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<em>1648</em> covers the period between the beginning of 1399Neptune-Pluto1892 to its half-point in other ways by speaking of it in terms of the 1398-1571 and 1572-1648 quarters. Nonetheless, looking each half as a unit helps expand our perspective.
<h2>Connecting the dots</h2> 
Outer planet positions at 1571, the half-point of the this first half reveals much. Here we The Netherlands battling for its independence from Spain; Spain at war with France by its support in the French Religious Wars; in the German regions growing Calvinism was undermining the 1555 Peace of Augustus; in the British Isles, its most popular queen struggled to unite the country behind its state religion. The Church, formerly undisputed uniter, unknowingly laid a path to a diminished status by refusing reform of the Council of Trent.
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Economically, Spain's flood of American bullion created an inflation that would undermine its empire and push Europe toward greater mercantile stance. And despite the enmity across the region, Europeans managed to defeat Turks at the battle of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_%281571%29">The Battle of Lepanto</a>, a sign of a shift to full Christian control of the Mediterranean. Altogether, Europe had turned a corner, but did not realize it had. 
<strong>Religious Hopes, Economic Realities >>>>></strong>
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<h2>Religious Hopes, Economic Realities</h2>
The activities of the 1570s were couched in religiosity, but the bottom-line should not be ignored. The Hapsburghs used Spanish wealth to control religious worship, but all knew where the economic fault-lines lay. The Dutch, who championed Calvinism, cared more about controlling its growing mercantile empire. While the French conflict centered around Hugenism, one should not neglect that a struggle between two powerful families, as well as one for the throne, underlay their religious wars. The English cursed the Spanish for their allegiance to devil Pope, but their envy of Spanish overseas territory should not be discounted. Taken altogether, we can see that the ostensibly religious issue proved to cover more than about how people worshiped. 

