rgy by allowing them to marry. Martin
Du Bellay found the cause of the English schism in Henry's divorce and
the small respect the pope had for his majesty. Davila, de Mezeray and
Daniel, writing the history of the French civil wars, treated the
Huguenots merely as a political party. So they were, but they were
something more. Even Hugo Grotius could not sound the deeper causes of
the Dutch revolt and of the religious revolution.

[Sidenote: Sleidan]

The first of all the histories of the German Reformation {705} was
also, for at least two centuries, the best. Though surpassed in some
particulars by others, Sleidan united more of the qualities of a great
historian than anyone else who wrote extensively on church history in
the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries: fairness, accuracy, learning,
skill in presentation. In words that recall Ranke's motto he declared
that, though a Protestant, he would be impartial and set forth simply
"rem totam, sicut est acta." "In describing religious affairs," he
continues, "I was not able to omit politics, for, as I said before,
they almost always interact, and in our age least of all can they be
separated." Withal, he regards the Reformation as a great victory for
God's word, and Luther as a notable champion of the true religion. In
plain, straightforward narrative, without much philosophic reflection,
he sets forth,--none better,--the diplomatic and theological side of
the movement without probing its causes or inquiring into the popular
support on which all the rest was based.

[Sidenote: Sarpi]

Greater art and deeper psychological penetration than Sleidan compassed
is found in the writings of Paul Sarpi, "the great unmasker of the
Tridentine Council," as Milton aptly called him. This friar whose book
could only be published on Protestant soil, this historian admired by
Macaulay as the best of modern times and denounced by Acton as fit for
Newgate prison, has furnished students with one of the most curious of
psychological puzzles. Omitting discussion of his learning and
accuracy, which have recently been severely attacked and perhaps
discredited, let us ask what was his attitude in regard to his subject?
It is difficult to place him as either a Protestant, a Catholic
apologist or a rationalist. The most probable explanation of his
attacks on the creed in which he believed and of his favorable
presentation of the acts of the {706} heretics he must have
anathematized,