[Sidenote: French Aid]

Gustavus Adolphus landed in Pomerania in 1630 and proceeded to occupy the chief northern fortresses and to treat for alliances with the influential Protestant electors of Brandenburg and Saxony. While Gustavus tarried at Potsdam, in protracted negotiation with the elector of Brandenburg, Tilly and the imperialists succeeded, after a long siege, in capturing the Lutheran stronghold of Magdeburg (May, 1631). The fall of the city was attended by a mad massacre of the garrison, and of armed and unarmed citizens, in streets, houses, and churches; at least 20,000 perished; wholesale plundering and a general conflagration completed the havoc. The sack of Magdeburg evoked the greatest indignation from the Lutherans. Gustavus Adolphus, now joined by the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony and by many other Protestant princes of northern Germany, advanced into Saxony, where, in September, 1631, he avenged the destruction of Magdeburg by defeating decisively the smaller army of Tilly on the Breitenfeld, near Leipzig. Then Gustavus turned southwestward, making for the Rhine valley, with the idea of forming a union with the Calvinist princes. Only the prompt protest of his powerful ally, Richelieu, prevented the rich archbishoprics of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz from passing immediately under Swedish control. Next Gustavus Adolphus turned east and invaded Bavaria. Tilly, who had reassembled his forces, failed to check the invasion and lost his life in a battle on the Lech (April, 1632). The victorious Swedish king now made ready to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of the Austrian Habsburgs. As a last resort to check the invader, the emperor recalled Wallenstein with full power over his freelance army. About the same time the emperor concluded a close alliance with his kinsman, the ambitious Philip IV of Spain.

The memorable contest between the two great generals—Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein—was brought to a tragic close in the late autumn of the same year on the fateful field of Luetzen. Wallenstein was defeated, but Gustavus was killed. Although the Swedes continued the struggle, they were comparatively few in numbers and possessed no such general as their fallen king. On the other side, Wallenstein's loyalty could not be depended upon; rumors reached the ear of the emperor that his foremost general was negotiating with the Protestants to make peace on his own terms; and Wallenstein was assassinated in his camp by fanatical imperialists (February, 1634). The tragic removal of both Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus, the economic exhaustion of the whole empire, and the national desire on the part of many Protestant princes, as well as on the part of the Catholic emperor, to rid the Germanies of foreign soldiers and foreign influence—all these developments seemed to point to the possibility of concluding the third, or Swedish, period of the war, not perhaps as advantageously for the imperialist cause as had ended the Bohemian revolt or the Danish intervention, but at any rate in a spirit of reasonable compromise. In fact, in May, 1635, a treaty was signed at Prague between the emperor and such princes as were then willing to lay down their arms, whereby all the military forces in the empire were henceforth to be under the direct control of the emperor (with the exception of a contingent under the special command of the Lutheran elector of Saxony); all princely leagues within the empire were to be dissolved; mutual restoration of captured territory was to be made; and, as to the fundamental question of the ownership of ecclesiastical lands, it was settled that any such lands actually held in the year 1627, whether acquired before or after the religious peace of Augsburg of 1555, should continue so to be held for forty years or until in each case an amicable arrangement could be reached.

What wrecked the peace of Prague was not so much the disinclination of the Protestant princes of Germany to accept its terms as the policy of Cardinal Richelieu of France. Richelieu was convinced more than ever that French greatness depended upon Habsburg defeat; he would not suffer the princes to make peace with the emperor until the latter was soundly trounced and all Germany devastated; instead of supplying the Swedes and the German Protestants with assistance from behind the scenes, he now would come boldly upon the stage and engage the emperor in open combat.

[Sidenote: 4. French Intervention. Richelieu's Policy in the Germanies]

The final, or French, period of the Thirty Years' War lasted from 1635 to 1648—almost as long as the other three periods put together. Richelieu entered the war not only to humble the Austrian Habsburgs and, if possible, to wrest the valuable Rhenish province of Alsace from the Holy Roman Empire, but also to strike telling blows at the Continental supremacy of the Spanish Habsburgs, who, since 1632, had been actively helping their German kinsmen. The Spanish king, it will be remembered, still held the Belgian Netherlands, on the northern frontier of France, and Franche Comte on the east, while oft-contested Milan in northern Italy was a Spanish dependency. France was almost surrounded by Spanish possessions, and Richelieu naturally declared war against Spain as against the emperor. The wily French cardinal could count upon the Swedes and many of the German Protestants to keep the Austrian Habsburgs busily engaged and upon the assistance of the Dutch in humbling the Spaniard, for Spain had not yet formally recognized the independence of the Dutch Netherlands. Inasmuch as England was chiefly concerned with troublesome internal affairs, the enemies of France could hardly expect aid from across the Channel.

[Sidenote: Conde and Turenne]

At first, the French suffered a series of military reverses, due in large part to unpreparedness, incompetent commanders, and ill- disciplined troops. At one time it looked as if the Spaniards might capture Paris. But with unflagging zeal and patriotic devotion, Richelieu pressed on the war. He raised armies, drilled them, and dispatched them into the Netherlands, into Alsace, into Franche Comte, into northern Italy, and into Roussillon. He stirred up the Portuguese to revolt and recover their independence (1640). And Mazarin, who succeeded him in 1642, preserved his foreign policy intact. Young and brilliant generals now appeared at the head of the French forces, among whom were the dashing Prince of Conde (1621-1686), and the master strategist Turenne (1611-1675), the greatest soldier of his day. The former's victory of Rocroi (1643) dated the commencement of the supremacy of France in war, a supremacy which was retained for a century.

[Sidenote: Peace of Westphalia (1648)]

Finally, Turenne's masterly maneuvering against the Spaniards and his forcible detachment of Maximilian of Bavaria from the imperial alliance broke down effective opposition and ended the Thirty Years' War in the Germanies. The various treaties which were signed in 1648 constituted the peace of Westphalia.

The political clauses of the peace of Westphalia provided: (1) Each German state was free to make peace or war without consulting the emperor—each prince was invested with sovereign authority; (2) France received Alsace, except the free city of Strassburg, and was confirmed in the possession of the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun; (3) Sweden was given territory in Pomerania controlling the mouth of the Oder, and the secularized bishopric of Bremen, surrounding the city of that name and dominating the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser; (4) France and Sweden received votes in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, with implied rights to exercise an oversight of German affairs; (5) Brandenburg secured eastern Pomerania and several bishoprics, including Magdeburg; (6) The Palatinate was divided between Maximilian of Bavaria and the son of the deposed Frederick—each bearing the title of elector; (7) Switzerland and the United Provinces (Holland) were formally recognized as independent of the empire and of Spain respectively.

The religious difficulties were settled as follows: (1) Calvinists were to share all the privileges of their Lutheran fellow-Protestants; (2) All church property was to be secured in the possession of those, whether Catholics or Protestants, who held it on 1 January, 1624; (3) An equal number of Catholic and Protestant judges were to sit in the imperial courts. Inasmuch as after 1648 there was little relative change of religion in Germany, this religious settlement was practically permanent.

[Sidenote: Evil Effects of the Thirty Years' War on Germany]

One of the most striking results of the peace of Westphalia was the completion of a long process of political disruption in the Germanies. Only the form of the Holy Roman Empire survived. The already shadowy imperial power became a mere phantom, nor was a change destined to come until, centuries later, the Prussian Hohenzollerns should replace the Austrian Habsburgs. Meanwhile the weakness of Germany enabled France to extend her northern boundaries toward the Rhine.

Far more serious than her political losses were the economic results to Germany. The Thirty Years' War left Germany almost a desert. "About two-thirds of the total population had disappeared; the misery of those that survived was piteous in the extreme. Five-sixths of the villages in the empire had been destroyed. We read of one in the Palatinate that in two years had been plundered twenty-eight times. In Saxony, packs of wolves roamed about, for in the north quite one-third of the land had gone out of cultivation, and trade had drifted into the hands of the French or Dutch. Education had almost disappeared; and the moral decline of the people was seen in the coarsening of manners and the growth of superstition, as witnessed by frequent burning of witches."

[Sidenote: Continuation of War between French Bourbons and Spanish Hapsburgs. Peace of the Pyrenees 1659]

The peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War in the Germanies, but it did not stop the bitter contest between France and Spain. Mazarin was determined to secure even greater territorial gains for his country, and, although Conde deserted to Spain, Turenne was more than a match for any commander whom the Spaniards could put in the field. Mazarin, moreover, by ceding the fortress of Dunkirk to the English, obtained aid from the veteran troops of Cromwell. It was not until 1659 that, in the celebrated treaty of the Pyrenees, peace was concluded between France and Spain. This provided: (1) France added the province of Roussillon on her southern frontier and that of Artois on the north; (2) France was recognized as protector of the duchy of Lorraine; (3) Conde was pardoned and reinstated in French service; (4) Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of the Spanish Habsburg king, Philip IV, was to marry the young French Bourbon king, Louis XIV, and, in consideration of the payment of a large dowry, was to renounce all claims to the Spanish dominions.

The treaty of the Pyrenees was the last important achievement of Cardinal Mazarin. But before he died in 1661 he had the satisfaction of seeing the triumph of those policies which he had adopted from Richelieu: the royal power firmly established within France; the Habsburgs, whether Austrian or Spanish, defeated and humiliated; the Bourbon king of France respected and feared throughout Europe.

