The Huguenots were involved in sanguinary civil and religious wars which raged in France throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century and which have already been treated in their appropriate political aspect. The outcome was the settlement accorded by King Henry IV in the famous Edict of Nantes (1598), which contained the following provisions: (1) Private worship and liberty of conscience were allowed to the Calvinists throughout France; (2) Public Protestant worship might be held in 200 enumerated towns and over 3000 castles; (3) A financial grant was made to Protestant schools, and the publication of Calvinist books was legalized; (4) Huguenots received full civil rights, with admission to all public offices; (5) Huguenots were granted for eight years the political control of two hundred towns, the garrisons of which were to be maintained by the crown; and (6) Huguenots were accorded certain judicial privileges and the right of holding religious and political assemblies. For nearly a hundred years France practiced a religious toleration which was almost unique among European nations, and it was Calvinists who benefited. [Sidenote: Calvinism in the Netherlands] The Netherlands were too near the Germanies not to be affected by the Lutheran revolt against the Catholic Church. And the northern or Dutch provinces became quite thoroughly saturated with Lutheranism and also with the doctrines of various radical sects that from time to time were expelled from the German states. The Emperor Charles V tried to stamp out heresy by harsh action of the Inquisition, but succeeded only in changing its name and nature. Lutheranism disappeared from the Netherlands; but in its place came Calvinism, [Footnote: Many Anabaptist refugees from Germany had already sought refuge in the Netherlands: they naturally found the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin more radical, and therefore more appropriate to themselves, than the teachings of Luther. This fact also serves to explain the acceptance of Calvinism in regions of southern Germany where Lutheranism, since the Peasants' Revolt, had failed to take root.] descending from Geneva through Alsace and thence down the Rhine, or entering from Great Britain by means of the close commercial relations existing between those countries. While the southern Netherlands eventually were recovered for Catholicism, the protracted political and economic conflict which the northern Netherlands waged against the Catholic king of Spain contributed to a final fixing of Calvinism as the national religion of patriotic Dutchmen. Calvinism in Holland was known as the Dutch Reformed religion. [Sidenote: Calvinism in Southern Germany]