the league had foolishly respected, and thither the Count of Buren with
the Netherland army might find his way. He was by no means out of
danger, encamped as he was with but feeble artillery outside the city
walls. But the Lutheran princes with all their bluster had little
stomach for stand-up fights. From August 31st to September 3d they
bombarded the city with one hundred ten guns, to which Charles'
thirty-two pieces could make scant reply. They did not dare attack the
impoverished trenches. "I would have done it," wrote the Landgrave, "had
I been alone." On the other hand it was reported that the Lutherans laid
the blame on Philip, that he had refused to move, "for every fox must
save his own skin." The Cockerel, as the confessor, De Soto, had
contemptuously prophesied, had crowed better than he fought. Charles, on
the other hand, was at his best. He rode round the trenches, exhorting
his soldiers to stand firm, with the assurance that artillery made more
noise than mischief. In vain Granvelle sent the confessor to persuade
him that Christianity needed an emperor less gallant and more sensible.
He answered that no king nor emperor had ever been killed by a
cannon-ball, and, if he were so unfortunate as to make a start, it would
be better so to die than to live. When Ferdinand afterward expostulated
with his brother, Charles assured him that his self-exposure had been
exaggerated, but that they were short of hands, and it was not a time to
set bad example.
The division of Lutheran command was already giving Charles the expected
opportunities. The princes withdrew westward, a palpable confession of
weakness. They had been the aggressors, and yet they now surrendered the
initiative to Charles. Their retirement enabled the Count of Buren to
march in with his Netherland division, and with him the troops of Albert
and Hans of Hohenzollern. This march of Buren was the strategic feat of
the war. He had led the hostile forces which were watching him a dance
up and down the Rhine, and slipped across it unopposed. He had brought
his troops three hundred miles, mainly through the heart of Protestant
Germany, with no certain knowledge where he should find the Emperor, for
communications could only be maintained by means of long detours.
Finally he marched boldly past the vastly superior army of the league,
which had professedly retired from Ingolstadt to bar his passage.
Charles now took the offensive, pushing the enemy slowly up the Danube,
and steadily forcing his way toward Ulm. The strongly Protestant Count
Palatine of Neuburg, Otto Henry, was the first prince to lose his
territory, which, indeed, his debts had already forced him to desert.
The Lutherans now showed more fight, and during the last fortnight of
October the advance came almost to a standstill. Charles was ill, money
and supplies were falling short, Spaniards and Italians were suffering
from the cold rains of the Danube valley. The papal contingent was
demoralized for want of pay; three thousand men deserted in a day,
whereas the Lutherans were reenforced. Yet Charles, in spite of
professional advice, refused to go into winter quarters. He counted on
divisions in the League, on the selfish interests of the towns, on the
penury of the princes, and reckoned aright. The fighting was never more
than skirmishing; not arms but ducats were deciding the issue; the fate
of war was literally hanging on a fortnight's pay.
The Emperor had said that a league between towns and princes could never
last. The financial burden pressed mainly on the cities, and they
refused to raise further subsidies. The richer classes had always
disliked the war; the great merchants were often, as the Fuggers of
Augsburg, zealous Catholics. Trade was at a standstill, and they could
protest that all their capital was at the Emperor's mercy, at Antwerp,
at Seville, in the Indies, or else in Portugal. It was convenient to
forget the brisk traffic which still continued with friendly Lyons. Zeal
for the Lutheran cause seemed limited to a Catholic, Piero Strozzi the
Florentine exile, who in his hatred for the Hapsburgs was vainly
spending his fortune on revenge, striving for aid from Venice,
negotiating loans from France. There was, moreover, no real solidarity
between Northern and Southern Germany. Neither the Protestant princes
nor the wealthy cities of the Baltic had as yet stirred a finger for the
cause. Under any circumstances the Lutheran army must have broken up.
The leaders had resolved to retire to the Rhineland for the winter, live
at free quarters on the ecclesiastical princes, and renew the struggle
in the spring.
At this critical moment Maurice of Saxony came into action. Hitherto his
conduct had been ambiguous. This was probably due less to deliberate
deceit than to genuine hesitation. The incompetence of the Lutheran
leaders and Ferdinand's expressed intention of invading Ernestine Saxony
determined him. Persuading his estates with difficulty that it was
necessary to save the Electorate for the house of Wettin, he undertook
to execute the ban in his cousin's state. His reward was the title of
elector and the Ernestine territories. The correspondence of Charles and
his brother on the subject was characteristic of both. Ferdinand, always
greedy of territory, had bargained for partition, but Charles persuaded
him to be content with John Frederick's Bohemian fiefs.
