Europe in Conflict, 1523 to 1588

Pope Clement VII versus Charles V

In 1523 a forty-five year-old became pope, and he took the name Clement VII -- the second pope from Florence's most wealthy and powerful Medici family. Looking after the interests of the papacy and the Medici he aligned himself with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the Fifth. Francis the First of France had been driven out of Naples, Milan and Burgundy and was set on winning back lost territory. Then Clement switched sides, believing that Charles had become too powerful in Italy. Clement joined an alliance that included France and Venice. Francis sent an army back to Italy, and his move was opposed by Charles. The mobilized force of Francis, Venice and the papacy were easily overcome by the forces that Charles could rally. But chaos was involved. In 1527, an army of German, Italian and Spanish mercenaries on Charles' side mutinied over not having been paid and their hunger. Led by the Duke of Bourbon, and without artillery, they broke through feeble defenses and plundered Rome. Clement fled to safety in the Castle of St. Angleo, from which he could hear the screams of his flock as men, women and children were butchered.

News of the atrocity spread across Europe and aroused outrage. Public opinion in Italy put the position of Charles in Italy in jeopardy – although Charles had not been directly responsible for the outrage. But Charles held on. The Medici were expelled from Florence, and Clement felt obliged to come a client of Charles. The French won victories in Lombardy (northern Italy) in August, 1527. In the summer of 1528, the French attacked Naples from the sea, but without much success. The following year, Pope Clement made peace with Charles by signing a treaty with him -- the Treaty of Barcelona -- which restored Medici rule in Florence in return for Charles being crowned by the Pope.

William Tyndale

In England, a contemporary of Martin Luther, William Tyndale, was working on an English translation of the Bible. In England he was reprimanded by Roman Catholic Church and driven to a more hospitable location on the continent, where, in 1524, he continued his work. His Bible became an influential part of English literature, his work filled with phrases to be known as "the voice of the scriptures." It was a work of creative poetry and a radical reinterpretation of ancient texts, including redefining "priests" as "elders" and the "Church" as a "congregation." Much of his work was to find its way into the King James Version of the Bible. In 1526 a full edition was printed in Worms - a city in Southwest Germany, on the Rhine River, that was safe for reformers. Tyndale's Bibles were smuggled into England and Scotland from Antwerp. There it became a best-seller, despite the hostility of the Church. In England, the book was condemned by Bishop Tunstall and warnings issued to booksellers and copies were burned in public. England's Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest. In 1535 Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in Brussels for more than a year. He was tied to a stake and, given his popularity, he was strangled as an act of mercy before being set afire. He is said to have regained consciousness and to have uttered the final words: "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes".

Henry VIII

Pope Clement was having problems with King Henry VIII of England, in addition to Charles V. Henry seemingly a lesser problem than Charles, but in consequence it was to prove greater. Henry had heaped scorn upon Luther and his theology, seeing Luther as creating subversion of the structure of Christendom, winning for himself the title of "Defender of the Faith." Then Henry became attracted by Anne Boleyn, the daughter of one of the gentlemen at his court. Henry wished to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. Catherine had given him six children, and only one had survived -- a female. Henry also had a son, but he was illegitimate, and Henry (only in his mid-thirties) said that he wanted to spare England another disputed succession, or war -- such as the War of the Roses. Henry sought annulment also on the grounds that his marriage to Catherine was against scripture, Catherine having been the wife of Henry's late brother, Arthur. Henry was complaining that God was denying him a male heir for having married his brother's widow.

Pope Clement ignored Henry's request for annulment and was busy over matters with Charles. Granting an annulment, moreover, would have been an admission that his predecessor, Pope Julius, had erred, giving the Lutherans ground for the accusation that the papacy substituted their own judgments for the Law of God. Henry was accustomed to having his way, and he was enraged by Clement's inaction. Henry married Anne Boleyn in secrecy on January 25, 1533. On May 28, the archbishop in England, Cranmer, pronounced the marriage valid and Henry's marriage to Catherine invalid. In June, Anne was crowned queen in Catherine's place, and in September Anne gave birth to a daughter -- the future Elizabeth I. The papacy refused to recognize Henry's moves regarding his wives, and Henry in turn removed the Church in England from the papacy's jurisdiction, a move that had the support of England's parliament, and a move that included the dissolution of monasteries and the transfer of much wealth from the Catholic Church to England's monarchy.

