Chapter III: European Politics in the Sixteenth Century (2)

Not only his efforts in the Netherlands but many other projects of Philip II were frustrated by remarkable parallel developments in the two national monarchies of England and France. Both these countries were naturally jealous opposition and fearful of an undue expansion of Spain, which might upset the balance of power. Both states, from their geographical locations, would normally be inimical to Philip II: England would desire, from her island position, to destroy the monopoly which Spain claimed of the carrying trade of the seas; France, still encircled by Habsburg possessions in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, would adhere to her traditional policy of allying herself with every foe of the Spanish king. Then, too, the papal authority had been rejected in England and seriously questioned in France: Philip's crusading zeal made him the champion of the Church in those countries. For ecclesiastical as well as for economic and political purposes it seemed necessary to the Spanish king that he should bring France and England under his direct influence. On their side, patriotic French and English resented such foreign interest in their domestic affairs, and the eventual failure of Philip registered a wonderful growth of national feeling among the peoples who victoriously contended against him. The beginnings of the real modern greatness of France and England date from their struggle with Philip II.

[Sidenote: Philip II and Mary Tudor]

At the outset of his reign, Philip seemed quite successful in his foreign relations. As we have seen, he was in alliance with England through his marriage with Queen Mary Tudor (1553-1558): she had temporarily restored the English Church to communion with the Holy See, and was conducting her foreign policy in harmony with Philip's--because of her husband she lost to the French the town of Calais, the last English possession on the Continent (1558). Likewise, as has been said, Philip II concluded with France in 1559 the advantageous treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. But during the ensuing thirty years the tables were completely turned. Both England and France ended by securing respite from Spanish interference.

[Sidenote: Philip II and Elizabeth]

Mary Tudor died unhappy and childless in 1558, and the succession of her sister Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, altered the relations between the English and Spanish courts. Elizabeth (1558-1603) was possessed of an imperious, haughty, energetic character; she had remarkable intelligence and an absorbing patriotism. She inspired confidence in her advisers and respect among her people, so that she was commonly called "Good Queen Bess" despite the fact that her habits of deceit and double-dealing gave color to the French king's remark that she was the greatest liar in Christendom. This was the woman with whom Philip II had to deal; he tried many tactics in order to gain his ends,--all of them hopelessly unsuccessful.

Philip first proposed matrimony, but Elizabeth was very careful not to give herself, or England, such a master. Then when the queen declared herself a Protestant and showed no inclination to assist Philip in any of his enterprises, the Spanish king proceeded to plot against her throne. He subsidized Roman Catholic priests, especially Jesuits, who violated the laws of the land. He stirred up sedition and even went so far as to plan Elizabeth's assassination. Many conspiracies against the English queen centered in the person of the ill-starred Mary Stuart, [Footnote: Mary Stuart (1542-1587).] queen of Scotland, who was next in line of succession to the English throne and withal a Catholic.

[Sidenote: Mary Stuart]

Descended from the Stuart kings of Scotland and from Henry VII of England, related to the powerful family of Guise in France, Mary had been brought up at the French court and married to the short-lived French king, Francis II. Upon the death of the latter she returned in 1561 to Scotland, a young woman of but eighteen years, only to find that the government had fallen victim to the prevalent factional fights among the Scotch nobles and that in the preceding year the parliament had solemnly adopted a Calvinistic form of Protestantism. By means of tact and mildness, however, Mary won the respect of the nobles and the admiration of the people, until a series of marital troubles and blunders--her marriage with a worthless cousin, Henry Darnley, and then her scandalous marriage with Darnley's profligate murderer, the earl of Bothwell--alienated her people from her and drove her into exile. She abdicated the throne of Scotland in favor of her infant son, James VI, who was reared a Protestant and subsequently became King James I of England, and she then (1568) threw herself upon the mercy of Elizabeth. She thought she would find in England a haven of refuge; instead she found there a prison.

