Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, by Sofonisba Anguissola
Elias Mukhumbeni,
The Age Between: The Diplomatic History of Saxony, 1560-1612.
In November 1562, having freshly seen off the regency, the Elector Alexander traveled to Frankfurt-am-Main to vote for a new King of the Romans. The entire spectacle must have seemed surreal to the survivors of the Spanish War and the other twists and turns of his father's reign. For Alexander traveled alongside none other than the Archduke Maximilian, son of the Emperor Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary, and the only candidate contending at Frankfurt. And there was none of the nail-biting tension or high-stakes game-play that marked whenever Charles V and Friedrich IV were in each other's presence. Instead, Elector and Archduke exhibited an easy informality. And the whole of Saxon knighthood traveled with them, not as protection for the young elector, but for the Habsburg, to whose well-being Alexander was sworn as well.
To some extent the amity did not come hard. Though Alexander exhibited the aloof, even cryptic, demeanor that marked him from his father, Maximilian was affable and charismatic. Moreover, in a way emphatically unlike his uncle Charles V, Maximilian exhibited German customs and seemed at ease with Germans. In no way could Friedrich have made the case against Maximilian that he had made against Charles, that here was a foreign conqueror alien to German ways, and dependent on an army alien to the country. Moreover, Maximilian held personal sympathies in common with the Protestants. Of course, that same uncle against whom he so strenuously contrasted himself had made similar-sounding promises of a thorough reform of the Catholic Church, but Maximilian's sentiment on these matters was held as being much stronger and more sincere, and Alexander at least took his good will for granted.
The reasons for this have to do with Maximilian's life to that point. He had corresponded with leading figures of the Reformation, and the Elector Friedrich had granted rare leave for his theologians to correspond with Maximilian on the off-chance of Lutheranism gaining a convert. This had never come to pass, but the experience left Maximilian confirmed in at least his tolerance of Lutherans, if not his acceptance of the doctrines. It was for these precise reasons Maximilian was passed over for consideration in administrative roles in religiously sensitive regions like the Netherlands and Bohemia. Then in 1550, it was Charles's discomfort at the idea of Maximilian succeeding his father as Holy Roman Emperor that occasioned Charles's desperate gambit to have his own son Philip be Ferdinand's successor, though, or perhaps partly because, Philip had no relationship to the Empire or its culture. Though these plans had failed because Philip was intensely unpopular with even the Catholic princes of the Empire, and everyone knew his election as emperor would mean a fight to the finish on the question of religion, Maximilian had been forced into the humiliating position of supporting Philip as the heir the imperial throne over himself. Later, Maximilian had barely survived at least one poisoning attempt, which was believed to have been undertaken for Philip's advancement.
In fact, many writers noted the similarities of the two men, including their uncertain rise to power, their complicated familial disputes, and perhaps most keenly of all, their complicated relationship to the church to which they belonged. While Alexander had been examined on matters of theology by the doctors of the Leucorea and been found soundly Lutheran in his understanding, he remained the last Wettin prince to have undergone religious training in the Catholic tradition, had produced no works descriptive of his religious faith, and made no sweeping declarations, unlike his father, who could scarcely go a week without beating his breast and shouting to the wind over some or other theological question. For this combination of reasons, Alexander was seen by some in the Lutheran community as weak in his faith, or even a crypto-papist. Johann had declined to press this argument during the controversy over the end of the regency, but the Johannine camp was beginning already to see this as an error and make good its correction. Some even went as far as Flacius, who wisecracked that Maximilian and Alexander's positions on religion were so close they could have traded places and no one would have particularly minded.
In short, even if Alexander and Maximilian not been friends, it would have been hard to imagine a Catholic candidate for the throne of the empire, or a Habsburg one, more in the interest of Saxony than the Archduke Maximilian. There were still some differences of opinion--Maximilian held out his belief in the reunification of Christendom, a formulation long in use by Charles and Ferdinand--but Alexander clearly preferred to see this as a position of necessity to prevent the loss of critical supporters in the Catholic camp, including the House of Habsburg.
Whatever the case, Alexander's public enthusiasm for Maximilian as King of the Romans and a future Emperor was bounded only by his discretion: too supportive of the Archduke, and he might arouse the suspicions of the pro-Spanish and pro-Roman factions at the court of the Vienna and in the Empire, endangering Maximilian's prospects for the imperial throne, but that way he might also arouse the danger to himself from the more absolutist and uncompromising school of Lutheran thought, which had found its spokesman in Flacius and a figure ready to exploit it in the elder duke. Thus Alexander was limited primarily by his own caution, but inevitably cast his vote for Maximilian, received in return the customary gratuity, and saw elected at Frankfurt a King of the Romans in whom he had more confidence than many in his own family. To give some notion of the unique character of Maximilian's election, he received the support not only of Saxony but the ecclesiastical electors, and his election as King was endorsed by the papacy, though the pope made no immediate plans to personally crown him.
The next year, Maximilian was crowned King of Hungary, and on Ferdinand's death in 1564 he became King of Bohemia and Croatia, as well as Holy Roman Emperor. For the rest of his reign, the Habsburgs and Wettins were as close to a lasting peace within the framework of the Holy Roman Empire as they would ever be. Saxony now had confidence it had an emperor who would not act to extirpate its religion, a situation which Alexander still thought not just desirable but necessary given the state of Saxony's military.
