Nevertheless in Germany the Thirty Years' War, which certainly had its rise as a war about religion, dragged on for nearly a score of years longer, until its final settlement by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

The terms of that treaty might have been less favourable to the Protestants than they were had the two great Catholic nations of France and Spain been in accord. They had fallen, however, as we have seen, into bitter opposition, which broke out into active war. The real occasion of the war was, as before, the too masterful power which was held in a single hand owing to the accident that the Habsburg family, which governed in Austria, wore the Crown of Spain also. It still possessed those Southern States of the Netherlands which had not won their independence, and it had the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy as well as Naples in Southern Italy. The Habsburgs still surrounded France. Richelieu's aim was to break this circle. He was ruthless and subtle, and he was single-minded in his determination to make his king not only the despotic ruler of his own country but also powerful throughout Europe. The French monarch was served by his minister as effectively as our Henry VIII. by Wolsey and by Thomas Cromwell. Richelieu had put down a rising of the nobles against the Crown with severity as cruel as that of Henry's last, and worst, minister. The people of France had never secured the rights which the law gave them in England—though the Tudor kings paid those rights little respect—and they gave the nobles no support. In his first aim the great cardinal succeeded. The king became despotic in France.

His position in Europe, with so powerful an opponent in the field as the King of Spain, was not so easily secured. It was a curious twist of policy which brought France to the assistance of the Protestant Union in the later years of the Thirty Years' War—France, a Catholic State and under the influence of a cardinal of the Catholic Church, aiding Protestants against Catholics! And it was the aid of France which saved them, notwithstanding that the French armies twice suffered defeat in Germany.

Of course the motive that brought France in on the Protestant side was the opportunity of opposing Spain.

The Treaty of Westphalia, which really marked the end of the religious wars much more definitely than the Peace of Alais, gave France an extension of territory on her eastern border, at the cost of Germany. It gave Sweden compensation in money and in a fortress or two on the Baltic for what she had done in the war. Switzerland had borne a share in the fighting on the Protestant side, and her independence was recognised by the treaty; and Holland, which had been practically a free country for years, was now formally declared to owe no dependence either to Spain or to the Emperor. The Emperor's power indeed, for a long while vague and declining, was now diminished to almost nothing.

But though Holland stood thus finally free, we have to remember that there still were what were called "the Spanish Netherlands," a district, under the rule of Spain, not very different in its boundaries from modern Belgium. In these Spanish Netherlands fighting between France and Spain continued, in spite of the Treaty of Westphalia. They met each other too in Italy, and the war lingered on with changing results for more than ten years. In Germany the Protestants had gained religious freedom under the Treaty of Westphalia, and the German princes of both Protestant and Catholic faiths had been freed from the rather uncertain bond of union in which they had been held by the Emperor. Thus disunited, they had little power, and the power of France became greater by their weakness.

Mazarin's policy

Richelieu died in 1642 and another great churchman, Cardinal Mazarin, became the king's chief minister in his place. But in the following year died also that king whom Richelieu had served faithfully, ably, and unscrupulously. He was succeeded by Louis XIV., the monarch whose Court was so splendid, with himself as the centre of its glory, that he is known as Le Roi Soleil—the Sun King. He was a child of four when he came to the throne. The regent was his mother, and since she was a daughter of Philip II. a reversal of the policy of Richelieu was expected from her. To the grievous disappointment of a large party in France itself and also in Spain and Austria, she put herself into the hands of Mazarin; and he was a faithful follower of Richelieu. The war with Spain continued. But in the very year of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia there broke out in France that uprising of the nobles and of the people which is called the "Fronde." It had a remarkable success at first; though a success which did not endure. Under the captaincy of the great Prince Condé, who had led an earlier rising of the nobles against the Crown and, before that, had taken a leading part on the Huguenots' side, Mazarin was driven from Paris.

The strength of the two parties was so evenly divided, however, that in this very same year Condé himself and a number of his adherents were put under arrest. Within three years from the middle of the century the Queen Mother, with Mazarin as her minister, was re-established in power and the old lines of policy were pursued, both at home and abroad.

Our England, as we have seen, played little direct part in the long drawn-out war between the Protestants and Catholics on the Continent. Neither did she directly take any large part in the European contest between the two great Catholic powers. She did, nevertheless, come into touch and into opposition with both France and Spain abroad.