A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 11

[Sidenote: Philip II and the War of the Three Henries]

After many years, filled with disorder, it became apparent that the children of Catherine de' Medici would have no direct male heirs and that the crown would therefore legally devolve upon the son of Anthony of Bourbon--Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and a Protestant. Such an outcome was naturally distasteful to the Guises and abhorrent to Philip II of Spain. In 1585 a definite league was formed between Henry, duke of Guise, and the Spanish king, whereby the latter undertook by military force to aid the former's family in seizing the throne: French politics in that event would be controlled by Spain, and Philip would secure valuable a.s.sistance in crus.h.i.+ng the Netherlands and conquering England.[Footnote: At that very time, Mary, Queen of Scots, cousin of Henry, duke of Guise, was held a prisoner in England by Queen Elizabeth. See above, p. 99.] The immediate outcome of the agreement was the war of the three Henries--Henry III, son of Catherine de'

Medici and king of France; Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and heir to the French throne; and Henry, duke of Guise, with the foreign support of Philip II of Spain. Henry of Guise represented the extreme Catholic party; Henry of Navarre, the Protestant faction; and Henry of France, the Catholic moderates--the Politiques--who wanted peace and were willing to grant a measure of toleration. The last two were upholders of French independence against the encroachments of Spain.

The king was speedily gotten into the power of the Guises, but little headway was made by the extreme Catholics against Henry of Navarre, who now received domestic aid from the _Politiques_ and foreign a.s.sistance from Queen Elizabeth of England and who benefited by the continued misfortunes of Philip II. At no time was the Spanish king able to devote his whole attention and energy to the French war. At length in 1588 Henry III caused Henry of Guise to be a.s.sa.s.sinated. The king never had a real chance to prove whether he could become a national leader in expelling the foreigners and putting an end to civil war, for he himself was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1589. With his dying breath he designated the king of Navarre as his successor.

[Sidenote: Henry of Navarre]

Henry of Navarre, the first of the Bourbon family upon the throne of France, took the t.i.tle of Henry IV (1589-1610). [Footnote: It is a curious fact that Henry of Navarre, like Henry of Guise and Henry of France, died by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin.] For four years after his accession, Henry IV was obliged to continue the civil war, but his abjuration of Protestantism and his acceptance of Catholicism in 1593 removed the chief source of opposition to him within France, and the rebellion speedily collapsed. With the Spanish king, however, the struggle dragged on until the treaty of Vervins, which in the last year of Philip's life practically confirmed the peace of Cateau-Cambresis.

[Sidenote: Decline of Spain and Rise of France]

Thus Philip II had failed to conquer or to dismember France. He had been unable to harmonize French policies with those of his own in the Netherlands or in England. Despite his endeavors, the French crown was now on the head of one of his enemies, who, if something of a renegade Protestant himself, had nevertheless granted qualified toleration to heretics. Nor were these failures of Philip's political and religious policies mere negative results to France. The unsuccessful interference of the Spanish king contributed to the a.s.surance of French independence, patriotism, and solidarity. France, not Spain, was to be the center of European politics during the succeeding century.

[Sidenote: Philip II and the Turks]

In concluding this chapter, a large section of which has been devoted to an account of the manifold failures of Philip II, a word should be added about one exploit that brought glory to the Spanish monarch. It was he who administered the first effective check to the advancing Ottoman Turks.

After the death of Suleiman the Magnificent (1566), the Turks continued to strengthen their hold upon Hungary and to fit out piratical expeditions in the Mediterranean. The latter repeatedly ravaged portions of Sicily, southern Italy, and even the Balearic Islands, and in 1570 an Ottoman fleet captured Cyprus from the Venetians. Malta and Crete remained as the only Christian outposts in the Mediterranean. In this extremity, a league was formed to save Italy. Its inspirer and preacher was Pope Pius V, but Genoa and Venice furnished the bulk of the fleet, while Philip II supplied the necessary additional s.h.i.+ps and the commander-in-chief in the person of his half-brother, Don John of Austria. The expedition, which comprised 208 vessels, met the Ottoman fleet of 273 s.h.i.+ps in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the coast of Greece, on 7 October, 1571, and inflicted upon it a crus.h.i.+ng defeat. The Turkish wars.h.i.+ps were almost all sunk or driven ash.o.r.e; it is estimated that 8000 Turks lost their lives. When news of the victory reached Rome, Pope Pius intoned the famous verse, "There was a man sent from G.o.d whose name was John."

