ing-room imprudences nor hole-and-corner conventicles, not with
oriental survivals nor millenary aspirations, but with organized
churches protected by their princes, supported by revenues filched from
his own church and stiffened by formulae as rigid as those of
Catholicism. The length and stubbornness of the conflict will serve to
show that Charles's religious conservatism had a measure of elasticity,
that he was not a bigot and nothing more. It should be remembered that
all his principal ministers were inclined to be Erasmian or indifferent,
that one of his favourite confessors, Loaysa, advised compromise, and
that several intimate members of his court and chapel were, after his
death, victims of the Inquisition. The two more obvious courses towards
the restoration of Catholic unity were force and reconciliation, in
other words, a religious war or a general council. Neither of these was
a simple remedy. The latter was impossible without papal concurrence,
inoperative without the assistance of the European powers, and merely
irritant without the adhesion of the Lutherans. It was most improbable
that the papacy, the powers and the Lutherans would combine in a
measure so palpably advantageous to the emperor. Force was hopeless save
in the absence of war with France and the Turk, and of papal hostility
in Italian territorial politics. Charles must obtain subsidies from
ecclesiastical sources, and the support of all German Catholics,
especially of the traditional rival, Bavaria. Even so the Protestants
would probably be the stronger, and therefore they must be divided by
utilizing any religious split, any class distinction, any personal or
traditional dislikes, or else by bribery. Force and reconciliation
seeming equally difficult, could an alternative be found in toleration?
The experiment might take the form either of individual toleration, or
of toleration for the Lutheran states. The former would be equally
objectionable to Lutheran and Catholic princes as loosening their grip
upon their subjects. Territorial toleration might seem equally obnoxious
to the emperor, for its recognition would strengthen the anti-imperial
particularism so closely associated with Lutheranism. If Charles could
find no permanent specific, he must apply a provisional palliative. It
was absolutely necessary to patch, if not to cure, because Germany must
be pulled together to resist French and Turks. Such palliatives were
two--suspension and compr