The Pope that followed Clement, Paul III, excommunicated Henry in 1535. To dissuade Englishmen from Protestantism, Paul condemned as slaves all those who would desert the Church, as he offered such slaves as booty to any crusader who would overthrow Henry. Henry, meanwhile, thought himself competent enough in theology to lead the Church of England, and he was executing various Catholics, as well as Protestants. Among those in disfavor with Henry was Thomas More, who had marked himself for vengeance by having refused to attend the coronation of Anne. On July 7, 1535, More was executed, his head severed, and, as was the custom, displayed on London Bridge.

Queen Anne (Boleyn) gave birth to a dead male child in late January, 1536. Henry's interest in women had wandered, and to rid himself of Anne he accused her of having practiced witchcraft against him and he had her charged with adultery. She was executed on May 19, 1536, and the following day Henry married Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour died in 1537. In January 1940 Henry married Anne of Cleves, and he had their marriage declared null and void in July. He married Katherine Howard that same month and had her beheaded on February 13, 1542. (A severed head remains conscious for thirteen seconds.) Meanwhile, an act of parliament had elevated Henry from Lord of Ireland to King of Ireland. Henry wished to make Catholic Ireland obedient. He would liked to have exterminated the stubborn Irish, but this was recognized as requiring too much "difficulty."

Pope Paul III against German Princes

Followed the tradition of promoting members of one's own family, Pope Paul III placed his bastard son Pier Luigi Farnese in the duchy of Parma, and he made his teenage grandsons cardinals. Paul was also a humanist and a patron of art. He had Michelangelo, at age 59, return to work finishing the "Last Judgment " in the Sistine Chapel. And Paul was a reformer. He was opposed to enslavement of Indians in the Americas. He appointed learned men and reformers as cardinals, several of whom were recognized as men of spirituality, replacing worldly Renaissance princes. Paul put reformers in charge of education. Against the protests of those with injured interests he began to reform various papal offices. Paul supported reformer bishops, and he gave support to new orders, including the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits -- a mendicant order interested in Church reform and an aggressive support of Catholicism through travel and teaching.

Paul's zeal for reform was matched by his zeal to advance Roman Catholicism over Protestantism. He was concerned with dissidents within Catholic communities corrupting others. The dissenters were to be expelled from the community. Paul established a new Index of forbidden books. In 1545, for the purposes of obedience and bringing Protestants back to the Church, he called for a council to meet at the town of Trent.

Paul III joined an alliance with Charles against the Lutheran princes of the Schmalkaldic League. In 1542, this league had attacked the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the last bulwark of Catholicism in northern Germany. Charles had considered it a "breach of the public peace," and after Charles made peace again with France, in 1544, he moved against the Schmalkaldic League in an effort to bring greater unity to his Holy Roman Empire and to eliminate treason. Combating Lutherans was a cause Paul was enthusiastic about, and he promised Charles an army and a subsidy to fight the League. Paul sent his grandson as commander of the papal army. The Schmalkaldic League mobilized a larger force than did Charles, but the force was disunited and indecisive. The forces with Charles triumphed, and in victory Charles was moderate, still hoping to win their allegiance and their reconciliation with Catholicism. Pope Paul, in his late seventies but still filled with zeal, was disappointed with Charles for his moderation and for having cut short the war against the Lutheran heretics.

