But the conflict had impeded and even threatened to subvert that unity, secular and ecclesiastical, which was the logical aim of the whole of the papal policy.

IV.—­The Counter Reformation:  Second Stage

Meanwhile, the Protestantism which had threatened to prevail in Poland had been checked under King Stephen, and under Sigismund III.  Catholicism had been securely re-established, though Protestantism was not crushed.  But this prince, succeeding to the Swedish crown, was completely defeated in his efforts to obtain a footing for Catholicism, to which his success would have given an enormous impulse throughout the north.

In Germany, the ecclesiastical princes, with the skilled aid of the Jesuits, thoroughly re-established Catholicism in their own realms, in accordance with the legally recognised principle cujus regio ejus religio.  The young Austrian archduke, Ferdinand of Carinthia, a pupil of the Jesuits, was equally determined in the suppression of Protestantism within his territories.  The “Estates” resisted, refusing supplies; but the imminent danger from the Turks forced them to yield the point; while Ferdinand rested on his belief that the Almighty would not protect people from the heathen while they remained heretical; and so he gave suppression of heresy precedence over war with the Turk.

The Emperor Rudolph, in his latter years, pursued a like policy in Bohemia and Hungary.  The aggressiveness of the Catholic movement drove the Protestant princes to form a union for self-defence, and within the hereditary Hapsburg dominions the Protestant landholders asserted their constitutional rights in opposition.  Throughout the empire a deadlock was threatening.  In Switzerland the balance of parties was recognised; the principal question was, which party would become dominant in the Grisons.

There was far more unity in Catholicism than in Protestantism, with its cleavage of Lutherans and Calvinists, and numerous subdivisions of the latter.  The Church at this moment stood with monarchism, and the Catholic princes were able men; half Protestantism was inclined to republicanism, and the princes were not able men.  The Catholic powers, except France, which was half Protestant, were ranged against the Protestants; the Protestant powers were not ranged against the Catholics.  The contest began when the Calvinist Elector Palatine accepted the crown of Bohemia, against the title of Ferdinand of Carinthia and Austria, who about the same time became emperor.

The early period of the Thirty Years’ War thus opened was wholly favourable to the Catholics.  The defeat of the Elector Palatine led to the Catholicising of Bohemia and Hungary; and also, partly through papal influence, to the transfer of the Palatinate itself to Bavaria, carrying the definite preponderance of the Catholics in the central imperial council.  At the same time Catholicism acquired a marked predominance in France, partly through the defections of Huguenot nobles; was obviously gaining ground in the Netherlands; and was being treated with much more leniency by the government in England.  And, besides all this, in every part of the globe the propaganda instituted under Gregory XV. and the Jesuit missions was spreading Catholic doctrine far and wide.