amounting at times virtually to nationhood. It was this combination of cus-
tom and belief that expressed itself as “church.” Sixteenth-century mon-
archs sought to define and dominate religious institutions and to suppress
those that did not fit in. Henry VIII broke with the Catholic church, confis-
cated most of its property, and established the Church of England. In
France, a hundred years later, Louis XIV nearly followed suit. In his clash
with Pope Innocent XI, he cut off contacts between the French clergy and
the Vatican; and in the archbishop of Paris, he found a Catholic churchman
willing to become “patriarch of the Gauls.” The split stopped short of the
English schism only because Innocent died and Louis was distracted by his
European wars. Heterodoxy was everywhere regarded as tantamount to
treason. Each ruler sought to enforce orthodoxy as he defined it; no ruler
was willing to tolerate diversity of faith. Henry VIII’s break with the papacy
was not intended to create religious freedom, although that was, in part, its
effect. Henry’s successors all sought to impose their own orthodoxy on the
whole country. Charles I cracked down on “dissenting” Protestants;
Cromwell brought the Puritans to power; the restored monarchy under
Charles II and James II then attempted to reimpose a quasi-Catholic ortho-
doxy. Repressive acts under Charles II—collectively known as the
Clarendon Code—amounted to a purge. By the Act of Uniformity in 1662,
members of the clergy who did not conform lost their state-granted
benefices; dissenters from the Church of England were excluded from the
universities and schools; were forbidden to assemble in groups of more
than five persons; and upon suspicion or denunciation, were imprisoned,
deported, or hanged. Under James II, an act of attainder declared thou-
sands of Protestants guilty of treason and made possible the confiscation of
their lands. Terrified, many would leave for America.
When Calvinism took hold in France, the French Reformed commu-
nion—the religion of the Huguenots—was eventually adopted by about
10 percent of the country. The Catholic church then used the state to fight
it. The massacre of Huguenots on Saint Bartholomew’s Day in 1572 set off
a century of turmoil. As an English newsletter reported in 1682, “The King
is resolved to make his Huguenot Subjects grow weary either of their lives
or of their Religion.” Three years later, Louis XIV decided to drive the
Huguenots into exile. Almost half a million fled France for Holland, the
Society and Wars in the Old Countries 67