History 351: Seventeenth Century Europe 2017 History 351, 2017 • Syllabus is at http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/3 51/351%20course.htm • Lecture outlines at http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/3 51/351OUTLINE.htm • Weekly readings are listed on the syllabus. • Home page: http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/ Click on “Essays and papers” for information on how to do exams and term papers well.
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History 351: Seventeenth Century Europe · History 351: Seventeenth Century Europe 2017 History 351, 2017 • Syllabus is at 51/351%20course.htm
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• Lecture outlines at http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351OUTLINE.htm
• Weekly readings are listed on the syllabus. • Home page:
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/ Click on “Essays and papers” for information
on how to do exams and term papers well.
Requirements • Two Midterms (in class 3/1, 4/14) • A final (Saturday 5/6, 7:45 AM; place to
be announced) • Honors students do an extra paper,
due 5/3 • Readings: see syllabus. • Graduate students: 2 papers, each of
12-15 pages; due 3/27 and 5/3; topics by arrangement.
Introduction: An Age of Revolution
• Intellectual and Scientific Revolutions
• Astronomy : Galileo, Kepler • Physics and Mathematics:
Newton, Leibniz • Chemistry: Robert Boyle – “the
Father of Chemistry” • Mathematics: Simon Stevin
(Dutch; 1585) pioneers the decimal system of expressing fractions
Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions
• Mathematics: John Napier (Scottish; 1614) pioneers the use of logarithms, simplifying complex calculations.
• In 1642, Blaise Pascal (French)
invented a mechanical calculator which is sometimes seen as the forerunner of the computer.
• Medicine: William Harvey (English; 1628) discovered and described the circulation of blood.
A Pascaline - a mechanical calculator, invented by Blaise Pascal (1623-62) in
1642 William Harvey’s book on the circulation
of blood, 1628. It has been called the most important book in the history of
medicine
Scientific and Intellectual
Revolutions • New Instruments: the microscope
(Dutch; 1590) • The telescope (Hans Lippershey;
German/ Dutch; 1608) • Note military use of telescopes;
the practical, and especially military applications of science were important (especially to governments)
• The borders between different sciences were not yet clear; scientists had broad interests; science (natural philosophy) was not clearly distinguished from philosophy in general
Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions
• René Descartes (French; 1596-1650) is commonly seen as the founder of modern philosophy. He also pioneered co-ordinate geometry (using algebra to solve problems in geometry), and did important work in optics.
Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions
• Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a philosopher (and lawyer and statesman) who stressed the importance of experiment in science, and the capacity for science to transform the world to the great benefit of
humanity. • In 1626 he went out into the snow to do an
experiment on refrigeration, when he caught a chill that turned into pneumonia and killed him.
Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions
• Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) was a philosopher with a strong interest in the new scientific discoveries. He made his living by grinding lenses and died of lung disease perhaps caused by inhaling ground glass.
• Born into the Jewish community in Amsterdam (Holland), Spinoza was excommunicated from it, and was regarded as an atheist by many Christian groups. Pioneers of new philosophical and scientific ideas were often criticized by the clergy.
Scientific and Intellectual Revolutions
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1677), the
political philosopher, admired Galileo, and served as Bacon’s secretary when he was young. He shared many ideas with Spinoza, and was also accused of atheism. Hobbes attacked the claims to authority of the clergy, and was attacked by them.
Economic change: start of the agricultural revolution • A downturn in temperature: the
“Little Ice Age” and the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715)
• http://depts.washington.edu/schkatz/podcasts/katz0607_parker.mp3: Geoffrey Parker on the first global climate crisis.
• Worsening weather was accompanied by stagnation of the population (unlike the sixteenth century, when population rose sharply)
• In response to stagnating demand for food, people tried to cut the costs of food production, and tried to develop new markets (in cloth and other industrial goods, and in places outside Europe)
Economic change: start of the agricultural revolution • One way of cutting costs was to
reduce wages of agricultural
workers, or give them no wages at all but turn them into serfs, forced to work for their lords; enserfment took place in Poland, Russia, and elsewhere in eastern Europe.
• Another approach to cutting costs was to improve agricultural productivity, by introducing new farming techniques; this happened in the Netherlands, England, and some other areas in the west; it paved the way for the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Economic change: global
expansion • Europeans greatly expanded their
trade with distant parts of the world, especially in America and Asia. They set up trading bases and colonies.
• Russians expanded eastward across the land mass of Siberia. They set up a fort at Yakutsk in the 1630s, and reached the Pacific in 1639.
• Europe’s center of economic gravity moved from the Mediterranean to the northwest and the Atlantic.
Military Revolution • Scientific and mathematical
advances often had military application.
• The seventeenth century was an age of almost constant warfare in Europe.
• Armies got larger, and guns and fortifications improved.
• Europeans got better at fighting wars. This was bad news for people elsewhere when they later encountered Europeans.
State building; the “age of absolutism”
• As armies expanded, more taxes were needed to pay for them; bureaucracies grew to collect the taxes.
• States became more powerful and centralized; representative institutions (estates; parliaments; diets) often declined.
• Since many states were monarchies, the increase of state power is often equated with the growth of “royal absolutism”
State building; the “age of absolutism”
• In the course of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) some rulers and their advisors used the war to justify the
employment of emergency powers by the state, and the curtailment of traditional liberties.
• A fine example is Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal (and Duke) de Richelieu (1585-1642), the chief advisor to Louis XIII of France.
