Religious Freedom.
[by J. C. W. Lindemann] (cont'd from Part 5)
In Bavaria, too, Luther's teachings had found much acceptance among the nobility and in the cities. Admittedly, Duke Albrecht V (1550-79) had formally barred his country against the Reformation, — even the craftsmen were not allowed to travel to the heretics; but the new spirit nevertheless came across the border. His son William II (1579-97) ruled in the same spirit, under whom the Jesuits did as they pleased. In his time the rich inhabitants of Munich moved to the Lutheran imperial cities to escape the continued heresy and extortion. Then, when he ceded the government to his son Max in 1597 (1597-1651), the Jesuits attained still greater dominion, so that even the Catholic nobility complained of them. In 1607 he compelled the town of Donauwörth to become Catholic again, and in 1620 he helped the Emperor Ferdinand to suppress his Lutheran subjects. — The Jesuits had gradually brought the provincial university (Ingolstadt) and all the grammar schools of the country into their hands; the whole country was governed according to their will, and for the most part became Catholic again.
In Würzburg, Bamberg and Hildesheim, too, everything that was Protestant was exterminated in the last quarter of the 16th century. Jesuits and Capuchins were faithful servants of the Pope, who performed this meritorious work in honor of the Blessed Virgin. —
Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg, was raised Lutheran. Out of bitterness that the Elector Johann Sigmund of Brandenburg had slapped him in the face in 1613, he became a Catholic, and when he came to power in 1614, the entire Neuburg region, which had been Lutheran until then, had to become Catholic as well. This was helped in particular by the Jesuit Jakob Reihing, the Palatine's court preacher, who of course later (1620) became a Protestant himself. —
In the Netherlands, the Zwinglian and Calvinist doctrine had spread, but there were also many Lutherans there. Charles V had already decreed that "all heretical men should be burned, and all such women buried alive"; but his procedure was by no means as cruel as that of his son Philip II. When the latter sailed across the sea during a storm in 1559, he vowed, if he escaped happily, "to exterminate all heretics for the glory of God." This he did first in Spain, where all who were only suspected of being evangelical were burned; he did it also chiefly in the Netherlands through the Cardinal Granvella. The latter, "in order to give the orthodox church a stronger support," created at once fifteen bishoprics instead of the former four, and persecuted all Protestants with relentless severity. When the Dutch asked the king to be a little more lenient in punishing heretics, he declared that "he would rather give up his life a hundred thousand times over than give way in it"!
He now even introduced the atrocious Inquisition in the Netherlands, which pursued the alleged "heretics" and tormented them to death with unspeakable tortures. Execution followed execution. The king was promised the most complete obedience if he would only grant liberty of conscience; but that was just what he did not want. When the noble union of the Geuses was formed (1556) to resist the tyranny, and when at last the people also began to revolt against such a regiment, the king sent the cruel Duke of Alba into the country to establish peace there. Six years this regent remained, and in that time he put to death 18,600 people as heretics and rebels. To further encourage him in his blood-work, the pope gave him a "consecrated sword." — But enough of this terrible story, which had its proximate cause even in the king's believing that he was also a master of consciences. —
France was governed by the same principles. Lutherans and Calvinists were killed because, as the papists claimed, they had fallen away from the "true faith". Already Francis I († 1547) exterminated the "heretics" in his country, whom he favored in Germany in order to weaken the emperor. Thus, for example, fourteen Protestants were burned alive at Meaux in 1546. His son Henry II, seduced by his godless wife, Catherine de Medicis, entered the same path. Under him, the so-called "Fire Chamber" came into being, a court specifically set up to seek out and punish all those who deviated from the Catholic faith. It received its name because it usually pronounced "death by fire." One burning followed the other, and the Catholic mob finally became quite fond of such "splendid spectacles".
After various peace agreements and persecutions beginning again and again, then occurred under Charles IX (1560-74) the "Parisian Blood Wedding" took place on August 24, 1572, during which about 40,000 Huguenots (as the local Protestants were called) were miserably murdered throughout the country for the sake of their faith alone. Philip II of Spain rejoiced, and Pope Gregory XIII celebrated a great feast of thanksgiving to glorify this brilliant victory of the Church.
When King Henry III was murdered by the Dominican Jacob Clement in 1589, Pope Sixtus V delivered a flattering eulogy of the murderer, comparing the misdeed with the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ in view of its greatness and blessing. The Jesuit Mariana said: "Clement has acquired immortal fame through this deed!
Although in 1598 by the Edict of Nantes all Protestants had been promised free exercise of religion and participation in all civil rights, yet on May 14, 1610, King Henry IV was assassinated by Ravaillac because he was Protestant; and in 1670 all Protestants who held public offices were expelled from them and deprived of their livelihood.
In 1685 the Edict of Nantes was completely revoked and now the cruelest persecutions began again. At that time 1600 Protestant churches were torn down, thousands of Protestants were forged into the galleys, robbed of their children and executed, hundreds of thousands had to leave their homes. — As late as 1762, [Pg 21] John Calas was executed at Toulouse for being a Protestant. His innocence was so evident that a monk present at the place of execution exclaimed, "Here is a righteous man dead." — Yes, even at the beginning of this century the persecutions of Protestants had not ceased in southern France. —
- - - - - - - - - - - - Continued in Part 7 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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