FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Monarchic States.— The constant warfare of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries is the simplest thread by which to connect the other movements of the age. Speaking broadly, the contests of the first half of the period, to 1648, are °religious wars," Catholic against Protest ant, while after 1648 the struggles grow out of dynastic and commercial rivalries.
The declaration of the war which split Christendom into opposing camps for over a century came in 1520, when Luther burned the Pope's bull. The Diet of Worms at once pro nounced against the rash monk the ban of the Empire; and the decree would have been en forced, and Protestantism stifled at its birth, if the young emperor, Charles V, had had a free hand. But Charles had just become involved in strife with Francis I, over the claims of Spain and France in Italy, and he was kept busy with war against France and the Turks until 1544. For a generation, therefore, the new faith was left to spread itself unchecked over Germany and Scandinavia, while during the same period the English Church cut itself off from Rome, and Presbyterian heresy made headway in France and Switzerland. For a time, indeed, Protestantism threatened to con quer even the south of Europe; but the Catholic Counter-Reformation, with equal zeal and su perior skill, finally saved the Romance lands to the old faith.
Religious Wars, 1546-1648.— Meanwhile, entangled in his strife for European sovereignty, Charles could not strike at Protestants in Ger many until 1546. It was then too late. In 1555, after brief struggles, the princes of the Schmalkald League forced upon him the Peace of Augsburg; and, though troubled with in cessant bickering., Germany had no further civil war for 60 years. Just that period, how ever, was filled with terrible religions contests in the Netherlands and France; and then the age of religious wars closed with another civil war in Germany,— the most destructive in European history, until the World War of 1914. But the century of strife from the opening of the Schrnalkald War to the close of the Thirty Years' War (1546-1648) did not materially alter religious frontiers. Catholicism, to be sure, made some conquests with the sword,— Bohe mia, South Germany and the southern Nether lands,—but in most of these districts, as in the Latin countries of southern Europe, the Counter-Reformation was making rapid gains before war began.
The close of the period of religious war is marked by the decay of Spain. the continued disruption of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of France and of the Dutch Republic. To explain these changes it is needful to dwell somewhat further upon the wars.
In 1556-57, after his failure in Germany, Charles V resigned his crowns — the Austrian possessions passing to his brother, and the Spanish to his son, Philip II. Despite the di
Philip was far the most powerful mon arch in the world. Each year the gold fleet filled his coffers from the exhaustless wealth of the Americans and in 1580 Portugal with her East India empire fell into his hands. This was the power—supreme in Europe and sole mistress of the New Worlds, east and west— against which the petty. disunited Netherland provinces dared to rebel. Beginning as a po litical revolt in 1568, the struggle soon became a religious war; and it was waged for more than 40 years with a relentless fury which made it a byword for ferocity even in that brutal age. The 10 southern provinces were finally brought back to Spanish allegiance; but the northern provinces — Dutch in blood and Protestant in religion -- fought on with desper ate courage until they won independence. At the same time they preserved political and re ligious liberty for the world. Midway in the struggle, Elizabeth of England sent some tardy aid. Philip then turned upon England; but the destruction of his "Invincible Armada" in the splendid sea-fight in the Channel not only saved England at home but also paved the way for the English colonization of North America. The war closed in 1609. Spain had sunk into a second-rate power, never again to play an im portant part in European politics; hut the Uni ted Provinces, through the stage of the desolat ing war, had grown prosperous. They drew wealth, not from wasted land, hut from the sea, plundering the new possessions of Spain in the East Indies and building there a colonial em pire for themselves. For most of the century, in intellectual, commercial and industrial activ ities, the Dutch held the first place in In France the Edict of Nantes (1598) closed the wars of religion by guaranteeing toleration and handing over certain garrisoned towns to the Huguenots as security. During the next half century, under the wise administration of Henry IV and then of Richelieu, the industry of the people restored prosperity with marvel ous rapidity. Richelieu crushed the feudal no bles and recaptured from the Huguenots their garrisoned towns. In other respects, however, he kept toward the Protestants the pledges of the Edict of Nantes; and as he warred upon the Protestants within France in order to strengthen the royal power, so he aided the Protestants of Germany in the Thirty Years' War in order to make France supreme in Eu rope. France had long been in real peril from the Hapsburg powers of Spain and Austria, which ringed her about in hostile embrace; but the failure of against Holland and Richelieu's policy of weakening Austria in the German war removed the peril, and, as Spain declined from the first place in Europe, France stepped into it.