Charles pursued his interest in healing the split between the Church and the Lutherans, believing that a voluntary reconciliation would help unify his Holy Roman Empire. The French joined Pope Paul in opposition to reconciliation, the French seeing benefit in a divided Germany. Charles hoped that reconciliation could be achieved at the Church's Council at Trent. Portugal, Spain, Hungary and Ireland sent representatives to Trent, but few German states did. And Paul transferred the Council from Trent to Bologna, angering Charles, who ordered his subjects to stay with the council at Trent.

The Calvinists

In Christendom, separation from the Church made possible religion connected to a city, and this arose in Geneva, Switzerland. Invited to Geneva was John Calvin, a Protestant humanist who had been driven out of Catholic France in 1536, at around the age of twenty-seven. Calvin accepted the invitation to assist in the Reformation in Geneva -- to be known as a "a city that was a church."

Calvin believed that God's power was absolute. The tradition among Christians of glossing over the contradiction between God's power being absolute and humanity having the power to choose was not one of Calvin's weaknesses: he had decided that humanity was without a free will. Calvin believed that one's fate was determined by God -- what some call predestination -- which had had been accepted, at times at least, by the Apostle Paul and St. Augustine.

Predestination left people unable to choose virtue for the sake of salvation. Nevertheless, in Geneva, Calvin urged people to a higher morality. And, in keeping with his belief in predestination, it was Calvin's view that God had called on him to preach, which he could have expressed as "God made me do it." Carrying out God's plan for virtue, the city of Geneva established a set of questions and answers as a guide for daily living for the city's children and adults. City government included a body called the Consistory, whose duty was to watch over everyone and to admonish those it had decided were leading "a disorderly life." It was a twentry-first century Libertarian's nightmare with Calvin believing that the Consistory's activities should be thorough and that its eyes should be everywhere. Despite everyone's helplessness before God's supreme power, Calvin saw city authority as "medicine to turn sinners to the Lord." The city promoted austere living, fasting and maintained a curfew. Fancy clothing was as unwelcome in Geneva as it would be among the Red Guards in Mao's China. And dancing and card playing were prohibited.

Geneva became well-known as a city of morality, and it attracted people, many of them refugees from France, England, Spain, Scotland and Italy. One such refugee was the Spanish humanist Michael Servetus, who had been arrested by the Inquisition for denying the Trinity. And Servetus believed that mortal sins were committed only by adults -- not by people under twenty. This view impressed the authorities in Geneva as dangerous, "especially," said one, "with the young so corrupted." Servetus asked to be allowed to leave Geneva. Instead he was burned at the stake.

Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I of England

Henry VIII died in 1547. A son who had been born to Jane Seymour reigned as Edward VI, but he was sickly and died in 1553. He was succeeded by Mary Tudor, the devout Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon. She began her rule with clemency for those who had taken up arms against her, and she pursued a policy of reconciliation. Then, however, she announced that she would marry the son of Charles V: Prince Philip of Spain. Opposed to England becoming tied to Spain, insurrections broke out against Mary. The rebellions were quelled, she married Philip in July 1554 (two years before he became King Philip II), and she launched an effort to return the realm to Catholicism. Her reign remained unpopular, while she thought herself kind toward the poor. But she had several hundred Protestants burned at the stake. Many Protestants fled to the continent, and the devout Mary was to become known as "Bloody Mary." Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, survived by maintaining a precocious and discrete silence.

On the continent in 1555, the Holy Roman Emperor and Habsburg monarch Charles V, concluded the Peace of Augsburg with a league of Protestant princes (the Schmalkalkic League). The Peace of Augsburg recognized the right of each prince in the Holy Roman Empire to choose between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism, and to impose the religion of his choice to his subjects. Charles abdicated in 1556 and divided his holdings between his sons Philip and Ferdinand, Philip's domains included Spain, parts of the Americas, the Netherlands, Sicily and parts of Italy such as Milan and Naples. Philip was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Ferdinand acquired the Holy Roman Empire, consisting largely of Germany. In 1557, the monarchy in France lost its holdings in Italy, France not having the sea power or the manpower for garrisons necessary to maintain such territory. French armies in Italy had always melted away from want of financial maintenance or the diseases. The result was sixty years of effort by the French was for them a failure and devastation for Italy.