[Sidenote: Lepanto]

The battle of Lepanto was of great political importance. It gave the naval power of the Mohammedans a blow from which it never recovered and ended their aggressive warfare in the Mediterranean. It was, in reality, the last Crusade: Philip II was in his most becoming role as champion of church and pope; hardly a n.o.ble family in Spain or Italy was not represented in the battle; volunteers came from all parts of the world; the celebrated Spanish writer Cervantes lost an arm at Lepanto. Western Europe was henceforth to be comparatively free from the Ottoman peril.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HABSBURG FAMILY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VALOIS, BOURBON, AND GUISE FAMILIES, PHILIP OF SPAIN AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE OF TUDOR: SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND (1485-1603)]

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE HABSBURG TERRITORIES. A. H.

Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598_ (1897), ch. iii- ix, a political summary; Mary A. Hollings, _Renaissance and Reformation, 1453-1660_ (1910), ch. vi, ix, x, a brief outline; E. M.

Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation_, 2d ed. (1915), ch. x, xiv, xxiv- xxviii, a brief and fragmentary account; T. H. Dyer, _A History of Modern Europe_, 3d ed., rev. by Arthur Ha.s.sall (1901), ch. ix, xi- xxvii, old but containing a mult.i.tude of political facts; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), ch. ii, iii, vii, viii, and Vol. III (1905), ch. xv, v; _History of All Nations_, Vol. XI and Vol. XII, ch.

i-iii, by the German scholar on the period, Martin Philippson; _Histoire generale_, Vol. IV, ch. iii, ix, Vol. V, ch. ii-v, xv. Of the Emperor Charles V the old standard English biography by William Robertson, still readable, has now been largely superseded by that of Edward Armstrong, 2 vols. (1902); two important German works on Charles V are Baumgarten, _Geschichte Karls V_, 3 vols. (1885-1892), and Konrad Habler, _Geschichte Spaniens unter den Habsburgen_, Vol. I (1907). Of Philip II the best brief biography in English is Martin Hume's (1902), which should be consulted, if possible, in connection with Charles Bratli, _Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne: Etude sur sa vie et son caractere_, new ed. (1912), an attempt to counteract traditional Protestant bias against the Spanish monarch. Also see M. A. S. Hume, _Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788_ (1898), ch. i-vi, for a general account of the reigns of Philip II and Philip III; and Paul Herre, _Papstium und Papstwahl im Zeitalter Philipps II_ (1907) for a sympathetic treatment of Philip's relations with the papacy. For a proper understanding of sixteenth-century politics the student should read that all-important book, Machiavelli's _Prince_, the most convenient English edition of which is in "Everyman's Library." For political events in the Germanies in the sixteenth century: E. F.

Henderson, _A Short History of Germany_, 2 vols. in 1 (1902); Sidney Whitman, _Austria_ (1899); Gustav Welf, _Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Gegenreformation_ (1899), an elaborate study; Franz Krones, _Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs von der altesten Zeit_, Vol. III (1877), Book XIII.

FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A. J. Grant, _The French Monarchy, 1483-1789_ (1900), Vol. I, ch. iii-v; G. W. Kitchin, _A History of France,_ 4th ed. (1894-1899), Vol. II, Book II, ch. iv-v, and Book III; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. i; Ernest Lavisse (editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. V (1903), Books III, IV, VII, VIII, and Vol. VI (1904), Books I-III, the most thorough and best treatment; Edward Armstrong, _The French Wars of Religion_ (1892); J.