For the score of years during which she remained Elizabeth's prisoner, Mary Stuart was the object of many plots and conspiracies against the existing governments of both Scotland and England. In every such scheme were to be found the machinations and money of the Spanish king. In fact, as time went on, it seemed to a growing section of the English people as though the cause of Elizabeth was bound up with Protestantism and with national independence and prosperity just as certainly as the success of Mary would lead to the triumph of Catholicism, the political supremacy of Spain, and the commercial ruin of England. It was under these circumstances that Mary's fate was sealed. Because of a political situation over which she had slight control, the ex-queen of Scotland was beheaded by Elizabeth's orders in 1587.

[Sidenote: The Armada]

Philip II had now tried and failed in every expedient but one,--the employment of sheer force. Even this he attempted in order to avenge the death of Mary Stuart and to bring England, politically, religiously, and commercially, into harmony with his Spanish policies. The story of the preparation and the fate of the Invincible Armada is almost too well known to require repetition. It was in 1588 that there issued from the mouth of the Tagus River the most formidable fleet which up to that time Christendom had ever beheld--130 ships, 8000 seamen, 19,000 soldiers, the flower of the Spanish chivalry. In the Netherlands it was to be joined by Alexander Farnese with 33,000 veteran troops. But in one important respect Philip had underestimated his enemy: he had counted upon a divided country. Now the attack upon England was primarily national, rather than religious, and Catholics vied with Protestants in offering aid to the queen: it was a united rather than a divided nation which Philip faced. The English fleet, composed of comparatively small and easily maneuvered vessels, worked great havoc upon the ponderous and slow-moving Spanish galleons, and the wreck of the Armada was completed by a furious gale which tossed ship after ship upon the rocks of northern Scotland. Less than a third of the original expedition ever returned to Spain.

Philip II had thus failed in his herculean effort against England. He continued in small ways to annoy and to irritate Elizabeth. He tried-- without result--to incite the Catholics of Ireland against the queen. He exhausted his arsenals and his treasures in despairing attempts to equip a second and even a third Armada. But he was doomed to bitterest disappointment, for two years before his death an English fleet sacked his own great port of Cadiz. The war with England ruined the navy and the commerce of Spain. The defeat of the Armada was England's first title to commercial supremacy.

[Sidenote: Economic Benefits of the Period for England]

It was long maintained that the underlying causes of the conflict between England and Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century and its chief interest was religious--that it was part of an epic struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism. There may be a measure of truth in such an idea, but most recent writers believe that the chief motives for the conflict, as well as its important results, were essentially economic. From the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, English sailors and freebooters, such as Hawkins and Drake, took the offensive against Spanish trade and commerce; and many ships, laden with silver and goods from the New World and bound for Cadiz, were seized and towed into English harbors. The queen herself frequently received a share of the booty and therefore tended to encourage the practice. For nearly thirty years Philip put up with the capture of his treasure ships, the raiding of his colonies, and the open assistance rendered to his rebellious subjects. Only when he reached the conclusion that his power would never be secure in the Netherlands or in America did he dispatch the Armada. Its failure finally freed Holland and marked the collapse of the Spanish monopoly upon the high seas and in the New World.

[Sidenote: Affairs in France]

Before we can appreciate the motives and results of the interference of Philip II in French affairs, a few words must be said about what had happened in France since Francis I (1515-1547) and his son, Henry II (1547-1559), exalted the royal power in their country and not only preserved French independence of the surrounding empire of Charles V but also increased French prestige by means of a strong policy in Italy and by the extension of frontiers toward the Rhine. Henry II had married a member of the famous Florentine family of the Medici-- Catherine de' Medici--a large and ugly woman, but ambitious, resourceful, and capable, who, by means of trickery and deceit, took an active part in French politics from the death of her husband, throughout the reigns of her feeble sons, Francis II (1559-1560), Charles IX (1560-1574), and Henry III (1574-1589). Catherine found her position and that of her royal children continually threatened by (1) the Protestants (Huguenots), (2) the great nobles, and (3) Philip II of Spain.

