Note 928 — Chapter X

Ibid., 279, 281, 282, 299. “It is an error to regard, as most historians do, the course of the relations of Philip II to the see of Rome as a single consistent development, for the earlier part of his reign was dominated by a principle utterly different from that which inspired the latter. In the sixties and early seventies the Spanish king devoted himself primarily to the maintenance of the principles of the counter-Reformation; he abandoned political advantage in the interest of the faith, united with the ancient foes of his house for the suppression of heresy, dedicated himself and his people to the cause of Catholicism.... But in the later seventies there came a change. The spirit of the counter-Reformation was waning in France: the old political lines of cleavage had begun to reappear; Philip began to discover that he was draining his land to the dregs in the interests of a foreign power who offered him no reciprocal advantages, and reluctantly exchanged his earlier attitude of abject devotion to the interests of the church for the more patriotic one of solicitude for the welfare of Spain.... Viewed from the Spanish standpoint, the story of this long development is a tragic but familiar one—reckless national sacrifice for the sake of an antiquated ideal, exhaustion in the interests of a foreign power, which uses and casts aside but never reciprocates. But it adds one more to the already long list of favorable revisions of the older and more hostile verdicts on the Spanish monarch. Philip’s attitude toward the papacy, though not always wise or statesmanlike, was at least far more honorable and loyal to the church than it is usually represented (as, for instance, by Philippson): the first part of his reign is marked by his single-hearted devotion to the cause of Rome, and even at the last that devotion does not falter, though the interests of his country forced him to adopt a more national policy toward the papacy than that with which he had begun.”—R. B. Merriman, Review of Herre, Papsttum und Papstwahl im Zeitalter Philipps II (Leipzig, 1907), in American Historical Review, October, 1908, pp. 117, 118.