It is not, therefore, to be wondered that Pius V. should have opened the era of active hostilities against Protestantism.  Firmly allied with Philip II., he advocated attacks upon the Huguenots in France, the Protestants in Flanders, and the English crown.  There is no evidence that he was active in promoting the Massacre of S. Bartholomew, which took place three months after his death; and the expedition of the Invincible Armada against England was not equipped until another period of fifteen years had elapsed.  Yet the negotiations in which he was engaged with Spain, involving enterprises to the detriment of the English realm and the French Reformation, leave no doubt that both S. Bartholomew and the Armada would have met with his hearty approval.  One glorious victory gave luster to the reign of Pius V. In 1571 the navies of Spain, Venice and Rome inflicted a paralyzing blow upon the Turkish power at Lepanto; and this success was potent in fanning the flame of Catholic enthusiasm.

The pontificates of Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V., differing as they did in very important details, had achieved a solid triumph for reformed Catholicism, of which both the diplomatical and the ascetic parties in the Church, Jesuits and Theatines, were eager to take advantage.  A new spirit in the Roman polity prevailed, upon the reality of which its future force depended; and the men who embodied this spirit had no mind to relax their hold on its administration.  After the death of Pius V. they had to deal with a Pope who resembled his penultimate predecessor, Pius IV., more than the last Pontiff.  Ugo Buoncompagno, the scion of a bourgeois family settled in Bologna, began his career as a jurist.  He took orders in middle life, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and attained the supreme honor of the Holy See in 1572.  The man responded to his name.  He was a good companion, easy of access, genial in manners, remarkable for the facility with which he cast off care and gave himself to sanguine expectations.[65] In an earlier period of Church history he might have reproduced the Papacy of Paul II. or Innocent VIII.  As it was, Gregory XIII. fell at once under the potent influence of Jesuit directors.  His confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the Catholic Church; and in his neophyte’s zeal he determined to outdo his predecessors.  The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but surpassed.  Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses a week, built churches, and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital.  The Jesuits in his reign attained to the maximum of their wealth and influence.  Rome, ’abandoning her ancient license, displayed a moderate and Christian mode of living:  and in so far as the external observance of religion was concerned, she showed herself not far removed from such perfection as human frailties allow.’[66]