A Short History of Europe: From Charlemagne to the Treaty of Europe (9 page)

Henry’s son, Edward VI (ruled 1547–53) introduced Calvinism, but when Queen Mary (ruled 1553–58), daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, assumed the throne on Edward’s death, she bloodily restored Catholicism
as the religion of England. The Reformation returned under Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603). Five years after she ascended the throne, the defining statements of Anglican doctrine were laid out in the
39 Articles
. Opposition to the Anglican Church included the English Calvinists who would become known as Puritans. Animosity between them and the crown would eventually erupt in the English Civil War.

The Catholic response to Protestantism, known as the Counter-Reformation, lasted from the reign of Pope Pius IV, around 1560, until the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The surge of Protestantism through Europe was undoubtedly the greatest threat the Catholic Church had ever encountered and, after a period of paralysis when little was done actively to reform the Church,
it finally reacted during the pontificate of Pope Paul III (1534–49). Paul was a flagrant nepotist but he also distinguished himself by providing the artists Michelangelo and Titian with some of their most lavish commissions. He recognised the extent of the problems facing the Church and took action, convening one of the most important councils in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, at
Trent, in northern Italy.

Reformist Catholics and humanists such as Erasmus had been calling for such a council since Luther’s
95 Theses
and Charles V had called for one in 1524. Successive popes had refused to countenance such a meeting, however, fearful perhaps of the erosion of papal authority that it might bring. Meanwhile, to suppress heresy, the Inquisition was reorganised and the Congregation
of the Index was set up to censor written works and to maintain a list of banned books. Meeting in 25 sessions in three periods between 1545 and 1563, the Council of Trent, the last ecumenical council for 300 years, introduced major reforms, condemned heresies and defined the Catholic position on many contentious areas such as Scripture, Original Sin, Justification, Sacraments, the Eucharist
in Holy Mass and the veneration of saints. It defined modern Catholicism and delivered a direct response to Protestant issues, leaving the implementation of its decisions to the Pope. Consequently, in 1566, he published a
Roman Catechism
, designed to expound Catholic doctrine and to improve the priests’ theological understanding. 1568 saw the release of a revised
Roman Breviary
, a book of prayers
to be said daily. Then, in 1570, a revised
Roman Missal
became available. This contained the text of the Mass to be said in Catholic churches.

Protestantism was also countered by the establishment of new religious orders such as the Capuchins, Ursulines, Theatines, Discalced Carmelites and the Barnabites. Chief amongst these, however, was the Society of Jesuits, founded in Paris in 1534 by a
Basque monk, Ignatius de Loyola (1491–1556). Before deciding to devote his life to God, Loyola had seen service as a soldier and he brought a military discipline to the Jesuits. The order he founded would become one of the Catholic Church’s most important weapons in the fight against the new heresy. Jesuits displayed unstinting loyalty to the Pope and opened colleges across Europe, fulfilling their
mission to convert heathens, reconvert lapsed Catholics and educate. Above all, they engendered fear amongst Catholics and Protestants alike, a fear derived from their belief that the end justified the means.

Mystics added a spiritual dimension to the Catholic resurgence. Teresa of Alva and John of the Cross were Spanish and belonged to the Carmelite order. Teresa’s autobiography,
The Life of
Teresa of Jesus
, was very influential and John of the Cross has been described by the twentieth-century Catholic writer Thomas Merton as the ‘greatest of all mystical theologians’. Other mystics, such as Francis de Sales and Filippo Neri were also active.

So, by the late 1500s, Catholicism had begun to regain ground lost to the wave of Protestantism begun by Luther and eventually, the march of
Protestantism was halted. Lutheranism became limited to Scandinavia and Northern Germany and Calvinism was adopted in Switzerland, Holland, Scotland and Western Germany.

