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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: viewing all questions from the Protestant side. He praises and
condemns like a very fair-minded Huguenot, but still like a
Huguenot. It is for this reason that he fails to interpret
correctly the very complex character of Henry IV., regarding him
as a sort of selfish renegade whom he cannot quite forgive for
accepting the crown of France at the hands of the Pope. Now this
very action of Henry, in the eye of an impartial criticism, must
seem to be one of his chief claims to the admiration and
gratitude of posterity. Henry was more than a mere Huguenot: he
was a far-seeing statesman. He saw clearly what no ruler before
him, save William the Silent, had even dimly discerned, that not
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
