Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/44

logicum is ever hotter between sections of the same party which are divided by trifling differences, than between the open representatives of antagonist principles; and Anglicans and Lutherans, instead of joining hands across the Channel, endeavoured only to secure each a recognition of themselves at the expense of the other. The English plumed themselves on their orthodoxy. They were 'not as those publicans,' heretics, despisers of the keys, disobedient to authority; they desired only the independence of their National Church, and they proved their zeal for the established faith with all the warmth of persecution. To the Germans national freedom was of wholly minor moment, in comparison with the freedom of the soul; the orthodoxy of England was as distasteful to the disciples of Luther as the orthodoxy of Rome—and the interests of Europe were sacrificed on both sides to this foolish and fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not permit the division to remain in its first intensity, and their common danger compelled the two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the reconciliation, imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but impossible. Their relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts of hostility. Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on Luther. Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books had been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had been burnt by Henry's bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate the Emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had spoken