• A parallel figure in Spain (the other major European power) was the Count-Duke of Olivares (1587-1645)
State building; the “age of absolutism”
• Other key figures in the growth of absolutism include Jules Mazarin, Cardinal Mazarin (1602-61) who succeeded Richelieu as the chief advisor of the French monarch; and Frederick William, the Great Elector (1620-88), the architect of the power of (Brandenburg-Prussia (and later Germany).
• Most famous of all is the Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France, who succeeded Mazarin as his own chief advisor; here he is in 1661.
State building; the “age of absolutism”
• State building also took place in areas that were not absolute monarchies.
• These included Great Britain (England and Scotland ) and Ireland; there it had become clear before the end of the century that the monarchy was not absolute and that the ruler was bound to rule with parliament and within the law.
• State building also occurred in the Dutch Republic, where representative institutions survived.
• The Dutch Republic and Britain proved to be more able to raise money and pay troops than Louis XIV’s France; people were happier to pay taxes where there were institutions which represented them.
• The great exception to the rule that the seventeenth century was an age of state building was Poland. There the state grew weaker, and in the eighteenth century it ceased to exist altogether, swallowed up by its ambitious neighbors (Russia, Prussia, Austria).
Some unifying factors: intermarriage; Latin
culture; mercenaries • Aristocratic and especially royal families tended to
marry into similar families across national boundaries. • Higher education across Europe was conducted in
Latin. Scholarly books were published in Latin. It was common to attend university outside your country.
• Lower down the social scale, men often fought as mercenaries for other countries (and other religions) than their own.
• There were many economic links across Europe. A key one was the export of grain from Poland and east Germany westward through the Baltic and then on to the Mediterranean. The grain often went in Dutch ships.
• The same ships brought wool from Spain to the Netherlands where industrial workers turned it into cloth; it was then re-exported round Europe.
Some unifying factors: intermarriage
• The Habsburg (/ Hapsburg) family were fond of intermarrying with itself, but internationally.
• Habsburgs were rulers of Spain and Austria. • In the late sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain was the
uncle, cousin, and brother-in-law of the Austrian Rudolf II.
• Interbreeding took its toll in the form of certain peculiarities such as the protruding lower lip and chin, visible here in the Austrian Leopold I (1640-1705; coin of 1694; a thaler – Joachimsthal – t(h)aler – daalder - dollar).
• Leopold was known as “Hogmouth”.
Some unifying factors: mercenaries
• It was often but by no means always men from lower down the social scale who took military service outside the land of their birth.
• A major exception is Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736). Eugene was born at Paris. His grandmother was a French royal princess, and his mother was probably a mistress of Louis XIV for a while.
• Louis refused to appoint Eugene to command in the French army, so Eugene transferred his loyalty to Leopold
(Hogmouth) and Austria, and inflicted multiple defeats on Louis.
Major Geo-Political Changes
• In 1600 Spain was the most powerful country in Europe, though faced with problems (including the Dutch Revolt).
• In 1600, France had just emerged from a long period of religious civil war.
• An important theme of the history of the first half of the century is the decline of Spain and the rise of France.
• French aggression against Spain, the Dutch, and the Holy Roman Empire is a key theme of late seventeenth century history (Strasbourg/ Strassburg; Alsace/ Elsass; Franche-Comté).
Major Geo-Political Changes
• The seventeenth century was the Golden Age of Sweden (Gustavus Adolphus 1611-32; Christina (1632-54), Charles XII (1697-1718)
• The century was also the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, notable for its economic power.
• The Austrian Habsburgs were Holy Roman Emperors; under Ferdinand II (1619-37) they tried to increase control over the Empire, but later they concentrated on the Habsburg homelands, re-conquering territory from the Turks after the second siege of Vienna (1683; the first was in 1529).
• Russia, Brandenburg-Prussia, and England rose in power late in the century.
Europe: Geography • Mild, fertile, habitable plains; the
Great European Plain • Gulf Stream • Mountains: Urals; Pyrenees; Alps;
Carpathians; Apennines; Ardennes; Harz Mountains
• Mountain culture: Wales; Basques; Switzerland.
• Rivers: Rhine; Danube • Trade: efficiency of water
transport • Baltic trade: Hanseatic League;
Lübeck
Europe: Geography and climate
• Mediterranean trade; Venice; Ottoman Turks;
• oceanic trade routes pioneered by Portugal; spices and drugs from Spice Islands (East Indies)
• The Sound: Denmark; Zealand; Copenhagen; Scania; tolls on trade levied by the King of Denmark.
• The “Little Ice Age” • The Maunder Minimum • The Thames at London froze over in ten
different winters during the century; it froze more rarely later and not at all since 1814.
• Londoners sometimes held “frost fairs” on the frozen river (e.g. 1608, 1683-4).
• In 1658 the Baltic froze so solidly that the Swedes were able to march across the Sound and besiege Copenhagen.
The Sound (Øresund), Zealand, and Scania A “frost fair” on the
Thames at London, 1683-4.
Population and the Economy
• Population in the northwest continued to grow to the mid-seventeenth century; elsewhere it stagnated or fell.
• France had the largest
population: 20 million in 1600, up to 22 million by 1700 (despite very bad times in the 1690s)
• Germany had a population of around 16 million in 1600; it was badly hit by the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and fell to around 12 million by 1650; then it rose again, perhaps reaching 15 million in 1700.