[Sidenote: Development of International Law] [Sidenote: In Italy]

Not least among the results of the conflict between Habsburgs and Bourbons was the stimulus given to the acceptance of fixed principles of international law and of definite usages for international diplomacy. In ancient times the existence of the all-embracing Roman Empire had militated against the development of international relations as we know them to-day. In the early middle ages feudal society had left little room for diplomacy. Of course, both in ancient times and in the middle ages, there had been embassies and negotiations and treaties; but the embassies had been no more than temporary missions directed to a particular end, and there had been neither permanent diplomatic agents nor a professional diplomatic class. To the development of such a class the Italy of the fifteenth century had given the first impetus. Northern and central Italy was then filled, as we have discovered, with a large number of city-states, all struggling for political and economic mastery, all dependent for the maintenance of a "balance of power" upon alliances and counter alliances, all employing diplomacy quite as much as war in the game of peninsular politics. It was in Italy that there grew up the institution of passports, the distinction between armed forces and civilians, international comity, and in fact the very notion that states have an interest in the observance of law and order among themselves. Of special importance, in this connection, was Venice, which gradually evolved a regular system of permanent diplomats, and incidentally obliged her ambassadors to present detailed reports on foreign affairs; and, because of their commercial preeminence in the Mediterranean, the Venetians contributed a good deal to the development of rules of the sea first in time of peace, and subsequently in time of war.

[Sidenote: In Europe in Sixteenth Century]

During the sixteenth century the Italian ideas of statecraft and inter- state relations, ably championed by Machiavelli, were communicated to the nations of western Europe. Permanent embassies were established in foreign countries by the kings of Spain, Portugal, France, and England. Customs of international intercourse grew up. Diplomacy became a recognized occupation of distinguished statesmen.

[Sidenote: Thirty Years' War and International Law]

Two institutions might have thwarted or retarded the development of international law: one was the Catholic Church with its international organization and its claim to universal spiritual supremacy; the other was the Holy Roman Empire, with its claim to temporal predominance and with its insistence upon the essential inequality between itself and all other states. But the Protestant Revolt in the sixteenth century dealt a severe blow to the claim and power of the Catholic Church. And the long struggle between Bourbons and Habsburgs, culminating in the Thirty Years' War, reduced the Holy Roman Empire to a position, in theory as well as in fact, certainly no higher than that of the national monarchies of France, England, and Spain, or that of the Dutch Republic.

From the treaties of Westphalia emerged a real state-system in Europe, based on the theory of the essential equality of independent sovereign states, though admitting of the fact that there were Great Powers. Henceforth the public law of Europe was to be made by diplomats and by congresses of ambassadors. Westphalia pointed the new path.

Another aspect of international relations was emphasized in the first half of the seventeenth century. It was the Thirty Years' War, with its revolting cruelty, which brought out the contrast between the more humane practice of war as an art in Italy and the savagery which disgraced the Germanies. The brutality of the struggle turned thinkers' attention to the need of formulating rules for the protection of non- combatants in time of war, the treatment of the sick and wounded, the prohibition of wanton pillage and other horrors which shocked the awakening conscience of seventeenth-century Europe. It was the starting-point of the publication of treatises on international law.

[Sidenote: Grotius]

The first effective work, the one which was destined long to influence sovereigns and diplomats, was Grotius's On the Law of War and Peace. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) [Footnote: Known in his native country as Huig van Groot. The last years of his life he spent as ambassador of Sweden at the French court.] was a learned Dutch humanist, whose active participation in politics against the stadholder of the Netherlands and whose strong protests for religious toleration against the dominant orthodox Calvinists of his country combined to bring upon himself a sentence of life imprisonment. Immured in a Dutch fortress in 1619, he managed to escape and fled to Paris, where he prepared and in 1625 published his immortal work. On the Law of War and Peace is an exhaustive and masterly text-book—the first and one of the best of the systematic treatises on the fundamental principles of international law.

ADDITIONAL READING

HENRY IV, RICHELIEU, AND MAZARIN. Brief general accounts: H. O. Wakeman, The Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715 (1894), ch. i-vii; Mary A. Hollings, Renaissance and Reformation, 1453-1660 (1910), ch. xi, xii; J. H. Sacret, Bourbon and Vasa, 1610-1715 (1914), ch. i-vii; A. J. Grant, The French Monarchy, 1483-1789, Vol. I (1900), ch. vi-ix; G. W. Kitchin, A History of France, 3d and 4th editions (1894-1899), Vol. II, Book IV, ch. i-iii, Vol. III, Book IV, ch. iv-viii; H. T. Dyer, A History of Modern Europe from the Fall of Constantinople, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. xxix-xxxv; Victor Duruy, History of Modern Times, trans. and rev. by E. A. Grosvenor (1894), ch. xvii, xviii, xx; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. II, ch. xx (by Stanley Leathes, on Henry IV), Vol. IV, ch. iv (on Richelieu), xxi (on Mazarin); Histoire generale, Vol. V, ch. vi-viii, Vol. VI, ch. i. More detailed works: Histoire de France, ed. by Ernest Lavisse, Vol. VI, Part I (1904), Livre IV (on Henry IV), Vol. VI, Part II (1905), Livres I-III (on Henry IV and Richelieu, by J. H. Mariejol), Vol. VII, Part I (1906), Livre I (on Mazarin, by E. Lavisse); P. F. Willert, Henry of Navarre (1897), in "Heroes of the Nations" Series; C. C. Jackson, The First of the Bourbons, 2 vols. (1890); J. B. Perkins, Richelieu and the Growth of French Power (1900), in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series, and, by the same author, an admirable writer and authority on the whole period, France under Mazarin, 2 vols. (1886); Georges (Vicomte) d'Avenel, Richelieu et la monarchie absolue, 4 vols. (1884-1890), the foremost French work on the subject; Gabriel Hanotaux, Origines de l'institution des intendants de provinces (1884), a careful study of the beginnings of the office of intendant by a famous French statesman and historian; P. A. Cheruel, Histoire de France pendant la minorite de Louis XIV, 4 vols. (1879-1880), and, by the same author, Histoire de France sous le ministere de Mazarin, 1651-1661, 3 vols. (1882), a very elaborate treatment of Mazarin's public career in France; Louis Batiffol, The Century of the Renaissance in France, Eng. trans. by Elsie F. Buckley (1916), containing an excellent chapter on the French monarchy at the close of the sixteenth century.

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. General treatments: E. F. Henderson, A Short History of Germany, Vol. I (1902), ch. xvii, xviii, a good, short introduction; S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War (1897), in the "Epochs of Modern History" Series, the best brief survey; History of All Nations, Vol. XII, ch. iv-viii, by Martin Philippson, a well-known German historian; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IV (1906), ch. i, iii, v-vii, xiii, xiv, xx, xxii; Histoire generale, Vol. V, ch. xii; Anton Gindely, The Thirty Years' War, trans. from the German by Andrew Ten Brook, 2 vols. (1884), a popular treatment by a recognized authority in this field, breaking off, unfortunately, in the year 1623; Gustav Droysen, Das Zeitalter des dreissigjaehrigen Krieges (1888) and Georg Winter, Geschichte des dreissigjaehrigen Krieges (1893), two bulky volumes in the Oncken Series devoted respectively to the political and military aspects of the war; Emile Charveriat, Histoire de la guerre de trente ans, 2 vols. (1878), a reliable French account of the whole struggle. On the history of the Germanies from the religious peace of Augsburg to the peace of Westphalia there is the painstaking Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Gegenreformation und des dreissigjaehrigen Krieges, 1555-1648, by Moritz Ritter, 3 vols. (1889-1908). For the history of Austria during the period, see Franz Kroncs, Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs von der aeltesten Zeit, Vol. III (1877), Books XIV-XV. For the Netherlands, with special reference to Spain's part in the war: Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, Vol. IV, 1567-1648 (1911). For Bohemia: Ernest Denis, Fin de l'independance boheme, Vol. II (1890), and, by the same author, La Boheme depuis la Montagne-Blanche, Vol. I (1903). For Denmark and Sweden: R. N. Bain, Scandinavia, a Political History of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, from 1513 to 1900 (1905). There is a convenient biography of Gustavus Adolphus by C. R. L. Fletcher in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series (1890), and a more detailed study in German by Gustav Droysen, 2 vols. (1869-1870). On Wallenstein there are two standard German works: Leopold von Ranke, Geschichte Wallensteins, 3d ed. (1872), and Anton Gindely, Waldstein, 1625-1630, 2 vols. (1886). The best brief treatment of European international relations in the time of Richelieu and Mazarin is Emile Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique etrangere, 4th ed., Vol. I (1906), ch. i, ii, vi. For a brief treatment of the development of international law during the period, see D. J. Hill, History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. II (1906), ch. vii. The treaties of Westphalia are in the famous old compilation of Jean Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens, 8 vols. (1726-1731).



CHAPTER VII

THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1661-1743

THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV

Upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, the young king Louis XIV declared that he would assume personal charge of the domestic and foreign affairs of the French monarchy. From that date, throughout a long reign, Louis was in fact as well as in name ruler of the nation, and his rule, like that of Napoleon, stands out as a distinct epoch in French history.

[Sidenote: Louis XIV the Heir to Absolutist Tendencies]

Louis XIV profited by the earlier work of Henry IV, Sully, Richelieu, and Mazarin. He inherited a fairly compact state, the population of which was patriotic and loyal to the crown. Insurrections of Protestants or rebellions of the nobles were now things of the past. The Estates-General, the ancient form of representative government, had fallen into disuse and oblivion. Local administration was conducted by faithful middle-class officials, the intendants; and all powers of taxation, war, public improvements, police, and justice were centered in the hands of the king. Abroad, the rival Habsburgs had been humbled and French boundaries had been extended and French prestige heightened. Everything was in readiness for a great king to practice absolutism on a scale never before realized.