[Sidenote: Dangers to Royal Power in France: Protestantism]

French Protestantism had grown steadily during the first half of the sixteenth century until it was estimated that from a twentieth to a thirtieth of the nation had fallen away from the Catholic Church. The influence of the advocates of the new faith was, however, much greater than their number, because the Huguenots, as they were called, were recruited mainly from the prosperous, intelligent middle class,--the bourgeoisie,--who had been intrusted by preceding French kings with many important offices. The Huguenots represented, therefore, a powerful social class and likewise one that was opposed to the undue increase of royal power. They demanded, not only religious toleration for themselves, but also regular meetings of the Estates-General and control of the nation's representatives over financial matters. The kings, on their part, felt that political solidarity and their own personal rule were dependent upon the maintenance of religious uniformity in the nation and the consequent defeat of the pretensions of the Huguenots. Francis I and Henry II had persecuted the Protestants with bitterness. From 1562 to 1593 a series of so-called religious wars embroiled the whole country.

[Sidenote: Dangers to Royal Power in France: the Nobles]

French politics were further complicated during the second half of the sixteenth century by the recrudescence of the power of the nobles. The so-called religious wars were quite as much political as religious-- they resulted from efforts of this or that faction of noblemen to dictate to a weak king. Two noble families particularly vied with each other for power,--the Bourbons and the Guises,--and the unqualified triumph of either would be certain to bring calamity to the sons of Catherine de' Medici.

[Sidenote: The Bourbons]

The Bourbons bore the proud title of princes of the blood because they were direct descendants of a French king. Their descent, to be sure, was from Saint Louis, king in the thirteenth century, and they were now, therefore, only distant cousins of the reigning kings, but as the latter died off, one after another, leaving no direct successors, the Bourbons by the French law of strict male succession became heirs to the royal family. The head of the Bourbons, a certain Anthony, had married the queen of Navarre and had become thereby king of Navarre, although the greater part of that country--the region south of the Pyrenees--had been annexed to Spain in 1512. Anthony's brother Louis, prince of Condé, had a reputation for bravery, loyalty, and ability. Both Condé and the king of Navarre were Protestants.

[Sidenote: The Guise Family]

The Guise family was descended from a duke of Lorraine who had attached himself to the court of Francis I. It was really a foreign family, inasmuch as Lorraine was then a dependency of the Holy Roman Empire, but the patriotic exploits of the head of the family in defending Metz against the Emperor Charles V and in capturing Calais from the English endeared the Guises to a goodly part of the French nation. The duke of Guise remained a stanch Catholic, and his brother, called the Cardinal of Lorraine, was head of as many as twelve bishoprics, which gave him an enormous revenue and made him the most conspicuous churchman in France. During the reign of Henry II (1547-1559) the Guises were especially influential. They fought valiantly in foreign wars. They spurred on the king to a great persecution of the Huguenots. They increased their own landed estates. And they married one of their relatives--Mary, queen of Scots--to the heir to the throne. But after the brief reign of Mary's husband, Francis II (1559-1560), the Guise family encountered not only the active opposition of their chief noble rivals, the Bourbons, with their Huguenot allies, but likewise the jealousy and crafty intrigues of Catherine de' Medici.

[Sidenote: Religious Wars in France]

Catherine feared both the ambition of the powerful Guise family and the disruptive tendencies of Protestantism. The result was a long series of confused civil wars between the ardent followers, respectively Catholic and Protestant, of the Guise and Bourbon families, in which the queen-mother gave support first to one side and then to the other. There were no fewer than eight of these sanguinary conflicts, each one ending with the grant of slight concessions to the Huguenots and the maintenance of the weak kings upon the throne. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day (1572) was a horrible incident of Catherine's policy of "trimming." Fearing the undue influence over the king of Admiral de Coligny, an upright and able Huguenot leader, the queen-mother, with the aid of the Guises, prevailed upon the weak-minded Charles IX to authorize the wholesale assassination of Protestants. The signal was given by the ringing of a Parisian church-bell at two o'clock in the morning of 24 August, 1572, and the slaughter went on throughout the day in the capital and for several weeks in the provinces. Coligny was murdered; even women and children were not spared. It is estimated that in all at least three thousand--perhaps ten thousand--lost their lives.

