XLVI. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING…

XLVI. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING

By the Revival of Learning, in the most general sense, is meant the intellectual awakening of Europe after the languor and depression of the first mediæval centuries. In a narrower sense, however, the phrase is used to designate that wonderful renewal of interest in the old Greek and Latin authors which sprung up in Italy about the beginning of the fourteenth century. We shall use the expression in its most comprehensive sense, thus making the restoration of classical letters simply a part of the great Revival of Learning.

SCHOLASTICISM AND THE SCHOOLMEN.--One of Charlemagne's most fruitful labors was the establishment of schools, in connection with the cathedrals and monasteries, throughout his dominions. Within these schools there grew up in the course of time a form of philosophy called, from the place of its origin, Scholasticism, while its expounders were known as Schoolmen. This philosophy was a fusion of Christianity and Aristotelian logic. It might be defined as being, in its later stages, an effort to reconcile revelation and reason, faith and philosophy. Viewed in this light, it was not altogether unlike that theological philosophy of the present day whose aim is to harmonize the Bible with the facts of modern science.

The greatest of the Schoolmen appeared in the thirteenth century. Among them were Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus. The most eminent of these was Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), who was called the "Angel of the Schools." He was the strongest champion of mediæval orthodoxy. His remarkable work, entitled the Summa Theologica, outlines and defends the whole scheme of Roman Catholic theology.

The Schoolmen often busied themselves with the most unprofitable questions in metaphysics and theology, yet their discussions were not without good results. These debates sharpened the wits of men, created activity of thought and deftness in argument. The schools of the times became real mental gymnasia, in which the young awakening mind of Europe received its first training and gained its earliest strength.

THE UNIVERSITIES.--Closely related to the subject of Scholasticism is the history of the universities, which, springing up in the thirteenth century, became a powerful agency in the Revival of Learning. They were for the most part expansions of the old cathedral and abbey schools, their transformation being effected largely through the reputation of the Schoolmen, who drew such multitudes to their lectures that it became necessary to reorganize the schools on a broader basis. Popes and kings granted them charters which conferred special privileges upon their faculties and students, as, for instance, exemption from taxation and from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. The celebrated University of Paris was the first founded, and that of Bologna was probably next in order.

The usual course of study in the universities was divided into what was known as the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium embraced Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric; the quadrivium, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. These constituted the seven liberal arts. Greek, Hebrew, and the physical sciences received but little attention. Medicine had not yet freed itself from the influence of magic and astrology, and alchemy had not yet given birth to chemistry. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe still held sway. However, in all these matters the European mind was making progress, was blindly groping its way towards the light.

INFLUENCE OF THE SARACENS.--The progress of the Christian scholars of Europe in the physical sciences was greatly accelerated by the Saracens, who, during the Dark Ages, were almost the sole repositories of the scientific knowledge of the world. A part of this they gathered for themselves, for the Arabian scholars were original investigators, but a larger share of it they borrowed from the Greeks. While the Western nations were too ignorant to know the value of the treasures of antiquity, the Saracens preserved them by translating into Arabic the scientific works of Aristotle and other Greek authors; and then, when Europe was prepared to appreciate these accumulations of the past, gave them back to her. This learning came into Europe in part through the channel of the Crusades, but more largely, and at an earlier date, through the Arabian schools in Spain. Two of the greatest scholars of the thirteenth century, or perhaps of all the mediæval ages, Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, owed very much of their scientific knowledge to the Arabians.

EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES.--Having in a previous chapter dwelt on the effects of the Crusades upon the intellectual development of the European peoples (see p. 449) there is no need that we here do more than refer to the matter, in order that we may fix in mind the place of the Holy Wars among the agencies that conspired to bring about the Revival of Learning. The stimulating, quickening, liberalizing tendency of these chivalric enterprises was one of the most potent forces concerned in the mental movement we are tracing.

RISE OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES.--Between the tenth and the fourteenth century the native tongues of Europe. began to form literatures of their own. We have already spoken of the formation and gradual growth of these languages (see p. 386). As soon as their forms became somewhat settled, then literature was possible, and all these speeches bud and blossom into song and romance. This formation of modern European languages and birth of native literatures, was one of the greatest gains in the interest of general intelligence; for the Schoolmen used the Latin language, and their discussions and writings consequently influenced only a limited class; while the native literatures addressed themselves to the masses, and thus stirred the universal mind and heart of Europe.

THE REVIVAL OF CLASSICAL LEARNING.--About the beginning of the fourteenth century there sprung up in Italy a great enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature and art. This is what is generally known as the Italian Renaissance, or the New Birth.

The Renaissance divides itself as follows: 1. The revival of classical learning; 2. The revival of classical art. It is with the first only, the intellectual and literary phase of the movement, that we are now concerned. This feature of the movement is called Humanism, and the promoters of it are known as Humanists. [Footnote: That is, students of the humanities, or polite literature.] The real originator of the humanistic movement was Petrarch [Footnote: The great Florentine poet, Dante (1265-1321), was the forerunner of Humanism, but was not, properly speaking, a Humanist. His Divine Comedy is the "Epic of Mediævalism."] (1304-1374). His love for the old Greek and Latin writers was a passion amounting to a worship. He often wrote love-letters to his favorite authors. In one to Homer he laments the lack of taste among his countrymen, and declares that there are not more than ten persons in all Italy who could appreciate the Iliad. Next to Petrarch stands Boccaccio (1313-1375), as the second of the Humanists.

Just as the antiquarians of to-day search the mounds of Assyria for relics of the ancient civilizations of the East, so did the Humanists ransack the libraries of the monasteries and cathedrals, and all the out-of-the-way places of Europe, for old manuscripts of the classic writers. The precious documents were found covered with mould in damp cellars, or loaded with dust in the attics of monasteries. This late search for these remains of classical authors saved to the world hundreds of valuable manuscripts which, a little longer neglected, would have been forever lost. Libraries were founded in which the new treasures might be stored, and copies of the manuscripts were made and distributed among all who could appreciate them. It was at this time that the celebrated Vatican Library was established by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-1455), one of the most generous promoters of the humanistic movement.

This reviving interest in the literature of ancient Greece was vastly augmented by the disasters just now befalling the Greek empire (see p. 462). From every part of the crumbling state scholars fled before the approach of the barbarians, and sought shelter in the West, especially in Italy, bringing with them many valuable manuscripts of the old Greek masters, who were almost unknown in Western Europe, and always an enthusiasm for Greek learning. There was now a repetition of what took place at Rome upon the conquest of Greece in the days of the Republic. Italy was conquered a second time by the genius of Greece.

Before the close of the fifteenth century, the enthusiasm for classical authors had infected the countries beyond the Alps. The New Learning, as it was called, found a place in the colleges and universities of Germany, France, and England. Greek was added to Latin as one of the requirements in a liberal education, and from that day to this has maintained a prominent place in all our higher institutions of learning. In Northern Europe, however, the humanistic movement became blended with other tendencies. In Italy it had been an exclusive passion, a single devotion to classical literature; but here in the North there was added to this enthusiasm for Græco-Roman letters an equal and indeed supremer interest in what we have called the Hebrew element in civilization (see p. 368). Petrarch hung over the pages of Homer; Luther pores over the pages of the Bible. The Renaissance, in a word, becomes the Reformation; the Humanist becomes the Reformer.

EVIL AND GOOD RESULTS OF THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL.--There were some serious evils inherent in the classical revival. In Italy, especially, where the humanistic spirit took most complete possession of society, it was "disastrous to both faith and morals." The study of the old pagan writers produced the result predicted by the monks,--caused a revival of paganism. To be learned in Greek was to excite suspicion of heresy. With the New Learning came also those vices and immoralities that characterized the decline of classical civilization. Italy was corrupted by the new influences that flowed in upon her, just as Rome was corrupted by Grecian luxury and vice in the days of the failing republic.

On the other hand, the benefits of the movement to European civilization were varied and positive. The classical revival gave to Europe, not only faultless literary models, but large stores of valuable knowledge. As Woolsey says, "The old civilization contained treasures of permanent value which the world could not spare, which the world will never be able or willing to spare. These were taken up into the stream of life, and proved true aids to the progress of a culture which is gathering in one the beauty and truth of all the ages." And to the same effect are the words of Symonds, who closes his appreciative review of the Italian Revival of Letters as follows: "Such is the Lampadephoria, or torch-race, of the nations. Greece stretches out her hand to Italy; Italy consigns the sacred fire to Northern Europe; the people of the North pass on the flame to America, to India, and the Australasian Isles."

PRINTING.--One of the most helpful agencies concerned in the Revival of Learning, was the invention of printing from movable blocks, or type,--the most important discovery, in the estimation of Hallam, recorded in the annals of mankind. For this improvement the world is probably indebted to John Gutenberg of Mentz (1438).[Footnote: Dutch writers maintain that the honor of the invention belongs to Costar of Haarlem.]

The new art would have been much restricted in its usefulness had it not been for the bringing to perfection about this time of the art of making paper from linen rags. This article took the place of the costly parchment, and rendered it possible to place books within the reach of all classes.

The first book printed from movable types was a Latin copy of the Bible, issued at Mentz, in Germany, between the years 1450 and 1455. The art spread rapidly, and before the close of the fifteenth century presses were busy in every country of Europe, multiplying books with a rapidity undreamed of by the patient copyists of the cloister.

It is needless to dwell upon the tremendous impulse which the new art gave, not only to the humanistic movement, but to the general intellectual progress of the European nations. Without it, the Revival of Learning must have languished, and the Reformation could hardly have become a fact in history. Its instrument, the press, is fitly chosen as the symbol of the new era of intelligence and freedom which it ushered in.

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Chapter XLVII

GROWTH OF THE NATIONS.--FORMATION OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS AND LITERATURES.

INTRODUCTORY.--The most important movement that marked the latter part of the Middle Ages was the grouping, in several of the countries of Europe, of the petty feudal states and half-independent cities and towns into great nations with strong centralized governments. This movement was accompanied by, or rather consisted in, the decline of Feudalism as a governmental system, the loss by the cities of their freedom, and the growth of the power of the kings.

Many things contributed to this consolidation of peoples and governments, different circumstances favoring the movement in the several countries. In some countries, however, events were opposed to the centralizing tendency, and in these the Modern Age was reached without nationality having been found. But in England, in France, and in Spain circumstances all seemed to tend towards unity, and by the close of the fifteenth century there were established in these countries strong despotic monarchies. Yet even among those peoples where national governments did not appear, some progress was made towards unity through the formation of national languages and literatures, and the development of common feelings, sentiments, and aspirations, so that these peoples were manifestly only awaiting the opportunities of a happier period for the maturing of their national life.

This rise of Monarchy and decline of Feudalism, this substitution of strong centralized governments in place of the feeble, irregular, and conflicting authorities of the feudal nobles, was a very great gain to the cause of law and good order. It paved the way for modern progress and civilization.

1. ENGLAND.

GENERAL STATEMENT.--In preceding chapters we have told of the origin of the English people, and traced their growth under Saxon, Danish, and Norman rulers (see pp. 375, 411, 433). We shall, in the present section, tell very briefly the story of their progress under the Plantagenet kings, thus carrying on our narrative to the accession of the Tudors in 1485, from which event dates the beginning of the modern history of England.

The era of the Plantagenets, which covers three hundred and thirty-one years, was a most eventful one in English history. The chief political matters that we shall notice were the wresting of Magna Charta from King John, the formation of the House of Commons, the Conquest of Wales, the Wars with Scotland, the Hundred Years' War with France, and the Wars of the Roses. [Footnote: The name Plantagenet came from the peculiar badge, a sprig of broom-plant (plante de genet), adopted by one of the early members of the House. Following is a table of the sovereigns of the family:-- Henry II.. . . . . . . 1154-1189 Richard I. . . . . . . 1189-1199 John . . . . . . . . . 1199-1216 Henry III. . . . . . . 1216-1272 Edward I . . . . . . . 1272-1307 Edward II. . . . . . . 1307-1327 Edward III . . . . . . 1327-1377 Richard II . . . . . . 1377-1399

HOUSE OF LANCASTER. Henry IV . . . . . . . 1399-1413 Henry V. . . . . . . . 1413-1422 Henry VI . . . . . . . 1422-1461

HOUSE OF YORK. Edward IV. . . . . . . 1461-1483 Edward V . . . . . . . 1483 Richard III. . . . . . 1483-1485]

MAGNA CHARTA (1215).--Magna Charta, the "Great Charter," held sacred as the basis of English liberties, was an instrument which the English barons and clergy forced King John to grant, in which the ancient rights and privileges of the people were clearly defined and guaranteed.

King John (1199-1216), the third of the Plantagenet line, was as tyrannical as he was unscrupulous and wicked. His course led to an open revolt of the barons, who were resolved upon the recovery of their ancient liberties. The tyrant was forced to bow to the storm he had raised. He met his barons at Runnymede, a meadow on the Thames, and there affixed his seal to the instrument that had been prepared to receive it.

Among the important articles of the paper were the following: No freeman should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, "save by legal judgment of his peers." No taxes (save several feudal aids specified) should be imposed "save by the Common Council of the realm." [Footnote: This article respecting taxation was suffered to fall into abeyance in the reign of John's successor, Henry III., and it was not until about one hundred years after the granting of Magna Charta that the great principle that the people should be taxed only through their representatives in Parliament, became fully established.]

Besides these articles, which form the foundation of the English Constitution, there were others abolishing numerous abuses and confirming various time-honored rights and privileges of the towns and of different classes of freemen.

The Great Charter was often disregarded and broken by despotic sovereigns; but the people always clung to it as the warrant and basis of their liberties, and again and again forced tyrannical kings to renew and confirm its provisions, and swear solemnly to observe all its articles.

Considering the far-reaching consequences that resulted from the granting of Magna Charta,--the securing of constitutional liberty as an inheritance for the English-speaking race in all parts of the world,--it must always be considered the most important concession that a freedom- loving people ever wrung from a tyrannical sovereign.

BEGINNING OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (1265).--The reign of Henry III. (1216- 1272), John's son and successor, witnessed the second important step taken in English constitutional freedom. This was the formation of the House of Commons, Parliament having up to this time consisted of a single House, made up of nobles and bishops. It was again the royal misbehavior that led to this great change in the form of the English national assembly. Henry had violated his oath to rule according to the Great Charter, and had become even more tyrannical than his father. The indignant barons rose in revolt, and Henry and his son being worsted in a great engagement, known as the battle of Lewes (1264), were made prisoners.

Simon de Montfort, a Frenchman, whom Henry had given a prominent position in the government, now assumed control of affairs. He issued, in the king's name, writs of summons to the nobles and bishops to meet in Parliament; and at the same time sent similar writs to the sheriffs of the different shires, directing them "to return two knights for the body of their county, with two citizens or burghers for every city and borough contained in it." This was the first time that plain untitled citizens or burghers had been called to take their place with the knights, lords, and bishops in the great council of the nation, to join in deliberations on the affairs of the realm. [Footnote: At first the Commons could only take part in questions relating to taxation, but gradually they acquired the right to share in all matters that might come before Parliament.] The Commons were naturally at first a weak and timorous body, quite overawed by the great lords, but were destined eventually to grow into the controlling branch of the British Parliament.

CONQUEST OF WALES.--For more than a thousand years the Celtic tribes of Wales maintained among their mountain fastnesses an ever-renewed struggle with the successive invaders and conquerors of England--with Roman, Saxon, and Norman. They never submitted their necks to the Roman yoke, but they were forced to acknowledge the overlordship of some of the Saxon and Norman kings. They were restless vassals, however, and were constantly withholding tribute and refusing homage.

When Edward I. came to the English throne in 1272, Llewellyn, the overlord of the Welsh chiefs, with the title of Prince of Wales, refused to render homage to the new king. War followed. Llewellyn was slain, and the independence of his race forever extinguished (1282). The title of the Welsh chieftain has ever since been borne by the eldest son of the English sovereign.

WARS WITH SCOTLAND (1296-1328).--In 1285 the ancient Celtic line of Scottish chiefs became extinct. Thirteen claimants for the vacant throne immediately arose. Chief among these were Robert Bruce and John Balliol, distinguished noblemen of Norman descent, attached to the Scottish court. King Edward I. of England, who claimed suzerain rights over the Scottish realm, was asked to act as arbitrator, and decide to whom the crown should be given. He decided the question of the succession in favor of Balliol, who now took the crown of Scotland as the acknowledged vassal of the English sovereign.

Edward's unjust demands on the Scottish king led him to cast off his feudal allegiance. In the war that followed, the Scots were defeated, and Scotland now fell back as a fief forfeited by treason, into the hands of Edward (1296). As a sign that the Scottish kingdom had come to an end, Edward carried off to London the royal regalia, and with this a large stone, known as the Stone of Scone, upon which the Scottish kings, from time out of memory, had been accustomed to be crowned. Legend declared that the relic was the very stone on which Jacob had slept at Bethel. The block was taken to Westminster Abbey, and there made to support the seat of a stately throne-chair, which to this day is used in the coronation ceremonies of the English sovereigns. It is said that the stone once bore this legend:--

"Should fate not fail, where'er this stone be found, The Scot shall monarch of that realm be crowned,"

which prophecy was fulfilled when James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England. [Footnote: "Whether the prophecy was actually inscribed on the stone may be doubted, though this seems to be implied, and on the lower side is still visible a groove which may have contained it; but the fact that it was circulated and believed as early as the fourteenth century, is certain."--Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey.]

The two countries were not long united. The Scotch people loved too well their ancient liberties to submit quietly to this extinguishment of their national independence. Under the inspiration and lead of the famous Sir William Wallace, an outlaw knight, all the Lowlands were soon in determined revolt. It was chiefly from the peasantry that the patriot hero drew his followers. Wallace gained some successes, but at length was betrayed into Edward's hands. He was condemned to death as a traitor, and his head, garlanded with a crown of laurel, was exposed on London Bridge (1305). The romantic life of Wallace, his patriotic service, his heroic exploits, and his tragic death, at once lifted him to the place that he has ever since held, as the national hero of Scotland.

The struggle in which Wallace had fallen, was soon renewed by the almost equally renowned hero Robert Bruce (grandson of the Robert Bruce mentioned on p. 482), who was the representative of the nobles, as Wallace had been of the common people. With Edward II. Bruce fought the great Battle of Bannockburn, near Stirling. Edward's army was almost annihilated (1314). It was the most appalling disaster that had befallen the arms of the English people since the memorable defeat of Harold at Hastings.

The independence of Scotland really dates from the great victory of Bannockburn, but the English were too proud to acknowledge it until fourteen years more of war. Finally, in the year 1328, the young king Edward III. gave up all claim to the Scottish crown, and Scotland with the hero Bruce as its king, took its place as an independent power among the nations of Europe.

The independence gained by the Scotch at Bannockburn was maintained for nearly three centuries,--until 1603,--when the crowns of England and Scotland were peacefully united in the person of James Stuart VI. of Scotland. During the greater part of these three hundred years the two countries were very quarrelsome neighbors.

The Hundred Years' War (1336-1453).

CAUSES OF THE WAR.--The long and wasteful war between England and France, known in history as the Hundred Years' War, was a most eventful one, and its effects upon both England and France so important and lasting as to entitle it to a prominent place in the records of the closing events of the Middle Ages. Freeman likens the contest to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece.

The war with Scotland was one of the things that led up to this war. All through that struggle, France, as the jealous rival of England, was ever giving aid and encouragement to the Scotch rebels. Then the English lands in France, for which the English king did homage to the French king as overlord, were a source of constant dispute between the two countries. Furthermore, upon the death of Charles IV., the last of the Capetian line, Edward III. laid claim, through his mother, to the French crown, in much the same way that William of Normandy centuries before had laid claim to the crown of England.

THE BATTLE OF CRÉCY (1346).--The first great combat of the long war was the memorable battle of Crécy. Edward had invaded France with an army of 30,000 men, made up largely of English bowmen, and had penetrated far into the country, ravaging as he went, when he finally halted, and faced the pursuing French army near the village of Crécy, where he inflicted upon it a most terrible defeat; 1200 knights, the flower of French chivalry, and 30,000 foot-soldiers lay dead upon the field.

The great battle of Crécy is memorable for several reasons, but chiefly because Feudalism and Chivalry there received their death-blow. The yeomanry of England there showed themselves superior to the chivalry of France. "The churl had struck down the noble; the bondsman proved more than a match, in sheer hard fighting, for the knight. From the day of Crécy, Feudalism tottered slowly but surely to its grave." The battles of the world were hereafter, with few exceptions, to be fought and won, not by mail-clad knights with battle-axe and lance, but by common foot- soldiers with bow and gun.

THE CAPTURE OF CALAIS.--From the field of Crécy Edward led his army to the siege of Calais. At the end of a year's investment, the city fell into the hands of the English. The capture of this sea-port was a very important event for the English, as it gave them control of the commerce of the Channel, and afforded them a convenient landing-place for their expeditions of invasion into France.

THE BATTLE OF POITIERS (1356).-The terrible scourge of the "Black Death," [Footnotes: The Black Death was so called on account of the black spots which covered the body of the person attacked. It was a contagious fever, which, like the pestilence in the reign of Justinian, entered Europe from the East, and made terrible ravages during the years 1347-49. In Germany over 1,000,000 persons fell victims to the plague, while in England, according to some authorities, one-half of the population was swept away. The pestilence was also especially severe in Florence, in Italy. Under the terror and excitement of the dreadful visitation, religious penitents, thinking to turn away the wrath of heaven by unusual penances, went about in procession, lacerating themselves with whips (hence they were called flagellants). This religious frenzy had its most remarkable manifestation in Germany.] which desolated all Europe about the middle of the fourteenth century, caused the contending nations for a time to forget their quarrel. But no sooner had a purer atmosphere breathed upon the continent than the old struggle was renewed with fresh eagerness.

Edward III. planned a double invasion of France. He himself led an army through the already wasted provinces of the North, while the Black Prince with another army ravaged the fields of the South. As the Prince's army, numbering about 8000 men, loaded with booty, was making its way back to the coast, it found its path, near Poitiers, obstructed by a French army of 50,000. A battle ensued which proved for the French a second Crécy. The arrows of the English bowmen drove them in fatal panic from the field, which was strewn with 11,000 of their dead.

