Ernest of Bavaria's 1583 accession to the Archbishopric of Cologne was anything but peaceful. His election triggered the Cologne War, a direct consequence of his predecessor Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg converting to Protestantism and attempting to secularize the archbishopric — a move that threatened to flip the ecclesiastical vote in the Imperial Diet. Spanish troops intervened militarily to seat Ernest, and this thaler was struck in the immediate aftermath of that conflict, making it an artifact of one of the more consequential succession crises of the German Reformation period.
Ernest of Bavaria's 1583 accession to the Archbishopric of Cologne was anything but peaceful. His election triggered the Cologne War, a direct consequence of his predecessor Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg converting to Protestantism and attempting to secularize the archbishopric — a move that threatened to flip the ecclesiastical vote in the Imperial Diet. Spanish troops intervened militarily to seat Ernest, and this thaler was struck in the immediate aftermath of that conflict, making it an artifact of one of the more consequential succession crises of the German Reformation period.