W. Thompson, _The Wars of Religion in France: the Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Philip II of Spain_, 1559-1576 (1909), containing several suggestions on the economic conditions of the time; A. W. Whitehead, _Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_ (1904); C. C. Jackson, _The Last of the Valois_, 2 vols. (1888), and, by the same author, _The First of the Bourbons_, 2 vols. (1890); Lucien Romier, _Les origines politiques des Guerres de Religion_, Vol. I, _Henri II et l'Italie, 1547-1555_ (1913), scholarly and authoritative, stressing economic rather than political aspects; Louis Batiffol, _The Century of the Renaissance in France_, Eng. trans. by Elsie F. Buckley (1916), covering the years 1483-1610, largely political.

ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Brief accounts: A. L. Cross, _History of England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xix-xxvi; E. P. Cheyney, _A Short History of England_ (1904), ch. xii, xiii; _Cambridge Modern History,_ Vol. III (1905), ch. viii-xi; J. F. Bright, _History of England_, 5 vols. (1884-1904), Vol. II, _Personal Monarchy, 1485-1688_ (in part); A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_, 4 vols, (1914), Vol. II, ch. iii-viii; J. R. Seeley, _Growth of British Policy_, 2 vols. (1895), a brilliant work, of which Vol. I, Part I, affords an able account of the policy of Elizabeth. More detailed studies: J. S. Brewer, _The Reign of Henry VIII from his Accession to the Death of Wolsey_, 2 vols. (1884); H. A. L. Fisher, _Political History of England, 1485-1547_ (1906), ch. vi-xviii; A. F. Pollard, _History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth_ (1910); J. A. Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada_, 12 vols. (1870-1872), a masterpiece of prose-style but strongly biased in favor of Henry VIII and against anything connected with the Roman Church; E. P. Cheyney, _A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth_, Vol. I (1914), scholarly and well-written. Also see Andrew Lang, _A History of Scotland_, 2d ed. (1901-1907), Vols. I and II; and P. H. Brown, _History of Scotland_ (1899-1900), Vols. I and II.

Important biographies: A. F. Pollard, _Henry VIII_ (1905), the result of much research and distinctly favorable to Henry; E. L. Taunton, _Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer_ (1902), the careful estimate of a Catholic scholar; Mandell Creighton, _Cardinal Wolsey_ (1888), a good clear account, rather favorable to the cardinal; J. M. Stone, _Mary the First, Queen of England_ (1901), a sympathetic biography of Mary Tudor; Mandell Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1909), the best biography of the Virgin Queen; E. S. Beesly, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1892), another good biography. For Mary, Queen of Scots, see the histories of Scotland mentioned above and also Andrew Lang, _The Mystery of Mary Stuart_ (1901); P. H. Brown, _Scotland in the Time of Queen Mary_ (1904); and R. S. Rait, _Mary Queen of Scots_, 2d ed. (1899), containing important source-material concerning Mary. Walter Walsh, _The Jesuits in Great Britain_ (1903), emphasizes their political opposition to Elizabeth.

Martin Hume, _Two English Queens and Philip_ (1908), valuable for the English relations of Philip II. For English maritime development see David Hannay, _A Short History of the English Navy_ (1898); J. S.

Corbett, _Drake and the Tudor Navy_, 2 vols. (1898), and, by the same author, _The Successors of Drake_ (1900); J. A. Froude, _English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century_ (1895).

THE NETHERLANDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A good brief account is that of George Edmundson in the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. vi, vii, and Vol. II (1904), ch. xix. For the Dutch Netherlands the great standard work is now P. J. Blok, _History of the People of the Netherlands_, trans. in large part by O. A.

Bierstadt, and for the Belgian Netherlands a corresponding function is performed in French by Henri Pirenne. J. L. Motley, _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 3 vols. (many editions), is brilliantly written and still famous, but it is based on an inadequate study of the sources and is marred throughout by bitter prejudice against the Spaniards and in favor of the Protestant Dutch: it is now completely superseded by the works of Blok and Pirenne. Admirable accounts of William the Silent are the two-volume biography by Ruth Putnam and the volume by the same author in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series (1911); the most detailed study is the German work of Felix Rachfahl.