BATTLE OF AGINCOURT (1415).--For half a century after the Peace [Footnote: The Treaty of Brétigny (1360).] that followed the battle of Poitiers there was a lull in the war. But while Henry V. (1413-1422) was reigning in England, France was unfortunate in having an insane king, Charles VI.; and Henry, taking advantage of the disorder into which the French kingdom naturally fell under these circumstances, invaded the country with a powerful army, defeated the French in the great battle of Agincourt (1415), and five years later concluded the Treaty of Troyes, in which, so discouraged had the French become, a large party agreed that the crown of France should be given to him upon the death of Charles.

JOAN OF ARC.--But patriotism was not yet wholly extinct among the French people. There were many who regarded the concessions of the Treaty of Troyes as not only weak and shameful, but as unjust to the Dauphin Charles, who was thereby disinherited, and they accordingly refused to be bound by its provisions. Consequently, when the poor insane king died, the terms of the treaty were not carried out, and the war dragged on. The party that stood by their native prince, afterwards crowned as Charles VII., were at last reduced to most desperate straits. A great part of the northern section of the country was in the hands of the English, who were holding in close siege the important city of Orleans.

But the darkness was the deep gloom that precedes the dawn. A strange deliverer now appears,--the famous Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans. This young peasant girl, with imagination all aflame from brooding over her country's wrongs and sufferings, seemed to see visions and hear voices, which bade her undertake the work of delivering France. She was obedient unto the heavenly vision.

The warm, impulsive French nation, ever quick in responding to appeals to the imagination, was aroused exactly as it was stirred by the voice of the preachers of the Crusades. Religious enthusiasm now accomplished what patriotism alone could not do.

Received by her countrymen as a messenger from heaven, the maiden kindled throughout the land a flame of enthusiasm that nothing could resist. Inspiring the dispirited French soldiers with new courage, she forced the English to raise the siege of Orleans (from which exploit she became known as the Maid of Orleans), and speedily brought about the coronation of Prince Charles at Reims (1429). Shortly afterward she fell into the hands of the English, and was condemned and burned as a heretic and witch.

But the spirit of the Maid had already taken possession of the French nation. From this on, the war, though long continued, went steadily against the English. Little by little they were pushed back and off from the soil they had conquered, until, by the middle of the fifteenth century, they were driven quite out of the country, retaining no foothold in the land save Calais (see p. 553).

Thus ended the Hundred Years' War, in 1453, the very year which saw Constantinople fall before the Turks.

EFFECTS UPON ENGLAND OF THE WAR.--The most lasting and important effects upon England of the war were the enhancement of the power of the Lower House of Parliament, and the awakening of a national spirit and feeling. The maintaining of the long and costly quarrel called for such heavy expenditures of men and money that the English kings were made more dependent than hitherto upon the representatives of the people, who were careful to make their grants of supplies conditional upon the correction of abuses or the confirming of their privileges. Thus the war served to make the Commons a power in the English government. Again, as the war was participated in by all classes alike, the great victories of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt roused a national pride, which led to a closer union between the different elements of society. Normans and English were fused by the ardor of a common patriotic enthusiasm into a single people. The real national life of England dates from this time. (For the effects of the war on France, see p. 494.)

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485).

GENERAL STATEMENT.--The Wars of the Roses is the name given to a long, shameful, and selfish contest between the adherents of the Houses of York and Lancaster, rival branches of the royal family of England. The strife, which was for place and power, was so named because the Yorkists adopted as their badge a white rose and the Lancastrians a red one.

The battle of Bosworth Field (1485) marks the close of the war. In this fight King Richard III., the last of the House of York, was overthrown and slain by Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, who was crowned on the field with the diadem which had fallen from the head of Richard, and saluted as King Henry VII., the first of the Tudors.

THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR.--The most important result of the Wars of the Roses was the ruin of the baronage of England. One-half of the nobility was slain. Those that survived were ruined, their estates having been wasted or confiscated during the progress of the struggle. Not a single great house retained its old-time wealth and influence.

The second result of the struggle sprung from the first. This was the great peril into which English liberty was cast by the ruin of the nobility. It will be recalled that it was the barons who forced the Great Charter from King John (see p. 479), and who kept him and his successors from reigning like absolute monarchs. Now that once proud and powerful baronage were ruined, and their confiscated estates had gone to increase the influence and patronage of the king. He being no longer in wholesome fear of Parliament, for the Commons were as yet weak and timid, did pretty much as he pleased, and became insufferably oppressive and tyrannical; raising taxes, for instance, without the consent of Parliament, and imprisoning and executing persons without due process of law. For the hundred years following the Wars of the Roses the government of England was rather an absolute than a limited monarchy. Not until the final Revolution of the seventeenth century (see Chap. LV.) did the people, by overturning the throne of the Stuarts, fully recover their lost liberties.

Growth of the English Language and Literature.

THE LANGUAGE.--From the Norman Conquest to the middle of the fourteenth century there were in use in England three languages: Norman French was the speech of the conquerors and the medium of polite literature; Old English was the tongue of the common people; while Latin was the language of the laws and records, of the church services, and of the works of the learned.

Modern English is the Old English worn and improved by use, and enriched by a large infusion of Norman-French words, with less important additions from the Latin and other languages. It took the place of the Norman-French in the courts of law about the middle of the fourteenth century. At this time the language was broken up into many dialects, and the expression "King's English" is supposed to have referred to the standard form employed in state documents and in use at court.

EFFECT OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.--The blow that struck down King Harold and his brave thanes on the field of Hastings silenced for the space of about a century the voice of English literature. The tongue of the conquerors became the speech of the court, the nobility, and the clergy; while the language of the despised English was, like themselves, crowded out of every place of honor. But when, after a few generations, the down-trodden race began to re-assert itself, English literature emerged from its obscurity, and with an utterance somewhat changed--yet it is unmistakably the same voice--resumes its interrupted lesson and its broken song.

CHAUCER (1328?-1400).--Holding a position high above all other writers of early English is Geoffrey Chaucer. He is the first in time, and, after Shakespeare, perhaps the first in genius, among the great poets of the English-speaking race. He is reverently called the "Father of English Poetry."

Chaucer stands between two ages, the mediæval and the modern. He felt not only the influences of the age of Feudalism which was passing away, but also those of the new age of learning and freedom which was dawning. It is because he reflects his surroundings so faithfully in his writings, that these are so valuable as interpreters of the period in which he lived. Chaucer's greatest work is his Canterbury Tales, wherein the poet represents himself as one of a company of story-telling pilgrims who have set out from London on a journey to the tomb of Thomas Becket, at Canterbury.

WYCLIFFE AND THE REFORMATION (1324-1384).--Foremost among the reformers and religious writers of the period under review was Wycliffe, "The Morning Star of the Reformation." He gave the English people the first translation of the entire Bible in their native tongue. There was no press at that time to multiply editions of the book, but by means of manuscript copies it was widely circulated and read. Its influence was very great, and from its appearance may be dated the beginning of the Reformation in England.

The followers of Wycliffe became known as "Lollards" (babblers), a term applied to them in derision. They grew to be very numerous, and threatened by their excesses and imprudent zeal the peace of the state. They were finally suppressed by force.

2. FRANCE.

BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH KINGDOM.--The kingdom of France begins properly with the accession of the first of the Capetian rulers, late in the tenth century. The Merovingian and Carolingian kings were simply German princes reigning in Gaul. The Capetians held the throne for more than three centuries, when they were followed by the Valois kings. The last of the main line of the Valois family gave way to the first of the Valois-Orleans sovereigns in 1498, which date may be allowed to mark the beginning of modern French history.

We shall now direct attention to the most important transactions of the period covered by the Capetian and Valois dynasties. Our aim will be to give prominence to those matters which concern the gradual consolidation of the French monarchy.

France under the Capetians (987-1328). [Footnote: Table of the Capetian Kings:-- Hugh Capet (the Great). . . 987--996 Robert II. (the Sage) . . . 996-1031 Henry I.. . . . . . . . . . 1031-1060 Philip I. . . . . . . . . . 1060-1108 Louis VI. (the Fat) . . . . 1108-1137 Louis VII. (the Young). . . 1137-1180 Philip II. (Augustus) . . . 1180-1223 Louis VIII. (Lion-hearted). 1223-1226 Louis IX. (the Saint) . . . 1226-1270 Philip III. (the Hardy) . . 1270-1285 Philip IV. (the Fair) . . . 1285-1314 Louis X. (the Stubborn) . . 1314-1316 Philip V. (the Tall). . . . 1316-1322 Charles IV.(the Handsome) . 1322-1328]

The first Capetian king differed from his vassal counts and dukes simply in having a more dignified title; his power was scarcely greater than that of many of the lords who paid him homage as their suzerain. The fourth king of the line (Philip I.) confessed that he had grown gray while trying to capture a castle which stood within sight of Paris; and evidently he had abandoned all hope of getting possession of it, for he charged his son, to whom he one day pointed it out, to watch it well. How various events and circumstances--conquests, treaties, politic marriage alliances, and unjust encroachments--conspired to build up the power of the kings will appear as we go on.

The most noteworthy events of the Capetian period were the acquisition by the French crown of the English possessions in France, the Holy Wars for the recovery of Jerusalem, the crusade against the Albigenses, and the creation of the States-General. Of these several matters we will now speak in order.

THE ENGLISH POSSESSIONS IN FRANCE.--The issue of the battle of Hastings, in 1066, made William of Normandy king of England. He ruled that country by right of conquest. But we must bear in mind that he still held his possessions in France as a fief from the French king, whose vassal he was. This was the beginning of the possessions on the continent of the English kings. Then, when Henry, Count of Anjou, came to the English throne as the first of the Plantagenets, these territories were greatly increased by the French possessions of that prince. The larger part of Henry's dominions, indeed, was in France, almost the whole of the western coast of the country being in his hands; but for all of this he, of course, paid homage to the French king.

As was inevitable, a feeling of intense jealousy sprang up between the two sovereigns. The French king was ever watching for some pretext upon which he might deprive his rival of his possessions in France. The opportunity came when King John, in 1199, succeeded Richard the Lion-hearted upon the English throne. That odious tyrant was accused, and doubtless justly, of having murdered his nephew Arthur. Philip Augustus, who then held the French throne, as John's feudal superior, ordered him to clear himself of the charge before his French peers. John refusing to do so, Philip declared forfeited all the lands he held as fiefs of the French Crown [Footnote: This was the second condemnation of John. A year before this time (in 1202), John having refused to answer a charge of tyranny preferred by the nobles of Poitou, Philip had declared his fief to be forfeited. It was in the turmoil which followed this sentence, that Arthur was taken prisoner by John and afterwards murdered.], and thereupon proceeded to seize Normandy and other possessions of John in the North of France, leaving him scarcely anything save the Duchy of Aquitaine in the South. The annexation of these large possessions to the crown of France brought a vast accession of power and patronage to the king, who was now easily the superior of any of his great vassals.

THE FRENCH AND THE CRUSADES.--The age of the Capetians was the age of the Crusades. These romantic expeditions, while stirring all Christendom, appealed especially to the ardent, imaginative genius of the Gallic race. Three Capetian kings, Louis VII., Philip Augustus, and Louis IX., themselves headed several of the wild expeditions.

It is the influence of the Crusades on the French monarchy that we alone need to notice in this place. They tended very materially to weaken the power and influence of the feudal nobility, and in a corresponding degree to strengthen the authority of the crown and add to its dignity. The way in which they brought about this transfer of power from the aristocracy to the king has been explained in the chapter on the Crusades (see p. 450).

CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES (1207-1229).--During this age of religious enthusiasm holy wars were directed as well against heretics as infidels. In the South of France was a sect of Christians called Albigenses [Footnote: From Albi, the name of a city and district in which their tenets prevailed.], who had departed so far from the faith of the Church, and had embraced such dangerous social heresies, that Pope Innocent III. felt constrained to call upon the French king and his nobles to lead a crusade against them. The outcome was the almost total extirpation of the heretical sect, and the acquisition by the French crown of large and rich territories that were formerly the possessions of the Counts of Toulouse, the patrons of the heretics.

CREATION OF THE STATES-GENERAL (1302).--The event of the greatest significance in the Capetian age was the admission, in the reign of Philip the Fair, of the commons to the feudal assembly, or council, of the king. This transaction is in French history what the first summoning of the House of Commons is in English (see p. 480).

A dispute having arisen between Philip and the Pope respecting the control of the offices and revenues of the French Church, in order to rally to his support all classes throughout his kingdom, Philip called an assembly, to which he invited representatives of the burghers, or inhabitants of the cities (1302). The royal council had hitherto been made up of two estates only,--the nobles and the clergy; now is added what comes to be known as the Tiers État, or Third Estate, and henceforth the assembly is known as the States-General. Eventually, before the power of this Third Estate, we shall see the Church, the nobility, and the monarchy all go down, through revolution; just as in England we shall see clergy, nobles, and king gradually yield to the rising power of the English Commons.

France under the House of Valois (1328-1498). [Footnote: Names of the sovereigns of the main line of the House of Valois:-- Philip VI. . . . . . . . . . . . 1328-1350 John (the Good). . . . . . . . . 1350-1364 Charles V. (the Wise). . . . . . 1364-1380 Charles VI. (the Well-Beloved) . 1380-1422 Charles VII. (the Victorious). . 1422-1461 Louis XI. . . . . . . . . . . . 1461-1483 Charles VIII. (the Affable) . . 1483-1498]

EFFECTS UPON FRANCE OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.--The chief interest of that period of French history upon which we here enter attaches to that long struggle between England and France known as the Hundred Years' War. Having already, in connection with English affairs (see p. 484), touched upon the causes and incidents of this war, we shall here simply speak of the effects of the struggle on the French people and kingdom. Among these results must be noticed the almost complete prostration, by the successive shocks of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, of the French feudal aristocracy, which was already tottering to its fall through the undermining influences of the Crusades; the growth of the power of the king, a consequence, largely, of the ruin of the nobility; and, lastly, the awakening of a feeling of nationality, and the drawing together of the hitherto isolated sections of the country by the attraction of a common and patriotic enthusiasm.

Speaking in a very general manner, we may say that by the close of the war Feudalism in France was over, and that France had become, partly in spite of the war but more largely by reason of it, not only a great monarchy, but a great nation.

LOUIS XI. AND CHARLES THE BOLD OF BURGUNDY.--The foundations of the French monarchy were greatly enlarged and strengthened by the unscrupulous measures of Louis XI. (1461-1483), who was a perfect Ulysses in cunning and deceit. His maxim was, "He who knows how to deceive, knows how to reign." The great feudal lords that still retained power and influence, he brought to destruction one after another, and united their fiefs to the royal domains. Of all the vassal nobles ruined by the craft and cunning of Louis, the most famous and powerful was Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with whom the French king was almost constantly warring, and against whom he was forever intriguing. Upon the death of the duke, Louis, without clear right, seized a great part of his dominions, which were almost large and rich enough to sustain the dignity of a king. By inheritance and treaty, Louis also gained large accessions of territory in the South of France, which gave his kingdom a wide frontage upon the Mediterranean, and made the Pyrenees its southern defence.

INVASION OF ITALY BY CHARLES VIII.--Charles VIII., the son of Louis XI., was the last of the direct line of the Valois. Through the favor of a long series of circumstances, the persistent policy of his predecessors, and his own politic marriage, [Footnote: He married Anne of Brittany, and thus brought that large province, which had hitherto constituted an almost independent state, under the authority of the French crown.] he found himself at the head of a state that had been gradually transformed from a feudal league into a true monarchy. The strength of this kingdom he determined to employ in some enterprise beyond the limits of France. With a standing army, created by Charles VII during the latter years of the war with England, [Footnote: The paid force of infantry and cavalry created by Charles VII in 1448, was the first standing army in Europe, and the beginning of that vast military system which now burdens the great nations of that continent with the support of several millions of soldiers constantly under arms.] at his command, he invaded Italy, intent on the conquest of Naples,--to which he laid claim on the strength of some old bequest,--proposing, with that state subdued, to lead a crusade to the East against the Turks. He reached Naples in triumph, but was soon forced, with heavy losses, to retreat into France.

This enterprise of Charles is noteworthy not only because it marks the commencement of a long series of brilliant yet disastrous campaigns carried on by the French in Italy, but also on account of Charles' army having been made up largely of paid troops instead of feudal retainers, which fact assures us that the Feudal System in France, as a governmental organization, had come to an end.

Beginnings of French Literature.

THE TROUBADOURS.--The contact of the old Latin speech in Gaul with that of the Teutonic invaders gave rise there to two very distinct dialects. These were the Langue d'Oc, or Provencal, the tongue of the South of France and of the adjoining regions of Spain and Italy; and the Langue d'Oil, or French proper, the language of the North. [Footnote: The terms Langue d'Oc and Langue d'Oil arose from the use of different words for yes, which in the tongue of the South was oc, and in that of the North oil.]

About the beginning of the twelfth century, by which time the Provencal tongue had become settled and somewhat polished, literature in France first began to find a voice in the songs of the Troubadours, the poets of the South. It is instructive to note that it was the home of the Albigensian heresy, the land that had felt the influence of every Mediterranean civilization, that was also the home of the Troubadour literature. The Counts of Toulouse, the protectors of the heretics, were also the patrons of the poets. The same fierce persecution that uprooted the heretical faith of the Albigenses, also stilled the song of the Troubadours (see p. 493).

The verses of the Troubadours were sung in every land, and to the stimulating influence of their musical harmonies the early poetry of almost every people of Europe is largely indebted.

THE TROUVEURS.--These were the poets of Northern France, who composed in the Langue d' Oil, or Old French tongue. They flourished during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While the compositions of the Troubadours were almost exclusively lyrical songs, those of the Trouveurs were epic, or narrative poems, called romances. They gather about three great names,--King Arthur, Alexander the Great, and Charlemagne. It will be noted that the poet story-tellers thus drew their material from the heroic legends of all the different races that blended to form the French nation, namely, the Celtic, the Græco-Roman, and the Teutonic.

The influence of these French romances upon the springing literatures of Europe was most inspiring and helpful. Nor has their influence yet ceased. Thus in English literature, not only did Chaucer and Spenser and all the early island-poets draw inspiration from these fountains of continental song, but the later Tennyson, in his Idylls of the King, has illustrated the power over the imagination yet possessed by the Arthurian poems of the old Trouveurs.

FROISSART'S CHRONICLES.--The first really noted prose writer in French literature was Froissart (1337-1410), whose entertaining credulity and artlessness, and skill as a story-teller, have won for him the title of the French Herodotus. Born, as he was, only a little after the opening of the Hundred Years' War, and knowing personally many of the actors in that struggle, it was fitting that he should become, as he did, the annalist of those stirring times.

3. SPAIN.

The Beginnings of Spain.--When, in the eighth century, the Saracens swept like a wave over Spain, the mountains of Asturia, in the northwest corner of the peninsula, afforded a refuge for the most resolute of the Christian chiefs who refused to submit their necks to the Moslem yoke. These brave and hardy warriors not only successfully defended the hilly districts that formed their retreat, but gradually pushed back the invaders, and regained control of a portion of the fields and cities that had been lost. This work of reconquest was greatly furthered by Charlemagne, who, it will be recalled, drove the Saracens out of all the northeastern portion of the country as far south as the Ebro, and made the subjugated district a province of his great empire, under the name of the Spanish March.

By the opening of the eleventh century several little Christian states, among which we must notice the names of Castile and Aragon, because of the prominent part they were to play in later history, had been established upon the ground thus recovered or always maintained. Castile was at first simply "a line of castles" against the Moors, whence its name.

UNION OF CASTILE AND ARAGON (1479).--For several centuries the princes of the little states to which we have referred kept up an incessant warfare with their Mohammedan neighbors; owing however to dissensions among themselves, they were unable to combine in any effective way for the reconquest of their ancient possessions. But the marriage, in 1469, of Ferdinand, prince of Aragon, to Isabella, princess of Castile, paved the way for the union a little later of these two leading states. Thus the quarrels of these rival principalities were composed, and they were now free to employ their united strength in effecting what the Christian princes amidst all their contentions had never lost sight of,--the expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula.

THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA (1492).--At the time when the basis of the Spanish monarchy was laid by the union of Castile and Aragon, the Mohammedan possessions had been reduced, by the constant pressure of the Christian chiefs through eight centuries, to a very limited dominion in the south of Spain. Here the Moors had established a strong, well-compacted state, known as the Kingdom of Granada.

As soon as Ferdinand and Isabella had settled the affairs of their dominions, they began to make preparation for the conquest of Granada, eager to signalize their reign by the reduction of this last stronghold of the Moorish power in the peninsula. The Moors made a desperate defence of their little state. The struggle lasted for ten years. City after city fell into the hands of the Christian knights, and finally the capital, Granada, pressed by an army of seventy thousand, was forced to surrender, and the Cross replaced the Crescent on its walls and towers (1492). The Moors, or Moriscoes, as they were called, were allowed to remain in the country and to retain their Mohammedan worship, though under many annoying restrictions. What is known as their expulsion occurred at a later date (see p. 538).

The fall of Granada holds an important place among the many significant events that mark the latter half of the fifteenth century. It ended, after an existence of eight hundred years, the Mohammedan kingdom in the Spanish peninsula, and thus formed an offset to the progress of the Moslem power in Eastern Europe and the loss to the Christian world of Constantinople. It advanced Spain to the first rank among the nations of Europe, and gave her arms a prestige that secured for her position, influence, and deference long after the decline of her power had commenced.

THE INQUISITION.--Ferdinand greatly enhanced his power by the active and tyrannical use of the Inquisition, a court that had been established by the Church for the purpose of detecting and punishing heresy. The chief victims of the tribunal were the Moors and Jews, but it was also directed against the enemies of the sovereign among the nobility and the clergy. The Holy Office, as the tribunal was styled, thus became the instrument of the most incredible cruelty. Thousands were burned at the stake, and tens of thousands more condemned to endure penalties scarcely less terrible. Queen Isabella, in giving her consent to the establishment of the tribunal in her dominions, was doubtless actuated by the purest religious zeal, and sincerely believed that in suppressing heresy she was discharging a simple duty, and rendering God good service. "In the love of Christ and his Maid- Mother," she says, "I have caused great misery. I have depopulated towns and districts, provinces and kingdoms."