Charles, cautious and suspicious, was unwilling to grant the title until
Maurice had proved his loyalty; Ferdinand, more impetuous, induced him
to pay the bribe and give credit for the service. The Albertine and
Austrian troops soon overran the defenceless land. This determined the
manner of the Danubian campaign, and the Saxon phase of the war began.
John Frederick must withdraw his troops to defend their homes, and he
plundered _en route_ the neutral ecclesiastical territories through
which he passed. "In a papal country," he told the burgomaster of
Aschaffenburg, "there is nothing neutral." The campaign of the Danube
was suddenly over. Philip of Hesse retired sullenly to his two wives, as
Schartlin put it. As he passed through Frankfurt he hoisted banners with
the crucifix, flails, and mattocks, to incite the lower classes to
revolt; he had failed to bend the powers above him, he would fain stir
Acheron.
Charles could now complete the subjection of Southern Germany.
Granvelle, the last to be convinced of the necessity of war, was the
first convert to the policy of peace, which the Landgrave and the towns
desired. Peace would relieve the financial strain and prevent the
Germans from becoming desperate; peace would enable Charles to turn his
arms against the Turks. Charles thought it undignified to negotiate with
an army in the field: peace entailed the abandonment of Maurice, and
henceforth no other prince would dare serve him; Augsburg and Ulm, if
they were persuaded that he had no wish to establish a tyranny in
Germany, were likely to capitulate, and after a victory his generosity
in leaving Germany her liberty would appear the greater. Charles did not
at this moment fear the Turk, and it was in his power at any moment to
propitiate the French. Pedro de Soto urged the continuance of the war,
to avert the danger of a papal-French combination, which would be the
natural result of Paul's indignation at a compromise with heretics.
The deserted princes and towns of South Germany now one by one made
submission. Very pathetic was the Emperor's meeting with the Elector
Palatine, the friend of his youth, the whilom lover of his sister, the
husband of his niece. Charles did not extend his hand: the Elector made
three low bows, after which Charles drew out a paper which he read and
then spoke to him in French--"It has grieved me most of all that you in
your old age should have been my enemies' companion, when we have been
brought up together in our youth." The Elector answered almost in a
whisper, and left "like a skinned cat," the Emperor half raising his
cap, but no one else. He was ordered to go to Granvelle, and the
minister played the doctor and healed the wound. He returned with tears
in his eyes, and then Charles forgave him. "My cousin, I am content that
your past deserts toward me should cancel the errors which you have
recently committed." Henceforth the old friendship was renewed.
Ulrich of Wuertemberg escaped less lightly. He paid a large indemnity,
received Spanish garrisons in his fortresses, and engaged to serve
against his late allies. He had no resource, for his subjects hated him;
from the windows of the cottages fluttered the red and white Burgundian
colors as a token of what was in the peasants' hearts. Ferdinand pressed
warmly for the restoration of the duchy to Austria, but Charles replied
that the aim of the war was the service of God and the revival of
imperial authority: to seek their private advantage would only quicken
the envy with which neighboring powers regarded the house of Hapsburg.
Farther north the octogenarian of the Elector of Cologne resigned his
see, and the evangelization of the Middle Rhine was at an end. Ulm gave
in with a good grace, but Augsburg long delayed. Charles' original
intention was, apparently, to garrison these towns, as Milan and Naples,
with reliable Spanish troops, and perhaps to destroy their walls and
dominate them by fortresses. But he treated the cities leniently. He
left here and there companies of imperial troops, levied moderate
contributions, replaced at Ulm and Augsburg the democratic constitution
of the trades by the old wealthy aristocracies, but promised to respect
the existing religion. Strasburg, which, in spite of French entreaties,
capitulated in February, 1547, was almost exempt from punishment; it was
feared that the distant, wealthy, and headstrong city might hold out a
hand to the Swiss and become a canton.
In Southern and Western Germany there was no longer an enemy in the
field, but, in the North, Maurice's treachery had brought its penalty.
