Mary, his granddaughter, with Louis, only son of Ladislaus, king of Bohemia and Hungary, and of Anne, sister of Louis, with his grandson, the Archduke Ferdinand.

CHARLES V. The death of the emperor, 1519, led to some of the most important events in modern history. Three candidates aspired to the imperial honours- Charles I. of Spain, Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England; the last, however, speedily withdrew. The electors, distrustful of the known ambition of Francis, and influenced, moreover, by the consideration that the dominions of Charles in Austria would render him the most likely defender of the empire against the Turks, then under the warlike Selim I., decided in favour of the Spanish monarch, who was solemnly inaugurated at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the title of Charles V., 1520. The dissatisfaction of Francis with this decision, conjoined with his claims on Italy, led to a series of disastrous wars between him and the Empire. The French monarch, having invaded and taken possession of Navarre, advanced into Spain, where he was defeated, compelled to evacuate his conquest, and driven back into his own country. At the same time, the Milanese, disgusted with the exactions and insolence of his troops, rose in arms, putting themselves under Francis Sforza, brother of their late duke; while Pope Leo X., the Emperor, and the King of England, formed a league for their assistance. The French forces were everywhere defeated, and forced to abandon nearly the whole of their possessions in Italy. Joy at these successes having proved fatal to the reigning pontiff, 1522, he was succeeded by Adrian VI., who, with the Florentines and other Italian states, joined in league against Francis, now left without an ally, 1523. The emperor and Henry VIII. invaded France on the north, south, and east; but their forces were repelled; and Francis, encouraged by this partial success, again essayed the recovery of the Milanese. In 1525, entering Italy at the head of a large force, he was at first very successful, and finally sat down before Pavia, a town strongly garrisoned, and commanded by Leyva, an able officer. Every exertion was now made by the imperial generals to collect an army; while the French, exhausted by fatigue and the rigour of the season, and weakened by a large detachment sent against Naples, remained in their intrenchments. On the 2d February, they were attacked by the imperialists and totally routed; and their king, after beholding the flower of his nobility perish by his side, was taken prisoner and carried in triumph to Madrid. The result of these signal reverses was a treaty by which Francis agreed to surrender Burgundy to the emperor, and delivered up his two sons as hostages for its performance, 1526.

The English sovereign now became alarmed by the growing power of the empire; the states of Burgundy protested against the surrender of their province; and Pope Clement VII. absolved the king from the obligations of the treaty of Madrid. In these circumstances, an alliance, called the Holy League, was formed between France, England, the Swiss, Florentines, Milanese, and the Pope, to oblige Charles to give up the sons of the French monarch, and to restore the duchy of Milan, of which he still retained possession, to Sforza. Charles, the ruler of so vast an empire, possessed a very limited revenue; and the wants of his exchequer opposed a greater obstacle to his ambition than the coalition of all the princes of Europe. The forces of the empire

were commanded by the Constable Bourbon, who had been arbitrarily deprived of his estates at home, and had joined the cause of the enemy. The confederates took the field in Italy; but not being sufficiently reinforced by Francis, the Constable overran the Milanese, and his troops beginning to mutiny for want of pay, he led them to Rome, then one of the richest cities in Europe. In the assault on the city, he himself was slain; but Rome was taken, and experienced from the troops of the Catholic monarch calamities surpassing those inflicted by the barbarians of former times, 1527. On receiving the news of the captivity of the pope, Charles ordered prayers to be offered up in the churches for his deliverance, saying that his quarrel was with the temporal sovereign of Rome, but not the spiritual head of the church. The treaty of Cambray, 1529, restored peace between the rival monarchs; Francis abandoning his claims upon Italy and Flanders. In the same year, Charles and Pope Clement were also reconciled; and, in March 1530, the Spanish king was crowned by the pope at Bologna as Emperor and King of Lombardy.

In the mean time, the doctrines of the Reformation had made rapid progress in the empire. Martin Luther, a man of elevated mind and inflexible resolution, had boldly declaimed against the corruptions of the papacy, 1517; and the opinions he promulgated were readily embraced by the thoughtful and speculative people of Germany. The policy of the northern princes strongly encouraged this natural direction of the minds of their subjects, as the best guarantee against the almost irresistible power of Charles. From the year 1525, John the Constant, who had succeeded his brother Frederick the Wise in the electorate of Saxony; Philip, landgrave of Hesse; George, marquis of Brandenburg; Ernest, duke of Luneburg; and Wolfgang, prince of Anhalt, with most of the free cities of the empire, made a public profession of Lutheranism. Albert, margrave of Brandenburg. grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, desirous of sharing in the political advantages of the Reformation, renounced his vow of chastity, secularized the duchy of Prussia, which he placed under the protection of Poland, and thus laid the foundations of a monarchy which, two centuries later, became one of the most powerful in Christendom. Thoroughly alarmed at the progress of the new opinions, Charles, soon after his coronation, set out for Germany, where he immediately assembled the diet at Augsburg, June 1530. The Reformers, who had now received the name of Protestants, here solemnly presented to the emperor the first public confession of their faith, drawn up by Luther, and subscribed by the various princes who had embraced the reformed doctrines. Charles, whose disposition was not naturally intolerant, found himself compelled to adopt a temporizing policy towards this portion of his subjects. The Turks were now menacing Hungary; and satisfied that he could not refuse them the free exercise of their religion without a war of extermination, he referred the whole matter to a general council, which he urged the pope to convoke, but which did not meet until 1545.