DEATH OF FERDINAND AND OF ISABELLA.--Queen Isabella died in 1504, and Ferdinand followed her in the year 1516, upon which latter event the crown of Spain descended upon the head of his grandson, Charles, of whom we shall hear much as Emperor Charles V. With his reign the modern history of Spain begins.

Beginnings of the Spanish Language and Literature.

THE LANGUAGE.--After the union of Castile and Aragon it was the language of the former that became the speech of the Spanish court. During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella it gradually gained the ascendancy over the numerous dialects of the country, and became the national speech, just as in France the Langue d'Oil finally crowded out all other dialects. By the conquests and colonizations of the sixteenth century this Castilian speech was destined to become only less widely spread than the English tongue.

THE POEM OF THE CID.--Castilian, or Spanish literature begins in the twelfth century with the romance-poem of the Cid (that is, Chief, the title of the hero of the poem), one of the great literary productions of the mediæval period. This grand national poem was the outgrowth of the sentiments inspired by the long struggle between the Spanish Christians and the Mohammedan Moors.

4. GERMANY.

BEGINNINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GERMANY.--The history of Germany as a separate kingdom begins with the break-up of the empire of Charlemagne (see p. 408). Germany at that time comprised several groups of tribes,-- the Saxons, the Suabians, the Thuringians, the Bavarians, and the Franks. Closely allied in race, speech, manners, and social arrangements, all these peoples seemed ready to be welded into a close and firm nation; but, unfortunately, the circumstances tending to keep the several states or communities apart were stronger than those operating to draw them together, so that for a thousand years after Charlemagne we find them constituting hardly anything more than a very loose confederation, the members of which were constantly struggling among themselves for supremacy, or were engaged in private wars with the neighboring nations. [Footnote: During the mediæval period, Germany was under the following lines of kings and emperors:-- Carolingians. . . . . . . . . . . . . 843-911 Conrad of Franconia.. . . . . . . . . 911-918 Saxon Emperors. . . . . . . . . . . . 919-1024 Franconian Emperors . . . . . . . . . 1024-1125 Lothair of Saxony . . . . . . . . . . 1125-1137 Hohenstaufen Emperors . . . . . . . . 1138-1254 The Interregnum . . . . . . . . . . . 1254-1273 Emperors of different Houses. . . . . 1273-1438 Emperors of the House of Austria. . . 1438-]

That which more than all else operated to prevent Germany from becoming a powerful, closely-knit nation, was the adoption by the German rulers of an unfortunate policy respecting a world-empire. This matter will be explained in the following paragraphs.

RENEWAL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE BY OTTO THE GREAT (962).--When the dominions of Charlemagne were divided among his three grandsons (see p. 408), the Imperial title was given to Lothair, to whom fell Italy and the Rhine- land. The title, however, meant scarcely anything, carrying with it little or no real authority. Thus matters ran on for more than a century, the empty honor of the title sometimes being enjoyed by the kings of Italy, and again by those of Germany.

But with the accession of the second of the Saxon line, Otto I., who was crowned king at Aachen in 936, there appeared among the princes of Europe a second Charlemagne. He was easily first among them all. Besides being king of Germany, he became, through, interference on request in the affairs of Italy, king of that country also. Furthermore, he wrested large tracts of land from the Slavonians, and forced the Danes, Poles, and Hungarians to acknowledge his suzerainty. Thus favored by fortune, he naturally conceived the idea of restoring once more the Roman empire, even as it had been revived by Charles the Great (see p. 406).

So in 962, just a little more than a century and a half after the coronation at Rome of Charlemagne as emperor, Otto, at the same place and by the same papal authority, was crowned Emperor of the Romans. For a generation no one had borne the title. From this time on it was the rule that the German king who was crowned at Aachen had a right to be crowned king of Italy at Milan, and emperor at Rome (Freeman). Thus three crowns, and in time still more, came to be heaped upon a single head.

CONSEQUENCES TO GERMANY OF THE REVIVAL OF THE EMPIRE.--The scheme of Otto respecting a world-empire was a grand one, but, as had been demonstrated by the failure of the attempt of Charlemagne, was an utterly impracticable idea. It was simply a dream, and never became anything more than a ghostly shadow. Yet the pursuit of this phantom by the German kings resulted in the most woeful consequences to Germany. Trying to grasp too much, these rulers seized nothing at all. Attempting to be emperors of the world, they failed to become even kings of Germany. While engaged in their schemes of foreign conquest, their home affairs were neglected, and their vassals succeeded in increasing their power and making it hereditary. Thus while the kings of England, France, and Spain were gradually consolidating their dominions, and building up strong centralized monarchies on the ruins of Feudalism, the sovereigns of Germany, neglecting the affairs of their own kingdom, were allowing it to become split up into a vast number of virtually independent states, the ambitions and jealousies of whose rulers were to postpone the unification of Germany for four or five hundred years--until our own day.

Had the emperors inflicted loss and disaster upon Germany alone through their pursuit of this phantom, the case would not be so lamentable; but Italy was made the camping field of the Imperial armies, and the whole peninsula kept distracted with the bitter quarrels of Guelphs and Ghibellines (see p. 504), and thus the nationalization of the Italian people was also delayed for centuries.

Germany received just one positive compensation for all this loss accruing from the ambition of her kings. This was the gift of Italian civilization, which came into the country through the connections of the emperors with the peninsula.

GERMANY UNDER THE HOHENSTAUFEN EMPERORS (1138-1254).--The Hohenstaufen, or Suabian dynasty was a most notable line of emperors. The matter of chief importance in German history under the Hohenstaufen is the long and bitter conflict, begun generations before, that was waged between them and the Popes (see p. 455). Germany and Italy were divided into two great parties, known as Welfs and Waiblings, or, as designated in Italy, Guelphs and Ghibellines, the former adhering to the Pope, the latter to the Emperor. The issue of a century's contention was the complete ruin of the House of Hohenstaufen.

The most noted ruler of the line was Frederick I. (1152-1190), better known as Frederick Barbarossa, from his red beard. He gave Germany a good and strong government, and gained a sure place in the affections of the German people, who came to regard him as the representative of the sentiment of German nationality. When news of his death was brought back from the East,--it will be recalled that he took part in the Third Crusade, and lost his life in Asia Minor (see p. 445),--they refused to believe that he was dead, and, as time passed, a tradition arose which told how he slept in a cavern beneath one of his castles on a mountain- top, and how, when the ravens should cease to circle about the hill, he would appear, to make the German people a nation united and strong.

Frederick Barbarossa was followed by his son Henry VI. (1190-1197), who, by marriage, had acquired a claim to the kingdom of Sicily.[Footnote: The Hohenstaufen held the kingdom until 1265, when the Pope gave it as a fief to Charles I. of Anjou (brother of Louis IX. of France), who beheaded the rightful heir, the ill-starred boy Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen race (1268). Charles' oppressive rule led to a revolt of his island subjects, and to the great massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers (1282). All of the hated race of Frenchmen were either killed or driven out of the island.] Almost all his time and resources were spent in reducing that remote realm to a state of proper subjection to his authority. By thus leading the emperors to neglect their German subjects and interests, this southern kingdom proved a fatal dower to the Suabian house.

By the close of the Hohenstaufen period, Germany was divided into two hundred and seventy-six virtually independent states, the princes and nobles having taken advantage of the prolonged absences of the emperors, or their troubles with the Popes, to free themselves almost completely from the control of the crown. There was really no longer either a German kingdom or a Roman empire.

CATHEDRAL-BUILDING.--The age of the Hohenstaufen was the age of the Crusades, which is to say that it was the age of religious faith. The most striking expression of the spirit of the period, if we except the Holy Wars, is to be found in the sacred architecture of the time. The style of architecture first employed was the Romanesque, characterized by the rounded arch and the dome; but towards the close of the twelfth century this was superseded by the Gothic, distinguished by the pointed arch, the tower or the slender spire, and rich ornamentation.

The enthusiasm for church-building was universal throughout Europe; yet nowhere did it find nobler or more sustained expression than in Germany. Among the most noted of the German cathedrals are the one at Strasburg, begun in the eleventh century, and that at Cologne, commenced in 1248, but not wholly finished until our own day (in 1880).

RISE OF THE SWISS REPUBLIC.--The most noteworthy matters in German history during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are the struggles between the Swiss and the dukes of Austria; the religious movement of the Hussites; and the growing power of the House of Austria.

From early in the eleventh century, the country now known as Switzerland was a part of the Holy Roman Empire; but its liberty-loving people never acknowledged any man as their master, save the German emperor, to whom they yielded a merely nominal obedience. The dukes of Austria, princes of the empire, laid claim to a certain authority over them, and tried to make themselves masters in Switzerland. This led to a memorable struggle between the dukes and the brave mountaineers. To the early part of the contest belongs the legend of William Tell, which historical criticism now pronounces a myth, with nothing but the revolt as the nucleus of fact.

In 1315, at the noted battle of Morgarten Pass, the Austrians suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the Swiss patriots. Later in the same century, the Austrians sustained another defeat on the memorable field of Sempach (1386). It was here, tradition says, that Arnold of Winkelried broke the ranks of the Austrians, by collecting in his arms as many of their lances as he could, and, as they pierced his breast, bearing them with him to the ground, exclaiming, "Comrades, I will open a road for you."

Shortly after the battle of Sempach, the Eidgenossen, or Confederates, as the Swiss were at this time called, gained another victory over the Austrians at Wafels (1388), which placed on a firm basis the growing power of the League.

THE HUSSITES.--About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the doctrines of the English reformer, Wycliffe (see p. 490) began to spread in Bohemia. The chief of the new sect was John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague. The doctrines of the reformer were condemned by the great Council of Constance, and Huss himself, having been delivered over into the hands of the civil authorities for punishment, was burned at the stake (1415). The following year Jerome of Prague, another reformer, was likewise burned.

Shortly after the burning of Huss a crusade was proclaimed against his followers, who had risen in arms. Then began a cruel, desolating war of fifteen years, the outcome of which was the almost total extermination of the radical party among the Hussites. With the more moderate of the reformers, however, a treaty was made which secured them freedom of worship.

THE IMPERIAL CROWN BECOMES HEREDITARY IN THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA (1438).--In the year 1438, Albert, Duke of Austria, was raised by the Electors [Footnote: When, in the beginning of the tenth century, the German Carolingian line became extinct, the great nobles of the kingdom assumed the right of choosing the successor of the last of the house, and Germany thus became an elective feudal monarchy. In the course of time a few of the leading nobles usurped the right of choosing the king, and these princes became known as Electors. There were, at the end of the Hohenstaufen period, seven princes who enjoyed this important privilege, four of whom were secular princes and three spiritual.] to the Imperial throne. His accession marks an epoch in German history, for from this time until. the dissolution of the empire by Napoleon in 1806, the Imperial crown was regarded as hereditary in the Hapsburg [Footnote: The House of Austria is often so called from the Castle of Hapsburg in Switzerland, the cradle of the family.] family, the Electors, although never failing to go through the formality of an election, almost always choosing one of the members of that house as king.

From the beginning of the practically uninterrupted succession upon the Imperial throne of the princes of the House of Austria, up to the close of the Middle Ages, the power and importance of the family steadily increased, until it seemed that Austria would overshadow all the other German states, and subject them to her sway; would, in a word, become Germany, just as Francia in Gaul had become France. But this, as we shall learn, never came about.

The greatest of the Hapsburg line during the mediæval period was Maximilian I. (1493-1519). His reign is in every way a noteworthy one in German history, marking, as it does, a strong tendency to centralization, and the material enhancement of the Imperial authority.

Beginning of German Literature.

SONG OF THE NIBELUNGEN.--It was under the patronage of the Hohenstaufen that Germany produced the first pieces of a national literature. The "Song of the Nibelungen" is the great German mediæval epic. It was reduced to writing about 1200, being a recast, by some Homeric genius, perhaps, of ancient German and Scandinavian legends and lays dating from the sixth and seventh centuries. The hero of the story is Siegfried, the Achilles of Teutonic legend and song.

THE MINNESINGERS.--Under the same emperors, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Minnesingers, or lyric poets, flourished. They were the "Troubadours of Germany." For the most part, refined and tender and chivalrous and pure, the songs of these poets tended to soften the manners and lift the hearts of the German people.

5. RUSSIA.

BEGINNINGS OF RUSSIA.--We have seen how, about the middle of the ninth century, the Swedish adventurer Ruric laid, among the Slavonian tribes dwelling eastward from the Baltic, the foundation of what was destined to become one of the leading powers of Europe (see p. 411). The state came to be known as Russia, probably from the word Ruotsi (corsairs?), the name given by the Finns to the foreigners.

THE TARTAR CONQUEST.--In the thirteenth century an overwhelming calamity befell Russia. This was the overrunning and conquest of the country by the Tartar hordes (see p. 461). The barbarian conquerors inflicted the most horrible atrocities upon the unfortunate land, and for more than two hundred years held the Russian princes in a degrading bondage, forcing them to pay homage and tribute. This misfortune delayed for centuries the nationalization of the Slavonian peoples.

RUSSIA FREED FROM THE MONGOLS.--It was not until the reign of Ivan the Great (1462-1505) that Russia,--now frequently called Muscovy from the fact that it had been reorganized with Moscow as a centre,--after a terrible struggle, succeeded in freeing itself from the hateful Tartar domination, and began to assume the character of a well-consolidated monarchy.

Thus, by the end of the Middle Ages, Russia had become a really great power; but she was as yet too much hemmed in by hostile states to be able to make her influence felt in the affairs of Europe. Between her and the Caspian and Euxine were the Tartars; shutting her out from the Baltic were the Swedes and other peoples; and between her and Germany were the Lithuanians and Poles.

6. ITALY.

NO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.--In marked contrast to all those countries of which we have thus far spoken, unless we except Germany, Italy came to the close of the Middle Ages without a national or regular government. This is to be attributed in large part to that unfortunate rivalry between Pope and Emperor which resulted in dividing Italy into the two hostile camps of Guelph and Ghibelline. And yet the mediæval period did not pass without attempts on the part of patriot spirits to effect some sort of political union among the different cities and states of the peninsula. The most noteworthy of these movements, and one which gave assurance that the spark of patriotism which was in time to flame into an inextinguishable passion for national unity was kindling in the Italian heart, was that headed by the hero Rienzi, in the fourteenth century.

RIENZI, TRIBUNE OF ROME (1347).--During the greater part of the fourteenth century the seat of the Papal See was at Avignon, beyond the Alps (see p. 457). Throughout this period of the "Babylonish captivity," Rome, deprived of her natural guardians, was in a state of the greatest confusion. The nobles terrorized the country about the capital, and kept the streets of the city itself in constant turmoil with their bitter feuds.

In the midst of these disorders there appeared from among the lowest ranks of the people a deliverer in the person of one Nicola di Rienzi. Possessed of considerable talent and great eloquence, Rienzi easily incited the people to a revolt against the rule, or rather misrule, of the nobles, and succeeded in having himself, with the title of Tribune, placed at the head of a new government for Rome.

Encouraged by the success that had thus far attended his schemes, Rienzi now began to concert measures for the union of all the principalities and commonwealths of Italy in a great republic, with Rome as its capital. He sent ambassadors throughout Italy to plead, at the courts of the princes and in the council chamber of the municipalities, the cause of Italian unity and freedom. The splendid dream of Rienzi was shared by other Italian patriots besides himself, among whom was the poet Petrarch, who was the friend and encourager of the "plebeian hero."

But the moment for Italy's unification had not yet come. Not only were there hindrances to the national movement in the ambitions and passions of rival parties and classes, but there were still greater impediments in the character of the plebeian patriot himself. Rienzi proved to be an unworthy leader. His sudden elevation and surprising success completely turned his head, and he soon began to exhibit the most incredible vanity and weakness. The people withdrew from him their support, and he was finally assassinated.

Thus vanished the dream of Rienzi and Petrarch, of the hero and the poet. Centuries of division, of shameful subjection to foreign princes,--French, Spanish, and Austrian,--of wars and suffering, were yet before the Italian people ere Rome should become the centre of a free, orderly, and united Italy.

THE RENAISSANCE.--Though the Middle Ages closed in Italy without the rise there of a national government, still before the end of the period much had been done to awaken those common ideas and sentiments upon which political unity can alone safely repose. Literature and art here performed the part that war did in other countries in arousing a national spirit. The Renaissance (see p. 474) did much toward creating among the Italians a common pride in race and country; and thus this great literary and artistic enthusiasm was the first step in a course of national development which was to lead the Italian people to a common political life.

Upon the literary phase of the Italian Renaissance we have said something in the chapter on the Revival of Learning (see p. 474); we shall here say just a word respecting the artistic side of the movement.

The most splendid period of the art revival covered the latter part of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth. The characteristic art of the Renaissance in Italy was painting, although the æsthetic genius of the Italians also expressed itself both in architecture and sculpture. [Footnote: The four supreme masters of the Italian Renaissance were Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michael Angelo (1475-1564), Raphael (1483- 1520), and Titian (1477-1576). All were great painters. Perhaps the one of greatest, at least of most varied, genius, was Michael Angelo, who was at once architect, painter, and sculptor. His grandest architectural triumph was the majestic dome of St. Peter's,--which work, however, he did not live to see completed.] The mediæval artists devoted themselves to painting instead of sculpture, for the reason that it best expresses the ideas and sentiments of Christianity. The art that would be the handmaid of the Church needed to be able to represent faith and hope, ecstasy and suffering,--none of which things can well be expressed by sculpture, which is essentially the art of repose.

SAVONAROLA (1452-1498).--A word must here be said respecting the Florentine monk and reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who stands as the most noteworthy personage in Italy during the closing years of the mediæval period.

Savonarola was at once Roman censor and Hebrew prophet. Such a preacher of righteousness the world had not seen since the days of Elijah. His powerful preaching alarmed the conscience of the Florentines. At his suggestion the women brought their finery and ornaments, and others their beautiful works of art, and piling them in great heaps in the streets of Florence, burned them as "vanities." Savonarola even persuaded the people of Florence to set up a sort of theocratic government, of which Christ was the acknowledged head. But at length the activity of his enemies brought about the reformer's downfall, and he was condemned to death, executed, and his body burned. Savonarola may be regarded as the last great mediæval forerunner of the reformers of the sixteenth century.

7. THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES.

THE UNION OF CALMAR.--The great Scandinavian Exodus of the ninth and tenth centuries drained the Northern lands of some of the best elements of their population. For this reason these countries did not play as prominent a part in mediæval history as they would otherwise have done. The constant quarrels between their sovereigns and the nobility were also another cause of internal weakness.

In the year 1397, by what is known as the Union of Calmar, the three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were united under Margaret of Denmark, "the Semiramis of the North." The treaty provided that each country should make its own laws. But the treaty was violated, and though the friends of the measure had hoped much from it, it brought only jealousies, feuds, and wars.

The Swedes arose again and again in revolt, and finally, under the lead of a nobleman named Gustavus Vasa, made good their independence (1523). During the seventeenth century, under the descendants and successors of the Liberator, Sweden was destined to play an important part in the affairs of the continent.

Norway became virtually a province of Denmark, and the Norwegian nobles were driven into exile or killed. The country remained attached to the Danish Crown until the present century.

SECTION II.--MODERN HISTORY.

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Introduction

As an introduction to the history of the Modern Age, we shall give a brief account of the voyages and geographical discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Magellan, and of the beginning of European conquests and settlements in the New World, inasmuch as these great events lie at the opening of the era and form the prelude of its story.

DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD BY COLUMBUS (1492).--Christopher Columbus was one of those Genoese navigators who, when Genoa's Asiatic lines of trade were broken by the irruption of the Turks (see p. 467), conceived the idea of reaching India by an ocean route. While others were endeavoring to reach that country by sailing around the southern point of Africa, he proposed the bolder plan of reaching this eastern land by sailing directly westward. The sphericity of the earth was a doctrine held by many at that day; but the theory was not in harmony with the religious ideas of the time, and so it was not prudent for one to publish too openly one's belief in the notion.

In his endeavors to secure a patron for his enterprise, Columbus met at first with repeated repulse and disappointment. At last, however, he gained the ear of Queen Isabella of Spain; a little fleet was fitted out for the explorer,--and the New World was found.

Columbus never received a fitting reward for the great service he had rendered mankind. Even the continent to which he had shown the way, instead of being called after him as a perpetual memorial, was named from a Florentine navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, whose chief claim to this distinction was his having published the first account of the new lands.

THE VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA (1497-1498).--The favorable position of Portugal upon the Atlantic seaboard naturally led her sovereigns to conceive the idea of competing with the Italian cities for the trade of the East Indies, by opening up an ocean route to those lands. During all the latter part of the fifteenth century Portuguese sailors were year after year penetrating a little farther into the mysterious tropical seas, and exploring new reaches of the western coast of Africa.

In 1487 the most southern point of the continent was reached, and was named the Cape of Good Hope, as the possibility of reaching India by sea now seemed assured. A decade later Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese admiral, doubled the Cape, crossed the Indian Sea, and landed on the coast of Malabar (1498).

The discovery of a water-path to India effected, as we have already noticed (see p. 467), most important changes in the traffic of the world. It made the ports of Portugal and of other countries on the Atlantic seaboard the depots of the Eastern trade. "The front of Europe was suddenly changed." The Italian merchants were ruined. The great warehouses of Egypt and Syria were left empty. The traffic of the Mediterranean dwindled to insignificant proportions. Portugal established trading-posts and colonies in the East, and built up there a great empire,--like that which England is maintaining in the same region at the present day.

THE VOYAGE AROUND THE GLOBE (1519-1522).--Upon the return of Columbus from his successful expedition, Pope Alexander VI., with a view to adjusting the conflicting claims of Spain and Portugal, divided the world by a meridian line drawn about midway through the Atlantic, and gave to the Spanish sovereigns all unclaimed pagan lands that their subjects might find west of this line, and to the Portuguese kings all new pagan lands discovered by Portuguese navigators east of the designated meridian.

The determination on the part of the king of Spain to acquire title under the papal grant to the valuable Spice Islands of the Pacific by reaching them through sailing westward, led him to organize an expedition of discovery in the western seas. The little fleet was entrusted to the command of Magellan, a Portuguese admiral.