Only one problem threatened this Golden Friendship of Emperor and Elector, Alexander's other friend, the Elector Palatine. When Alexander left Saxony during the regency he found his way to the lands of the Upper Palatinate and was received generously by the Elector Friedrich III. Friedrich had just taken the bold stand of becoming the first German prince to formally embrace Calvinism. He badly needed allies, and recognized Saxony with its tolerance of multiple strains of Protestant faith and demonstrated sympathies for the plight of the Calvinists in France was the most plausible friend he could find. This was one reason for his generosity to Alexander during his the latter's time in his realm. He even accompanied Alexander to meet his next host, in Juelich.
Alexander had in the end decided against marrying Friedrich's daughter Elisabeth, instead marrying her off to one of the johannine princes. All the same they retained close relations. Thus when in 1563 a convention of Protestant theologians gathered at one of Friedrich's castles produced the Heidelberg Catechism of the Christian Faith, Alexander was at once connected to the enterprise. In short, it was a systematic statement of Calvinist Christianity, one that did not shy from radicalism on the most controversial theological questions, including whether Christ's body and blood was present in the Eucharist. This occasioned a stirring condemnation from Flacius in Wittenberg, who stoutly defended Lutheran doctrines on the matter. Fpr his part, Friedrich reacted to the objection of the Lutheran priests within his realm by dismissing them and replacing them with those who subscribed to his new faith.
What was received as an outrage in Wittenberg surely found no more sympathetic audience in Vienna. And all understood clearly what Friedrich's adoption of the critical language with respect to the sacraments had done. The Palatinate had gone outside the Augsburg Settlement and the protection it had extended to some, but not all, Protestant churches. At that moment, Maximilian was attempting to wring concessions out of the Catholic Church with which he hoped to lure back the Lutherans to the Catholic fold. Plainly, he would lose much of his leverage if he did not convince the princes of the church that he was in fact a zealous defender of the Church and its prerogatives. Thus, even if he had been in sympathy with the Calvinists, and there is no evidence to say that he was, Maximilian could not have afforded to show leniency to Friedrich of the Palatinate.
Friedrich wasted no time transforming the doctrine produced at Heidelberg and a later council at Maubronn into law, which Maximilian quickly invalidated citing the religious law of the Augsburg Diet. The whole business was then held over until another Diet could be held, also at Augsburg, in 1566. Despite Alexander's misgivings the entire empire united behind the Emperor in the cause of defending the Eucharist against what was seen as radical innovations, and passed edicts authorizing a return to more established religious forms in the Palatinate, by force if necessary.
Into this debate stepped the now aging Duke Johann. He proposed that Saxony take up the role of enforcing the imperial edict against the Palatinate, in return for Saxony's annexation of the Upper Palatinate, a region adjacent to Bohemia and Upper Franconia where Lutheranism was popular and well-established and the local population bridled at Friedrich's innovations. Maximilian wavered, and then offered Alexander the final decision as to whether to proceed in this way. Without question, everyone knew the course of action the previous Elector of Saxony, who had valued aggrandizement of his realm above all else, would have chosen. For his part Alexander feared what would happen if Saxony took up arms against its fellow Protestants. Could they at any point later be expected to work together? Even if this were not the result of an intentional strategy to introduce ill will between the various Protestant factions, it might still have that effect.
In the end, Alexander declined to lead a war against Friedrich of the Palatinate to force the repudiation of the religious policy formulated at Heidelberg. In one sense, this represented fidelity to the spirit of the Holy Prince in that Alexander had sided with the right of princes to chart their own way as to religious doctrine. In another, it was tantamount to a betrayal of his policy of enlarging Saxony however possible. Moreover, in the eyes of both Flacius and the leading theologians of the Leucorea, it was a repudiation of the defense of Lutheranism and of the cause of the religious freedom of practicing Lutherans, given that Friedrich of the Palatinate was seeking to enforce conformity with his Calvinist doctrines on the Lutheran Churches in his realm, and on the Upper Palatinate in particular. Moreover, this war in defense of Lutherans and the rights of Lutherans was not against, but alongside, and with the happy approval, of a Catholic Habsburg Emperor.
As they left Augsburg, Duke Johann was beyond apoplectic, his dream of one final war of conquest dashed, his doubts about his nephew intensified, his ambition by no means diminished. Alexander for his part attempted to placate his uncle by saying that he would endeavor to persuade Friedrich by letter to ameliorate the situation of the Lutherans under his rule, and that if this did not occur, the matter of enforcing the 1566 Augsburg Diet on the Palatinate would be reexamined. But neither Johann, nor the Lutheran church officials who were increasingly his constituency, have any confidence in this.
And already the next struggle loomed, for the next year in Wittenberg the second decennial council would be held, and a new Respondent would be elected to replace Flacius. Flacius could hardly have done anything more to have alienated the young Elector of Saxony than he already had, and so this promised to be a test of the power of his party within the church against the influence of Alexander.