The Disappointment of Charles V
September 17, 2020
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The following is excerpted fro The History of the Churches from a Baptist Perspective, www.wayoflife.org -
Dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church had spread far and wide by the 16th century. Many voices were being raised against Rome’s doctrines and practices.
On October 31, 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, protesting the sale of indulgences.
The pope was selling these to finance the construction of the St. Peter’s Cathedral. An indulgence promised the forgiveness of sins.
Pope Leo X issued a papal bull on June 15, 1520, condemning Luther’s writings to the fire and delivering Luther himself over to the devil, unless he recanted within 60 days. Luther answered by burning the bull outside the walls of Wittenberg.
A few months earlier, in 1519, King Charles of Spain had become the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In this capacity he was Charles V. He was a staunch Roman Catholic and wanted to unite all Europe into a Catholic empire (“Charles V’s Spanish Abdication,” Historytoday.com). On his hats and armor he wore images of Mary and the inscription “Holy Mary, pray for us.”
As king of Spain, Charles ruled over the largest empire of the day. It has been called “the first global empire in history.” It was the first empire to be called “the empire on which the sun never sets.” In addition to its territory in Europe (which included Portugal and parts of Italy), Spain controlled vast portions of North America, Central America, and South America. It controlled the Philippine islands (The “Spanish East Indies”). It also held territory in Africa, India, Arabia, and Oceania.
As we saw in the last study (“How Christianity Became a Religion and Dominated Europe”), the Spanish Empire in the Americas began with the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492 to 1502). “Over the decades that followed, the Spanish killed, conquered, and enslaved people from hundreds of different indigenous groups in the New World” (“Spanish Conquest of the Americas,” www.donquijote.org). It is estimated that millions of native people died in these conquests (Norman Naimark, Genocide: A World History, p. 35).
In Charles’ day, Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico (1521). He killed the Aztec king Moctezuma, robbed the people of their wealth, and enslaved thousands of them. Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru (1533). He killed the Inca king Atahualpa, robbed the people of their gold and silver, and enslaved them.
In 1494, the pope had divided the newly discovered lands in the Americas and Africa between Portugal and Spain. It was called the Treaty of Tordesillas. This was two years after Columbus’s first voyage for Spain in which he discovered North America. The dividing line was in the Atlantic Ocean about half way between Africa and America. The lands east of that line were given to Portugal, and the lands west were given to Spain. The pope’s line left the route around Africa to India to the Portuguese. The pope was using the armies and navies of the Catholic nations to enlarge his kingdom.
Everywhere the Spanish Empire spread, it expanded the power of the Roman Catholic Church by the sword. Spain forced the people to submit to Catholic Christianity. There was no freedom of religion or political liberty. The Catholic inquisition persecuted anyone who tried to practice biblical Christianity.
If Charles had been successful in his vision for a united Catholic Europe and in his attempt to destroy the Protestant Reformation, there would have been no Protestant British Empire, no America, no political liberty, no religious liberty, no Bible translation and distribution, no Bible societies, no end-time missionary movement.
At the instigation of the pope, the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, called upon Luther to appear before an assembly of the states of the German monarchy in 1521. The assembly (diet) was called the Diet of Worms, so named for its location. Luther appeared before the assembly in April 1521 to answer for himself. He refused to recant his teaching. He said, ”I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to councils ... Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture ... I cannot and I will not retract. ... Here I take my stand; I cannot do otherwise: may God be my help!”
Charles called Luther “not a man, but a devil under the form of a man.”
At the Diet of Speyer in 1529, Charles condemned the Lutheran movement and forbade its spread. When some of the German princes of the various provinces and free cities protested the order, they were called PROTESTANTS. These princes formed the Schmalkald League in 1531, and since Charles V was already hard pressed by the actions of the warring Muslims on the borders of this territory, he granted the Protestants religious liberty for several years.