[Sidenote: Absolutism. Monarchy by Divine Right]

The theories of government upon which the absolutism of Louis XIV was based received a classic expression in a celebrated book written by Bossuet (1627-1704), a learned and upright bishop of the time. Government, according to Bossuet, [Footnote: The statements of the arguments in favor of monarchy by divine right are taken from Bossuet's famous book, La politique tiree des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte.] is divinely ordained in order to enable mankind to satisfy the natural instincts of living together in organized society. Under God, monarchy is, of all forms of government, the most usual and the most ancient, and therefore the most natural: it is likewise the strongest and most efficient, therefore the best. It is analogous to the rule of a family by the father, and, like that rule, should be hereditary. Four qualities are referred by the eloquent bishop to such an hereditary monarch: (1) That he is sacred is attested by his anointing at the time of coronation by the priests of the Church—it is accordingly blasphemy and sacrilege to assail the person of the king or to conspire against him; (2) That he is to provide for the welfare of his people and watch over their every activity may be gathered from the fact that he is, in a very real sense, the father of his people, the paternal king; (3) His power is absolute and autocratic, and for its exercise he is accountable to God alone—no man on earth may rightfully resist the royal commands, and the only recourse for subjects against an evil king is to pray God that his heart be changed; (4) Greater reason is given to a king than to any one else—the king is an earthly image of God's majesty, and it is wrong, therefore, to look upon him as a mere man. The king is a public person and in him the whole nation is embodied. "As in God are united all perfection and every virtue, so all the power of all the individuals in a community is united in the person of the king."

[Sidenote: Louis XIV]

Such was the theory of what is called divine-right monarchy or absolutism. It must be remembered that it had been gaining ground during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was accepted practically by all the French people as well as by most of their Continental neighbors. Even in England, as we shall presently see,[Footnote: See below, pp. 263 ff.] the Stuart kings attempted, for a time with success, to assert and maintain the doctrine. It was a political idea as popular in the seventeenth century as that of democracy is to-day. And Louis XIV was its foremost personification. Suave, dignified, elegant in manners and speech, the French king played his part well; he appeared to have been born and divinely appointed to the kingly calling.

For a king, Louis worked hard. He was conscientious and painstaking. Day after day he reviewed the details of administration. Over all things he had a watchful eye. Systematically he practiced what he termed the "trade of a king." "One reigns by work and for work," he wrote his grandson.

No prince was more fortunate than Louis XIV in his personal advisers and lieutenants. Not only were his praises proclaimed by the silver- tongued Bossuet, but he was served by such men as Colbert, the financier and reformer; Louvois, the military organizer; Vauban, the master builder of fortifications; Conde and Turenne, unconquerable generals; and by a host of literary lights, whom he patronized and pensioned, and who cast about his person a glamour of renown. Louis was hailed as the "Grand Monarch," and his age was appropriately designated the Age of Louis the Fourteenth.

[Sidenote: Versailles and the Court of Louis XIV]

At Versailles, some twelve miles from Paris, in the midst of what had been a sandy waste, the Grand Monarch erected those stately palaces, with their lavish furnishings, and broad parks and great groves and myriads of delightful fountains, which became Europe's pleasure center. Thither were drawn the French nobility, who, if shorn of all political power, were now exempted from disagreeable taxes and exalted as essential parts of a magnificent social pageant. The king must have noblemen as valets-de-chambre, as masters of the wardrobe or of the chase or of the revels. Only a nobleman was fit to comb the royal hair or to dry off the king after a bath. The nobles became, like so many chandeliers, mere decorations for the palace. Thus, about Versailles gathered the court of France, and the leaders of fashion met those of brains.

[Sidenote: "The Age of Louis XIV"]

It was a time when French manners, dress, speech, art, literature, and science were adopted as the models and property of civilized Europe. Corneille (1606-1684), the father of the French stage; Moliere (1622- 1673), the greatest of French dramatists; Racine (1639-1699), the polished, formal playwright; Madame de Sevigne (1626-1696), the brilliant and witty authoress of memoirs; La Fontaine (1621-1695), the popular rhymer of whimsical fables and teller of scandalous tales; and many another graced the court of Versailles and tasted the royal bounty. French became the language of fashion as well as of diplomacy— a position it has ever since maintained.

[Sidenote: "Rule of the Robe"]

While the court of Louis XIV was thus the focal point of French—almost of European—life, the professional and mercantile classes, who constituted the Third Estate, enjoyed comparative security and prosperity and under the king held all of the important offices of actual administration. Because of the judicial offices which the middle class filled, the government was popularly styled the "rule of the robe."

[Sidenote: "Colbert"]

Colbert (1619-1683), one of Louis's greatest ministers, was the son of a merchant, and was intensely interested in the welfare of the class to which he belonged. Installed in office through the favor of Mazarin, he was successively named, after the cardinal's death, superintendent of public works, controller-general of finances, minister of marine, of commerce and agriculture, and of the colonies. In short, until his death in 1683, he exerted power in every department of government except that of war. Although he never possessed the absolute personal authority which marked the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin, being plainly subservient to the king's commands, nevertheless he enjoyed for many years the royal favor and by incessant toil succeeded in accomplishing a good deal for the material prosperity of France. In many respects his policies and achievements resembled Sully's.

[Sidenote: Attempted Financial Reform]

First, financial reform claimed all the energies of Colbert. Under the government of Richelieu, and more particularly under that of Mazarin, the hard savings of Sully had been squandered, enormous sums had been granted to favorites, and the ever-increasing noble class had been exempted from taxation, an evil system of tax-gathering, called "farming the taxes," [Footnote: "Farming the taxes," that is, intrusting the collection of taxes to individuals or corporations that squeezed as much money as they could from the taxpayers and kept for themselves what they collected over and above the lump sum due the government.] had grown up, and the weight of the financial burden had fallen almost exclusively upon the wretched peasantry. Colbert sternly and fearlessly set about his task. He appointed agents whose honesty he could trust and reformed many of the abuses in tax-collecting. While he was unable to impose the direct land tax—the taille—upon the privileged nobility, he stoutly resisted every attempt further to augment the number of exemptions, and actually lowered this direct tax upon the peasantry by substituting indirect taxes, or customs duties, which would in some degree affect all the people. To lighten the burden of the country-folk, he sought to promote agriculture. He provided that no farmers' tools might be seized for debt. He encouraged the breeding of horses and cattle. He improved the roads and other means of interior communication. The great canal of Languedoc, joining the Mediterranean with the Garonne River and thence with the Atlantic, was planned and constructed under his patronage. As far as possible, the duties on the passage of agricultural produce from province to province were equalized.

[Sidenote: Colbert and French Merchantilism]

In forwarding what he believed to be his own class interests, Colbert was especially zealous. Manufactures and commerce were fostered in every way he could devise. New industries were established, inventors protected, workmen invited from foreign countries, native workmen prohibited to leave France. A heavy tariff was placed upon foreign imports in order to protect "infant industries" and increase the gain of French manufacturers and traders. Liberal bounties were allowed to French ships engaged in commerce, and foreign ships were compelled to pay heavy tonnage duties for using French ports. And along with the protective tariff and subsidizing of the merchant marine, went other pet policies of mercantilism, [Footnote: See above, pp. 63 f.] such as measures to prevent the exportation of precious metals from France, to encourage corporations and monopolies, and to extend minute governmental supervision over the manufacture, quality, quantity, and sale of all commodities. What advantages accrued from Colbert's efforts in this direction were more than offset by the unfortunate fact that the mercantile class was unduly enriched at the expense of other and numerically larger classes in the community, and that the centralized monarchy, in which the people had no part, proved itself unfit, in the long run, to oversee the details of business with wisdom or honesty.

[Sidenote: Colbert's "World Policy"]

Stimulation of industry and commerce has usually necessitated the creation of a protecting navy. Colbert appreciated the requirement and hastened to fulfill it. He reconstructed the docks and arsenal of Toulon and established great ship-yards at Rochefort, Calais, Brest, and Havre. He fitted out a large royal navy that could compare favorably with that of England or Spain or Holland. To supply it with recruits he drafted seamen from the maritime provinces and resorted to the use of criminals, who were often chained to the galleys like so many slaves of the new industry.

Likewise, the adoption of the mercantile policy seemed to demand the acquisition of a colonial empire, in which the mother-country should enjoy a trade monopoly. So Colbert became a vigorous colonial minister. He purchased Martinique and Guadeloupe in the West Indies, encouraged settlements in San Domingo, in Canada, and in Louisiana, and set up important posts in India, in Senegal, and in Madagascar. France, under Colbert, became a serious colonial competitor with her older European rivals.

Colbert was essentially a financier and economist. But to the arts of peace, which adorned the reign of Louis XIV, he was a potent contributor. He strengthened the French Academy, which had been founded by Richelieu, and himself established the Academy of Sciences, now called the Institute of France, and the great astronomical observatory at Paris. He pensioned many writers, and attracted foreign artists and scientists to France. Many buildings and triumphal arches were erected under his patronage.

[Sidenote: Louvois and French Militarism under Louis XIV]

In the arts of war, Louis XIV possessed an equally able and hard- working assistant. Louvois (1641-1691) was one of the greatest war ministers that the world has ever seen. He recruited and supported the largest and finest standing army of his day. He introduced severe regulations and discipline. He prescribed, for the first time in history, a distinctive military uniform and introduced the custom of marching in step. Under his supervision, camp life was placed upon a sanitary basis. And under his influence, promotion in the service no longer depended primarily on social position but upon merit as well. In Vauban (1633-1707), Louvois had the greatest military engineer in history—for it was Vauban who built those rows of superb fortifications on the northern and eastern frontiers of France. In Conde and Turenne, moreover, Louvois had first-class generals who could give immediate effect to his reforms and policies.

