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Absolutism to Revolution (The Reign of Louis XIV ((Richelieu took two…

- - - - The future holy emperor, Ferdinand II, he ruled the Czech kingdom of Bohemia. The protestants in Bohemia did not trust Ferdinand, who was a foreigner and a Catholic.
      - When Ferdinand closed some Protestant churches, the Protestants revolted. He sent an army to Bohemia to crush the revolt.
      - Then several German Protestant princes took this chance to challenge their Catholic emperor. Thus began the Thirty Years' War.
    - - The war lasted from 1618 to 1648. Hapsburg armies from Austria and Spain crushed the troops hired by the Protestant princes, during the first 12 years.
      - They succeeded in putting down the Czech uprising and defeated the German Protestants who had supported the Czechs.
    - - The Protestant Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his army drove the Hapsburg armies out of Northern Germany. However, he was killed in battle.
      - Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin of France dominated the remaining years of the war.
      - They are Catholics, but feared the Hapsburg more than the Protestants. Richelieu send French troops to join the German and Swedish Protestants in their struggle against the Hapsburg armies.
    - - The war caused great damage to Germany. It's population dropped from 20 million to about 16 million. Trade and agriculture was disrupted. Germany's economy was ruined.
      - The Peace of Westphalia ended the war.
    - - The treaty abandoned the idea of a Catholic empire that would rule most of Europe. It recognized Europe as a group of equal, independent states. This marked the beginning of the modern state system.
  - - - Economic Contrasts with the West
        
        One reason because of that is that the economy of central Europe developed differently from that of western Europe.
        
        Serfs in western Europe slowly won freedom and moved to towns. There, they joined middle-class townspeople, who gained economic power because of the commercial revolution and the development of capitalism.
        
        By contrast, the landowning aristocracy in central Europe passed laws restricting the ability of serfs to gain freedom and move to cities.
      - Several Weak Empires
        
        The landowning nobles in central Europe not only held
        down the serfs but also blocked the development of strong kings.
        
        They allowed little income to the king, no law courts, and no standing army. And because of that, there was no strong ruler who could form a unified state.
        
        The two empires of central Europe were also weak. The Ottoman
        Empire could not take its European conquest any farther. From then on, the Ottoman Empire declined from its peak of power. The Holy Roman Empire was seriously weakened by the Thirty Years’ War.
        
        These old, weakened empires and kingdoms left
        a power vacuum in central Europe. Two German-speaking families decided to try to fill this vacuum by becoming absolute rulers themselves.
      - Austria Grows Stronger
        
        One of these families was the Hapsburgs of Austria. First, during
        the Thirty Years’ War, they reconquered Bohemia. Second, after the war, the Hapsburg ruler centralized the government and created a standing army. Third, the Hapsburg had retaken Hungary from the Ottoman Empire.
        
        Charles VI became the Hapsburg ruler. Charles’s empire was a difficult one to rule. Within its borders lived a diverse assortment of people.
      - Maria Theresa Inherits the Austrian Throne
        
        Charles VI spent his entire reign trying to figure out how Hapsburg can continue to rule all those land they got.
        
        He persuaded other leaders of Europe to
        sign an agreement that declared they would recognize Charle's eldest daughter as the heir to all Hapsburg territories. That heir was a young woman named Maria Theresa.
        
        This agreement guaranteed Maria Theresa a peaceful reign. Instead, she faced years war. Her main enemy was Prussia, a state to the north of Austria.
  - - - The Hohenzollerns built up their state from a number of small holdings. A 20-year-old Hohenzollern named Frederick William inherited the title of elector of Brandenburg. He decided that having a strong army was the only way to ensure safety.
      - He and his descendants moved toward absolute monarchy to protect their lands. They created a standing army. To pay for the army, they introduced permanent taxation. They also weakened the representative assemblies of their territories.
    - - Frederick William worried that his son, Frederick, was not military enough to rule. When his son and a friend tried to run
        away, they were caught. To punish them the king ordered him to witness his friend’s beheading.
        
        Frederick became known as Frederick the Great and followed his father’s military policies when he came to power. He softened some of his father’s laws. He encouraged religious toleration and legal reform.
    - - Maria Theresa succeeded her father, just five months after Frederick II became king of Prussia. Frederick wanted the Austrian land of Silesia, which bordered Prussia.
      - Frederick underestimated Maria Theresa’s strength. He assumed that because she was a woman, she would not be forceful enough to defend her lands. he sent his army to occupy Silesia, beginning the War of the Austrian Succession.
      - Maria Theresa had recently given birth, she journeyed to Hungary. There she held her infant in her arms as she asked the Hungarian nobles for aid. Although Maria Theresa did stop Prussia’s aggression, she lost Silesia in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
    - - Maria Theresa decided that the French kings were no longer
        Austria’s chief enemies. She made an alliance with them. The result was a diplomatic revolution.
      - When Frederick heard of her actions, he signed a treaty with
        Britain—Austria’s former ally. Not only had Austria and Prussia switched allies, but for the first time, Russia was playing a role in European affairs.
      - The British emerged as the real victors in the Seven Years’ War. France lost its colonies in North America, and Britain gained sole economic domination of India.
- - - - A devout Catholic, Charles not only fought Muslims but also opposed Lutherans.
      - In 1555, he unwillingly agreed to the Peace of Augsburg, which allowed German
      - princes to choose the religion for their territory.
      - Philip was shy, serious, and—like his father—deeply reli-
        
