Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/265

 THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION 253 revolt. Beside these were the no less sincere enthusiasts, Ignatius Loyola and his comrades, who founded the Society of Jesus, popularly known as the Jesuits, a mili- tant missionary organisation which was to play a tremendously active part as soon as it became finally certain that reconciliation was impossible. But almost from the beginning there had been demands for a General Council of the Church to bring the religious antagon- isms to a settlement. Every one of the interests concerned, how- ever, desired a council to be held only under conditions which would secure the victory of its own particular views, a General The Protestants insisted that they should stand on Council. equal terms with the adherents of the papacy, while the popes required the unqualified recognition of their own supremacy. It was obvious that whatever country the council should be held in, the decisions of the council would be materially in- fluenced thereby. The emperor wanted it in German territory, the popes in papal territory, while France and England objected to both. At last the council was actually summoned at Trent, and over a period of some twenty years met at council of intervals sometimes at Trent and sometimes at Treat- Bologna. But from the outset it became evident that Protes- tantism would have no voice in its decisions, whether or no con- cessions might be made in some respects to Protestant opinion. We may anticipate by remarking that when the Council of Trent did come to an end in 1563, it had succeeded in defining Roman Catholic doctrine, but had set up an insurmountable barrier be- tween Romanism on one side and every one of the Reformed Churches on the other. In England, as we have remarked, the Reformation took a course of its own. An undercurrent of Lollardy had survived from the days of Wycliffe, but the English Reforma- Henry VIII tion was not the work of Lollards. From time and the immemorial, the secular authorities had resisted the Reformation - claims of the Church to exercise an authority independent of their own. English ecclesiastics had sided with the Crown against the papacy or with the papacy against the Crown, mainly with a view to the maintenance of their own privileges and