Download Chapter 12: The Age of Religious Wars The first half of the sixteenth

Chapter 12: The Age of Religious Wars
The first half of the sixteenth century saw the Reformation explode throughout Europe; and mostly in
Central Europe, as Lutherans, Anabaptists, Zwinglians and Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic
Church. Most of the struggles were centered in Germany and Switzerland. Henry VIII also quarreled with
Rome and made himself the head of the Catholic Church in England. Note that Henry’s fight with the
papacy was more of a political fight than a dogmatic one. In the second half of the sixteenth century,
religious struggles will spread westward as Calvinists fight for religious recognition and win over Scotland
and the Netherlands to their camp. Moreover Protestants and Catholics will fuel a struggle in England that
will help to shape the Anglican Church.
The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, legalized Lutheranism in the Holy Roman Empire but not Calvinism,
Anabaptism and the various modes of Antitrinitarianism. The Council of Trent which had opened in 1545
and concluded in 1563 would both establish a revitalized Roman Catholic Church which would demand
absolute loyalty to a centralized “top-down” hierarchy, headed by the pope and his bishops but also a Jesuit
led counter offensive to win back Protestant territory especially in Germany. It is important to
understand that the Calvinists and the Catholics began the second half of the sixteenth century with
two irreconcilable church systems. In many ways the Calvinists were the “new papists” and the Catholics
burned with “reformational fervor.”
Nowhere was this contrast between Protestant and Catholic more obvious than in art and architecture. The
Counter Reformation would find expression in the Baroque style which was grandiose, brightly colored,
and filled with drama and energy. Protestant art was also called Baroque but it was much more restrained,
more somber in color, almost dark and far less dramatic. In the book on pp. 390-1, it is valuable to compare
the Catholic baroque church in Ottobeuren in Bavaria (in which the center of worship is the altar where the
Eucharist takes place) with a woodcut of a Protestant church (which is plain with little to distract the
congregation from the Word of God). We will study Baroque art in more detail in Chapter 14.
This chapter will deal with the religious wars that raged across Europe from the 1540s to 1648. It was a
time of great hatred and bloodshed where rulers and religious leaders like the Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand II, Mary I of England, Philip II of Spain, John Knox, Theodore Beza and Philippe du Mornay
refused any compromise to achieve their political and religious goals. And there were those who
betrayed their religious principles for purely political gain, like Cardinal Richelieu. But there were a group
of rulers and leaders who worked to subordinate religious extremism and favored toleration, moderation
and compromise for the good of their people and countries; these were the politiques and the most famous
were William of Orange, Elizabeth I of England and Henry IV of France. The chapter will end with the
Thirty Year’s War which will finally bring to an end the Wars of Religion.
Huguenots bring instability to France
France was almost entirely Catholic but there many Protestants who were inspired by the writings of John
Calvin and came to be called Huguenots, a name taken from Besançon Hugues a Genevan who
participated in the rebellion against the Savoy dynasty, which led to the independence of Geneva in 1526.
These French Protestants were “under suspicion” in the early 1520s and were persecuted after Francis I
was captured at the Battle of Pavia by the forces of Charles V as the French tried to placate Charles. In the
1530s, these Protestants set up anti-catholic posters all over Paris and mass arrests followed. These arrests
drove Calvin to Geneva and in 1540 the Edict of Fontainebleau subjected French Protestants to the
Inquisition. Francis I died in 1549 and under his son Henry II the Edict of Chateaubriand in 1551 took
sterner measures which included loss of property and censorship.
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Then in 1559, the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis brought to an end the Italian Wars often called the
Habsburg–Valois Wars, a series of conflicts that had begun in 1494, and brought Europe a moment of
peace – but not in France. That same year saw two trends develop: deepening internal French religious
conflict and a shifting of the European Balance of Power from France to Spain. It began with an accident.
At a tournament as part of the wedding festivities celebrating the marriage Henry II’s thirteen year old
daughter, Elisabeth of Valois, to King Philip II of Spain, Henry II was mortally wounded in a jousting
accident. He was succeeded by a sickly son (Francis II, 1544-1560) who died the next year. Three families
began at once to compete for the young king’s favor: the Bourbons, who were strong in the south and
west; the Montmorency-Chatillons, who were strong in central France; and the Guises who were strong
in eastern France.
The Guises were the most successful because Francis, the duke of Guise (1519-1563), had been a successful
general for Henry II and his brothers were cardinals Moreover, Francis’ widow, Mary of Scotland (Queen
of Scots) was a Guise on her mother’s side and the Guises were militant Roman Catholics. The
Montmorency-Chatillion and Bourbons had Huguenot sympathies. The Bourbon, Louis of Condé and the
Montmorency-Chatillion admiral Gaspart de Colingy were leaders of the French Protestant resistance.
They had even collaborated in a conspiracy to kidnap Francis II in 1560. The conspiracy failed and they
avoided execution; even Calvin condemned such tactics.
Calvinism appealed to different people in different social classes for different reasons. Some nobility saw
Calvinism as a way to oppose the Guise-dominated monarchy. Others wanted to establish areas of
territorial control – like medieval principality using Calvinism as their excuse. Calvinists in France were
always small in proportion to the overall population, about 2,000 congregations. But they held important
posts in the military and the government. Calvin and Beza (whom we will soon meet) tried to win over the
aristocrats, the most important being Jeanne d’ Albert (a Bourbon) the mother of the future Henry IV. The
bottom line was the Calvinists were not just religiously motivated but politically motivated.
