Early European History Part 118

238. ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH, 1558-1603 A.D.

ELIZABETH

Queen Elizabeth, who reigned over England during the period of the Dutch revolt, came to the throne when about twenty-five years old. She was tall and commanding in presence and endowed with great physical vigor and endurance. After hunting all day or dancing all night she could still attend unremittingly to public business. Elizabeth had received an excellent education; she spoke Latin and several modern languages; knew a little Greek; and displayed some skill in music. To her father, Henry VIII, she doubtless owed her tactfulness and charm of manner, as well as her imperious will; she resembled her mother, Anne Boleyn, in her vanity and love of display. As a ruler Elizabeth was shrewd, far-sighted, a good judge of character, and willing to be guided by the able counselors who surrounded her. Above all, Elizabeth was an ardent patriot. She understood and loved her people, and they, in turn, felt a chivalrous devotion to the "Virgin Queen," to "Good Queen Bess".

PROTESTANTISM IN ENGLAND

The daughter of Anne Boleyn had been born under the ban of the pope, so that opposition to Rome was the natural course for her to pursue. Two acts of Parliament now separated England once more from the Papacy and gave the English Church practically the form and doctrines which it retains to-day.

The church was intended to include everyone in England, and hence all persons were required to attend religious exercises on Sundays and holy days. Refusal to do so exposed the offender to a fine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELIZABETH]

TREATMENT OF ROMAN CATHOLICS

The great body of the people soon conformed to the state church, but Roman Catholics could not conscientiously attend its services. The laws against them do not seem to have been strictly enforced at first, but in the later years of Elizabeth's reign real or suspected plots by Roman Catholics against her throne led to a policy of repression. Those who said or heard ma.s.s were heavily fined and imprisoned; those who brought papal bulls into England or converted Protestants to Roman Catholicism were executed as traitors. Several hundred priests, mostly Jesuits, suffered death, and many more languished in jail. This persecution, however necessary it may have seemed to Elizabeth and her advisers, is a blot on her reign.

PROTESTANTISM IN IRELAND

The Reformation made little progress in Ireland. Henry VIII, who had extended English sway over most of the island, suppressed the monasteries, demolished shrines, relics, and images, and placed English-speaking priests in charge of the churches. The Irish people, who remained loyal to Rome, regarded these measures as the tyrannical acts of a foreign government. During Elizabeth's reign there were several dangerous revolts, which her generals suppressed with great cruelty. The result was to widen the breach between England and Ireland. Henceforth to most Irishmen patriotism became identified with Roman Catholicism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER CROWN OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN]

ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

Many of the plots against Elizabeth centered about Mary Stuart, the ill- starred Queen of Scots. She was a granddaughter of Henry VII, and extreme Roman Catholics claimed that she had a better right to the English throne than Elizabeth, because the pope had declared the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn null and void. Mary, a fervent Roman Catholic, did not please her Scotch subjects, who had adopted Calvinistic doctrines. She also discredited herself by marrying the man who had murdered her former husband. An uprising of the Scottish n.o.bles compelled Mary to abdicate the throne in favor of her infant son [28] and to take refuge in England.

Elizabeth kept her rival in captivity for nearly twenty years. In 1586 A.D., the former queen was found guilty of conspiring against Elizabeth's life and was beheaded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, WESTERN EUROPE IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LONDON BRIDGE IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH The old structure was completed early in the thirteenth century. It measured 924 feet in length and had 20 narrow arches. Note the rows of houses and shops on the bridge, the chapel in the center and the gate above which the heads of traitors were exhibited on pikes. The present London Bridge was completed in 1831 A.D.]

