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Upon his election to the Imperial throne in 1531, Charles V was no longer the gangly, awkward youth that took the two crowns of Hungary and Bohemia years prior, but had been molded by both age and experience into a capable - if still a bit unprepossessing - leader possessed of both grace and severity, full-bearded and hair cropped in the fashion of a true Roman emperor. Charles V's innate talents had also been revealed in his grasp of languages; a polyglot both by nature and by circumstance, Charles V had mastery of the German language in addition to the French and Dutch of his youth, and was competent in the difficult and alien languages of his Czech and Hungarian subjects (though assemblies with them were often mediated by local Germans fluent in either Czech or Hungarian).


Charles V was utterly resolved to combat both Protestantism as well as any challenges to his centralized Imperial authority. While he may have at one seriously considered adopting Meyeran Protestantism when his opposition seemed to be gaining the upper hand, ultimately Charles V felt the enormous weight of his impressive pedigree (and possibly the religious zeal embedded in his Spanish blood) and made it clear to all that the Holy Roman Emperor would never renounce his ancient Catholic creed:

Likewise, with the rocky start that was the war with the rebellious League of Olomouc, Charles V had grown used to dealing with intransigent vassals, especially in the face of Hungary’s notoriously strong-willed nobility. What had truly hardened Charles V to the notion of Protestant revolt was a rebellion amongst the “Horali” - communities of Karlstadter Protestants embedded in montane Slovak towns. When Charles V attempted to address the issue of blasphemous regard for the sacraments and the unlawful seizure of Church property amongst the Horali, his emissaries were put through painful and embarrassing ordeals before being sent back. When two of Charles V’s representatives were killed while being chased out of the town of Čerín, Charles V took a more hardline position and subdued the Horali militarily in a brutal 2-year campaign. Afterwards, Protestantism became a calling card for sedition and subversion to Charles V, who gave the same treatment in 1528 to the “Slavonska Cerkev” (Slavonian Church) led by the Slovenian reformer Primož Trubar, extinguishing a robust and largely peaceful Protestant assembly. Charles V would thankfully have his impulsivity tempered by his Grand Chancellor, the level-headed, humanist Mercurino Gattinara, and his sense of rulership would begin to reflect a more universal model of a benevolent, yet just, Christian emperor.

Charles V had intended to take the issue of Protestantism by the horns more directly than his father had, and had plans for another Colloquy between Catholic and Protestant leaders at Darmstadt by 1533, but the difficulty in organizing such a debate when the Protestant sects within the Empire were growing fault lines at an incredible rate, especially following Johann Albrecht Meyer's emergence as a reformer in the late 1520s to early 1530s. Likewise, Charles V had only been emperor for five years before his attention was diverted to Italy once Massimiliano Sforza had provoked a war of succession over the duchy of Savoy. Clamor on all sides for a general Diet to be called and to settle the portentous difficulties facing the Holy Roman Empire was reaching such a din that Charles V had no other choice than to set a secure date for a Diet at Erfurt (chosen for its location in the religious middle ground of Thuringia), which would begin on October 27th of 1541.

However, if Charles V or the imperial princes had hoped that a simple Diet would save the Empire from being riven once again by inter-confessional violence, there were a litany of factors at play in the Empire which had been long been sowing tensions that would render such hopes for peace futile. For one, trouble had been brewing close to the old Hapsburg stomping grounds in Swabia for some time: the southerly duchy of Württemberg had been a source of a few headaches for the Hapsburgs during its time under Ulrich, its former duke. Ulrich had a notoriously off putting personality - prone to outbursts of rage and a general lack of self control - but worst of all were his spending sprees. Ulrich’s loose purse strings had put his duchy’s treasury in a serious bind, thus necessitating more and more excise taxes on staple goods. Two bad harvests in 1511 and 1514 brought the peasant class to its breaking point, leading to open rebellion in the latter year. Ulrich inspired little confidence in his retinue and vassals, and this “Poor Conrad” rebellion (named after a derogatory term used for a down on his luck peasant in Germany) went virtually unopposed, forcing Ulrich to make large concessions to the rebels in exchange for a return to order.

