The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

SECULAR INTERFERENCE ATTACKED. 343
The demand that the civil authorities should also be submitted
to reform roused a violent storm of protest among
the great Catholic powers, all the more so as many of the
requirements put forward were too strictly conceived, and
were based upon a canonical point of view which, owing
to the changed conditions, had become impossible. ^ It is
beyond question that the whole subject of the reform of
the princes had been brought forward for the purpose of
moderating the reform requirements of the secular powers
with regard to the spiritual authorities, by calling attention
to their own shortcomings, but the opinion expressed at the
time, that the strict secular reform had been so closely bound
up with the ecclesiastical in order that both might be abandoned
at the protest of the princes, was a wicked insinuation.
When even Ferdinand I. repeated this assertion, ^ it clearly
shows the sway exercised over this well-meaning but easily
influenced monarch by his advisers. It is not surprising that
Philip II. at once made complaints in Rome, through his
ambassadors, on the subject of the reform of the princes,*
because, should the Council adopt the projected measures,
Spain would be more affected than any other country, since
the government of no other Catholic state allowed so much
oppression of the Church as was permitted there.
In the meantime Philip's envoy at Trent was endeavouring
by subterfuges of every kind to bring about a delay in the
activities of the Council. Although the Count di Luna had
made countless observations upon the other articles of reform,
he now refused to do so with regard to the reform of the
princes, so that it might not seem that he in any way sanc-
tioned it.« The difficulties which were thus caused for the
1 See Sagmuller, loc. cit., 163.
2 The opinion of Sagmuller, loc. cit.
3 Letter of Ferdinand I. to his orators at the Council of August
23, 1563, in SicKEL, Konzil, 5S5.
* Cf. Pallavicini, 22, 9, 2 ; Venice also raised objections ;
see Cecchktti, IL, 43 seq.
5
Cf. Vol. XVI . of this work
« See Paleotto in Theiner, II., 663.
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