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238 V. THE REFORMATION (A.D. 15201592).
countries.47
The first energy of the reforming movement
had largely spent itself by the year 1546, when Luther
died, and much more so when Melanchthon died in the
same year as Gustaf Vasa (1560). The Society of Jesus,
which was founded in 1540, had become a very large
and important instrument of the counter-reformation at
the time of its founder s death in 1556. Lutheranism,
with its strongly personal and somewhat sentimental atti
tude towards religion, had been checked even in Germany
by the more democratic and theocratic and at the same
time systematic and logical teaching of Calvin and
Zwingli. Lutheranism had a strong hold over great part
of Germany, but had not spread much beyond it. Cal
vinism had established itself in the republican regions of
Switzerland and the Netherlands, and to a great extent in
Scotland. It had obtained a considerable power in France,
and had been checked and put down in Italy and Spain.
The three northern kingdoms of England, Denmark
(which included Norway) and Sweden were all examples of
a different type of reformation. In them the movement
towards a breach with Rome had come from the sovereigns
rather than, in any organized way, from the people,
though it was much more a popular movement in England
than in Sweden, and consequently was the occasion of
much more bitter strife. In all three kingdoms the process
of change was comparatively slow, and followed the
changing attitude of the sovereigns who succeeded one
another. In Denmark, owing to its proximity to Ger
many and other causes, the process was most rapid. It
accepted the name Lutheran under Christian II. in 1526.
It accepted the Augsburg Confession and a Lutheran suc
cession of bishops under Christian III. in 1536 1537.
In Sweden the change was much slower, and in England it
was slowest of all. There was also considerable likeness
in the character, and even the external fortunes of the
47
1 have found in Karl Hildebrand :
Upsala-mote, 1593, sug
gestions which have helped me in writing this section. It was
published in Heimdal s Folkskrifter in Jubilee year, 1893.
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