The emperor now began to despair of universal monarchy, and finding himself unable alone to support the burden of affairs, he associated his brother Ferdinand with him in the government, and conferred on him the title of king of the Romans, 1531. This prince, who administered the hereditary estates of Austria, had acquired by marriage the kingdom

of Bohemia, and the sovereignty of Hungary had fallen to him on the death of Louis II. Thus already wielding three sceptres, and uniting under his authority all the south of Germany, he was one of the most powerful princes in Europe when he was nominated to the imperial succession. Charles having repelled a formidable inroad of the Turks in Hungary, 1532, returned to Spain, whence he sailed with a large army for Tunis, where Barbarossa, the dread of the Christians in the Mediterranean, had fortified himself, 1535. During his absence, the Anabaptists, a fanatical sect which had arisen in Germany amid the agitation of Reformed doctrines, seized on the city of Munster, and defended it courageously against the troops of the bishop; they were, however, overcome, and their leaders executed with great cruelty. On the return of the emperor from Africa, where he had been completely successful, he was again compelled to take up arms against Francis, who once more revived his Italian claims, 1536. Having expelled the French from Italy, Charles invaded their territory, with the determination of reducing it to a province of his empire; but after fruitlessly investing Arles and Marseilles, and laying waste Provence, he was compelled to recross the Alps with the loss of half his army. Mohammed, the sultan's lieutenant, having at the same time invaded Hungary, while Barbarossa was ravaging the coasts of Southern Italy, he gladly accepted the mediation of Paul III., and a truce of ten years was concluded with Francis, 1538.

The conquest of Algiers had long been a favourite object with Charles. Having suppressed a revolt in Ghent, his native place, he, in 1541, collected a large armament, with which he sailed for Africa, contrary to the advice of his admiral, Andrew Doria. Having landed and commenced operations against the city, a furious storm scattered his fleet and destroyed his soldiers, and he was forced to reimbark with the loss of the greater part of his force. Meanwhile, the murder at Milan of two French emissaries on their way to Constantinople, and the refusal of Charles to call the perpetrators to account, put an end to the truce between him and Francis, 1542. The latter was allied with the kings of Denmark and Sweden, and had renewed a treaty he formerly made with the sultan. During two years, war raged in France, Spain, Italy, and the Low Countries; but the only important engagement took place at Cerrisoles, in which 10,000 imperialists were slain, and their opponents gained a signal victory, 1544. This was followed by a peace signed at Crespy, in which each party agreed to restore its conquests, unite against the Turks, and suppress reform in their respective dominions.

The prime motive with Charles in the peace now mentioned was his desire to humble the Protestant princes. The diet of Worms, in 1545, passed various resolutions against them, in consequence of which they rose in arms under Frederick of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. The emperor concluded a dishonourable peace with Soliman, formed an alliance with the Pope, who sent him 13,000 men under his illegitimate son, Alexander Farnese, and having collected an army, made a victorious march towards Upper Germany, levying contributions in the disaffected districts. In a decisive battle at Mulhausen, 1547, the confederates were completely defeated, and the two princes taken prisoners. The electorate of Saxony was conferred on Maurice, a kinsman of Frederick, who had treacherously aided the emperor against the confederacy,

of which he had at one time been a member. All opposition seemed now at an end; his great rival Francis had recently expired; and Charles, thinking himself secure in his designs on the liberties of Germany, and desirous of ending dictatorially the disputes on religion, presented a formula to the diet of Augsburg, 1548, drawn up by his own order, the articles of which were to serve as a rule of faith until the final decision of a general council. To this most of the Protestant states were compelled to submit. But such an order of things was not destined to continue, for the Lutherans, though humbled, were not subdued; the princes were fully alive to the ambitious designs of Charles; and even Maurice of Saxony saw the necessity of opposing them. That prince, having been appointed general of an imperial army, retained the troops in his pay under various pretences; formed a treaty with Henry II. of France; and, secure of the adhesion of the Danish king and most of the northern potentates, at length threw off the mask. At the head of a force of 20,000 foot and 2000 horse, he took the field, with the avowed purpose of defending the Protestant religion and maintaining the liberties of Germany; and marched towards the south, everywhere restoring the Luthe ran clergy and magistrates. At the same time the French invaded Lorraine, their monarch styling himself "Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes." The emperor in vain sought to negotiate: Maurice advanced with all speed to Innsbruck, where he was then residing, and was so near surprising him, that he escaped with difficulty during the night. Augsburg had been taken, the Protestants laid siege to Frankfort on the Maine, and the haughty spirit of Charles was at length forced to submit. The treaty of Passau terminated the internal disputes of the empire, and placed the reformed religion on a secure basis, 1552.

