By the Julian calendar, or Old Style as it was called, the solar year
was estimated at three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours; but it
exceeds this by about eleven minutes. As no allowance was made for these
minutes, which amount to a day in about one hundred and thirty years,
the current year had, in process of ages, advanced ten days beyond the
real time. Thus the vernal equinox, which really took place on the 10th
of March, was assigned in the calendar to the 21st. To rectify this
important error the New Style, or Gregorian calendar, was introduced, so
called from Pope Gregory XII. Ten days were dropped after the 4th of
October, 1582, and the 5th was called the 15th. This reform of the
calendar, correct and necessary as it was, was for a long time adopted
only by the Catholic princes, so hostile were the Protestants to any
thing whatever which originated from the pope. In their list of
grievances they mentioned this most salutary reform as one, stating that
the pope and the Jesuits presumed even to change the order of times and
years.
This confederacy of the Calvinists, unaided by the Lutherans,
accomplished nothing; but still, as year after year the disaffection
increased, their numbers gradually increased also, until, on the 12th of
February, 1603, at Heidelberg they entered into quite a formidable
alliance, offensive and defensive.
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