Philip II of Spain became the defender of the Catholic cause, putting the immense wealth of the Spanish crown, recently bolstered by the annexation of Portugal, at its disposal.
He faced a number of challenges. Calvinism was becoming increasingly popular in the Low Countries, the Moors of southern Spain were rebelling and the Turks had taken Cyprus. He dealt with the Turkish menace with victory at Lepanto as part of a Holy League consisting of Venice, Rome and Spain. England had become a major irritation, attacking Spanish possessions in the Americas and supporting Dutch
rebels in the Netherlands. The Protestant Elizabeth I’s execution of Catholic Mary Queen of Scots persuaded him in 1588 to invade England. However, Francis Drake and his fellow English seamen defeated the Spanish Armada and its ships were then destroyed by a storm in the English Channel.

Philip’s ruthless suppression of Calvinism in the Netherlands led to a rebellion that began in 1566 and would
smoulder for 80 years. When Dutch nobles demanded autonomy and freedom of worship in the Compromise of Breda, Philip instigated reprisals, condemning to death many involved. Crippling taxes only served to increase the hostility of the Dutch towards the Spanish and they rose up under the leadership of William of Nassau, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland. In 1579, the Low Countries
became divided when Philip’s new envoy, Alessandro Farnese, united the ten southern Catholic provinces in the Union of Arras. The seven northern provinces responded by creating the Union of Utrecht. In 1588, these would become the Calvinist United Provinces. They achieved independence in 1609 and were recognised by Spain in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

Religious divisions in Europe
soon erupted in violence and war. In France, Henry II (ruled 1547–59) had died in an accident during a jousting match. His death created a political crisis, with three different parties vying for power – Queen Catherine de’ Medici (1519–89), Henry’s widow and mother to three future kings of France; the House of Guise, an aristocratic Catholic family, hungry for power and ardently anti-Protestant;
and the Protestants, known in France as Huguenots, whose leaders were Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1519–72) and the Bourbon family, most notably Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre (ruled 1555–62) and his brother, Louis I de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1530–69). The Bourbons and the Guises were sworn enemies.

The Huguenots made an attempt to abduct King Francis II (ruled 1559–60), but were discovered.
When the king died anyway, his ten-year-old brother Charles IX (ruled 1560–74) assumed the throne, with his mother, Catherine, as regent. She tried to steer a careful course between the opposing factions but, when Guise troops massacred Calvinist Huguenots at a church in Champagne, all-out war ensued. In 1563, Francis, Duke of Guise (1519–63) was killed and Catherine negotiated a truce in an
effort to end what she feared could be a long and debilitating war.

The peace was short-lived, however, and hostilities broke out once more, following the massacre of a number of priests in Nîmes. This Second War was brought to an unsatisfactory end in 1568. Just six months later the contending parties were at each others’ throats again, Catherine and Charles allying themselves in this conflict
with the Guise family. By now, the wars were being fought on an international scale. Queen Elizabeth I of England was providing much of the financing for the Huguenot army, indirectly trying to harm King Philip II of Spain who supported the Catholic side. The Catholics had military assistance in the shape of troops from the Papal States and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. This Third War also ended
unsatisfactorily, mainly due to the fact that the French throne could not afford to continue fighting.

The killings of Huguenots continued, the most notable being the massacre of around 10,000 in Paris and the provinces on the eve of St Bartholomew’s Day 1572. This led to the Fourth War that ended when Catherine’s other son, the Duke of Anjou, was elected as the first King of Poland. The Edict
of Boulogne took away many of the rights previously granted to the Huguenots. However, it was not long before they had all taken up arms again. Charles IX died three months after Henry of Anjou had become King of Poland. Henry secretly returned to France and, in 1575, was crowned Henry III (ruled 1574–89), but fighting had already broken out. Henry, trying to placate all sides, granted a number
of concessions to the Huguenots but in response the Duke of Guise, with the wholehearted support of Philip of Spain, the Pope, Sixtus V (Pope 1585–90) and the Jesuits, formed a Catholic League with the express purpose of exterminating French Protestants.