Magellan directed his fleet in a southwesterly course across the Atlantic, hoping to find towards the south a break in the land discovered by Columbus. Near the most southern point of Patagonia he found the narrow strait that now bears his name, through which he pushed his vessel into the sea beyond. From the calm, unruffled face of the new ocean, so different from the stormy Atlantic, he gave to it the name Pacific.

After a most adventurous voyage upon the hitherto untraversed waters of the new sea, the expedition reached the Spice Islands, and eventually arrived home, after an absence of over three years. For the first time men had gone around the globe that they had so long lived upon. The achievement of course settled forever the question as to the shape of the earth. It pushed aside all the old narrow geographical ideas, and broadened immensely the physical horizon of the world.

CONQUEST OF MEXICO (1519-1521).--Soon after the discovery of the New World, Spanish settlements were established upon the islands in front of the Gulf of Mexico. Among the colonists here were constantly spread reports of a great and rich Indian monarchy upon the mainland to the west. These stories inflamed the imagination of the more adventurous among the settlers, and an expedition was organized and placed under the command of Hernando Cortez, for the conquest and "conversion" of the heathen nation. The expedition was successful, and soon the Spaniards were masters of the greater part of Mexico.

The state that the conquerors destroyed was hardly an "empire," as termed by the Spanish writers, but rather a confederacy, somewhat like the Iroquois confederacy in the North. It embraced three tribes, of which the Aztecs were leaders. At the head of the league was a war-chief, who bore the name of Montezuma.

The Mexican Indians had taken some steps in civilization. They employed a system of picture-writing, and had cities and temples. But they were cannibals, and offered human sacrifices to their gods. They had no knowledge of the horse or of the ox, and were of course ignorant of the use of fire-arms.

THE CONQUEST OF PERU (1532-1536).--Shortly after the conquest of the Indians of Mexico, the subjugation of the Indians of Peru was also effected. The civilization of the Peruvians was superior to that of the Mexicans. Not only were the great cities of the Peruvian empire filled with splendid temples and palaces, but throughout the country were magnificent works of public utility, such as roads, bridges, and aqueducts. The government of the Incas, the royal, or ruling race, was a mild, parental autocracy.

Glowing reports of the enormous wealth of the Incas,--the commonest articles in whose palaces, it was asserted, were of solid gold, reached the Spaniards by way of the Isthmus of Darien, and it was not long before an expedition was organized for the conquest of the country. The leader of the band was Francisco Pizarro, an iron-hearted, perfidious, and illiterate adventurer.

Through treachery, Pizarro made a prisoner of the Inca Atahualpa. The captive offered, as a ransom for his release, to fill the room in which he was confined "as high as he could reach" with vessels of gold. Pizarro accepted the offer, and the palaces and temples throughout the empire were stripped of their golden vessels, and the apartment was filled with the precious relics. The value of the treasure is estimated at over $17,000,000. When this vast wealth was once under the control of the Spaniards, they seized it all, and then treacherously put the Inca to death (1533). With the death of Atahualpa the power of the Inca dynasty passed away forever.

SPANISH COLONIZATION IN THE NEW WORLD.--Not until more than one hundred years after the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus, was there established a single permanent English settlement within the limits of what is now the United States, the portion of the New World destined to be taken possession of by the peoples of Northern Europe, and to become the home of civil and religious freedom.

But into those parts of the new lands opened up by Spanish exploration and conquest there began to pour at once a tremendous stream of Spanish adventurers and colonists, in search of fortune and fame. It was a sort of Spanish migration. The movement might be compared to the rush of population from the Eastern States to California, after the announcement of the discovery there of gold, in 1848-9. Upon the West India Islands, in Mexico, in Central America, all along the Pacific slope of the Andes, and everywhere upon the lofty and pleasant table-lands that had formed the heart of the empire of the Incas, there sprang up rapidly great cities as the centres of mining and agricultural industries, of commerce and of trade. Thus did a Greater Spain grow up in the New World. It was, in a large measure, the treasures derived from these new possessions that enabled the sovereigns of Spain to play the imposing part they did in the affairs of Europe during the century following the discovery of America. [Footnote: After having robbed the Indians of their wealth in gold and silver, the slow accumulations of centuries, the Spaniards further enriched themselves by the enforced labor of the unfortunate natives. Unused to such toil as was exacted of them under the lash of worse than Egyptian task-masters, the Indians wasted away by millions in the mines of Mexico and Peru, and upon the sugar plantations of the West Indies. More than half of the native population of Peru is thought to have been consumed in the Peruvian mines. To save the Indians, negroes were introduced as a substitute for native laborers. This was the beginning of the African slave-trade in the New World. The traffic was especially encouraged by a benevolent priest named Las Casas (1474-1566), known as the "Apostle of the Indians." Thus the gigantic evil of African slavery in the Western Hemisphere, like the gladiatorial shows of the Romans, was brought into existence, or, rather, in its beginning was fostered, by a philanthropic desire and effort to mitigate human suffering.]

FIRST PERIOD.--THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. (FROM THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA, IN 1648.)

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XLVIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION UNDER LUTHER

GENERAL STATEMENT.--We have already indicated (see pp. 366-7), the two periods of modern history; namely, the Era of the Protestant Reformation and the Era of the Political Revolution. We need here simply to remind the reader that the first period, extending from the opening of the sixteenth century to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, is characterized by the revolt of the nations of Northern Europe against the spiritual jurisdiction of Rome, and the great combat between Protestantism and Catholicism; and that the second period, running from the Peace of Westphalia to our own day, is distinguished by the contest between the people and their rulers, or, in other words, by the conflict between liberal and despotic principles of government.

We shall now proceed to speak of the causes and general features of the Reformation, and in succeeding chapters shall follow its fortunes in the various countries of Europe.

EXTENT OF ROME'S SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--In a preceding chapter on the Papacy it was shown how perfect at one time was the obedience of the West, not only to the spiritual, but to the temporal, authority of the Pope. It was also shown how the papal claim of the right to dictate in temporal or governmental affairs was practically rejected by the princes and sovereigns of Europe as early as the fourteenth century (see p. 458). But previous to the opening of the sixteenth century there had been comparatively few--though there had been some, like the Albigenses in the South of France, the Wickliffites in England, and the Hussites in Bohemia--who denied the supreme and infallible authority of the bishops of Rome in all matters touching religion. Speaking in a very general manner, it would be correct to say that at the close of the fifteenth century all the nations of Western Europe professed the faith of the Latin, or Roman Catholic Church, and yielded spiritual obedience to the Papal See.

CAUSES OF REFORMATION.--We must now seek the causes which led one-half of the nations of Europe to secede, as it were, from the Roman Catholic Church. The causes were many. Among others may be mentioned the great mental awakening which marked the close of the mediæval and the opening of the modern age; for the intellectual revival, though often spoken of, in so far as it concerned the Northern nations, as an effect of the religious revival, was in reality at once cause and effect. It hastened the Reformation, and was itself hastened by it. And in connection with the Revival of Learning must be mentioned the invention of printing as a powerful agency in the promotion of the religious movement. The press scattered broadcast over Europe, not only the Bible, but the writings of the men who had begun to doubt the scriptural authority for many of the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church,--such as devotion to the Virgin Mary, the invoking of saints, the use of images, confession to a priest, and the nature of the elements in the Eucharist. These writings of course stirred up debate, and led to questioning and criticism.

A second cause was the existence of most serious scandals and abuses in the Church. During the fifteenth century, the morality of the Church was probably lower than at any other period in its history. The absolute necessity of its thorough reform in both "head and members" was recognized by all earnest and spiritual-minded men. The only difference of opinion among such was as to the manner in which the work of purification should be effected.

A third cause may be found in the claims of the Popes to the right to interfere in the internal, governmental affairs of a nation; for, although these claims had been rejected by the sovereigns of Europe, they were nevertheless still maintained by the Roman bishops, and this caused the temporal princes to regard with great jealousy the papal power.

But foremost among the proximate causes, and the actual occasion of the revolution, was the controversy which arose about indulgences. These, in the Catholic Church, are remissions, to penitents, of punishment due for sin, upon the performance of some work of mercy or piety, or the payment of a sum of money. It is, and always has been, the theory of the Catholic Church, that the indulgence remits merely temporal penalties,-- that is, penalties imposed by ecclesiastical authority, and the pains of Purgatory,--and that it can take effect only upon certain conditions, among which is that of sincere repentance. Indulgences were frequently granted by various pontiffs, as a means of raising funds for pious enterprises. A considerable portion of the money for building the Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome was raised in this manner.

TETZEL AND THE PREACHING OF INDULGENCES.--Leo X., upon his election to the papal dignity, in 1513, found the coffers of the Church almost empty; and, being in pressing need of money to carry on his various undertakings, among which was work upon St. Peter's, he had recourse to the then common expedient of a grant of indulgences. He delegated the power of dispensing these in Germany to the archbishop of Magdeburg, who employed a Dominican friar by the name of Tetzel as his deputy in Saxony.

The archbishop was unfortunate in the selection of his agent. Tetzel carried out his commission in such a way as to give rise to great scandal. The language that he, or at least his subordinates, used, in exhorting the people to comply with the conditions of gaining the indulgences, one of which was a donation of money, was unseemly and exaggerated. The result was that erroneous views as to the effect of indulgences began to spread among the ignorant and credulous, some being so far misled as to think that if they only contributed this money to the building of St. Peter's at Rome they would be exempt from all penalty for sins, paying little heed to the other conditions, such as sorrow for sin, and purpose of amendment. Hence, many were led to declaim against the procedure of the zealous friar. These protests were the near mutterings of a storm that had long been gathering, and that was soon to shake all Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

MARTIN LUTHER.--Foremost among those who opposed and denounced Tetzel was Martin Luther (1483-1546), an Augustine monk, and a teacher of theology in the university of Wittenberg. He was of humble parentage, his father being a poor miner. The boy possessed a good voice, and frequently, while a student, earned his bread by singing from door to door. The natural bent of his mind, and, if we may believe a somewhat doubtful legend, the death of a friend struck down at his side by lightning, led him to resolve to enter a monastery and devote himself to the service of the Church. Before Tetzel appeared in Germany, Luther had already earned a wide reputation for learning and piety.

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.--The form which Church penances had taken in the hands of Tetzel and his associates, together with other circumstances, awakened in Luther's mind doubts and questionings as to many of the doctrines of the Church. Especially was there gradually maturing within him a conviction that the entire system of ecclesiastical penances and indulgences was unscriptural and wrong. His last lingering doubt respecting this matter appears to have been removed while, during an official visit to Rome in 1510, he was penitentially ascending on his knees the sacred stairs (scala santa) of the Lateran, when he seemed to hear an inner voice declaring, "The just shall live by faith."

At length Luther drew up ninety-five theses, or articles, wherein he fearlessly stated his views respecting indulgences. These theses, written in Latin, he nailed to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and invited all scholars to examine and criticise them, and to point out if in any respect they were opposed to the teachings of the Word of God, or of the early Fathers of the Church (1517). By means of the press the theses were scattered with incredible rapidity throughout every country in Europe.

BURNING OF THE PAPAL BULL (1520).--All the continent was now plunged into a perfect tumult of controversy. Luther, growing bolder, was soon attacking the entire system and body of teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. At first the Pope, Leo X., was inclined to regard the whole matter as "a mere squabble of monks," but at length he felt constrained to issue a bull against the audacious reformer (1520). His writings were condemned as heretical, and all persons were forbidden to read them; and he himself, if he did not recant his errors within sixty days, was to be seized and sent to Rome to be dealt with as an heretic. Luther in reply publicly burned the papal bull at one of the gates of Wittenberg.

THE DIET OF WORMS (1521).--Leo now invoked the aid of the recently elected Emperor Charles the Fifth in extirpating the spreading heresy. The emperor complied by summoning Luther before the Diet of Worms, an assembly of the princes, nobles, and clergy of Germany, convened at Worms to deliberate upon the affairs of Germany, and especially upon matters touching the great religious controversy.

Called upon in the Imperial assembly to recant his errors, Luther steadily refused to do so, unless his teachings could be shown to be inconsistent with the Bible. Although some wished to deliver the reformer to the flames, the safe-conduct of the emperor under which he had come to the Diet protected him. So Luther was allowed to depart in safety, but was followed by a decree of the assembly which pronounced him a heretic and an outlaw.

But Luther had powerful friends among the princes of Germany, one of whom was his own prince, Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Solicitors for the safety of the reformer, the prince caused him to be seized on his way from the Diet by a company of masked horsemen, who carried him to the castle of the Wartburg, where he was kept about a year, his retreat being known only to a few friends. During this period of forced retirement from the world, Luther was hard at work upon his celebrated translation of the Bible.

THE PEASANTS' WAR (1524-1525).--Before quite a year had passed, Luther was called from the Wartburg by the troubles caused by a new sect that had appeared, known as the Anabaptists, whose excesses were casting great discredit upon the whole reform movement. Luther's sudden appearance at Wittenberg gave a temporary check to the agitation.

But in the course of two or three years the trouble broke out afresh, and in a more complex and aggravated form. The peasants of Suabia and Franconia, stung to madness by the oppressions of their feudal lords, stirred by the religious excitement that filled the air, and influenced by the incendiary preaching of their prophets Carlstadt and Muenzer, rose in revolt against the nobles and priests. Castles and monasteries were sacked and burned, and horrible outrages were committed. The rebellion was at length crushed, but not until one hundred thousand lives had been sacrificed, a large part of South Germany ravaged, and great reproach cast upon the reformers, whose teachings were held by their enemies to be the whole cause of the ferment.

The Reformers are called Protestants. Notwithstanding all the efforts that were made to suppress the doctrines of Luther, they gained ground rapidly, and in the year 1529 another assembly, known as the Second Diet of Spires, was called to consider the matter. This body issued an edict forbidding all persons doing anything to promote the spread of the new doctrines, until a general council of the Church should have investigated them and pronounced authoritatively upon them. Seven of the German princes, and a large number of the cities of the empire, issued a formal protest against the action of the Diet. Because of this protest, the reformers from this time began to be known as Protestants.

CAUSES THAT CHECKED THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.--Even before the death of Luther, [Footnote: After the death of Luther, the leadership of the Reformation in Germany fell to Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), one of Luther's friends and fellow-workers. Melanchthon's disposition was exactly the opposite of Luther's. He often reproved Luther for his indiscretion and vehemence, and was constantly laboring to effect, through mutual concessions, a reconciliation between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants.] which occurred in the year 1546, the Reformation had gained a strong foothold in most of the countries of Western Christendom, save in Spain and Italy, and even in these parts the new doctrines had made some progress. It seemed as if the revolt from Rome was destined to become universal, and the old ecclesiastical empire to be completely broken up.

But several causes now conspired to check the hitherto triumphant advance of Protestantism, and to confine the movement to the Northern nations. Chief among these were the divisions among the Protestants, the Catholic counter-reform, the increased activity of the Inquisition, and the rise of the Order of the Jesuits.

DIVISIONS AMONG THE PROTESTANTS.--Early in their contest with Rome, the Protestants became divided into numerous hostile sects. In Switzerland arose the Zwinglians (followers of Ulrich Zwingle, 1484-1531), who differed from the Lutherans in their views regarding the Eucharist, and on some other points of doctrine. The Calvinists were followers of John Calvin (1509-1564), a Frenchman by birth, who, forced to flee from France on account of persecution, found a refuge at Geneva, of which city he became a sort of Protestant pope. [Footnote: Calvin was, next after Luther, the greatest of the reformers. The doctrines of Calvin came to prevail very widely, and have exerted a most remarkable influence upon the general course of history. "The Huguenots of France, the Covenanters of Scotland, the Puritans of England, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, were all the offspring of Calvinism."]

The great Protestant communions quickly broke up into a large number of denominations, or churches, each holding to some minor point of doctrine, or adhering to some form of worship disregarded by the others, yet all agreeing in the central doctrine of the Reformation, "Justification by faith."

Now the contentions between these different sects were sharp and bitter. The liberal-minded reformer had occasion to lament the same state of things as that which troubled the apostle Paul in the early days of Christianity. One said, I am of Luther; another said, I am of Calvin; and another said, I am of Zwingle. Even Luther himself denounced Zwingle as a heretic; and the Calvinists would have no dealings with the Lutherans.

The influence of these sectarian divisions upon the progress of the Reformation was most disastrous. They afforded the Catholics a strong and effective argument against the entire movement as tending to uncertainty and discord.

THE CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORM.--While the Protestants were thus breaking up into numerous rival sects, the Catholics were removing the causes of dissension within the old Church by a thorough reform in its head and members, and by a clear and authoritative restatement of the doctrines of the Catholic faith. This was accomplished very largely by the labors of the celebrated Council of Trent (1545-1563). The correction of the abuses that had so much to do in causing the great schism, smoothed the way for the return to the ancient Church of thousands who had become alarmed at the dangers into which society seemed to drift when once it cast loose from anchorage in the safe harbor of tradition and authority.

THE INQUISITION.--The Roman Catholic Church having purified itself and defined clearly its articles of faith, demanded of all a more implicit obedience than hitherto. The Inquisition, or Holy Office (see p. 500), now assumed new vigor and activity, and heresy was sternly dealt with. The tribunal was assisted in the execution of its sentences by the secular authorities in all the Romance countries, but outside of these it was not generally recognized by the temporal princes, though it did succeed in establishing itself for a time in the Netherlands and in some parts of Germany. Death, usually by burning, and loss of property were the penalty of obstinate heresy. Without doubt the Holy Office did much to check the advance of the Reformation in Southern Europe, aiding especially in holding Italy and Spain compactly obedient to the ancient Church.

At this point, in connection with the persecutions of the Inquisition, we should not fail to recall that in the sixteenth century a refusal to conform to the established worship was regarded by all, by Protestants as well as by Catholics, as a species of treason against society, and was dealt with accordingly. Thus we find Calvin at Geneva consenting to the burning of Servetus (1553), because he published views that the Calvinists thought heretical; and in England we see the Anglican Protestants waging the most cruel, bitter, and persistent persecutions, not only against the Catholics, but also against all Protestants that refused to conform to the Established Church.

THE JESUITS.--The Order of Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, was another most powerful agent concerned in the re-establishment of the threatened authority of the Papal See. The founder of the institution was St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), a native of Spain. Loyola's object was to form a society, the devotion and energy of whose numbers should counteract the zeal and activity of the reformers.

As the well-disciplined, watchful, and uncompromising foes of the Protestant reformers, now divided into many and often hostile sects, the Jesuits did very much to bring about a reaction, to retrieve the failing fortunes of the papal power in Europe, and to extend the authority and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church in all other parts of the world. Most distinguished of the missionaries of the order to pagan lands was Francis Xavier (1506-1552), known as the Apostle of the Indies. His labors in India, Japan, and other lands of the East were attended with astonishing results.

OUTCOME OF THE REVOLT.--As in following chapters we are to trace the fortunes of the Reformation in the leading European countries, we shall here say only a word as to the issue of the great contest.

The outcome of the revolt, very broadly stated, was the separation from the Roman Catholic Church of the Northern, or Teutonic nations; that is to say, of Northern Germany, of portions of Switzerland and of the Netherlands, of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, and Scotland. The Romance nations, namely, Italy, France and Spain, together with Celtic Ireland, adhered to the old Church.

What this separation from Rome meant in the political realm is well stated by Seebohm: "It was the claiming by the civil power in each nation of those rights which the Pope had hitherto claimed within it as head of the great ecclesiastical empire. The clergy and monks had hitherto been regarded more or less as foreigners--that is, as subjects of the Pope's ecclesiastical empire. Where there was a revolt from Rome the allegiance of these persons to the Pope was annulled, and the civil power claimed as full a sovereignty over them as it had over its lay subjects. Matters relating to marriage and wills still for the most part remained under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but then, as the ecclesiastical courts themselves became national courts and ceased to be Roman or papal, all these matters came under the control of the civil power."

In a spiritual or religious point of view, this severance by the Northern nations of the bonds that formerly united them to the ecclesiastical empire of Rome, meant a transfer of their allegiance from the Church to the Bible. The decrees of Popes and the decisions of Councils were no longer to be regarded as having divine and binding force; the Scriptures alone were to be held as possessing divine and infallible authority, and, theoretically, this rule and standard of faith and practice each one was to interpret for himself.

Thus one-half of Western Christendom was lost to the Roman Church. Yet notwithstanding this loss, notwithstanding the earlier loss of the Eastern part of Christendom (see p. 417), and notwithstanding the fact that its temporal power has been entirely taken from it, the Papacy still remains, as Macaulay says, "not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor." The Pope is to-day the supreme Head of a Church that, in the words of the brilliant writer just quoted, "was great and respected before Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."

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XLIX. THE ASCENDENCY OF SPAIN

1. REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. (1519-1556).

CHARLES' DOMINIONS.--Charles I. of Spain, better known to fame as Emperor Charles V., was the son of Philip the Handsome, Archduke of Austria, and Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. He was "the converging point and heir of four great royal lines, which had become united by a series of happy matrimonial alliances." These were the houses of Austria, Burgundy, Castile, and Aragon. Before Charles had completed his nineteenth year, there were heaped upon his head, through the removal of his ancestors by death, the crowns of the four dynasties.

But vast as were the hereditary possessions of the young prince, there was straightway added to these (in 1519), by the vote of the Electors of Germany, the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire. After this election he was known as Emperor Charles V., whereas hitherto he had borne the title of Don Carlos I. of Spain.

CHARLES AND THE REFORMATION.--It is Charles' relations to the Lutheran movement which constitute the significant feature of his life and work. Here his policies and acts concerned universal history. It would hardly be asserting too much to say that Charles, at the moment he ascended the Imperial throne, held in his hands the fortunes of the Reformation, so far as regards the countries of Southern Europe. Whether these were to be saved to Rome or not, seemed at this time to depend largely upon the attitude which Charles should assume towards the reform movement. Fortunately for the Catholic Church, the young emperor placed himself at the head of the Catholic party, and during his reign employed the strength and resources of his empire in repressing the heresy of the reformers.

