BY THE SAME AUTHOR. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTIONS TO THE ROLLS SERIES. Collected and Edited by ARTHUR HASSALL, M.A., Student, Tutor, and sometime Censor of Christ Church. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net. VISITATION CHARGES DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY AND CHURCHWARDENS OF THE ORDINATION ADDRESSES. Edited by E. E. HOLMES, Honorary Canon of Christ Church and Vicar of Sonning, formerly Domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford. With Photogravure Portrait. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS. With 2 Maps. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. (Epochs of Modern History.) LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 39 Paternoster Row, London New York and Bombay. PEAN HISTORY. By WILLIAM STUBBS, D.D., D.D., FORMERLY BISHOP OF OXFORD AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY EDITED BY ARTHUR HASSALL, M.A. STUDENT, TUTOR, AND SOMETIME CENSOR OF CHRIST CHURCH LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1904 All rights reserved PREFATORY NOTE THESE Lectures were first delivered between 1860 and 1870 by Bishop Stubbs, when Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. The responsibility for publishing them rests entirely with myself. I have, however, no doubt whatever that the world would be very considerably the loser if these Lectures were not published; for, while principally known as a Constitutional Historian, Bishop Stubbs had an immense knowledge of European History, and this is apparent in every page of the present volume. Though numerous publications bearing on the period of which these Lectures treat have appeared in England and abroad, it may well be doubted whether any so well-reasoned an account of the years from 1519 to 1648 has yet been written. These three Lectures form one historical drama, in which the reign of Charles V. is the first, the period from his death to the beginning of the seventeenth century the second, and the Thirty Years' War is the third act. In the reign of Charles V. is witnessed the growth of the Reformation; in the intervening period the growth of the anti-Reformation; in the Thirty Years' War the conflict between the two. While the period may in one sense be regarded as a struggle between the dynastic policy of the Hapsburgs on the one hand, and that of the Valois and Bourbons on the other, there were deeper issues at stake. Throughout the years from 1519 to 1648 there are two distinct ideas in progress, which, writes Bishop Stubbs, 'may be regarded as giving a unity to the long period. The Reformation is one, the claims of the House of Austria is the other.' From these claims were developed, as it were, the underplot of the conflict between the dynastic policy of the Hapsburgs and that of the Valois and Bourbons, distinct from, and yet constantly complicating, the conflict of the creeds. Within the Empire also the two ideas are sufficiently distinct, and it would be false simplicity to identify the claims of the Hapsburgs with those of the New Catholicism. Bishop Stubbs refused to regard the Thirty Years' War as a struggle, waged by the dynastic policy of Austria against the spirit of the German people-a point of view dear to Prussian historians. 'We cannot say,' he writes, "that the Saxon and Brandenburger regarded the struggle as one of truth and enlightenment against darkness and error.' The historical student will find in these Lectures a judicial and masterly exposition of the immense issues placed before Europe in the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century. Bishop Stubbs's weighty reasoning and conclusions will commend themselves to all who have studied, or wish to study, one of the most important periods of European History. As editor I have confined myself mainly to the task of deleting colloquialisms, of adding a few notes when absolutely necessary, and of inserting some genealogical tables. Though I have no doubt that, had he prepared these Lectures for publication himself, Bishop Stubbs would have made certain other changes, I have thought it best to publish these Lectures in almost the exact shape in which they were delivered. A. H. |