The principle of monarchy combined with Catholicism now appeared in different forms in three great kingdoms. In that of Spain it was intolerant of Protestantism, but was surrounded by provincial assemblies of estates, whose action, although subdued, was not altogether annihilated: in the French monarchy it appeared more tolerant of the Protestants even on its own ground, but was master of the Estates, which just at this period were completely subdued: in the Austrian monarchy it was intolerant both towards the Protestants who were persecuted and ejected, and towards the Estates which had just been conquered. The struggle which had broken out between France on the one side, and Spain combined with Austria on the other, caused the two latter kingdoms to adopt, or at least to try to adopt, the principle of unity under an absolute monarch which had been carried out in the former. There is a very peculiar difference in the relations of the three powers with the German Protestants, who were saved from utter ruin by the [A.D. 1637.] intervention of the King of Sweden. The French sought to make the Protestant Estates of the Empire as independent as possible of Austria: Spain at that time was willing to tolerate their faith, but wished to bring them back under the control of the Emperor: at the Imperial court itself there was a tendency prevailing, at least for a time, to suppress both their belief and their independence. Thus the Western world at this epoch was pervaded by a threefold hostility: by the religious dispute between the two great parties, in which the Catholic party had obtained an immeasurable superiority: by the great opposition in regard to foreign policy between France and the Austro-Spanish power; and by a third antagonism in regard to domestic affairs. The monarchical had become more than ever supreme over the constitutional principle. Let us now sum up the position which England under the Stuarts occupied in these great questions. From the posterity of Mary Stuart, who at the same time were the successors of Queen Elizabeth, and to whom the alliances of both queens descended, nothing else could be expected than that they should interfere but little in the religious struggles of the continent. They sought to keep on good terms, and even in alliance with both parties. They had certainly been implicated in the great struggle by the affair of the Palatinate: Charles I had on one occasion even taken up a position at the head of the Protestant party; but he had suffered a defeat in that character. This connexion had even turned out ruinous to the Protestants: henceforward he left them to shift for themselves as far as the principal question was concerned, and followed only his private end, the restoration of his nephew, the Elector Palatine.