The Guises and the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
When young Francis II died in 1560, he died without heirs and so he was succeeded by his younger
brother, Charles IX (1560-1574) and his mother, Catherine de Mèdici (1519-1589) became his regent. She
tried without success to reconcile the Protestant and Catholic factions and so she tried to find allies with the
Protestants. In 1562, after conversations with Beza and Coligny, she issued the January Edict, which
granted French Protestants freedom to worship privately in urban areas and publically in the countryside.
However, two months later in March, the Duke of Guise murdered many Huguenot worshippers in Vassy
in Champagne. This ignited the French Wars of Religion and had Condé and his Huguenot armies come to
the queen mother’s side, war might have been averted.
Catherine, the Queen Mother greatly feared the power of the Guise (even though they were Catholic) and
so Condé’s hesitation to support her forced her – against her wishes – to ally with the Guise Family. Had
she not, she would have been forced to capitulate (surrender) to the Protestants. During the fighting that
followed in 1562 &1563, Protestants from Hesse and the Palatinate fought with the Huguenots and when
the Francis (duke) of Guise was assassinated, it brought a short respite. The fighting resumed in 1568 and
lasted until 1570; these years marked some of the bloodiest fighting and saw Louis of Condé killed in battle
and leadership of the Huguenots passing to Admiral Coligny. This led to another respite and the Peace of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye acknowledged the power of the Huguenot nobility and gave them religious
freedom within their own areas - even allowing them to fortify their towns. The queen mother was caught
in the middle. On one hand she wanted France to be fully Catholic but feared the staunchly-ambitious and
Catholic Guise family; on the other hand she wanted Protestant support but feared militant Calvinism.
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After the Peace of Saint-Germain, the young king Charles IX showed favor to the Bourbon family and
Admiral Coligny who became his most trusted advisor. Catherine secretly began to plot with the Guise
family against the Huguenots because she was terrified that the Huguenots were gaining too much power
and influence. Moreover to her horror, Admiral Coligny had persuaded Charles to invade the Netherlands
to support Dutch Protestants in their fight for freedom against Catholic Spain - and that would mean that
France would become an enemy of Spain which was now at the height of its military power.
Then on August 22, 1572, only four days after Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot king of Navarre, married
Catherine’s daughter (and the king’s sister), Marguerite of Valois, Coligny was shot in the arm by a wouldbe-assassin, who was part of a plot hatched by the Guise and Catherine. Fearing the king’s anger at the
failed assassination, Catherine convinced her son that a Huguenot coup was being planned which only
swift retaliation could prevent. Thus on St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24th, 1572, Coligny and 3,000
Huguenots were massacred in Paris. Within three days, mobs attacked and killed about 20,000 Huguenots
throughout France. The Pope Gregory XIII and Philip II of Spain ordered religious celebrations but the St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre lived on as a day of infamy among Protestants.
For Philip II of Spain, who was the leader of militant Catholicism, the massacre was a two edged sword
(cut both ways). The French religious civil war made it certain that France would not help Philip’s
rebellious Protestant/Calvinist subjects in the Netherlands but it also made the Catholic vs. Huguenot
struggle in France not just a French issue but a European issue because it galvanized (strengthened)
Protestants to fight for their survival against Catholic aggression. Up to this point (The St. Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre) Protestants only grudgingly favored civil disobedience but after 1572 Protestants in general and
Calvinists in particular came to favor the need for active defense of their religious rights and began to
author theories to justify civil rebellion. John Knox, who had seen his efforts bring Calvinism into
Scotland crushed by Mary of Guise and to bring Calvinist into England crushed by “Bloody Mary” (Queen
Mary I) in England laid the first groundwork for this Calvinist resistance in his First Blast of the Trumpet
against the Terrible Regiment of Women in which he openly declared that heathen (meaning non
Protestant) rulers ought to be removed from their thrones.
In 1573, François Hotman wrote Franco-Gallia which made a case for a representative government and
an elected monarchy. It was only found favorable by Catholics or Protestants when it could be used for that
side’s own political agenda; and, more interestingly, its ideas influenced Rousseau’s treatise, The Social
Contract, written in 1762. In 1574, Theodore Beza, a close disciple of Calvin, wrote On the Right of
Magistrates over their Subjects in which he rejected Calvin’s views and justified the overthrow of
“tyrannical rulers.” In 1579, a treatise attributed to Philippe du Mornay, A Defense of Liberty against
Tyrants (Vindiciae contra Tyrannos), questioned the authority of kings, asking questions such as whether
subjects are bound to obey monarchs who infringe upon the will of God.
Henry of Navarre
Charles IX was horrified at the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and blamed himself for the massacre and
the bloodshed that followed. His health, always fragile, broke and he died in May, 1574 probably of
tuberculosis and was succeeded by his younger brother, Henry III (1551-1589). Henry found himself caught
between a radical Catholic League, led in Henry of Guise (the son of Francis, duke of Guise, assassinated in
1563) and angry Huguenots - neither of which had much loyalty to the new king. Like his mother (Catherine
de Medici), Henry III sought to take a middle course and (happily for France) he soon received support from a
growing body of impartial and neutral Catholics and Huguenots who were willing to compromise in
religious creeds to save the nation. These were true Politiques, rulers and leaders who subordinated
theology to political unity, tolerance and moderation.
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The Peace of Beaulieu in May 1576 granted the Huguenots almost complete religious and civil freedom
but it did not last because in October of 1577, the Catholic League forced the king to modify the peace and
restrict Huguenots to limited areas of worship. This caused a renewed outbreak religious strife and the
Protestants found a champion in Henry of Navarre (a legal heir to the French throne through direct male
descent from Louis IX (1214-1270). This strife reached a crisis during the mid-1580s, the Catholic League with
Spanish help denominated Paris. On May 12th, 1588, there was a spontaneous series of riots in Paris –
called the Day of the Barricades - against the moderate and hesitant policies of the king. The Duke of
Guise entered Paris and the king fled to Chartres. Then king successfully (and treacherously) ordered the
assassinations of the Duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Guise.