[Sidenote: The "Politiques"]

The massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day did not destroy French Protestantism or render the Huguenot leaders more timid in asserting their claims. On the other hand, it brought into clear light a noteworthy division within the ranks of their Catholic opponents in France--on one side, the rigorous followers of the Guise family, who complained only that the massacre had not been sufficiently comprehensive, and, on the other side, a group of moderate Catholics, usually styled the "Politiques" who, while continuing to adhere to the Roman Church, and, when called upon, bearing arms on the side of the king, were strongly opposed to the employment of force or violence or persecution in matters of religion. The Politiques were particularly patriotic, and they blamed the religious wars and the intolerant policy of the Guises for the seeming weakness of the French monarchy. They thought the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day a blunder as well as a crime.

The emergence of the Politiques did not immediately make for peace; rather, it substituted a three-sided for a two-sided conflict.

[Sidenote: Philip II and the War of the Three Henries]

After many years, filled with disorder, it became apparent that the children of Catherine de' Medici would have no direct male heirs and that the crown would therefore legally devolve upon the son of Anthony of Bourbon--Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and a Protestant. Such an outcome was naturally distasteful to the Guises and abhorrent to Philip II of Spain. In 1585 a definite league was formed between Henry, duke of Guise, and the Spanish king, whereby the latter undertook by military force to aid the former's family in seizing the throne: French politics in that event would be controlled by Spain, and Philip would secure valuable assistance in crushing the Netherlands and conquering England.[Footnote: At that very time, Mary, Queen of Scots, cousin of Henry, duke of Guise, was held a prisoner in England by Queen Elizabeth. See above, p. 99.] The immediate outcome of the agreement was the war of the three Henries--Henry III, son of Catherine de' Medici and king of France; Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and heir to the French throne; and Henry, duke of Guise, with the foreign support of Philip II of Spain. Henry of Guise represented the extreme Catholic party; Henry of Navarre, the Protestant faction; and Henry of France, the Catholic moderates--the Politiques--who wanted peace and were willing to grant a measure of toleration. The last two were upholders of French independence against the encroachments of Spain.

The king was speedily gotten into the power of the Guises, but little headway was made by the extreme Catholics against Henry of Navarre, who now received domestic aid from the _Politiques_ and foreign assistance from Queen Elizabeth of England and who benefited by the continued misfortunes of Philip II. At no time was the Spanish king able to devote his whole attention and energy to the French war. At length in 1588 Henry III caused Henry of Guise to be assassinated. The king never had a real chance to prove whether he could become a national leader in expelling the foreigners and putting an end to civil war, for he himself was assassinated in 1589. With his dying breath he designated the king of Navarre as his successor.

[Sidenote: Henry of Navarre]

Henry of Navarre, the first of the Bourbon family upon the throne of France, took the title of Henry IV (1589-1610). [Footnote: It is a curious fact that Henry of Navarre, like Henry of Guise and Henry of France, died by the hand of an assassin.] For four years after his accession, Henry IV was obliged to continue the civil war, but his abjuration of Protestantism and his acceptance of Catholicism in 1593 removed the chief source of opposition to him within France, and the rebellion speedily collapsed. With the Spanish king, however, the struggle dragged on until the treaty of Vervins, which in the last year of Philip's life practically confirmed the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.

[Sidenote: Decline of Spain and Rise of France]

Thus Philip II had failed to conquer or to dismember France. He had been unable to harmonize French policies with those of his own in the Netherlands or in England. Despite his endeavors, the French crown was now on the head of one of his enemies, who, if something of a renegade Protestant himself, had nevertheless granted qualified toleration to heretics. Nor were these failures of Philip's political and religious policies mere negative results to France. The unsuccessful interference of the Spanish king contributed to the assurance of French independence, patriotism, and solidarity. France, not Spain, was to be the center of European politics during the succeeding century.

[Sidenote: Philip II and the Turks]

In concluding this chapter, a large section of which has been devoted to an account of the manifold failures of Philip II, a word should be added about one exploit that brought glory to the Spanish monarch. It was he who administered the first effective check to the advancing Ottoman Turks.