John Frederick, acting with unusual vigor, recovered his dominions,
received homage from the feudatories of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, and
overran Maurice's territories, until he was checked before the walls of
Leipsic. When Ferdinand prepared to aid Maurice, the German Protestants
of Lusatia and Silesia refused their contingents, and the Bohemian
Utraquists made common cause with the Lutherans. The Utraquist nobility
and towns formed a league in defence of national and religious
liberties; they convoked a diet and raised an army. Ferdinand was faced
by a general Bohemian revolt. His position was weakened by his wife's
death in February, for it was pretended that he was merely consort. Only
the Catholic nobles were for the Hapsburg King; the roads were
barricaded to prevent the passage of his artillery; and John Frederick,
entering Bohemia, received a hearty welcome. The North German maritime
and inland cities were now in arms, and the Lutheran princes of
Oldenburg and Mansfield were threatening the Netherlands. Charles sent
his best troops to Ferdinand's aid, and despatched Hans and Albert
Hohenzollern in support of Maurice. But Germans could still beat
Germans. Albert was surprised and taken at Rochlitz. Ferdinand eagerly
pressed Charles to march north in person. The Emperor was unwilling, and
Granvelle strongly dissuaded it. The despatch of Alba was the
alternative, but Charles did not trust his generalship. He was delayed,
partly by gout, and partly by fear of a fresh rising in the Swabian
towns. Here he had left seven thousand men, but he could not himself
safely stay in Nuremberg without a garrison of three thousand, and could
not afford to lock these up. His sole presence in the North, wrote Piero
Colonna, was worth twenty-five thousand foot, and Charles, ill as he
was, must march.
The unexpected turn which the war had taken in Saxony was not Charles'
only trouble. Paul III had been alarmed by the Emperor's progress, which
had been more rapid and complete than he expected, and at the end of six
months, for which he had promised his contingent, he withdrew it. The
material loss was slight, but the whole aspect of the war was altered.
Charles could scarcely now profess to be fighting for submission to Pope
and council, for the council in March transferred itself, after violent
altercations with the Spanish bishops and imperial envoys, to Bologna.
Rome rejoiced at the successes of John Frederick. In the late French war
the Turks had figured as the Pope's friends and had spared his shores;
it now seemed possible that the Lutherans might be the Pope's allies.
It was certain that, if time were given, the Pope's defection would
stimulate the active hostility of France. Charles must have done with
the rebellion, and that quickly.
Tortured by gout and fearing that his forces would prove inferior to the
Saxons, Charles moved painfully from Nordlingen to Regensburg and thence
to Eger, where he was joined by Ferdinand, Maurice, and the electoral
prince of Brandenburg. Spending Easter at Eger, he crossed the Saxon
frontier on April 13, 1547, with eighteen thousand foot and eight
thousand horse. Ten days of incessant marching brought him within touch
of the Elector, who was guarding the bridge of Meissen. John Frederick
had foolishly frittered away his forces in Saxon and Bohemian garrisons.
He now burned the bridge and retired down the Elbe to Muehlberg, hoping
to concentrate his scattered forces under the walls of Wittenberg, while
his bridge of boats would keep open communications with the left bank.
Charles was too quick for the ponderous Elector. He marched at midnight
on April 23-24, and at 9 A.M. reached the Elbe, nearly opposite
Muehlberg. As the mist cleared, Alba's light horse descried the bridge
of boats swinging from the farther bank, and a dozen Spaniards, covered
by an arquebuse fire, swam the river with swords between their teeth,
routed the guard, and brought the boats across. Meanwhile Alba and
Maurice found a ford by which the light horse crossed with arquebusiers
_en croupe_. Charles and Ferdinand followed, with the water up to the
girths, the Emperor pale as death and thin as a skeleton. The Elector,
after attending his Sunday sermon, was enjoying his breakfast; he made
no attempt to defend his strong position on the higher bank, but
withdrew his guns and infantry, covering the retreat in person with his
cavalry. The bulk of the imperial forces had crossed by the bridge of
boats, and the day was passed in a running rear-guard action. It was a
long-drawn sunset, and not till between six and seven did Alba, as ever
making sure, deliver his decisive attack. The Saxon horse had turned
fiercely on the pursuing light cavalry some nine miles from Muehlberg,
and then the imperialists, striking home, converted the retreat into a
headlong flight. More than a third of the Saxon forces were left upon
the field; the whole of their artillery and baggage train was taken.