The Duke of Guise had been very popular however, and the citizenry turned against the king because of the
murders. The Parlement instituted criminal charges against the king, and so Henry III joined forces with his
Protestant rival Henry of Navarre. As the two Henrys prepared to attack Paris, a young fanatical
Dominican, Jacques Clément, assassinated Henry III and so Henry of Navarre succeeded the childless
Henry III as King Henry IV. The pope and Philip II of Spain were horrified at the prospect of the
Protestant French king – and a king who was popular with his people. Amid threats of Spanish
intervention, Henry proved he was a true politique and ready to place the good of France above religious
absolute religious unity. He was also weary of decades of bloodshed and believed that a tolerant form of
Catholicism was the best remedy. So on July 25, 1793 he publically abandoned the Protestant religion and
embraced Catholicism – He was reported to have said, “Paris is worth a Mass.”
The Huguenots were horrified; the pope was skeptical but most of the French church and people rallied in
support of the king. By 1596, the Catholic League was disbanded, Spanish influence diminished and the
wars of religion in France were over. On April 13, 1598, Henry issued the Edict of Nantes which gave the
Huguenots qualified religious freedom. The edict treated Huguenots for the first time as more than heretics
and opened a path of tolerance. The edict offered general freedom of conscience to individuals and specific
concessions to the Huguenots, such as amnesty and the reinstatement of civil rights, including the right to
work in any occupation and to bring grievances directly to the king. Nevertheless, in spite of its many
accomplishments, the Edict of Nantes merely turned a hot war into a cold war because the edict could NOT
restrain religious fanatics. Henry himself would be assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in 1610 but his
accomplishments transformed of France into a modern state and his genuine concern for his people made
him one of France’s most popular kings, both before and after his death.
The Habsburgs and the Age of Philip II
Juana of Castile, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and older sister of Catherine of Aragon, had
married Philip of Burgundy who died in 1506. So their son, Charles (1500-1558) inherited her Spanish
possessions which included Burgundy and the growing Spanish empire in the New World and Charles
became both Charles I of Spain was the Holy Roman emperor Charles V. Charles married Isabella of
Portugal and their son was Philip II. After the retirement of his father in 1555 to the defeat of the Spanish
Armada in 1588, Philip II was the most commanding and powerful monarch in Europe. In central Europe
however, the Germans would not accept Philip and so Charles’ younger brother Ferdinand inherited the
imperial title and the eastern Hapsburg lands of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary.
Spain grew dramatically in the sixteenth century. What caused this dramatic growth was the enormous
wealth that poured into Spain from the New World. After the initial plundering of Inca and Aztec gold and
silver, the1540s saw two great silver mines, Zacatecas in Mexico and Potosi in Peru, produce great sums
of money that paid the king’s debts and hired mercenary soldiers. Spanish silver affected the entire world
and the new wealth it brought created dramatic social change as Europe became richer with growing
economies and populations.
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Major towns not just in Spain but in France, England and the Netherlands tripled and quadrupled in size.
But there was a downside because there were more people but less food and fewer jobs; so inflation soared.
These factors were nowhere more true than in Spain where most of the wealth was concentrated in the
hands of a few and the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” widened. Nowhere in Europe did the
peasants suffer more than in Spain because the Spanish were the most heavily taxed people in Europe. So
those who worked hardest to create wealth prospered the least.
Nevertheless, was a great organizer and created an efficient and loyal bureaucracy by using the lesser
nobility. Philip was a private man, reclusive and religious, and so he administered his kingdom through his
bureaucrats. He was a great patron of the arts and his famous monument, El Escorial, located outside
Madrid was a combination palace, church, museum, library, mausoleum and monastery. Philip's reign saw
a flowering of cultural which has come to be called the Golden Age, creating a lasting legacy in literature,
music, and the visual arts. Even though he was called Philip the Prudent, he was fiscally irresponsible,
spent money beyond the means of his nation and was responsible for four separate state bankruptcies in
1557, 1560, 1575, and 1596. And he knew personal sorrows, especially the suspicious death of his mad and
treacherous son, Don Carlos.
We also need to examine Spain’s militant Catholicism. One of the primary reasons seems to lie in her
history. In the early Common Era the Iberian Peninsula was a coalescence of Celtic, Roman and Visigothic
cultures. In the early eighth century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Muslim Berbers.
Beginning in the same century the various Spanish kingdoms regrouped and began to reconquer the
peninsula in a seven century struggle called the Reconquista. Historians believe that this bitter and
protracted struggle contributed to Spanish religious militancy and intolerance towards Islam, Protestants or
people of native religions. In 1492, the last Moorish stronghold, Granada, was overcome under Ferdinand
and Isabella and the peninsula was finally united.
But there was also a Muslim threat posed by the Ottoman Empire in Central Europe. In 1529, the Austrians
barely saved Vienna from an Ottoman army and during the 1560s, the Ottoman Turks advanced deep into
Austrian territory and their fleets dominated the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1571, however, a Holy League
(crafted by Phillip II) and consisting of Spain, Venice, Genoa and the Papacy under the command of Don
John of Austria (who had expelled Moors from Granada) was formed to attack the Ottoman navy. On
October 7th, 1571, Don John’s fleet won an astounding victory against the Ottoman navy under the
command of Ali Pasha in the Battle of Lepanto (so named because it was fought off Lepanto in the Gulf of
Corinth). The Turks in time recovered and remained a threat but the victory at Lepanto was a huge
psychological boost for European Christians – especially Philip II.
