IX. 1548. BOOK since the establishment of the reformed religion, and had never known any other form of public worship, beheld the pompous pageantry of the popish service with contempt or horror; and in most places the Romish ecclesiastics who returned to take possession of their churches, could hardly be protected from insult, or their ministrations from interrup tion. Thus, notwithstanding the apparent compliance of so many cities, the inhabitants being accustomed to freedom, submitted with reluctance to the power which now oppressed them. Their understanding as well as inclination revolted against the doctrines and ceremonies imposed on them; and though, for the present, they concealed their disgust and resentment, it was evident that these passions could not always be kept under restraint, but would break out at last in effects proportional to their violence &. The pope dismisses assembled at Bologna. Sept. 17. er. CHARLES, however, highly pleased with having bent the the council stubborn spirit of the Germans to such general submission, departed for the Low-Countries, fully determined to compel the cities which still stood out to receive the Interim. He carried his two prisoners, the Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Hesse, along with him, either because he durst not leave them behind him in Germany, or because he wished to give his countrymen the Flemings this illustrious proof of the success of his arms, and the extent of his powBefore Charles arrived at Brussels, he was informed that the Pope's legates at Bologna had dismissed the council by an indefinite prorogation, and that the prelates assembled there had returned to their respective countries. Necessity had driven the Pope into this measure. By the secession of those who had voted against the translation, together with the departure of others, who grew weary of continuing in a place where they were not suffered to proceed to business, so few and such inconsiderable members remained, that the pompous appellation of a General Council could not, with decency, be bestowed any longer upon them. Paul had no choice but to dissolve an assembly which was become the object of contempt, and exhibited to all Christendom a most g Mem. de Ribier, ii. 218. Sleid. 491. IX. 1548. glaring proof of the impotence of the Romish See. But un- BOOK avoidable as the measure was, it lay open to be unfavourably interpreted, and had the appearance of withdrawing the remedy, at the very time when those for whose recovery it was provided, were prevailed on to acknowledge its virtue, and to make trial of its efficacy. Charles did not fail to put this construction on the conduct of the Pope; and by an artful comparison of his own efforts to suppress heresy, with Paul's scandalous inattention to a point so essential, he endeavoured to render the Pontiff odious to all zealous Catholics. At the same time, he commanded the prelates of his faction to remain at Trent, that the Council might still appear to have a being, and might be ready whenever it was thought expedient to resume its deliberations for the good of the church h. his son Countries. THE motive of Charles's journey to the Low-Countries, The empebeside gratifying his favourite passion of travelling from one ror receives part of his dominions to another, was to receive Philip, his Philip in only son, who was now in the twenty-first year of his age, the Lowand whom he had called thither, not only that he might be recognized by the states of the Netherlands as heir-apparent, but in order to facilitate the execution of a vast scheme, the object of which, and the reception it met with, shall be hereafter explained. Philip, having left the government of Spain to Maximilian, Ferdinand's eldest son, to whom the Emperor had given the Princess Mary his daughter in marriage, embarked for Italy, attended by a numerous retinue of Spanish nobles. The squadron which escorted him, was commanded by Andrew Doria, who, notwithstanding his advanced age, insisted on the honour of performing, in person, the same duty to the son, which he had often discharged towards the father. He landed safely at Genoa; from thence Nov. 25. he went to Milan, and proceeding through Germany, arriv- 1549. ed at the Imperial court in Brussels. The States of Bra- April 1. bant, in the first place, and those of the other provinces in their order, acknowledged his right of succession in common form, and he took the customary oath to preserve all their 1549. BOOK privileges inviolate. In all the towns of the Low-Countries IX. through which Philip passed, he was received with extraor dinary pomp. Nothing that could either express the respect of the people, or contribute to his amusement, was neglected; pageants, tournaments, and public spectacles of every kind, were exhibited with that expensive magnificence which commercial nations are fond of displaying, when on any occasion they depart from their usual maxims of frugality. But amidst these scenes of festivity and pleasure, Philip's natural severity of temper was discernible. Youth itself could not render him