Population and the Economy
• Spain’s population fell slightly from about 8.1 to 7.5 million;
emigration to America was a factor.
• Italy’s population was stable over the century or rose slightly (13 million in 1600 to 13.3 million in 1700), but fell in the first half; plague was a factor here (the plague of 1630 in Milan features in one of the most famous of all Italian novels, Manzoni’s Promessi Sposi of 1827).
• Italy remained densely populated, with some large cities: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples.
Population and the
Economy • In Scandinavia, population in
1700 was about 3 million, a little higher than in 1600; but there had been some disasters along the way.
• Population in Poland and Hungary probably fell sharply.
• In the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic population rose; the Dutch population stabilized after 1660.
• The English population rose from 4 to 5 million between 1600 and the 1630s, and then stagnated.
Causes of Population Change
• A downturn in economic conditions made people poorer, more susceptible to disease, and less likely to marry young and have many children.
• Climate change caused or worsened economic problems.
• Other causes of economic difficulties include warfare, debasement of the coinage, and perhaps the decline of silver imports from America.
• People began to get married
later; this happened even in economically prosperous areas (England; the Netherlands).
Causes of Population Change: Disease
• Killer diseases included typhus, typhoid, and smallpox.
• The most feared disease was plague (bubonic, septicaemic, and pneumonic).
• Plague struck especially in towns and other densely populated or enclosed communities.
• But populations could often recover quite quickly from plague.
• In Amsterdam, plague struck in 1623-5 and killed over 10% of the population; the same happened in 1635-6, 1655, and 1664.
• But Amsterdam’s population increased from 50,000 to over 200,000 (through immigration).
• Plague disappeared from much of Europe after outbreaks in 1665-8.
The village of Eyam in Derbyshire; one of the last places in England to be struck by
plague (1665-6)
Plague Cottage in Eyam Causes of Population
Change • The last appearance of plague in
western Europe was at the French port of Marseille in 1720; it did not spread.
• Long-term loss of population resulted from repeated disasters, such as took place in Germany during the Thirty Years War, and in Poland between 1648 and
1667 (including the Cossack revolt in Ukraine in 1648, Russian invasion, and Swedish invasion in the Deluge (“Potop”), 1655-60.
Consequences of Population Growth
• In Poland and eastern Germany there was good farming land and low population density. When population in the west stagnated, landowners in the east kept up their profits by reducing wages and enserfing the peasants.
• In the northwest, new agricultural techniques were
developed, decreasing the price of food.
• When population stagnated in the northwest in the later part of the century, agricultural innovation continued; average incomes increased, stimulating industrial demand and production.
Towns • Towns in Spain generally
declined, though Madrid – the capital – grew rapidly early in the century.
• Italy’s towns also had some decline, though Italy remained
highly urbanized. • Some capitals grew greatly:
Berlin, Vienna, and most of all Paris and London – both of which had populations of over half a million late in the century.
• Towns connected with Atlantic trade grew: Liverpool, Hamburg, Cadiz.
• In Poland and Russia the rural aristocracy had great privileges, which discouraged urbanization.
• There was little urbanization in the Ottoman Empire, with the great exception of Constantinople.
Wenceslaus Hollar: London in 1657 (before the Great Fire of 1666)
Social Structure • Three “Orders” or “Estates” –
nobles, clergy, commoners. • A crisis for nobles? • Junkers in Brandenburg/ Prussia
join with the Elector in ruling. • Varying numbers of nobles: 10%
in Poland; 5% in Spain (more in Castile); 2% in France and England.
• Nobles relatively unimportant in Holland and Zeeland.
• Great variations in wealth and power among nobles.
• Spain: hidalgos; Grandees (25 families 1520; 120 in 1650).
Social Structure • Nobles: often tax exempt; all
offspring usually inherited noble status; these things not true in England.
• England: nobles, gentry; Houses of Lords and Commons; parliament.
• Nobles often lose status through trade or manual work; dérogeance.
• Townsmen; physicians; lawyers; clergy
• Archbishops; bishops; abbots; priests/ pastors
• Peasants; yeomen; where their tenure was most secure, agriculture was most productive: Netherlands; England; Catalonia.
Hollar: the bowing Gentleman
A Mortuary Sword A Rapier A Stiletto
Hollar: a Lady of the Court
of England Hollar: a Citizen’s
Daughter Hollar: a Kitchen Maid
Government • Republics: imperial free cities in
Germany (Nuremberg; Augsburg); Swiss
cantons; Venice • The Dutch Republic; seven
provinces (including Holland); Orange family; stadholder; crisis of 1618-19; Maurice (Maurits) of Nassau; Jan van Oldenbarnevelt;
crisis of 1650; William (Willem) II; Johan de Witt; crisis of 1672; William III.
• The English Republic 1649-60; Oliver Cromwell.
Execution of Oldenbarnevelt at The
Hague, 1619. Government: limited
monarchies • Sweden: riksdag (four estates);
monarchs deposed 1569, 1599; Form of Government 1634; constitutional revolution of 1680 brings absolute monarchy.
• Denmark: constitutional revolution of 1660 brings absolute monarchy.
• England: Glorious Revolution of 1688 makes clear that the monarch’s power is limited.
• Protestant heresy linked to rebellion by Ferdinand II, Maximilian of Bavaria, Richelieu, Louis XIV.
• Matthew 16:18: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”.
• Divine Providence. Bossuet. Gallicanism.
