The Growth of Absolutism in The Growth of Absolutism in Europe (1500-1700)Europe (1500-1700)

Austria, France, Spain and England

Divine RightDivine Right

• “It is God who establishes kings. They thus act as the ministers of God and his lieutenants on Earth. It is through them that he rules.” – Jacques Bossuet, a 17th century French bishop, on the belief of divine right monarchies.

How Absolute Monarchies DevelopedHow Absolute Monarchies Developed

• In the Middle Ages, the king was seen as being put in place through a feudal contract between him and his vassals.

•An absolute monarch is a king who strictly controls the government and the lives of the people of his/her country.

Austria – The Austrian Hapsburgs.Austria – The Austrian Hapsburgs.

• The Hapsburgs had ruled the Holy Roman Empire before the Thirty Years’ War. Since they lost their German Empire in Central Europe, they created an empire in Southeastern Europe.

• The core of the Austrian Empire was present day Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.

Austria – The Austrian Hapsburgs.Austria – The Austrian Hapsburgs.

• The Austrians defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1687 and took Hungary, Transylvania (western Romania), Croatia, and Slavonia (Serbia and northern Bosnia).

• The Austrian Empire was never a nation-state. It had many different ethnic groups.

France Absolute Monarchy: Henry IVFrance Absolute Monarchy: Henry IV

Religious wars break out between Catholics and Huguenots. The French Wars of Religion

Nobles took advantage of the religious strife and tried to take power from the king.

Henry, a Huguenot, converted to Catholicism bringing peace and unity to the country.

France Under Henry IV (continued)

▫ Henry made the Protestants happy by guaranteeing them peace and equality in the Edict Edict of Nantesof Nantes, which guaranteed the freedom of religion and the people’s right to worship how they believed.

▫ Henry made financial, agricultural and commercial reforms including the building of roads and canals.

▫ Henry was killed by a religious fanatic.

Henry IVHenry IV

Louis XIIILouis XIII

France Under Louis XIII France Under Louis XIII • Henry was succeeded by

his nine year-old son, Louis (“famous warrior”), who became Louis XIII.

• Since Louis was so young, his mother ruled for him.

• Louis was a weak king who had to rely on his chief advisor, Cardinal Richelieu, for help to rule.

France Under Louis XIII 1610-1643 Richelieu reduced the power of the Huguenots. He took away their political and military rights,

but preserved their religious rights. Richelieu kept the nobles from taking power

from the king by setting up a network of spies and crushing any conspiracy.

Richelieu and Louis XIII made France into an absolute monarchy.

Louis XIV (1643-1715)• Louis XIV became king when

he was 5 years old. • Until he came of age, his

mother and regent, Cardinal Mazarin ruled.

• Mazarin put down a revolt by the nobles who feared the growing power of the monarch.

Louis XIV (1643-1715)Louis XIV (1643-1715)• When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis became

the king of France. • Louis XIV is seen by historians as the best

example of an absolute king. • He has been called “The Great Monarch,”

“Louis the Great,” and “The Sun King.”

Louis XIV (1643-1715) Louis XIV (1643-1715) (continued)(continued)

• Louis ruled for 72 years, longer than any other European monarch.

• Louis based his rule on divine right.• France became the strongest country in

Europe as a result of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), and Louis the most powerful king..

Louis XIV (1643-1715) Louis XIV (1643-1715) (continued)(continued)

• Louis opposed the Huguenots because he feared a large religious minority could lead to a civil war.

• Louis saw France as a nation-state and saw being Catholic as part of being French.

• He ended the Edict of Nantes. • Protestants were persecuted and 200,000 fled

the country.

Louis XIV (1643-1715)Louis XIV (1643-1715)• Louis built the Palace at Versailles outside of

Paris. • The palace cost over $100,000,000. • The building was ½ mile long, with a Hall of

Mirrors, and fountains on acres of landscaped grounds.

• He kept the French nobles from challenging him by giving them government positions and letting them live at Versailles.

Louis XIV (1643-1715) Louis XIV (1643-1715) (continued)(continued)

• Nobles enjoyed hunting, bowling, ballet, sporting events, horse shows, and good food and drink.

• Louis was always surrounded by crowds of people wherever he went at Versailles.

• Other kings and nobles throughout Europe tried to copy Versailles and the lifestyle of the court there.

Louis XIV (1643-1715) Louis XIV (1643-1715) (continued)(continued)

• While the nobles lived a life of luxury, the peasants lived a dreary and hopeless existence.

• Louis plunged France into a number of expensive wars. Louis built an army of 400,000.

