These are moots points however, because a large Ottoman army transformed the situation. Charles had already lost large parts of Hungary to them, and renewed attacks in the east prompted the Emperor to declare a religious truce with the Lutherans: the 'Peace of Nuremberg'. This cancelled certain legal cases and prevented any action being taken against the Protestants until a general church council had met, but no date was given; the Lutheran's could continue, and so would their military support. This set the tone for another fifteen years, as Ottoman - and later French - pressure forced Charles to call a series of truces, interspersed with declarations of heresy. The situation became one of intolerant theory, but tolerant practice. Without any unified or directed Catholic opposition, the Schmalkaldic League was able to grow in power.

One early Schmalkaldic triumph was the restoration of Duke Ulrich. A friend of Philip of Hesse, Ulrich had been expelled from his Duchy of Württemberg in 1919: his conquest of a previously independent city caused the powerful Swabian League to invade and eject him. The Duchy had since been sold to Charles, and the League used a combination of Bavarian support and Imperial need to force the Emperor to agree. This was seen as a major victory among the Lutheran territories, and the League's numbers grew. Hesse and his allies also courted foreign support, forming relationships with the French, English and Danish, who all pledged varying forms of aid. Crucially, the League did this while maintaining, at least an illusion of, their loyalty to the emperor.

The League acted to support cities and individuals who wished to convert to Lutheran beliefs, and harass any attempts to curb them. They were occasionally pro-active: in 1542 a League army attacked the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the remaining Catholic heartland in the north, and expelled its Duke, Henry. Although this action broke a truce between the League and the Emperor, Charles was too embroiled in a new conflict with France, and his brother with problems in Hungary, to react. By 1545 all of the northern Empire was Lutheran, and numbers were growing in the south. While the Schmalkaldic League never included all of the Lutheran territories - many cities and princes remained separate - it did form a core amongst them.

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For Citation And Footnotes
Title: The Schmalkaldic League 1530/1 - 1547
Author: Robert Wilde
Date: 2001