Bellarmine (1542-1621), by Gian Lorenzo Bernini,
Rome 1622 Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): “Doctor Eximius” Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623);
the Venetian Interdict 1606-7
Religion: Lutheranism and other forms of Protestantism
• Lutheranism; Zwinglianism; Calvinism.
• Rejection of indulgences and Purgatory. Justification by faith
alone (solifidianism); 2 not 7 sacraments (baptism; eucharist/ Lord’s Supper; holy communion); pope has no power (perhaps is Antichrist); Scripture alone contains the rules of Christianity (tradition unimportant); against clerical celibacy and monasticism; monastic lands can be secularized; communion in both kinds
• Consubstantiation replaces transubstantiation; other Protestants reject both.
• Peace of Augsburg 1555.
Religion: Calvinism • John Calvin (d. 1564); Geneva. • Theodore Beza (d. 1604). • Predestination (compare with
Catholic Jansenists). • Many Calvinists were
Presbyterians; millenarians. • Calvinism spread in England,
France, the Dutch Republic, and in central and eastern Europe. In Germany the Electors of the Palatinate and (from 1613) of Brandenburg were Calvinists.
• Hermeticism. • Millenarianism; John Napier. • Jean Bodin (d. 1596); political
science. • Witchcraft; the witch-craze; key
factors: judicial use of torture; cases decided by locals; areas of heightened religious tension; only about 15% of witches were men; the Inquisition (Spain, Portugal, Italy).
William Perkins (d. 1602) on Witchcraft
Thirty Years War 1618-48: Outline
• (1) Origins • (2) The Bohemian Phase and the
Palatinate 1618-24 • (3) The Danish Phase 1625-9. • (4) The Swedish Phase 1630-5. • (5) The French (and Swedish)
Phase 1635-48. • (6) The Peace of Westphalia 1648.
The Thirty Years War, 1618-48
• Linked wars: Spain vs. France 1635-59; Spain vs. Dutch, 1568-1609, 1621-48.
• Germany before the War: • The Peace of Augsburg 1555;
cuius regio eius religio • Catholicism; Lutheranism • Calvinism; the Elector Palatine
(Palatinate); the Elector of Brandenburg (from 1613)
The Thirty Years War: origins
• Germany before the War: • The “ecclesiastical reservation” in
the Peace of Augsburg: land belonging to the Catholic church after 1552 cannot be taken from it.
• War over Cologne 1583-8;
Bavarian Wittelsbach family controls Cologne thereafter.
• Imperial free cities; crisis at Donauwörth 1606-8.
The Thirty Years War: origins
• Donauwörth crisis: Protestants walk out of the Imperial Diet 1608; the Elector Palatine (Wittelsbach) founds the Protestant Union.
• 1609: Maximilian of Bavaria founds the Catholic League.
• 1610: Cleves/ Jülich succession
crisis. • 1610: assassination of Henry IV of
France.
Maximilian the Great, Duke of Bavaria (1573/1597-1651). His sister married Ferdinand of Austria in 1600; he married their 25-year old daughter in
1635.
Thirty Years War: the Bohemian Crisis 1618-20 • Rudolf II (Emperor 1576-1612) • Matthias (Emperor 1612-19) • Ferdinand II (Emperor 1619-37);
Styria; Graz. • Letter of Majesty (Bohemia)
1609. • Estates of Bohemia revolt 1618.
• Hradschin Palace/ Prague Castle • The defenestration of Prague;
Martinitz and Slavata (also Philip Fabricius von Hohenfall)
The Defenestration of Prague, May 23 1618 Rudolf II, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1590-1.
Ferdinand II (1578/1619-37; here in 1614)
The Bohemian Crisis 1618-20
• Revolts in Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary 1618-20.
• Bethlen Gábor (Gabriel Bethlen; 1580-1629; Prince of Transylvania 1613-29).
• 1619: Estates of Bohemia elect Frederick V (Elector Palatine) as King in place of Habsburg Ferdinand II.
• Frederick V married to Elizabeth, daughter of British King James I.
• John George of Saxony.
Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662): the Winter Queen
Bethlen Gábor
(1580/1613-29), Prince of Transylvania
John George of Saxony, 1626
The Bohemian Crisis and the Palatinate 1618-24
• 1620: battle of the White Mountain near Prague; defeat of the Winter King and Queen.
• Tilly (Johann Tserclaes, Graf von Tilly)
• 1620: Ambrogio (/Ambrosio) Spinola invades the Lower Palatinate (on the Rhine)
• Ernst von Mansfeld; Christian of Brunswick
• 1623: Ferdinand appoints Maximilian of Bavaria as Elector Palatine.
• 1624: Breakdown of English plans for a “Spanish Match” between Prince Charles and the Infanta Maria Anna. Johann Tserclaes, Count of (Graf von) Tilly (1559-1632); Altötting,
Bavaria
Tilly; Munich, Bavaria. The Thirty Years War: the
Danish Phase 1625-9;
Wallenstein. • Christian IV of Denmark (1577-
1648; King 1588-1648); Duke of Holstein; uncle of Charles I of Britain.
• Spinola captures Breda 1625. • English expedition to Cadiz, 1625. • Lutheran Dukes of Mecklenburg;
Mansfeld; Bethlen Gábor. • Wallenstein (Albrecht Wenzel
Eusebius von Waldstein/ Wallenstein; 1583-1634; Duke of Friedland 1625; Duke of Mecklenburg 1628).
