Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/276

 264 THE AGE OF HAPSBURG ASCENDENCY In Germany the religious strife was settled for the time being by the Peace of Augsburg. Under emperors who were officially G ma orthodox Catholics, but adopted a liberal attitude towards Protestantism, a critical struggle between the two faiths was deferred; to be then complicated by the Calvinism of sundry Protestant princes which alienated from them the Lutherans, who imagined that their own position had been secured by the Peace of Augsburg. In the meantime the effect was to cause Germany to stand aside altogether from the religious conflicts raging in the west of Europe. In Spain and in Italy Protestantism was practically non- existent; in England and Scotland its victory was practically English secured before Charles v. had been dead three years ; Protes- secured at least so long as Elizabeth should reign in England, for the plain reason that in the eyes of English Catholics not Elizabeth but Mary Stuart was the legitimate queen. For Elizabeth's legitimacy depended on the validity of the marriage of her mother Anne Boleyn to Henry vin., whereas the pope had pronounced that marriage invalid. There were no other legitimate descendants of Henry vin., who had no younger brother ; while Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was the grandchild of his eldest sister. Hence Elizabeth had no choice but to rely on the loyalty of her Protestant subjects. This necessity for her Protestantism became all the more marked when a papal bull issued by Pope Pius v. absolved the Catholics of their allegiance to her while authorising them to pretend loyalty. In Scotland, on the other hand, Protestantism won, partly from its appeal to the national instinct for independence, partly « « ^ because the bulk of the nobles were at feud with the Scotland. Roman Catholic priesthood, who had for long been the mainstay of the royal authority in its struggle with them, and of whose property they intended to possess themselves. When Francis II. of France died after a reign of a few months, and his young widow Mary Queen of Scots returned from France where she had been brought up to her own country, she found the two most powerful men in the kingdom to be the advanced Calvinistic reformer John Knox and her half-brother James Stuart, afterwards Earl of Murray, the leader of the reform