nd themselves driven at last to look for a connexion among
those powers from whom they had hitherto most anxiously disconnected
themselves. At such a time Protestant Germany, not Catholic France, was
England's natural friend. The Reformation was essentially a Teutonic
movement; the Germans, English, the Scotch, the Swedes, the Hollanders,
all were struggling on their various roads towards an end essentially
the same. The same dangers threatened them, the same inspiration moved
them; and in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics they were united in a
black communion of heresy. Unhappily, though this identity was obvious
to their enemies, it was far from obvious to themselves. The odium
theologicum is ever hotter between sections of the same party which are
divided by trifling differences, than between the open representatives
of antagonist principles; and Anglicans and Lutherans, instead of
joining hands across the Channel, endeavoured only to secure each a
recognition of themselves at the expense of the other. The English
plumed themselves on their orthodoxy. They were "not as those
publicans," heretics, despisers of the keys disobedient to authority;
they desired only the independence of their national church, and they
proved their zeal for the established faith with all the warmth of
persecution. To the Germans national freedom was of wholly minor moment,
in comparison with the freedom of the soul; the orthodoxy of England was
as distasteful to the disciples of Luther as the orthodoxy of Rome--and
the interests of Europe were sacrificed on both sides to this foolish
and fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not permit the division
to remain in its first intensity, and their common danger compelled the
two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the reconciliation,
imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but impossible. Their
relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts of hostility.
Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on Luther.
Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books had
been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had been burnt by Henry's
bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate
the emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had
spoken loudly in condemnation of the king. The elements of disunion were
so many and so powerful, that there was little hope of contending
against them successfully. Nevert