ELIZABETH AND PHILIP II

Philip II, the king of Spain, also threatened Elizabeth's security. At the outset of her reign Philip had made her an offer of marriage, but she refused to give herself, or England, a Spanish master. As time went on, Philip turned into an open enemy of the Protestant queen and did his best to stir up sedition among her Roman Catholic subjects. It must be admitted that Philip could plead strong justification for his att.i.tude. Elizabeth allowed the English "sea dogs" [29] to plunder Spanish colonies and seize Spanish vessels laden with the treasure of the New World. Moreover, she aided the rebellious Dutch, at first secretly and at length openly, in their struggle against Spain. Philip put up with these aggressions for many years, but finally came to the conclusion that he could never subdue the Netherlands or end the piracy and smuggling in Spanish America without first conquering England. The execution of Mary Stuart removed his last doubts, for Mary had left him her claims to the English throne. He at once made ready to invade England. Philip seems to have believed that as soon as a Spanish army landed in the island, the Roman Catholics would rally to his cause. But the Spanish king never had a chance to verify his belief; the decisive battle took place on the sea.

THE "INVINCIBLE ARMADA," 1588 A.D.

Philip had not completed his preparations before Sir Francis Drake sailed into Cadiz harbor and destroyed a vast amount of naval stores and shipping. This exploit, which Drake called "singeing the king of Spain's beard," delayed the expedition for a year. The "Invincible Armada" [30]

set out at last in 1588 A.D. The Spanish vessels, though somewhat larger than those of the English, were inferior in number, speed, and gunnery to their adversaries, while the Spanish officers, mostly unused to the sea, were no match for men like Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, the best mariners of the age. The Armada suffered severely in a nine-days fight in the Channel, and many vessels which escaped the English guns met shipwreck off the Scotch and Irish coasts. Less than half of the Armada returned in safety to Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPANISH ARMADA IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL.

After an engraving by the Society of Antiquarians following a tapestry in the House of Lords.]

ENGLISH SEA-POWER

England in the later Middle Ages had been an important naval power, as her ability to carry on the Hundred Years' War in France amply proved. But in the sixteenth century she was greatly over-matched by Spain, especially after the annexation of Portugal added the naval forces of that country to the Spanish fleets. The defeat of the Armada not only did great harm to the navy and commerce of Spain; it also showed that a new people had arisen to claim the supremacy of the ocean. Henceforth the English began to build up what was to be a sea-power greater than any other known to history.

239. THE HUGUENOT WARS IN FRANCE

FRANCE UNDER FRANCIS I, 1515-1547 A.D.

By 1500 A.D. France had become a centralized state under a strong monarchy. [31] Francis I, who reigned in the first half of the sixteenth century, still further exalted the royal power. He had many wars with Charles V, whose extensive dominions nearly surrounded the French kingdom.

These wars prevented the emperor from making France a mere dependency of Spain. As we have learned, [32] they also interfered with the efforts of Charles V to crush the Protestants in Germany.

THE HUGUENOTS

Protestantism in France dates from the time of Francis I. The Huguenots, [33] as the French Protestants were called, naturally accepted the doctrines of Calvin, who was himself a Frenchman and whose books were written in the French language. Though bitterly persecuted by Francis I and by his son Henry II (1547-1559 A.D.), the Huguenots gained a large following, especially among the prosperous middle cla.s.s of the towns--the _bourgeoisie_. Many n.o.bles also became Huguenots, sometimes because of religious conviction, but often because the new movement offered them an opportunity to recover their feudal independence and to plunder the estates of the Church. In France, as well as in Germany, the Reformation had its worldly side.

CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE

During most of the second half of the sixteenth century fierce conflicts raged in France between the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. Philip II aided the former and Queen Elizabeth gave some a.s.sistance to the latter.

France suffered terribly in the struggle, not only from the constant fighting, which cost the lives, it is said, of more than a million people, but also from the pillage, burnings, and other barbarities in which both sides indulged. The wealth and prosperity of the country visibly declined, and all patriotic feeling disappeared in the hatreds engendered by a civil war.

Ma.s.sACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY, 1572 A.D.