[Sidenote: Deceptive Character of the Glamour of the Age of Louis XIV]

Thus was the Grand Monarch well and faithfully served. Yet the outward show and glamour of his reign were very deceptive of the true internal conditions. Colbert tried to do too many things, with the result that his plans repeatedly miscarried. The nobles became more indolent, wasteful, and pleasure-loving, and the middle class more selfish and more devoted to their own class interests, while the lot of the peasantry,—the bulk of the nation,—despite the spasmodic efforts of the paternal government, steadily grew worse under the unrelieved burden of taxation. Then, too, the king was extravagant in maintaining his mistresses, his court, and his favorites. His excessive vanity had to be appeased by expensive entertainment and show. He preferred the spectacular but woeful feats of arms to the less pretentious but more solid triumphs of peace. Indeed, in course of time, Colbert found his influence with the king waning before that of Louvois, and when he died it was with the bitter thought that his financial retrenchment had been in vain, that his husbanded resources were being rapidly dissipated in foreign war. It was Louis's wars that deprived his reign of true grandeur and paved the way for future disaster.

[Sidenote: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685]

Before turning our attention to the foreign wars of Louis XIV, mention must be made of another blot on his reign. It was Louis XIV who renewed the persecution of the Protestants. He was moved alike by the absolutist's desire to secure complete uniformity throughout France and by the penitent's religious fervor to make amends for earlier scandals of his private life. For a time he contented himself with so-called dragonnades—quartering licentious soldiers upon the Huguenots—but at length in 1685 he formally revoked the Edict of Nantes. France, which for almost a century had led Europe in the principle and practice of religious toleration, was henceforth reactionary. Huguenots were still granted liberty of conscience, but were denied freedom of worship and deprived of all civil rights in the kingdom. The immediate effect of this arbitrary and mistaken action was the emigration of large numbers of industrious and valuable citizens, who added materially to the political and economic life of England, Holland, and Prussia, the chief Protestant foes of France.

EXTENSION OF FRENCH FRONTIERS

Louis XIV was not a soldier himself. He never appeared in military uniform or rode at the head of his troops. What he lacked, however, in personal genius as a great military commander, he compensated for in a genuine fondness for war and in remarkable personal gifts of diplomacy. He was one of the greatest diplomats of his age, and, as we have seen, he possessed large loyal armies and able generals that he could employ in prosecuting the traditional foreign policy of France.

[Sidenote: Traditional Foreign Policy of France]

This foreign policy, which had been pursued by Francis I, Henry II, Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin, had for its goal the humiliation of the powerful Habsburgs, whether of Austria or of Spain. Although France had gained materially at their expense in the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees, much remained to be done by Louis XIV. When the Grand Monarch assumed direct control of affairs in 1661, the Spanish Habsburgs still ruled not only the peninsular kingdom south of France, but the Belgian Netherlands to the north, Franche Comte to the east, and Milan in northern Italy, while their kinsmen of Austria maintained shadowy imperial government over the rich Rhenish provinces on the northeastern boundary of France. France was still almost completely encircled by Habsburg holdings.

[Sidebar: Doctrine of "Natural Boundaries"]

To justify his subsequent aggressions, Louis XIV propounded the doctrine of "natural boundaries." Every country, he maintained, should secure such frontiers as nature had obviously provided—mountains, lakes, or rivers; and France was naturally provided with the frontiers of ancient Gaul—the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine River, and the Ocean. Any foreign monarch or state that claimed power within such frontiers was an interloper and should be expelled.

[Sidenote: The Wars of Louis XIV]

For many years, and in three great wars, Louis XIV endeavored, with some success, to reach the Rhine. These three wars—the War of Devolution, the Dutch War, and the War of the League of Augsburg—we shall now discuss. A fourth great war, directed toward the acquisition of the Spanish throne by the Bourbon family, will be treated separately on account of the wide and varied interests involved.

[Sidenote: The "War of Devolution"]

The War of Devolution was an attempt of Louis to gain the Spanish or Belgian Netherlands. It will be remembered that in accordance with the peace of the Pyrenees, Louis had married Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Now by a subsequent marriage Philip IV had had a son, a weak-bodied, half-witted prince, who came to the throne in 1665 as Charles II. Louis XIV at once took advantage of this turn of affairs to assert in behalf of his wife a claim to a portion of the Spanish inheritance. The claim was based on a curious custom which had prevailed in the inheritance of private property in the Netherlands, to the effect that children of a first marriage should inherit to the exclusion of those of a subsequent marriage. Louis insisted that this custom, called "devolution," should be applied not only to private property but also to sovereignty and that his wife should be recognized, therefore, as sovereign of the Belgian Netherlands. In reality the claim was a pure invention, but the French king thought it would be a sufficient apology for the robbery of a weak brother-in-law.

Before opening hostilities, Louis XIV made use of his diplomatic wiles in order to guard himself against assistance which other states might render to Spain. In the first place, he obtained promises of friendly neutrality from Holland, Sweden, and the Protestant states of Germany which had been allied with France during the Thirty Years' War. In the second place, he threatened to stir up another civil war in the Holy Roman Empire if the Austrian Habsburgs should help their Spanish kinsman. Finally, he had no fear of England because that country was in the midst of a peculiarly bitter trade war with the Dutch. [Footnote: It was on the eve of this second trade war between England and Holland (1665-1667) that the English took New Amsterdam from the Dutch (1664) and rechristened it New York, and during this struggle that the remarkable Dutch admiral, De Ruyter, burned the English fleet and shipping on the Thames (June, 1667).]

[Sidenote: The "Balance of Power"]

The War of Devolution lasted from 1667 to 1668. The well-disciplined and splendidly generaled armies of Louis XIV had no difficulty in occupying the border fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands. The whole territory would undoubtedly have fallen to France, had not a change unexpectedly occurred in international affairs. The trade war between England and Holland came to a speedy end, and the two former rivals now joined with Sweden in forming the Triple Alliance to arrest the war and to put a stop to the French advance. The "balance of power" demanded, said the allies, that the other European states should combine in order to prevent any one state from becoming too powerful. This plea for the "balance of power" was the reply to the French king's plea for "natural boundaries."

[Sidenote: Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668]

The threats of the Triple Alliance caused Louis XIV to negotiate the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which Spain surrendered to France an important section of territory in Flanders, including the fortified cities of Charleroi, Tournai, and Lille, but still retained the greater part of the Belgian Netherlands. The taste of the Grand Monarch was thereby whetted, but his appetite hardly appeased.

[Sidenote: Franco-Dutch Rivalry]

Louis blamed the Dutch for his rebuff. He was thoroughly alive to the fact that Holland would never take kindly to having powerful France as a near neighbor, and that French acquisition of the Belgian Netherlands, therefore, would always be opposed by the Dutch. Nor were wounded vanity and political considerations the only motives for the Grand Monarch's second war, that against the Dutch. France, as well as England, was now becoming a commercial and colonial rival of Holland, and it seemed both to Louis XIV and to Colbert that the French middle class would be greatly benefited by breaking the trade monopolies of the Dutch. Louis's second war was quite as much a trade war as a political conflict.

[Sidenote: Civil Strife in Holland]

First, Louis bent his energies to breaking up the Triple Alliance and isolating Holland. He took advantage of the political situation in England to arrange (1670) the secret treaty of Dover with Charles II, the king of that country: in return for a large pension, which should free him from reliance upon Parliament, the English king undertook to declare himself a Roman Catholic and to withdraw from the Triple Alliance. Liberal pensions likewise bought off the Swedish government. It seemed now as if Holland, alone and friendless, would have to endure a war with her powerful enemy. Nor was Holland in shape for a successful resistance. Ever since she had gained formal recognition of her independence (1648), she had been torn by civil strife. On one side, the head of the Orange family, who bore the title of stadholder, supported by the country districts, the nobles, the Calvinistic clergy, and the peasantry, hoped to consolidate the state and to establish an hereditary monarchy. On the other side, the aristocratic burghers and religious liberals, the townsfolk generally, found an able leader in the celebrated Grand Pensionary, John DeWitt (1625-1672), who sought to preserve the republic and the rights of the several provinces. For over twenty years, the latter party was in power, but as the young prince of Orange, William III, grew to maturity, signs were not lacking of a reaction in favor of his party.

[Sidenote: The Dutch War]

Under these circumstances, Louis XIV declared war against Holland in 1672. French troops at once occupied Lorraine on the pretext that its duke was plotting with the Dutch, and thence, proceeding down the Rhine, past Cologne, invaded Holland and threatened the prosperous city of Amsterdam. The Dutch people, in a frenzy of despair, murdered John DeWitt, whom they unjustly blamed for their reverses; and, at the order of the young William III, who now assumed supreme command, they cut the dykes and flooded a large part of northern Holland. The same expedient which had enabled them to expel the Spaniards in the War of Independence now stayed the victorious advance of the French.

The refusal of Louis XIV to accept the advantageous terms of peace offered by the Dutch aroused general apprehension throughout Europe. The Emperor Leopold and the Great Elector of Brandenburg made an offensive alliance with Holland, which subsequently was joined by Spain and several German states. The general struggle, thus precipitated, continued indeed with success for France. Turenne, by a brilliant victory, compelled the Great Elector to make peace. The emperor was defeated. The war was carried into the Spanish Netherlands and Franche Comte.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Nijmwegen, 1678]

But when at length the English Parliament compelled Charles II to adhere to the general anti-French alliance, Louis XIV thought it was time to make peace. As events proved, it was not Holland but Spain that had to pay the penalties of Louis's second war. By the treaty of Nijmwegen, the former lost nothing, while the latter ceded to France the long-coveted province of Franche Comte and several strong fortresses in the Belgian Netherlands. France, moreover, continued to occupy the duchy of Lorraine.