THE TURKS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. iv; A. H. Lybyer, _The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent_ (1913); Stanley Lane-Poole, _Turkey_ (1889) in the "Story of the Nations" Series; Nicolae Jorga, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_; Leopold von Ranke, _Die Osmanen und die spanische Monarchie im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert_; Joseph von Hammer, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1834-1835), Vol. II, a famous German work, which has been translated into French.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROTESTANT REVOLT AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Differences between Religious Bodies in 1500 and Those in 1900]

Four hundred years ago, practically all people who lived in central or western Europe called themselves "Christians" and in common recognized allegiance to an ecclesiastical body which was called the "Catholic Church." This Catholic Church in 1500 differed from any present-day religious society in the following respects: (1) Every child was born into the Church as now he is born into the state; every person was expected to conform, at least outwardly, to the doctrines and practices of the Church; in other words the Catholic Church claimed a universal members.h.i.+p. (2) The Church was not supported by voluntary contributions as now, but by compulsory taxes; every person was compelled to a.s.sist in defraying the expenses of the official religion. (3) The state undertook to enforce obedience on the part of its subjects to the Church; a person attacking the authority of the Catholic Church would be liable to punishment by the state, and this held true in England and Germany as well as in Spain or Italy.

[Sidenote: Rise of Protestantism]

Then, within fifty years, between 1520 and 1570, a large number of Catholic Christians, particularly in Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland, and England, and a smaller number in the Low Countries and in France, broke off communion with the ancient Church and became known as Protestants. Before the year 1500 there were no Protestants; since the sixteenth century, the dominant Christianity of western and central Europe has been divided into two parts--Catholic and Protestant. It is important that we should know something of the origin and significance of this division, because the Christian religion and the Christian Church had long played very great roles in the evolution of European civilization and because ecclesiastical and religious questions have continued, since the division, to deserve general attention.

[Sidenote: "Catholic" Christianity]

Let us understand clearly what was meant in the year 1500 by the expression "Catholic Christianity." It embraced a belief in certain religious precepts which it was believed Jesus of Nazareth had taught at the beginning of the Christian era, the inculcation of certain moral teachings which were likewise derived from Jesus, and a definite organization--the Church--founded, it was a.s.sumed, by Jesus in order to teach and practice, till the end of time, His religious and moral doctrines. By means of the Church, man would know best how to order his life in this world and how to prepare his soul for everlasting happiness in the world to come.

[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]

The Catholic Church was, therefore, a vast human society, believed to be of divine foundation and sanction, and with a mission greater and more lofty than that of any other organization. Church and state had each its own sphere, but the Church had insisted for centuries that it was greater and more necessary than the state. The members of the Church were the sum-total of Christian believers who had been baptized --practically the population of western and central Europe--and its officers const.i.tuted a regular governing hierarchy.

[Sidenote: Head of the Church]

At the head of the hierarchy was the bishop of Rome, styled the pope or sovereign pontiff, who from the first had probably enjoyed a leading position in the Church as the successor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and whose claims to be the divinely appointed chief bishop had been generally recognized throughout western Europe as early as the third century--perhaps earlier. The bishop of Rome was elected for life by a group of clergymen, called cardinals, who originally had been in direct charge of the parish churches in the city of Rome, but who later were frequently selected by the pope from various countries because they were distinguished churchmen. The pope chose the cardinals; the cardinals elected the pope. Part of the cardinals resided in Rome, and in conjunction with a host of clerks, translators, lawyers, and special officials, const.i.tuted the _Curia_, or papal court, for the conduct of general church business.

