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THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
VOLUME IX
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES, BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
With a staff of specialists
VOLUME IX
[Illustration: Henry VIII, during the festivities at Guines--"The Field of the Cloth of Gold"--in courtly dance with one of the French Queen's ladies-in-waiting
Painting by Adolph Menzel]
The National Alumni
Copyright, 1905, by The National Alumni
CONTENTS
VOLUME IX
PAGE _An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii CHARLES F. HORNE
_Luther Begins the Reformation in Germany (A.D. 1517)_, 1 JULIUS KOESTLIN JEAN M. V. AUDIN
_Negro Slavery in America_ _Its Introduction by Law (A.D. 1517)_, 36 SIR ARTHUR HELPS
_First Circumnavigation of the Globe (A.D. 1519)_ _Magellan Reaches the Ladrones and Philippines_, 41 JOAN BAUTISTA ANTONIO PIGAFETTA
_The Field of the Cloth of Gold (A.D. 1520)_, 59 J. S. BREWER
_Cortes Captures the City of Mexico (A.D. 1521)_, 72 WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
_Liberation of Sweden (A.D. 1523)_, 79 ERIC GUSTAVE GEIJER
_The Peasants' War in Germany (A.D. 1524)_, 93 J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE
_France Loses Italy (A.D. 1525)_ _Battle of Pavia_, 111 WILLIAM ROBERTSON
_Sack of Rome by the Imperial Troops (A.D. 1527)_, 124 BENVENUTO CELLINI T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE
_Great Religious Movement in England_ _Fall of Wolsey (A.D. 1529)_, 137 JOHN RICHARD GREEN
_Pizarro Conquers Peru (A.D. 1532)_, 156 HERNANDO PIZARRO WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
_Calvin is Driven from Paris (A.D. 1533)_ _He Makes Geneva the Stronghold of Protestantism_, 176 A. M. FAIRBAIRN JEAN M. V. AUDIN
_England Breaks with the Roman Church (A.D. 1534)_ _Destruction of Monasteries_, 203 JOHN RICHARD GREEN
_Cartier Explores Canada (A.D. 1534)_, 236 H. H. MILES
_Mendoza Settles Buenos Aires (A.D. 1535)_, 254 ROBERT SOUTHEY
_Founding of the Jesuits (A.D. 1540)_, 261 ISAAC TAYLOR
_De Soto Discovers the Mississippi (A.D. 1541)_, 277 JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
_Revolution of Astronomy by Copernicus (A.D. 1543)_, 285 SIR ROBERT STAWELL BALL
_Council of Trent and the Counter-reformation (A.D. 1545)_ 293 ADOLPHUS W. WARD
_Protestant Struggle against Charles V_ _The Smalkaldic War (A.D. 1546)_, 313 EDWARD ARMSTRONG
_Introduction of Christianity into Japan (A.D. 1549)_, 325 JOHN H. GUBBINS
_Collapse of the Power of Charles V (A.D. 1552)_ _France Seizes German Bishoprics_, 337 LADY C. C. JACKSON
_The Religious Peace of Augsburg (A.D. 1555)_ _Abdication of Charles V_ 348 WILLIAM ROBERTSON
_Akbar Establishes the Mogul Empire in India (A.D. 1556)_, 366 J. TALBOYS WHEELER
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1517-1557)_ 385 JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME IX
PAGE _Henry VIII during the festivities at Guines_--"_The Field of the Cloth of Gold_"--_in courtly dance with one of the French Queen's ladies-in-waiting_ (_page 63_), Frontispiece Painting by Adolph Menzel.