• The other countries of Europe formed alliances to prevent the French from dominating the continent.

• Louis died in 1715. • He was succeeded by Louis XV, who became king 5

years-old.

Spanish Absolute Monarchy: Charles VSpanish Absolute Monarchy: Charles V

• Charles V ruled the Hapsburg Empire in the 1500s.

• The Hapsburg Empire included Spain, Spanish colonies in the Americas, Austria, The Netherlands, and the German kingdoms that made up the Holy Roman Empire.

• Charles developed an absolute monarchy.

Spanish Absolute Monarchy: Charles VSpanish Absolute Monarchy: Charles V• Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, and the conquistadors

had given Charles a vast empire in the Americas and riches in gold and silver, but Charles spent the money on costly wars in France, Italy, and Germany.

• Under Charles, Spain competed with France and England for power.

• After 40 years as a strong and respected ruler, Charles decided to step down.

• His son Phillip became king of Spain. Charles retired to a monastery.

Charles VCharles V

Phillip IIPhillip II

Phillip II• Phillip ruled Spain for 42 years as an absolute monarch.

Phillip felt his rule was given to him by God (Divine Right).• Under Phillip Spain became the most powerful country in

the world. His mighty army and navy were paid for by gold and silver from the colonies in America. It is estimated that between 1581 and 1600, 10,000,000 pounds of gold and silver went to Spain from Mexico and Peru.

• Phillip became the leader of the Catholic Reformation in Europe. He also sent Jesuit priests across Europe to persuade Protestants to become Catholic again.

• Missionaries were sent to the Americas to convert the Indians to Christianity.

Phillip II (continued)

• Much of Spain’s wealth was spent on foreign wars. Even with all of the gold from the Americas, Spain had to borrow from Italy and Germany to pay for wars.

• To pay its debts, Spain began to produce large amounts of gold coins. Putting all of this money in circulation led to inflation, the rise of prices.

• The Dutch Netherlands, a Spanish colony, turned to Protestantism and rebelled against Catholic Spain. After gaining independence, the Dutch Netherlands became one of the world’s leading trading nations.

The Spanish Armada

▫ By the late 1500s, relations between Spain and England deteriorated. Spain was Catholic, England was Protestant. Phillip was a cousin of Catherine of Aragon, who

Henry VIII started the Church of England to divorce. Phillip married Catherine’s daughter Mary, who

became England’s Queen Mary (Bloody Mary). When Mary died, Phillip felt he had a right to the

throne of England.▫ Sir Francis Drake and other English pirates attacked

Spanish ports in America and seized Spanish ships. The English pirates were called “Sea Dogs.”

The Spanish Armada (continued)

• In 1588, Phillip ordered a huge fleet called the Spanish Armada to carry his army to England. But, the English won a decisive victory in one of the greatest naval battles of all time. The English won because they had smaller and faster ships.

• The Spanish ships which survived the battle retreated to the North Sea. There a violent storm sank many of them and the rest limped back to Spain. The English called the storm the “Protestant Wind.”

• The defeat of the Spanish led to the decline of Spanish power. It opened the way for England to start colonies in North America.

Key Players

Decline of Spanish PowerDecline of Spanish Power• After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Phillip go

involved in several wars, including one against Huguenots in France. These wars depleted Spain’s treasury.

• After the death of Phillip in 1598, Spain found it more and more difficult to rule its vast empire in the Americas.

Revolutions in EnglandRevolutions in England•The 17th century saw England’s civil

war, the English Revolution between the king and parliament.

•The Tudor dynasty ended with Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603.

•The Stuart king of Scotland, James I ascended to the throne.

•James would take England down the path of Civil War.

Age of Absolutism: Age of Absolutism: ConclusionConclusion•The Ages of Exploration, Renaissance,

and Reformation were ended by a period of crisis and war. This Crisis gave way for Absolutism.

•As the old order of the Middle Ages disappeared, kings became more powerful filling the void left by the weakened aristocracy.

Prussian and Austrian Absolute Monarchies

• After the end of the Thirty Years’ War, there was no one German state, but over 300 German countries.

• The two strongest of these were Prussia and Austria.

Prussia - Frederick William the Great Elector.Prussia - Frederick William the Great Elector.

• Frederick William knew Prussia was small and had no natural barriers to invasion, so he built a large standing army of 40,000 men.

• Prussian society became very militaristic.• Frederick William set up the General War

Commissariat to collect taxes for the army. • Both the leaders of the commissariat and the army

officers were Junkers, Prussian landed aristocrats.• In 1701, Frederick William’s son Frederick became

king Frederick I.

