ways; while Francis, by his ostentation and splendor,
offended the bluff Englishman. So Henry kept out of the quarrel; but to
Charles and Francis it became the main business of their lives. Their
reigns thereafter are the story of one long strife between them, rising
to such bitterness that at one time they passed the lie and challenged
each other to personal combat, over which there was much bustling and
bluster, but no result.

To get a full view of this Europe of young men, that beheld the
Reformation, we must note one other ruler farther north. Ever since the
union of Colmar in 1397, Sweden had been more or less bound to Denmark,
the strongest of the northern kingdoms. By the year 1520 the Danish
monarch Christian had reduced the Swedes to a state of most cruel
vassalage and misery. Only one young noble, Gustavus Vasa, a lad of
twenty-three, still held out, and by adventures wild as those of Robin
Hood evaded his enemies and at last roused his countrymen to one more
revolt. It was successful, and in 1523 Gustavus, by the unanimous
election of the Swedes, became the first of a new line of monarchs.[3]
He proved as able as a king as he had been daring as an adventurer, and
his long reign laid the foundation of Sweden's greatness in the
following century. He early accepted the reformed religion, and thus it
spread through the Far North almost without a check.

THE REFORMATION

The Reformation began in Germany in 1517, when the Saxon monk
Luther--himself then only thirty-four years a sojourner upon our
planet--protested against the Church's sale of indulgences. He was not
alone in his protest, but only stood forth as the mouthpiece of many
earnest men. His prince, that Frederick the Wise who afterward refused
to be emperor, upheld him. Maximilian, dying in the early days of the
dispute, had kind words of regard for the hero-monk. Even the Pope, Leo
X, treated the matter amicably at first. He also was still in early
life, having been made pope at thirty-six, an age quite as juvenile for
the leadership of the spiritual world as that of the various temporal
monarchs for theirs. Leo, being a member of the famous Medici family,
was apparently more interested in art than in religion. He wanted to
rebuild the gorgeous cathedral of St. Peter, and he did not want to
quarrel with Germany. So also Charles V, desiring to be emperor, could
scarce antagonize Frederick of Saxony, who could and did secure him his
ambition.

Thus