20-

l movement. The centralizing, autocratic, and unconciliatory policy of Philip II. was probably enough in itself to have caused rebellion in the Netherlands; while the religious conflict was so bitter that it woul

lland, and Zealand, Calvinism entered from France; into Friesland and North Holland came many Mennonites; in some of the towns there were Anabaptists; in the great commercial cities, such as Antwerp and Amsterdam, Lutherans were numerous, some of them immigrants from Germany, some converted to that faith through the communications between lower Germany and the adjacent provinces of the Ne

termined and harsh opposition from the government which now held the Netherlands in the hollow of its hand. In 1521 Charles V. issued from Worms an edict dooming to loss of property and death every Du

, and, in general, all heretic or non-Catholic opinions and practices. These edicts were enforced by all the power of the civil government, and by the activity of four inquisitors. The "Placards" reached their culmination in the edict of 1550, renewing and making more severe all punishments

forward almost desperately to some change that would make their position more tolerable. The States-General, the nearest approach to a national legislature that the Netherlands possessed, in 1559 pleaded for mildness. It was only the Spanish ruler who

at rose in dignity and significance far above the ordinary contests of Catholics and Protestants, he declared: "I am Catholic, and will not deviate from religion; but I cannot approve the custom of kings to confine men's creed and religion within arbitrary limits." [Footnote: Blok, Hist. of the People of the Netherlands (English trans), III., 14.] Philip replied to this petition of the Catholic nobles of the Netherlands by the edict of Segovia, dated October 17, 1565, insisting more vehemently than ever be

va, with his unlimited powers, his veteran troops, his "Council of Blood," his more than ten thousand victims of political and religious persecution, and the awful severity and barbarity that have made his name a synonym of cruelty and heartless despotism. William of Orange brought an army into Brabant in 1568, and revolt was soon in full progress. Even

uffering any hindrance to the Roman Church in the exercise of its religion." [Footnote: Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, pt. iii.] By November, 1576, when the treaty known as the Pacification of Ghent was made between Holland and Zealand on the one hand and the fifteen southern provinces on the other, liberalism in religious views had progressed as far as the power of the patrioti

. Just three weeks afterwards the Union of Utrecht was formed, which united the seven northern provinces and became the basis of the free republic of the United Netherlands: each province was to make its own religious arrangements, though toleration was secured by the provision that no one should be molested or question

sm became more pronounced and more militant. Exiled Calvinists from the south flocked to Amsterdam, Middleburg, Rotterdam, and other northern cities in great numbers, intensifying the Protestant character of these communities and enriching them with capital, business ability, and an astonishingly large proportion of gifted men. [Footnote: Jameson, Usselinx, 27.] The formal abjuration of Philip by the U

otestantism of the Dutch government. [Footnote: Blok, Hist of the People of the Netherlands (English trans.), III., 398-447.] Strengthened by her efforts, hardened by her struggles, awakened to vigorous life by the exhilaration of the long and arduous conflict, the little Protestant state approached the end of the sixteenth century, enterp

igious and political struggle between the Netherlands and Spain. When the twelve years' truce was signed, in 1609, those provinces which had returned to the Spanish obedience were uniformly Catholic, but their prosperity and international significance had disappeared. The

t in the history of colonization. The Dutch are not an emigrating people. Yet those who did emigrate carried with them such an assertive character and so highly developed a group of institutions that they exercised a deep and permanent influence over communities like New York, in which they soon ceased

olicy of Charles V., the conservative instincts and patriotic scruples of Luther, and the doubtful position of many of the German provinces and cities, long prevented any attempt by the emperor to enforce the orthodoxy required by the Diet of Worms, and induced the Lutherans to go more than halfway in accepting the policy of postponement. [Footnote: Arm

although marked by a series of imperial successes and temporarily closed by a triumphant truce in 1548, was soon renewed, and the Peace of Passau of 1552 was a general compromise, representing rather the weariness of war and the jealousies of the various powers of Germany than any permanent political of religious equilibrium. An attempt was made to establish a more lastin

ntroduced which were destined to be fatal to the p

ose between Catholicism and Lutheranism; and thereafter all inhabitants must conform, or, if unwilling to do so, must expatriate themselves. The unstable equilibrium of the empire was thus transfer

ould be guaranteed to its new possessors; but that for the future the process of secularization should cease. Thus an artificial obstacle was placed

bot, who was also a secular prince, should become a Lutheran, he must resign his office and divest himself of his power and jurisdiction, which would pass to his Catholic successor. This provision deprived Protestant

on in its terms, although Calvinism was destined to be the great aggressive force of the Reformation, making an appeal to the masses of the peop

ered the war as leader on the Protestant side, only to yield to the perseverance of Tilly, the general of the Catholic armies, and to the genius of Wallenstein, the representative of Emperor Ferdinand; and to retire in 1629, leaving north Germany more completely than before at the mercy of the emperor and of the Catholic party. Scarcely a year later Gustavus Adolphus, full of enthusiasm for the Protestant cause and provided with fu

es. One after another, foreign states were drawn into the struggle until a mere German civil war had developed into a general European conflict, in which foreigners were struggling for German territory. Catholics made alli

losses of Germany during the war were almost beyond description. [Footnote: Erdmannsdorffer, Deutsche Geschichte, 1648-1740, I., 100-115] The armies, made tip largely of soldiers of different nationalities, without attachment to the countries through which they marched, without interest in the questions at issue, without a regular commissariat, often without pay, brutalized by long campaigning and repeated sacks of cities, followed by an immense rabble of non-combatant men, women, and children, were a barbarian horde, and ravaged the lands in which they were established like a fire or a pestilence. The tortures they inflicted upon the peasantry and the citizens, the robbery, the outrages, the wanton destruction, pressed close to the limits of human endurance, and seemed almost to threaten the exte

in the empire to resist his aggressions or to make him fear either defeat or reprisals. Even the European coalitions which forced upon him successive treaties did not prevent renewed attacks or heal the scars of the repeated devastations of the lower and the upper Rhine country. The culmination of this period of suf

of rapine and devastation, made hundreds of thousands of the German people homeless, despairing, and eager for escape. It was this situation of the people, combined with the religious condition before described, that made Germany the best recruiting-ground for American colonists t

recht, Deutsche Geschtchte, V., Section 2, pp 765, 766.] As a matter of fact, the bond of union among the states of Germany had become so weak as to be almost non-existent. The emperor was the actual ruler of the Hapsburg dominions and the nominal head of the empire; but Germany was a geographical rather than a national expression, and its head could play no part as a national ruler outside of his immediate hereditary dominions. Germany had many interests in America. Martin Behaim, Regiomontanus, and other German scientists contributed largely to the development of the science of navigation during the period of discovery; Waldseemuller suggested the name that has been universally accepted for the New World; the numerous printing-presses of Germany did much to make known to Europe the history of the exploration and early conquests and the wonders of the Indies; under Charles V. the empire was brought closely into connection wit