        gious. He was also very hard working. Yet Philip would not allow anyone to help
        
        him. Deeply suspicious, he trusted no one for long. As his own court historian
        
        wrote, “His smile and his dagger were very close.”
      - Perhaps above all, Philip could be aggressive for the sake of his empire. In
        
        1580, the king of Portugal died without an heir. Because Philip was the king’s
        
        nephew, he seized the Portuguese kingdom. Counting Portuguese strongholds in
        
        Africa, India, and the East Indies, he now had an empire that circled the globe.
        
        Philip’s empire provided him with incredible wealth.
      - By 1600, American
        
        mines had supplied Spain with an estimated 339,000 pounds of gold. Between
        
        1550 and 1650, roughly 16,000 tons of silver bullion were unloaded from
        
        Spanish galleons, or ships. The king of Spain claimed between a fourth and a
        
        fifth of every shipload of treasure as his royal share. With this wealth, Spain was
        
        able to support a large standing army of about 50,000 soldiers.
      - When Philip assumed the throne, Europe was experi-
        
        encing religious wars caused by the Reformation. However, religious conflict was
        
        not new to Spain.
      - The Reconquista, the campaign to drive Muslims from Spain,
        had been completed only 64 years before. In addition, Philip’s great-grandparents
      - Golden Age of Spanish Art and Literature
        
        Spain’s great wealth did more than support navies and build palaces. It also
        
        allowed monarchs and nobles to become patrons of artists. During the 16th and
        
        17th centuries, Spain experienced a golden age in the arts. The works of two great
        
        painters show both the faith and the pride of Spain during this period.
        
        His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, but Spaniards
        
        called him El Greco, meaning “the Greek.” El Greco’s art often puzzled the people of
        
        his time. He chose brilliant, sometimes clashing colors, distorted the human figure,
        
        and expressed emotion symboli-
        
        cally in his paintings. Although
        
        unusual, El Greco’s techniques
        
        showed the deep Catholic faith of
        
        Spain. He painted saints and mar-
        
        tyrs as huge, long-limbed figures
        
        that have a supernatural air.
        
        The paintings of Diego
        
        Velázquez (vuh•LAHS•kehs), on
        
        the other hand, reflected the
        
        pride of the Spanish monarchy.
        
        Velázquez, who painted 50 years
        
        after El Greco, was the court
        
        painter to Philip IV of Spain.
  - - - needed more and more amounts of silver to buy things.
        
