CRISIS AND ABSOLUTISM

Monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries

R

• Absolutism = a system in which the ruler has total power, a ruler whose power was not limited

• Divine Right of Kings = idea that kings received their power from God and were responsible only to God

SPAIN• Charles V of Spain and the HRE

– Became king as a teenager, his territories included Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy, and colonies in the New World

– He supported many Spanish explorers, along with Cortez, and brought much wealth to Spain

• Philip II

– Philip was a devout Catholic and his goal was to make all his territory and Europe Catholic

• Known as the “Most Catholic King”

– He saw Spain as the nation God chose to save Catholic Christianity from Protestant heretics

• He fought many battles and wars for this goal

• Faced a revolt by the Dutch

–Starts in the 1560s, the Dutch want religious freedom to practice Calvinism and they want independence

–Resistance gathered in the north around a Dutch prince and the revolt went on for years until a truce was signed in 1609

– Philip had many problems with England, especially with its queen, Elizabeth I

• He viewed her as a heretic queen since she was a Protestant, she refused to marry him after her sister died, she had aided the Dutch rebels, and she was allowing English ship captains to raid Spanish ships

• These English “sea dogs” took much wealth away from Spain

• Philip decided to invade England and return the country to Catholicism

– In 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed towards England

• It totaled 130 ships and 20,000 soldiers and also carried the Inquisition

• Elizabeth rallied her troops to fight the Spanish

• Due to English using fire ships and a storm that sank many ships, the Spanish Armada was destroyed and Philip failed in his goal to invade England

– Philip spent a lot of money on warfare that bankrupted Spain and caused it to gradually decline as a major power

ENGLAND• Queen Elizabeth I

– Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, became Queen of England in 1558

– During her reign, England became the leader of Protestant nations and she laid the foundations for a world empire

– Elizabeth worked to resolve religious conflicts– In foreign affairs, Elizabeth played a balancing act

with France and Spain, supporting one and then the other to make sure neither became too powerful• She used her marriageable status as a way to

make alliances, although Elizabeth never married – she refused to share or limit her power

– Since she never married, her heir was her cousin, Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland• Mary was Catholic and plotted with Philip II to

overthrow Elizabeth• For this treason she was beheaded

– When Elizabeth died in 1603, Mary’s son James became the new king of England

• James I of England and was also James the VI of Scotland – Believed greatly in the divine right of kings, didn’t

get along with Parliament– Had problems with English Calvinists called

Puritans, who demanded that the Church of England be reformed• They felt it was still too Catholic with elaborate

ceremonies and the hierarchy• James refused most of the reforms, but he did

agree to the publication of an English version of the Bible, called the King James Bible

• Charles I became king on the death of his father– He too believed in divine rights of kings and

had problems with Parliament• Thousands of Puritans went to America

rather than live under his religious policies– Had numerous conflicts with Parliament which

led to a civil war• English Civil War

– Conflict between Parliament and the king to determine the power of each in governing England

– Civil War breaks out in 1642 between supporters of the king (called Royalists) and supporters of Parliament (called Roundheads)

– Parliament wins, mainly due to the New Model Army and its leader, Oliver Cromwell

– His army was made up of extreme Puritans who believed they were doing battle for God

– In 1646 the king surrenders and Cromwell purges Parliament of everyone who had not supported him and what is left is known as the Rump Parliament

• Cromwell then puts the Charles on trial for treason and in 1649 Charles I is publicly beheaded– This horrified much of Europe – regicide– He was the first European monarch to be

formally tried and executed by a court of law

• Parliament abolished the monarchy and declared that England was a commonwealth = a republican gov’t based on the common good of all the people

– Cromwell soon dismisses Parliament and sets up a military dictatorship, ruling ruthlessly until his death in 1658

• Restoration

– Many people were unhappy under Cromwell’s rule and after his death, Parliament voted to restore the monarchy in 1660

– They invited Charles II, son of the slain monarch, to take the throne

– Parliament got keep much of the power it had gained

• Glorious Revolution

– James II, brother of Charles II, is next to sit on the throne in 1685

– Problem arises in that James has become a devout Catholic who names many Catholics to positions of power

• People aren’t too worried because James has two adult daughters who are Protestant who are next in line for the throne

• Then James marries a Catholic princess who gives birth to a son – prospect of a Catholic dynasty

– A group of nobles invites James’ daughter Mary and her husband, the Dutch leader William of Orange, to invade England in 1689

– It is a “Glorious Revolution”, with almost no violence and James II flees to France

• Both William and Mary accept the throne, along with a Bill of Rights, which gave Parliament the right to make laws and levy taxes

• The Bill of Rights was central to England’s growth as a constitutional monarchy

– The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 = guaranteed that someone accused of a crime had the right to appear in court

– Act of Succession – only Protestants could be monarchs and disinherited the Catholic branch of the Stuart line

English Political Thought• Thomas Hobbes – wrote Leviathan

– Described humans as selfish and fearful and life in nature as “nasty, brutish, and short”