In 1558, Mary Tudor died, and her half sister, Elizabeth I became queen of England and Ireland, a woman whose regal bearing and intelligence impressed England's folk. Elizabeth's reign began with enthusiastic support in England, and she inaugurated political and religious stability in the country and aloofness from Spain. Elizabeth had been reared a Protestant, and she was ill-disposed to Roman Catholic jurisdiction which did not recognize the legitimacy of her birth. Protestant exiles returned to England, and they advocated England's church be purified of its remnants of Catholicism, and they were to become known as Puritans. But Elizabeth kept to middle ground. She did not care what people believed so long as they kept quiet about it. What she was insistent upon was dignity in church services and political order.

Elizabeth governed without use of ecclesiastics in foreign or domestic bureaucratic affairs. Archbishops were restricted to church affairs. During her reign, Protestantism became firmly established in England, and England developed further as a sea power.

Sensuality and Religious Conflict

After 1560, Europe was still suffering from periodic epidemics and famines. One-half of all infants born alive were dying before twelve months. The wealthy might live to between 48 and 56, and the poor, who did not eat as well, might live to 40. But it was God whom most people feared. And having a fear of God was still seen as a requirement for being a good person.

These were also times of sensuality, in Italy perhaps more so than in England, the English tending to see the Italians as more morally corrupt. It was in Italy - more densely populated than England -- that the Renaissance had begun, and the Renaissance was more liberal in sensuality than the traditions that had preceded it. The English also saw their only great city, London (population 120,000), as more sinful than the rest of their country. London was seen as a place of pleasure and freedom. Relations between men and women were more casual there than elsewhere in England.

On the European continent many people accepted prostitution in accord with Augustine's belief that it prevented worse sins. A few had been railing against prostitution, but since the later Middle Ages licensed houses of prostitution had been common in urban centers and taken for granted. In Calvinist Geneva, authorities stood guard in the houses of prostitution, allowing single men to enter and turning married men away.

Prostitution aside, the people of Europe were grasping for moral guidance. Many were impressed by developments in Geneva. Calvinism spread from Geneva into France, where it came into conflict with Catholicism. Catholics and Protestants in France wanted to rid their communities of corruption, and they saw corruption in each other's religion. Bigotry regarding morality was itself a moral problem, and it produced what in the 21st century would be considered extremism. Protestant ministers and Catholic priests encouraged assaults on their rival faith, bringing more war between Catholics and Protestants. Crowds of Protestants attacked and killed Catholics, smashed statues and stained glass windows, and they defiled sacred vestments, vessels and Eucharistic elements. French commerce declined and agriculture suffered as the crops in many areas were destroyed in the anarchy. The upheaval in France has been described as the greatest bloodshed in France's history aside from the French Revolution that would come two centuries later.

Upheaval in the Netherlands

The middle class in the Netherlands, especially in the city of Amsterdam and the northern provinces of the Netherlands, were impressed by Calvinism's moral gravity, including Calvinism's emphasis on labor well done, and many of them adopted Calvinism. Then Calvinism spread among the laborers there, partly because some Calvinist employers would hire only their fellow Calvinists.

The people of the Netherlands were still ruled by the Habsburgs, and Habsburg rule had passed from Charles V to his sons. One son, Philip II, became the most powerful monarch in Europe, possessing Spain, Spain's holdings in the Americas, Sardinia, Sicily and Italy south of the papal states, territory around Milan, and Spanish ruled Netherlands. Philip's brother, Ferdinand I, became nominal ruler over the lands called the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1559, Philip appointed his half sister, Margaret, as regent of the Netherlands. She pursued Philip's order to wipe out Protestantism there, and she tried, exercising the common belief that it was a king's prerogative to decide how his subjects worshipped. Margaret raised taxes to finance the interventions in the Netherlands, and higher taxes added to the hostility towards Habsburg rule.

