Principles of the two Parties.――Ferdinand’s Appeal to the Pope. ――The Celibacy of the Clergy.――Maximilian.――His Protection of the Protestants.――The Reformation in France.――Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre.――Proposed Marriage of Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of France.――Perfidy of Catharine de Medici.――The Nuptials.――The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.――Details of its Horrors.――Indignation of Protestant Europe.――Death of Charles IX. THE Papal party was mainly a political party, consisting of those who were rioting in possession of despotic power. They considered the Protestant religion as peculiarly hostile to despotism in the encouragement it afforded to education, to the elevation of the masses, and to the diffusion of those principles of fraternal equality which Christ enjoined. The Catholic religion was considered the great bulwark of kingly power, constraining, by all the terrors of superstition, the benighted multitudes to submit to civil intolerance. Ferdinand I., brother of Charles V., was king of the two realms of Hungary and Bohemia. He devoted all his energies to eradicating the doctrines of the Reformation from his domains: the most rigorous censorship of the press was established, and no foreign work, unexamined, was permitted to enter his realms; the fanatic order of Jesuits was encouraged by royal patronage, and intrusted with the education of the young. Still Protestantism was making rapid strides through Europe. It had become the dominant religion in Denmark and Sweden, and was firmly established in England by the accession of Elizabeth to the throne: in France, also, the reformed religion had made extensive inroads, gathering to its defence many of the noblest in rank and intellect in the realm: in Spain and Portugal, the terrors of the Inquisition had checked the progress of religious truth. Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, as Archduke of Austria, inherited the Austrian States, and thus became virtually the founder of the Austrian monarchy. The majority of the inhabitants of the Austrian States had become Protestants. They were so strong in intelligence, rank, and numbers, that Ferdinand did not dare to attempt to crush them with a merciless hand; though he threw every obstacle he could in the way of Protestant worship, forbidding the circulation of Luther’s translation of the Bible. The Protestants insisted that communicants at the Lord’s Supper should receive both the bread and the wine: this the Papal court vehemently rejected. Ferdinand was in favor of granting this concession: he wrote to the pope,――