The last two years of the Council of Trent (1562-3) were the starting-point of the modern Catholic Church. Many proposals had been made for compromise with Protestantism. But the Fathers of Trent saw that the only chance of survival for a Church claiming to be Catholic was to remain on the old lines. By the canons and decrees of the Council, ratified by Pius IV., the old doctrines and discipline were confirmed and definitely formulated. One branch indeed of the Papal power was irretrievably gone. Royal authority had become absolute, and the kings, including Philip II., refused to tolerate any interference with it. The Papacy had to acquiesce in the loss of its power over sovereigns. But as regards the bishops and clergy, and things strictly appertaining to religion, its spiritual autocracy, which the great councils of the last century had aimed at breaking, was re-established, and has continued. The new situation, though it seemed to place the Popes on a humbler footing than in the days of Gregory VII. or Innocent III., was a healthy one. It confined them to their spiritual domain, and drove them to make the best of it. Until the decrees of the Council of Trent, the split between Protestants and Catholics was not definitely and irrevocably decided. Many on both sides had shrunk from admitting it. The Catholic world might seem to be narrowed by the defection of the Protestant States. But all the more clearly did it appear that a Church claiming to be universal is not concerned with political boundaries. The resistance to the spread of heresy had hitherto consisted of many local struggles, in which the repressive measures had emanated from the orthodox sovereigns, and had therefore been fitful and unconnected. But not long after the Tridentine reorganisation, the Pope appears again as commander-in-chief of the Catholic forces, surveying and directing combined operations from one end of Europe to the other. Pius IV. had been with difficulty prevented by Philip from excommunicating Elizabeth. Pius V. had launched his bull, as we have seen, a few months too late (1570); and even then it was not allowed to be published in either Spain or France. The life of that Pope was wasted in earnest remonstrances with the Catholic sovereigns for not executing the sentence of the Church against the heretic Queen. Gregory XIII., who succeeded him just before the Bartholomew Massacre, took the attack into his own hands. He was a warm patron of the Jesuits, who were especially devoted to the centralising system re-established at Trent. He and they had made up their minds that England was the key of the Protestant position; that until Elizabeth was removed no advance was to be hoped for anywhere.