[Sidenote: Local Administration of the Church]

[Sidenote: Secular Clergy]

For the local administration of church affairs, the Catholic world was divided under the pope into several territorial subdivisions, (1) The patriarchates had been under patriarchs who had their sees [Footnote: "See," so called from the Latin _sedes_, referring to their seat or chair of office. Similarly our word "cathedral" is derived from the Latin _cathedra_, the official chair which the bishop occupies in his own church.] in such ancient Christian centers as Rome. Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch. and Constantinople. (2) The provinces were divisions of the patriarchates and usually centered in the most important cities, such as Milan, Florence, Cologne, Upsala, Lyons, Seville, Lisbon, Canterbury, York; and the head of each was styled a metropolitan or archbishop. (3) The diocese--the most essential unit of local administration--was a subdivision of the province, commonly a city or a town, with a certain amount of surrounding country, under the immediate supervision of a bishop. (4) Smaller divisions, particularly parishes, were to be found in every diocese, embracing a village or a section of a city, and each parish had its church building and its priest. Thus the Catholic Church possessed a veritable army of officials from pope and cardinals down through patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, to the parish priests and their a.s.sistants, the deacons.

This hierarchy, because it labored _in the world_ (_saeculo_), was called the "secular clergy."

[Sidenote: "Regular" Clergy]

Another variety of clergy--the "regulars"--supplemented the work of the seculars. The regulars were monks, [Footnote: The word "monk" is applied, of course, only to men; women who followed similar rules are commonly styled nuns.] that is, Christians who lived by a special _rule_ (_regula_), who renounced the world, took vows of chast.i.ty, poverty, and obedience, and strove to imitate the life of Christ as literally as possible. The regular clergy were organized under their own abbots, priors, provincials, or generals, being usually exempt from secular jurisdiction, except that of the pope. The regulars were the great missionaries of the Church, and many charitable and educational inst.i.tutions were in their hands. Among the various orders of monks which had grown up in the course of time, the following should be enumerated: (1) The monks who lived in fixed abodes, tilled the soil, copied ma.n.u.scripts, and conducted local schools. Most of the monks of this kind followed a rule, or society by-laws, which had been prepared by the celebrated St. Benedict about the year 525: they were called therefore Benedictines. (2) The monks who organized crusades, often bore arms themselves, and tended the holy places connected with incidents in the life of Christ: such orders were the Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitalers of St. John and of Malta, and the Teutonic Knights who subsequently undertook the conversion of the Slavs. (3) The monks who were called the begging friars or mendicants because they had no fixed abode but wandered from place to place, preaching to the common people and dependent for their own living upon alms. These orders came into prominence in the thirteenth century and included, among others, the Franciscan, whose lovable founder Saint Francis of a.s.sisi had urged humility and love of the poor as its distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics, and the Dominican, or Order of the Preachers, devoted by the precept of its practical founder, Saint Dominic, to missionary zeal. All the mendicant orders, as well as the Benedictine monasteries, became famous in the history of education, and the majority of the distinguished scholars of the middle ages were monks. It was not uncommon, moreover, for regulars to enter the secular hierarchy and thus become parish priests or bishops, or even popes.

[Sidenote: Church Councils]

[Sidenote: Conciliar Movement]

The clergy--bishops, priests, and deacons--const.i.tuted, in popular belief, the divinely ordained administration of the Catholic Church.

The legislative authority in the Church similarly was vested in the pope and in the general councils, neither of which, however, could set aside a law of G.o.d, as affirmed in the gospels, or establish a doctrine at variance with the tradition of the early Christian writers. The general councils were a.s.semblies of prelates of the Catholic world, and there had been considerable discussion as to the relative authority of their decrees and the decisions and directions of the pope. [Footnote: Papal doc.u.ments have been called by various names, such as decretals, bulls, or encyclicals.] General church councils held in eastern Europe from the fourth to the ninth centuries had issued important decrees or canons defining Christian dogmas and establis.h.i.+ng ecclesiastical discipline, which had been subsequently ratified and promulgated by the pope as by other bishops and by the emperors; and several councils had been held in western Europe from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries under the direct supervision of the bishop of Rome, all the canons of which had been enacted in accordance with his wishes. But early in the fifteenth century a movement was inaugurated by certain Catholic bishops and scholars in favor of making the councils superior to the pope and a regular source of supreme legislation for the Church.