Wars of Religion and the Scientific Revolution, 1560 to 1648

This is Unit Seventeen of Western Civilization One, part one of two: the wars of religion, from the Peace of Augsburg to the Peace of Westphalia in sixteen forty-eight. Unit sixteen closed in Amsterdam, with the center of Europe's wealth moved from bullion to shares. Carry one idea through this unit. The anchor's two chapters describe one world breaking in two ways. The first break was war. Augsburg had let princes choose their subjects' religion, and no one anywhere believed a rival confession could be saved. France fought itself for a generation until a king bought Paris with a mass and made tolerance a matter of state. Philip the Second fought the Dutch and the English and bankrupted Spain. Then the Empire: a window in Prague, a Catholic decade, Sweden with French money, France itself, and a peace that left the Empire a mosaic and eight million dead. After it, states wanted order above religion, which is where absolutism begins. Part two takes the second break, in the head. By the end you will be able to say why Augsburg was not tolerance. To tell France to Nantes. To describe Philip, the Dutch, the Armada and bankruptcy. To tell the Thirty Years' War. And to state Westphalia, its cost and its lesson.

Two entries on Augsburg and the crisis: a principle under which a dissenter was a rebel, and a cooling world in which most years were years of war.

Whose realm, his religion, and no one saved elsewhere.

WC1 1601 Augsburg, 1555, and Why "Whose Realm, His Religion" Was Not Tolerance

By fifteen sixty Protestantism was permanent and treaties let princes set their territory's religion, the Peace of Augsburg on the witness. That was not tolerance: every side held exclusive truth, Huguenots imposed controls where they could, and sects detested one another; religion belonged to princes, so a dissenter was a rebel. Creeds hardened, the Augsburg Confession of fifteen thirty and Trent.

Failed harvests in the war's decades.

WC1 1602 The Little Ice Age and the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

A cooling from the fourteenth century deepened from fifteen seventy, worst about sixteen hundred to forty, the war's decades: failed harvests, famine, the anchor's six hundred thirty percent rise in English grain, and the anchor's ninety percent of years at war. Historians call it a general crisis, the anchor says. Climate as cause is attributed, and the figures are the anchor's.

Four entries on France: a weak Valois crown between Guise and Bourbon, Vassy to St. Bartholomew's Day, three Henrys and a mass, and the Edict of Nantes.

Weak king, armed factions, religion.

WC1 1603 France in 1560: Weak Valois, Guise, Bourbon, Huguenot

France was rich under a weak Valois monarchy checked by nobles with armies as large as the king's, and Henry the Second died in a tournament in fifteen fifty-nine. The Catholic Guise faced the Huguenot Bourbons; the anchor puts Huguenots at ten percent of France and a third of the lesser nobility. Three causes: weak king, armed factions, religion.

A massacre begins it, a massacre marks it.

WC1 1604 Vassy to St. Bartholomew's Day, 1562 to 1572

A Guise massacre at Vassy in fifteen sixty-two, a witness name, began the wars. The child king Charles the Ninth, a witness name where the anchor writes Charles the Tenth, and his mother Catherine de' Medici wavered; in fifteen seventy-two Catholics killed over two thousand Huguenots in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Day, the anchor's twenty thousand more across France, and Navarre escaped.

Three Henrys, two assassinations, one conversion.

WC1 1605 The War of the Three Henrys and "Paris Is Worth a Mass"

From fifteen seventy-six the Catholic League under Guise fought King Henry the Third, both Catholic, while Henry of Navarre fought both. Guise and the king were assassinated; Navarre became Henry the Fourth in fifteen eighty-nine, converted in ninety-three, and entered Paris in ninety-four, Paris is worth a mass being the famous phrase, attributed. The anchor's climactic battle of fifteen ninety-four is a disclosure by name.

A state within the state, for the sake of the state.

WC1 1606 The Edict of Nantes, 1598: Unity Over Uniformity

In fifteen ninety-eight Henry the Fourth's Edict of Nantes gave Huguenots worship, walled towns and armies, a state within the state, while barring them from Paris and royal office, political unity chosen over religious unity, the anchor says. Assassinated in sixteen ten, his killer's name a disclosure, he had made pragmatic tolerance acceptable. Pragmatism, not principle; the Bourbons ruled to seventeen eighty-nine.

Five entries on Philip the Second and his enemies: Moriscos and Conversos, the Dutch Revolt and the Council of Blood, William the Silent and the Republic, the Armada, and a bankrupt Spain.

Catholicism's defender, by his own account.

WC1 1607 Philip II: Moriscos, Conversos, and the Defender of the Faith

Philip the Second, fifteen fifty-six to ninety-eight, Charles the Fifth's son, saw himself as Catholicism's defender and persecuted suspected non-Catholics: Moriscos, converted Muslims whose children were taken for Catholic schooling, and Conversos, converted Jews tried by the Spanish Inquisition, control at home and trouble abroad. Tyrannical is the anchor's word, attributed; the persecution is the record.

Terror that recruited for the rebels.

WC1 1608 The Dutch Revolt: Iconoclasm, Alba, the Council of Blood

The Netherlands' seventeen provinces were rich, diverse and merchant-led. Calvinist attacks on churches in fifteen sixty-six brought Spanish troops and the Inquisition under the Duke of Alba, whose Council of Troubles, the Council of Blood to the Dutch, executed suspects and rallied resistance, terror recruiting for the rebels. Alba is witnessed; the council's names are the anchor's.

Unpaid troops sack a loyal city, and a republic is born.