[Sidenote: Effects of the Dutch War on France]

Thus, if Louis XIV had failed to punish the insolence of the Dutch, he had at least succeeded in extending the French frontiers one stage nearer the Rhine. He had become the greatest and most-feared monarch in Europe. Yet for these gains France paid heavily. The border provinces had been wasted by war. The treasury was empty, and the necessity of negotiating loans and increasing taxes put Colbert in despair. Turenne, the best general, had been killed late in the contest, and Conde, on account of ill health, was obliged to withdraw from active service.

Yet at the darker side of the picture, the Grand Monarch refused to look. He was puffed up with pride by his successes in war and diplomacy. Like many another vain, ambitious ruler, he felt that what economic grievances or social discontent might exist within his country could readily be forgotten or obscured in a blaze of foreign glory—in the splendor of ambassadors, the glint and din of arms, the grim shedding of human blood. Having picked the sanguinary path, and at first found pleasure therein, the Grand Monarch pursued it to an end bitter for his family and tragic for his people.

[Sidenote: The "Chambers of Reunion" and Further French Annexations]

No sooner was the Dutch War concluded than Louis XIV set out by a policy of trickery and diplomacy further to augment the French territories. The cessions, which the treaties of Westphalia and Nijmwegen guaranteed to France, had been made "with their dependencies." It now occurred to Louis that doubtless in the old feudal days of the middle ages or early modern times some, if not all, of his new acquisitions had possessed feudal suzerainty over other towns or territories not yet incorporated into France. Although in most cases such ancient feudal ties had practically lapsed by the close of the seventeenth century, nevertheless the French king decided to reinvoke them in order, if possible, to add to his holdings. He accordingly constituted special courts, called "Chambers of Reunion," composed of his own obedient judges, who were to decide what districts by right of ancient feudal usage should be annexed. So painstaking and minute were the investigations of these Chambers of Reunion that they adjudged to their own country, France, no less than twenty important towns of the Holy Roman Empire, including Luxemburg and Strassburg. Nothing seemed to prevent the prompt execution of these judgments by the French king. He had kept his army on a war footing. The king of England was again in his pay and his alliance. The emperor was hard pressed by an invasion of the Ottoman Turks. Armed imperial resistance at Strassburg was quickly overcome (1681), and Vauban, the great engineer, proceeded to make that city the chief French fortress upon the Rhine. A weak effort of the Spanish monarch to protect Luxemburg from French aggression was doomed to dismal failure (1684).

[Sidenote: War of the League of Augsburg or of the Palatinate]

Alarmed by the steady advance of French power, the Emperor Leopold in 1686 succeeded in forming the League of Augsburg with Spain, Sweden, and several German princes, in order to preserve the territorial integrity of the Holy Roman Empire. Nor was it long before the League of Augsburg was called upon to resist further encroachments of the French king. In 1688 Louis dispatched a large army into the Rhenish Palatinate to enforce a preposterous claim which he had advanced to that valuable district. The war which resulted was Louis's third struggle, and has been variously styled the War of the League of Augsburg or the War of the Palatinate. In America, where it was to be paralleled by an opening conflict between French and English colonists, it has been known as King William's War.

[Sidenote: William III, Stadholder of Holland and King of England]

In his first two wars, Louis XIV could count upon the neutrality, if not the friendly aid, of the English. Their king was dependent upon him for financial support in maintaining an absolutist government. Their influential commercial and trading classes, who still suffered more from Dutch than from French rivalry, displayed no anxiety to mix unduly in the dynastic conflicts on the Continent. Louis had an idea that he could count upon the continuation of the same English policy; he was certainly on good terms with the English king, James II (1685-1688). But the deciding factor in England and in the war was destined to be not the subservient James II but the implacable William III. This William III, [Footnote: William III (1650-1702), Dutch stadholder in 1672 and British king in 1689.] as stadholder of Holland, had long been a stubborn opponent of Louis XIV on the Continent; he had repeatedly displayed his ability as a warrior and as a cool, crafty schemer. Through his marriage with the princess Mary, elder daughter of James II, he now managed adroitly to ingratiate himself with the Protestant, parliamentary, and commercial parties in England that were opposing the Catholic, absolutist, and tyrannical policies of James.

We shall presently see that the English Revolution of 1688, which drove James II into exile, was a decisive step in the establishment of constitutional government in England. It was likewise of supreme importance in its effects upon the foreign policy of Louis XIV, for it called to the English throne the son-in-law of James, William III, the stadholder of Holland and arch enemy of the French king.

[Sidenote: Beginning of a new Hundred Years' War between France and England]

England, under the guidance of her new sovereign, promptly joined the League of Augsburg, and declared war against France. Trade rivalries between Holland and England were in large part composed, and the colonial empires of the two states, now united under a joint ruler, naturally came into conflict with the colonial empire of France. Thus, in addition to the difficulties which the Bourbons encountered in promoting their dynastic interests on the continent of Europe, they were henceforth confronted by a vast colonial and commercial struggle with England. It was the beginning of a Hundred Years' War that was to be fought for the mastery of India and America.

Louis XIV never seemed to appreciate the importance of the colonial side of the contest. He was too much engrossed in his ambition of stretching French boundaries to the Rhine. So in discussing the War of the League of Augsburg as well as the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession, we shall devote our attention in this chapter primarily to the European and dynastic elements, reserving the account of the parallel colonial struggle to a later chapter on the "World Conflict of France and Great Britain."

The War of the League of Augsburg, Louis' third war, lasted from 1689 to 1697. Notwithstanding the loss of Turenne and Conde, the splendidly organized French armies were able to hold the allies at bay and to save their country from invasion. They even won several victories on the frontier. But on the sea, the struggle was less successful for Louis, and a French expedition to Ireland in favor of James II proved disastrous. After many years of strife, ruinous to all the combatants, the Grand Monarch sued for peace.

[Sidenote: The Treaty of Ryswick, 1697]

By the treaty of Ryswick, which concluded the War of the League of Augsburg, Louis XIV (1) surrendered nearly all the places adjudged to him by the Chambers of Reunion, except Strassburg; (2) allowed the Dutch to garrison the chief fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands as a "barrier" against French aggression; (3) granted the Dutch a favorable commercial treaty; (4) restored Lorraine to its duke; (5) abandoned his claim to the Palatinate; (6) acknowledged William III as king of England and promised to support no attempt against his throne. Thus, the French king lost no territory,—in fact, he obtained full recognition of his ownership of the whole province of Alsace,—but his reputation and vanity had been uncomfortably wounded.

THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

One of the main reasons that prompted Louis XIV to sue for peace and to abandon his claims on Lorraine and the Palatinate was the rapid physical decline of the inglorious Spanish monarch, Charles II, of whose enormous possessions the French king hoped by diplomacy and intrigue to secure valuable portions.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Inheritance]

Spain was still a great power. Under its crown were gathered not only the ancient kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre in the Spanish peninsula, but the greater part of the Belgian Netherlands, and in Italy the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the duchy of Milan, and the control of Tuscany, as well as the huge colonial empire in America and the Philippines. At the time when kings were absolute rulers and reckoned their territories as personal possessions, much depended upon the royal succession.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Succession]

Now it happened that the Spanish Habsburgs were dying out in the male line. Charles II was himself without children or brothers. Of his sisters, the elder was the wife of Louis XIV and the younger was married to the Emperor Leopold, the heir of the Austrian Habsburgs. Louis XIV had renounced by the peace of the Pyrenees (1659) all claims to the Spanish throne on condition that a large dowry be paid him, but the impoverished state of the Spanish exchequer had prevented the payment of the dowry. Louis, therefore, might lay claim to the whole inheritance of Charles II and entertain the hope of seeing the Bourbons supplant the Habsburgs in some of the fairest lands of Christendom. In opposition to the French contention, the emperor was properly moved by family pride to put forth the claim of his wife and that of himself as the nearest male relative of the Spanish king. If the contention of Leopold were sustained, a single Habsburg ruler might once more unite an empire as vast as that which the Emperor Charles V had once ruled. On the other side, if the ambition of Louis XIV were realized, a new and formidable Bourbon empire would be erected. In either case the European "balance of power" would be destroyed.

[Sidenote: Commercial and Colonial Complications]

Bound up with the political problem in Europe were grave commercial and colonial questions. According to the mercantilist theories that flourished throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, every country which possessed colonies should reserve trade privileges with them exclusively to its own citizens. So long as France and Spain were separate and each was only moderately powerful, their commercial rivals, notably England and Holland, might hope to gain special trade- concessions from time to time in French or Spanish colonies. But once the colonial empires of France and Spain were united under a joint ruler, such a vast monopoly would be created as would effectually prevent the expansion of English or Dutch commerce while it heightened the economic prosperity of the Bourbon subjects.

[Sidenote: Attempts to Partition the Spanish Inheritance]

It was natural, therefore, that William III, as stadholder of Holland and king of England, should hold the balance of power between the Austrian Habsburgs and the French Bourbons. Both the claimants appreciated this fact and understood that neither would be allowed peacefully to appropriate the entire Spanish inheritance. In fact, several "partition treaties" were patched up between Louis and William III, with a view to maintaining the balance of power and preventing either France or Austria from unduly increasing its power. But flaws were repeatedly found in the treaties, and, as time went on, the problem grew more vexatious. After the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, Louis XIV was absorbed in the game of dividing the property of the dying Spanish king. One of the very greatest triumphs of Louis' diplomatic art was the way in which he ingratiated himself in Spanish favor. It must be remembered that it was Spain which the Grand Monarch had attacked and despoiled in his earlier wars of aggrandizement, and neither the Spanish court nor the Spanish people could have many patriotic motives for loving him. Yet such was his tact and his finesse that within three years after the treaty of Ryswick he had secured the respect of the feeble Charles II and the gratitude of the Spanish people.