The Surrender of Breda
1625; painted 1634-5 by Diego Velázquez
Wallenstein in 1629 The Thirty Years War: the
Danish phase 1625-9 • Battle of Lutter 1626; Tilly
defeats Christian. • Meanwhile Wallenstein fights
Mansfeld (d. 1626) and Bethlen Gábor.
• 1627: Persians defeat Turks at Baghdad; Bethlen Gábor backs out of the war.
• 1627: Wallenstein conquers
Jutland. • 1628: Wallenstein fails to capture
Stralsund. • 1629: Wallenstein makes peace
with Denmark.
The Thirty Years War: the Swedish Phase 1630-35.
• The Edict of Restitution (1629) and the dismissal of Wallenstein (1630).
• The succession crisis in Mantua 1628: war between France and the Habsburgs 1629-31.
• The “Spanish Road”. • Piet Hein captures the Spanish
treasure fleet 1628. • Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632;
King of Sweden 1611-32) invades Germany 1630. Piet Hein captures the Spanish silver
fleet in the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba, 1628
The Thirty Years War: the Swedish Phase 1630-5.
• 1631: Treaty of Bärwalde between Sweden and France.
• 1631: Tilly sacks Magdeburg (but not Rothenburg; Der Meistertrunk).
• 1631: Gustavus defeats Tilly at Breitenfeld.
• 1632: allied to the Swedes, John
George of Saxony attacks Bohemia and captures Prague.
• 1632: Gustavus attacks Bavaria and captures Munich.
• 1632: Gustavus defeats Tilly at the battle of the river Lech; Tilly dies of wounds.
• 1632: Ferdinand II recalls Wallenstein.
Gustavus Adolphus Der Meistertrunk:
schedule and activities for 2015
The Thirty Years War: the Swedish phase 1630-5 and the death of
Wallenstein (1634). • 1632: Wallenstein fights Gustavus
at Lützen; death of Gustavus. • Christina (1626-89; Queen of
Sweden 1626-54). • Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654). • League of Heilbronn 1633. • Death of Wallenstein 25 February
1634 • Walter Butler; Walter Leslie; John
Gordon; Walter Devereux.
The Thirty Years War: the French (and Swedish)
Phase 1635-48 • 1634: Matthias, Count Gallas
(1584-1645) defeats Swedes and their allies at Nördlingen.
• 1635: Peace of Prague: Ferdinand II modifies Edict of Restitution; Saxony changes sides (again).
• 1635: France enters the war directly.
• 1636: the year of Corbie. • 1636: Swedes (under Johan
Banér) defeat Saxons at Wittstock.
The Thirty Years War: the French (and Swedish)
Phase 1635-48
• 1638: Bernard of Saxe-Weimar (1604-39) captures the fortress of Breisach on the Rhine; the French take control of it on his death in 1639
• 1640: revolts against Spain of Catalonia and Portugal
Lennart Torstensson (1603-51) in 1648 Queen Christina,
Riksdaler of 1647 The Peace of Westphalia
1648 • Efforts to negotiate peace of
Pope Urban VIII 1636, and of Ferdinand III (1608-57; Emperor from 1637) in 1640.
• Two peace conferences, at Münster (France), and Osnabrück (Sweden) start in 1645 and end in 1648.
• War between Spain and the
Dutch ends with Dutch independence.
• Sweden gets Western Pomerania including Stettin; also gets Bremen and makes other gains in North Germany (Brandenburg gets East Pomerania)
Ferdinand III (1608/37-57) The Peace of Westphalia
1648 • France gets most of Alsace, and
Breisach and some other strategic fortresses.
• Sovereignty of German states is recognized, and the powers of the Empire weakened (unanimity is required for the Diet to act).
• Palatinate: the title of Elector Palatine, and the Lower Palatinate (Heidelberg) restored to Karl Ludwig, the son of the Winter King and Queen.
• The Upper Palatinate stays with Maximilian of Bavaria, who loses the title of Elector Palatine, but
becomes Elector of Bavaria.
The Peace of Westphalia 1648: Religion
• Religion: Calvinism was now recognized.
• Rulers could establish either Catholicism or Lutheranism or Calvinism as the public religion of their lands.
• Rulers were to tolerate the private practice of religions which had been allowed in their lands in 1624.
• Rulers could expel (within 5 years) members of religious
groups that had not been tolerated in their lands in 1624, but could not take their property.
• Land taken from Protestants by Catholics after 1624 was to be restored.
The Peace of Westphalia 1648: Assessment
• The Peace of Westphalia made it clear that the Dutch would be independent from Spain, that the Emperor would not have sovereign power over Germany,
and that Protestantism would not be wiped out in Germany.
• The Peace is sometimes seen as a key turning point in the secularization of politics and international relations, when realpolitik or raison d’état replaced religious commitments; this is debatable.
Consequences of the Thirty Years War
• Germany suffered serious population loss, and economic dislocation.
• The losses varied greatly; in some
places population was hardly affected, but in others it declined sharply; in Pomerania it fell by perhaps 50%; in the area around Magdeburg by 90%; overall, German population fell from about 16 million to 12 million.
• The war stimulated efforts to prevent similar disasters in the future, by establishing internationally agreed laws on the grounds for war and on what was legitimate in war.
Jacques Caillot, from The Miseries of War, 1633
Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis
Scandinavia and Poland to 1660
• Swedish army under Torstensson attacks Denmark 1643; war 1643-5; Halland conquered by Sweden.