HIS TWO CHIEF ENEMIES.--Had Charles been free from the outset to devote all his energies to the work of suppressing the Lutheran heresy, it is difficult to see what could have saved the reform doctrines within his dominions from total extirpation. But fortunately for the cause of the reformers, Charles' attention, during all the first part of his reign, was drawn away from the serious consideration of Church questions, by the attacks upon his dominions of two of the most powerful monarchs of the times,--Francis I. (1515-1547) of France, and Solyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), Sultan of Turkey. Whenever Charles was inclined to proceed to severe measures against the Protestant princes of Germany, the threatening movements of one or both of these enemies, at times acting in concert and alliance, forced him to postpone his proposed crusade against heretics for a campaign against foreign foes.

RIVALRY AND WARS BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS [Footnote: Table of Wars:-- First War (ended by Peace of Madrid). . 1521-1526 Second War (ended by Ladies' Peace) . . 1527-1529 Third War (ended by Truce of Nice). . . 1536-1538 Fourth War (ended by Peace of Crespy).. 1542-1544] (1521-1544).--Francis I. was the rival of Charles in the contest for Imperial honors. When the Electors conferred the title of emperor upon the Spanish monarch, Francis was sorely disappointed, and during all the remainder of his reign kept up a jealous and almost incessant warfare with Charles, whose enormous possessions now nearly surrounded the French kingdom. Italy was the field of much of the fighting, as the securing of dominion in that peninsula was the chief aim of each of the rivals.

The so-called First War between Francis and the emperor was full of misfortunes for Francis. His army was driven out of Northern Italy by the Imperial forces; his most skilful and trusted commander, the Constable of Bourbon, turned traitor and went over to Charles, and another of his most valiant nobles, the celebrated Chevalier Bayard, the knight sans peur, sans reproche, "without fear and without reproach," was killed; while, to crown all, Francis himself, after suffering a crushing defeat at Pavia, in Italy, was wounded and taken prisoner. In his letter to his mother informing her of the disaster, he is said to have laconically written, "All is lost save honor." He was liberated by the Peace of Madrid (1526).

The most memorable incident of the Second War between the king and the emperor, was the sack of Rome by an Imperial army, made up chiefly of Lutherans. Rome had not witnessed such scenes since the terrible days of the Goth and Vandal.

In the Third War Francis shocked all Christendom by forming an alliance with the Turkish Sultan, who ravaged with his fleets the Italian coasts, and sold his plunder and captives in the port of Marseilles. Thus was a Christian city shamefully opened to the Moslems as a refuge and a slave-market.

The Fourth War, which was the last between the rivals, left their respective possessions substantially the same as at the beginning of the strife, in 1521.

DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF THE WAR.--The results of these royal contentions had been extremely calamitous. For a quarter of a century they had kept nearly all Europe in a perfect turmoil, and by preventing alliances of the Christian states, had been the occasion of the severe losses which Christendom during this period suffered at the hands of the Turks. Hungary had been ravaged with fire and sword; Rhodes had been captured from the Knights of St. John; and all the Mediterranean shores pillaged, and thousands of Christian captives chained to the oars of Turkish galleys. [Footnote: The worst feature of this advance of the Sultan's authority in the Mediterranean was the growth, under his protection, of the power of the Algerian pirates. One of the chief strongholds of the pirates on the African coast was Tunis, which was held by the famous Barbarossa. In the interval between his second and third wars with Francis, Charles, with a large army and fleet, made an assault upon this place, defeated the corsair, and set free 20,000 Christian captives. For this brilliant and knightly achievement, the emperor received great applause throughout Europe. Just after his third war with Francis, the emperor made an unsuccessful and most disastrous assault upon Algiers, another stronghold of the corsairs.]

PERSECUTION OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS BY FRANCIS.--The cessation of the wars between Francis and Charles left each free to give his attention to his heretical subjects. And both had work enough on hand; for while the king and the emperor had been fighting each other, the doctrines of the reformers had been spreading rapidly in all directions and among all classes.

The severest blow dealt by Francis against the heretics of his kingdom fell upon the Vaudois, or Waldenses, [Footnote: So called from the founder of the sect, Peter Waldo, or Pierre de Vaux, who lived about the beginning of the thirteenth century.] the inhabitants of a number of hamlets in Piedmont and Provence. Thousands were put to death by the sword, thousands more were burned at the stake, and the land was reduced to a wilderness. Only a miserable remnant, who found an asylum among the mountains, were left to hand down their faith to later times.

CHARLES' WARS WITH THE PROTESTANT GERMAN PRINCES.--Charles, on his part, turned his attention to the reformers in Germany. Inspired by religious motives and convictions, and apprehensive, further, of the effect upon his authority in Germany of the growth there of a confederacy of the Protestant princes, known as the League of Schmalkald, Charles resolved to suppress the reform movement by force. He was at first successful, but in the end, the war proved the most disastrous and humiliating to him of any in which he had engaged. Successive defeats of his armies forced him to give up his undertaking to make all his German subjects think alike in matters of religion.

THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF AUGSBURG (1555).--In the celebrated Diet of Augsburg, convened in 1555 to compose the distracted affairs of the German states, it was arranged and agreed that every prince should be allowed to choose between the Catholic religion and the Augsburg Confession, [Footnote: The "Augsburg Confession" was the formula of belief of the adherents of Luther. It was drawn up by the scholar Melanchthon, and laid before the Imperial Diet assembled at Augsburg by Charles V. in 1530.] and should have the right to make his religion the worship of his people. This, it will be noted, was simply toleration as concerns princes or governments. The people individually had no freedom of choice; every subject must follow his prince, and think and believe as he thought and believed. Of course, this was no real toleration.

Even to the article of toleration as stated above, the Diet made one important exception. The Catholics insisted that ecclesiastical princes, i.e., bishops and abbots who were heads of states, on becoming Protestants, should lose their offices and revenues; and this provision, under the name of the Ecclesiastical Reservation, was finally made a part of the treaty. This was a most fortunate article for the Catholics.

ABDICATION AND DEATH OF CHARLES.--While the Diet of Augsburg was arranging the Religious Peace, the Emperor Charles was enacting the part of a second Diocletian (see p. 331). There had long been forming in his mind the purpose of spending his last days in monastic seclusion. The disappointing issue of his contest with the Protestant princes of Germany, the weight of advancing years, together with menacing troubles which began "to thicken like dark clouds about the evening of his reign," now led the emperor to carry this resolution into effect. Accordingly he abdicated in favor of his son Philip the crown of the Netherlands (1555), and that of Spain and its colonies (1556), and then retired to the monastery of San Yuste, situated in a secluded region in the western part of Spain (1556).

In his retreat at Yuste, Charles passed the remaining short term of his life in participating with the monks in the exercises of religion, and in watching the current of events without; for Charles never lost interest in the affairs of the empire over which he had ruled, and Philip constantly had the benefit of his father's wisdom and experience.

There is a tradition which tells how. Charles, after vainly endeavoring to make some clocks that he had about him at Yuste run together, made the following reflection: "How foolish I have been to think I could make all men believe alike about religion, when here I cannot make even two clocks keep the same time."

This story is probably mythical. Charles seems never to have doubted either the practicability or the policy of securing uniformity of belief by force. While in retirement at Yuste, he expressed the deepest regret that he did not burn Luther at Worms. He was constantly urging Philip to use greater severity in dealing with his heretical subjects, and could scarcely restrain himself from leaving his retreat, in order to engage personally in the work of extirpating the pestilent doctrines, which he heard were spreading in Spain.

2. SPAIN UNDER PHILIP II. (1556-1598).

PHILIP'S DOMAINS.--With the abdication of Charles V. the Imperial crown passed out of the Spanish line of the House of Hapsburg. [Footnote: The Imperial crown went to Charles' brother, Ferdinand, of Austria.] Yet the dominions of Philip were scarcely less extensive than those over which his father had ruled. All the hereditary possessions of the Spanish crown were of course his. Then just before his father's abdication gave him these domains, he had become king-consort of England by marriage with Mary Tudor. And about the middle of his reign he conquered Portugal and added to his empire that kingdom and its rich dependencies in Africa and the East Indies,--an acquisition which more than made good to the Spanish crown the loss of the Imperial dignity. After this accession of territory, Philip's sovereignty was acknowledged by more than 100,000,000 persons- probably as large a number as was embraced within the limits of the Roman empire at the time of its greatest extension.

But notwithstanding that Philip's dominions were so extensive, his resources enormous, and many of the outward circumstances of his reign striking and brilliant, there were throughout the period causes at work which were rapidly undermining the greatness of Spain and preparing her fall. By wasteful wars and extravagant buildings Philip managed to dissipate the royal treasures; and by his tyrannical course in respect of his Moorish, Jewish, and Protestant subjects, he ruined the industries of the most flourishing of the provinces of Spain, and drove the Netherlands into a desperate revolt, which ended in the separation of the most valuable of those provinces from the Spanish crown.

As the most important matters of Philip's reign--namely, his war against the revolted Netherlands, and his attempt upon England with his "Invincible Armada"--belong more properly to the respective histories of England and the Netherlands, and will be treated of in connection with the affairs of those countries (see pp. 558, 564), we shall give here only a very little space to the history of the period.

PHILIP'S WAR WITH FRANCE.--Philip took up his father's quarrel with France. He was aided by the English, who were persuaded to this step by their queen, Mary Tudor, now the wife of the Spanish sovereign. Fortune favored Philip. The French were defeated in two great battles, and were forced to agree to the terms of a treaty (Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, 1559) so advantageous to Spain as to give Philip great distinction in the eyes of all Europe.

PHILIP'S CRUSADE AGAINST THE MOORS.--It will be recalled that after the conquest of Granada the Moors were still allowed the exercise of their religion (see p. 499). Philip conceived it to be his duty to impose upon them conditions that should thoroughly obliterate all traces of their ancient faith and manners. So he issued a decree that the Moors should no longer use their native tongue; and that they should give their children Christian names, and send them to Christian schools. A determined revolt followed. Philip repressed the uprising with terrible severity (1571). The fairest provinces of Spain were almost depopulated, and large districts relapsed into primeval wilderness.

DEFEAT OF THE TURKISH FLEET AT LEPANTO (1571).--Philip rendered an eminent service to civilization in helping to stay the progress of the Turks in the Mediterranean. They had captured the important island of Cyprus, and had assaulted the Hospitallers at Malta, [Footnote: After the knights had been driven from the island of Rhodes by the Turks (see p. 532), Charles gave the survivors of the Order the island of Malta (1530).] which island had been saved from falling into the hands of the infidels only by the splendid conduct of the knights. All Christendom was becoming alarmed. Pope Pius V. called upon the princes of Europe to rally to the defence of the Church. An alliance was formed, embracing the Pope, the Venetians, and Philip II. An immense fleet was equipped, and put under the command of Don John of Austria, Philip's half-brother, a young general whose consummate ability had been recently displayed in the crusade against the Moors.

The Christian fleet met the Turkish squadron in the Gulf of Lepanto, on the western coast of Greece. The battle was unequalled by anything the Mediterranean had seen since the naval encounters of the Romans and Carthaginians in the First Punic War. More than 600 ships and 200,000 men mingled in the struggle. The Ottoman fleet was almost totally destroyed. Thousands of Christian captives, who were found chained to the oars of the Turkish galleys, were liberated. All Christendom rejoiced as when Jerusalem was captured by the first crusaders.

The battle of Lepanto holds an important place in history, because it marks the turning-point of the long struggle between the Mohammedans and the Christians, which had now been going on for nearly one thousand years. The Ottoman Turks, though they afterwards made progress in some quarters, never recovered the prestige they lost in that disaster, and their authority and power thenceforward steadily declined. [Footnote: After the battle of Lepanto the next most critical moment in the history of the Turkish conquests was in 1683. In that year the Turks besieged Vienna, and had all but secured the prize, when the city was relieved by the distinguished Polish general Sobieski.]

THE DEATH OF PHILIP: LATER EVENTS.--In the year 1588 Philip made his memorable attempt with the so-called "Invincible Armada" upon England, at this time the stronghold of Protestantism. As we shall see a little later, he failed utterly in the undertaking (see p. 558). Ten years after this he died in the palace of the Escurial. With his death closed that splendid era of Spanish history which began with the discovery of the New World by Columbus. From this time forward the nation steadily declined in power, reputation, and influence.

Thus, under Philip III. (1598-1621), a severe loss, and one from which they never recovered, was inflicted upon the manufactures and various other industries of Spain, by the expulsion of the Moors, or Moriscoes. More than half a million of the most intelligent, skilful, and industrious inhabitants of the Peninsula were driven into exile. And then in 1609, the Protestant Netherlands, whose revolt against the tyranny of Philip II. has been mentioned, virtually achieved their independence (see p. 570). In the secession of these provinces the Spanish crown lost her most valuable possessions, and she now sank rapidly to the position of a third or fourth rate power. [Footnote: The loss of the Netherlands was followed in 1639 by the loss of Portugal. During the latter part of the seventeenth century Spain was involved in disastrous wars with France, and suffered a decline of 8,000,000 in her population. After the revolt of her American colonies, in the early part of the present century, and her cession to the United States of Florida (in 1819), Spain was almost shorn--she still held Cuba and a few other patches of territory scattered about the world--of those rich and magnificent colonial possessions which had been her pride in the time of her ascendency.]

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Chapter L

THE TUDORS AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. (1485-1603.)

1. INTRODUCTORY.

THE TUDOR PERIOD.--The Tudor period [Footnote: The Tudor sovereigns were Henry VII. (1485-1509); Henry VIII. (1509-1547); Edward VI. (1547-1553); Mary (1553-1558); and Elizabeth (1558-1603).] in English history covers the sixteenth century, and overlaps a little the preceding and the following century. It was an eventful and stirring time for the English people. It witnessed among them great progress in art, science, and trade, and a literary outburst such as the world had not seen since the best days of Athens. But the great event of the period was the Reformation. It was under the Tudors that England was severed from the spiritual empire of Rome, and Protestantism firmly established in the island. To tell how these great results were effected will be our chief aim in the present chapter.

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION FIRST A REVOLT AND THEN A REFORM.--The Reformation in England was, more distinctly than elsewhere, a double movement. First, England was separated violently from the ecclesiastical empire of Rome. All papal and priestly authority was cast off, but without any essential change being made in creed or mode of worship. This was accomplished under Henry VIII.

Secondly, the English Church, thus rendered independent of Rome, gradually changed its creed and ritual. This was effected chiefly under Edward VI. So the movement was first a revolt and then a reform.

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ENGLAND.--The soil in England was, in a considerable measure, prepared for the seed of the Reformation by the labors of the Humanists (see p. 474). Three men stand preeminent as lovers and promoters of the New Learning. Their names are Colet, Erasmus, and More.

Colet was leader and master of the little band. His generous enthusiasm was kindled at Florence, in Italy. It was an important event in the history of the Reformation when Colet crossed the Alps to learn Greek at the feet of the Greek exiles; for on his return to England he brought back with him not only an increased love for classical learning, but a fervent zeal for religious reform, inspired, it would seem, by the stirring eloquence of Savonarola (see p. 511).

Erasmus was probably superior in classical scholarship to any student of his times. "He bought Greek books first, and clothes afterwards." His Greek testament, published in 1516, was one of the most powerful agents concerned in bringing about the Reformation. Indeed, his relation to the reform movement is well indicated by the charge made against him by the enemies of the Reformation, who declared that "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it."

Thomas More was drawn, or rather forced, into political life, and of him and his writings we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, in connection with the reign of Henry VIII. (see p. 549).

THE LOLLARDS.--Another special preparation for the entrance into England of the Reformation was the presence among the lower classes there of a considerable body of Lollards (see p. 491). Persecution had driven the sect into obscurity, but had not been able to extirpate the heresy. In holding the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith, and in the maintenance of other doctrines denounced by the Roman Catholic Church, the Lollards occupied a position similar to that held by the German reformers, and consequently, when the teachings of Luther were disseminated in England, they received them gladly.

2. THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. (1485-1509).

THE UNION OF THE ROSES.--Henry VII. and his queen united the long-disputed titles of the two Roses [Footnote: Henry represented the claims of the House of Lancaster, and soon after his coronation he married the Princess Elizabeth, a daughter of Edward IV., and the representative of the claims of the House of York.] (see p. 488); but the bitter feelings engendered by the contentions of the rival families still existed. Particularly was there much smothered discontent among the Yorkists, which manifested itself in two attempts to place impostors upon the throne, both of which, however, were unsuccessful.

BENEVOLENCES.--Avarice and a love of despotic rule were Henry's chief faults. Much of his attention was given to heaping up a vast fortune. One device adopted by the 'king for wringing money from his wealthy subjects was what was euphoniously termed Benevolences. Magna Charta forbade the king to impose taxes without the consent of Parliament. But Henry did not like to convene Parliament, as he wished to rule like the kings of the Continent, guided simply by his own free will. Furthermore, his title not being above question, it was his policy to relieve the poorer classes of the burden of tax-paying, in order to secure their good-will and support. So Benevolences were made to take the place of regular taxes. These were nothing more nor less than gifts extorted from the well-to-do, generally by moral pressure. One of Henry's favorite ministers, named Morton, was particularly successful in his appeals for gifts of this kind. To those who lived splendidly he would say that it was very evident they were quite able to make a generous donation to their sovereign; while to others who lived in a narrow and pinched way he would represent that their economical mode of life must have made them wealthy. This famous dilemma received the name of "Morton's Fork."

MARITIME DISCOVERIES.--It was during this reign that great geographical discoveries enlarged the boundaries of the world. In 1492 Columbus announced to Europe the existence of land to the west. In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed around the cape of Good Hope and found a water-road to the East Indies.

The same year of this last enterprise, Henry fitted out a fleet under the command of John Cabot, a Venetian sailor doing business in England, and his son Sebastian, for exploration in the western seas. The Cabots first touched at Newfoundland (or Cape Breton Island), and then the following year Sebastian explored the coast they had run against, from that point to what is now Virginia or the Carolinas. They were the first Europeans, if we except the Northmen, to look upon the American continent, for Columbus at this time had seen only the islands in front of the Gulf of Mexico. These explorations of the Cabots were of great importance for the reason that they gave England a title to the best portion of the North American coast.

FOREIGN MATRIMONIAL ALLIANCES.--The marriages of Henry's children must be noted by us here, because of the great influence these alliances had upon the after-course of English history. A common fear of France caused Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Henry to form a protective alliance. To secure the permanency of the union it was deemed necessary to cement it by a marriage bond. The Spanish Infanta was accordingly betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Unfortunately, the prince died soon after the celebration of the nuptials. The Spanish sovereigns, still anxious to retain the advantages of an English alliance, now urged that the young widow be espoused to Arthur's brother Henry, and the English king, desirous on his side to preserve the friendship of Spain, assented to the betrothal. A rule of the Church, however, which forbade a man to marry his brother's widow, stood in the way of this arrangement; but the queen- mother Isabella managed to secure a decree from the Pope granting permission in this case, and so the young widow was betrothed to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII. This alliance of the royal families of England and Spain led to many important consequences, as we shall learn.

To relieve England of danger on her northern frontier, Henry steadily pursued the policy of a marriage alliance with Scotland. His wishes were realized when his eldest daughter Margaret became the wife of James IV., king of that realm. This was a most fortunate marriage, and finally led to the happy union of the two countries under a single crown (see p. 601).

Henry VII. died in 1509, leaving his throne to his son Henry, an energetic and headstrong youth of eighteen years.

3. ENGLAND SEVERED FROM THE PAPACY BY HENRY VIII. (1509-1547).

CARDINAL WOLSEY.--We must here, at the opening of Henry VIII.'s reign, [Footnote: In 1512, joining what was known as the Holy League,--a union against the French king, of which the Pope was the head,--Henry made his first campaign in France. While Henry was across the Channel, James IV. of Scotland thought to give aid to the French king by invading England. The Scottish army was met by the English force at Flodden, beneath the Cheviot Hills, and completely overwhelmed (1513). King James was killed, and the flower of the Scottish nobility were left dead upon the field. It was the most terrible disaster that had ever befallen the Scottish nation. Scott's poem entitled Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field, commemorates the battle.] introduce his greatest minister, Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530). This man was one of the most remarkable characters of his generation. Henry VIII. elevated him to the office of Archbishop of York, and made him lord chancellor of the realm. The Pope, courting the minister's influence, made him a cardinal, and afterwards papal legate in England. He was now at the head of affairs in both State and Church. His revenues from his many offices were enormous, and enabled him to assume a style of living astonishingly magnificent. His household numbered five hundred persons; and a truly royal train, made up of bishops and nobles, attended him with great pomp and parade wherever he went.

HENRY AS DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.--It was early in the reign of Henry VIII. that Martin Luther tacked upon the door of the Wittenberg church his epoch-making theses. England was stirred with the rest of Western Christendom. Henry wrote a Latin treatise replying to the articles of the audacious monk. The Pope, Leo X., rewarded Henry's Catholic zeal by conferring upon him the title of "Defender of the Faith" (1521). This title was retained by Henry after the secession of the Church of England from the Papal See, and is borne by his successors at this day, though they are "defenders" of quite a different faith from that in the defence of which Henry first earned the title.

HENRY SEEKS TO BE DIVORCED FROM CATHERINE.--We have now to relate some circumstances which changed Henry from a zealous supporter of the Papacy into its bitterest enemy.

Henry's marriage with Catherine of Aragon had been prompted by policy and not by love. Of the five children born of the union, all had died save a sickly daughter named Mary. In these successive afflictions which left him without a son to succeed him, Henry saw, or feigned to see, a certain sign of Heaven's displeasure because he had taken to wife the widow of his brother.

And now a new circumstance arose,--if it had not existed for some time previous to this. Henry conceived a violent passion for Anne Boleyn, a beautiful and vivacious maid of honor in the queen's household. This new affection so quickened the king's conscience, that he soon became fully convinced that it was his duty to put Catherine aside. [Footnote: Political considerations, without doubt, had much if not most to do in bringing Henry to this state of mind. He was ready to divorce Catherine and openly break with Spain, because the Emperor Charles V., to whom he had offered the hand of the Princess Mary, had married the Infanta of Portugal, and thus cast aside the English alliance. On this point consult Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution, pp. 178-180.]

Accordingly, Henry asked the Pope, Clement VII., to grant him a divorce. The request placed Clement in a very embarrassing position; for if he refused to grant it, he would offend Henry; and if he granted it, he would offend Charles V., who was Catherine's relative. So Clement in his bewilderment was led to temporize, to make promises to Henry and then evade them. At last, after a year's delay, he appointed Cardinal Wolsey and an Italian cardinal named Campeggio as commissioners to hold a sort of court in England to determine the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine. A year or more dragged along without anything being accomplished, and then Clement, influenced by the Emperor Charles, ordered Henry and Catherine both to appear before him at Rome. (Respecting appeals to Rome, see p. 418).

