Wars of religion exemplified the extent to which animosity between Catholics and Protestants had developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As Protestantism spread throughout northern Europe, Protestants of different nationalities felt closer to members of their own faith than to their countrymen. The same was true of Catholics. For instance, the Spanish king, ruling over the Netherlands, sent twenty thousand Spanish soldiers to suppress religious and political dissidents in 1567. In 1570 the Pope excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, thereby freeing English Catholics from owing allegiance to her and giving them the right to overthrow her. Elizabeth tried to assist the Dutch by sending six thousand troops to Holland. The Spanish king, Phillip II, believed that the best way to defeat the English was to send an armada, or fleet, to defeat England's weak navy. However, England defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 and emerged as a.....
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