_Gustavus I (Vasa) addressing his last meeting of the Estates_, 79 Painting by L. Hersent.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
THE GREAT EVENTS
(THE REFORMATION: REIGN OF CHARLES V)
CHARLES F. HORNE
Our modern world begins with the Protestant Reformation. The term itself is objected to by Catholics, who claim that there was little real reform. But the importance of the event, whether we call it reform or revolution, is undenied. Previous to 1517 the nations of Europe had formed a single spiritual family under the acknowledged leadership of the Pope. The extent of the Holy Father's authority might be disputed, especially when he interfered in affairs of state. Kings had fought against his troops on the field of battle. But in spiritual matters he was still supreme, and when reformers like Huss and Savonarola refused him obedience on questions of doctrine, the very men who had been fighting papal soldiers were shocked by this heretical wickedness. The heretics were burned and the wars resumed. When Alexander Borgia sat upon the papal throne for eleven years, there were even philosophers who drew from his very wickedness an argument for the divine nature of his office. It must be indeed divine, said they, since despite such pollution as his, it had survived and retained its influence.
Some modern critics have even gone so far as to assert that for at least two generations before the Reformation the great majority of the educated classes had ceased to care whether the Christian religion were true or not. The Renaissance had so awakened their interest in the affairs of this world, its artistic beauties and intellectual advance, that they gave no thought to the beyond. But we approach controversial matters scarce within our scope. Suffice it to say that the Reformation brought religion once more into intensest prominence in all men's eyes, and that a large portion of the civilized world broke away from the domination of the Pope. Men insisted on judging for themselves in spiritual matters. Only after three centuries of strife was the privilege granted them. Only within the past century has thought been made everywhere free--at least from direct physical coercion. The last execution by the Spanish Inquisition was in 1826, and the institution was formally abolished in 1835.
The era of open warfare and actual bodily torture between various sects all calling themselves Christian, thus extended over three centuries. These may be divided into four periods. The first is one of fierce dispute but little actual warfare, during which the revolt spread over Europe with Germany as its centre. An agreement between the contestants was still hoped for; the break was not recognized as final until 1555, when, by the Peace of Augsburg, the two German factions definitely agreed to separate and to refrain from interference with each other. Or perhaps it would be better to end the first period with 1556, when the mighty Emperor, Charles V, resigned all his authority, giving Germany to his brother, Ferdinand, who maintained peace there, while Spain passed to Charles' son, Philip II, most resolute and fanatic of Catholics.
The second period began in 1558, when the Protestant queen, Elizabeth, ascended the throne of England. She and Philip of Spain became the champions of their respective faiths; the strife extended over Europe, and soon developed into bitter war. This spread from land to land, and finally returned to Germany as the awful Thirty Years' War.
Then came the third period, during which the religious question was less prominent; but Catholic sovereigns like Louis XIV of France and James II of England still hoped by persecutions to force their subjects to reaccept the ancient faith. These aims were only abandoned with the downfall of Louis' military power before the armies of Marlborough and Eugene, early in the eighteenth century.
During the final hundred years the stubborn contest was confined to the lands still Catholic, in which intellect, under such leaders as Voltaire, struggled with the superstition and prejudice of the masses, and demanded everywhere the freedom it at last attained.
For the present we need look only to the first of these periods, that in which Germany holds the centre of the view.[1] It is an odd coincidence that at the outbreak of the Reformation all the chief states of Europe were ruled by sovereigns of unusual ability, but each one of them a man who obviously thought more of his ambitions, his pleasures, and his political plans than of his religion. Moreover, each of these rulers came to the throne before he was of age, and thus lacked the salutary training of a subordinate position; while, on the other hand, each of them, through varying causes, wielded a power much greater than that of any of his recent predecessors.
RULERS OF EUROPE IN 1517
Henry VIII of England was the first of these young despots to assume authority. Nine years older than the century, he became king in 1509 at the age of eighteen. His father, Henry VII, had, as we have seen, snatched power from an exhausted aristocracy. He had been what men sneeringly called a "tradesman" king, caring little for the show and splendor of his office, but using it to amass enormous sums of money by means not over-scrupulous. Young Henry VIII, handsome, dashing, and debonair, at once repudiated his father's policy, executed the ministers who had directed it, and was hailed as a liberator by his delighted people. They quite overlooked the fact that he neglected to restore the ill-gotten funds, and soon used them in establishing a far more vigorous tyranny than his father would have dared. Much is forgiven a youthful king if he be but brave and jovial and hearty in his manner. His blunders, his excesses of fury, are put down to his inexperience. Nations are ever yearning for a hero-ruler.