After the death of Suleiman the Magnificent (1566), the Turks continued to strengthen their hold upon Hungary and to fit out piratical expeditions in the Mediterranean. The latter repeatedly ravaged portions of Sicily, southern Italy, and even the Balearic Islands, and in 1570 an Ottoman fleet captured Cyprus from the Venetians. Malta and Crete remained as the only Christian outposts in the Mediterranean. In this extremity, a league was formed to save Italy. Its inspirer and preacher was Pope Pius V, but Genoa and Venice furnished the bulk of the fleet, while Philip II supplied the necessary additional ships and the commander-in-chief in the person of his half-brother, Don John of Austria. The expedition, which comprised 208 vessels, met the Ottoman fleet of 273 ships in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the coast of Greece, on 7 October, 1571, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat. The Turkish warships were almost all sunk or driven ashore; it is estimated that 8000 Turks lost their lives. When news of the victory reached Rome, Pope Pius intoned the famous verse, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John."

[Sidenote: Lepanto]

The battle of Lepanto was of great political importance. It gave the naval power of the Mohammedans a blow from which it never recovered and ended their aggressive warfare in the Mediterranean. It was, in reality, the last Crusade: Philip II was in his most becoming rôle as champion of church and pope; hardly a noble family in Spain or Italy was not represented in the battle; volunteers came from all parts of the world; the celebrated Spanish writer Cervantes lost an arm at Lepanto. Western Europe was henceforth to be comparatively free from the Ottoman peril.

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE HABSBURG TERRITORIES. A. H. Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598_ (1897), ch. iii- ix, a political summary; Mary A. Hollings, _Renaissance and Reformation, 1453-1660_ (1910), ch. vi, ix, x, a brief outline; E. M. Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation_, 2d ed. (1915), ch. x, xiv, xxiv- xxviii, a brief and fragmentary account; T. H. Dyer, _A History of Modern Europe_, 3d ed., rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. ix, xi- xxvii, old but containing a multitude of political facts; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), ch. ii, iii, vii, viii, and Vol. III (1905), ch. xv, v; _History of All Nations_, Vol. XI and Vol. XII, ch. i-iii, by the German scholar on the period, Martin Philippson; _Histoire générale_, Vol. IV, ch. iii, ix, Vol. V, ch. ii-v, xv. Of the Emperor Charles V the old standard English biography by William Robertson, still readable, has now been largely superseded by that of Edward Armstrong, 2 vols. (1902); two important German works on Charles V are Baumgarten, _Geschichte Karls V_, 3 vols. (1885-1892), and Konrad Häbler, _Geschichte Spaniens unter den Habsburgen_, Vol. I (1907). Of Philip II the best brief biography in English is Martin Hume's (1902), which should be consulted, if possible, in connection with Charles Bratli, _Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne: Etude sur sa vie et son caractère_, new ed. (1912), an attempt to counteract traditional Protestant bias against the Spanish monarch. Also see M. A. S. Hume, _Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788_ (1898), ch. i-vi, for a general account of the reigns of Philip II and Philip III; and Paul Herre, _Papstium und Papstwahl im Zeitalter Philipps II_ (1907) for a sympathetic treatment of Philip's relations with the papacy. For a proper understanding of sixteenth-century politics the student should read that all-important book, Machiavelli's _Prince_, the most convenient English edition of which is in "Everyman's Library." For political events in the Germanies in the sixteenth century: E. F. Henderson, _A Short History of Germany_, 2 vols. in 1 (1902); Sidney Whitman, _Austria_ (1899); Gustav Welf, _Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Gegenreformation_ (1899), an elaborate study; Franz Krones, _Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs von der ältesten Zeit_, Vol. III (1877), Book XIII.

FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A. J. Grant, _The French Monarchy, 1483-1789_ (1900), Vol. I, ch. iii-v; G. W. Kitchin, _A History of France,_ 4th ed. (1894-1899), Vol. II, Book II, ch. iv-v, and Book III; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. i; Ernest Lavisse (editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. V (1903), Books III, IV, VII, VIII, and Vol. VI (1904), Books I-III, the most thorough and best treatment; Edward Armstrong, _The French Wars of Religion_ (1892); J. W. Thompson, _The Wars of Religion in France: the Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Philip II of Spain_, 1559-1576 (1909), containing several suggestions on the economic conditions of the time; A. W. Whitehead, _Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_ (1904); C. C. Jackson, _The Last of the Valois_, 2 vols. (1888), and, by the same author, _The First of the Bourbons_, 2 vols. (1890); Lucien Romier, _Les origines politiques des Guerres de Religion_, Vol. I, _Henri II et l'Italie, 1547-1555_ (1913), scholarly and authoritative, stressing economic rather than political aspects; Louis Batiffol, _The Century of the Renaissance in France_, Eng. trans. by Elsie F. Buckley (1916), covering the years 1483-1610, largely political.

ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Brief accounts: A. L. Cross, _History of England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xix-xxvi; E. P. Cheyney, _A Short History of England_ (1904), ch. xii, xiii; _Cambridge Modern History,_ Vol. III (1905), ch. viii-xi; J. F. Bright, _History of England_, 5 vols. (1884-1904), Vol. II, _Personal Monarchy, 1485-1688_ (in part); A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_, 4 vols, (1914), Vol. II, ch. iii-viii; J. R. Seeley, _Growth of British Policy_, 2 vols. (1895), a brilliant work, of which Vol. I, Part I, affords an able account of the policy of Elizabeth. More detailed studies: J. S. Brewer, _The Reign of Henry VIII from his Accession to the Death of Wolsey_, 2 vols. (1884); H. A. L. Fisher, _Political History of England, 1485-1547_ (1906), ch. vi-xviii; A. F. Pollard, _History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth_ (1910); J. A. Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada_, 12 vols. (1870-1872), a masterpiece of prose-style but strongly biased in favor of Henry VIII and against anything connected with the Roman Church; E. P. Cheyney, _A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth_, Vol. I (1914), scholarly and well-written. Also see Andrew Lang, _A History of Scotland_, 2d ed. (1901-1907), Vols. I and II; and P. H. Brown, _History of Scotland_ (1899-1900), Vols. I and II. Important biographies: A. F. Pollard, _Henry VIII_ (1905), the result of much research and distinctly favorable to Henry; E. L. Taunton, _Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer_ (1902), the careful estimate of a Catholic scholar; Mandell Creighton, _Cardinal Wolsey_ (1888), a good clear account, rather favorable to the cardinal; J. M. Stone, _Mary the First, Queen of England_ (1901), a sympathetic biography of Mary Tudor; Mandell Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1909), the best biography of the Virgin Queen; E. S. Beesly, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1892), another good biography. For Mary, Queen of Scots, see the histories of Scotland mentioned above and also Andrew Lang, _The Mystery of Mary Stuart_ (1901); P. H. Brown, _Scotland in the Time of Queen Mary_ (1904); and R. S. Rait, _Mary Queen of Scots_, 2d ed. (1899), containing important source-material concerning Mary. Walter Walsh, _The Jesuits in Great Britain_ (1903), emphasizes their political opposition to Elizabeth. Martin Hume, _Two English Queens and Philip_ (1908), valuable for the English relations of Philip II. For English maritime development see David Hannay, _A Short History of the English Navy_ (1898); J. S. Corbett, _Drake and the Tudor Navy_, 2 vols. (1898), and, by the same author, _The Successors of Drake_ (1900); J. A. Froude, _English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century_ (1895).

THE NETHERLANDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A good brief account is that of George Edmundson in the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. vi, vii, and Vol. II (1904), ch. xix. For the Dutch Netherlands the great standard work is now P. J. Blok, _History of the People of the Netherlands_, trans. in large part by O. A. Bierstadt, and for the Belgian Netherlands a corresponding function is performed in French by Henri Pirenne. J. L. Motley, _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 3 vols. (many editions), is brilliantly written and still famous, but it is based on an inadequate study of the sources and is marred throughout by bitter prejudice against the Spaniards and in favor of the Protestant Dutch: it is now completely superseded by the works of Blok and Pirenne. Admirable accounts of William the Silent are the two-volume biography by Ruth Putnam and the volume by the same author in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series (1911); the most detailed study is the German work of Felix Rachfahl.

THE TURKS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. iv; A. H. Lybyer, _The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent_ (1913); Stanley Lane-Poole, _Turkey_ (1889) in the "Story of the Nations" Series; Nicolae Jorga, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_; Leopold von Ranke, _Die Osmanen und die spanische Monarchie im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert_; Joseph von Hammer, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1834-1835), Vol. II, a famous German work, which has been translated into French.