It was not the Calvinist bourgeoisie who would riot against the Habsburgs, it was the Calvinist poor, urged on by preachers determined to maintain Calvinist worship against Catholic efforts to wipe them out. The riots occurred in the summer of 1566 -- a time of high grain prices. In Antwerp on six successive summer evenings, crowds armed with axes and sledgehammers went after things they claimed were of false doctrine. They smashed Antwerp's Cathedral of Notre Dame. They smashed altars, paintings, books, tombs, and ecclesiastical vestments. They destroyed manuscripts, ornaments, stained glass windows and sculptures. They sacked over thirty churches and burned libraries. From Antwerp the destruction spread to the cities of Brussels and Ghent and north to the provinces of Zeeland and Holland.

From Spain, Philip sent 20,000 troops to pacify the Netherlands. The commander in charge of the force, the Duke of Alva, interpreted his instructions to mean extermination of religious and political dissidents, and as he waged war in the Netherlands he opened a tribunal there called the "Council of Blood." On March 3, 1568 he had 1,500 men executed. And the Duke of Alva discomforted opinion in the Netherlands by levying a ten-percent sales tax on every commercial transaction.

Opponents of Habsburg rule remained unsubdued, and, in 1578, Philip tried to crush the revolt completely. He sent a force of German mercenaries under the command of Alexander Farnese (the Duke of Parma), the great grandson of Pope Paul III. Farnese employed patience and sieges and managed to pacify roughly the southern portion of the Netherlands, including the city of Antwerp. The northern portion of the Netherlands was harder to subdue. There were sluices and canals, and Protestants broke dikes to flood countryside in front of Farnese's advancing mercenaries.

In ten of the more southern provinces of the Netherlands, Calvinism was crushed, and Protestants there were compelled to convert to Catholicism or be expelled. These provinces became known as Belgium. The seven other provinces, led by the province of Holland, declared itself the United Netherlands, an independent republic -- almost two hundred years before the creation of the republic called the United States of America. Philip, of course, did not recognize their independence. That same year -- 1581 -- he took power in Portugal. And in the years that followed the struggle between Philip and the United Netherlands continued, with the United Netherlands looking for help from Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Elizabeth against Philip II of Spain

Philip was hostile toward England and its Protestantism, and the English feared that Spain would invade their island. War in the Netherlands, moreover, had diminished England's sale of wool there, which caused the English crown to lose valuable customs revenues. England's Queen Elizabeth allied herself with the Dutch, and from 1585 to 1587 she pumped money and two thousand troops into the cause of Protestantism and independence for the Netherlands, and Alexander Farnese claimed that to subdue the Dutch he would have to conquer England.

Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland and Elizabeth's nearest relative, was Roman Catholic, and King Philip of Spain plotted Mary's accession to the throne of England. Mary was also a rallying point for all in Britain opposed to Elizabeth. In support of Mary and against Elizabeth, uprisings occurred. Also, two plots were made on Elizabeth's life. In 1587, Elizabeth solved her problem with Mary by having her beheaded.

Upon hearing of Mary's execution, Pope Sixtus V promised to pay Philip one million gold ducats if his troops invaded England. On May 9, 1588, perhaps 30,000 men on an armada of around 130 ships in Lisbon harbor confessed their sins, received the Eucharist and set sail for the Netherlands. The armada was supposed to rendezvous with Farnese in the Netherlands and then escort barges filled with Farnese's army across the channel to England. An English fleet of about 150 ships went out to meet the armada, the English ships smaller but faster and more maneuverable than the Spanish ships. Queen Elizabeth visited her troops at Tilbury Camp and made her famous "heart of a king" speech, expecting an invasion. But the English Navy scattered the Spanish Armada, and only about 65 of Spain's ships made it back to their homeport.