The Revolt in the Netherlands
The (Burgundian) Netherlands was originally part of the Duchy of Burgundy. As we saw, Burgundy
became a Spanish possession with the marriage of Juana of Castile to Philip of Burgundy. By the time of
Charles V and Philip II (both of whom retained the title of Duke of Burgundy), Burgundy came to be called the
Spanish Netherlands. The Northern Provinces (the modern Netherlands) were Dutch speaking and
Protestant; the Southern Provinces (modern Belgium) was French speaking and Catholic.
Philip II had won a tremendous victory at Lepanto and suppressed a revolt in Portugal when he inherited
that throne in 1580. The Mediterranean for all practical purposes was a Spanish lake controlled by the
Spanish navy and that same navy brought Portugal’s overseas empire in Africa, India and Brazil into the
Spanish overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines. Philip also intended to dominate England,
France and the Netherlands (one of his richest possessions) but would taste frustration in France, defeat in
England and the loss of the Northern (Dutch) Netherlands. So it would be that Philip's despotism and harsh
Counter-Reformational measures which would lead to the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648).
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From 1555 to 1559 Philip lived in the Netherlands but then left Netherlands and appointed his half-sister,
Margaret of Parma, as regent, assisted by a Council of State, headed by Antoine Perrenot (1517-1586),
known after 1561 as Cardinal Granvelle who hoped to reduce growing Calvinism through church reforms
and breaking down the traditional local autonomy of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands - and
replacing them with a centralized government under Spanish oversight. But the Dutch merchant towns,
especially Antwerp, were fiercely independent and already strongly Calvinist.
They were independently minded, tolerant of differing religious views and led by two members of the
Council of State, the Count of Egmont (1522-1586) and William of Orange (called William the Silent because
of his small circle of advisors) – who resisted Granvelle’s attempt to impose Spanish autocracy (rule). Like
Henry IV of France, William of Orange (1533-1584) was a true Politique and placed the good of the
Netherlands above religious intolerance. He was first a Catholic, then a Lutheran and finally – after the St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre – a Calvinist.
The beginnings of the Dutch revolt began in 1561, when Granvelle began his ecclesiastical reforms and
Spanish domination of the government. William of Orange organized the Dutch nobility and their
opposition was so determine that they succeeded in driving Granvelle from office in 1564. But even with
Granvelle gone, the Council was ineffective and popular unrest grew, especially among the artisans in the
cities and the radical Calvinists. Then the situation deteriorated even more when Philip II tried to impose
the decrees of the Council of Trent. This time, Louis of Nassau (younger brother of William) led the
resistance and in 1566, issued The Compromise, an open petition to Philip II, asking him to withdraw the
Inquisition in the Netherlands.
Margaret of Parma (and Philip himself) spurned (harshly rejected) The Compromise calling its authors
“beggars.” The result was that Calvinists rioted and Louis of Nassau openly called upon French Huguenots
and German Lutherans for help; and the Netherlands was on the brink of full scale rebellion. But the
rebellion was averted because the higher nobility did not support The Compromise because they feared
Calvinistic iconoclasm and anarchy as much as Granvelle’s political repression.
The next year (1567), Philip [pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory and] made the fatal decision to make an
example of the Protestant rebels by sending the Duke of Alba with 10,000 soldiers to put down the revolt.
Alba established a special tribunal (court), known as the Council of Troubles (but to the people of the
Netherlands as the Council of Blood), to punish the ringleaders of the recent political and religious "troubles."
Almost 9,000 people including the Count of Egmont were tried and executed.
Then, to make matters worse, the Spanish levied new taxes to make the Netherlands pay for its own
suppression, which met with such resistance that they could not be collected. As a result of Spanish
persecution, thousands fled during the six year rule of Alba and William of Orange, from in exile in
Germany, emerged as the leader of the resistance movement determined to win independence. The
rebellion movement was centered in the northern, Calvinist oriented provinces of Holland, Zeeland and
Utrecht, where William was Stadholder (or governor). So in 1568 the Eighty Year’s War began when
William openly tried to drive Alba from Brussels. But Williams’s efforts failed and his army fell apart.
So the war went dormant for a few years.
But the war flared up again in March of 1572, when Queen Elizabeth I of England deported the Gueux, or
the Sea Beggars, - a group of anti-Spanish exiles and criminals including many Englishmen - from
England in an attempt to appease Philip II. The Gueux in turn unexpectedly captured the almost
undefended town of Brill in South Holland. Taking this victory as a sign to renew the struggle, William
immediately enlisted their support and the Sea Beggars quickly mixed with the native population and
began sparking rebellions against the Spanish in town after town spreading the fighting southward. This
marks the most intense part of the conflict and Dutch fought furiously.
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The town of Leiden courageously resisted a Spanish siege; and the Dutch opened their dikes flooding the
land to deter the Spanish. So vigorous was the Dutch defense that the Duke of Alba was replaced by Don
Luis de Requesens in late 1573. The greatest atrocity of the war came after Requesens’ death in 1576 when
Spanish mercenaries sacked the city of Antwerp killing 7,000 people in what has come to be called the
Spanish Fury.
