The Catholic Counter-Reformation, initiated in 1545 at the Council of Trent was spearheaded by the scholarly religious Jesuit order, that was founded just five years prior by several clerics around Ignatius of Loyola. Its intent was to challenge and contain the Protestant Reformation via apologetic and polemical writings and decrees, ecclesiastical reconfiguration, wars and imperial political maneuverings. In 1547 emperor Charles V defeated the Schmalkaldic League, a military alliance of Protestant rulers. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg decreed the recognition of the Lutheran Faith and religious division of the empire. It also stipulated the ruler's right to determine the official confession in his principality ("Cuius regio, eius religio"). The Counter-Reformation eventually failed to reintegrate the central and northern German Lutheran states. In 1608/1609 the Protestant Union and the Catholic League were formed.