Wars of Religion

A focused group of inquisitive minds closed out last week in style with a fog clearing discussion of European wars of religion.  The review document is here, and the Dutch Revolt line is crying out for completion.  I created a short quiz (six question, including two matching) to help brush up on this.

Philip II, painting by Renaissance master Titian

The most prominent name on the quiz that we didn't discuss more than briefly last week is Philip II of Spain.  He had a hand in two of the conflicts: Dutch Protestants were revolting against his rule and he supported the most militant Catholic faction in the French Wars of Religion.  Philip II ruled the Spanish Empire during the second half of the sixteenth-century, and he ordered the Spanish Armada assembled to attack England, because the English under Elizabeth I supported the Dutch rebels.  Philip II was so committed to Catholicism that he his Royal Palace, El Escorial, was also a monastery.  He used much of Spain's American gold and silver to finance wars against Protestant rebels.


We also discussed the two eruptions of large scale religious violence in the Holy Roman Empire during the first halves of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries.  I used the phrase Wars of the Reformation to refer to the conflict between Lutheran and Catholic forces in the Holy Roman Empire following establishment of Lutheranism by many German Princes.  This fighting was interrupted for long stretches as Charles V Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor, fought the Ottoman Empire and France.  The Peace of Augsburg (1555) ended these conflicts and allowed Princes in the HRE to establish Lutheranism or

Sack of Magdeburg

Catholicism.  This peace lasted until the Thirty Years' War which began in 1618 and (helpfully) lasted thirty years until the Peace of Westphalia.  This war was a major watershed in European History and caused tremendous suffering in central Europe. 

Many of the Royalist officers who fought in the English Civil War (1642-1651) gained combat experience in the Thirty Years' War, but that is a story for our next review session...