It should be noted that Diet of Speyer also condemned all Anabaptists to death. “We renew the previous Imperial Law that every Anabaptist and man and woman of the age of reason shall be condemned and brought from natural life into death by fire, sword, and the like…” Most of the Protestant princes agreed with this part of the proclamation, though they fought for religious liberty for themselves. “Four hundred special police were hired to hunt down Anabaptists and execute them on the spot. The group proved too small and was increased to one thousand. … thousands of Anabaptists fell victim to one of the most widely spread persecutions in Christian history. … Burning faggots and smoldering stakes marked their trek across Europe” (Halley’s Bible Handbook).
God used Charles to keep the Muslims from capturing Europe from the east. The Ottomans were stopped at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. The city was assisted in its defense by soldiers from Charles’ empire. Had the Muslims captured Europe, there would have been no Protestant Europe, no Protestant England, no America, with all of the countless blessings that have come from that. The world would have been under the darkness of Islam.
There was war off and on between the Catholics and the Lutherans in Germany between 1546 and 1555. The struggle ended with victory by the Protestants and a proclamation that both Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism were recognized as legal religions in the Holy Roman Empire. This agreement was called The Peace of Augsburg. This did not mean actual religious liberty, because it was stipulated that the people of each region would be required to follow whatever religion was chosen by the prince of that region. If your prince was Catholic, you must be Catholic; if he was Lutheran, you must be Lutheran. Those who did not accept the official religion were persecuted. And the Baptists were given no freedom and were persecuted by Catholics and Lutherans alike.
With the Peace of Augsburg, Charles’ plan to destroy Protestantism and to make Europe a Catholic empire had failed. His great army and navy and his great wealth could not foil God’s plan. When it became clear in the 1550s that Protestantism in Germany would have to be tolerated, “it was not something he could accept” (“Charles V’s Spanish Abdication,” historytoday.com). He abdicated as ruler of the Netherlands in October 1555, as king of Spain in January 1556, and as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in August 1556. His brother Ferdinand became emperor. His son Philip became sovereign of the Netherlands and king of Spain, ruling as Philip II. Charles had been a strong man and warrior. But by the time of his abdication ceremony as ruler of the Netherlands at age 55, he was so sick and weak that he had to lean on the arm of his aid, William of Orange. “Despite being only fifty-eight at the time of his death, Charles must have appeared a frail and crippled old man who could barely walk (in his later years, he was carried around in a sedan chair) or use his hands (“Why Did Charles V Abdicate?” phdessay.com). Charles’ hopes were further destroyed when his brother refused to accept Philip’s rule and his dynasty split apart. He lived the last days in Spain in a Catholic monastery. “He did his best to ensure the continued persecution of Protestants.” He died in 1558, with a great amount of blood on his hands. Philip shared one thing with his father: “the intense passion, namely, for extinguishing the Reformation” (Wylie).
War between Protestants and Catholics broke out again in The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). It began when Ferdinand, king of Bohemia and future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, rescinded the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and tried to force all his citizens to adhere to Roman Catholicism. The Protestant nobles of Bohemia and Austria rebelled and sought to break away from the Empire. They were supported by Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and by Protestant territories in Germany. Ferdinand was joined by King Phillip IV of Spain. Eventually there were wars involving France, Poland, and Russia. An estimated 8 million people died through fighting, famine, and disease. The war ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.
This brought great changes. The power of the Catholic Church was decreased.
The war led to the formation of the modern nation states of Europe. The Netherlands gained independence from Spain and became an independent republic.
The states of the Holy Roman Empire gained full sovereignty. “The ancient notion of a Roman Catholic empire of Europe, headed spiritually by a pope and temporally by an emperor, was permanently abandoned” (“Thirty Years’ War,” Encyclopedia Britannica).
Spain lost its dominant position in Europe and England’s power and influence increased. As we have seen, Spain had been a great force for Catholicism. Since the 1500s, Spain had been using its military to keep the nations from breaking away from Rome. Phillip II, king of Spain, had attacked England with a great armada in 1588 to try to overthrow the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. Spain established the inquisition in the Netherlands to keep the people from breaking with Rome. Thousands were put to death. The Spanish had conquered people in North America, South America, and Asia, and everywhere it had forced the people to be Roman Catholic.
So the weakening of Spain’s power was a major world event. If Spain had remained the dominant power, it would have quenched the Reformation and stopped the spread of the Bible, the gospel of Christ’s grace, and religious liberty.