Russia develops an Absolute Monarchy: Early years

Around 1500 BC Slavs began settling in the western plains of Russia.

In the early years of its history, Russia was conquered and re-conquered many times by people from Asia and Europe.

For nearly 2,000 years, control of the country changed hands among such groups as the Cimmerians, Scythians, Goths, and Huns.

Russia: Early Middle Ages By 800, many towns had appeared.

One of them was Kiev. This was a principality ruled by a prince. In time, the prince of Kiev became

known as a “Grand Prince”, a prince over other princes and the area he ruled was called a “Rus.”

Russia: Early Middle Ages In the 800s, Vikings move into the North European

Plain along the Volga River from the northeast. These Vikings (called Varangians) took over and

ruled over the Slavic people and over time intermarried with them.

In 988, Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity and brought Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the Cyrillic alphabet to the Rus.

The Russians had previously worshipped idols.

Russia: The Golden Horde In the 1200s, wars broke out between rival princes.

This weakened Russia and allowed the Mongols (called Tatars) overran the Kiev and the other Russian kingdoms. Batu, a descendant of Genghis Khan, swept int Russia

with an army of 200,000 soldiers and established “The Khanate of the Golden Horde”.

Russian princes had to pay heavy taxes and were forced to serve in the Mongol armies. People who were not loyal to the Mongols were slaughtered.

As the Renaissance was bringing great changes in Europe, Russia remained cut off from the rest of the world by Mongol control.

Muscovy (Moscow) Moscow was forested and isolated from the Mongols.

So, as Mongol control increased in the south, the center of the Russian Christian faith moved to Moscow (Fortress).

Grand Prince Ivan III (the Great) married Sophe Paleologue, niece of the Byzantine emperor. When the Byzantine Empire fell in 1453 the leadership of the Eastern Orthodox religion moved to Moscow –“The Third Rome”.

1480 – Grand Prince Ivan III grew powerful enough to refuse to pay tribute to the Mongols gaining independence.

Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV (the Terrible) adopts the title czar (“Caesar”) and became the supreme ruler of Russia. Ivan organized a secret police force and had it

arrest and kill princes and wealthy landowners (boyars) he thought might overthrow him. This crushes the power of the boyars, and Ivan becomes an absolute monarch.

Ivan even stabbed his own son to death in an argument.

Under Ivan, peasants were forced to work the land under slave-like conditions.

The Russian Empire After Ivan’s death in 1584, Russia suffered through a time of civil war called the “Time of Troubles.” Ivan’ son Feodor, was mentally handicapped, so his

brother-in-law, Boris Godunov served as regent (one who rules for a king).

After Feodor’s death in 1598, Godunov became Czar. There was a famine and the Cossacks, people living on

the frontier, began to battle the aristocrats of Russia for land.

Poland invaded Russia from the east led by a man who claimed to be Ivan IV’s som Dimitri (who had died, possibly murdered earlier). The Poles took over and tried to convert Russia to Catholicism leading to more war.

The Russian people united and drive the Polish army out.

Michael Romanov• In 1613, Mikhail (Michael) Romanov became czar..

He brought peace with both Poland and Sweden which had invaded. The Romanov family would rule Russia until the Revolution of 1917 when the communists took over Russia.

Peter the Great (1682-1725) Peter had visited western Europe and

wanted to modernize Russia along European lines.

He built a 210,000 man army and a navy. He had both Russian and European leadership to modernize the army. Peasants had to serve a 25-year stints in the army.

Peter the Great Peter expanded Russia’s territory through wars

with Turkey, Sweden and Persia. He expanded Russia to the Baltic Sea building the

new capital of St. Petersburg – “The Window to the West.”

Peter established trade with China, opened doors to western ways, and put down rebellions by serfs.

Catherine the Great (1762-1796) In 1762, Catherine overthrew her husband Peter III, who had angered many of the boyars by signing a treaty giving land to Prussia.

Catherine added more territory to Russia, built schools and hospitals, increased religious freedom, improved education among women, and encouraged talented people from other lands to come to Russia.

Most of Catherine’s reforms only benefited the upper classes. The majority of the people remained very poor, Serfs continued to live a dreary life of long working hours and miserable living conditions. Peasant revolts were quickly crushed. Little evidence of freedom could be found anywhere.

Russia - conclusion• Compared with Spain, France, and England, Russia

did not develop into a unified nation-state. The rich and westernized upper classes lived a life far different from the masses of poor. A large number of ethnic groups spoke different languages and had different customs. Russian is a second language to over ½ of the people of Russia still today. Religious belief divided the people. The only real force holding the country together was the strong-armed rule of the czar.