The Thirty Years War erupted in 1618 between the Catholics and Protestants of the Holy Roman Empire. Unrest began with the King of Bohemia (one of the German states) Ferdinand IIs strong anti-protestant tendency’s. Protestant nobles lead by Count Thurn met with Catholic representatives in the Castle of Prague. The Catholics were defenestrated ( To throw (a person or thing) out of a window) leading the event to be titled as the defenestration of Prague. All three representatives survived. Ferdinand II was deposed as King of Bohemia and the Protestant Frederick was declared King of Bohemia. Two days later Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. This made war almost inevitable, and indeed it was not avoided, and the Imperial-Catholic league army marched to Bohemia thus starting the Thirty years war. The course of this war was incredibly brutal and complicated, but finally ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. This was a series of treaties making slight territorial changes, and also restating the rule that had been made at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, that the king of a states religion was the official religion of that state. But added on to this was that during certain hours you could worship publicly in either Protestantism or Catholicism and you could worship privately whenever you wanted.

At the close of the Thirty Years War was the beginning of The English Civil War, which started in 1642. The King was Charles II, who had absolutist tendency’s. He did not call Parliament into session for the whole of the 1630s, and so revived old taxes to pay for his lavish lifestyle. Like his father King James I he believed that kings ruled by divine right and that they should be the head of power. He was disliked for his advisor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Many believed the king was trying to bring back Catholicism with the ornate Anglican service he promoted, which some thought looked like a Catholic Mass. This was particularly unpopular with the Presbyterian Scottish and lead to a Scottish revolt. To defeat the Scottish he had to recall parliament in 1640 to get money for an army. They were furious at him for not calling parliament for over ten years, and so made him sign many agreements stating that he would regularly call parliament and other such things including many anti-Papist themes. However all of this was to no avail since most parliamentarians believed Charles was biding his time until he could reject the agreements he had signed. All this dislike cascaded into Civil war with the Cavaliers (Royalists) and Roundheads (parliamentarians) fighting against each other. The fighting eventually lead to the capture of Charles II and his execution in 1649. This shocked many people that the legitimate heir to the throne had been executed. Though during this time of turmoil a group called the Levelers arose promoting free trade, the abolition of corruption, natural rights, and the assurance that you own yourself, your property, and your life. These were the forerunners of the modern day Libertarians.

Charles V was king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. He became king of Spain in 1516 and was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. However he was not originally from Spain he was born in the low countries (modern day Netherlands) and all his attendants that travelled with him to Spain when he became king, were Dutch, and not particularly fond of the Spanish people. In fact Charles could not even speak Spanish. This angered a great many people so when he left to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor the people were ready to revolt. They were at first supported by the nobility but when they saw that this would diminish their power as well they began to grow wary of this uprising. Meanwhile Charles had returned from his coronation and was able to dispel the uprising on account of the Spanish people wearying of all the fighting that had occurred.

Charles Vs son, Phillip II inherited his fathers empire and was a proponent of an absolute monarchy. He believed in religious unity and decided to root out all the protestants that were living in the Netherlands. He expanded the inquisition and raised taxes all the while centralizing more power to him. There was rioting in Flanders and Brussels so in response Phillip II sent the Duke of Alba with 10,000 troops to suppress the revolt. Alba beheaded two Catholic nobles on account of them being “too lenient” with the protestants. He then proceeded to kill one thousand people suspected of disloyalty to the king, which further fueled the anger for a revolt. Indeed revolt did come and lasted for eighty four years ending with the separation of the upper seven provinces from the lower ten and creating the Dutch Republic. The Republic had assurance of private property, free trade and religious toleration, which in turn made The Republic a very prosperous nation and began a demonstration effect among other countries.

The English reformation and the German reformation essentially came to the same results but in very different ways. Whereas the German reformation came about by the spread of the teachings of Luther and the adoption of these teachings by the German people, the English reformation was formed because King Henry VIII wanted a new wife. His current wife had failed to give him a male child and he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. The pope would not grant an annulment since he saw there was no grounds for one, so the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who had great protestant sympathies, convinced Henry VIII to bypass the pope and get permission from the church in England. This lead to the Henry denying papal authority and declaring himself head of the church in England, though he himself was not a Lutheran and very much still believed in Catholic teachings. The job of making England more protestant was made under Henrys son Edward III and solidified under Queen Elizabeth.

While the protestant reformation was going on a second Catholic Reformation was going on as well, reforming the Catholic to church to have better clergy without corruption and defending Catholic teachings. One important man was St. Ignatius of Loyola who founded the Catholic order of the Jesuits. He wrote a popular book called the Spiritual Exercises, in which he gives rules for every good Catholic to follow. One member of the new Jesuit order was St. Francis Xavier, who was a missionary who travelled to India, Africa, and Japan to spread the Catholic faith. In one of his letters he tells that many people were made Christians and that his hands grew weary of baptizing so many people. If someone was found worshipping idols the children would go and smash and destroy the idols.

In one of Luther’s main books, On the Freedom of the Christian, he outlines some of his views. His most important teaching was that faith alone without works justifies saves and sets free. His belief is that humans are weak and that the law shows us what is good but does not give is the power to follow them, and that through them we are shown our inability to do good and may despair of our own strength. But if you believe in Christ grace, peace, justification and liberty are promised to you. A second point was that we should know God to be truthful and worthy of belief. The soul that believes in the promises of God, and holds him to be true and righteous, can give God no higher glory. Whereas you can give God no greater injustice than to not believe in His promises, which could only make God out to be a liar or to distrust Him and His word. His third point is to unit your soul to God so that you may be filled with Christs grace, life, and salvation and that Christ would take your sin, death, and condemnation. Thus by these things, the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, would become free from all sin, be fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with eternal righteousness, life, and salvation in Christ.

John Calvin was another protestant reformer who had very similar beliefs as Luther but whereas Luther was unwilling to make a statement on the predestination of people to hell Calvin explicitly stated that God chose some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell. He became the leader of the town of Geneva where things such as dancing, playing cards, or drinking in a tavern could get you thrown in jail and people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors to see if they had any Catholic or ungodly tendency’s. Despite these harsh sounding conditions people came from all over to live in Geneva, perhaps as a sort of spiritual oasis from the strife of monarchs and kings.

The age before the Protestant reformation and the Catholic Churches reforms was an age in which there were different feelings in the clergy. There was lukewarmness and zeal, immorality and piety which makes it difficult to make broad statements about the church at this time but there were some more universal problems. For one the ordinary monks and priests were ignorant. There were no seminary’s and a priest learned how to perform mass and other ceremonies from the priest before him in a kind of apprenticeship where the clergy generally ended up knowing nothing. Abuses among the bishops could be bishops holding multiple offices to generate more money, not living in their diocese, and being more focused on earthly things such as money. These and others were problems that Martin Luther saw in the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther was born in 1483 to the son of a copper tradesman, who wanted him to become a lawyer. In 1505 when he was twenty-two he was caught in a violent thunderstorm and promised Saint. Anne that if he survived he would become a monk. After he survived the storm he sold his books dropped out of university and entered the Augustinian order. He came to teach theology at the University of Wittenberg and in 1517 he posted his famous ninety-five theses on the door of the Church in Wittenberg. These theses were problems that he found with the Catholic Church and invitation for someone to come and debate him. This eventually happened but in the meantime the theses were printed on the newly invented printing press and distributed for the public to read, giving way for the Protestant reformation.