– Stated that to save people from destroying each other, people must form a state by agreeing to be governed by an absolute ruler• Need a powerful monarch to tell them

how to live

• John Locke – wrote Two Treatises of Government in which he argued against absolute rule of one person– he believed that before the development of

society and politics people lived in a state of freedom and equality, not violence and war

– Believed people were born with natural rights and that people establish gov’ts to protect these rights (need a constitution to protect your rights)• If the gov’t does not, then the people have a

right to overthrow the gov’t and establish new gov’t

FRANCE• The French Wars of Religion

– War fought between French Catholics and French Protestants influenced by John Calvin called Huguenots that lasted from 1562 to 1598

• Only 7% of the French population were Huguenots, but this included 50% of the nobility who threatened the French monarchy

– 1572 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

• The French Queen Catherine de Medici convinces her son to order the killing of Huguenots who are in Paris for the royal wedding of Catherine’s daughter to Henry of Navarre

• Henry is part of the Bourbon family and a leading Protestant who is in line for the throne if the king dies without an heir

–3,000 die in Paris and up to 10,000 – 70,000 total

–Catherine spares her new son-in-law

– The last French king dies and Henry of Navarre is made king Henry IV

• He converts to Catholicism to gain acceptance

– 1598 Henry ends the war by issuing the Edict of Nantes

• Recognized Catholicism as the official religion of France, but gave Huguenots the right of worship and to fortify towns in which they have a majority

– In 1610 Henry was stabbed to death by a fanatic Catholic and the throne passed to his young son Louis

• Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu

– Once Louis was old enough to rule, Cardinal Richelieu became his chief minister and advisor

– Richelieu was determined to strengthen and protect the French monarchy

• Wanted to reduce the power of the Huguenots

– Took away some of the privileges granted to them in the Edict of Nantes

• Saw nobles as a threat, so Richelieu started to suppress them and used spies to uncover plots and revolts

– Richelieu was also in charge of foreign policy

• Main enemy of France was the Hapsburg family and he worked hard to limit their power

– Cardinal Richelieu dies in 1642 and Louis is assassinated the next year, leaving as the new king the five year old Louis XIV

• Louis XIV

– Most absolute monarch, led France during a time of great power, glory, and prosperity

– As a young boy, Louis had to flee Paris due to noble rebellions called the Fronde

• Louis never again trusted the nobility

– At age 18 Louis declared he would run the gov’t himself

• “L’etat, c’est moi” = “I am the state”

– Chose the sun as his symbol, implying that France revolved around him and he was known as the Sun King

• Louis made all the military, political, and economic decisions

– Louis built the enormous palace of Versailles twelve miles outside of Paris and moved the gov’t there

• Required his nobles to either live there or visit regularly

• Nobles became more concerned with rituals and ceremonies rather than fighting the monarchy

• Life at Versailles was expensive, nobles had less money to raise armies

– Idea of a universal monarchy – Louis wanted to expand French territory and control western Europe

• Modernized and enlarged the army – had the largest in Europe

– War of Spanish Succession• The king of Spain dies without an heir and Louis

tries to get his grandson, Philip of Anjou, crowned as king since he was one of three in line for the throne

• The other European monarchs did not want France and Spain to be joined

• 1701 England, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire went to war against Louis and France

• War ends in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht– Louis’ grandson would become king of Spain,

but France and Spain could never be ruled by the same monarch – he can never be king of France

– Louis dies in 1715, leaving a 5 year old great-grandson as king Louis XV

RUSSIA• Ivan IV the Terrible

– First to claim the title czar (caesar) and got rid of foreign rule

– Numerous reforms during the “good period”:

– Then his wife Anastasia died and Ivan becomes unstable and violent• Sends away his closest advisors, takes

away land from 1200 boyars, and destroys whole towns because he thought they were plotting against him

• Peter the Great

– Main goal was to transform Russia into a modern state

• Wanted to make Russia more like Western Europe

• Process of Westernization

– Reforms

• Built Russia’s first navy and modernized the army

• Brought the church under state control and started the first Russian newspaper

• Built St. Petersburg as his new capital, was modeled after western cities

PRUSSIA• Prussia was one of the German states, but

it was fragmented, meaning that its territories were not connected

• Because of this, Frederick the Great built a strong army for protection and made Prussia one of the most powerful German states, with Berlin as its capital

THIRTY YEARS’ WAR• Began as a religious dispute since the Peace

of Augsburg did not recognize Calvinism

• Starts when new emperor Ferdinand tries to force Catholicism on the Protestants in Prague

– In response they throw his two Catholic advisors out a window

– They survive because they land in a dung/garbage heap – known as the Defenestration of Prague

• The two sides– Catholic = Holy Roman Empire and Spain

(Hapsburgs)– Protestant = Denmark, Sweden, Protestant

German princes, and France (Richelieu wants to weaken the Hapsburgs)

– England does not join the war• The Peace of Westphalia ended the war in 1648,

with France emerging as the dominant nation in Europe– Reinstated the Peace of Augsburg, now

includes Calvinism– The German princes become sovereign and

independent – HRE lost its power

• The Thirty Years’ War was the most destructive war yet due to the musket and increased use of guns

– The battles took place on German soil, causing much destruction

• Millions of Germans died, either in battle or starved to death