The episode known as the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew's Day ill.u.s.trates the extremes to which political ambition and religious bigotry could lead. The ma.s.sacre was an attempt to extirpate the Huguenots, root and branch, at a time when peace prevailed between them and their opponents. The person primarily responsible for it was Catherine de' Medici, mother of Charles IX (1560-1574 A.D.), the youthful king of France. Charles had begun to cast off the sway of his mother and to come under the influence of Admiral de Coligny, the most eminent of the Huguenots. To regain her power Catherine first tried to have Coligny murdered. When the plot failed, she invented the story of a great Huguenot uprising and induced her weak- minded son to authorize a wholesale butchery of Huguenots. It began in Paris in the early morning of August 24, 1572 A.D. (St. Bartholomew's Day), and extended to the provinces, where it continued for several weeks.

Probably ten thousand Huguenots were slain, including Coligny himself. But the deed was a blunder as well as a crime. The Huguenots took up arms to defend themselves, and France again experienced all the horrors of internecine strife.

HENRY IV

The death of Coligny transferred the leadership of the Huguenots to Henry Bourbon, king of Navarre. [34] Seventeen years after the ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew's Day, he inherited the French crown as Henry IV. The Roman Catholics would not accept a Protestant ruler and continued the conflict.

Henry soon realized that only his conversion to the faith of the majority of his subjects would bring a lasting peace. Religious opinions had always sat lightly upon him, and he found no great difficulty in becoming a Roman Catholic. "Paris," said Henry, "was well worth a ma.s.s." Opposition to the king soon collapsed, and the Huguenot wars came to an end.

EDICT OF NANTES, 1598 A.D.

Though now a Roman Catholic, Henry did not break with the Huguenots. In 1598 A.D. he issued in their interest the celebrated Edict of Nantes. By its terms the Huguenots were to enjoy freedom of private worship everywhere in France, and freedom to worship publicly in a large number of villages and towns. Only Roman Catholic services, however, might be held in Paris and at the royal court. Though the edict did not grant complete religious liberty, it marked an important step in that direction. A great European state now for the first time recognized the principle that two rival faiths might exist side by side within its borders. The edict was thus the most important act of toleration since the age of Constantine.

[35]

FRANCE UNDER HENRY IV, 1588-1610 A.D.

Having settled the religious difficulties, Henry could take up the work of restoring prosperity to distracted France. His interest in the welfare of his subjects gained for him the name of "Good King Henry." With the help of Sully, his chief minister, the king reformed the finances and extinguished the public debt. He opened roads, built bridges, and dug ca.n.a.ls, thus aiding the restoration of agriculture. He also encouraged commerce by means of royal bounties for shipbuilding. The French at this time began to have a navy and to compete with the Dutch and English for trade on the high seas. Henry's work of renovation was cut short in 1610 A.D. by an a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger. Under his son Louis XIII (1610-1643 A.D.), a long period of disorder followed, until an able minister, Cardinal Richelieu, a.s.sumed the guidance of public affairs. Richelieu for many years was the real ruler of France. His foreign policy led to the intervention of that country in the international conflict known as the Thirty Years' War.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU (Louvre, Paris.) After the portrait by the Belgian artist, Philippe de Champaigne.]

240. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648 A.D.

RELIGIOUS ANTAGONISMS

The Peace of Augsburg [36] gave repose to Germany for more than sixty years, but it did not form a complete settlement of the religious question in that country. There was still room for bitter disputes, especially over the ownership of Church property which had been secularized in the course of the Reformation. Furthermore, the peace recognized only Roman Catholics and Lutherans and gave no rights whatever to the large body of Calvinists.

The failure of Lutherans and Calvinists to cooperate weakened German Protestantism just at the period when the Counter Reformation inspired Roman Catholicism with fresh energy and enthusiasm.

POLITICAL FRICTION

Politics, as well as religion, also helped to bring about the great conflagration. The Roman Catholic party relied for support on the Hapsburg emperors, who wished to unite the German states under their control, thus restoring the Holy Roman Empire to its former proud position in the affairs of Europe. The Protestant princes, on the other hand, wanted to become independent sovereigns. Hence they resented all efforts to extend the imperial authority over them.