulations as such privileges to foreigners were then called.]
The irony of this war was that Francis had been laying the groundwork for a
defeat of Charles for some time. He had signed a alliance with Clement VII in 1.533
whereby he would oppose a Church Council in return for his re-aquisition of Milan and
Genoa and the creation of a strong state in northern Italy under his son Henry who was
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to marry Clement's niece, Catherine de Medici. But Clement died in 1534 and was
succeeded by Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) who ruled until 1549. An enigmatic figure,
Paul was favorable to neither Francis or Charles. Consequently, when Francis I
attacked Italy he received little support and Charles repulsed him and forced peace on
him again, by the treaty of Nice in 1538, which returned things to Peace of Cambrai.
Meantime, however, Paul gave Charles a headache. During this war, when
Charles was in dire of support from his estates, he found it necessary to call a national
church council. This was because Paul alienated German Protestants and Catholic, by
refusing to even consider a German town in which to hold an ecumenical council to
deal with the Luther matter. Trent it was later argued was German, below the Tyrol on
the Italian side of the Alps.
In any event, Charles sent as his legate Dr. Matthias Held in 1536 to call and, at
least, consider a German council. Held turned out to be a terrible mistake, however.
He was anti-Protestant to the point of bigotry and he and Ferdinand announced that
they would not keep the Truce of Nürnberg of 1532. Instead, they created a new
Catholic alliance to enforce this decision, all without Charles approval or knowledge.
Needless to say, the Protestants were aliened from all imperial efforts at settlement by
Held.
In response to Legate Held's threatening actions and to the calling of a council by
Paul (in 1536) to meet at Trent, the Schmalkaldic League members met in February of
1537 and they accepted a strong set of doctrinal statements, more removed from
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Catholicism than the Augsburg Confession. They agreed to attend a Church council
only if:
1-- if it were free of Papal control
2-- if Bible as sole authority in any discussion
3--if all estates equal ~
4--if it met on German soil
In the place of grievances that would be normally put before a council, they put
Luther’s new authoritative set of religious principles, which the princes pressured him
to draw up. They now demanded acceptance of these without qualification:
a--justification by faith
b--abolition of the mass (sacrifice)
c--monastic revenues to be used for schools and charities
d--denial of divine mandate of Pope to rule the church.
When the Schmalkaldic League made these actions known and threatened war,
and Charles got word of what Held had done, he fired Held and appointed the
archbishop Lund to make peace. This resulted in Treaty of Frankfurt in April 1539.
Then Charles tried to solve the religious crisis with a series of conferences for
arbitration between Lutherans and Catholics. In this attempt he received considerable
encouragement from certain Italian high church people. [Gasparo Contarini most
significant.]
In 1540 and 1541, three such conferences were held: Hagenau, Worms and
Regensburg, most important. An agreement of sorts came out of the third, known as
the Book of Regensburg. The Lord’s Supper question was the breaking issue, however.
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The Fourth Hapsburg-Valois War (1542-44):
About this time, the fourth Hapsburg-Valois War started up, in some ways much as the
last one had, on the sea as well as the land. This time Charles fleet was destroyed by a
storm before the port of Tangiers in October of 1541. In the East, the Turk had been
called in by the counter-claimants to Ferdinand as ruler of Hungary; namely, the
supporters of John Zapolya. [Since the latter's death in 1540, they claimed the throne
for his infant son, John Sigismund.] The Turk moved and took Buda, in Hungary, and
once again threatened Austria and the Empire. An army was sent to stop the Turks, but
utterly failed and it was really bad for Charles in the east.
In the west, Francis had finally concluded a formidable alliance against Charles
concomitant to the task. [This new alliance included Turkey, Cleves, Sweden, Denmark,
and Scotland.] Moreover, it engaged the Pope as a hostile, though non-fighting force,
against the emperor.