Following this episode of ineptitude, Ulrich suffered another embarrassment with nearly disastrous consequences when his marital infidelity had been exposed after he had killed his mistress’ husband, a respected knight, in a duel. Ulrich’s wife was Sabina, who was both the daughter of the duke of Bavaria, Albrecht IV, and the niece of the emperor Maximilian. As he had become by far the most problematic member of the Swabian League, Maximilian had no difficulty bestowing on Ulrich a distinction rarely received by placing him under an Imperial ban twice - the latter of which resulted in the duke’s exile. Ulrich would take up mercenary work beyond the reach of the Hapsburgs, leading a band of Swiss pikemen in Northern Italy and ending up in the employ of the king of France. Ulrich’s duchy, now technically vacant, passed into the care of the other member states of the Swabian League. It would be auctioned off to the emperor Maximilian, who offered the largest bid for the sake of maintaining imperial stability.


What resurrected Ulrich’s claim to the duchy of Württemberg were his religious inclinations. Ulrich had been intensely interested in the theology of Martin Luther and Andreas Karlstadt, and was known to have received communion in the utraquist manner. Ulrich’s exile had freed him of the need to maintain his quasi-Lutheran Catholicism in the interest of legitimacy, and he committed himself fully to mainline Meyeran Protestantism during his days as a condottiere. Practically overnight, the opinion of Ulrich amongst many Germans had shifted from that of a widely unpopular profligate to a hero of the Protestant cause wrongfully deprived of his throne. Philipp, the landgrave of Hesse, was the first to raise the cry for Ulrich’s return to his duchy, and was shortly after joined by William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Charles IX suddenly found himself in possession of a highly valuable tool with which he could greatly complicate matters for the Hapsburgs.

When considering his ability to corner his enemies diplomatically, there is reason to believe that Charles IX would have been a highly successful ruler had he only been more conservative in picking his battles. The chain of marital alliances Charles IX established throughout his troubled reign began with his own betrothal to Isabel d’Albret - the sister of the king of Navarra, Henry II - which he arranged for himself, successfully outmaneuvering his young Spanish rival Juan Pelayo and strengthening France’s grip on the one state on the Iberian peninsula not held by the Avís-Trastámaras. Ginevra de Medici (Guinièvre to her French subjects), Charles IX’s second wife, also allowed the French king significant influence with the still powerful Medici family (now relocated to Naples) and threw a lifeline to French interests in Italy. The most important of Charles IX’s strategic marriages, however, came through his second daughter, Marie. William, the duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, had inherited a trio of duchies that had been spared much of the destruction of the Bauernkrieg and had grown prodigiously wealthy through the robust trade networks of the Rhineland. Charles IX demonstrated his eye for foreign policy in singling out this seemingly unimportant young ruler and marrying Marie to him in 1540, thus creating a strong link between the Valois and an influential, Protestant member of the Holy Roman Empire. Marie brought to Jülich-Cleves-Berg an impressive dowry comprised primarily (and significantly) of horses, artillery, and armament, and French merchants soon enjoyed extensive privileges along the Rhine.

In an emotional public ceremony in Nidda on the night of October 13th of 1541, Johann Albrecht Meyer, flanked by a number of Protestant bishops from numerous German sees, read out the final draft of his “Confessio Reformatorum Germanica” - the Reformed German Confession, later known colloquially as the Hessian Confession. This confession was the fruit borne by the earlier Synod of Marburg, the second Meyeran-formulated interconfessional council amongst Protestant groups in the Empire following the unsuccessful Synod of Halberstadt in 1536. Reformers, bishops, clerics, and the delegates and observers of Protestant princes had met in Marburg for four and a half months in late 1539, representing the interests and viewpoints of Mainline, Radical, and High Church Protestantism, with the followers of Meyer, Karlstadt, Luther, Hunter, and myriad others all represented. The extreme variety in opinion such a gathering offered was smoothed out by the more middle-of-the-road followers of Meyer, who possessed superior numbers. Meyer and his cohort essentially bossed the Synod, with many Lutherans and Karlstadters leaving disappointed in the results - but Meyer had succeeded in getting a general theological manifesto agreed upon and was able to see his longed-for “Evangelical Assembly” of Protestant German bishops formed. The Hessian Confession was this manifesto, and it's intended purpose - beyond being a summation of the beliefs of Mainline German Protestants - was to be read aloud once again, but this time in front of a complete assembly of Imperial princes at the imminent Diet in Erfurt - for which Meyer and the Protestant princes had waited to present this statement at faith until the 13th, exactly two weeks before the Diet was set to convene. The proclamation of the Hessian Confession at Erfurt would thus be the culmination of many years of strenuous effort, all spent uniting many of the disparate elements of German Protestantism and orchestrating the timing to be just right for the optimal dramatic effect - leaving a historic event to bear witness to all ages.

