Outline of Plan of Presentation.
After calling attention briefly to the fact that this spirit of revolt manifested itself in other countries, a logical plan of presentation would be first to discuss the ineffectual efforts of the Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X to check the movement as it spread through Germany, with an explanation of their failures; then to describe the more successful efforts in this direction taken within the church itself and known as the Counter Reformation; and finally to introduce Philip II as the great champion of orthodoxy, devoting his entire energies and the resources of a great empire to the superhuman task of restoring the church to its former position of power and influence. His career calls up Alva’s efforts to subdue the Netherlands, and that heroic figure, William the Silent; and the sailing of the Great Armada.
One semi-religious war, if not two, have already been under discussion in connection with these efforts to suppress the revolt, the Dutch War of Independence and the Spanish Armada. Here is apparently the proper place to introduce the other struggles, beginning with the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, then taking up in turn the Huguenot wars in France and the Puritan Revolution in England, and closing the period with the sequel to this last struggle, The Glorious Revolution of 1688.