• Charles X of Sweden (1654-60) (married Hedvig Eleonora/ Holstein-Gottorp).
• John Casimir of Poland (1648-68). • 1655: Swedes invade Poland
(Potop: the Deluge). • Frederick III of Denmark (1648-
70).
Scandinavia and Poland to 1660
• 1657: Brandenburg changes sides and gains sovereignty of Prussia.
• 1658: Swedes besiege Copenhagen and conquer Scania.
• 1660: Treaties of Copenhagen and Oliva.
• (1667: Truce of Andrusovo: Poland loses Eastern Ukraine – including Kiev – to Russia)
Sweden and Denmark 1645
(Brömsebro): Sweden gains yellow areas, and red area for 30 years
Sweden and Denmark 1658 (Roskilde) and
1660 (Copenhagen): Sweden gains yellow and purple areas in 1658, but returns
purple area in 1660 The War between Spain
and France 1635-59 • Revolts of Catalonia and Portugal 1640. • Portugal: battle of Villaviciosa 1665; Spain
recognizes Portugal as independent 1668. • Catalonia: Louis XIII and XIV of France
become Dukes of Barcelona. • France weakened by the Fronde 1648-52. • 1652: Barcelona surrenders to Spain. • 1655: England joins the war; capture of
Jamaica (1655) and Dunkirk (1658) from Spain.
• Death of Oliver Cromwell 1658. • Treaty of the Pyrenees 1659; Maria Teresa
and Louis marry 1660. Maria Teresa (1638-83), by Velázquez, 1653; she
was the double cousin of Louis XIV, whom she
married in 1660
Spain: Outline • (1) Government; (2) Society; (3)
The Economy; (4) Olivares; (5) The Crisis of the 1640s.
• The Monarchs: • Philip II (el Prudente; the
prudent); 1556-98. • Philip III (el Piadoso; the pious);
1598-1621. • Philip IV (el Grande; the great; el
Re Planeta; the planet king); 1621-65.
• Charles II (el Hechizado); 1665-1700.
Spain in the Early Seventeenth Century:
Government • Vast resources and territory:
Spain, Portugal, Spanish (Southern) Netherlands (and a claim to the Northern provinces), Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Milan, Franche-Comté (Besançon), Charolais, Luxemburg, much of Central and South America, Philippines.
• But the vastness of the territories creates problems of communication and
administration
Spain: Government: Disunity
• Disunity; different parts of Spain insist on their own rights and privileges (fueros).
• Spain divided into different states with their own customs, laws, and institutions, united only by having the same monarch.
• The largest and richest state was Castile, which controlled the American territories.
• The kingdom of Aragon was subdivided into Aragon proper,
Valencia, and Catalonia. • Portugal taken over by Spain only
in 1580; Portuguese Empire included Brazil and Goa.
Spain and Portugal in 1492
Spain: Government: Taxation
• Each region was reluctant to pay for expenses spent outside the region.
• Castile got burdened with greater taxes than other areas.
• Other regions thought this was
fair, because the American Empire was Castile’s; trade went through Cadiz and Seville.
• Castile wanted other regions to pay their fair share in taxes.
Spain: Government: Taxation in Castile
• Servicio ordinario y extraordinario (tax voted by the Cortes).
• Alcabala (10% sales taxes; towns often compounded; nobles often acquired the right to it).
• Millones (tax on foodstuffs; voted by the Cortes).
• Customs duties; taxes on church
(including on sale of indulgences). • Quint: 20% levy on silver from
America (about the same as alcabala in 1600; declined from 1620s)
• To raise more cash, government sold interest-bearing bonds – juros
• Weak finances limited military possibilities; 1628: Piet Hein
A “Piece of 8” Reales, 1687, Potosí mint.
Spain: Government: the Conciliar System.
• Philip II: the king governs in person
• El Escorial. • Council of State; Finance; War. • Council of Castile; Aragon;
• Consulta. “If death came from Madrid, we would all be immortal”.
• Audiencias (America). Letrados.
Philip III, 1578/1598-1621 • Became King at the age of 20.
• Lazy; pious; fond of high aristocracy. • Married his 14-year old cousin
Margaret of Austria in 1599; she had 8 children in the next 12 years, and died in childbirth in 1611.
Philip IV, 1605/1621-65 (by Velázquez; 1652-3)
• Became King at the age of 16. • Interested in art collecting; court life;
religion; actresses; bull fights; horses. • His legitimate son and heir Balthasar
Charles died of smallpox in 1646 (aged 16).
• He had another legitimate son in 1661 – Charles II.
Charles II, 1661/5-1700 • 2 of Charles’ 4 grandparents were also
his great-grandparents. • Ferdinand I (d. 1564) was his direct
ancestor (great-great grandfather etc.) eight times over.
• He had serious physical and emotional problems.
• He married twice, but had no children. • His death was long expected (and
hoped for by those who stood to inherit).
Spain: Government: the validos/ privados;
valimiento • Government by the King in
person worked well under the
able workaholic Philip II. • But under lazier or less
competent Kings it made sense to leave decisions to a chief advisor – a privado/ valido (who often held few major offices).
• If things went wrong, this person could be blamed, and the monarchy survive unscathed.
• But the system linked the crown to the privado’s faction, annoying other nobles
• And the privado could be incompetent
Francisco Gómez de
Sandoval, Duke of Lerma (1553-1625) (by Rubens,
1603) • A high nobleman, he became a
favorite of the young Philip III before the latter became King in 1598,
• The King made Lerma his privado and in 1599 gave him a dukedom.