At the same time, Hesse and Saxony attacked the Duchy of Brunswick. They
seized the duke's lands because he was supporting the emperor. Almost
simultaneously, Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz allowed Protestants in his lands and
Herman von Wied , Archbishop of Köln, invited Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon
to introduce Protestantism there. In 1543, moreover, the principality of Waldeck and the
great town of Münster became Protestant. Things were looking really bad for Charles.
It is apparent that things looked grim for Charles. But the bigamy of Philip of
Hesse, changed the playing field. Philip lost authority and Protestants couldn’t get
enthusiastic about following his leadership. Charles was able to stage a resurgence. He
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allied with Henry VIII and grabbed the Gelderland, hence, strengthening his position in
the Western part of the Empire (1543). By taking Gelderland, he islolated the Protestant
William of Cleves and ended the fourth war by the treaty of Crépý. He then made peace
with the Protestants with a promise at the Diet of Speyer in 1544 that there would be a
national council called. He promised Philip that he would not prosecute him for
bigamy and so Philip acquiesced to this development.
The Schmalkaldic War (1546-1548)
Now Charles was finally ready to solve the religious schism. He declared the
elector John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse banned for the Pack Conspiracy of
1528, the conquest of Württemberg in 1534, and the seizure of Brunswick in 1545. He
got away with this for three reasons. First, the members of the Schmaldaldic League had
been demoralized by the bigamy of their leader and he no longer commanded the
respect and authority that he had once enjoyed. Second, Charles finally had some
Protestants in his camp; he convinced them that religion was not the real issue. Third,
he made Maurice the Elector of Saxony. Hence, Maurice aided the emperor, even
though he was a staunch Lutheran by attacking the former Electoral Saxony and
dividing Schmalkalic forces--he wanted the electoral title. Charles now enjoyed a
victory over Saxony at Mühlberg, in April 1547, and captured the elector. Phillip of
Hesse was talked into surrendering without a fight by his Son-in-Law, Maurice,who
promised him he would help his case and who assured him that the Emperor had
promised that the punishment would be light. Both men were then imprisoned in the
Netherlands for five years.
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But Charles still couldn't settle the Luther matter or bring the wars to a successful
conclusion. Now squabbling with the pope, Charles tried to bring a religious
compromise to the Empire, known as the Augsburg Interim. This interim arrangement
was imposed at the Diet of Augsburg, in June 1548, and was supposed to represent a
German compromise until an ecumenical council could settle the matter definitively. It
didn't work.
The War of Liberation (1552)
What happened next? France, now under Henry II, joined with Maurice of Saxony, who
had what he wanted and now needed to get his father-in-law, Philip, out of jail.
Maurice brought the Landgrave William of Hesse, son and regent for Philip during his
captivity, and Margrave Albert Alicibiades of Brandenburg into the alliance. They
attacked Charles in the War of Liberation. It ended in Peace of Passau (1552). After one
last vain attempt to regain Metz from the French, Charles gave up.
The final peace between the estates was written up later, in 1555, and is known as
the Peace of Augsburg. These are the important points:
1--Lutheran princes, imperial knights, and imperial towns were guaranteed security
equal to that of Roman Catholics and both were obligated to maintain "eternal,
unconditional peace"
2--each estate (principality, knight, or town) will choose the religion: cuius regio, eius
religio. Subjects who do not like it may move to another place that hosts their religion.
3--all church lands seized before Passau (1552) will remain Protestant--all bishops and
ecclesiastics turning Protestant after Passau will forfeit their titles and lands. As my
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mentor, Harold J. Grimm, put it, the princes agreed to disagree in religious matters, in
order to secure their princely liberties.
It should also be noted that the issues disputed and fought over by France, CastileAragon, and the Empire were finally settled with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis and the Peace
of the Pyrénées in 1559. This treaty set the boundaries between the West European countries for
decades to come. Until the Thirty Years War, there was peace.
Poor Charles retired in 1556. In an elaborate ceremony in the Low Lands, Charles
divided his inheritance and empire between his son, Philip, and his brother Ferdinand. Philip got
the Low Lands, Naples and Castile-Aragon. Ferdinand got the Empire and the Austrian
hereditary lands.
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