there was
no hope of the cleavage being bridged. The regeneration of the Church
would have to be from within.

_II.--Sixteenth Century Popes_

The interest of this period lies mainly in the antagonism between the
imperative demand for internal reform of the Church and the policy which
had become ingrained in the heads of the Church. For the popes, these
political aspirations stood first and reform second. Alexander Farnese
(Paul III.) was pope from 1534 to 1549. He was already sixty-seven when
he succeeded Clement. Policy and enlightenment combined at first to make
him advance Contarini and his allies, and to hope for reconciliation
with the Protestants. Policy turned him against acceptance of the
Ratisbon proposals, as making Germany too united. Then he urged the
emperor against the Protestants, but when the success of Charles was too
complete he was ill-pleased. He withdrew the Council from Trent to
Bologna, to remove it from imperial influences which threatened the
pope's personal supremacy. So far as he was concerned, reformation had
dropped into the background.

Julius III. was of no account; Marcellus, an excellent and earnest man,
might have done much had he not died in three weeks. His election, and
that of his successor, Caraffa, as Paul IV., both pointed to a real
intention of reform. Caraffa had all his life been a passionate advocate
of moral reform, but even he was swept away by the political conditions
and his hatred of Spain, which was an obsession. Professed detestation
of Spain was a sure way to his favour, which, his kinsfolk recognising,
they won his confidence only to their own ultimate destruction when he
discovered that he had been deceived. Half his reign was worse than
wasted in a futile contest with Spain; when it was done, he turned
rigorously to energetic disciplinary reforms, but death stayed his hand.

A very different man was Pius IV., the pontiff under whom the Council of
Trent was brought to a close. Far from rigid himself, he still could
not, if he would, have altogether deserted the paths of reform. But most
conspicuously he was inaugurator of a new policy, not asserting claims
to supremacy, but seeking to induce the Catholic powers to work hand in
hand with the papacy--Spain and the German Empire being now parted under
the two branches of the House of Hapsburg. In this policy he was most
ably assisted by the diplomatic tact of Cardinal Moroni, who succeeded
in bringing France,