        prices. Second, as silver bullion flooded the market, its value dropped. People
        
        ing. As more people demanded food and other goods, merchants were able to raise
        
        Spain’s population had been grow-
      - Inflation in Spain had two main causes.
      - in the value of money, accompanied by a rise in the prices of goods and ser vices.
      - One of these problems was severe inflation, which is a decline
    - - Guilds that had emerged in
      - the Middle Ages still dominated business in Spain. Such
      - guilds used old-fashioned methods. This made Spanish
      - cloth and manufactured goods more expensive than those
      - made elsewhere. As a result, Spaniards bought much of
      - what they needed from France, England, and the
      - Netherlands. Spain’s great wealth flowed into the pockets of
      - foreigners, who were mostly Spain’s enemies.
    - - In the Spanish Netherlands, Philip had
      - to maintain an army to keep his subjects under control. The
      - Dutch had little in common with their Spanish rulers. While
      - Spain was Catholic, the Netherlands had many Calvinist
      - congregations. Also, Spain had a sluggish economy, while
      - the Dutch had a prosperous middle class.
  - - - The United Provinces of the Netherlands was different from other European states of
      - the time. For one thing, the people there practiced religious toleration. In addition,
      - the United Provinces was not a kingdom but a republic.
    - - The United Provinces of the Netherlands was different from other European states of
      - the time. For one thing, the people there practiced religious toleration. In addition,
      - the United Provinces was not a kingdom but a republic.
    - - Like many other Dutch artists, he chose domestic, indoor
      - settings for his portraits. He often painted women doing such familiar activities as
      - pouring milk from a jug or reading a letter. The work of both Rembrandt and
      - Vermeer reveals how important merchants, civic leaders, and the middle class in
      - general were in 17th-century Netherlands.
- - - - As France regained political power, a new French intellectual movement devel-
      - oped. French thinkers had witnessed the religious wars with horror. What they saw
      - turned them toward skepticism, the idea that nothing can ever be known for cer-
    - - Michel de Montaigne lived during the worst years of
      - the French religious wars. After the death of a dear friend, Montaigne thought
      - deeply about life’s meaning.
    - - Montaigne pointed out that whenever a new belief arose, it
      - replaced an old belief that people once accepted as truth. In the same way, he went
      - on, the new belief would also probably be replaced by some different idea in the
      - future. For these reasons, Montaigne believed that humans could never have abso-
      - lute knowledge of what is true.
    - - Another French writer of the time, René Descartes, was a brilliant thinker. In his
      - Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes examined the skeptical argument that
      - one could never be certain of anything.
  - - - When Louis became king in 1643
      - after the death of his father, Louis XIII, the true ruler of
      - France was Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin
      - . Mazarin’s greatest triumph came in 1648,
      - with the ending of the Thirty Years’ War.
    - - Many people in France, particularly the nobles, hated
      - Mazarin because he increased taxes and strengthened the
      - central government. From 1648 to 1653, violent anti-
      - Mazarin riots tore France apart. At times, the nobles who
      - led the riots threatened the young king’s life.
    - - In addition, the government used violent
      - repression. Finally, peasants and townspeople grew weary
      - of disorder and fighting. For many years afterward, the peo-
      - ple of France accepted the oppressive laws of an absolute
      - king. They were convinced that the alternative rebellion
      - was even worse.
    - - Louis devoted himself to helping France attain economic, polit-
      - ical, and cultural brilliance. No one assisted him more in achieving these goals than
      - his minister of finance, Jean Baptiste Colbert
- - - - Elizabeth had no child, and her nearest relative was her cousin, James Stuart. Already king of Scotland, James Stuart became King James I of England in 1603. Although England and Scotland were not united until 1707, they now shared a ruler.
        
        James's Problems
        
        James inherited the unsettled issues of Elizabeth’s reign. His
        worst struggles with Parliament were over money.
        
        James offended the Puritan members of Parliament. He refused to make Puritan reforms.
        
        Charles I Fights Parliament
        
        In 1625, James I died. Charles I, his son, took the
        throne. Charles always needed money, because he was at war with both Spain and France. Several times when Parliament refused to give him funds.
        
        Charles was forced to call Parliament again. This time it refused to grant him any money until he signed a document that is known as the Petition of Right.
        
        After agreeing to the petition, Charles ignored it, although the petition was important. It set forth the idea that the law was higher than the king.
        
        Charles dissolved Parliament and refused to call it back into session. To get money, he imposed all kinds of fees and fines on the English people.
  - - - War Topples a King
        
        Parliament passed laws to limit royal power. Charles tried to arrest Parliament’s leaders but they escaped.
        
        A mob of Londoners raged outside the palace. Charles fled London and raised an army in the north of England, they were loyal to him there.
        
        Supporters and opponents of King Charles fought the
        English Civil War.
        
        At first neither side could gain a lasting advantage. Then the
        Puritans found a general who could win—Oliver Cromwell.
        
        Cromwells army started defeating the Cavaliers and held the king as prisoner.
        
        Cromwell and the Puritans brought Charles to trial for treason against Parliament. They found him guilty and sentenced him to death. The execution of Charles was revolutionary.
      - Cromwell's Rule
        
        Cromwell now held the reins of power. He abolished the
        monarchy and the House of Lords. He established a commonwealth, a republican form of government.
        
        Cromwell sent home the remaining members of Parliament. He became a military dictator.
        
        Cromwell almost immediately had to put down a rebellion in Ireland. Cromwell landed on Irish shores with an army and crushed the uprising.
        
        He seized the lands and homes of the Irish and gave them to English soldiers.
      - Puritan Morality
        
        In England, Cromwell and the Puritans sought to reform society. They made laws that promoted Puritan morality and abolished activities they found sinful,
        
        Even though he was a strict Puritan, Cromwell favored religious toleration for all Christians except Catholics. He even allowed Jews to return; they had been expelled from England in 1290.
  - - - Charles II Reigns
        
        Charles II restored the monarchy, the period of his rule is called the Restoration.
        
        During his reign, Parliament passed an important guarantee of freedom, habeas corpus.
        
        This law law gave every prisoner the right to obtain a writ or document ordering that the prisoner be brought before a judge to specify the charges against the prisoner.
        
        Because of the Habeas Corpus Act, a monarch could not put someone in jail simply for opposing the ruler.
        
