Religious Struggles.

While Portugal and Spain claimed Roman Catholicism as the one true faith, the English, like the French, engaged in a bitter national debate over state religion and religious toleration. Moreover, the rulers of Europe regarded the Tudor family that ruled England for much of the fifteenth century as uncouth pretenders to the throne. Henry VIII, however, made the Tudors' mark on the international scene when in 1534 he broke away from the Pope and initiated the English Reformation. The issue of the official faith, however, was far from settled because Mary Queen of Scots, wife of Philip II of Spain, reigned between 1553 and 1558 and restored Catholicism as the established church of England. Upon the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, the Crown reestablished Protestantism, and the Queen entered into a protracted war with King Philip of Spain. After the defeat...