ent of despotism and oppression. Through
the vicissitudes of the great schism in the fourteenth century, and the
refractory councils in the fifteenth, its position became rapidly more
and more retrograde and demoralized. And when, in 1530, it joined
its forces with those of Charles V., in crushing the liberties of the
worthiest of mediaeval republics, it became evident that the cause of
freedom and progress must henceforth be intrusted to some more faithful
champion. The revolt of Northern Europe, led by Luther and Henry VIII.
was but the articulate announcement of this altered state of affairs.
So long as the Roman Church had been felt to be the enemy of tyrannical
monarchs and the steadfast friend of the people, its encroachments, as
represented by men like Dunstan and Becket, were regarded with popular
favour. The strength of the Church lay ever in its democratic instincts;
and when these were found to have abandoned it, the indignant protest of
Luther sufficed to tear away half of Europe from its allegiance.

By the end of the sixteenth century, we find the territorial struggle
between the Church and the reformed religion substantially decided.
Protestantism and Catholicism occupied then the same respective areas
which they now occupy. Since 1600 there has been no instance of a nation
passing from one form of worship to the other; and in all probability
there never will be. Since the wholesale dissolution of religious
beliefs wrought in the last century, the whole issue between Romanism
and Protestantism, regarded as dogmatic systems, is practically dead. M.
Renan is giving expression to an almost self-evident truth, when he says
that religious development is no longer to proceed by way of sectarian
proselytism, but by way of harmonious internal development. The contest
is no longer between one theology and another, but it is between
the theological and the scientific methods of interpreting natural
phenomena. The sixteenth century has to us therefore the interest
belonging to a rounded and completed tale. It contains within itself
substantially the entire history of the final stage of the theological
reformation.

This great period falls naturally into two divisions, the first
corresponding very nearly with the reigns of Charles V. and Henry VIII.,
and the second with the age of Philip II. and Elizabeth. The first of
these periods was filled with the skirmishes which were to open the
great battle of the Reformatio