ways pleased
him to irritate, and over whom he too claimed, through the possession of
the cautionary towns, a kind of sovereignty. Instinctively feeling that
in the rough and unlovely husk of Puritanism was enclosed the germ of a
wider human liberty than then existed, he was determined to give battle
to it with his tongue, his pen, with everything but his sword.

Doubtless the States had received most invaluable assistance from both
France and England, but the sovereigns of those countries were too apt to
forget that it was their own battles, as well as those of the Hollanders,
that had been fought in Flanders and Brabant. But for the alliance and
subsidies of the faithful States, Henry would not so soon have ascended
the throne of his ancestors, while it was matter of history that the
Spanish government had for years been steadily endeavouring to subjugate
England not so much for the value of the conquest in itself as for a
stepping-stone to the recovery of the revolted Netherlands.

For the dividing line of nations or at least of national alliances was a
frontier not of language but of faith. Germany was but a geographical
expression. The union of Protestantism, subscribed by a large proportion
of its three hundred and seven sovereigns, ran zigzag through the
country, a majority probably of the people at that moment being opposed
to the Roman Church.

It has often been considered amazing that Protestantism having
accomplished so much should have fallen backwards so soon, and yielded
almost undisputed sway in vast regions to the long dominant church. But
in truth there is nothing surprising about it. Catholicism was and
remained a unit, while its opponents were eventually broken up into
hundreds of warring and politically impotent organizations. Religious
faith became distorted into a weapon for selfish and greedy territorial
aggrandizement in the hands of Protestant princes. "Cujus regio ejus
religio" was the taunt hurled in the face of the imploring Calvinists of
France and the Low Countries by the arrogant Lutherans of Germany. Such a
sword smote the principle of religious freedom and mutual toleration into
the dust, and rendered them comparatively weak in the conflict with the
ancient and splendidly organized church.

The Huguenots of France, notwithstanding the protection grudgingly
afforded them by their former chieftain, were dejected and discomfited by
his apostasy, and Henry, placed in a fearfully false pos