“In the Scandinavian realms they [the Protestants] had established themselves the more impregnably, because there their introduction was coincident with the establishment of new dynasties, and the remodeling of all political institutions. From the very first they were hailed with joy, as though there was in their nature a primitive affinity to the national feelings.”
“In the year 1552, the last representatives of Catholicism in Iceland succumbed.”
“On the southern shores, too, of the Baltic Lutheranism had achieved complete predominance, at least among the population of German tongue.”
In Poland it was said, “A Polish nobleman is not subject to the king; is he to be so to the pope?”
In Hungary, “Ferdinand I could never force the diet to any resolutions unfavorable to Protestantism.”
“Protestantism not only reigned paramount in northern Germany, where it had originated, and in those districts of upper Germany where it had always maintained itself, but its grasp had been extended much more widely in every direction.”
“In Wurzburg and Bamberg by far the greater part of the nobility and the episcopal functionaries, the magistrates and the burghers of the towns, at least the majority of them, and the bulk of the rural population, had passed over to the reforming party.”
In Bavaria “the great majority of the nobility had adopted the Protestant doctrine, and a considerable portion of the towns was decidedly inclined to it.”
“Far more than this, however, had been done in Austria. The nobility of that country studied in Wittemberg; all the colleges of the land were filled with Protestants.”