Instead, Protestant Britain replaced Spain as the dominant world power.
Dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church had spread far and wide by the 16th century. Many voices were being raised against Rome’s doctrines and practices.
On October 31, 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, protesting the sale of indulgences.
The pope was selling these to finance the construction of the St. Peter’s Cathedral. An indulgence promised the forgiveness of sins.
Pope Leo X issued a papal bull on June 15, 1520, condemning Luther’s writings to the fire and delivering Luther himself over to the devil, unless he recanted within 60 days. Luther answered by burning the bull outside the walls of Wittenberg.
A few months earlier, in 1519, King Charles of Spain had become the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In this capacity he was Charles V. He was a staunch Roman Catholic and wanted to unite all Europe into a Catholic empire (“Charles V’s Spanish Abdication,” Historytoday.com). On his hats and armor he wore images of Mary and the inscription “Holy Mary, pray for us.”
As king of Spain, Charles ruled over the largest empire of the day. It has been called “the first global empire in history.” It was the first empire to be called “the empire on which the sun never sets.” In addition to its territory in Europe (which included Portugal and parts of Italy), Spain controlled vast portions of North America, Central America, and South America. It controlled the Philippine islands (The “Spanish East Indies”). It also held territory in Africa, India, Arabia, and Oceania.
As we saw in the last study (“How Christianity Became a Religion and Dominated Europe”), the Spanish Empire in the Americas began with the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492 to 1502). “Over the decades that followed, the Spanish killed, conquered, and enslaved people from hundreds of different indigenous groups in the New World” (“Spanish Conquest of the Americas,” www.donquijote.org). It is estimated that millions of native people died in these conquests (Norman Naimark, Genocide: A World History, p. 35).
In Charles’ day, Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico (1521). He killed the Aztec king Moctezuma, robbed the people of their wealth, and enslaved thousands of them. Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru (1533). He killed the Inca king Atahualpa, robbed the people of their gold and silver, and enslaved them.
In 1494, the pope had divided the newly discovered lands in the Americas and Africa between Portugal and Spain. It was called the Treaty of Tordesillas. This was two years after Columbus’s first voyage for Spain in which he discovered North America. The dividing line was in the Atlantic Ocean about half way between Africa and America. The lands east of that line were given to Portugal, and the lands west were given to Spain. The pope’s line left the route around Africa to India to the Portuguese. The pope was using the armies and navies of the Catholic nations to enlarge his kingdom.
Everywhere the Spanish Empire spread, it expanded the power of the Roman Catholic Church by the sword. Spain forced the people to submit to Catholic Christianity. There was no freedom of religion or political liberty. The Catholic inquisition persecuted anyone who tried to practice biblical Christianity.
If Charles had been successful in his vision for a united Catholic Europe and in his attempt to destroy the Protestant Reformation, there would have been no Protestant British Empire, no America, no political liberty, no religious liberty, no Bible translation and distribution, no Bible societies, no end-time missionary movement.
At the instigation of the pope, the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, called upon Luther to appear before an assembly of the states of the German monarchy in 1521. The assembly (diet) was called the Diet of Worms, so named for its location. Luther appeared before the assembly in April 1521 to answer for himself. He refused to recant his teaching. He said, ”I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to councils ... Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture ... I cannot and I will not retract. ... Here I take my stand; I cannot do otherwise: may God be my help!”
Charles called Luther “not a man, but a devil under the form of a man.”
At the Diet of Speyer in 1529, Charles condemned the Lutheran movement and forbade its spread. When some of the German princes of the various provinces and free cities protested the order, they were called PROTESTANTS. These princes formed the Schmalkald League in 1531, and since Charles V was already hard pressed by the actions of the warring Muslims on the borders of this territory, he granted the Protestants religious liberty for several years.
It should be noted that Diet of Speyer also condemned all Anabaptists to death. “We renew the previous Imperial Law that every Anabaptist and man and woman of the age of reason shall be condemned and brought from natural life into death by fire, sword, and the like…” Most of the Protestant princes agreed with this part of the proclamation, though they fought for religious liberty for themselves. “Four hundred special police were hired to hunt down Anabaptists and execute them on the spot. The group proved too small and was increased to one thousand. … thousands of Anabaptists fell victim to one of the most widely spread persecutions in Christian history. … Burning faggots and smoldering stakes marked their trek across Europe” (Halley’s Bible Handbook).