But the Spanish Fury backfired on Philip II because it galvanized both the northern (more Protestant)
provinces and the southern (more Catholic – roughly modern Belgium today) provinces in unified opposition to
the Spanish terror and produced a union (agreement) called the Pacification of Ghent which was signed on
November 8, 1576. This agreement permitted internal regional sovereignty in matters of religion and
political cooperation even between those of differing religious persuasions. Four provinces held out at first
but eventually joined and created an all-embracing Union of Brussels.
Then in November, 1576, Don John, the victor of Lepanto, took command of the Spanish forces in the
Netherlands and tasted his first defeat. He could not overcome Dutch unified resistance and was forced to
sign the humiliating Perpetual Edict in February, 1577, which called for the removal of all Spanish troops
from the Netherlands within twenty days. Thus William of Orange and the Dutch triumphed and Don John
died the next year of camp fever (probably typhus). But – it’s not over - before he died, Don John worked
with Alexander Farnese of Parma, the son of Margaret of Parma, to revive Spanish power in the south by
creating fear among the Catholics of extreme Calvinism and thereby breaking up the Union of Brussels.
And it worked! In early 1579, the southern provinces formed the Union of Arras making peace with
Spain. The Northern provinces responded by forming the Union of Utrecht.
Philip seized what he saw as an opportunity to break the Union of Utrecht by declaring William of Orange
an outlaw - and placing a bounty on his head. But this action backfired and made William a national hero
who, in a speech before the Estates General of Holland, denounced Philip II as a heathen tyrant who no
longer needed to be obeyed. So on July 22, 1581, the northern provinces declared that Philip was no longer
their ruler and all (except Holland and Zeeland) accepted with the southern provinces a titular ruler, the
French Duke of Alençon, a younger son of Marie de’ Medici. But Alençon was incompetent and
ambitious - and was soon deposed and returned to France.
The Spanish did not give up their efforts to subdue the Northern provinces. William of Orange was
assassinated in 1584 and was succeeded by his son Maurice who gained the support of the English and
French. Philip II still might have succeeded but he overextended himself with his meddling in French and
English affairs. Trying to undermine Henry IV, he signed a secret treaty with the Guises and later sent
troops into France in 1590 under Alexander Farnese. Tensions with England, which had openly sent aid to
the Dutch, also increased and came to a climax with the defeat of the Armada in 1588.
The bottom line was that the Spanish were exhausted were driven out of the Netherlands by 1593. In 1596,
France and England recognized Dutch independence and finally formal peace would was concluded in
1609, when the Twelve Years’ Truce gave the Northern provinces virtual independence.
England under Mary and Elizabeth Tudor
Before Edward VI died in 1553, he nominated Lady Jane Grey as his successor, thus subverting the
claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Grey was the teenage daughter of a powerful Protestant
nobleman, Henry Grey, and the granddaughter of Henry VII, on her mother’s side. Her reign was short –
nine days – and she was removed because of popular uprisings which led the Privy Council to proclaim
Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, to be Queen on 19 July 1553. Mary (b. 1516)
had grown up under difficult circumstances.
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Mary loved her father but deeply resented his treatment of his mother and at times – during her brother’s
reign - even feared for her safety. She grew up a devout Catholic and when she came to the throne, she was
determined to take her revenge. Her first act was to return England to Roman Catholic obedience and then
she takes revenge of the Protestant advisors and theologians who removed England from the Catholic
Faith. Most Englishmen were neutral about returning the Church of England to Rome but Mary makes her
first mistake in her revenge.
Mary hunted down the Protestant reformers and the executions that followed were so severe that much of
England turned against her. The most famous was Thomas Cranmer who was burned at the stake and
became a great martyr. Many other Protestant leaders fled to the continent and these “Marian Exiles”
settled mostly in Germany and Switzerland. It was John Knox who described her as Bloody Mary – even
though her father had killed many, many more people. Mary’s second mistake was her marriage Philip II
King which made him king of England - but the English despised him and never accepted him and after her
death refused to honor his claims to the throne. In 1557, Philip convinced Mary to join him in a war with
France. Philip got what he wanted but England lost Calais and Mary died brokenhearted the next year
having lost the love of her people. Nevertheless at her funeral service John White, Bishop of Winchester,
said: "She was a king's daughter; she was a king's sister; she was a king's wife. She was a queen, and by
the same title a king also."
Mary was succeeded by her half sister, Elizabeth I (b. 1533), daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth was a shrewd and capable monarch in both domestic and foreign affairs. Elizabeth with the help
of her able advisor, William Cecil (1520-1598), she built a strong monarchy – amicable with Parliament –
on the disastrous ruins of his sister’s reign. Between 1559 and 1603, they guided England through
Parliament into a religious settlement that did not stop religious rivalries but prevented them from tearing
England apart for almost a century. A Politique like Henry IV of France and William of Orange, she
prevented religious extremism from damaging national unity and yet she forged an Anglican Church that
incorporated much Protestant doctrine with much Catholic doctrine and ritual so that most Englishmen
came to identify with this bridge-church.
In 1559, Parliament passed an Act of Supremacy which repealed all the anti-Protestant legislation of Mary
I and asserted Elizabeth’s authority as “supreme governor” over both spiritual and temporal affairs. In the
same year, the Act of Uniformity a mandated for every English parish a revised version of the Book of
Common Prayer that removed the more Protestant elements in Edward’s 1552 Book of Common Prayer.
And in 1553, the issuance of the Thirty-Nine Articles, a revision of Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles, made
this moderate Protestantism the official religion of the Church of England. Elizabeth hoped to pursue a
middle way (Via Media) and her first Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker (1504-1575),
represented this ideal. Parker was one of the primary architects of the Thirty-Nine Articles, a scholar, a
modest and moderate man of genuine piety and irreproachable morals.