This was unquestionably the most disastrous period in the reign of that great ruler. The war continued with the Turks in Hungary on the one side, and the French on the other; and on both the imperialists were almost uniformly unsuccessful. Italy was in commotion from north to south; Sienna openly revolted; and the coast of Naples was ravaged by the Turkish fleet, 1555. Wearied with the cares of government, and hopeless of realizing his dreams of universal dominion, Charles at length determined on resigning all his dignities. For this purpose he summoned his son Philip to Brussels, where the latter was solemnly invested with the government of the Low Countries, and a few weeks after with that of Spain and the Indies. In the following year, 1556, he gave up the imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand; and, after astonishing the world by this abdication, retired to the convent of St. Just, in Estremadura, where, at the end of two years, he expired in the 69th year of his age.

Consult, for particulars, Robertson's History of Charles V.

The first exertions of FERDINAND I., on being invested with the snpreme authority, were directed towards the establishment of civil and religious concord. He opposed the pretensions of the pope, who claimed the right of conferring the imperial title, and vindicated the independence of the empire from the encroachments of the holy see, 1557. Having re-assembled the council of Trent, which had been broken up by the disturbances of the last reign, an attempt at reconciliation between the

Catholic and Protestant parties was made by the emperor; but this proving ineffectual, this last of general councils was dissolved, 1563. MAXIMILIAN II. pursued with greater success the same course as his father, 1564. The reformers had now begun to retaliate the Catholic persecutions, and even to disagree among themselves; but by his ability and moderation, he was enabled to hold the balance between the contending parties, and preserve the tranquillity of the empire. A Turkish invasion of Hungary was repelled, and a truce concluded with the sultan; while a convention with John Sigismund secured to him the crown of Hungary. RUDOLPH II. succeeded to the imperial crown in 1576, but followed a very different course. Abandoned to the direction of favourites, and naturally intolerant, he suppressed the Protestant worship in Austria, and attempted to deprive the Hungarians and Bohemians of all their immunities. The country was everywhere embroiled in insurrections; the Lutherans were led to form a confederation, and to ally themselves with Holland and Henry IV. of France; while the Catholics, on the other hand, united for mutual defence. The empire was saved from open war by the assassination of Henry IV., 1610, just as he was about to pour his troops into Germany; and Rudolph himself died in 1612. In the midst of these troubles, however, science flourished; and the celebrated Rudolphine Tables, calculated by Kepler and Tycho Brahé, have rendered this reign an era in the annals of astronomy.

HUNGARY AND BOHEMIA.

Hungary first attained the rank of a kingdom in the eleventh century, the reigning prince, whose father, Duke Geysa, had previously embraced Christi anity, assuming the title of STEPHEN I., 1000. Under succeeding monarchs, the country rose rapidly in importance; its limits were extended; and it long formed the chief barrier of Christendom against the Turks. The sovereignty was elective: in 1437, it had fallen to ALBERT, archduke of Austria, who perished in a campaign against the Turks, and was succeeded by his posthumous son, LADISLAUS, 1440. Under this monarch and his successor, the kingdom was saved from destruction by the valiant regent, John Huniades, whose son, MATTHIAS I., ascended the throne in 1458. The neighbouring country of Bohemia became known as a kingdom about the end of the twelfth century, though still remaining feudatory to the German emperors, from whom its kings received their investiture; they, in turn, enjoying one of the seven electoral votes. The crown, like that of Hungary, was elective, passing, however, in ordinary cases, to the nearest heir. The power of the monarch was limited by the coronation oath, by a permanent senate, and by frequent convocations of the national diet, composed of the armed nobility. An important era in the history of Bohemia dates from the appearance of the celebrated John Huss, and his pupil, Jerome of Prague, the former of whom had translated the works of Wickliffe, and openly taught his doctrines to his countrymen, 1400. Both fell victims to the persecuting spirit of the age; but their preaching and example had made a deep impression, and led the way to an important change in the national faith, preceded, however, by great internal disorders.

On the death of Matthias I. of Hungary, in 1490, LADISLAUS, king of Bohemia, was invested with the crown, thereby uniting the two countries. This able prince was succeeded by his son, Louis II., a child ten years of age, 1516, during whose long minority the country was torn by factions, and the national revenue wasted. In 1526, the Sultan invaded Hungary with an army of 300,000 men; and, in the fatal battle of Mohacz, Louis perished with the flower of his nobility,