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298 POLITICAL CONSEQUENCESto which the bigotryof the other powers confined them.Richelieu, by leaguing himself with Gustavus Adolphus acardinal with a Protestant king was the means of pointingout to Europe that political and religious interests might beseparately considered.The age of Lewis XIV. caused the gradual spread ofthis opinion. His politicalschemes had little to do withreligion, and the latter interest would at that time havewholly lost its influence upon the political progress of Europe, had not one of its chief states, viz. England, been stillpowerfully affected by The it. conflict of factions, in whosecauses of strife religion mingled with politics,had been toofierce in that country to allow the ferment to be stilled atonce, even by the Restoration (1660); and the mad policyof the last Stuarts gave it too good cause for continuance.For whilst the introduction of Catholicism appeared to themto promise that of absolute power, and was on that accounttheir object, the nation, on the other hand, came to the firmconviction that the national freedom depended upon themaintenance of the Protestant faith. The state of constantalliance in which Lewis XIV. stood with both Charles II.and James II., gave this maxim a practical influence overthe rest of Europe and thus Lewis;XIV. was forced, whollyagainst his will, to assist in raising William III., his mostzealous opponent, to the throne of England, upon the fall ofthe Stuarts.If this occurrence may be considered as a consequenceof the Reformation, it must also, to a certain degree, beconsidered the last by which it exercised a general influenceupon the politics of Europe. This important change laidthe foundation of the antipathy which has since existed between England and France. But, although the Pretenderwas occasionally used as a bugbear to itEngland, was fedby means very different from those supplied by religion,whose place was now occupied by commerce. And as therepublic of the United Netherlands has ever since attacheditself to England, the naval powers formed, in the scales ofEurope, the principal counter-balance to the great influenceof France.Even in the German empire, where the influence of religion upon politics might have been chiefly expected to