dy laugh. His words are now brutal invectives and again
blossom with the most exquisite flowers of the soul--poetry, music,
idyllic humor, tenderness. He was subtle and simple; superstitious and
wise; limited in his cultural sympathies, but very great in what he
achieved.

[1] Saxony had been divided in 1485 into two parts, the Electorate,
including Wittenberg, Weimar and Eisenach, and the Duchy, including
Leipzig and Dresden. The former was called after its first ruler
Ernestine, the latter Albertine.

{126}

SECTION 5. THE RELIGIOUS WAR AND THE RELIGIOUS PEACE

[Sidenote: The Schmalkaldic War, 1546-7]

Hardly had Luther been laid to rest when the first general religious
war broke out in Germany. There had been a few small wars of this
character before, such as those of Hesse against Bamberg and Wurzburg,
and against Wuerttemberg, and against Brunswick. But the conflicts had
been successfully "localized." Now at last was to come a general
battle, as a foretaste of the Thirty Years War of the next century.

It has sometimes been doubted whether the Schmalkaldic War was a
religious conflict at all. The emperor asserted that his sole object
was to reduce rebellious subjects to obedience. Several Protestant
princes were his allies, and the territories he conquered were not, for
the most part, forced to give up their faith. Nevertheless, it is
certain that the fundamental cause of the strain was the difference of
creed. A parallel may be found in our own Civil War, in which Lincoln
truly claimed that he was fighting only to maintain the union, and yet
it is certain that slavery furnished the underlying cause of the appeal
to arms.

It has recently been shown that the emperor planned the attack on his
Protestant subjects as far back, at least, as 1541. All the
negotiations subsequent to that time were a mere blind in disguise his
preparations. For he labored indefatigably to bring about a condition
in which it would be safe for him to embark on the perilous enterprise.
Though he was a dull man he had the two qualities of caution and
persistence that stood him in better stead than the more showy talents
of other statesmen. If, with his huge resources, he never did anything
brilliant, still less did he ever take a gambler's chance of failing.

{127} The opportune moment came at last in the spring of 1546. Two
years before, he had beaten France with the help of the Protestants,
and had imposed upon