John Frederick regained his timid generalship by his personal bravery.
Left almost single-handed in the wood through which his troops retired,
he slashed at the Neapolitan light-horsemen and Hungarian hussars who
surrounded him, but at length surrendered to Ippolito da Porto of
Vicenza, who led him, his forehead streaming with blood, to Charles.
Of the interview between the Emperor and his enemy there are several
versions, but none inconsistent. "Most powerful and gracious Emperor,"
said the Elector, vainly endeavoring to dismount, "I am your prisoner."
"You recognize me as Emperor now?" rejoined Charles. "I am to-day a poor
prisoner; may it please your majesty to treat me as a born prince." "I
will treat you as you deserve," said Charles. Then broke in Ferdinand,
"You have tried to drive me and my children from our lands."
The evidence as to the angry scene seems conclusive. Charles had been
twenty-one hours in the saddle; he had been exasperated by the insolence
of the Princess, who had addressed him as "Charles of Ghent, self-styled
Emperor." Yet his harsh reception of a wounded prisoner contrasts
unpleasantly with the generosity which his biographers have ascribed to
him.
Muehlberg was little more than a skirmish, and yet it was decisive. In a
far more murderous battle the imperialists were beaten. The forces of
the maritime towns had compelled Eric of Brunswick to raise the siege of
Bremen, and on his retreat had defeated him near Drakenberg with a heavy
loss. But victories belated or premature do not turn the scale against
an opportune success. The sole result of the battle was to delay the
Landgrave's surrender a little longer. Philip had sworn to die like a
mad-dog before he would surrender his fortresses, but he yielded
ultimately without a blow. He found discontent rife among his nobles; he
was threatened alike from the Netherlands and by the Count of Buren; for
months he wavered between capitulation and resistance. Arras assured the
nuncio that he was a scoundrel and a coward; that he had implored
Maurice to intercede, first for all Lutheran Germany, then for John
Frederick and himself, and finally for himself alone. "See what men
these are," added the Bishop later. "Philip has even offered to march
against the Duke of Saxony; he is a sorry fellow and of evil nature: he
is such a scoundrel that his majesty cannot trust him in any promise
that he may make, for he has never kept one yet."
The imperial minister's judgment upon the Landgrave was too severe. He
long struggled for honor against fear, and, but for his son-in-law,
Maurice's influence might have made a better fight. Maurice had from the
first striven to detach Philip from John Frederick, while in turn he was
expected by the Landgrave to strike in for a free Germany and a free
gospel against the Hungarian hussars and the black Spanish devils. When
the two Lutheran leaders parted in November, 1546, on no good terms,
Philip warned his son-in-law that the Elector was on the march against
him, but begged to intercede with Charles for a general peace. Maurice
would have no peace with his Ernestine cousins, but offered to use all
his influence on behalf of Philip, who must hasten to decide, for Buren
was "on his legs" and the Emperor was an obstinate man. From this moment
the Landgrave's irresolution was piteous; the negotiations crippled all
enterprise, and yet he could not persuade himself to abandon his ally,
although the natural expiry of the League of Smalkald on February 27,
1547, gave him a tolerable pretext. Maurice waxed impatient at the
recurring hesitation, at the perpetual amendment of all suggested terms:
Philip could not bargain with Charles as though he were a tradesman; he
need have no fear for religion, but he must make it clear to the Emperor
and Ferdinand that he was against John Frederick. Then came the defeat
of Muehlberg, which at least relieved Philip from obligations to his
late ally. It was now the surrender of his fortresses and his artillery
that he could not stomach, and the victory of Drakenberg raised his once
martial ardor to a final flicker.
The flicker died away, and at length Philip yielded to the pressure of
Maurice and Joachim of Brandenburg. Charles insisted on unconditional
surrender, but promised the mediators that punishment should not extend
to personal injury or perpetual imprisonment--this only, however, on
their pledge that Philip should not be informed of these limitations. It
was agreed that he should dismantle his fortresses with one exception,
surrender his artillery, and pay an indemnity, but that his territory
should remain intact and its religion undisturbed.