[Sidenote: Will of Charles II of Spain in Favor of the French Bourbons]

A month before his pitiful death (1700), Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, summoned all his strength and dictated a will that awarded his whole inheritance to Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV, with the resolute proviso that under no circumstances should the Spanish possessions be dismembered. When the news reached Versailles, the Grand Monarch hesitated. He knew that acceptance meant war at least with Austria, probably with England. Perhaps he thought of the wretched condition into which his other wars had plunged his people.

[Sidenote: Acceptance of the Will by Louis XIV]

Hesitation was but an interlude. Ambition triumphed over fear, and the glory of the royal family over the welfare of France. In the great hall of mirrors at Versailles, the Grand Monarch heralded his grandson as Philip V, the first Bourbon king of Spain. And when Philip, left for Madrid, his now aged grandfather kissed him, and the Spanish ambassador exultantly declared that "the Pyrenees no longer exist."

Anticipating the inevitable outbreak of hostilities, Louis proceeded to violate the treaty of Ryswick by seizing the "barrier" fortresses from the Dutch and by recognizing the son of James II as king of England. He then made hasty alliances with Bavaria and Savoy, and called out the combined armies of France and Spain.

[Sidenote: The Grand Alliance against the Bourbons]

Meanwhile, William III and the Emperor Leopold formed the Grand Alliance, to which at first England, Holland, Austria, and the German electors of Brandenburg-Prussia, Hanover, and the Palatinate adhered. Subsequently, Portugal, by means of a favorable commercial treaty with England,[Footnote: The "Methuen Treaty" (1703).] was induced to join the alliance, and the duke of Savoy abandoned France in favor of Austria with the understanding that his country should be recognized as a kingdom. The allies demanded that the Spanish crown should pass to the Archduke Charles, the grandson of the emperor, that Spanish trade monopolies should be broken, and that the power of the French king should be curtailed.

[Sidenote: The War of the Spanish Succession]

The War of the Spanish Succession—the fourth and final war of Louis XIV—lasted from 1702 to 1713. Although William III died at its very commencement, he was certain that it would be vigorously pushed by the English government of his sister-in-law, Queen Anne (1702-1714). The bitter struggle on the high seas and in the colonies, where it was known as Queen Anne's War, will be treated in another place. [Footnote: See below, p. 308.] The military campaigns in Europe were on a larger scale than had hitherto been known. Fighting was carried on in the Netherlands, in the southern Germanies, in Italy, and in Spain.

The tide of war turned steadily for several years against the Bourbons. The allies possessed the ablest generals of the time in the duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), the conscientious self-possessed English commander, and in the skillful and daring Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663- 1736). The great battle of Blenheim (1704) drove the French from the Holy Roman Empire, and the capture of Gibraltar (1704) gave England a foothold in Spain and a naval base for the Mediterranean. Prince Eugene crowded the French out of Italy (1706); and by the victories of Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709), Marlborough cleared the Netherlands. On land and sea one reverse followed another. The allies at length were advancing on French soil. It appeared inevitable that they would settle peace at Paris on their own terms.

Then it was that Louis XIV displayed an energy and devotion worthy of a better cause. He appealed straight to the patriotism of his people. He set an example of untiring application to toil. Nor was he disappointed in his expectations. New recruits hurried to the front; rich and poor poured in their contributions; a supreme effort was made to stay the advancing enemy.

The fact that Louis XIV was not worse punished was due to this remarkable uprising of the French and Spanish nations and likewise to dissensions among the allies. A change of ministry in England led to the disgrace and retirement of the duke of Marlborough and made that country lukewarm in prosecuting the war. Then, too, the unexpected accession of the Archduke Charles to the imperial and Austrian thrones (1711) now rendered the claims of the allies' candidate for the Spanish throne as menacing to the European balance of power as would be the recognition of the French claimant, Philip of Bourbon.

These circumstances made possible the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, with the following major provisions:

[Sidenote: The Peace of Utrecht 1713-1714]

(1) Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV, was acknowledged king of Spain and the Indies, on condition that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united. (2) The Austrian Habsburgs were indemnified by securing Naples, Sardinia, [Footnote: By the treaty of London (1720), Austria exchanged Sardinia for Sicily.] Milan, and the Belgian Netherlands. The last-named, which had been called the Spanish Netherlands since the days of Philip II, were henceforth for a century styled the Austrian Netherlands.

(3) England received the lion's share of the spoils. She obtained Newfoundland, Acadia (Nova Scotia), and Hudson Bay from France, and Gibraltar and Minorca from Spain. She also secured a preferential tariff for her imports into the great port of Cadiz, the monopoly of the slave trade, and the right of sending one ship of merchandise a year to the Spanish colonies. France promised not to assist the Stuarts in their attempts to regain the English throne.

(4) The Dutch recovered the "barrier" fortresses and for garrisoning them were promised financial aid by Austria. The Dutch were also allowed to establish a trade monopoly on the River Scheldt.

(5) The elector of Brandenburg was acknowledged king of Prussia, an important step In the fortunes of the Hohenzollern family which at the present time reigns in Germany.

(6) The duchy of Savoy was recognized similarly as a kingdom and was given the island of Sicily. [Footnote: The title of king was recognized by the emperor only in 1720, when Savoy exchanged Sicily for Sardinia. Henceforth the kingdom of Savoy was usually referred to as the kingdom of Sardinia.] From the house of Savoy has descended the reigning sovereign of present-day Italy.

[Sidenote: Significance of the Settlement of Utrecht]

The peace of Utrecht marked the cessation of a long conflict between Spanish Habsburgs and French Bourbons. For nearly a century thereafter both France and Spain pursued similar foreign policies for the common interests of the Bourbon family. Bourbon sovereigns have continued, with few interruptions, to reign in Spain to the present moment.

The Habsburg influence, however, remained paramount in Austria, in the Holy Roman Empire, in Italy, and in the Belgian Netherlands. It was against this predominance that the Bourbons were to direct their dynastic policies throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century.

The peace of Utrecht likewise marked the rise of English power upon the seas and the gradual elimination of France as a successful competitor in the race for colonial mastery. Two states also came into prominence upon the continent of Europe—Prussia and Savoy—about which the new German Empire and the unified Italian Kingdom were respectively to be builded.

[Sidenote: Last Years of the Grand Monarch]

While France was shorn of none of her European conquests, nevertheless the War of the Spanish Succession was exceedingly disastrous for that country. In its wake came famine and pestilence, excessive imposts and taxes, official debasement of the currency, and bankruptcy—a long line of social and economic disorders. Louis XIV survived the treaty of Utrecht but two years, and to such depths had his prestige and glory fallen among his own people, that his corpse, as it passed along the royal road to the stately tombs of the French kings at St. Denis, "was saluted by the curses of a noisy crowd sitting in the wine-rooms, celebrating his death by drinking more than their fill as a compensation for having suffered too much from hunger during his lifetime. Such was the coarse but true epitaph which popular opinion accorded to the Grand Monarch."

[Sidenote: Misgovernment of France during Minority of Louis XV]

Nor had the immediate future much better things in store for exhausted France. The successor upon the absolutist throne was Louis XV, great- grandson of Louis XIV and a boy of five years of age, who did not undertake to exercise personal power until near the middle of the eighteenth century. In the meantime the country was governed for about eight years by the king's uncle, the duke of Orleans, and then for twenty years by Cardinal Fleury.

[Sidenote: John Law]

Orleans loved pleasure and gave himself to a life of debauchery; he cared little for the boy-king, whose education and training he grievously neglected. His foreign policy was weak and vacillating, and his several efforts to reform abuses in the political and economic institutions of Louis XIV invariably ended in failure. It was while experimenting with the disorganized finances that he was duped by a Scotch adventurer and promoter, a certain John Law (1671-1729). Law had an idea that a gigantic corporation might be formed for French colonial trade, [Footnote: Law's corporation was actually important in the development of Louisiana.] shares might be widely sold throughout the country, and the proceeds therefrom utilized to wipe out the public debt. Orleans accepted the scheme and for a while the country went mad with the fever of speculation. In due time, however, the stock was discovered to be worthless, the bubble burst, and a terrible panic ensued. The net result was increased misery for the nation.

[Sidenote: Fleury and the War of the Polish Election]

The little sense which Orleans possessed was sufficient to keep him out of foreign war [Footnote: France was at peace throughout his regency, except for a brief time (1719-1720) when Orleans joined the British government in preventing his Spanish cousin, Philip V, from upsetting the treaty of Utrecht.] but even that was lacking to his successor, Cardinal Fleury. Fleury was dragged into a war (1733-1738) with Austria and Russia over the election of a Polish king. The allies supported the elector of Saxony; France supported a Pole, the father-in-law of Louis XV, Stanislaus Leszczinski. France was defeated and Louis XV had to content himself with securing the duchy of Lorraine for his father-in- law. Thus, family ambition merely added to the economic distress of the French people.

It was during the War of the Polish Election, however, that the Bourbon king of Spain, perceiving his rivals engaged elsewhere, seized the kingdom of the Two Sicilies from Austria and put a member of his own family on its throne. Thus, in the eighteenth century, the Bourbons dominated France, Spain, and southern Italy.



ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Brief accounts: J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, The Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I (1907), ch. i-iii; H. O. Wakeman, The Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715 (1894), ch. ix-xi, xiv, xv; A. H. Johnson, The Age of the Enlightened Despot, 1660-1789 (1910), ch i- iii, vi; J. H. Sacret, Bourbon and Vasa, 1610-1715 (1914), ch. viii- xii; Arthur Hassall, Louis XIV and the Zenith of the French Monarchy (1897) in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series; H. T. Dyer, A History of Modern Europe from the Fall of Constantinople, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. xxxvii, xxxix-xl, xlii-xliv; A. J. Grant, The French Monarchy, 1483-1789, Vol. II (1900), ch. x-xvi; G. W. Kitchin, A History of France, Vol. III (1899), Books V and VI, ch. i, ii; Victor Duruy, History of Modern Times, trans. and rev. by E. A. Grosvenor (1894), ch. xxi-xxiii. More detailed treatments: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. V (1908), ch. i-iii, vii-ix, xiii, xiv, Vol. VI (1909), ch. iv-vi; Histoire generale, Vol. VI, ch. iii-v, vii-ix, xii-xvi, xx, Vol. VII, ch. i-iii; Histoire de France, ed. by Ernest Lavisse, Vols. VII and VIII (1906-1909); History of All Nations, Vol. XIII, The Age of Louis XIV, by Martin Philippson.

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF FRANCE. Cecile Hugon, Social France in the Seventeenth Century (1911), popular, suggestive, and well- illustrated. On Colbert: A. J. Sargent, Economic Policy of Colbert (1899); S. L. Mims, Colbert's West India Policy (1912); Emile Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de l'industrie en France avant 1789, Vol. II (1901), Book VI; Pierre Clement (editor), Lettres, Instructions et Memoires de Colbert, 7 vols. in 9 (1861- 1873). H. M. Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 2 vols. (1895), a detailed study by a warm partisan of the French Protestants. Among the numerous important sources for the reign of Louis XIV should be mentioned especially F. A. Isambert (editor), Recueil general des anciennes lois, Vols. XVIII-XX, containing significant statutes of the reign; G. B. Depping (editor), Correspondance administrative sous le regne de Louis XIV, 4 vols. (1850-1855), for the system of government; Arthur de Boislisle (editor), Correspondance des controleurs generaux, 2 vols., for the fiscal system. Voltaire's brilliant Age of Louis the Fourteenth has been translated into English; an authoritative history of French literature in the Age of Louis XIV is Louis Petit de Julleville (editor), Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaise, Vol. V (1898). The best account of the minority of Louis XV is that of J. B. Perkins, France under the Regency (1892); a brief summary is Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power, 1715-1789 (1896), ch. i-iv.

FOREIGN WARS OF LOUIS XIV. On Louis XIV's relations with the Dutch: P. J. Blok, History of the People of the Netherlands, Part IV, Frederick Henry, John DeWitt, William III, abridged Eng. trans. by O. A. Bierstadt (1907). On his relations with the empire: Ruth Putnam, Alsace and Lorraine from Caesar to Kaiser, 58 B.C.-1871 A.D. (1914), a popular narrative; Franz Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs, Vol. III, Book XVI, Vol. IV, Book XVII (1878), a standard German work. On his relations with Spain: M. A. S. Hume, Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788 (1898), ch. ix- xiii. On Louis XIV's relations with England: Osmund Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV (1895), in the "Epochs of Modern History" Series; Sir J. R. Seeley, The Growth of British Policy, 2 vols. (1895), especially Vol. II, Parts IV and V; Earl Stanhope, History of England, Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht (1870), a rather dry account of the War of the Spanish Succession; G. J. (Viscount) Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, to the Accession of Queen Anne, 4th ed., 2 vols. (1894), an apology for Marlborough; J. S. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, 1603-1713, Vol. II (1904), for English naval operations; J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht (1885). On the diplomacy of the whole period: D. T. Hill, History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. III (1914), ch. i-iv, a clear outline; Emile Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique etrangere, 4th ed., Vol. I (1906), ch. iii, iv, vii, ix, xiv; Arsene Legrelle, La diplomatie francaise et la succession d'Espagne, 1659-1725, 4 vols. (1888-1892), a minute study of an important phase of Louis XIV's diplomacy; the text of the principal diplomatic documents is in course of publication at Paris (20 vols., 1884-1913) as the Recueil des instructions donnees aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les traites de Westphalie jusqu'a la revolution francaise.

MEMOIRS OF THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. Among the multitudinous memoirs of the period, the most significant, from the standpoint of the general historian, are: Marquise de Sevigne, Lettres, delightful epistles relating mainly to the years 1670-1696, edited in fullest form for "Les grands ecrivains de la France" by Monmerque, 14 vols. (1862- 1868), selections of which have been translated into English by C. Syms (1898); Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoires, the most celebrated of memoirs, dealing with many events of the years 1692-1723, gossipy and racily written but occasionally inaccurate and frequently partisan, edited many times—most recently and best for "Les grands ecrivains de la France" by Arthur de Boislisle, 30 vols. (1879-1916), of which a much-abridged translation has been published in English, 4 vols.; Marquis de Dangeau, Journal, 19 vols. (1854-1882), written day by day, throughout the years 1684-1720, by a conscientious and well- informed member of the royal entourage; Life and Letters of Charlotte Elizabeth (1889), select letters, trans. into English, of a German princess who married Louis XIV's brother, of which the most complete French edition is that of Jaegle, 3 vols. (1890). See also Comtesse de Puliga, Madame de Sevigne, her Correspondents and Contemporaries, 2 vols. (1873), and, for important collections of miscellaneous memoirs of the period, J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, Nouvelle collection des memoires relatifs a l'histoire de France depuis le 13e siecle jusqu'a la fin du 18e siecle, 34 vols. (1854), and Louis Lafaist and L. F. Danjou, Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France, 27 vols. (1834-1840).



CHAPTER VIII

THE TRIUMPH OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND

CONFLICTING POLITICAL TENDENCIES IN ENGLAND: ABSOLUTISM VERSUS PARLIAMENTARIANISM

Through all the wars of dynastic rivalry which have been traced in the two preceding chapters, we have noticed the increasing prestige of the powerful French monarchy, culminating in the reign of Louis XIV. We now turn to a nation which played but a minor role in the international rivalries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Later, from 1689 to 1763, England was to engage in a tremendous colonial struggle with France. But from 1560 to 1689 England for the most part held herself aloof from the continental rivalries of Bourbons and Habsburgs, and never fought in earnest except against Philip II of Spain, who threatened England's economic and political independence, and against the Dutch, who were England's commercial rivals. While the continental states were engaged in dynastic quarrels, England was absorbed in a conflict between rival principles of domestic government—between constitutional parliamentary government and unlimited royal power. To the triumph of the parliamentary principle in England we owe many of our modern ideas and practices of constitutional government.

[Sidenote: Absolutism of the Tudors, 1485-1603]

Absolutism had reached its high-water mark in England long before the power and prestige of the French monarchy had culminated in the person of Louis XIV. In the sixteenth century—the very century in which the French sovereigns faced constant foreign war and chronic civil commotion—the Tudor rulers of England were gradually freeing themselves from reliance upon Parliament and were commanding the united support of the English nation. From the accession of Henry VII in 1485 to the death of his grand-daughter Elizabeth in 1603, the practice of absolutism, though not the theory of divine-right monarchy, seemed ever to be gaining ground.

How Tudor despotism was established and maintained is explained in part by reference to the personality of Henry VII and to the circumstances that brought him to the throne. [Footnote: For the character and main achievements of Henry VII (1485-1500), see above, pp. 4 ff.] It is also explicable by reference to historical developments in England throughout the sixteenth century. [Footnote: For the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, see above, pp. 86, 97 ff., 150 ff.] As Henry VII humbled the nobility, so Henry VIII and Elizabeth subordinated the Church to the crown. And all the Tudors asserted their supremacy in the sphere of industry and commerce. By a law of 1503, the craft gilds had been obliged to obtain the approval of royal officers for whatever new ordinances the gilds might wish to make. In the first year of the reign of Edward VI the gilds were crippled by the loss of part of their property, which was confiscated under the pretext of religious reform. Elizabeth's reign was notable for laws regulating apprenticeship, prescribing the terms of employment of laborers, providing that wages should be fixed by justices of the peace, and ordering vagabonds to be set to work. In the case of commerce, the royal power was exerted encouragingly, as when Henry VII negotiated the Intercursus Magnus with the duke of Burgundy to gain admittance for English goods into the Netherlands, or chartered the "Merchant Adventurers" to carry on trade in English woolen cloth, or sent John Cabot to seek an Atlantic route to Asia; or as when Elizabeth countenanced and abetted explorers and privateers and smugglers and slave-traders in extending her country's maritime power at the expense of Spain. All this meant that the strong hand of the English monarch had been laid upon commerce and industry as well as upon justice, finance, and religion.

The power of the Tudors had rested largely upon their popularity with the growing influential middle class. They had subdued sedition, had repelled the Armada, had fostered prosperity, and had been willing at times to cater to the whims of their subjects. They had faithfully personified national patriotism; and the English nation, in turn, had extolled them.

Yet despite this absolutist tradition of more than a century's duration, England was destined in the seventeenth century to witness a long bitter struggle between royal and parliamentary factions, the beheading of one king and the exiling of another, and in the end the irrevocable rejection of the theory and practice of absolutist divine- right monarchy, and this at the very time when Louis XIV was holding majestic court at Versailles and all the lesser princes on the Continent were zealously patterning their proud words and boastful deeds after the model of the Grand Monarch. In that day a mere parliament was to become dominant in England.