The Sixth War (1576–77) saw King Henry forced to rescind most of the concessions he had made to the Protestants and, two years later, a Seventh
War yet again ended in stalemate. An Eighth War began, often known as ‘the War of the Three Henrys’. In 1588, the Guise army invaded Paris and defeated Henry III. The King retaliated by having Henry, Duke of Guise (1550–88) murdered. Henry III was himself murdered by an insane monk a year later and the heir to the French throne was Henry of Navarre – a Protestant. On assuming the throne, however,
Henry IV (ruled 1589–1610) proclaimed that he would renounce Protestantism and become a Catholic. He went on to make peace with Spain and issued the important Edict of Nantes which allowed the Huguenots freedom to worship in certain places.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), a conflict about religion, fought in Germany by mercenary armies, involved most of the European powers
and bankrupted a great many of them. It was hugely destructive, killing about 30 per cent of the population of Germany and destroying thousands of castles, villages and towns.

The 1555 Peace of Augsburg, signed by Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, had been intended to end the conflict between Catholics and Lutherans, allowing Protestants freedom to worship. Unfortunately, it merely represented a
temporary halt in hostilities. Religious differences remained great and the spread of Calvinism in Germany added another faith that had no place in the Peace of Augsburg. Moreover, Germany’s neighbours had an interest – Spain because the Spanish Netherlands was a close neighbour; France because, caught between the two Habsburg states of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, she saw an opportunity to take
action against the German states and would side with the Protestants in the war. Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark had long cast hungry glances at the northern German states on the Baltic coastline.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Rhine lands and those south of the Danube were Catholic; those to the north were dominated by Lutherans, with some areas of Calvinist pre-eminence. Tensions
persisted until they overflowed in Bohemia in 1618. The Holy Roman Emperor, Matthias (ruled 1612–19), had no heir and his lands would be inherited on his death by his cousin, Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (ruled 1619–37), who had been elected Crown Prince of Bohemia in 1617. Ferdinand was a fervent Catholic and was very unpopular in Protestant Bohemia which favoured the Elector of the Palatinate,
the Calvinist Frederick V (ruled 1619–20). With the support of foreign allies, Bohemia revolted, launching hostilities that would continue for three decades.

Ferdinand solicited help from his nephew, Philip IV of Spain (ruled 1621–65), while the Bohemian nobles applied for membership of the Protestant Union which was led by Frederick V, promising him the throne of Bohemia. Unfortunately, similar
offers were made to the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony and Prince of Transylvania. When these were made public by the Austrians, support for Bohemia faltered. The conflict escalated quickly, fighting breaking out in Lower Austria and Hungary. Vienna was put to siege by the leading Bohemian nobleman, Count Thurn (1567–1640) and, in 1619, the Protestants suffered defeat by imperial troops
at the Battle of Sablat. Upper and Lower Austria signed an alliance with Bohemia in August 1619 and, in that same month, Ferdinand was deposed and replaced by Frederick. The imperial armies, meanwhile, were driven out of Hungary. At this point, Spain entered the conflict, dispatching an army to provide support for the Emperor. They also persuaded the Saxons to invade Bohemia. The army of the Catholic
League took Lower Austria and defeated Frederick at the Battle of White Mountain towards the end of 1620, marking the end of Bohemian independence. It would become Catholic and remain under Habsburg control for the next three centuries.

The next phase began when the Lutheran Danish king, Christian IV (ruled 1588–1648), fearful for the independence of his country following the recent Catholic
successes, supported the Lutheran rulers of Lower Saxony against the imperial forces. Both France and England helped to fund his initiative and he formed the Lower Saxon Circle, raising an army of 35,000 men, amongst them 20,000 mercenaries. However, Christian’s allies let him down. England was weak and divided, France was preoccupied by its own civil war, and Sweden was embroiled in war with Poland-Lithuania.
The fighting ended with the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629 and Christian had to abandon his support for the Protestant German states. As a result, the Catholics made more advances and gained more territory in Germany. The Swedes were next to make an intervention on the side of the German Lutherans, under the leadership of their king, Gustavus II Adolphus (ruled 1611–32). His reasons were similar
to those of his Danish counterpart – fear for the security of his country and its influence in the Baltic states. To begin with, his armies, subsidised by the French, enjoyed great success, regaining much of the territory lost to the Catholics. Gustavus Adolphus was killed at the Battle of Lützen in 1632 and, without his leadership, the Protestants were defeated. In 1635, the Peace of Prague
ended this part of the war, but only the Protestant rulers in the northeast were made secure.