Like his
Wittelsbach father and grandfather, William V was a strong supporter of the
Counter-Reformation. He secured the
archbishopric of
Cologne for his brother Ernest with his campaign in 1583; his brother
Ferdinand commanded the Bavarian army in the first 18 months of the
Cologne War in an effort to secure the
Electorate. Eventually, the Spanish army, under the command of
Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma expelled the Calvinist contender for the Electorate,
Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, and Ernst secured sole possession of both the Electorate and the Archdiocese of Cologne. This dignity remained in the possession of the family for nearly 200 years. Two of William V's sons also followed ecclesiastical careers:
Philipp Wilhelm of Bavaria became the
Bishop of Regensburg and eventually a
Cardinal, and
Ferdinand of Bavaria succeeded his uncle as
Archbishop of Cologne. In 1591, Philipp Wilhelm expelled
Salzburg from the
Berchtesgaden Provostry, the future possession of his son Ferdinand. During William V's reign, non-Catholics were forced to leave Bavaria, and the so-called
Geistlicher Rat, an ecclesiastical council, was formed to advise William V on theological affairs, independent of the traditional privy council or the treasury, which administered secular affairs. The Geistlicher Rat supervised and disciplined the duchy's Catholic clergy through regular visitations; it controlled the Catholicism of all the state officials by issuing certificates documenting their annual confession and communion; it funded new Catholic schools, new Catholic colleges, new houses of religious orders, especially the
missionary and educational ones, such as the Jesuits and
Capuchins for men and the
Ursulines for women. William V is responsible for numerous executions due to
witch-hunts in his duchy. In 1582 William V gifted a Trumpeter Automaton with five trumpeters and one drummer to the
Habsburg Archduke of Tyrol Ferdinand II (1529-1595). The Automaton was crafted in the Free Imperial City of Augsburg by the jeweler
Valentin Drausch and the clockmaker
Hans Schlottheim. The
Jesuit St. Michael's Church and
college of the Jesuits were built in Munich between 1583 and 1597 as spiritual centers for the counter-reformation. William V's spending on Church-related projects, including funding missionaries outside Bavaria—as far away as Asia and the Americas—put tremendous strain on the Bavarian treasury. The Venetian confidence man
Marco Bragadino who was promising to make copious amounts of gold to erase the Dukes's debts was called upon by William V in 1590, and executed after he had failed. William V abdicated on 15 October 1597 in favour of his son,
Maximilian I and retired into a monastery where he spent the remainder of his life in contemplation and prayer. He died in 1626 at the
Old Schleissheim Palace and was buried at St. Michael's Church, Munich. ==Cultural activity==