Day by day the relations between the adherents of the two creeds became more strained. Already the Thirty Years’ WarDisorganised condition of Germany. was looming in the distance—a war in which Protestantism was indeed to hold her own, but at the price of the destruction of German nationality and unity, almost of German independence, and of the crippling of national prosperity and intellectual growth for more than a century.
France, it is true, had suffered severely from her civil war of thirty-six years. Trade and industry had been ruined, and her finances heavily strained.Condition of France. The venality of her administrative system had been increased. The Estates-General and the ‘Parlements,’ the representatives of constitutional life, had been discredited; the former by the extreme views it had at times adopted, both by their subservience to the League. The power and self-importance of the nobles had been increased during the civil wars, and by the system adopted by Henry IV. of buying off their opposition. The desire for federative republicanism had grown with the growth of Calvinism. All these things had been the results of the religious wars. Yet after all, it was the royal power and prestige which in the end had benefited most from the internal discords.Revival of the Royal authority. It was Henry who had given his country peace at last, and thereby earned the gratitude of his people; he it was who chiefly gained by the discredit into which the organs of constitutional life had fallen, and by the divisions and dissensions of his subjects. The nobles, indeed, were dangerous, but Henry IV. was successful in defeating their intrigues. His able, though self-sufficient and egotistical minister, Sully, reorganised the finances, and did something to check the venality and corruption which existed. The marvellous recuperative powers of the country came to his assistance; and France under the clever, though somewhat cynical, rule of her great King became once more a first-rate Power. Had Henry lived longer, or had he been succeeded by a capable son, the Thirty Years’ War would probably not have occurred, or would have been ended sooner. The House of Hapsburg might have been humbled to the dust, and France might have established a dangerous supremacy in Europe. The assassination of Henry IV. in 1610 prevented this; France, on his death, became the victim of a weak minority, and a troubled regency; and Europe was not threatened with a French supremacy until the reign of Louis XIV.
[80] Probably a corruption of the German word ‘Eidgenossen’ (confederates), first applied to the Protestant party in Geneva.
[81] Cf. [Appendix I.] for meaning of this.
[82] Henry held Lower Navarre and the Principality of Béarn in his own right, and, as fiefs, the Duchies of Vendôme, Beaumont, and Albret; the Counties of Bigorre, Armagnac, Rouergue, Perigord, and Marle; the Viscounties of Limoges, and other lordships. See [Map of France].
[83] While Sully had been doing something to replenish the exchequer of King Henry, his antagonist, Philip, attempted a more summary method. On November 20, 1596, he publicly revoked all assignments, or mortgages by which the taxes on the royal domain had been pledged for money advanced to him. The pretext for this wholesale repudiation was that his exertions for Christianity had reduced him to beggary, while the money-lenders had been growing rich at his expense. The deed, however, produced a panic. The chief merchants and bankers suspended payment, and the credit of Spain received a shock from which it did not easily recover.
[84] The Marquisate of Saluzzo in Piedmont had been ceded to France by the Treaty of Cateau Cambrésis, cf. [p. 257]. Henry IV. in 1601 exchanged it with the Duke of Savoy for Bresse, Bugey, and Gex.
[85] His brothers, Ferdinand and Charles, received Tyrol and Styria. These were reunited to Austria proper under Ferdinand II., and the Austrian dominions were declared indivisible, 1621.