But in practice it had failed to fix two
important matters. In the first place, the provision forbidding further
secularization of church property ("Ecclesiastical Reservation") was
not carried out, nor could it be while human nature and human
temptation remained. Every Catholic ecclesiastic who became Protestant
would naturally endeavor to take his church lands with him. Then, in
the second place, the peace had recognized only Catholics and
Lutherans: meanwhile the Calvinists had increased their numbers,
especially in southern and central Germany and in Bohemia, and demanded
equal rights. In order to extort concessions from the emperor, a union
of Protestant princes was formed, containing among its members the
zealous young Calvinist prince of the Palatinate, Frederick, commonly
called the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. The Catholics were in an
equally belligerent frame of mind. Not only were they determined to
prevent further secularization of church property, but, emboldened by
the progress of the Catholic Reformation in the Germanies during the
second half of the sixteenth century, they were now anxious to revise
the earlier religious settlement in their own interest and to regain,
if possible, the lands that had been lost by the Church to the
Protestants.
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