With Philip's surrender the war seemed virtually at an end. Magdeburg,
indeed, still held out, for fear of falling again under its Catholic
Hohenzollern Archbishop. There was no reason to believe that the city
would prove more courageous than its fellows. Charles did not dare spend
his four thousand Spaniards in the assault, but in this case
extravagance would have proved to be economy. When he knew his subject,
his opinion was usually well founded; he had little knowledge, however,
of North Germany, and confused Magdeburg with Ulm or Augsburg. It were
better for Charles had his Spaniards been decimated on its parapet than
that they should lord it in security over the churches and taverns of
Southern Germany.
Apart from his two last mistakes, in the campaign against the league,
Charles, whether as a soldier or statesman, is seen at his best. When
once the drums beat to arms there was an end to irresolution. He had
that reserve of energy upon which an indolent, lethargic nature can
sometimes at a crisis draw. The Netherlands seemed threatened from east
to west; yet in perfect calm he ordered his agitated sister Mary to
watch her frontiers, but to send every man and gun that could be spared
under Buren to the front. Taking advantage of his enemies' delays, he
made with greatly inferior forces the forward move on Ingolstadt, and
was there seen under heavy fire "steady as a rock and smiling." Racked
by gout he now sought sleep in his litter behind a bastion, now warmed
his aching limbs in a little movable wooden room heated by a stove. In
the cold, wet November, when generals and ministers fell sick, and
soldiers of every nationality deserted, he resolutely rejected expert
advice to withdraw into winter quarters. He would not give his enemies,
he said, the least chance of outstaying him. All success, wrote the
Marquis of Marignano, was due to the Emperor's resolution to keep the
field. Charles vexed the fiery Buren by shrinking from a general
engagement, because he knew that his combinations would break up the
league without the risk of a battle. But when once danger really
pressed, ill as he was, he marched across Germany, and followed fast
upon the Elector's heels until he tripped and took him.
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO JAPAN
A.D. 1549
JOHN H. GUBBINS
Lands discovered or settled by Europeans after the founding
of the Jesuits were quickly chosen by the zealous members of
that order as scenes of missionary work. In the case of
Japan, missions followed discovery with unusual rapidity.
Excepting what was told by Marco Polo, who visited the coast
of Japan in the thirteenth century, nothing was learned of
that country by the Western World until its discovery by the
Portuguese. In 1541 King John III requested Francis Xavier,
one of the Jesuit founders, with other members of his order,
to undertake missionary work in the Portuguese colonies.
Through his labors in India, Xavier became known as the
"Apostle of the Indies." Before sailing to Japan he had
established a flourishing mission with a school, called the
Seminary of the Holy Faith, at Goa, on the Malabar coast of
India.
It was to Portuguese enterprise that Christianity owed its introduction
into Japan in the sixteenth century. As early as 1542 Portuguese trading
vessels began to visit Japan, where they exchanged Western commodities
for the then little-known products of the Japanese islands; and seven
years afterward three Portuguese missionaries (Xavier, Torres, and
Fernandez) took passage in one of these merchant ships and landed at
Kagoshima.
The leading spirit of the three, it need scarcely be said, was Xavier,
who had already acquired considerable reputation by his missionary
labors in India. After a short residence the missionaries were forced to
leave Satsuma, and after as short a stay in the island of Hirado, which
appears to have been then the rendezvous of trade between the Portuguese
merchants and the Japanese, they crossed over to the mainland and
settled down in Yamaguchi in Nagato, the chief town of the territories
of the Prince of Choshiu. After a visit to the capital, which was
productive of no result, owing to the disturbed state of the country,
Xavier (November, 1551) left Japan with the intention of founding a
Jesuit mission in China, but died on his way in the island of Sancian.
In 1553 fresh missionaries arrived, some of whom remained in Bungo,
where Xavier had made a favorable impression before his departure, while
others joined their fellow-missionaries in Yamaguchi. After having been
driven from the latter place by the outbreak of disturbances, and having
failed to establish a footing in Hizen, we find the missionaries in 1557
collected in Bungo, and this province appears to have become their
headquarters from that time. In the course of the next year but one,
Vilela made a visit to Kioto, Sakai, and other places, during which he
is said to have gained a convert in the person of the _daimio_, of the
small principality of Omura, who displayed an imprudent excess of
religious zeal in the destruction of idols and other extreme measures,
which could only tend to provoke the hostility of the Buddhist
priesthood. The conversion of this prince was followed by that of
Arima-no-Kami (mistakenly called the Prince of Arima by the Jesuits).