Pope Paul IV,
wishing to subvert the Spanish power, entered into a league
with Henry II of France against Philip. Guise, who had warred
successfully with Charles V, against whom he defended Metz when it
was won for France (1553), now espoused the papal cause. His main
object was to recover Naples to his own family. Thus he became a
leading actor in the events culminating in the capture of Calais.
Throughout the reign of Philip II his chief aim was to restore the
Roman Catholic religion in Protestant countries and to establish a
uniform despotism over his dominions. In 1554 he had married Queen
Mary of England, and after a short sojourn in that country, whose
crown he vainly tried to obtain, and to whose people he was
obnoxious, he returned to the Continent. Soon after "he was called
to a destiny more suited to his proud and ambitious nature than to
be the unequal partaker of sovereign power over a jealous insular
people."
In March, 1557, Philip returned to England. He came, not out of
affection for his wife or of regard for his turbulent insular subjects,
but to stir up the old English hatred of France and to drag the nation
into a war for his personal advantage. The fiery Pope, Paul IV, panted
for the freedom of Italy as it existed in the fifteenth century; he
wanted to accomplish his wishes by an alliance with France; he would
place French princes on the thrones of Milan and Naples.
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