he shrewd Jesuits, however, did not waste all their efforts upon the
education of the poor. They entered the palaces of the mighty and became
the private tutors of future emperors and kings. And what this meant you
will see for yourself when I tell you about the Thirty Years War. But
before this terrible and final outbreak of religious fanaticism, a great
many other things had happened.

Charles V was dead. Germany and Austria had been left to his brother
Ferdinand. All his other possessions, Spain and the Netherlands and the
Indies and America had gone to his son Philip. Philip was the son of
Charles and a Portuguese princess who had been first cousin to her own
husband. The children that are born of such a union are apt to be
rather queer. The son of Philip, the unfortunate Don Carlos, (murdered
afterwards with his own father's consent,) was crazy. Philip was not
quite crazy, but his zeal for the Church bordered closely upon religious
insanity. He believed that Heaven had appointed him as one of the
saviours of mankind. Therefore, whosoever was obstinate and refused to
share his Majesty's views, proclaimed himself an enemy of the human race
and must be exterminated lest his example corrupt the souls of his pious
neighbours.

Spain, of course, was a very rich country. All the gold and silver of
the new world flowed into the Castilian and Aragonian treasuries. But
Spain suffered from a curious economic disease. Her peasants were
hard working men and even harder working women. But the better classes
maintained a supreme contempt for any form of labour, outside of
employment in the army or navy or the civil service. As for the Moors,
who had been very industrious artisans, they had been driven out of
the country long before. As a result, Spain, the treasure chest of the
world, remained a poor country because all her money had to be sent
abroad in exchange for the wheat and the other necessities of life which
the Spaniards neglected to raise for themselves.

Philip, ruler of the most powerful nation of the sixteenth century,
depended for his revenue upon the taxes which were gathered in the busy
commercial bee-hive of the Netherlands. But these Flemings and Dutchmen
were devoted followers of the doctrines of Luther and Calvin and they
had cleansed their churches of all images and holy paintings and they
had informed the Pope that they no longer regarded him as their shepherd
but intended to follow the dictates of their c