The shrewd Jesuits, however, did not waste all their efforts
upon the education of the poor. They entered the palaces
of the mighty and became the private tutors of future emperors
and kings. And what this meant you will see for yourself
when I tell you about the Thirty Years War. But before
this terrible and final outbreak of religious fanaticism, a great
many other things had happened.
Charles V was dead. Germany and Austria had been left
to his brother Ferdinand. All his other possessions, Spain and
the Netherlands and the Indies and America had gone to his
son Philip. Philip was the son of Charles and a Portuguese
princess who had been first cousin to her own husband. The
children that are born of such a union are apt to be rather
queer. The son of Philip, the unfortunate Don Carlos, (murdered
afterwards with his own father's consent,) was crazy.
Philip was not quite crazy, but his zeal for the Church bordered
closely upon religious insanity. He believed that Heaven had
appointed him as one of the saviours of mankind. Therefore,
whosoever was obstinate and refused to share his Majesty's
views, proclaimed himself an enemy of the human race and
must be exterminated lest his example corrupt the souls of
his pious neighbours.
Spain, of course, was a very rich country. All the gold and
silver of the new world flowed into the Castilian and Aragonian
treasuries.
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