agreeable, nor his being a candidate for power form him to courtesy. He maintained a haughty reserve in his behaviour, and discovered such manifest partiality towards his Spanish attendants, together with such an avowed preference to the manners of their country, as highly disgusted the Flemings, and gave rise to that antipathy, which afterwards occasioned a revolution fatal to him in that part of his dominions 1. CHARLES was long detained in the Netherlands by a violent attack of the gout, which returned upon him so frequently, and with such increasing violence, that it had broken, to a great degree, the vigour of his constitution. He nevertheless did not slacken his endeavours to enforce the Interim. The inhabitants of Strasburg, after a long struggle, found it necessary to yield obedience; those of Constance, who had taken arms in their own defence, were compelled not only to conform to the Interim, but to renounce their privileges as a free city, to do homage to Ferdinand as Archduke of Austria, and, as his vassals, to admit an Austrian governor and garrison". Magdeburg, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck, were the only Imperial cities of note that still continued refractory. k Haræi Annal. Brabant. 652. 1 Mem. de Ribier, ii. 29. L'Evesque Mem. de Card. Granvelle, i. 21. m Sleid. 474. 491. THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. BOOK X. X. 1549. schemes WHILE Charles laboured, with such unwearied indus- B O O try, to persuade or to force the Protestants to adopt his regulations with respect to religion, the effects of his steadiness in the execution of his plan were rendered less con- The pope' siderable by his rupture with the Pope, which daily inagainst the creased. The firm resolution which the Emperor seemed emperor. to have taken against restoring Placentia, together with his repeated encroachments on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not only by the regulations contained in the Interim, but by his attempt to re-assemble the council at Trent, exasperated Paul to the utmost, who, with the weakness incident to old age, grew more attached to his family, and more jealous of his authority, as he advanced in years. Pushed on by these passions, he made new efforts to draw the French King into an alliance against the Emperora: But finding that Monarch, notwithstanding the hereditary enmity between him and Charles, and the jealousy with which he viewed the successful progress of the Imperial arms, as unwilling as formerly to involve himself in immediate hostilities, he was obliged to contract his views, and to think of preventing future encroachments, since it was not in his power to inflict vengeance on account of those which were past. For this a Mem. de Ribier, ii. 230. X. 1549. OOK purpose, he determined to recal his grant of Parma and Placentia, and after declaring them to be re-annexed to the Holy See, to indemnify his grandson Octavio by a new establishment in the ecclesiastical state. By this expedient he hoped to gain two points of no small consequence. He, first of all, rendered his possession of Parma more secure; as the Emperor would be cautious of invading the patrimony of the church, though he might seize without scruple a town belonging to the house of Farnese. In the next place, he would acquire a better chance of recovering Placentia, as his solicitations to that effect might decently be urged with greater importunity, and would infallibly be attended with greater effect, when he was considered not as pleading the cause of his own family, but as an advocate for the interest of the Holy See. But while Paul was priding himself on this device, as a happy refinement in policy, Octavio, an ambitious and high spirited young man, who could not bear with patience to be spoiled of one half of his territories by the rapaciousness of his father-in-law, and to be deprived of the other by the artifices of his grandfather, took measures in order to prevent the execution of a plan fatal to his interest. He set out secretly from Rome, and having first endeavoured to surprise Parma, which attempt was frustrated by the fidelity of the governor to whom the Pope had intrusted the defence of the town, he made overtures to the Emperor, of renouncing all connexion with the Pope, and of depending entirely on him for his future fortune. This unexpected defection of one of the Pope's own family to an enemy whom he hated, irritated, almost to madness, a mind peevish with old age; and there was no degree of severity to which Paul might not have proceeded against a grandson whom he reproached as an unnatural apostate. But, happily for Octavio, death prevented his carrying into execution the harsh resolutions which he had taken with respect to him, and put an end to his pontificate in the sixteenth year of his administration, and the eighty-second of his age*. Among many instances of the credulity or weakness of historians in attributing the death of illustrious personages to extraordinary causes, this is one. Almost all the historians of the sixteenth century affirm, that the |