That the rank and file of Spaniards and Italians remained Catholic, and the vast majority of Britons Protestant, was due more to the bondage of the press than to any other one cause.

Originality was discouraged, the people to some degree unfitted for the free debate that is at the bottom of self-government, the hope of tolerance blighted, and the path opened that led to religious wars.
[1] Matthew xiii, 28-30.
{425} CHAPTER IX THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE SECTION 1.

SPAIN [Sidenote: Reformation, Renaissance and Exploration] If, through the prism of history, we analyse the white light of sixteenth-century civilization into its component parts, three colors particularly emerge: the azure "light of the Gospel" as the Reformers fondly called it in Germany, the golden beam of the Renaissance in Italy, and the blood-red flame of exploration and conquest irradiating the Iberian peninsula.

Which of the three contributed most to modern culture it is hard to decide.

Each of the movements started separately, gradually spreading until it came into contact, and thus into competition and final blending with the other movements.