THE FALL OF WOLSEY.--Henry's patience was now completely exhausted. Becoming persuaded that Wolsey was not exerting himself as he might to secure the divorce, he banished him from the court. The hatred of Anne Boleyn and of others pursued the fallen minister. He was deposed from all his offices save the archbishopric, and eventually was arrested on the charge of high treason. While on his way to London the unhappy minister, broken in spirits and health, was prostrated by a fatal fever. As he lay dying, he uttered these words, which have lived so long after him: "Had I served my God as diligently as I have served my king, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs" (1530).

THOMAS CROMWELL.--A man of great power and mark now rises to our notice. Upon the disgrace of Wolsey, a faithful attendant of his named Thomas Cromwell straightway assumed in Henry's regard the place from which the Cardinal had fallen. He was just the opposite of Wolsey in caring nothing for pomp and parade. For the space of ten years this wonderful man shaped the policy of Henry's government. What he proposed to himself was the establishment of a royal despotism upon the ruin of every other power in the State. The executioner's axe was constantly wet with the blood of those who stood in his way, or who in any manner incurred his displeasure.

It was to the bold suggestions of this man that Henry now listened, when all other means of gratifying his passion had been tried in vain. Cromwell's advice to the king was to waste no more time in negotiating with the Pope, but at once to renounce the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, proclaim himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, and then get a decree of divorce from his own courts.

THE BREACH WITH ROME.--The advice of Cromwell was acted upon, and by a series of steps England was swiftly and forever carried out from under the authority of the Roman See. Henry first virtually cut the Gordian knot by a secret marriage with Anne Boleyn, notwithstanding a papal decree threatening him with excommunication should he dare to do so. Parliament, which was entirely subservient to Henry's wishes, now passed a law known as the Statute of Appeals, which made it a crime for any Englishman to carry a case out of the kingdom to the courts at Rome. Cranmer, a Cambridge doctor who had served Henry by writing a book in favor of the divorce, was, in accordance with the new programme, made archbishop of Canterbury. He at once formed a court, tried the case, and of course declared the king's marriage with Catherine null and void from the very first, and his union with Anne legal and right.

THE ACT OF SUPREMACY (1534).--The decisive step had now been taken: the Rubicon had been crossed. The Pope issued a decree excommunicating Henry and relieving his subjects from their allegiance. Henry on his part called Parliament, and a celebrated bill known as the Act of Supremacy was passed (1534). This statute made Henry the Supreme Head of the Church in England, vesting in him absolute control over all its offices, and turning into his hands the revenues which had hitherto flowed into the coffers of the Roman See. A denial of the title given the king by the statute was made high treason. This statute laid the foundations of the Anglican Church.

HENRY AS SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH.--Henry now set up in England a little Popedom of his own. He drew up a sort of creed which everybody must believe, or at least pretend to believe. The doctrines of purgatory, of indulgences, of masses for the dead, of pilgrimages, of the adoration of images and relics, were condemned; but the doctrines of transubstantiation and of confession to a priest were retained. Every head of a family and every teacher was commanded to teach his children or pupils the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the new Creed.

Thus was the English Church cared for by its self-appointed shepherd. What it should be called under Henry it would be hard to say. It was not Protestant; and it was just as far from being Catholic.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES.--The suppression of the monasteries was one of Henry's most high-handed measures. Several things led him to resolve on the extinction of these religious houses. For one thing, he coveted their wealth, which at this time included probably one-fifth of the lands of the realm. Then the monastic orders were openly or secretly opposed to Henry's claims of supremacy in religious matters; and this naturally caused him to regard them with jealousy and disfavor. Hence their ruin was planned.

In order to make the act appear as reasonable as possible, it was planned to make the charge of immorality the ostensible ground of their suppression. Accordingly two royal commissioners were appointed to inspect the monasteries, and make a report upon what they might see and learn. If we may believe the report, the smaller houses were conducted in a most shameful manner. The larger houses, however, were fairly free from faults. Many of them served as schools, hospitals, and inns, and all distributed alms to the poor who knocked at their gates. But the undoubted usefulness and irreproachable character of the larger foundations did not avail to avert the indiscriminate ruin of all. A bill was passed which at once dissolved between three and four hundred of the smaller monasteries, and gave all their property to the king (1536).

The unscrupulous act stirred up a rebellion in the north of England, known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace." This was suppressed with great severity, and soon afterwards the larger monasteries were also dissolved, their possessors generally surrendering the property voluntarily into the hands of the king, lest a worse thing than the loss of their houses and lands should come upon them. [Footnote: Altogether there were 90 colleges, 110 hospitals, 2374 chantries and chapels, and 645 monasteries broken up. Such Roman Catholic church property as was spared at this time, was confiscated during the reign of Edward VI., and a portion of it used to establish schools and hospitals.] Pensions were granted to the dispossessed monks, which relieved in part the suffering caused by the proceeding.

A portion of the confiscated wealth of the houses was used in founding schools and colleges, and a part for the establishment of bishoprics; but by far the greater portion was distributed among the adherents and favorites of the king. The leading houses of the English aristocracy of to-day, may, according to Hallam, trace the title of their estates back to these confiscated lands of the religious houses. Thus a new nobility was raised up whose interests led them to oppose any return to Rome; for in such an event their estates were liable of course to be restored to the monasteries.

PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS.--Our disapproval of Henry's unscrupulous conduct in compassing the ruin of the religious houses flames into hot indignation when we come to speak of his atrocious crimes against the lives and consciences of his subjects. The royal reformer persecuted alike Catholics and Protestants. Thus, on one occasion, three Catholics who denied that the king was the rightful Head of the Church, and three Protestants who disputed the doctrine of the real presence in the sacrament (a dogma which Henry had retained in his creed), were dragged on the same sled to the place of execution.

The most illustrious of the king's victims were the learned Sir Thomas More and the aged Bishop Fisher, both of whom were brought to the block because their consciences would not allow them to acknowledge that the king was rightfully the Supreme Head of the Church of England.

HENRY'S WIVES.--Henry's troubles with his wives form a curious and shameful page in the history of England's kings. Anne Boleyn retained the affections of her royal husband only a short time. She was charged with unfaithfulness and beheaded, leaving a daughter who became the famous Queen Elizabeth. The day after the execution of Anne the king married Jane Seymour, who died the following year. She left a son by the name of Edward, The fourth marriage of the king was to Anne of Cleves, who enjoyed her queenly honors only a few months. The king becoming enamoured of a young lady named Catherine Howard, Anne was divorced on the charge of a previous betrothal, and a new alliance formed. But Catherine was proved guilty of misconduct and her head fell upon the block. The sixth and last wife of this amatory monarch was Catherine Parr. She was a discreet woman, and managed to outlive her husband.

HIS DEATH AND THE SUCCESSION.--Henry died in 1547. His many marriages and divorces had so complicated the question of the succession, that Parliament, to avoid disputes after Henry's death, had given him power, with some restrictions, to settle the matter by will. This he did, directing that the crown should descend to his son Edward and his heirs; in case Edward died childless, it was to go to Mary and her heirs, and then to Elizabeth and her heirs.

LITERATURE UNDER HENRY VIII.: MORE'S UTOPIA.--The most prominent literary figure of this period is Sir Thomas More. The work upon which his fame as a writer mainly rests is his Utopia, or "Nowhere," a political romance like Plato's Republic or Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. It pictures an imaginary kingdom away on an island beneath the equinoctial in the New World, then just discovered, where the laws, manners, and customs of the people were represented as being ideally perfect. In this wise way More suggested improvements in social, political, and religious matters: for it was the wretchedness, the ignorance, the social tyranny, the religious intolerance, the despotic government of the times which inspired the Utopia. More did not expect, however, that Henry would follow all his suggestions, for he closes his account of the Utopians with this admission: "I confess that many things in the commonwealth of Utopia I rather wish than hope to see adopted in our own." And, indeed, More himself, before his death, materially changed his views regarding religious persecution. Although in his book he had expressed his decided disapproval of persecution for conscience' sake, yet he afterwards, driven into reaction by the terrible excesses of the Peasants' War in Germany, and by other popular tumults which seemed to be the outgrowth of the Protestant movement, favored persecution, and advised that unity of faith be preserved by the use of force.

4. CHANGES IN THE CREED AND RITUAL UNDER EDWARD VI. (1547-1553).

CHANGES IN THE CREED.--In accordance with the provisions of Henry's will, his only son Edward, by Jane Seymour, succeeded him. As Edward was but a child of nine years, the government was entrusted to a board of regents made up of both Protestants and Catholics. But the Protestants usurped authority in the body, and conducted the government in the interests of their party. The young king was carefully taught the doctrines of the reformers, and changes were made in the creed and service of the English Church which carried it still farther away from the Roman Catholic Church. By a royal decree all pictures, images, and crosses were cleared from the churches; the use of tapers, holy water, and incense were forbidden; the worship of the Virgin and the invocation of saints was prohibited; belief in purgatory was denounced as a superstition, and prayers for the dead were interdicted; the real or bodily presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the sacrament was denied; the prohibition against the marriage of the clergy was annulled (a measure which pleased the clergy and reconciled them to the other sweeping innovations); and the services of the Church, which had hitherto been conducted in Latin, were ordered to be said in the language of the people.

In order that the provision last mentioned might be effectually carried out, the English Book of Common Prayer was prepared by Archbishop Cranmer, and the first copy issued in 1549. This book, which was in the main simply a translation of the old Latin service-books, with the subsequent change of a word here and a passage there to keep it in accord with the growing new doctrines, is the same that is used in the Anglican Church at the present time.

In 1552 were published the well-known Forty-two Articles of Religion, which formed a compendious creed of the reformed faith. These Articles, reduced finally to thirty-nine, form the present standard of faith and doctrine in the Church of England.

PERSECUTIONS TO SECURE UNIFORMITY.--These sweeping changes in the old creed and in the services of the Church would have worked little hardship or wrong had only everybody, as in More's happy republic, been left free to follow what religion he would. But unfortunately it was only away in "Nowhere" that men were allowed perfect freedom of conscience and worship. By royal edict all preachers and teachers were forced to sign the Forty- two Articles; and severe enactments, known as "Acts for the Uniformity of Service," punished with severe penalties any departure from the forms of the new prayer-book. The Princess Mary, who remained a firm and conscientious adherent of the old faith, was not allowed to have the Roman Catholic service in her own private chapel. Even the powerful intercession of the Emperor Charles V. availed nothing. What was considered idolatry in high places could not be tolerated.

Many persons during the reign were imprisoned for refusing to conform to the new worship; while two at least were given to the flames as "heretics and contemners of the Book of Common Prayer." Probably a large majority of the English people were still at this time good Catholics at heart.

5. REACTION UNDER MARY (1553-1558).

RECONCILIATION WITH ROME.--Upon the death of Edward, an attempt was made, in the interest of the Protestant party, to place upon the throne Lady Jane Grey, [Footnote: The leaders of this movement were executed, and Lady Jane Grey was also eventually brought to the block.] a grand-niece of Henry VIII.; but the people, knowing that Mary was the rightful heir to the throne, rallied about her, and she was proclaimed queen amidst great demonstrations of loyalty. Soon after her accession, she was married to Philip II. of Spain.

Mary was an earnest Catholic, and her zeal effected the full reestablishment of the Catholic worship throughout the realm. Parliament voted that the nation should return to its obedience to the Papal See; and then the members of both houses fell upon their knees to receive at the hands of the legate of the Pope absolution from the sin of heresy and schism. The sincerity of their repentance was attested by their repeal of all the acts of Henry and of Edward by which the new worship had been set up in the land. The joy at Rome was unbounded.

But not quite everything done by the reformers was undone. Parliament refused to restore the confiscated Church lands, which was very natural, as much of this property was now in the hands of the lords and commoners (see p. 548). Mary, however, in her zeal for the ancient faith, restored a great part of the property still in the possession of the crown, and refounded many of the ruined monasteries and abbeys.

PERSECUTION OF THE PROTESTANTS.--With the reestablishment of the Roman worship, the Protestants in their turn became the victims of persecution. The three most eminent martyrs of what is known as the Marian persecutions were Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer. Altogether, between two and three hundred persons suffered death, during this reign, on account of their religion.

For the part she took in the persecutions that marked her reign, Mary should be judged not by the standard of our time, but by that of her own. Punishment of heresy was then regarded, by both Catholics and Protestants alike, as a duty which could be neglected by those in authority only at the peril of Heaven's displeasure. Believing this, those of that age could consistently do nothing less than labor to exterminate heresy with axe, sword, and fagot.

THE LOSS OF CALAIS.--The marriage of Philip and Mary had been earnestly wished for by the Emperor Charles V., in order that Philip, in those wars with France which he well knew must be a part of the bequest which he should make to his son, might have the powerful aid of England. This was Philip's chief reason in seeking the alliance; and in due time he called upon Mary for assistance against the French king. The result of England's participation in the war was her mortifying loss of Calais (see p. 487), which the French, by an unexpected attack, snatched out of the hands of its garrison (1558). The unfortunate queen did not live out the year that marked this calamity, which she most deeply deplored.

6. FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM UNDER ELIZABETH (1558-1603).

THE QUEEN.--Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. She seems to have inherited the characteristics of both parents; hence the inconsistencies of her disposition.

When the death of Mary called Elizabeth to the throne, she was twenty-five years of age. Like her father, she favored the reformed faith rather from policy than conviction. It was to the Protestants alone that she could look for support; her title to the crown was denied by every true Catholic in the realm, for she was the child of that marriage which the Pope had forbidden under pain of the anathemas of the Church.

Elizabeth possessed a strong will, indomitable courage, admirable judgment, and great political tact. It was these qualities which rendered her reign the strongest and most illustrious in the record of England's sovereigns, and raised the nation from a position of insignificance to a foremost place among the states of Europe.

Along with her good and queenly qualities and accomplishments, Elizabeth had many unamiable traits and unwomanly ways. She was capricious, treacherous, unscrupulous, ungrateful, and cruel. She seemed almost wholly devoid of a moral or religious sense. Deception and falsehood were her usual weapons in diplomacy. "In the profusion and recklessness of her lies," declares Green, "Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom."

HER MINISTERS.--One secret of the strength and popularity of Elizabeth's government was the admirable judgment she exercised in her choice of advisers. Around her Council-board she gathered the wisest and strongest men to be found in the realm. The most eminent of the queen's ministers was Sir William Cecil (Lord Burleigh), a man of great sagacity and ceaseless industry, to whose able counsel and prudent management is largely due the success of Elizabeth's reign. He stood at the head of the Queen's Council for forty years. His son Robert, Sir Nicholas Bacon, and Sir Francis Walsingham were also prominent among the queen's advisers.

REESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.--As Mary undid the work in religion of Henry and Edward, so now her work is undone by Elizabeth. The religious houses that had been reestablished by Mary were again dissolved, and Parliament, by two new Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, relaid the foundations of the Anglican Church.

The Act of Supremacy required all the clergy, and every person holding office under the crown, to take an oath declaring the queen to be the supreme governor of the realm in all spiritual as well as temporal things, and renouncing the authority or jurisdiction of any foreign prince or prelate. For refusing to take this oath, many Catholics during Elizabeth's reign suffered death, and many more endured within the Tower the worse horrors of the rack.

The Act of Uniformity forbade any clergyman to use any but the Anglican liturgy, and required every person to attend the Established Church on Sunday and other holy days. For every absence a fine of one shilling was imposed. The persecutions which arose under this law caused many Catholics to seek freedom of worship in other countries.

THE PROTESTANT NON-CONFORMISTS.--The Catholics were not the only persons among Elizabeth's subjects who were opposed to the Anglican worship. There were Protestant non-conformists--the Puritans and the Separatists--who troubled her almost as much as the Romanists.

The Puritans were so named because they desired a purer form of worship than the Anglican. To these earnest reformers the Church Elizabeth had established seemed but half-reformed. Many rites and ceremonies, such as wearing the surplice and making the cross in baptism, had been retained; and these things, in their eyes, appeared mere Popish superstitions. What they wanted was a more sweeping change, a form of worship more like that of the Calvinistic churches of Geneva, in which city very many of them had lived as exiles during the Marian persecution. They, however, did not at once withdraw from the Established Church, but remaining within its pale, labored to reform it, and to shape its doctrines and discipline to their notions.

The Separatists were still more zealous reformers than the Puritans: in their hatred of everything that bore any resemblance to the Roman worship, they flung away the surplice and the Prayer-book, severed all connection with the Established Church, and refused to have anything to do with it. Under the Act of Conformity they were persecuted with great severity, so that multitudes were led to seek an asylum upon the continent. It was from among these exiles gathered in Holland that a little later came the passengers of the Mayflower,--the Pilgrim Fathers, who laid the foundations of civil liberty in the New World.

MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS.--A large part of the history of Elizabeth's reign is intertwined with the story of her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary Stuart was the daughter of James V. of Scotland, and to her in right of birth--according to all Catholics who denied the validity of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn--belonged the English crown next, after Mary Tudor. Upon the death, in 1560, of her husband Francis II. of France, Mary gave up life at the French court, and returned to her native land. She was now in her nineteenth year. The subtle charm of her beauty seems to have bewitched all who came into her presence--save the more zealous of the Protestants, who could never forget that their young sovereign was a Catholic. The stern old reformer, John Knox, made her life miserable. He was a veritable Elijah, in whose eyes Mary appeared a modern Jezebel. He called her a "Moabite," and the "Harlot of Babylon," till she wept from sheer vexation. She dared not punish the impudent preacher, for she knew too well the strength of the Protestant feeling among her subjects.

Other things now conspired with Mary's hated religion to alienate entirely the love of her people. Her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered. The queen was suspected of having some guilty knowledge of the affair. She was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son James.

Escaping from prison, Mary fled into England (1568). Here she threw herself upon the generosity of her cousin Elizabeth, and entreated aid in recovering her throne. But the part which she was generally believed to have had in the murder of her husband, her disturbing claims to the English throne, and the fact that she was a Catholic, all conspired to determine her fate. She was placed in confinement, and for nineteen years she remained a prisoner. During all this time Mary was the centre of innumerable plots and conspiracies on the part of the Catholics, which aimed at setting her upon the English throne. The Pope aided these conspirators by a bull excommunicating Elizabeth, denying her right to the crown she wore, and releasing her subjects from their allegiance.

Events just now occurring on the continent tended to inflame the Protestants of England with a deadly hatred against Mary and her Catholic friends and abettors. In 1572 the Huguenots of France were slaughtered on St. Bartholomew's Day. In 1584 the Prince of Orange fell at the hands of a hired assassin. That there were daggers waiting to take the life of Elizabeth was well known. It was evident that so long as Mary lived the queen's life was in constant danger. In the feverish state of the public mind, it was natural that the air should be filled with rumors of plots of every kind. Finally, a carefully laid conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, was unearthed. Mary was tried for complicity in the plot, was declared guilty, and, after some hesitation, feigned or otherwise, on the part of Elizabeth, was ordered to the block (1587).

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.--The execution of Mary Stuart led immediately to the memorable attempt against England by the Spanish Armada. Before her death the Queen of Scots had bequeathed to Philip II. of Spain her claims to the English crown. To enforce these rights, to avenge the death of Mary, to punish Elizabeth for rendering aid to his rebellious subjects in the Netherlands, and to deal a fatal blow to the Reformation in Europe by crushing the Protestants of England, Philip resolved upon making a tremendous effort for the conquest of the heretical and troublesome island. Vast preparations were made for carrying out the project. Great fleets were gathered in the harbors of Spain, and a large army was assembled in the Netherlands to cooperate with the naval armament. The Pope, Sixtus V., blessed the enterprise, which was thus rendered a sort of crusade.

These threatening preparations produced a perfect fever of excitement in England; for we must bear in mind that the Spanish king was at this time the most powerful potentate in Europe, commanding the resources of a large part of two worlds. Never did Roman citizens rise more splendidly to avert some terrible peril threatening the republic than the English people now arose as a single man to defend their island-realm against the revengeful and ambitious project of Spain. The imminent danger served to unite all classes, the gentry and the yeomanry, Protestants and Catholics. The latter might intrigue to set a Mary Stuart on the English throne, but they were not ready to betray their land into the hands of the hated Spaniards.

July 19, 1588, the Invincible Armada, as it was boastfully called, was first descried by the watchmen on the English cliffs. It swept up the channel in the form of a great crescent, seven miles in width from tip to tip of horn. The English fleet, commanded by Drake, Howard, and Lord Henry Seymour, disputed its advance. The light build and quick movements of the English ships gave them a great advantage over the clumsy, unwieldy Spanish galleons. The result was the complete defeat of the immense Armada, and the destruction of many of the ships. The remaining galleons sought to escape by sailing northward around the British Isles; but--a terrible tempest arising, many of the fleeing ships were dashed to pieces on the Scottish or the Irish shores. Barely one-third of the ships of the Armada ever reentered the harbors whence they sailed. When intelligence of the woeful disaster was carried to Philip, he simply said, "God's will be done; I sent my fleet to fight with the English, not with the elements."

The destruction of the Invincible Armada was not only a terrible blow to Spanish pride, but an equally heavy blow to Spanish supremacy among the states of Europe. From this time on, Spain's prestige and power rapidly declined.

As to England, she had been delivered from a great peril; and as to the cause of Protestantism, it was now safe.

MARITIME AND COLONIAL ENTERPRISES.--The crippling of the naval power of Spain left England mistress of the seas. The little island-realm now entered upon the most splendid period of her history. The old Norse blood of her people, stirred by recent events, seemed to burn with a feverish impatience for maritime adventure and glory. Many a story of the daring exploits of English sea-rovers during the reign of Elizabeth seems like a repetition of some tale of the old Vikings. [Footnote: Among all these sea-rovers, half explorer, half pirate, Sir Francis Drake (1545-1595) was preeminent. Before the Armada days he had sailed around the globe (1577- 1579), and for the achievement had been knighted by Queen Elizabeth. The whole life of this sixteenth century Viking was spent in fighting the fleets of his sovereign's enemy, Philip II., in capturing Spanish treasure-vessels on the high sea, and in pillaging the warehouses and settlements on every Spanish shore in the Old and the New World.]

