Dr. John Rao explains that the situation in the Lowlands was troubled by its corrupt Church and the political struggle of certain cities and noblemen against a Spanish domination which was also trying to reform things. This political struggle was manipulated by followers of Calvin who, after a horrific iconoclast binge, joined the long war which would end in a Protestant north and Catholic south. France also saw the growth of Calvinist Reformed Christianity and the mixing of the Catholic-Huguenot struggle with issues involving the Valois, Guise, and Bourbon families. France suffered terribly in a number of religious wars in the latter part of the 16th century. After this, the problem was one of the struggle inside the Kingdom of the universal and "Gallican" tendencies, and the beginning Jesuit-Jansenist quarrel. Taken from: Protestant Rebellion and Catholic Reform (1517-1648) - 1997 Von Hildebrand Institute