WC1 1609 William the Silent, the Spanish Fury, and the Republic, 1581

William the Silent led the resistance; Alba was recalled in fifteen seventy-three; unpaid Spanish troops sacked Antwerp and other loyal cities, the Spanish Fury of fifteen seventy-six. In fifteen eighty-one the northern provinces declared independence, the Dutch Republic, Calvinist and England's ally, with the anchor's fifteen eighty-eight recorded. Spain fought on until sixteen forty-eight along its Spanish Road, bankrupting itself.

A refused marriage, a burned fleet, and the Channel.

WC1 1610 Elizabeth, Drake, and the Armada of 1588

Philip had married Mary Tudor to recover England; Elizabeth refused him, backed the Dutch, and sponsored Drake, who burned a fleet at Cadiz in fifteen eighty-seven. In fifteen eighty-eight the Armada, the anchor's one hundred thirty-two ships, was beaten in the Channel by faster English ships, and half of it was lost sailing home. The threat to the Anglican church ended here.

Bullion did not equal wealth.

WC1 1611 Why Spain Went Bankrupt

Despite American bullion, Spain's wars in the Netherlands, against England and later in Germany left it bankrupt: the anchor's first power about fifteen fifty, second-tier by seventeen hundred, tied to agriculture and bullion while the Atlantic seaboard rose, keeping an overseas empire to the nineteenth century with its power gone. Bullion did not equal wealth, and unit sixteen's mercantilism explains why.

Four entries on the Thirty Years' War: two officials through a window, a Catholic decade ending in Restitution, Gustavus Adolphus with Richelieu's money, and France's entry that made it dynastic.

Two officials through a window.

WC1 1612 1618: Bohemia and the Defenestration of Prague

The imperial truce held until Ferdinand, king of Bohemia and emperor from sixteen nineteen where the anchor says eighteen, demanded Bohemia renounce Protestantism. The Diet threw two officials from a window in sixteen eighteen, the Defenestration of Prague, and elected the Calvinist Frederick of the Palatinate, the Catholic League against the Protestant Union, the witness's name.

Catholic victories everywhere, then a demand too far.

WC1 1613 The Catholic Decade, 1620 to 1629, and the Edict of Restitution

From sixteen twenty Catholic armies won everywhere: Bohemia conquered at White Mountain, a witness name, the anchor's hundred thousand Protestants fled, and Christian the Fourth of Denmark crushed after sixteen twenty-five. The Edict of Restitution in sixteen twenty-nine demanded Church lands seized since the Reformation, lands held eighty years, which threatened every Protestant prince.

Catholic France pays a Lutheran king.

WC1 1614 Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu's Money, and the Swedish Phase

In sixteen thirty Gustavus Adolphus invaded with French money from Cardinal Richelieu, Catholic France against Catholic Habsburgs. He won at Breitenfeld in sixteen thirty-one, a witness name, and died in battle in sixteen thirty-two, Lutzen by convention; Wallenstein was assassinated in sixteen thirty-four, where the anchor says thirty-two. Protestant reprisals matched Catholic ones.

Religion the pretext, dynasty the cause.

WC1 1615 1635: France Enters and the War Turns Dynastic

In sixteen thirty-five France entered on the Protestant side, and the war became a struggle between Bourbon and Habsburg, Spain paying the Catholic armies. For thirteen years armies crossed the Empire, and the anchor's eight million people died, with follow-up wars between France and Spain past sixteen forty-eight. From here religion is the pretext and dynasty the cause.

Three entries on Westphalia and after: the peace and the exam's sample question, the cost in people and confessions, and the lesson that built standing armies.

A mosaic of autonomous states.

WC1 1616 The Peace of Westphalia, 1648

In sixteen forty-eight the exhausted sides negotiated the Peace of Westphalia by messages between Munster and Osnabruck, witness names. The Empire's central power shrank further, its states gained almost total autonomy, and Augsburg's principle was reaffirmed. The exam's tenth sample question asks where most of the fighting fell: Germany and Bohemia. Catholicism gained anyway, Protestant Europe falling from half to a fifth, the anchor says.

Winners, losers, and intolerance intact.

WC1 1617 Counting the Cost: Population, Confession, Winners and Losers

The German lands lost the anchor's twenty to forty percent of their people and recovered near seventeen hundred. Winners: France and Sweden, and Austria confirmed as Germany's leading state. Loser: Spain, bankrupt and unreformed, as the economy shifted to the Atlantic seaboard. It was the end of large-scale religious war, with intolerance intact. The percentages are the anchor's, attributed.

Order and control, the seed of absolutism.

WC1 1618 From Mercenaries to Standing Armies: The War's Lesson

Soldiers' conduct had been so atrocious that states built professional standing armies under noble officers instead of hiring mercenaries who ran amok, the marauding soldier being the anchor's image of the chapter. Order and control, the anchor says, became the goal, and the next century's absolutism grew from it. Absolutism is the next course's subject; learn the seed here.

Look at what you can now do. You can say that Augsburg let princes choose and was not tolerance, and that a cooling world made the war's decades hungry. You can tell a weak Valois crown between Guise and Bourbon, Vassy in fifteen sixty-two and St. Bartholomew's Day in seventy-two, three Henrys and a mass worth Paris, and Nantes in fifteen ninety-eight as pragmatism, not principle. You can describe Philip persecuting Moriscos and Conversos, Alba's Council of Blood recruiting for the Dutch, a republic declared in fifteen eighty-one, the Armada beaten in eighty-eight, and bullion that was not wealth. You can tell the Defenestration of sixteen eighteen, White Mountain and Restitution, Gustavus with Richelieu's money, and France's entry in thirty-five that made dynasty the cause. And you can state Westphalia's mosaic and the sample question's Germany and Bohemia, the cost, and the standing armies that seeded absolutism. Part two opens on the second break, in the head: Bacon's method, Copernicus's sun, and Galileo before the Inquisition during the same war.