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Updated: June 7, 2025
The Duke of Cleves was brother-in-law to the Elector of Saxony and one of the guiding spirits of the Schmalkaldic League, and as he had given mortal offence to the Emperor by his acceptance of the Duchy of Guelders, Cromwell decided that a marriage between the Duke's sister, Anne, and Henry VIII. would secure for England both the alliance of the League of Schmalkald and at least the neutrality of France.
Whether such a proposal was serious or no, Henry had to dread attack from Charles himself and to look for new allies against it. He was driven to offer his alliance to the Lutheran princes of North Germany, who dreaded like himself the power of the Emperor, and who were now gathering in the League of Schmalkald.
With regard to the Papacy itself, the Augsburg Confession had been content to condemn it by silence, not having taken any notice of it in its articles on the essence and nature of the Christian Church. The allies accordingly were anxious to consult together and determine at Schmalkald what conduct to pursue at the Council. An imperial envoy and a Papal nuncio wished also to attend their meeting.
This doctrinal antagonism was sufficient even now, when the test of actual war was imminent, to keep the Swiss excluded from the League of Schmalkald. Luther still continued, in the face of menaces, to trust in God, his Helper hitherto, and he found in the latest signs of the times still more convincing proof of the End, which seemed to be at hand.
At the Diet of Augsburg next year the decree was confirmed: the Protestants replying by drawing up the Confession of Augsburg, formulating their doctrines, a document which became the definite expression of Protestantism in the least general sense of the term while they bound themselves for mutual support in the League of Schmalkald.
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