Peace of Augsburg,[16] which granted
complete liberty of faith to the German princes, and so ended the first
period of the Reformation. Religion, in this celebrated treaty, was
still regarded as a matter in which only monarchs were to be considered.
By a peculiar obliquity of vision, the princes denied to their subjects
the very thing they demanded for themselves. Each ruler was allowed to
establish what creed he chose within his own domains, and then to compel
his subjects to accept it.

The following year (1556) Charles with solemn ceremony resigned all his
kingdoms--Austria and the Empire to his brother, Spain to his son the
celebrated Philip II. Charles himself retired to a Spanish monastery,
where two years later he died. He had found life a vanity, indeed.

THE OTHER CONTINENTS

Of the world of Asia during this time it scarce seems necessary to
speak. The Tartars or Mongols, driven back from the borders of the
Turkish empire, invaded India and there founded the Mongol or Mogul
empire which Akbar pushed to its greatest extent.[17] These Moguls
remained emperors of India until its conquest by the English, over two
centuries later. Even to our own days their title has come down as a
symbol of power, "the Great Mogul."

Portuguese adventurers continued and expanded the trade with Asia, which
Vasco da Gama had opened. The Spaniards also sought a share in it, and
Jesuit missionaries preached the Christian faith. Magellan, a Portuguese
but sailing in the service of Spain, was the first to fulfil the vision
of Columbus and find the Indies by sailing westward.[18] He crossed the
entire Atlantic and Pacific oceans, discovered the Philippine Islands,
and was slain there by the natives. One of his ships completed the first
circumnavigation of the globe.

Look also to Spain's achievements in America, a new continent, but one
already vastly important because of the broad empires Spaniards were
winning there, the enormous wealth that was beginning to pour into the
mother-country. Settlement had begun immediately on the discovery. Rich
mines were opened and the Indians forced to work in them as slaves. As
the unhappy aborigines perished by thousands under the unaccustomed
toil, negroes were brought from Africa to supply their places, were
driven like wild beasts to the labor.[19] The New World became more like
a hell than like the paradise for which Isabella and Columbus planned.
Cortes conquered Mexico,[20] rich with gold