So, throughout the century of strife, both Charles and his son, rigid as they were, were always obliged to conciliate England, whatever its faith might be; for France, and heresy in their own dominions, were ever the nearest enemies; and for England permanently to have thrown in its lot with either of them would have consigned Spain to impotence. Henry VIII. might defy the Pope, despoil the Church, and insultingly repudiate his blameless Spanish wife, but the Emperor dared not quarrel with him for long together, or provoke him too far. But, withal, it was a hard trial for the champion of orthodoxy to have to speak fair and softly to his heterodox, excommunicated uncle, and welcome alliance with the power that was a standing negation of the cause for which he lived. Still harder was it when Henry was dead; for his personal prestige was great, and his professions of orthodoxy were emphatic, apart from his personal quarrel with the Papacy. But to him there succeeded a child-king ruled by men of small ability, determined to alter the faith of England itself, and make a durable friendship with Spain impossible.
Then almost suddenly the whole aspect of affairs changed. It had been known for some time that the young King of England, Edward VI., was failing, and would probably die without issue; but the uncertain element had been the extent of the Duke of Northumberland’s power and the strength of English Protestantism. Edward VI. died on the 7th July 1553, and the undignified collapse of Northumberland at once decided the Emperor’s plans. The treachery of Maurice of Saxony had brought Charles to the humiliating peace of Passau, and had made for ever impossible the realisation of the great dream of making Philip Emperor as well as King. It was the heaviest blow that Charles had ever suffered; and, if he could have appreciated its significance, he would have seen that it proved the impossibility of the task he had undertaken. He was still at war with the enemy, France, who had supported his Lutheran princes, and he was burning to avenge the crowning disaster of Metz, when the death of the boy King of England opened to his mind’s eye the gates of a shining future. The hollow crown of the Empire might go, with its poor patrimony and its turbulent Lutheran subjects, the fat Portuguese dowry he coveted for his son Philip might be cheerfully sacrificed; but if only rich England could be joined in lasting bonds to Spain, then France would indeed be in the toils, Flanders and Italy safe, the road to unlimited expansion in the East open, and Spain, supreme, might give laws to Latin Christendom, and to heathendom beyond. The prize was worth bidding for, and Charles lost no time.