Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

evil qualities of his father, and only some of the
good ones. He was the husband of Catherine de
Medici, Pope Clement VII.'s niece, but the wife
was the real sovereign. The Protestant princes of
Germany, with Maurice of Saxony at their head,
besought his aid in the war they were then waging
with the emperor, Charles V. He entered into
alliance with them, but before setting out for the
campaign he lighted up his capital with the lurid
blaze of Lutheran martyr-piles. This was his way of
notifying to the world that if he was the enemy of
the emperor, he was nevertheless the friend of the
Pope; and that if he was the confederate of the
German Protestants in arms, he was not a partaker
with them in heresy.[5] In the direction of France,
then, there was no clearing of the sky. The air was
thick with tempest, which in coming years was to
strew the soil of that land with more terrible wrecks
than any that had as yet disfigured it.
The only quarter of the heaven to which the eye
of Calvin could turn with any pleasure was
England. There, during the years we speak of, there
was a gleam of sunshine. Henry VIII. now slept in
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