God used Charles to keep the Muslims from capturing Europe from the east. The Ottomans were stopped at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. The city was assisted in its defense by soldiers from Charles’ empire. Had the Muslims captured Europe, there would have been no Protestant Europe, no Protestant England, no America, with all of the countless blessings that have come from that. The world would have been under the darkness of Islam.
There was war off and on between the Catholics and the Lutherans in Germany between 1546 and 1555. The struggle ended with victory by the Protestants and a proclamation that both Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism were recognized as legal religions in the Holy Roman Empire. This agreement was called The Peace of Augsburg. This did not mean actual religious liberty, because it was stipulated that the people of each region would be required to follow whatever religion was chosen by the prince of that region. If your prince was Catholic, you must be Catholic; if he was Lutheran, you must be Lutheran. Those who did not accept the official religion were persecuted. And the Baptists were given no freedom and were persecuted by Catholics and Lutherans alike.
With the Peace of Augsburg, Charles’ plan to destroy Protestantism and to make Europe a Catholic empire had failed. His great army and navy and his great wealth could not foil God’s plan. When it became clear in the 1550s that Protestantism in Germany would have to be tolerated, “it was not something he could accept” (“Charles V’s Spanish Abdication,” historytoday.com). He abdicated as ruler of the Netherlands in October 1555, as king of Spain in January 1556, and as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in August 1556. His brother Ferdinand became emperor. His son Philip became sovereign of the Netherlands and king of Spain, ruling as Philip II. Charles had been a strong man and warrior. But by the time of his abdication ceremony as ruler of the Netherlands at age 55, he was so sick and weak that he had to lean on the arm of his aid, William of Orange. “Despite being only fifty-eight at the time of his death, Charles must have appeared a frail and crippled old man who could barely walk (in his later years, he was carried around in a sedan chair) or use his hands (“Why Did Charles V Abdicate?” phdessay.com). Charles’ hopes were further destroyed when his brother refused to accept Philip’s rule and his dynasty split apart. He lived the last days in Spain in a Catholic monastery. “He did his best to ensure the continued persecution of Protestants.” He died in 1558, with a great amount of blood on his hands. Philip shared one thing with his father: “the intense passion, namely, for extinguishing the Reformation” (Wylie).
War between Protestants and Catholics broke out again in The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). It began when Ferdinand, king of Bohemia and future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, rescinded the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and tried to force all his citizens to adhere to Roman Catholicism. The Protestant nobles of Bohemia and Austria rebelled and sought to break away from the Empire. They were supported by Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and by Protestant territories in Germany. Ferdinand was joined by King Phillip IV of Spain. Eventually there were wars involving France, Poland, and Russia. An estimated 8 million people died through fighting, famine, and disease. The war ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.
This brought great changes. The power of the Catholic Church was decreased.
The war led to the formation of the modern nation states of Europe. The Netherlands gained independence from Spain and became an independent republic.
The states of the Holy Roman Empire gained full sovereignty. “The ancient notion of a Roman Catholic empire of Europe, headed spiritually by a pope and temporally by an emperor, was permanently abandoned” (“Thirty Years’ War,” Encyclopedia Britannica).
Spain lost its dominant position in Europe and England’s power and influence increased. As we have seen, Spain had been a great force for Catholicism. Since the 1500s, Spain had been using its military to keep the nations from breaking away from Rome. Phillip II, king of Spain, had attacked England with a great armada in 1588 to try to overthrow the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. Spain established the inquisition in the Netherlands to keep the people from breaking with Rome. Thousands were put to death. The Spanish had conquered people in North America, South America, and Asia, and everywhere it had forced the people to be Roman Catholic.
So the weakening of Spain’s power was a major world event. If Spain had remained the dominant power, it would have quenched the Reformation and stopped the spread of the Bible, the gospel of Christ’s grace, and religious liberty.
Instead, Protestant Britain replaced Spain as the dominant world power.
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