The Thirty Years' War - James Aitken Wylie

and recover for Rome the Kingdoms of Denmark
and Sweden. When they had reached this furthest
limit on the north, they would return and would
essay with their adventurous arms France and
England. in both of these countries Protestantism
seemed on the ebb, and the thrones so lately
occupied by all Elizabeth and a Henry IV, were
now filled by pedantic or senile sovereigns, and a
second period of juvenescence seemed there to be
awaiting their Church. This was the moment when
the "Catholic Restoration" had reached its height,
when the House of Hapsburg was in its glory, and
when the scheme of gigantic dominion at which
Loyola aimed when he founded his order, had
approached more nearly than ever before or since
its full and perfect consummation.
The dreams of aggression which were now
inflaming the imaginations of the Jesuits were
shared in by Ferdinand; although, as was natural,
he contemplated these anticipated achievements
more from the point of his own and his house's
aggrandizement, and less from that of the
exaltation of the Vatican, and the propagation over
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