Religious Reform

Europe during the 1600s was overrun by religious wars and reformations that affected the kingdoms of England Spain and France. Queen Elizabeth I, believed in moderation and compromise as England’s religious policy. Philip II of Spain was a hard Catholic who enforced Roman Catholic rule on his subjects. Louis XIV of France was similar to Philip II in the matter that he believed other religions undermined his monarchy.

All three of them followed a sample basis of monarchy over religion. The most evident ruler in this is Elizabeth I. She had to work with the many religions in England and create compromises to stabilize her kingdom. Elizabeth believed that no one should be torn apart by senseless religious warfare. Philip tries to reach the same point but by alternative means. He strictly enforces Catholicism as a means of diluting the opposition and giving a sense of religious patriotism to his people. The Spanish believed at the time that they were the saviors the world needed from the heretics known as the Protestants. Louis has the same idea and takes out all the opposers of Catholicism in France. Which leads to the increase of Catholic control in France.

Elizabeth started off with a Catholic nation. Which she knew would not approve of her leadership as she was known to support Protestantism. So in an act to save the nation from the religious war she instituted the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in 1599. This settlement leaned closer to Protestantism but it tailored the church services to Catholicism so that an uprising wouldn’t ensue. Her policies of moderation and compromise kept the country in check. Her acts show toleration of religions which was good for the nation as a whole.

Philip was trying to keep his territories together. This included Spain, the Netherlands, and parts of Italy. In order to keep these places in order, he enforced a strict religious policy of militant Catholicism. This was enforced by the conquistadors and a small army. Using force he both killed and forced out protestants out of the Netherlands and Italy. That was the major problem. His policy led to revolts in the Netherlands. Philip did not account for the people willing to fight for their religion and it overpowered him. In a sense, his religious policy did not work well for him like it did for Elizabeth.

Finally, Louis followed the same ideal as Philip. His way of securing power was to ban the Huguenots and the Calvinist from France. The difference between him and Philip is that after leaving France the Protestants were shifted to England and the Catholics leaving England fled to France for asylum. Everything balanced out for the French. They weren’t forcing religion they simply pushed the others out. A noticeable difference from Philips plan.

In conclusion, the three monarchies of Elizabeth I, Philip II and Louis XIV had religious policies that differed greatly from each other. Out of the three, only two worked