Especially deserving of mention among the enterprises of these stirring and romantic times are the undertakings of Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618). Several expeditions were sent out by him for the purpose of making explorations and forming settlements in the New World. One of these, which explored the central coasts of North America, returned with such glowing accounts of the beauty and richness of the land visited, that, in honor of the Virgin Queen, it was named "Virginia."

Sir Walter Raleigh sent two colonies to the new land, but they both failed to form permanent settlements. It is said that the returning colonists first acquainted the English with the Indian custom of smoking tobacco, and that Sir Walter Raleigh made the practice popular. This may be true; yet prior to this, Europeans had acquired a knowledge of the plant and some of its uses through Spanish explorers and settlers. At this same time also, the potato, likewise a native product of the New World, was introduced into the British Isles.

THE QUEEN'S DEATH.--The closing days of Elizabeth's reign were, to her personally, dark and gloomy. She seemed to be burdened with a secret grief, [Footnote: In 1601 she sent to the block her chief favorite, the Earl of Essex, who had been found guilty of treason. She wished to spare him, and probably would have done so, had a token which he sent her from his prison reached her. Read the story as told in all the histories of England.] as well as by the growing infirmities of age. She died March 24, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age, and the forty-fifth of her reign. With her ended the Tudor line of English sovereigns.

Literature of the Elizabethan Era.

INFLUENCES FAVORABLE TO LITERATURE.--The years covered by the reign of Elizabeth constitute the most momentous period in history. It was the age when Europe was most deeply stirred by the Reformation. It was, too, a period of marvellous physical and intellectual expansion and growth. The discoveries of Columbus and Copernicus had created, as Froude affirms, "not in any metaphor, but in plain and literal speech, a new heaven and a new earth." The New Learning had, at the same time, discovered the old world--had revealed an unsuspected treasure in the philosophies and literatures of the past.

No people of Europe felt more deeply the stir and movement of the times, nor helped more to create this same stir and movement, than the English nation. There seemed to be nothing too great or arduous for them to undertake. They made good their resistance to the Roman See; they humbled the pride of the strongest monarch in Christendom; they sailed round the globe, and penetrated all its seas.

An age of such activity and achievement almost of necessity gives birth to a strong and vigorous literature. And thus is explained, in part at least, how the English people during this period should have developed a literature of such originality and richness and strength as to make it the prized inheritance of all the world.

THE WRITERS.--To make special mention of all the great writers who adorned the Elizabethan era would carry us quite beyond the limits of our book. Having said something of the influences under which they wrote, we will simply add that this age was the age of Shakespeare and Spenser and Bacon. [Footnote: William Shakespeare (1564-1616); Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599); Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Shakespeare and Bacon, it will be noticed, outlived Elizabeth. Two other names hold a less prominent place,--that of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), the courtly knight, who wrote the Arcadia, a sort of pastoral romance, and A Defence of Poesy, a work intended to counteract the Puritanical spirit then rising; and that of Richard Hooker (1553-1600), who in his Ecclesiastical Polity defends the Anglican Church.]

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Chapter LI

THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS: RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. (1572-1609.)

THE COUNTRY.--The term Netherlands (low-lands) was formerly applied to all that low, marshy district in the northwest of Europe, sunk much of it below the level of the sea, now occupied by the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. The entire strip of land is simply the delta accumulations of the Rhine and other rivers emptying into the North Sea. Originally it was often overflowed by its streams and inundated by the ocean. But this unpromising morass, protected at last by heavy dykes against the invasions of the ocean and the overflow of its streams, was destined to become the site of cities which at one period were the richest and most potent of Europe, and the seat of one of the foremost commonwealths of modern times.

No country in Europe made greater progress in civilization during the mediæval era than the Netherlands. At the opening of the sixteenth century they contained a crowded and busy population of 3,000,000 souls. The ancient marshes had been transformed into carefully kept gardens and orchards. The walled cities alone numbered between two and three hundred.

THE LOW COUNTRIES UNDER CHARLES V. (1515-1555).--The Netherlands were part of those possessions over which Charles V. ruled by hereditary right. Though Charles could not prevent the growth of Protestantism in Germany, he resolved to root out the heresy from his hereditary possessions of the Netherlands. By an Imperial edict he condemned to death all persons presuming to read the Scriptures, or even to discuss religious topics. The Inquisition was introduced, and thousands perished at the stake and upon the scaffold, or were strangled, or buried alive. But when Charles retired to the monastery at Yuste (see p. 534), the reformed doctrines were, notwithstanding all his efforts, far more widely spread and deeply rooted in the Netherlands than when he entered upon their extirpation by fire and sword.

ACCESSION OF PHILIP II.--In 1555, in the presence of an august and princely assembly at Brussels, and amidst the most imposing and dramatic ceremonies, Charles V. abdicated the crown whose weight he could no longer bear, and placed the same upon the head of his son Philip (see p. 534), who was a most zealous Catholic. Philip remained in the Netherlands after his coronation four years, employing much of his time in devising means to root out the heresy of Protestantism. In 1559 he set sail for Spain, never to return.

LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS.--Upon his departure from the Netherlands Philip entrusted their government to his half-sister, Margaret, Duchess of Parma, as Regent. Under the administration of Margaret (1559-1567) the persecution of the Protestants went on with renewed bitterness. Philip declared that "he would rather lose a hundred thousand lives, were they all his own, than allow the smallest deviation from the standards of the Roman Catholic Church." Thousands fled the country, many of the fugitives finding a home in England. At last the nobles leagued together for the purpose of resisting the Inquisition. They demanded of the Regent a redress of grievances. When the petition was presented to the Duchess, she displayed great agitation, whereupon one of her councillors exclaimed, "Madam, are you afraid of a pack of beggars?"

The expression was carried to the nobles, who were assembled at a banquet. Immediately one of their number suspended a beggar's wallet from his neck, and filling a wooden bowl with wine, proposed the toast, "Long live the Beggars." The name was tumultuously adopted, and became the party designation of the patriot Netherlanders during their long struggle with the Spanish power.

THE ICONOCLASTS (1566).--Affairs now rapidly verged towards violence and open revolt. The only reply of the government to the petition of the nobles was a decree termed the Moderation, which substituted hanging for burning in the case of condemned heretics. The pent-up indignation of the people at length burst forth in an uncontrollable fury. They gathered in great mobs, and arming themselves with whatever implements they could first seize, proceeded to demolish every image they could find in the churches throughout the country. The rage of the insurgents was turned in this direction, because in their eyes these churches represented the hated Inquisition under which they were suffering. Scarcely a church in all the Netherlands escaped. The monasteries, too, were sacked, their libraries burned, and the inmates driven from their cloisters. In the province of Flanders alone there were four hundred sacred buildings visited by the mob, and sacked. The tempest destroyed innumerable art treasures, which have been as sincerely mourned by the lovers of the beautiful as the burned rolls of the Alexandrian Library have been lamented by the lovers of learning.

These image-breaking riots threw Philip into a perfect transport of rage. He tore his beard, and exclaimed, "It shall cost them dear! I swear it by the soul of my father!"

THE DUKE OF ALVA AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE.--The year following the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, Philip sent to the Netherlands a veteran Spanish army, headed by the Duke of Alva. The duke was one of the ablest generals of the age; and the intelligence of his coming threw the provinces into a state of the greatest agitation and alarm. Those who could do so hastened to get out of the country. William the Silent, Prince of Orange, fled to Germany, where he began to gather an army of volunteers for the struggle which he now saw to be inevitable. Egmont and Horn, noblemen of high rank and great distinction, were seized, cast into prison, and afterwards beheaded (1568).

The eyes of all Netherlanders were now turned to the Prince of Orange as their only deliverer. Towards the close of the year 1568, he marched from Germany against Alva, at the head of an army of 30,000 men, which he had raised and equipped principally at his own expense. The war was now fully joined. The struggle lasted for more than a generation,--for thirty-seven years.

The Spanish armies were commanded successively by the most experienced and distinguished generals of Europe,--the Duke of Alva, Don John of Austria (the conqueror of the Moors and the hero of the great naval fight of Lepanto), and the Duke of Parma; but the Prince of Orange coped ably with them all, and in the masterly service which he rendered his country, thus terribly assaulted, earned the title of "the Founder of Dutch Liberties."

ISOLATION OF THE PROVINCES.--The Netherlanders sustained the unequal contest almost single-handed; for, though they found much sympathy among the Protestants of Germany, France, and England, they never received material assistance from any of these countries, excepting England, and it was not until late in the struggle that aid came from this source. Elizabeth did, indeed, at first furnish the patriots with secret aid, and opened the ports of England to the "Beggars of the Sea"; but after a time the fear of involving herself in a war with Philip led her to withhold for a long period all contributions and favors. As regards the German states, they were too much divided among themselves to render efficient aid; and just at the moment when the growing Protestant sentiment in France encouraged the Netherlanders to look for help from the Huguenot party there, the massacre of St. Bartholomew extinguished forever all hope of succor from that quarter (see p. 576). So the little revolted provinces were left to carry on unaided, as best they might, a contest with the most powerful monarch of Christendom.

The details of this memorable struggle we must, of course, leave unnoticed, and hurry on to the issue of the matter. In so doing we shall pass unnoticed many memorable sieges and battles. [Footnote: Read in Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic the siege and sack of Harlem and the relief of Leyden.]

PACIFICATION OF GHENT (1576).--The year 1576 was marked by a revolt of the Spanish soldiers, on account of their not receiving their pay, the costly war having drained Philip's treasury. The mutinous army marched through the land, pillaging city after city, and paying themselves with the spoils. The beautiful city of Antwerp was ruined. The horrible massacre of its inhabitants, and the fiendish atrocities committed by the frenzied soldiers, caused the awful outbreak to be called the "Spanish Fury."

The terrible state of affairs led to an alliance between Holland and Zealand and the other fifteen provinces of the Netherlands, known in history as the Pacification of Ghent (1576). The resistance to the Spanish crown had thus far been carried on without concerted action among the several states, the Prince of Orange having hitherto found it impossible to bring the different provinces to agree to any plan of general defence. But the awful experiences of the Spanish Fury taught the necessity of union, and led all the seventeen provinces solemnly to agree to unite in driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands, and in securing full liberty for all in matters of faith and worship. William of Orange, with the title of Stadtholder, was placed at the head of the union. It was mainly the strong Catholic sentiment in the Southern provinces that had prevented such a union and pacification long before.

THE UNION OF UTRECHT (1579).--With the Spanish forces under the lead first of Don John of Austria, the hero-victor of Lepanto, and afterwards of Prince Alexander of Parma, a commander of most distinguished ability, the war now went on with increased vigor, fortune, with many vacillations, inclining to the side of the Spaniards. Disaffection arose among the Netherlanders, the outcome of which was the separation, of the provinces. The Prince of Orange, seeing the impossibility of uniting all the states, devoted his efforts to effecting a confederation of the Northern ones. His endeavors were fortunately crowned with success, and the seven Protestant states of the North, [Footnote: The ten Catholic provinces of the South, although they continued their contest with Philip a little longer, ultimately submitted to Spanish tyranny. A portion of these provinces were absorbed by France, while the remainder, after varied fortunes amidst the revolutions and dynastic changes of the European states, finally became the present kingdom of Belgium] the chief of which were Holland and Zealand, by the treaty of Utrecht (1579), were united in a permanent confederation, known as the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. In this league was laid the foundation of the Dutch Republic.

Fortunate would it have been for the Netherlands, could all of the states at this time have been brought to act in concert. Under the leadership of the Prince of Orange, the seventeen provinces might have been consolidated into a powerful nation, that might now be reckoned among the great powers of Europe.

THE "BAN" AND THE "APOLOGY."--William of Orange was, of course, the animating spirit of the confederacy formed by the treaty of Utrecht. In the eyes of Philip and his viceroys he appeared the sole obstacle in the way of the pacification of the provinces and their return to civil and ecclesiastical obedience. In vain had Philip sent against him the ablest and most distinguished commanders of the age; in vain had he endeavored to detach him from the cause of his country by magnificent bribes of titles, offices, and fortune.

Philip now resolved to employ assassination for the removal of the invincible general and the incorruptible patriot. He published a ban against the prince, declaring him an outlaw, and offering to any one who should kill him the pardon of all his sins, a title of nobility, and 25,000 gold crowns.

The prince responded to the infamous edict in a remarkable paper, entitled "The Apology of the Prince of Orange,"--the most terrible arraignment of tyranny that was ever penned. The "Apology" was scattered throughout Europe, and everywhere produced a profound impression. The friends of the prince, while admiring his boldness, were filled with alarm for his safety. Their apprehensions, as the issue shows, were not unfounded.

ASSASSINATION OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE.--"The ban soon bore fruit." Upon the 10th day of July, 1584, five previous unsuccessful attempts having been made upon his life, the Prince of Orange was fatally shot by an assassin. The heirs of the murderer received substantially the reward which had been offered in the ban, being enriched with the estates of the prince, and honored by elevation to the ranks of the Spanish nobility.

The character of William the Silent is one of the most admirable portrayed in all history. [Footnote: He was not, however, without faults. The most serious of these was his habit of dissimulation. Some charge to this the separation of the Northern and Southern provinces after the Pacification of Ghent. The Southern provinces would not trust the "double-dealer." For references to various writers on this point, consult Young's History of the Netherlands, p, 320.] His steadfast and unselfish devotion to the cause of his country deservedly won for him the love of all classes. His people fondly called him "Father William."

PRINCE MAURICE: SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.--Severe as was the blow sustained by the Dutch patriots in the death of the Prince of Orange, they did not lose heart, but continued the struggle with the most admirable courage and steadfastness. Prince Maurice, a youth of seventeen years, the second son of William, was chosen Stadtholder in his place, and proved himself a worthy son of the great chief and patriot. The war now proceeded with unabated fury. The Southern provinces were, for the most part, in the hands of the Spaniards, while the revolutionists held control, in the main, of the Northern states.

Substantial aid from the English now came to the struggling Hollanders. Queen Elizabeth, alarmed by the murder of the Prince of Orange,--for she well knew that hired agents of the king of Spain watched likewise for her life,--openly espoused the cause of the Dutch. Among the English knights who led the British forces sent into the Netherlands was the gallant Sir Philip Sidney, the "Flower of Chivalry." At the siege of Zutphen (1586), he received a mortal wound. A little incident that occurred as he rode from the field, suffering from his terrible hurt, is always told as a memorial of the gentle knight. A cup of water having been brought him, he was about to lift it to his lips, when his hand was arrested by the longing glance of a wounded soldier who chanced at that moment to be carried past. "Give it to him," said the fainting knight; "his necessity is greater than mine."

PROGRESS OF THE WAR: TREATY OF 1609.--The circle of war grew more and more extended. France as well as England became involved, both fighting against Philip, who was now laying claims to the crowns of both these countries. The struggle was maintained on land and on sea, in the Old World and in the New. The English fleet, under the noted Sir Francis Drake (see p. 560, n.), ravaged the Spanish settlements in Florida and the West Indies, and intercepted the treasure-ships of Philip returning from the mines of Mexico and Peru; the Dutch fleet wrested from Spain many of her possessions in the East Indies and among the islands of the South Pacific.

Europe at last grew weary of the seemingly interminable struggle, and the Spanish commanders becoming convinced that it was impossible to reduce the Dutch rebels to obedience by force of arms, negotiations were entered into, and by the celebrated treaty of 1609, comparative peace was secured to Christendom.

The treaty of 1609 was in reality an acknowledgment by Spain of the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, although the Spanish king was so unwilling to admit the fact of his being unable to reduce the rebel states to submission, that the treaty was termed simply "a truce for twelve years." Spain did not formally acknowledge their independence until forty years afterwards, in the Peace of Westphalia, at the end of the Thirty Years' War (1648) (see p. 586).

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROVINCES DURING THE WAR.--One of the most remarkable features of the war for Dutch independence was the vast expansion of the trade and commerce of the revolted provinces, and their astonishing growth in population, wealth, and resources, while carrying on the bitter and protracted struggle. When the contest ended, notwithstanding the waste of war, the number of inhabitants crowded on that little patch of sea-bottom and morass constituting the Dutch Republic, was equal to the entire population of England; that is to say, to three or four millions. But the home-land was only a small part of the dominions of the commonwealth. Through the enterprise and audacity of its bold sailors, it had made extensive acquisitions in the East Indies and other parts of the world, largely at the expense of the Spanish and the Portuguese colonial possessions. The commerce of the little republic had so expanded that more than one hundred thousand of its citizens found a home upon the sea. No idlers or beggars were allowed a place in the industrious commonwealth. And hand in hand with industry went intelligence. Throughout the United Provinces it was rare to meet with a person who could not both read and write.

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Chapter LII

THE HUGUENOT WARS IN FRANCE. (1562-1629.)

BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.--Before Luther posted his ninety- five theses at Wittenberg, there appeared in the University of Paris and elsewhere in France men who, from their study of the Scriptures, had come to entertain opinions very like those of the German reformer. The land which had been the home of the Albigenses was again filled with heretics. The movement thus begun received a fresh impulse from the uprising in Germany under Luther.

The Reformation in France, as elsewhere, brought dissension, persecution, and war. We have already seen how Francis I., the second of the Valois- Orleans dynasty, [Footnote: The Valois-Orleans sovereigns, whose reigns cover the greater part of the period treated in the present chapter, were Louis XII. (1498-1515), Francis I. (1515-1547), Henry II. (1547-1559), Francis II. (1559-1560), Charles IX. (1560-1574), Henry III. (1574-1589). The successor of Henry III.--Henry IV.--was the first of the Bourbons.] waged an exterminating crusade against his heretical Waldensian subjects (see p. 533). His son and successor, Henry II., also conceived it to be his duty to uproot heresy; and it was his persecution of his Protestant subjects that sowed the seeds of those long and woful civil and religious wars which he left as a terrible legacy to his three feeble sons, Francis, Charles, and Henry, who followed him in succession upon the throne. At the time these wars began, which was about the middle of the sixteenth century, the confessors of the reformed creed, who later were known as Huguenots, [Footnote: This word is probably a corruption of the German Eidgenossen, meaning "oath-comrades" or "confederates."] numbered probably 400,000. The new doctrines found adherents especially among the nobility and the higher classes, and had taken particularly deep root in the South,--the region of the old Albigensian heresy.

THE CATHOLIC AND THE HUGUENOT LEADERS.--The leaders of the Catholic party were the notorious Catherine de Medici, and the powerful chiefs of the family of the Guises. Catherine, the queen-mother of the last three Valois-Orleans sovereigns, was an intriguing, treacherous Italian. Nominally she was a Catholic; but only nominally, for it seems certain that she was almost destitute of religious convictions of any kind. What she sought was power, and this she was ready to secure by any means. When it suited her purpose, she favored the Huguenots; and when it suited her purpose better, she incited the Catholics to make war upon them. Perhaps no other woman ever made so much trouble in the world. She made France wretched through the three successive reigns of her sons, and brought her house to a shameful and miserable end.

At the head of the family of the Guises stood Francis, Duke of Guise, a famous commander, who had gained great credit and popularity among his countrymen by many military exploits, especially by his capture of Calais from the English in the recent Spanish wars (see p. 553). By his side stood a younger brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. Both of these men were ardent Catholics. Mary Stuart, the queen of the young king Francis II., was their niece, and through her they ruled the boy-king. The Pope and the king of Spain were friends and allies of the Guises.

The chiefs of the Huguenots were the Bourbon princes, Anthony, king of Navarre, and Louis, Prince of Condé, who, next after the brothers of Francis II., were heirs to the French throne; and Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. Anthony was not a man of deep convictions. He at first sided with the Protestants, probably because it was only through forming an alliance with them that he could carry on his opposition to the Guises. He afterwards went over to the side of the Catholics. A man of very different character was Admiral Coligny. Early in life he had embraced the doctrines of the reformers, and he remained to the last the trusted and consistent, though ill-starred, champion of the Protestants.

THE CONSPIRACY OF AMBOISE (1560).--The foregoing notice of parties and their chiefs will render intelligible the events which we now have to narrate. The harsh measures adopted against the reformers by Francis II., who of course was entirely under the influence of the Guises, led the chiefs of the persecuted party to lay a plan for wresting the government from the hands of these "new Mayors of the Palace." The Guises were to be arrested and imprisoned, and the charge of the young king given to the Prince of Condé. The plot was revealed to the Guises, and was avenged by the execution of more than a thousand of the Huguenots.

THE MASSACRE OF VASSY (1562).--After the short reign of Francis II. (1559- 1560), his brother Charles came to the throne as Charles IX. He was only ten years of age, so the queen-mother assumed the government in his name. Pursuing her favorite maxim to rule by setting one party as a counterpoise to the other, she gave the Bourbon princes a place in the government, and also by a royal edict gave the Huguenots a limited toleration, and forbade their further persecution.

These concessions in favor of the Huguenots angered the Catholic chiefs, particularly the Guises; and it was the violation by the adherents of the Duke of Guise of the edict of toleration that finally caused the growing animosities of the two parties to break out in civil war. While passing through the country with a body of armed attendants, at a small place called Vassy, the Duke came upon a company of Huguenots assembled in a barn for worship. His retainers first insulted and then attacked them, killing about forty of the company and wounding many more.

Under the lead of Admiral Coligny and the Prince of Condé, the Huguenots now rose throughout France. Philip II. of Spain sent an army to aid the Catholics, while Elizabeth of England extended help to the Huguenots.

