Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

In truth Louis XIV wanted but little of
accomplishing his whole design. In the short space
of three months he had, with his army of 150,000
men, overrun Holland, and reduced the States to
the brink of ruin. Many of the richest families,
believing all to be lost, had fled from the country.
The conqueror was refusing to make peace on any
other terms than the establishment of the Romish
Church in Holland. The French king, prompted by
his Jesuit advisers, scorned to accept of toleration
for "the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion," and
demanded its public exercise throughout all the
United Provinces, and that provision should be
made from the public revenue for its maintenance.
The English Government seconded the French
king's demands, and the fall of Holland as a
Protestant State seemed imminent. With dragoons
hewing down Protestantism in Scotland, with
arbitrary edicts and dissolute maxims wasting it in
England, with Holland smitten down and Louis
XIV standing over it with his great sword, it must
have seemed as if the last hour of the Reformation
was come, and the triumph of the Jesuits secured.
As Innocent X surveyed Europe from the Vatican,
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