were tempting advantages to every sovereign. Why, then, it may be asked,
did they not operate with equal force upon the princes of the House
of Austria? What prevented this house, particularly in its German branch,
from yielding to the pressing demands of so many of its subjects, and,
after the example of other princes, enriching itself at the expense
of a defenceless clergy? It is difficult to credit that a belief
in the infallibility of the Romish Church had any greater influence
on the pious adherence of this house, than the opposite conviction had
on the revolt of the Protestant princes. In fact, several circumstances
combined to make the Austrian princes zealous supporters of popery.
Spain and Italy, from which Austria derived its principal strength,
were still devoted to the See of Rome with that blind obedience which,
ever since the days of the Gothic dynasty, had been
the peculiar characteristic of the Spaniard. The slightest approximation,
in a Spanish prince, to the obnoxious tenets of Luther and Calvin,
would have alienated for ever the affections of his subjects,
and a defection from the Pope would have cost him the kingdom.
A Spanish prince had no alternative but orthodoxy or abdication.
The same restraint was imposed upon Austria by her Italian dominions,
which she was obliged to treat, if possible, with even greater indulgence;
impatient as they naturally were of a foreign yoke, and possessing also
ready means of shaking it off. In regard to the latter provinces, moreover,
the rival pretensions of France, and the neighbourhood of the Pope,
were motives sufficient to prevent the Emperor from declaring in favour
of a party which strove to annihilate the papal see, and also to induce him
to show the most active zeal in behalf of the old religion.
These general considerations, which must have been equally weighty
with every Spanish monarch, were, in the particular case of Charles V.,
still further enforced by peculiar and personal motives.
In Italy this monarch had a formidable rival in the King of France,