THE TREATY OF ST. GERMAIN (1570).--Throughout the series of lamentable civil wars upon which France now entered, both parties displayed a ferocity of disposition more befitting pagans than Christians. But it should be borne in mind that many on both sides were actuated by political ambition, rather than by religious conviction, knowing little and caring less about the distinctions in the creeds for which they were ostensibly fighting. [Footnote: What are usually designated as the First, Second, and Third Wars were really one. The table below exhibits the wars of the entire period of which we are treating. Some make the Religious Wars proper end with the Edict of Nantes (1598); others with the fall of La Rochelle (1628). First War (ended by Peace of Amboise) . . . . . . . 1562-1563. Second War (ended by Peace of Longjumeau) . . . . . 1567-1568. Third War (ended by Peace of St. Germain) . . . . . 1568-1570. Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24. . . . . . . .1572. Fourth War (ended by Peace of La Rochelle). . . . . 1572-1573. Fifth War (ended by Peace of Chastenoy) . . . . . . 1574-1576. Sixth War (ended by Peace of Bergerac). . . . . . . . . .1577. Seventh War (ended by Treaty of Fleix). . . . . . . 1579-1580. Eighth War (War of the Three Henries) . . . . . . . 1585-1589. Henry of Bourbon, King of Navarre, secures the throne . .1589. Edict of Nantes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1598. Siege and fall of La Rochelle . . . . . . . . . . . 1627-1628. By the fall of La Rochelle the political power of the Huguenots was completely prostrated.]

Sieges, battles, and truces followed one another in rapid and confusing succession. Conspiracies, treacheries, and assassinations help to fill up the dreary record of the period. The Treaty of St. Germain (in 1570) brought a short but, as it proved, delusive peace. The terms of the treaty were very favorable to the Huguenots. They received four towns,--among which was La Rochelle, the stronghold of the Huguenot faith,--which they might garrison and hold as places of safety and pledges of good faith.

To cement the treaty, Catherine de Medici now proposed that the Princess Marguerite, the sister of Charles IX., should be given in marriage to Henry of Bourbon, the new young king of Navarre. The announcement of the proposed alliance caused great rejoicing among Catholics and Protestants alike, and the chiefs of both parties crowded to Paris to attend the wedding, which took place on the 18th of August, 1572.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY (Aug. 24, 1572).--Before the festivities which followed the nuptial ceremonies were over, the world was shocked by one of the most awful crimes of which history has to tell,--the massacre of the Huguenots in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Day.

The circumstances which led to this fearful tragedy were as follows: Among the Protestant nobles who came up to Paris to attend the wedding was the Admiral Coligny. Upon coming in contact with Charles IX., the Admiral secured almost immediately an entire ascendency over his mind. This influence Coligny used to draw the king away from the queen-mother and the Guises. Fearing the loss of her influence over her son, Catherine resolved upon the death of the Admiral. The attempt miscarried, Coligny receiving only a slight wound from the assassin's ball.

The Huguenots at once rallied about their wounded chief with loud threats of revenge. Catherine, driven on by insane fear and hatred, now determined upon the death of all the Huguenots in Paris as the only measure of safety. By the 23d of August, the plans for the massacre were all arranged. On the evening of that day, Catherine went to her son, and represented to him that the Huguenots had formed a plot for the assassination of the royal family and the leaders of the Catholic party, and that the utter ruin of their house and cause could be averted only by the immediate destruction of the Protestants within the city walls. The order for the massacre was then laid before him for his signature. The king at first refused to sign the decree, but, overcome at last by the representations of his mother, he exclaimed, "I agree to the scheme, provided not one Huguenot be left alive in France to reproach me with the deed."

A little past the hour of midnight on St. Bartholomew's Day (Aug. 24, 1572), at a preconcerted signal,--the tolling of a bell,--the massacre began. Coligny was one of the first victims. After his assassins had done their work, they tossed the body out of the window of the chamber in which it lay, into the street, in order that the Duke of Guise, who stood below, might satisfy himself that his enemy was really dead. For three days and nights the massacre went on within the city. King Charles himself is said to have joined in the work, and from one of the windows of the palace of the Louvre to have fired upon the Huguenots as they fled past. The number of victims in Paris is variously estimated at from 3,000 to 10,000.

With the capital cleared of Huguenots, orders were issued to the principal cities of France to purge themselves in like manner of heretics. In many places the instincts of humanity prevailed over fear of the royal resentment, and the decree was disobeyed. But in other places the orders were carried out, and frightful massacres took place. The entire number of victims throughout the country was probably between 20,000 and 30,000.

The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day raised a cry of execration in almost every part of the civilized world, among Catholics and Protestants alike. Philip II., however, is said to have received the news with unfeigned joy; while Pope Gregory XIII. caused a Te Deum, in commemoration of the event, to be sung in the church of St. Mark, in Rome. Respecting this it should in justice be said that Catholic writers maintain that the Pope acted under a misconception of the facts, it having been represented to him that the massacre resulted from a thwarted plot of the Huguenots against the royal family of France and the Catholic Church.

REIGN OF HENRY III. (1574-1589).--The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, instead of exterminating heresy in France, only served to rouse the Huguenots to a more determined defence of their faith. Throughout the last two years of the reign of Charles IX., and the fifteen succeeding years of the reign of his brother Henry III., the country was in a state of turmoil and war. At length the king, who, jealous of the growing power and popularity of the Duke of Guise, had caused him to be assassinated, was himself struck down by the avenging dagger of a Dominican monk. With him ended the House of Valois-Orleans.

Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre, who for many years had been the most prominent leader of the Huguenots, now came to the throne as the first of the Bourbon kings.

ACCESSION OF HENRY IV. (1589).--Notwithstanding that the doctrines of the reformers had made rapid progress in France under the sons of Henry II., still the majority of the nation at the time of the death of Henry III. were Roman Catholics in faith and worship. Under these circumstances, we shall hardly expect to find the entire nation quietly acquiescing in the accession to the French throne of a Protestant prince, and he the leader and champion of the hated Huguenots. Nor did Henry secure without a struggle the crown that was his by right. The Catholics declared for Cardinal Bourbon, an uncle of the king of Navarre, and France was thus kept in the whirl of civil war. Elizabeth of England aided the Protestants, and Philip II. of Spain assisted the Catholics.

HENRY TURNS CATHOLIC (1593).--After the war had gone on for about four years,--during which time was fought the noted battle of Ivry, in which Henry led his soldiers to victory by telling them to follow the white plume on his hat,--the quarrel was closed, for the time being, by Henry's abjuration of the Huguenot faith, and his adoption of that of the Roman Catholic Church (1593).

Mingled motives led Henry to do this. He was personally liked even by the Catholic chiefs, and he was well aware that it was only his Huguenot faith that prevented their being his hearty supporters. Hence duty and policy seemed to him to concur in urging him to remove the sole obstacle in the way of their ready loyalty, and thus bring peace and quiet to distracted France.

THE EDICT OF NANTES (1598).--As soon as Henry had become the crowned and acknowledged king of France, he gave himself to the work of composing the affairs of his kingdom. The most noteworthy of the measures he adopted to this end was the publication of the celebrated Edict of Nantes (April 15, 1598). This decree granted the Huguenots practical freedom of worship, opened to them all offices and employments, and gave them as places of refuge and defence a large number of fortified towns, among which was the important city of La Rochelle.

The temporary hushing of the long-continued quarrels of the Catholics and Protestants by the adoption of the principle of religious toleration, paved the way for a revival of the trade and industries of the country, which had been almost destroyed by the anarchy and waste of the civil wars. France now entered upon such a period of prosperity as she had not known for many years.

LOUIS XIII, AND HIS MINISTER, CARDINAL RICHELIEU.--Henry IV. was assassinated by a fanatic named Ravaillac, who regarded him as an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church. As his son Louis, who succeeded him as Louis XIII. (1610-1643), was a child of nine years, during his minority the government was administered by his mother, Mary de Medici. Upon attaining his majority, Louis took the government into his own hands. He chose, as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, one of the most remarkable characters of the seventeenth century. From the time that Louis admitted the young prelate to his cabinet (in 1622), the ecclesiastic became the virtual sovereign of France, and for the space of twenty years swayed the destinies not only of that country, but, it might almost be said, those of Europe as well.

Richelieu's policy was twofold: first, to render the authority of the French king absolute in France; secondly, to make the power of France supreme in Europe.

To attain the first end, Richelieu sought to crush the political power of the Huguenots, and to trample out the last vestige of independence among the old feudal aristocracy; to secure the second, he labored to break down the power of both branches of the House of Hapsburg,--that is, of Austria and Spain.

For nearly the life-time of a generation Richelieu, by intrigue, diplomacy, and war, pursued with unrelenting purpose these objects of his ambition. His own words best indicate how he proposed to use his double authority as cardinal and prime minister to effect his purpose: "I shall trample all opposition under foot," said he, "and then cover all errors with my scarlet robe."

In the following paragraph we shall speak very briefly of the cardinal's dealings with the Huguenots, which feature alone of his policy especially concerns us at present.

POLITICAL POWER OF THE HUGUENOTS CRUSHED.--In the prosecution of his plans, Cardinal Richelieu's first step was to break down the political power of the Huguenot chiefs, who, dissatisfied with their position in the government, and irritated by religious grievances, were revolving in mind the founding in France of a Protestant commonwealth like that which the Prince of Orange and his adherents had setup in the Netherlands. The capital of the new Republic was to be La Rochelle, on the southwestern coast of France. In 1627, an alliance having been formed between England and the French Protestant nobles, an English fleet and army were sent across the Channel to aid the Huguenot enterprise.

Richelieu now resolved to ruin forever the power of these Protestant nobles who were constantly challenging the royal authority and threatening the dismemberment of France. Accordingly he led in person an army to the siege of La Rochelle, which, after a gallant resistance of more than a year, was compelled to open its gates to the cardinal (1628). That the place might never again be made the centre of resistance to the royal power, Louis ordered that "the fortifications be razed to the ground, in such wise that the plough may plough through the soil as through tilled land."

The Huguenots maintained the struggle a few months longer in the south of France, but were finally everywhere reduced to submission. The result of the war was the complete destruction of the political power of the French Protestants. A treaty of peace, called the Edict of Grace, negotiated the year after the fall of La Rochelle, left them, however, freedom of worship, according to the provisions of the Edict of Nantes (see p. 578).

The Edict of Grace properly marks the close of the religious wars which had desolated France for two generations (from 1562 to 1629). It is estimated that this series of wars and massacres cost France a million lives, and that between three and four hundred hamlets and towns were destroyed by the contending parties.

RICHELIEU AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--When Cardinal Richelieu came to the head of affairs in France, there was going on in Germany the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), of which we shall tell in the following chapter. This was very much such a struggle between the Catholic and Protestant German princes as we have seen waged between the two religious parties in France.

Although Richelieu had just crushed French Protestantism, he now gives aid to the Protestant princes of Germany, because their success meant the division of Germany and the humiliation of Austria. Richelieu did not live to see the end either of the Thirty Years' War or of that which he had begun with Spain; but this foreign policy of the great minister, carried out by others, finally resulted, as we shall learn hereafter, in the humiliation of both branches of the House of Hapsburg, and the lifting of France to the first place among the powers of Europe.

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Chapter LIII

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. (1618-1648.)

NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WAR.--The long and calamitous Thirty Years' War was the last great combat between Protestantism and Catholicism in Europe. It started as a struggle between the Protestant and Catholic princes of Germany, but gradually involved almost all the states of the continent, degenerating at last into a shameful and heartless struggle for power and territory.

The real cause of the war was the enmity existing between the German Protestants and Catholics. Each party by its encroachments gave the other occasion for complaint. The Protestants at length formed for their mutual protection a league called the Evangelical Union (1608). In opposition to the Union, the Catholics formed a confederation known as the Holy League (1609). All Germany was thus prepared to burst into the flames of a religious war.

THE BOHEMIAN PERIOD OF THE WAR (1618-1623).--The flames that were to desolate Germany for a generation were first kindled in Bohemia, where were still smouldering embers of the Hussite wars, which two centuries before had desolated that land (see p. 506). A church which the Protestants maintained they had a right to build was torn down by the Catholics, and another was closed. The Protestants rose in revolt against their Catholic king, Ferdinand, elected a new Protestant king, [Footnote: Frederick V. of the Palatinate, son-in-law of James I. of England.] and drove out the Jesuits. The Thirty Years' War had begun (1618). Almost an exact century had passed since Luther posted his theses on the door of the court church at Wittenberg. It is estimated that at this time more than nine-tenths of the population of the empire were Protestants.

The war had scarcely opened when, the Imperial office falling vacant, the Bohemian king, Ferdinand, was elected emperor. With the power and influence he now wielded, it was not a difficult matter for him to quell the Protestant insurrection in his royal dominions. The leaders of the revolt were executed, and the reformed faith in Bohemia was almost uprooted.

THE DANISH PERIOD (1625-1629).--The situation of affairs at this moment in Germany filled all the Protestant rulers of the North with the greatest alarm. Christian IV., king of Denmark, supported by England and Holland, threw himself into the struggle as the champion of German Protestantism. He now becomes the central figure on the side of the reformers. On the side of the Catholics are two noted commanders,--Tilly, the leader of the forces of the Holy League, and Wallenstein, the commander of the Imperial army. What is known as the Danish period of the war now begins (1625).

The war, in the main, proved disastrous to the Protestant allies, and Christian IV. was constrained to conclude a treaty of peace with the emperor (Peace of Lübeck, 1629), and retire from the struggle.

By what is known as the Edict of Restitution (1629), the Emperor Ferdinand now restored to the Catholics all the ecclesiastical lands and offices in North Germany of which possession had been taken by the Protestants in violation of the terms of the Peace of Augsburg. This decree gave back to the Catholic Church two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, besides many monasteries and other ecclesiastical property.

THE SWEDISH PERIOD (1630-1635): GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, WALLENSTEIN, AND TILLY.--At this moment of seeming triumph, Ferdinand was constrained by rising discontent and jealousies to dismiss from his service his most efficient general, Wallenstein, who had made almost all classes, save his soldiers, his bitter enemies. In his retirement, Wallenstein maintained a court of fabulous magnificence. Wherever he went he was followed by an imperial train of attendants and equipages. He was reserved and silent, but his eye was upon everything going on in Germany, and indeed in Europe. He was watching for a favorable moment for revenge, and the retrieving of his fortunes.

The opportunity which Wallenstein, inspired by faith in his star, was so confidently awaiting was not long delayed. Only a few months before his dismissal from the Imperial service, Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, with a veteran and enthusiastic army of 16,000 Swedes, had appeared in Northern Germany as the champion of the dispirited and leaderless Protestants. The Protestant princes, however, through fear of the emperor, as well as from lack of confidence in the disinterestedness of the motives of Gustavus, were shamefully backward in rallying to the support of their deliverer. But through an alliance formed just now with France, the Swedish king received a large annual subsidy from that country, which, with the help he was receiving from England, made him a formidable antagonist.

The wavering, jealous, and unworthy conduct of the Protestant princes now led to a most terrible disaster. At this moment Tilly was besieging the city of Magdeburg, which had dared to resist the Edict of Restitution (see p. 583). Gustavus was prevented from giving relief to the place by the hindrances thrown in his way by the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, both of whom should have given him every assistance. In a short time the city was obliged to surrender, and was given up to sack and pillage. Everything was burned, save two churches and a few hovels. 30,000 of the inhabitants perished miserably.

The cruel fate of Magdeburg excited the alarm of the Protestant princes. The Elector of Saxony now at once united his forces with those of the Swedish king. Tilly was defeated with great loss in the celebrated battle of Leipsic (1631), and Gustavus, emboldened by his success, pushed southward into the very heart of Germany. Attempting to dispute his march, Tilly's army was again defeated, and he himself received a fatal wound. In the death of Tilly, Ferdinand lost his most trustworthy general (1632).

The Imperial cause appeared desperate. There was but one man in Germany who could turn the tide of victory that was running so strongly in favor of the Swedish monarch. That man was Wallenstein; and to him the emperor now turned. This strange man had been watching with secret satisfaction the success of the Swedish arms, and had even offered to Gustavus his aid, promising "to chase the emperor and the House of Austria over the Alps."

To this proud subject of his, fresh from his dalliances with his enemies, the emperor now appealed for help. Wallenstein agreed to raise an army, provided his control of it should be absolute. Ferdinand was constrained to grant all that his old general demanded. Wallenstein now raised his standard, to which rallied the adventurers not only of Germany, but of all Europe as well. The array was a vast and heterogeneous host, bound together by no bonds of patriotism, loyalty, or convictions, but by the spell and prestige of the name of Wallenstein.

With an army of 40,000 men obedient to his commands, Wallenstein, after numerous marches and counter-marches, attacked the Swedes in a terrible battle on the memorable field of Lutzen, in Saxony. The Swedes won the day, but lost their leader and sovereign (1632).

Notwithstanding the death of their great king and commander, the Swedes did not withdraw from the war. Hence the struggle went on, the advantage being for the most part with the Protestant allies. Ferdinand, at just this time, was embarrassed by the suspicious movements of his general Wallenstein. Becoming convinced that he was meditating the betrayal of the Imperial cause, the emperor caused him to be assassinated (1634). This event marks very nearly the end of the Swedish period of the war.

THE SWEDISH-FRENCH PERIOD (1635-1648).--Had it not been for the selfish and ambitious interference of France, the woeful war which had now desolated Germany for half a century might here have come to an end, for both sides were weary of it and ready for negotiations of peace. But Richelieu was not willing that the war should end until the House of Austria was thoroughly crippled. Accordingly he encouraged Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancellor, to persevere in carrying on the war, promising him the aid of the French armies.

The war thus lost in large part its original character of a contest between the Catholic and the Protestant princes of Germany, and became a political struggle between the House of Austria and the House of Bourbon, in which the former was fighting for existence, the latter for national aggrandizement.

THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA (1648).--And so the miserable war dragged on. The earlier actors in the drama at length passed from the scene, but their parts were carried on by others. The year 1643, which marks the death of Richelieu, heard the first whisperings of peace. Everybody was inexpressibly weary of the war, and longed for the cessation of its horrors, yet each one wanted peace on terms advantageous to himself. The arrangement of the articles of peace was a matter of immense difficulty; for the affairs and boundaries of the states of Central Europe were in almost hopeless confusion. After five years of memorable discussion and negotiation, the articles of the celebrated Treaty of Westphalia, as it was called, were signed by the different European powers.

The chief articles of this important treaty may be made to fall under two heads: (1) those relating to territorial boundaries, and (2) those respecting religion.

As to the first, these cut short in three directions the actual or nominal limits of the Holy Roman Empire. Switzerland and the United Netherlands were severed from it; for though both of these countries had been for a long time practically independent of the empire, this independence had never been acknowledged in any formal way. The claim of France to the three cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine, which places she had held for about a century, was confirmed, and a great part of Alsace was given to her. Thus on the west, on the southwest, and on the northwest, the empire suffered loss.

Sweden was given cities and territories in Northern Germany which gave her control of a long strip of the Baltic shore, a most valuable possession. But these lands were not given to the Swedish king in full sovereignty; they still remained a part of the Germanic body, and the king of Sweden as to them became a prince of the empire.

The changes within the empire were many, and some of them important. Brandenburg especially received considerable additions of territory.

The articles respecting religion were even more important than those which established the metes and bounds of the different states. Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were all put upon the same footing. The Protestants were to retain all the benefices and Church property of which they had possession in 1624. Every prince was to have the right to make his religion the religion of his people, and to banish all who refused to adopt the established creed: but such non-conformists were to have three years in which to emigrate.

The different states of the empire were left almost independent of the emperor. They were given the right to form alliances with one another and with foreign princes; but not, of course, against the empire or emperor. This provision made Germany nothing more than a lax confederation, and postponed to a distant future the nationalization of the German states.

EFFECTS OF THE WAR UPON GERMANY.--It is simply impossible to picture the wretched condition in which the Thirty Years' War left Germany. When the struggle began, the population of the country was 30,000,000; when it ended, 12,000,000. Many of the once large and flourishing cities were reduced to "mere shells." Two or three hundred ill-clad persons constituted the population of Berlin. The duchy of Würtemburg, which had half a million of inhabitants at the commencement of the war, at its close had barely 50,000. On every hand were the charred remains of the hovels of the peasants and the palaces of the nobility. The lines of commerce were broken, and some trades and industries were swept quite out of existence.

The effects upon the fine arts, upon science, learning, and morals were even more lamentable. Painting, sculpture, and architecture were driven out of the land. The cities which had been the home of all these arts lay in ruins. Education was entirely neglected. For the lifetime of a generation, men had been engaged in the business of war, and had allowed their children to grow up in absolute ignorance. Moral law was forgotten. Vice, nourished by the licentious atmosphere of the camp, reigned supreme. "In character, in intelligence, and in morality, the German people were set back two hundred years."

To all these evils were added those of political disunion and weakness. The title of emperor still continued to be borne by a member of the House of Austria, but it was only an empty name. By the Peace of Westphalia, the Germanic body lost even that little cohesion which had begun to manifest itself between its different parts, and became simply a loose assemblage of virtually independent states, of which there were now over two hundred. Thus weakened, Germany lost her independence as a nation, while the subjects of the numerous petty states became the slaves of their ambitious and tyrannical rulers. Worse than all, the overwhelming calamities that for the lifetime of a generation had been poured out upon the unfortunate land, had extinguished the last spark of German patriotism. Every sentiment of pride and hope in race and country seemed to have become extinct.

CONCLUSION.--The treaty of Westphalia is a prominent landmark in universal history. It stands at the dividing line of two great epochs. It marks the end of the Reformation Era and the beginning of that of the Political Revolution. Henceforth men will fight for constitutions, not creeds. We shall not often see one nation attacking another, or one party in a nation assaulting another party, on account of a difference in religious opinion. [Footnote: The Puritan Revolution in England may look like a religious war, but we shall learn that it was primarily a political contest,--a struggle against despotism in the state.]

But in setting the Peace of Westphalia to mark the end of the religious wars occasioned by the Reformation, we do not mean to convey the idea that men had come to embrace the beneficent doctrine of religious toleration. As a matter of fact, no real toleration had yet been reached--nothing save the semblance of toleration. The long conflict of a century and more, and the vicissitudes of fortune, which to-day gave one party the power of the persecutor and to-morrow made the same sect the victims of persecution, had simply forced all to the practical conclusion that they must tolerate one another,--that one sect must not attempt to put another down by force. But it required the broadening and liberalizing lessons of another full century to bring men to see that the thing they must do is the very thing they ought to do,--to make men tolerant not only in outward conduct, but in spirit.

With this single word of caution, we now pass to the study of the Era of the Political Revolution, the period marked by the struggle between despotic and liberal principles of government. And first, we shall give a sketch of absolute monarchy as it exhibited itself in France under the autocrat Louis XIV.

SECOND PERIOD.--THE ERA OF THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION. (FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA IN 1648 TO THE PRESENT TIME.)

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