When the Archbishop of all people marries his beloved

The official yes word was one word too many. The nuncio Minuccio Minucci from Cologne reported indignantly to his colleague Giovanni Antonio Volpe, the Bishop of Como: "The following day the wedding was celebrated in all its splendor and the crime of blasphemy increased."

In fact, on February 2, 1583, something monstrous had happened in Bonn, the residence of the Archbishop of Cologne. Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg-Trauchburg, born in 1547 and in office for six years as one of the three highest-ranking ecclesiastical princes in the empire (and thus also the holder of secular power in his area), had married. And not only that: His chosen one, Agnes von Mansfeld, was also a Protestant. He had been living with her unofficially since 1580, but now he wanted to legalize the connection. And still keep office and dignity as elector.

His direct predecessor had solved the same problem in a different way: Salentin von Isenburg had resigned as Archbishop of Cologne on September 13, 1577 because of his love for a woman - in his case: Countess Antonia Wilhelmina von Arenberg - and had married her three months later. However, it was not the Counter-Reformation-minded duke Ernst of Bavaria, a pupil of the Jesuit order, who was chosen as his successor, but Gebhard, who leaned towards Protestantism.

Despite his marriage, which was a clear violation of the official rule of celibacy, he wanted to remain in office and even introduce the Reformation in the archdiocese - he had already declared himself a Calvinist six months earlier. This was a clear violation of the Augsburg Religious Peace, which ended the phase of religious wars in 1555. But the basic compromise, according to which the sovereign should determine the denomination, expressly did not apply to spiritual sovereigns.

This “spiritual reservation” stipulated that a prince of the church who changed his denomination had to resign his office and leave his former dominion. The competent cathedral chapter was then allowed to elect a person from the old denomination to be his successor.

Gebhard von Waldburg not only ignored the “spiritual reservation”, he even had his frontal attack made public. "The event was then published on posters," reported Minucci: "Countess Agnes was presented as an electress who had to be accorded the same honors as the elector. Then the whole day and night was spent dancing and partying.”

Cologne was upside down. The supporters of Ernst von Bavaria in the cathedral chapter, who had been inferior five years earlier, now had the upper hand. They sent messengers to Rome to seek support from the Church's supreme authority, the Pope. Gregory XIII was a staunch supporter of the Counter-Reformation and decided to take action.

On April 1, 1583 he replied to the cathedral chapter: “Gebhard von Truchsess – formerly your archbishop – on satanic inspiration has thrown away the legitimate faith and separated himself from the Catholic Church in which he was born and educated and went among the heretics. Therefore, the Pope continued, "we have declared that he has lost the office of Archbishop of the Cologne Church and all other offices, degrees, benefices, titles, duties and governments - both ecclesiastical and secular."

Gebhard should "no longer be considered archbishop or addressed with that title". Rather, he should be avoided "publicly and privately as a notorious heretic and extremely dangerous enemy of Christ." In a further letter, Gregory XIII stated: "We declare named Gebhard Truchsess, a notorious heretic, stained by boundless crimes, perjured, agitator against the Roman Church, excommunicated and expelled like a rotten piece and loose from the body of the Catholic Church."

The result was a full-blown sectarian war. Gebhard Truchsess had supporters mainly in Westphalia and the Palatinate; Ernst of Bavaria, who was elected Archbishop on May 22, 1583, found allies in the southern, Spanish-Habsburg Netherlands, as well as in the Empire and in his own family.

The balance of power was thus clearly against the renegade church princes. Within less than a year, Gebhard lost several major battles and some castles or fortified towns. In late January 1584 he fled to the predominantly Calvinist provinces of the Republic of the United Netherlands.

Although the decision had actually been made, Gebhard and his allies continued to fight - with dire consequences for the Kurköln area, which was repeatedly devastated. In the summer of 1586, for example, a Spanish army besieged the city of Neuss. Led by Alessandro Farnese, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, the 1,600-strong Protestant garrison was completely massacred after the capture, as were two-thirds of the townspeople. Neuss went up in flames; only eight houses love spared.

It was not until 1588 that Gebhard von Waldburg finally gave up the hopeless struggle and moved back to Strasbourg: the Cologne War ended after almost five years. From then on, the former archbishop lived as a Protestant clergyman at the court of Duke Friedrich von Württemberg. Gebhard died in Strasbourg in 1601 and was buried in the cathedral there; his tomb, however, was later removed. Nothing is known about the further fate of Agnes; The two probably didn't have children.

Unlike his successor Ernst von Bayern: The supposedly strict supporter of the Counter-Reformation (1554 to 1612) lived privately with Gertrud von Plettenberg, spent his time in Arnsberg almost constantly from 1595 on account of her, had their son Wilhelm von Bayern with her - and married they evidently in 1605. This yes word, however, did not trigger a new war.

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