s of religious strife were gathering over
central Europe. From such a strife, should it once break out in war,
England could not hold aloof unless the tradition of its policy was
wholly set aside. And so long as Cecil lived, whatever change might take
place at home, in all foreign affairs the Elizabethan policy was mainly
adhered to. Peace indeed was made with Spain; but a close alliance with
the United Provinces, and a more guarded alliance with France, held the
ambition of Spain in check almost as effectually as war. The peace in
fact set England free to provide against dangers which threatened to
become greater than those from Spanish aggression in the Netherlands.
Wearily as war in that quarter might drag on, it was clear that the
Dutchmen could hold their own, and that all that Spain and Catholicism
could hope for was to save the rest of the Low Countries from their
grasp. But no sooner was danger from the Spanish branch of the House of
Austria at an end than Protestantism had to guard itself against its
German branch. The vast possessions of Charles the Fifth had been parted
between his brother and his son. While Philip took Spain, Italy, the
Netherlands, and the Indies, Ferdinand took the German dominions, the
hereditary Duchy of Austria, the Suabian lands, Tyrol, Styria,
Carinthia, Carniola. Marriage and fortune brought to the German branch
the dependent states of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia; and it had
succeeded in retaining the Imperial crown. The wisdom and moderation of
Ferdinand and his successor secured tranquillity for Germany through
some fifty years. They were faithful to the Peace of Passau, which had
been wrested by Maurice of Saxony from Charles the Fifth, and which
secured both Protestants and Catholics in the rights and possessions
which they held at the moment it was made. Their temper was tolerant;
and they looked on quietly while Protestantism spread over Southern
Germany and solved all doubtful questions which arose from the treaty in
its own favour. The Peace had provided that all church land already
secularized should remain so; of the later secularization of other
church land it said nothing. It provided that states already Protestant
should abide so, but it said nothing of the right of other states to
declare themselves Protestant. Doubt however was set aside by religious
zeal; new states became Lutheran, and eight great bishoprics of the
north were secularized. Meanwhile the new faith