In France a monarch of twenty years, Francis I, ascended the throne in 1515, five years older then than the century. Henry of England had descended from a family of simple Welsh gentlemen, far indeed at one time from the crown; Francis I was also of a new line of kings, only a distant cousin of the childless Louis XII, whom he succeeded. "That great boy of Angouleme will ruin all," groaned Louis on his death-bed. Ruin the prosperity of France, he meant, for Louis had been a good and thoughtful king, cherishing his land and enabling it to rise to the height of wealth and power, justified by its natural resources and the ingenuity of its people.
Francis, the "great boy," even more than his rival Henry, proved bent on being a hero. Like Maximilian of Germany, he sought to be known as the flower of knighthood. To win his ambition he also was possessed of youth and wealth, a gallant bearing, and a devoted people. He had intellect, too, and a love of art. He became the great patron of the later Renaissance. The famous artist Da Vinci died at his court, in his arms, legend says. Artists, literary men, flocked to his service. Paris became the intellectual centre of Europe. France snatched from Italy the supremacy of thought, of genius.
Alas for the fickleness of untried youth! Henry seemed to promise his country freedom and he gave it tyranny. Francis promised his people glory--that is, honor and splendor. In the end he brought them shame and suffering. Charles V of Germany, youngest of this mighty trio, seemed by his wisdom to promise his subjects at least protection; and his reign produced anarchy.
Charles, unlike his rivals, was almost born into power. His father died in the lad's babyhood; his mother went insane. His two grandfathers were the two mightiest potentates of Europe, Ferdinand the Wise of Spain, and Maximilian, head of the great Hapsburg house and Emperor of Germany. Neither had any nearer heir than little Charles. His father's position as ruler of the Netherlands was given him as a child, so that he was really a Fleming by education, a silent, thoughtful, secretive youth, far different from the jovial Henry or the brilliant Francis, but ambitious as either and more conscientious perhaps, a dangerous rival in the race for fame.
Ferdinand died in 1515, and Charles became King of Spain, with all that the title included of power over the Mediterranean and Southern Italy, and all the vast new world of America. Charles was then fifteen, just the age of the century, nine years younger than Henry, five years younger than Francis. Amid the tumult of the opening Reformation in 1519, the aged Maximilian also died, departed not unwillingly, one fancies, from an age whose intricacies had grown too many for his simple soul. The young King of Spain thus became lord of all the vast Hapsburg possessions of Austria, Bohemia, the Netherlands and so on.
He sought to be elected Emperor of Germany also, but here the matter was less easy. Already his rule extended over more of Europe than any sovereign had held since Charlemagne, and Europe took alarm. Henry and Francis both thrust in, each of them suggesting to the German electorial princes that he had claims of his own, and would make an emperor far more suitable than Charles. Henry polished up his German ancestry; Francis recalled that Germans and Frenchmen were both Franks, had been one mighty race under Charlemagne, and surely might become so once again--under his leadership, of course.
The matter was really decided by a fourth party. The Turks had once more become a serious menace to Europe. During the brief reign of Sultan Selim the Ferocious (1512-1520) they crushed Persia and conquered Syria and Egypt. They seized the caliph, spiritual ruler of the Mahometan faith, and declared themselves heads of the Mahometan world. Triumphant over Asia, they were turning upon Europe with renewed energy. Hungary was at its last expiring gasp. Selim's death in 1520 did not stop the invaders, for his son Solyman, a youth of twenty-five, soon proved himself a fourth giant, fitted to be ranked with the three young rulers of the West. He also was a seeker after glory. History calls him the "magnificent," and holds him greatest among the Turkish rulers. It was certainly under him that the Turks advanced farthest into Europe, if that is to be established as the chief measure of Mahometan greatness. In 1526 Solyman utterly crushed the Hungarians at Mohacs. In 1529 he besieged Vienna; and though he failed to capture the Hapsburg capital, yet at a still later period he exacted from the German Emperor Ferdinand a money tribute. His fleets swept the Mediterranean.
