Menaces, meanwhile, had been astutely mingled with cajoleries.  The French and the Imperial Courts were growing anxious on the subject of reform in secular establishments.  Pius had threatened to raise the whole question of national Churches and the monarch’s right of interfering in their administration.  This was tantamount to flinging a burning torch into the powder-magazine of Huguenot and Lutheran grievances.  In order to save themselves from the disaster of explosion, they urged harmonious action with the Papacy upon their envoys.  The Spanish Court, through Pescara, De Luna, and D’Avalos, wrote dispatches of like tenor.  It was now debated whether a congress of Crowned heads should not be held to terminate the Council in accordance with the Papal programme.  This would have suited Pius.  It was the point to which his policy had led.  Yet no such measure could be lightly hazarded.  A congress while the Council was yet sitting, would have been too palpable and cynical a declaration of the Papal game.  As events showed, it was not even necessary.  When Lorraine returned to Trent, the French opposition came to an end.  The Spanish had been already neutralized by the firm persistent exhibition of Philip’s will to work for Roman absolutism.[48] There was nothing left but to settle details, to formulate the terms of ecclesiastical reform, and to close the Council of Trent with a unanimous vote of confidence in his Holiness.  The main outlines of dogma and discipline were quickly drawn.  Numerous details were referred to the Pope for definition.  The Council terminated in December with an act of submission, which placed all its decrees at the pleasure of the Papal sanction.  Pius was wise enough to pass and ratify the decrees of the Tridentine fathers by a Bull dated on December 26, 1563, reserving to the Papal sovereign the sole right of interpreting them in doubtful or disputed cases.  This he could well afford to do; for not an article had been penned without his concurrence, and not a stipulation had been made without a previous understanding with the Catholic powers.  The very terms, moreover, by which his ratification was conveyed, secured his supremacy, and conferred upon his successors and himself the privileges of a court of ultimate appeal.  At no previous period in the history of the Church had so wide, so undefined, and so unlimited an authority been accorded to the See of Rome.  Thus Pius IV. was triumphant in obtaining conciliar sanction for Pontifical absolutism, and in maintaining the fabric of the Roman hierarchy unimpaired, the cardinal dogmas of Latin Christianity unimpeached and after formal inquisition reasserted in precise definitions.  A formidable armory had been placed at the disposal of the Popes, who were fully empowered to use it, and who had two mighty engines for its application ready in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus.[49]

[Footnote 48:  Yet the Spanish bishops fought to the end, under the leadership of their chief Guerrero, for the principle of conciliar independence and the episcopal prerogatives.  ’We had better not have come here, than be forced to stand by as witnesses,’ says the Bishop of Orense.  Phillipson, p. 577.]