• Lerma used his power to make himself vastly rich.
• His enemies at court secured his fall in 1618; earlier that year he persuaded the Pope to make him a Cardinal.
Later privados • One of those who drove Lerma
from power was Olivares, who
became privado under Philip IV; more on Olivares in a while.
• On Olivares’ fall in 1643, his nephew Luis Méndez de Haro, Marquis of Carpio (d. 1661), succeeded him as privado.
• Mariana (or Maria Anna) of Austria married her uncle Philip IV when she was 14; she was regent for Charles II 1665-77, and appointed as privado first her Austrian confessor Johann Eberhard Nithard (to 1669) and then the minor noble Fernando de Valenzuela (1673-7).
• Philip IV’s illegitimate son John of
Austria took over in 1677, ending the age of the privados.
Charles II and his Mother, Mariana (or Maria Anna) of Austria (1634-
96) (Milan 1666)
Spain: Government: the Cortes of Castile
• The consent of the Cortes was required if the King wanted new taxes.
• The Cortes sometimes used its power over taxation to criticize royal policy.
• But it was a weak institution, and after 1665 it ceased to be called.
• The nobles and clergy did not send representatives to the Cortes; 18 towns did
• The representatives got to vote taxes for the whole of Castile, and to say how they would be distributed; their expenses were paid by the government; and they got a share of the taxes they voted.
Spain: Society • Nobles; grandees; títulos (Duke;
Marquis; Count; Viscount) (also Baron in Catalonia); caballeros;
hidalgos. • Clergy: 100-150,000 under Philip
IV (ten times as many as in England).
• Students; Colegios Mayores • Arbitristas • Link between trade and low
status; Granada 1492; purity of blood (limpieza de sangre); Jews; Moors; Marranos; Moriscos; Inquisition.
• Expulsion of the Moriscos 1609-14; 319,000 expelled; Valencia.
Expulsion of the Moriscos
1609 Spain: Economy
• Peasants: high taxation, and large payments to noble landowners encourage them to leave the land and emigrate to America.
• Mesta: aristocratic organization of sheep-owners, dominated by grandees; merino sheep.
• But Spanish wool increasingly uncompetitive with the New Draperies of the Dutch and English.
• Debasement of the coinage; vellón.
• Agricultural prosperity in Catalonia; Barcelona.
Olivares in 1635 (by Velázquez)
Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares, 1587-1645:
early career • Olivares became Duke of San
Lúcar la Mayor, and was known as the Conde-Duque (Count-Duke) from then on.
• He was a younger son of the Count of Olivares, who served as Spanish ambassador to Rome,
and as Viceroy of Naples and Sicily.
• Olivares’ father never quite made it to the rank of Grandee.
• There was Jewish blood in the family’s recent past.
Olivares: early career • Since he was a younger son, he
was not expected to inherit the family estates, and so would need to earn a living.
• So he was sent to the University of Salamanca, to be trained for a career in the church.
• But when his elder brother died, he became heir to the family lands; he married and was sent to court.
• In 1607 his father died and he inherited the countship and lands.
Olivares’ rise to power • At court, he was attached to the
household of the heir to the throne, who became Philip IV.
• Young Philip initially disliked Olivares; the latter worked hard to change that.
• When Philip IV became King in 1621, Olivares rose to power; by
1623 he was Philip’s chief minister.
• Olivares was intelligent, verbose, deeply religious, and self-doubting; he was well aware of Spain’s problems, and determined to solve them.
Olivares’ plans for reform • To make government more
efficient, he supplemented the councils with juntas – to which he appointed relatives and clients.
• They included the junta for reformation (1623).
• It proposed cutting the size of local government bureaucracy by
two thirds. • It advocated reducing the number
of students and grammar schools. • It proposed ending wasteful
spending by abolishing the ruff and brothels, and discouraging plays and novels.
A Ruff (on the Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I,
1575) Olivares’ plans for reform • He intended to increase royal
authority, and with this in mind appointed officials from the
lesser rather than the higher nobility.
• He set up juntas for economic reform, intending to promote trade and agriculture, and reverse depopulation. He offered noble status to large-scale traders.
• He expanded the navy. • He wanted to share the cost of
government fairly across Spain, and ultimately to unite the different regions.
Olivares’ plans for reform • As a first step towards unification,
he planned a Union of Arms (1625) which would create a single Spanish army financed by all the regions in proportion to their wealth.
• Many of his plans failed (though the ruff fell out of fashion).
• Aragon resisted the Union of Arms.
• It was hard to reduce the size of the Castilian local bureaucracy as many offices had been bought by the office-holders, and the government could not afford to buy them back.
Olivares’ plans for reform
• Despite Olivares’ efforts, people continued to think of clergy and students as having high status, and equated trade with low status.
• To finance government, Olivares resorted to debasing the coinage by issuing vellón (base; billon) coins; this annoyed the Cortes and harmed the economy.
• But the main reason why Olivares shelved his plans was that Spain went to war again.
Olivares and foreign
policy • In 1621 the Twelve Years Truce
between the Dutch Republic and Spain expired.
• Some Spaniards thought the Truce should be renewed; but Olivares believed (rightly) that Dutch wealth had expanded greatly during the Truce, and he hoped that Spain could extract better terms from the Dutch, even if it could not reconquer them.
