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Schmalkalden (LEAGUE OF a defensive alliance)

LEAGUE OF, a defensive alliance concluded at Schmalkalden, April 4, 1531, between nine Protestant princes and 11 imperial cities, with whom other princes and imperial cities subsequently made common cause.

The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse were appointed chiefs of the league. The object of this formidable alliance, which included nearly all the Protestant States from Denmark to Switzerland, was the common defense of the religion and political freedom of the Protestants against the Emperor Charles V. and the Catholic states. The confederation was consolidated by the "Articles of Schmalkalden," drawn up by Luther at Wittenberg in 1536. A conflict was of course inevitable. In the war of Schmalkalden that ensued (1546), when the emperor got leisure to turn his attention to the matter, the strength of the Protestants was crippled and dissipated by jealousies, but especially by the defection of Duke Maurice of Saxony, so that in the battle of Mühlberg (April 24, 1547) the Elector of Saxony (the head of the elder branch of the Saxon house, Duke Maurice being the head of the younger branch), Philip of Hesse, and other Protestant chiefs were taken prisoners and their army routed. This caused the league to break up. The Protestant cause was, however, revived five years later by Duke Maurice, who had in the meantime been made elector instead of his unfortunate kinsman, and who, in 1552, returned to his old allegiance to Luther's teaching SCHNITZLER