        Parliament debated who should inherit Charles’s throne, because
        Charles had no legitimate child, his heir was his brother James, who was Catholic.
      - James II and the Glorious Revolution
        
        Charles II died, and James II became king. James soon offended his subjects by displaying his Catholicism.
        
        When Parliament protested, James dissolved it. English Protestants became terrified at the prospect of a line of Catholic kings, because James wife gave birth to a son.
        
        James had an older daughter, Mary, who was Protestant. Seven members of Parliament invited Mary and William, Mary's husband and prince of Netherlands to overthrow James for the sake of Protestantism.
        
        When William led his army to London, James fled to France. This bloodless overthrow of King James II is called the Glorious Revolution.
  - - - Bill of Rights
        
        To make clear the limits of royal power, Parliament drafted a Bill of Rights.
        
        William and Mary consented to these and other limits on
        their royal power.
      - Cabinet System Develops
        
        No British monarch could rule without the consent of Parliament.
        
        At the same time, Parliament could not rule without the consent of the monarch.If the two disagreed, government came to a standstill.
        
        This potential problem was remedied by the development of cabinets. They became the link between the monarch and the majority party in Parliament.
        
        Over time, the cabinet became the center of power and policymaking.
- - - - Rule by Terror
        
        Ivan’s “bad period” began in 1560 after Anastasia died. He turned against the boyars because he thinks they poisoned his wife.
        
        He organized his own police force, whose chief duty was to hunt down and murder people Ivan considered traitors. Ivan executed many boyars, their families, and the peasants who worked their lands.
        
        Ivan committed an act that was both a personal tragedy and a
        national disaster. He killed his oldest son and heir. After he died, only his weak second son was left to rule.
      - Rise of the Romanovs
        
        Ivan’s son proved to be physically and mentally incapable
        of ruling. After he died without an heir, Russia experienced a period of turmoil.
        
        Boyars struggled for power, and heirs of czars died under mysterious conditions.
        
        Representatives from many Russian cities met to choose the next czar. Their choice was Michael Romanov, grandnephew of Ivan the Terrible’s wife, Anastasia.
  - - - Russia Contrasts with Europe
        
        When Peter I came to power, Russia was still a land of boyars and serfs. Russian landowners wanted serfs to stay on the land
        and produce large harvests. The landowners treated the serfs like property.
        
        In the Middle Ages, Russia had looked to Constantinople, not to Rome, for leadership.
        
        Then Mongol rule had cut Russia off from the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration. Geographic barriers also isolated Russia.
        
        Religious differences widened the gap between western
        Europe and Russia. The Russians had adopted the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity.
        
        Western Europeans were mostly Catholics or Protestants, and the Russians viewed them as heretics and avoided them.
      - Peter Visits the West
        
        Peter was fascinated by the modern tools and machines in the foreigners’ shops. He had a passion for ships and the sea. He believed that Russia’s future depended on havinga warm-water port.
        
        He embarked on the “Grand Embassy,” a long visit to western Europe. Never before had a czar traveled among Western “heretics.”
      - Peter Rules Absolutely
        
        Peter resolved that Russia would compete with Europe on both military and commercial terms.
        
        Peter's Reforms
        
        Although Peter believed Russia needed to change, he knew that many of his people disagreed. To force change upon his state, Peter increased his powers as an absolute ruler.
        
        Peter brought the Russian Orthodox Church under state control. He abolished the office of patriarch, head of the Church. He set up a group called the Holy Synod to run the Church under his direction.
        
        Peter reduced the power of the great landowners. To modernize his army, Peter hired European officers, who drilled his soldiers in European tactics with European weapons.
        
        To pay for
        this huge army, Peter imposed heavy taxes.
        
        Westernizing Russia
        
        Peter introduced potatoes, which became a staple of the Russian diet. Started Russia’s first newspaper and edited its first issue himself
        
        He raised women’s status by having them attend social gatherings. Ordered the nobles to give up their traditional clothes for Western fashions
        
        He advanced education by opening a school of navigation and introducing schools for the arts and sciences.
        
        Peter believed that education was a key to Russia’s
        progress.
        
        Establishing St. Petersburg
        
        To promote education and growth, Peter wanted a seaport that would make it easier to travel to the West.
        
        Peter fought Sweden to gain a piece of the Baltic coast. After 21 long years of war, Russia finally won the “window on Europe” that Peter had so desperately wanted.
        
        He began building a new city on Swedish lands occupied by Russian troops. Peter called the city St. Petersburg, after his patron saint.
        
        To build a city on a desolate swamp was no easy matter. An estimated 25,000 to 100,000 people died from the terrible working conditions and widespread diseases.
        
        Peter ordered many Russian nobles to leave the comforts of Moscow and settle in his new capital. St. Petersburg became a busy port.
        
        By the time of his death in 1725, Russia was a power to be reckoned with in Europe.