This increasing menace of the Turks was much considered by the German electors. At first they refused to add to the power of either of the three monarchs who so assiduously courted them. They chose instead the ablest of their own number, Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony. But Frederick proved his wisdom by refusing the task of steering Germany through the troublous seas ahead. He insisted on their electing some ruler strong enough to command obedience, and to gather all Europe against the Turks. So as Charles was after all a German, and of the Hapsburg race which had so long ruled them, they named him Emperor. He was Charles I of Spain, but Charles V of Germany. His rule extended over a wider realm than any monarch has since held.
This success of their younger rival was very differently received by Henry and by Francis. The English King accepted the rebuff good-naturedly; perhaps he had never felt any real hope of success. But Francis was enraged. It was the first check he had met in a career of spectacular success. He invited Henry to their celebrated meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold[2] to plan an alliance and revenge. Henry came, but the silent Charles had already managed to enlist his interests by quieter ways; while Francis, by his ostentation and splendor, offended the bluff Englishman. So Henry kept out of the quarrel; but to Charles and Francis it became the main business of their lives. Their reigns thereafter are the story of one long strife between them, rising to such bitterness that at one time they passed the lie and challenged each other to personal combat, over which there was much bustling and bluster, but no result.
To get a full view of this Europe of young men, that beheld the Reformation, we must note one other ruler farther north. Ever since the union of Colmar in 1397, Sweden had been more or less bound to Denmark, the strongest of the northern kingdoms. By the year 1520 the Danish monarch Christian had reduced the Swedes to a state of most cruel vassalage and misery. Only one young noble, Gustavus Vasa, a lad of twenty-three, still held out, and by adventures wild as those of Robin Hood evaded his enemies and at last roused his countrymen to one more revolt. It was successful, and in 1523 Gustavus, by the unanimous election of the Swedes, became the first of a new line of monarchs.[3] He proved as able as a king as he had been daring as an adventurer, and his long reign laid the foundation of Sweden's greatness in the following century. He early accepted the reformed religion, and thus it spread through the Far North almost without a check.
THE REFORMATION
The Reformation began in Germany in 1517, when the Saxon monk Luther--himself then only thirty-four years a sojourner upon our planet--protested against the Church's sale of indulgences. He was not alone in his protest, but only stood forth as the mouthpiece of many earnest men. His prince, that Frederick the Wise who afterward refused to be emperor, upheld him. Maximilian, dying in the early days of the dispute, had kind words of regard for the hero-monk. Even the Pope, Leo X, treated the matter amicably at first. He also was still in early life, having been made pope at thirty-six, an age quite as juvenile for the leadership of the spiritual world as that of the various temporal monarchs for theirs. Leo, being a member of the famous Medici family, was apparently more interested in art than in religion. He wanted to rebuild the gorgeous cathedral of St. Peter, and he did not want to quarrel with Germany. So also Charles V, desiring to be emperor, could scarce antagonize Frederick of Saxony, who could and did secure him his ambition.
Thus in its earliest days Luther's revolt was handled very gently, and it spread with speed. Then Charles, secure upon his throne and gravely Catholic, resolved on firmer methods of stamping out the heresy. He summoned Luther to that famous interview at Worms (1521), where the reformer, threatened with outlawry and all the terror of the empire's power, refused to unsay his preaching, crying out in agony: "Here I stand! I can no other! God help me! Amen!"
