Finally, it must be remembered that, if the Peace of Augsburg aligned the whole nation into two mutually hostile camps, it at least kept them from war for more than {132} half a century.

Nor was this a mere accident, for the strain was at times severe.

When the imperial knight, Grumbach, broke the peace by sacking the city of Wuerzburg, [Sidenote: 1563-7] he was put under the ban, captured and executed.

His protector, Duke John Frederic of Saxony, was also captured and kept in confinement in Austria until his death.
Notwithstanding such an exhibition of centralized power, it is probable that the Peace of Augsburg increased rather than diminished the authority of the territorial states at the expense of the imperial government.

Charles V, worn out by his long and unsuccessful struggle with heresy, after giving the Netherlands to his son Philip in 1555, abdicated the crown of the Empire to his brother Ferdinand in 1556.
[Sidenote: Ferdinand, 1556-64] He died two years later in a monastery, a disappointed man, having expressed the wish that he had burned Luther at Worms.