and separate form of Christianity, and the first blow was struck at
the fundamental principles on which the Holy Roman Empire had been
built. Charles V. was blamed at the time, and has been blamed since
for having given his consent to such a treaty, but if all the
circumstances of the time be duly considered it is difficult to see
how he could have acted otherwise than he did. It is not the Emperor
who should be held accountable for the unfavourable character of the
Augsburg Peace, but "the most Catholic King of France" who allied
himself with the forces of German Protestantism, and the Catholic
princes who were more anxious to secure their own position than to
fight for their sovereign or their religion. Charles V., broken down
in health and wearied by his misfortunes and his failure to put down
the religious revolt, determined to hand over to a younger man the
administration of the territories over which he ruled, and to devote
the remainder of his life to preparation for the world to come. In a
parting address delivered to the States of the Netherlands he warned
them "to be loyal to the Catholic faith which has always been and
everywhere the faith of Christendom, for should it disappear the
foundations of goodness should crumble away and every sort of mischief
now menacing the world would reign supreme." After his resignation he
retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he died in 1558. Spain
and the Netherlands passed to his legitimate son, Philip II., while
after some delay his brother, Ferdinand, was recognised as his
successor in the Empire.

Charles V. was a man of sound judgment and liberal views, of great
energy and prudence, as skilful in war as he was in the arts of
diplomacy, and immensely superior in nearly every respect to his
contemporaries, Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England. Yet
in spite of all his admitted qualifications, and notwithstanding the