[Sidenote: Accession of the Stuarts: James I, 1603-1625]

The death of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors, and the accession (1603) of her cousin James, the first of the Stuarts, marked the real beginning of the struggle. When he was but a year old, this James had acquired through the deposition of his unfortunate mother, Mary Stuart, the crown of Scotland (1567), and had been proclaimed James VI in that disorderly and distracted country. The boy who was whipped by his tutor and kidnapped by his barons and browbeaten by Presbyterian divines learned to rule Scotland with a rod of iron and incidentally acquired such astonishing erudition, especially in theology, that the clever King Henry IV of France called him "the wisest fool in Christendom." At the age of thirty-seven, this Scotchman succeeded to the throne of England as James I. "He was indeed," says Macaulay, "made up of two men—a witty, well-read scholar who wrote, disputed, and harangued, and a nervous, driveling idiot who acted."

[Sidenote: The Stuart Theory of Absolutist Divine-right Monarchy]

James was not content, like his Tudor predecessors, merely to be an absolute ruler in practice; he insisted also upon the theory of divine- right monarchy. Such a theory was carefully worked out by the pedantic Stuart king eighty years before Bishop Bossuet wrote his classic treatise on divine-right monarchy for the guidance of the young son of Louis XIV. To James it seemed quite clear that God had divinely ordained kings to rule, for had not Saul been anointed by Jehovah's prophet, had not Peter and Paul urged Christians to obey their masters, and had not Christ Himself said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"? As the father corrects his children, so should the king correct his subjects. As the head directs the hands and feet, so must the king control the members of the body politic. Royal power was thus the most natural and the most effective instrument for suppressing anarchy and rebellion. James I summarized his idea of government in the famous Latin epigram, "a deo rex, a rege lex, "—"the king is from God, and law from the king."

[Sidenote: Stuart Theory Opposed to Medieval English Tradition]

It has been remarked already [Footnote: See above, pp. 4-7] that in one important respect the past governmental evolution of England differed from that of France. While both countries in the sixteenth century followed absolutist tendencies, in France the medieval tradition of constitutional limitations upon the power of the king was far weaker than in England, with the result that in the seventeenth century the French accepted and consecrated absolutism while the English gave new force and life to their medieval tradition and practice of constitutional government.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on Royal Power in England: Magna Carta]

The tradition of English restrictions upon royal power centered in the old document of Magna Carta and in an ancient institution called Parliament. Magna Carta dated back, almost four centuries before King James, to the year 1215 when King John had been compelled by his rebellious barons to sign a long list of promises; that list was the "long charter" or Magna Carta, [Footnote: Magna Carta was many times reissued after 1215.] and it was important in three respects. (1) It served as a constant reminder that "the people" of England had once risen in arms to defend their "rights" against a despotic king, although as a matter of fact Magna Carta was more concerned with the rights of the feudal nobles (the barons) and of the clergy than with the rights of the common people. (2) Its most important provisions, by which the king could not levy extraordinary taxes on the nobles without the consent of the Great Council, furnished something of a basis for the idea of self-taxation. (3) Clauses such as "To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice," although never effectively enforced, established the idea that justice should not be sold, denied, or delayed.

[Sidenote: Parliament]

Parliament was a more or less representative assembly of clergy, nobility, and commoners, claiming to have powers of taxation and legislation. The beginnings of Parliament are traced back centuries before James I. There had been an advisory body of prelates and lords even before the Norman conquest (1066). After the conquest a somewhat similar assembly of the king's chief feudal vassals—lay and ecclesiastical—had been called the Great Council, and its right to resist unjust taxation had been recognized by Magna Carta. Henceforth it had steadily acquired power. The "Provisions of Oxford" (1258) had provided, in addition, for "twelve honest men" to represent the "commonalty" and to "treat of the wants of the king; and the commonalty shall hold as established that which these men shall do."

[Sidenote: House of Lords and House of Commons]

For the beginnings of the House of Commons we may go back to the thirteenth century. In 1254 the king summoned to Parliament not only the bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, but also two knights from every shire. Then, in an irregular Parliament, convened in 1265 by Simon de Montfort, a great baronial leader against the king, two burgesses from each of twenty-one towns for the first time sat with the others and helped to decide how their liberties were to be protected. These knights and burgesses were the elements from which the House of Commons was subsequently to be formed. Similar bodies met repeatedly in the next thirty years, and in 1295 Edward I called a "model Parliament" of archbishops, bishops, abbots, representative clergy, earls, and barons, two knights from every shire, and two citizens from each privileged city or borough,—more than four hundred in all. For some time after 1295 the clergy, nobility, and commoners [Footnote: I.e., the knights of the shires and the burgesses from the towns.] may have deliberated separately much as did the three "estates" in France. At any rate, early in the fourteenth century the lesser clergy dropped out, the greater prelates and nobles were fused into one body—the House of "Lords spiritual and temporal,"—and the knights joined the burgesses to form the House of Commons. Parliament was henceforth a bicameral body, consisting of a House of Commons and a House of Lords.

[Sidenote: Powers of Parliament: Taxation]

The primary function of Parliament was to give information to the king and to hear and grant his requests for new "subsidies" or direct taxes. The right to refuse grants was gradually assumed and legally recognized. As taxes on the middle class soon exceeded those on the clergy and nobility, it became customary in the fifteenth century for money bills to be introduced in the Commons, approved by the Lords, and signed by the king.

[Sidenote: Legislation]

The right to make laws had always been a royal prerogative, in theory at least. Parliament, however, soon utilized its financial control in order to obtain initiative in legislation. A threat of withholding subsidies had been an effective way of forcing Henry III to confirm Magna Carta in 1225; it proved no less effective in securing royal enactment of later "petitions" for laws. In the fifteenth century legislation by "petition" was supplanted by legislation by "bill," that is, introducing in either House of Parliament measures which, in form and language, were complete statutes and which became such by the united assent of Commons, Lords, and king. To this day English laws have continued to be made formally "by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same."

[Sidenote: Influence on Administration]

The right to demand an account of expenditures, to cause the removal of royal officers, to request the king to abandon unpopular policies, or otherwise to control administrative affairs, had occasionally been asserted by Parliament, but not consistently maintained.

[Sidenote: Parliament under the Tudors]

From what has been said, it will now be clear that the fulcrum of parliamentary power was control of finance. What had enabled the Tudors to incline toward absolutism was the fact that for more than a hundred years they had made themselves fairly independent of Parliament in matters of finance; and this they had done by means of economy, by careful collection of taxes, by irregular expedients, by confiscation of religious property, and by tampering with the currency. Parliament still met, however, but irregularly, and during Elizabeth's reign it was in session on the average only three or four weeks of the year. Parliament still transacted business, but rarely differed with the monarch on matters of importance.

[Sidenote: James I and Parliament]

At the end of the Tudor period, then, we have an ancient tradition of constitutional, parliamentary government on the one hand, and a strong, practical, royal power on the other. The conflict between Parliament and king, which had been avoided by the tactful Tudors, soon began in earnest when James I ascended the throne in 1603, with his exaggerated notion of his own authority. James I was an extravagant monarch, and needed parliamentary subsidies, yet his own pedantic principles prevented him from humoring Parliament in any dream of power. The inevitable result was a conflict for political supremacy between Parliament and king. When Parliament refused him money, James resorted to the imposition of customs duties, grants of monopolies, sale of peerages, and the solicitation of "benevolences" (forced loans). Parliament promptly protested against such practices, as well as against his foreign and religious policies and against his absolute control of the appointment and operation of the judiciary. Parliament's protests only increased the wrath of the king. The noisiest parliamentarians were imprisoned or sent home with royal scoldings. In 1621 the Commoners entered in their journal a "Great Protestation" against the king's interference with their free right to discuss the affairs of the realm. This so angered the king that he tore the Protestation out of the journal and presently dissolved the intractable Parliament; but the quarrel continued, and James's last Parliament had the audacity to impeach his lord treasurer.

[Sidenote: Political Dispute Complicated by Religious Difference] [Sidenote: Calvinists in England] [Sidenote: The "Puritans"]

The political dispute was made more bitter by the co-existence of a religious conflict. James, educated as a devout Anglican, was naturally inclined to continue to uphold the compromise by which the Tudors had severed the English Church from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, yet had retained many forms of the Catholic Church and the episcopal organization by means of which the sovereign was able to control the Church. During Elizabeth's reign, however, a large part of the middle class—the townsmen especially—and many of the lower clergy had come under the influence of Calvinistic teaching. [Footnote: On the doctrines of Calvinism, see above, pp. 139 ff., 156, 164 ff.] The movement was marked (1) by a virulent hatred for even the most trivial forms reminiscent of "popery," as the Roman Catholic religion was called; and (2) by a tendency to place emphasis upon the spirit of the Old Testament as well as upon the precepts of the New. Along with austerity of manner, speech, dress, and fast-day observance, they revived much of the mercilessness with which the Israelites had conquered Canaan. The same men who held it a deadly sin to dance round a may-pole or to hang out holly on Christmas were later to experience a fierce and exalted pleasure in conquering New England from the heathen Indians. They knew neither self-indulgence nor compassion. Little wonder that Elizabeth feared men of such mold and used the episcopal administration of the Anglican Church to restrain them. Many of these so-called Puritans remained members of the Anglican Church and sought to reform it from within. But restraint only caused the more radical to condemn altogether the fabric of bishops and archbishops, and to advocate a presbyterian church. Others went still further and wished to separate from the Established Anglican Church into independent religious groups, and were therefore called Independents or Separatists.