But such an event never came to pass. As the train of Protestant leaders ambled eastward out of Hesse into Franconia, each surely fantasizing about Charles V’s impending comeuppance, Charles V had been maneuvering on his own. The Protestant synods of Halberstadt and Marburg had garnered all of Charles V’s ever suspicious attention, and a steady payroll was set aside for anyone who could provide him with information as to just what those pesky heretics were planning in the long scheme of things. Charles V knew long beforehand of their plan to seize the floor at the upcoming Diet and expose their captive audience to a powerfully written exhortation to take ecclesiastical and imperial reform into their own hands. Charles V was also aware that matters were growing increasingly irreconcilable between his imperial office and the anti-Hapsburg and pro-Protestant polities of the Empire, and would come to a violent head sooner rather than later. What was needed to undermine his opposition was to wait for the Church council at Basel to produce a reform suitable to assuage many of the Protestants’ concerns (and possibly bring more Lutherans back into full communion with the Church) while depriving the rebellious German camp of their anticipated platform and cast them as what he believed they were: seditionists, rather than concerned Imperial citizens. Two days after the proclamation at Nidda, two of Charles V’s couriers had reached him with the news in Regensburg. Charles V pondered the situation for two days before ordering his emissaries to inform all the Diet's attendees that, due to the devolving state of affairs in Northern Italy, the heightened risk of hostilities with France, and the ongoing Church council, the Diet would have to be convened at Würzburg on the 18th as a mere hearing session for the sake of redressing any immediate grievances. Charles V told the messenger intended for the princes that had gathered at Nidda to wait a week before beginning his journey. Obviously, the majority of the malcontent party was unable to arrive in time to attend the bulk of the Diet, which lasted only a week. The only Protestants of any considerable secular authority present were the elector Palatine, Frederick II, and the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, George - neither of whom felt that they would be able to represent their anti-Hapsburg and pro-Protestant inclinations before so many Catholic, Hapsburg-affiliated princes.


The outraged Protestant princes that had been absent from Würzburg met up in Fulda in late November, where they accused the emperor of having acted in bad faith and insisted on the Diet being re-convened to allow them the opportunity to voice their opinions. Charles V obviously declined their request, again citing his need to attend to matters with France and Northern Italy. After three weeks of deliberation and debate, those assembled at Fulda had written up a formal protestations, declaring their intent to form a league in opposition to the emperor, against whom they would pursue force of arms until their demands were met and the adherents of the creed detailed in the Hessian Confession were granted imperial protection from violence and other forms of persecution. This League of Fulda required Meyeran Protestantism as the precondition for membership, and had as its principal leaders Johann Frederick, the elector of Saxony, Joachim II Hector, the elector of Brandenburg, Ernest I, the duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, William, the duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Philipp I, the landgrave of Hesse, and Frederick II, the elector Palatine - amongst all of whom it was agreed that preventative action was necessary while Charles V’s armies were still tied up in Northern Italy. However, the need for such action became much more urgent when Ludovico, the duke of Savoy, died in January of 1542, forcing the League of Fulda to immediately make their intentions publicly known. While coordinating the limited means of their numerous disjointed polities remained an immense difficulty, William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Charles IX of France, and Christian III of Denmark were all prepared to ease this preparation and bankroll the movement any way that they could. The movements needed were clear: William and Frederick II would capture the Rhineland and harass the Netherlands; Joachim II Hector, Ernest I, and Johann Frederick would ensure either the neutrality or subjugation of the Catholic states and bishoprics in their proximity and push southward into Franconia towards Augsburg; and Charles IX would meanwhile lead a general assault on Hapsburg possessions along the French border.