The biggest problem Elizabeth faced was the rise of Catholic and Protestant extremists. When she became
queen, Catholics were in the majority and most were moderate. The Catholic extremists were led on by the
Jesuits and plotted to overthrow the queen. The Spanish encouraged them because they were angry that
Elizabeth had taken a conciliatory stand towards Protestants and that she had refused Philip II’s offer of
marriage. Elizabeth would stay unmarried because of its diplomatic advantage. The Catholic extremists
hoped to replace Elizabeth with Mary Stuart – Mary Queen of Scots - (the only surviving child of James
V of Scotland who himself was the son of Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII). Elizabeth acted firmly but
mercifully against those who opposed her and she executed far fewer Catholics during her forty five year
reign than his sister executed Protestants in her five year reign. Her rule was mercy unless the offender
threatened the unity of her rule.
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Elizabeth dealt more cautiously with the Protestants most of whom were called Puritans because they
believed that they were working within the Church of England to purify it from Catholic doctrine or
Popery as they called it. The Puritans had two principal areas of objection to the Anglican Church. First,
they criticized the use of Catholic ceremonial and use of vestments and ornaments which (to them) made
the Anglican Church seem that no Reformation had ever occurred. Second, they objected to Episcopal
Government or ecclesiastical (church) organization in which the Church is governed by bishops - even
though the monarch was head of the Church.
What the Puritans really wanted was a more thorough Reformation along the lines of autonomous
congregations, governed by presbyteries, governing bodies of elders - (hence Presbyterian) along the lines
and theology of John Calvin. The more extreme Calvinists among the Puritans wanted every congregation
to be autonomous, a law unto itself, with no oversight either by bishops or presbyteries. These latter came
to be known as Congregationalists and Elizabeth and her third Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift
(who despised Puritans) used the Conventicle Act of 1593 to force such separatists to conform to the
practices of the Church of England or face death or exile.
Relations with Spain began to deteriorate in 1567 when the Duke of Alba marched into the Netherlands. To
the English such action seemed a prelude to and invasion of England. Then Pope Pius V (r. 1566-1572),
who favored the conquest of England, “excommunicated” Elizabeth for Heresy in 1570 which stiffened
English resistance to the Pope and the Jesuits. When Don John defeated the Ottoman Turks at Lepanto,
England and France signed a mutual defense pact.
Then in 1572, as we have seen, the Sea Beggars captured Brill and aroused both the Dutch and the Spanish
and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre made Elizabeth the only protector of Protestants in France and
the Netherlands. Also in the 1570s, English privateers, notably Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins,
began to seize Spanish treasure ships bringing gold and silver from the Americas. And when Drake
circumnavigated the world (1577-1580), the Spanish became alarmed at rising English sea power. Finally
in 1585, Elizabeth signed the Treaty of Nonsuch which sent English soldiers to the Netherlands.
But the straw the broke the camel’s back was the events surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots. We have
already seen that Mary was the hope of the Catholic extremists in England as she was next in line of
succession to the English throne after Elizabeth. Although her father had been king of Scotland, she was
raised in France and was thoroughly French and fervently Catholic. When her French husband, the sickly
King Francis II died in 1561, she returned to Scotland as its queen but found that by the Treaty of
Edinburgh (recognized by Francis II before he died and Elizabeth I), Calvinism was the recognized
religion of Scotland. But Mary was not intimidated and established a court filled with French culture with a
gaiety and sophistication that impressed many Calvinist nobles who found their religion dreary.
Mary’s arrival back in Scotland horrified John Knox (1514-1572), a disciple of Calvin who had helped
establish Calvinism in Scotland the year before Mary returned. (Note the chronology: Elizabeth became
queen in 1559, a Reformation Crisis followed in Scotland Calvinism is established in 1560 and Mary
returns in 1561) Knox worked tirelessly to undermine the queen and complained about her Catholic Masses
and other rituals which to any other Scotsman would be a capital offense (i.e., death penalty). Knox won
the support for this “watchdog role” from both Elizabeth and Cecil (even though Elizabeth despised Knox
because she had never forgiven him for his publication of the First Blast of the Trumpet against the
Terrible Regiment of Women) because he could keep Mary from bringing Scotland back to Catholicism.
In 1568, a scandal forced Mary to abdicate in favor of her one year old son, James, and she fled to her
cousin Elizabeth in England who kept her in pleasant but protective custody (i.e., house arrest) where she
continued to be an international symbol of a potentially Catholic England.
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In 1583, Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-1590), Elizabeth’s secretary, discovered a plot against Elizabeth
involving the Spanish ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, who was quickly deported. The result was
an increase of hatred for Spain in England. In 1856, Walsingham uncovered another plot, the Babington
Plot, led by Anthony Babington, who was caught and executed for seeking Spanish support to assassinate
the queen – and this time there was no doubt that Mary was involved. Elizabeth did not want to execute her
cousin – and felt strongly that to execute a monarch, even a deposed one, weakened monarchs everywhere and she wanted peaceful relations with English Catholics. Nevertheless, even though she knew that the
outcries from Catholics in Europe and England would be deafening, she ordered Mary’s execution on
February 18, 1587. For the papacy and Philip II, this was the last straw and Philip gathered together his
great Armada (his great fleet) for an invasion of England.
