In 1531, Protestant rulers formed the League of Schmalkaden to defend themselves against the efforts of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, to establish Catholicism in Germany. Charles V was the most powerful of the Hapsburg rulers and controlled land in Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and Central Europe. He appealed to the pope for help in trying to regain control of these German provinces, but the pope refused because he resented the Hapsburg’s power and still blamed Charles V for the sack of Rome in 1527. After two decades of warfare, Charles was forced to accept the Peace of Augsburg (1555), establishing the permanent division of Germany into Lutheran and Catholic areas. In a compromise statement, the ruler accepted the statement “Cius regio, eius religio” (“whose region his religion”) that meant the political ruler would determine the religion of the area.
In 1556, Charles V retired to a monastery and divided his empire between his brother Ferdinand (who became the new Holy Roman Emperor and received Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia) and his son Philip who received Spain, Milan, Naples, the colonies in the Americas, and the Netherlands. Philip II (who reigned from 1556 to1598) was a deeply religious ruler who worked very hard and whose goal was to make Europe Catholic. Philip wanted to impose a more centralized government on the Netherlands as well as strengthen Catholicism in response to the growing strength of Calvinism. He sent the Duke of Alva (1508–1583) with 20,000 soldiers to deal with the threat. Alva established the Council of Troubles (called the Council of Blood by its opponents) and executed 18,000 people as heretics. He also revived the Inquisition.
At first, the Calvinist and Catholic provinces of the Netherlands united in 1576. They ultimately separated into two sections: the Calvinist Union of Utrecht (modern-day Netherlands) and the Catholic Union of Arras (modern-day Belgium). Led by William of Orange (1533–1584), the Dutch declared their political and religious independence in 1581. After 1584, the English began to support the Dutch rebels with money because they resented Philip’s effort to restore Catholicism in England. Spain was driven out of northern Netherlands in the 1590s and the war ended in 1609. In 1648, Spain officially recognized the independence of the northern provinces (Netherlands) but still retained control of the southern provinces (Belgium).
Francis I (who ruled France from 1515 to 1547) gained control of the French Church when he signed the Concordat of Bologna (1516) in which he recognized the supremacy of the papacy in return for the right to appoint French bishops. The settlement established Catholicism as the state religion in France. However, John Calvin’s ideas spread in France, especially among the nobles who used Calvinism to support their opposition to the monarchs as a way to gain power. Some also were attracted to the piety of the Calvinist religion in contrast to the corruption and wealth of the Catholic Church. These French Calvinists, known as the Huguenots, sought to regain power over a series of weak monarchs. From 1562–1589, a total of nine civil wars occurred for reasons of power among the upper classes and for reasons of religious concerns among the lower classes. On August 24, 1572, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre resulted in the death of over 20,000 Huguenots and led to civil strife between Protestants and Catholics. vIn 1589, Henry IV of Navarre, a Calvinist and member of the Bourbon family, became king when Henry III, a Catholic, was assassinated. Henry IV tried to unite France but was unable to convince Paris (a stronghold of Catholicism) to support him. Henry was more interested in political unity than religious unity and converted to Catholicism in 1593. He was allowed to enter Paris and is claimed to have said, “Paris is worth a Mass.” In 1598, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted religious and civil freedom to the Protestant minority. This was the first significant recognition by a major country that there could be more than one legalized religion in a state. The Edict led to a truce in the religious wars in France.
The most important and bloodiest of the religious wars was the Thirty Years War. An uneasy truce had existed in Germany since the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. This agreement allowed Lutheran and Catholic rulers to determine the religion of their subjects but it did not make any provisions for the inroads of Calvinism. Catholics were alarmed that the Lutherans were gaining conversions and territory in violation of the settlement. Lutherans feared that the Peace of Augsburg would be undermined by Calvinist and Catholic gains. In the early seventeenth century, Germany was divided into the Protestant Union, which was supported by the English, French, and the Dutch, while Spain and the Hapsburg Empire supported the Catholic League. The Thirty Years War was the first continental war in which all the major European nations were involved. It was a struggle between emperors and the states of Germany; the French and the Hapsburgs; the Spanish and the Dutch; as well as efforts by Denmark and Sweden to extend control over the Baltics. Historians have divided the Thirty Years War into four phases.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648) marked an end to the Thirty Years War with the following results:
As a result of the Thirty Years War, over 8 million of Europe’s inhabitants were killed. The entire area of Germany was destroyed and much of its culture was lost. Agricultural areas suffered catastrophically. The Hapsburg and Holy Roman Empire were greatly weakened. The age of religious wars ended permanently and Protestantism was established in Europe. Finally, the concept of the balance of power emerged as a force in international diplomacy, whereby nations went to war with one another, not for religion but to ensure that one power did not dominate the continent.