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For more than thirty years the new religious movement continued to
spread with alarming rapidity. Nation after nation either fell away
from the centre of unity or wavered as to the attitude that should be
adopted towards the conflicting claims of Rome, Wittenberg, and
Geneva, till at last it seemed not unlikely that Catholicism was to
be confined within the territorial boundaries of Italy, Spain, and
Portugal. That the world was well prepared for such an outburst has
been shown already,[97] but it is necessary to emphasise the fact
that the real interests of religion played but a secondary part in the
success of the Protestant revolt. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and
Knox may be taken as typical of the new apostles, and however gifted
and energetic these men may have been, yet few would care to contend
that either in their own lives or in the means to which they had
recourse for propagating their views they can be regarded as ideal
religious reformers.
Protestantism owed its success largely to political causes, and
particularly in the case of Lutheranism to its acknowledgment of the
principle of royal supremacy. At its inception it was favoured by the
almost universal jealousy of the House of Habsburg and by the danger
of a Turkish invasion. If attention be directed to the countries
where it attained its largest measure of success, it will be found that
in Germany this success was due mainly to the distrust of the Emperor
entertained by the princes and their desire to strengthen their own
authority against both the Emperor and the people; in Switzerland to
the political aspirations of the populous and manufacturing cantons and
their eagerness to resist the encroachments of the House of Savoy; in
the Scandinavian North to the efforts of ambitious rulers anxious to
free themselves from the restrictions imposed upon their authority by
the nobles and bishops; in the Netherlands to the determination of the
people to maintain their old laws and constitutions in face of the
domineering policy of Philip II; in France to the attitude of the
rulers who disliked the Catholic Church as being the enemy of
absolutism, and who were willing to maintain friendly relations with
the German Protestants in the hope of weakening the Empire by civil
war; in England, at first to the autocratic position of the
sovereign, and later to a feeling of national patriotism that inspired
Englishmen to resent the interference of foreigners in what they
regarded as their domestic affairs; and in Scotland to the bitter
rivalry of two factions one of which favoured an alliance with France,
the other, a union with England. In all these countries the hope of
sharing in the plunder of the Church had a much greater influence in
determining the attitude of both rulers and nobles than their zeal for
reform, as the leaders of the so-called Reformation had soon good
reason to recognise and to deplore.
Protestantism had reached the zenith of its power on the Continent in
1555. At that time everything seemed to indicate its permanent
success, but soon under the Providence of God the tide began to
turn, and instead of being able to make further conquests it found it
impossible to retain those that had been made. The few traces of
heresy that might have been detected in Italy, Spain, and Portugal
disappeared. France, thanks largely to the energy of the League and
the political schemes of Cardinal Richelieu, put an end to the
Calvinist domination. Hungary and Poland were wrested to a great
extent from the influence of the Protestant preachers by the labours of
the Jesuits. Belgium was retained for Spain and for Catholicity
more by the prudence and diplomacy of Farnese than by the violence of
Alva; and in the German Empire the courageous stand made by some of
the princes, notably Maximilian of Bavaria, delivered Austria,
Bohemia, Bavaria and the greater part of Southern Germany from
Protestantism.
Many causes helped to bring about this striking reaction towards
Catholicism. Amongst the principal of these were the reforms
initiated by the Council of Trent, the rise of zealous ecclesiastics
and above all of zealous popes, the establishment of new religious
orders, especially the establishment of the Society of Jesus, and
finally the determination of some of the Catholic princes to meet force
by force. Mention should be made too of the wonderful outburst of
missionary zeal that helped to win over new races and new peoples in the
East and the West at a time when so many of the favoured nations of
Europe had renounced or were threatening to renounce their allegiance
to the Church of Rome.
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