But the English struck first when Sir Francis Drake bombarded the port of Cádiz and damaged both the
Spanish fleet and its support facilities. Drake went on to raid the coast of Portugal. These preemptive
forced Spain to postpone the English invasion until the next year. On May 30, 1588, under the command of
the Duke of Medina-Sidionia, the Armada set sail for England with134 ships and 25,000 soldiers and
sailors. To Europe’s amazement, the English (with help form the Dutch) prevented the invasion barges
from leaving Calais and Dunkirk and, with their faster and more maneuverable ships, inflicted a minor
defeat on the Spanish fleet (sinking five Spanish ships with almost no damage to themselves) in the Battle
of Gravelines.
Then, instead of turning around and regrouping in France or Spain, the Armada sailed north and entered the
Atlantic before sailing south between Ireland and Scotland where most of their fleet was wrecked in a
terrible storm (characteristic of the Little Ice Age). Only 67 ships and 10,000 men returned home to Spain.
Many were drowned or killed when they were shipwrecked on English soil – on a few who landed on Irish
soil survived.
The news of the Spanish disaster gave a boost to Protestants everywhere and, although Spain won
impressive victories in the 1590s, it was bankrupt and never fully recovered as Spain faced more
determined French, English and Dutch armies. By the time of his death in 1598, Philip had tasted defeat on
all these fronts and his son (Philip III) and successors were all inferior leaders under whom Spain’s
decline hastened – especially when the New World silver production slowed. The French would soon
dominate Europe; and the Dutch and English would create overseas empires of their own and new sources
of wealth. Elizabeth died in 1603 and left behind a strong seafaring-nation which within 150 years would
become a global empire.
The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
The Thirty Years’ War was the last and most destructive of the Wars of Religion – and the most
destructive European conflict until the First World War of 1914-1918. But unlike World War I what
made the Thirty Years’ War so destructive were the bitter entrenched religious beliefs mixed with political,
self-serving dishonesty. In the year 1600, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire were almost
ungovernable, consisting of about 360 autonomous or semi-autonomous political jurisdictions There were
some larger states like the Hapsburgs holdings or like Brandenburg, Saxony, the Palatinate or Bavaria;
many were imperial cities, many were bishoprics; many were little duchies. The Peace of Augsburg in
1555 gave each of them significant sovereignty (power to rule): each levied tolls and taxes; coined its own
money; and hindered trade and travel.
German princes wanted to exploit growing economic opportunities and opposed any attempt by the
Hapsburgs to consolidate the Empire. The Hapsburg emperors on the other hand, were in the difficult
position of being rarely able to enforce their authority by force of arms; rather, they were force to use
persuasion.
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In addition to political fragmentation, the Holy Roman Empire was divided by religious denominations.
In1600, the population was about evenly divided between Roman Catholics and Lutherans with the Roman
Catholics holding a slight edge with some Calvinist and Anabaptist minorities (47% RC; 46% Lutheran;
7% the rest). The Peace of Augsburg had intended to freeze the Catholic-Lutheran ration but some
Lutherans had been able to gain political control in some Catholic dominated areas whereas the opposite
scenario was less frequent.
That meant that Lutherans had been far more successful in securing rights to worship in Catholic lands than
Catholics had in Protestant lands. Thus the Catholic rulers were weakened and resentful over the
concessions they had to make to the Protestants. There was an also bitter religious dislike between liberal
and conservative Lutherans and between Lutherans and Calvinists and the last half of the sixteenth century
had seen great dissension among Protestant factions within German universities.
Calvinism in particular was aggressive and determined to assert itself. It was an unrecognized religion but
it gained a strong foothold when Frederick III (r. 1559-1576) in 1559 became the Elector of the Palatinate.
Raised Catholic, then Lutheran, he converted to Calvinism and made it the official religion [state religion]
in the Palatinate. Under his encouragement and supervision, the Heidelberg Catechism was drawn up and
he made Heidelberg a staging area for Calvinist missionary penetration into the empire. He thus made
Heidelberg the German Geneva and by 1609 Palatinate Calvinists headed a Protestant Defensive
Alliance that received support from England, France and the Netherlands.
The Lutherans came to fear the Calvinists almost as much as they did the Catholics. And the situation
deteriorated with aggressive Calvinist missionary penetrations into the empire. In other words, the
Heidelberg Calvinists were threatening the Peace of Augsburg – and thus the legal foundation of the
German states. But what divided them most were the bitter Calvinist attacks against the doctrine of Christ’s
real presence in the Eucharist which deeply offended the more conservative Lutherans. When the Elector of
the Palatinate, for example, took the communion host and publically shredded it and mocked it as “a fine
(i.e., false) God,” it was an insult both for Lutheran and Roman Catholics alike.
The Catholics were also active and added to the tensions in the empire, especially the Jesuits and Catholic
Bavaria which became a militant and ideological stronghold for the Counter Reformation. From Bavaria,
Jesuit missionaries won back significant numbers of Lutherans including the cities of Strasbourg and
Osnabrück. In 1609, Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria, organized a Catholic League to counter the
Protestant Defensive Alliance headed by the Elector Frederick IV (d. 16100 and grandson of Frederick
III). When the Catholic League raised a large army under Count Johann von Tilly (1559-1632), the stage
was set for the Thirty Years’ War. The war sucked in every major Western European nation and was fought
in four distinct stages.
The Bohemian Period (1618-1625)
The war erupted when the Hapsburg prince, Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, came to the throne of
Bohemia in 1618. Ferdinand was educated by the Jesuits and as soon as he became king, he revoked the
religious freedoms of Bohemian Protestants. These freedoms had been in effect since 1575 and later
expanded by the emperor Rudolf II (r. 1576-1612). The Protestant nobility of Prague responded by
throwing Ferdinand’s regents out of the windows of the Royal Palace which came to be known as the
Defenestration of Prague (defenestration means out the window). Later Protestant pamphleteers asserted
that the regents survived because they fell into a dung heap, a story unknown to contemporaries and
probably coined in response to the Imperial officials attributing their survival to the intercession of the
Virgin Mary. The officials were in all probability saved by their coats and uneven castle walls slowing
down their fall.) The next year Ferdinand became the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II (r. 16191637) by unanimous vote of the seven electors – but the Bohemians refused to accept him and declared the
Calvinist elector of the Palatine Frederick V (son of Frederick IV), as their king.