Charles in his shrewd, silent way saw that the matter was not to be settled so easily as he had hoped. Already half Germany was on Luther's side. Several leading nobles accompanied him as he left the Emperor's presence. Charles wanted their help against the Turks. So there was more temporizing. Then came war with Francis no tune this for quarrelling with obstinate Teutonic princes and their obstinate _protege_.
The peasants of Germany did Luther's cause more harm than Charles had done. These ignorant and bitterly oppressed unfortunates, constituting everywhere, remember, the vast majority of the human race, heard impassioned preachings of reform, revolt. To them Rome seemed not the oppressor, but their immediate lords; and, thinking they were obeying Luther's behest, they rose in arms. Some of the more violent reformers joined them. Luther preached against the uprising, but it was not to be checked. Terrible were the excesses of the mobs of brutal peasantry, and all the upper classes of the land were forced in self-defence to turn against them and crush them. Many a noble who had once thought well of the reform, abandoned it in fear and horror at its consequences.[4]
Meanwhile the war with France became more serious. The claims of both Charles and Francis to Italian lands made that unlucky country the theatre of their battles. Francis, with his compact domain and readily gathered resources, proved at first more than a match for the scattered forces and insecure authority of the Emperor. Never had the French monarch's fame stood higher than when in 1525, with an army made confident by repeated victories, he besieged Pavia. The city was the last important stronghold of Charles in Italy; it was reduced almost to surrender.
Then came a fatal blunder. Francis confused the old ways with the new. The German generals had been hopeless of raising the siege, the imperial armies were on the point of disbanding, but as a last resort their leaders advanced and defied the enemy to fight on equal terms. Instead of laughing at the proposal as any modern leader would, Francis, in face of the protest of all his generals, accepted and in true chivalrous fashion fought the wholly unnecessary battle of Pavia. His forces were completely defeated, he himself made prisoner. "All is lost," he wrote home to France, "but honor." Even that too was lost, had he but known. Charles, unchivalrous, determined to make the most of his good-luck, and, for the release of his royal prisoner, demanded such terms as would make France little more than a subject state.[5]
King Francis refused, threatened heroic suicide to save his country; but he wearied of captivity at last and descended to his rival's level. It was the tragic turning-point of the French monarch's life, the not wholly untragic turning-point of larger destinies, ancient chivalry being admitted unsuccessful and wholly out of date. The two monarchs dickered over the terms of release. Charles abated somewhat of his demands, and Francis was made free, having sworn to a treaty which he never meant to keep. He repudiated it on various pleas, and having thus sacrificed honor to regain something of all it had lost him, recommenced the strife with Charles on more equal terms.
The Pope, not the Leo of earlier years, but Clement VII, another Medici, absolved Francis from his treaty oath. This benevolence can scarce be ascribed to religious grounds, for Charles was assuredly a better Catholic than Francis. But as a temporal ruler Clement feared to have in Italy a neighbor so powerful and unchecked as the Emperor was becoming. Charles had his revenge. A German army of "Lutheran heretics" marched into Italy swearing to hang the Pope to the dome of St. Peter's. They stormed Rome, sacked it with such cruelty as rivalled the barbarian plunderings of over a thousand years before; and if they did not hang Clement, it was only because his castle of St. Angelo proved too strong for their assaults. The marvellous art treasures which had been slowly garnered in Rome since the days of Nicholas V, were almost wholly destroyed.[6] Charles hastened to disclaim responsibility for this direct assault upon the head of his Church; but he did not relinquish any of the advantages it gave. He and the Pope arranged an alliance and the Imperial army turned from Rome against Florence, where Pope Clement's family, the Medici, had recently been expelled as rulers. The siege and capture of Florence (1529) mark almost the last fluttering of real independence in Italy. From that time the country remained in the grasp of the Hapsburgs or their heirs and allies. Petty tyrants, minions of Austria or Spain, ruled over the various cities. Their intellectual supremacy passed over to France. Only within the last half-century has a brighter day redawned for Italy, has she ceased to be what she was so long called, "the battle-ground" of other nations.