Philip was soon able to rebuild his navy, and war between Philip and Elizabeth continued with Philip trying to foment rebellion against Elizabeth in Catholic Ireland. Elizabeth retaliated. English troops succeeded in bringing all of Ireland under the authority of the English crown. And Elizabeth's sea captains -- Hawkins, Raleigh, Drake and others -- intercepted Spain's shipments of silver and raided Spanish ports.

Pope Pius V

In 1570, the Ottoman Turks captured Cyprus from rule by Venice, which had had no allies in battle. Christian communities along the Mediterranean coast in West Asia shook with fear. Pius V allied the Church with Venice, and Philip II entered the alliance. In 1571, a force of more than 300 ships, supplied by Venice, Spain and a small squadron from the Papal states, met the Turks inside the Gulf of Lepanto -- the last great battle with oar propelled vessels. The Christian alliance lost around 8000 killed and 12 galleys, the Ottomans lost an estimated 25,000 killed and 117 galleys. From the Ottoman ships the Christians seized 15,000 Christians said to have been slaves. It was the first defeat of an Ottoman force -- a victory that Pope Pius V attributed to the intercession of Saint Mary. But it was not a totally effective intercession: the Ottomans immediately began to rebuild their navy. Ottoman naval superiority in the Mediterranean was soon restored, and Cyprus was not recovered.

Ivan the Terrible

From 1533 to 1584 Muscovy, otherwise known as Russia, was ruled by Ivan IV, also known as Ivan Grozny and Ivan the Terrible (or the Awesome, depending upon the translation from Russian). Ivan had inherited rule at the age of three. His mother acted as regent and was able to maintain power amid murders and the intrigues of nobles. In 1547 at the age of seventeen, Ivan was placed under the guardianship of the Orthodox Church, and in 1553 he assumed the title of tsar, which some say derives from the word Caesar and others deny.

The tsar ruled from Moscow, a city of wood. Even mansions were made of logs. At the center of Moscow was the fortress known as the Kremlin, covering a triangle of sixty-nine acres, built on a hill along the Moscow River, its walls twelve to sixteen feet thick, rising sixty-five feet above the river, with twenty towers. Living in the Kremlin were the royal family and the Patriarch (or Pope) of Russian Orthodox Church. Next to the Kremlin - today called Red Square -- was a field which turned to mud in the rains. It had a simple market place, army barracks, log office buildings, and churches, including two magnificent cathedrals of wood designed by Italians.

The association between the tsar and the Orthodox Church gave the tsar a divinity among many of his subjects -- most of whom were illiterate. From infancy the Russians were taught to respect the tsar. One popular proverb was: "Only God and the tsar know." Russians viewed the tsar's powers as limited only by God's powers. They saw the tsar as a remote and inaccessible father and saw themselves as his obedient children.

Expansion, Economics and Political Struggle

In 1552, Ivan followed tradition and went to war to expand his territory, fulfilling what some romantics would believe was Russia's destiny. To the east of Moscow he warred against the Tatars, seizing Kazan, a capital and an Islamic center by the Volga River. To commemorate his victory at Kazan, Ivan began construction of the Church of St. Basil, near the Kremlin wall.

Ivan sent his forces southward along the Volga, winning another great battle, at Astrakhan, near where the Volga empties into the Caspian Sea. The Volga River was now open to Russian trade and settlement. The Russians expanded southward along the western shore of the Caspian, to the Terek River by the Caucasus Mountains - an area today known as Chechnya. And in 1558 Ivan began a campaign in the West and pushed a short distance from his border to Narva (about a hundred miles west of what was to become St. Petersburg) giving Russia an outlet to the Baltic Sea. The Poles, Lithuanians and Swedes felt threatened, and Ivan began warring against them, hoping to expand across Livonia and to establish a better position on the Baltic Sea.