Just as Charles V was struggling to mobilize a sufficient force to march north and confront some of his most powerful subjects, an enormous revolt had materialized on his ancestral doorstep. At that moment, the most immediate threat to the Hapsburgs - indeed to German Catholicism - was the percolation of Protestantism into southern Germany (which had heretofore only had minimal exposure), with many cities - some of them prominent Imperial Free Cities - in the south gaining a Protestant majority practically overnight. Inspired by the resistance of the League of Fulda, the cities of Lindau, Ingolstadt, Ravensburg, Memmingen, Konstanz, Strassburg, Nördlingen, and Ulm had all voiced their disapproval to the actions of Charles V in April of 1543. All of them save for Strassburg had elected to form a “Heptapolitan League” shortly after, which held the Hessian Confession as its central ethos. The declaration of the Heptapolis in defiance to the Emperor heightened the general feeling of rebellion and a vacuum of Imperial authority in the troubled region of Swabia, which prompted armed rebellion in the countryside as well. Here - just as in elsewhere in the Empire - throngs of commoners beat their plowshares into swords under a Protestant banner despite most of them being either not Protestant or having little to no understanding or investment in the complex theological disputes that caused Protestantism to emerge in the first place - most were simply interested in lashing out at the authority of the Church, the nobility, or the Hapsburgs themselves, with raw, elemental discontent and anxiety being their only motivation.


Charles IX joined the war against the Hapsburgs with neither the inexperience of the Third Italian War nor the indecisiveness of the Fourth. Within two and a half months, there were two French armies organized and marching eastward - one into the Netherlands under the marshal of France, Claude d’Annebault, numbering 21,000, and another heading for Lorraine led by Charles IX himself and with Ulrich of Württemberg in tow, numbering 23,000. Also in Charles IX’s retinue were Claude de Guise and his son Francis, noblemen from a cadet branch of the ducal house of Lorraine, who used their familial ties to induce the Lorrainer cities of Bar-le-Duc, Verdun, Metz, and Épinal to surrender without a siege by mid 1543. Believing Lorraine to be secure for the moment, Charles IX left the de Guises behind to maintain the French hold on the region before turning south towards his old objective: Besançon and the Franche-Comte, which he had failed to take almost 20 years earlier.

As before, Charles IX had little trouble in taking most of the principal cities of the Franche-Comte - namely Montbéliard, Belfort, and Dole - but Besançon held out until the end of the campaigning season. Neither Philip I nor Charles V had neglected to maintain the Imperial garrisons and fortifications on their western front, and it was beginning to grind away at the French. Impatient for matters to speed up and confident that the Heptapolitan revolt would not immediately wither under Hapsburg pressure, Charles IX decided that early 1544 was the opportune time to throw his Württemberger wrench into the Hapsburgs’ plans, and had Ulrich escorted into Swabia by 1,200 Swiss pikemen and 200 horsemen over the Jura mountains by way of Montbéliard. Ulrich had hardly reached Colmar before Protestant peasants (conveniently forgetful of their old duke’s misconduct) had taken up arms en masse as far away as Tübingen, where Johann Brenz, the rector of the university, urged all elements of society - regardless of doctrinal alignment - to rise up and throw off their Hapsburg oppressors. The Swabian rebellion - comprised of German peasantry, the Heptapolis, and their French benefactors - were able to hold the line against the Hapsburgs quite well, with the Imperial forces under Charles V’s brother Ferdinand caught in a stalemate between Alberschwende and along the Bodensee near Bregenz for months.


More bad news reached Charles V in June: the Archbishop of Cologne, having withstood growing unrest and riots for nearly two years, was finally forced to flee the city when William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg appeared outside its walls, having just returned from taking Maastricht. With massive peasant revolts having forced out the bishops of Osnabrück and Münster months before (as they had during the Bauernkrieg), all of the Prince-Bishops of the northern Rhineland and Lower Saxony were now either living in exile or were in serious danger of having to (Hildesheim, protected by the sympathetic Ernest I, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg). Yet the winds began to shift in early 1547, when formations thousands-strong were sighted in the Lower Rhine Valley near Dornbirn, marching under Spanish flags.