Paul IV. was now pontiff, an old man, jealous of his prerogatives, intolerant in the extreme, and cherishing the most exorbitant sense of his spiritual power.  He execrated the Protestants, and was indignant with Ferdinand that he had shown them any mercy at all.  But Ferdinand, conscious of the importance of a papal coronation, sent a very obsequious embassy to Rome, announcing his appointment as emperor, and imploring the benediction of the holy father and the reception of the crown from his hands.  The haughty and disdainful reply of the pope was characteristic of the times and of the man.  It was in brief, as follows: 

“The Emperor Charles has behaved like a madman; and his acts are no more to be respected than the ravings of insanity.  Charles V. received the imperial crown from the head of the Church; in abdicating, that crown could only return to the sacred hands which conferred it.  The nomination of Ferdinand as his successor we pronounce to be null and void.  The alleged ratification of the electors is a mockery, dishonored and vitiated as it is by the votes of electors polluted with heresy.  We therefore command Ferdinand to relinquish all claim to the imperial crown.”

The irascible old pontiff, buried beneath the senseless pomps of the Vatican, was not at all aware of the change which Protestant preaching and writing had effected in the public mind of Germany.  Italy was still slumbering in the gloom of the dark ages; but light was beginning to dawn upon the hills of the empire.  One half of the population of the German empire would rally only the more enthusiastically around Ferdinand, if he would repel all papal assumptions with defiance and contempt.  Ferdinand was the wiser and the better informed man of the two.  He conducted with dignity and firmness which make us almost forget his crimes.  A diet was summoned, and it was quietly decreed that a papal coronation was no longer necessary.  That one short line was the heaviest blow the papal throne had yet received.  From it, it never recovered and never can recover.

Paul IV. was astounded at such effrontery, and as soon as he had recovered a little from his astonishment, alarmed in view of such a declaration of independence, he took counsel of discretion, and humiliating as it was, made advances for a reconciliation.  Ferdinand was also anxious to be on good terms with the pope.  While negotiations were pending, Paul died, his death being perhaps hastened by chagrin.  Pius IV. succeeded him, and pressed still more earnestly overtures for reconciliation Ferdinand, through his ambassador, expressed his willingness to pledge the accustomed devotion and reverence to the head of the Church, omitting the word obedience.  But the pope was anxious, above all things, to have that emphatic word obey introduced into the ritual of subjection, and after employing all the arts of diplomacy and cajolery, carried his point.  Ferdinand, with duplicity which was not honorable, let the word remain, saying that it was not his act, but that of his ambassador.  The pope affected satisfaction with the formal acknowledgment of his power, while Ferdinand ever after refused to recognize his authority.  Thus terminated the long dependence, running through ages of darkness and delusion, of the German emperors upon the Roman see.