Russia was backward economically compared to Western Europe, and Ivan's war created in him a desire for technical assistance from the West. Elizabeth I of England disliked the idea of Moscow increasing its military capability, but she was willing to let her merchants sell goods to the Russians -- cloth, paper, sugar, dishes, copper and a musical instrument called the organ. She sent to Moscow some of the help that Ivan had requested:craftsmen including rope makers, architects, pharmacists and a medical doctor. Elizabeth assured her fellow European monarchs that England's merchants were not selling military equipment, including cannon, to the Russians, and she denied Ivan's request for men to build and sail his ships. But Englishmen at Narva began building a few galley ships and brigantines for Ivan. Ivan paid them well. Ivan hired Englishmen to command his ships and Englishmen as master gunners and ordinary sailors. The French and Dutch also began trading with Russia through the port of Narva. While Ivan was preparing to renew warfare to expand across Livonia, Englishmen were establishing a successful rope making factory, iron manufacturing, a flax spinning business and the manufacturing of other products in Russia. The foreigners employed Russians, who were learning new crafts. And on the shores of northern Russia, the English and Dutch were harvesting logs for ship masts, and along coastal waters they were hunting walrus and whales for blubber oil.

Meanwhile, in 1564, Ivan had begun a showdown with Russia's nobles, who resented his power. Ivan threatened abdication. He called the nobles traitors, and he won acceptance from the Orthodox Church and others to deal with the nobles as he saw fit. He created a special force of about 6,000 men devoted to warring against internal enemies, rewarding them with the lands of his enemies. Many noble families and their private armies, their peasants and servants, disappeared. From the ranks of Ivan's special force a new landowning class and local authority emerged. Then, in 1566, Ivan created an assembly that consisted of representatives of the clergy, nobles and merchants, Ivan hoping to broaden and maintain his support as he renewed his attempt to expand across Livonia.

While facing the Poles, Lithuanians and Swedes in the west, Ivan was confronting the Islamic Tatars (Tartars) to his east and south. Tatar cavalry from the Crimea were making periodic raids, looking for Slavic slaves and other booty, such as cattle -- the slaves a regular source of income for the Crimean Tatars, to be sold to the Ottoman Turks. In 1571 the Tatars sacked and burned the outskirts of Moscow. The Russians drove them back. The following year the Tatars approached Moscow again, and the Russians again drove them back. By now advances in weaponry had given military superiority to a well-equipped infantry, and the firepower of the Russians was capable of overwhelming the Tatars. The days of greatness for cavalry archers was over, but the Tatar warriors were mobile and elusive.

Against the more modern forces represented by the Swedes, Ivan had less success. In 1581, Sweden captured Narva, and in 1582 Ivan made peace with the Poles, Lithuanians, and Swedes, ending the twenty-four year effort that had burdened the country. Russia was suffering economically. Ivan had wanted to control as much as he could. He considered all of Russia's lands, commerce and industry his. Any business that accumulated wealth might be added to his collection of state-owned enterprises. The middle class of Russia was not developing as was the middle class in the Netherlands.

While the people of the United Netherlands had been freeing themselves from Habsburg authority, common Russians were increasingly controlled by the authority of the tsar and the great landowners. Townspeople were bound to their towns and work so that Ivan could tax them more heavily, and peasants were obliged to stay on the agricultural estates, under the authority of its owner for at least five years. But some were running away, sometimes to the south along the Don River and to the Ukraine, where a free spirited people called Cossacks lived beyond the reach of the landowners and the tsar's officials. In vain, Ivan's government passed a new law allowing landowners to chase after and capture runaways.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in 1650 Montreal had a population of 196. In 1660 that increased to 472, and Montreal's population continued to grow, reaching at least 2,000 in the 1690s. The fort at Montreal was an impenetrable haven during continuous warring with the Iroquois. Montreal, rather than Quebec, had become the center of trade and society, while Quebec remained the seat of colonial government. It was a purely Catholic society, the French, like the Spaniards, not allowing Protestants in the areas they considered theirs. The number of French in the Americas was only one twentieth of the number of people in England's colonies, prosperous France having had few who wanted to leave to try for a new life in what they saw as a primitive and dangerous America.