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What began as a revolt against an unpopular emperor, escalated into an international war. Spain sent troops
to Ferdinand, who was also supported by Maximilian of Bavaria and the Lutheran elector John George I
of Saxony (r. 1611-1536). It is also important to remember that politics and hypocrisy also play prominent
roles in the war and that everyone had an agenda. Maximilian wanted to seize the electoral title from his
distant Palatine cousin; and John George sought territorial gains, also at the expense of the Palatine elector.
It would not be the last time during this war that politics and greed would trump (overcome) religious
conviction. In 1620, von Tilly routed Frederick V’s troops at the Battle of White Mountain and by 1622,
the forces of the emperor Ferdinand II had re-conquered and imposed Catholicism on Bohemia – and
conquered the Palatinate as well. Meanwhile Maximilian invaded northwest Germany trying to seize as
much land as he could.
II: The Danish Period (1625-1629)
Ferdinand was starting to re-catholicize the empire and that frightened many Protestants. The Lutheran
king of Denmark, Christian IV (d. 1648), who held territory within the empire, was eager to expand his
influence over the coastal towns along the North Sea. With the encouragement of the FEDs, he invaded
Germany but was quickly defeated by Maximilian and forced to retreat back to Denmark. Maximilian’s
successes made him so powerful that it worried the emperor Frederick, who turned to Albrecht of
Wallenstein (1583-1634), a Protestant mercenary. Wallenstein was a brilliant general and carried the war
into Denmark and by 1628 he had become a law unto himself (out of the emperor’s control) with a 100,000
man army.
Wallenstein had so smashed Protestant resistance that Ferdinand issued the Edict of Restitution of 1629,
which reasserted the Catholic protections of the Peace of Augsburg. It also reaffirmed the illegality of
Calvinism (completely unrealistic) and ordered the Lutherans to return all Church lands acquired since
1552 (equally unrealistic – even though it had legal standing). If the Lutherans had complied, it would have
meant the return of new fewer than sixteen bishoprics and twenty-eight cities and towns to Roman Catholic
obedience. Thus the second phase of the war ended by creating even greater fear in the hearts of Protestants
than the ending of the first stage had.
III: The Swedish Period (1630-1635)
At this point a new Protestant champion appeared, the Lutheran and deeply pious king of Sweden,
Gustavus Adolphus II (r. 1611-1632) who was guided by two interested parties: the Dutch who had not
forgotten the Spanish Terror and the French minister Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) who willing
sacrificed Catholic loyalty to French political interests – in this case, the curbing of Hapsburg power. In an
alliance with the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, Adolphus (using brilliant tactics and lighter and
more mobile artillery) won a stunning victory over Tilly at the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631. The victory
was so decisive that it changed the course of the war in favor of the Protestants and meant that
Germany could never be re-catholicized.
In November of 1632 at the hard fought and bloody Battle of Lützen, Adolphus’ forces won a great
victory over Wallenstein but Adolphus was killed and the Protestants lost direction. The emperor
Ferdinand, who had long resented Wallenstein’s independence, had his Protestant general assassinated in
1634. The war then bogged down and in 1635, the German Protestant states, led by Saxony, reached a
compromise with Ferdinand in the Peace of Prague, which ended the German civil war but did not stop
France and the Netherlands and Spain from continuing the conflict.
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IV The Swedish-French Period (1635-1648)
This fourth stage was the last but the deadliest and most destructive phase of the war. At this point Catholic
France openly entered the war supporting the Protestants and for thirteen years French, Spanish and
Swedish soldiers roamed Germany - looting and murdering for no good reason. By the time peace talks
began in Münster and Osnabrück in Westphalia in 1644, about one third of the German population had
been killed. It was the worst killing of European people since the Black Death and would not be
equaled until the First World War.
The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended all hostilities and was the first general peace in the empire for a
generation. It was written in French which had replaced Latin as the Diplomatic Language of Europe. The
treaty rescinded Ferdinand II’s 1629 Edict of Restitution and reasserted the 1555 cuius regio, eius religio
principle of the Treaty of Augsburg. The treaty also gave Calvinists their long sought legal status and
recognized the independence of both the Swiss Confederacy and the Dutch United Provinces. Bavaria
became an elector state and Brandenburg-Prussia became the most powerful north German state. France
and Sweden were the guarantors of the treaty and used it as an excuse to meddle in imperial affairs for a
century. Finally and most importantly, it was obvious that Protestantism could never be displaced. France
and Spain remained at war until 1659, when triumphant French armies forced the humiliating Treaty of
the Pyrenees on the defeated Spanish. The same year also marked the end of Spanish Habsburg European
dominance and as ascent of French dominance.
The changes brought about for much of Europe by the Thirty Year’s War were profound and far reaching.
Much of Germany, Bohemia, the Netherlands and parts of Northern Italy were depopulated and ravaged by
foraging armies (armies raiding the countryside for food), pestilence (disease) and famine (starvation), so that
it took over a century to rebuild these nations and their economies. The Treaty of Westphalia also
marked the final downfall of Spanish Habsburg dominance and France now took center stage as the most
powerful nation in Europe.
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