• The Austrian Habsburgs were successful in the early years of the Thirty Years War; it seemed
like a good idea for Spain to ally with them.
Olivares: Spain at War. • Spain had successes early in the
war; in 1625 Breda was captured, and Bahia (in Brazil) was recaptured; the Dutch were also defeated at Puerto Rico.
• Olivares’ motives: self-defense or world domination?
• Turning points: death of the Duke of Mantua (1627) and Mantuan succession crisis (1628-31); Duke of Nevers.
• Piet Hein captures the treasure fleet 1628.
1625: Admiral Fadrique Alvárez de Toledo leads
a Spanish and Portuguese force which recaptures Bahia from the Dutch.
Olivares: Spain at War • 1630s: Olivares tries to get more
financial and military resources from outlying parts of Spain and from Portugal.
• Unrest in Catalonia, Vizcaya 1632; Portugal 1637; Olivares backs down.
• 1638 fall of Breisach; 1639 Battle of the Downs – destruction of a Spanish fleet in the English
Channel. • 1639-40: billeting of troops in
Catalonia.
Olivares 1640-3: Crisis and Fall
• May 1640: Catalan Revolt begins; later some Catalan nobles invite in the French; the Revolt divides; 1648 peace with the Dutch strengthens Spain, and the Fronde weakens France; plague strikes Catalonia ealry 1650s; Philip IV promises easy terms and Barcelona surrenders 1652.
• Portugal: 1630 Dutch capture
Pernambuco in Brazil; Spain fails to recapture it 1640.
• Portuguese resent exclusion from Spanish America, and high taxation and use of Inquisition against those merchants who do trade there.
Coin of Louis XIII as Count of Barcelona, 1642
Olivares: 1640-3: Crisis and Fall
• Portuguese hope that if they split from Spain, Dutch will stop attacking
Brazil. • Portuguese resent efforts
of Olivares’ to use their resources in Dutch War.
• December 1640: Portugal revolts; allies with France.
• 1643: Fall of Olivares; d. 1645.
Portugal becomes independent
• 1640: John Duke of Braganza
becomes King John (João) IV of Portugal.
• Dutch continue attacking Portuguese possessions and capture Luanda (Angola) 1641; but Portugal recaptures it 1648, and drives Dutch from Brazil 1654.
• Portugal deserted by French 1659, but allies with England 1661; they decisively defeat Spain 1665 (Villaviciosa), and Spain recognizes Portugal’s independence 1668.
France 1589-1643:
Outline • (1) Henry IV (1553/89-1610) and
the end of the Religious Wars: Nantes and Vervins.
• (2) The reforms of Sully. • (3) The minority of Louis XIII
(1601/10-43) 1610-17: Marie de’ Medici and Concini.
• (4) Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes (1617-21).
• (5) Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duke of Richelieu: (A) rise to power 1614-24; (B) domestic policy; (C) foreign policy and reason of state.
Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion
• 1559: death of Henry II (Valois) of France; he was succeeded in turn by his three young and ineffective sons.
• Religious civil wars in France from 1560s, between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots.
• 1572: St. Bartholomew’s Day massacres.
• 1584: Henry III’s brother and heir died; the King was childless, so his distant relative Henry Bourbon, King of Navarre,
became heir.
Henry IV of France (and III of Navarre); b. 1553; King
1589(/72)-1610 Pope Gregory XIII celebrates the killing of Huguenots in the St Bartholomew’s Day
massacres of 1572
Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion
• Henry of Navarre was a Huguenot.
• Zealous Catholics claimed that a heretic could not become King of France; under Henry, Duke of Guise, they formed the Holy
League (La Sainte Ligue) in 1585. • The War of the Three Henries
resulted (1585-9): Henry III and Henry of Navarre fought against Henry of Guise and the League
• Paris revolted and drove Henry III out, 1588.
Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion
• Henry III invited Henry of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine to a conference; when they arrived his servants murdered them.
• In 1589 a Dominican friar, Jacques
Clément, murdered Henry III; Henry of Navarre claimed to be Henry IV.
• Philip II of Spain aided the League, and tried to put his daughter Isabella on the French throne; her mother had been Elisabeth Valois, Henry III’s sister.
Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion
• Many French people strongly opposed having a female monarch, believing that ancient Salic Law prohibited this.
• Many opposed Spanish
intervention in their affairs. • Henry IV gained support from the
politiques, a group which put political stability and temporal welfare ahead of religious considerations.
• In 1593, Henry IV converted to Catholicism.
Henry IV and the End of the Wars of Religion
• “Paris is well worth a mass” (“Paris vaut bien une messe”): Paris surrenders to Henry IV.
• Aristocratic members of the League grew worried about the
social radicalism of some of its members.
• By force and bribery, Henry IV got the leaders of the League to surrender.
• The wars ended in 1598 when Spain and France made the Peace of Vervins.
Henry IV: the Edict of Nantes 1598
• At the end of the religious wars, Henry IV granted the Huguenots (limited) religious toleration in the Edict of Nantes (1598)
• Huguenot nobles could hold
Protestant services in their own households.
• Huguenots could have public services in a limited number of towns, but not in Paris.
• Huguenot ministers were to be paid by the state.
Manuscript of the Edict of Nantes, April 13, 1598 Henry IV: the Edict of
Nantes 1598 • Huguenots were to have full civil
rights and to be eligible for all jobs in state service.
• Huguenots were granted control
of some fortified, garrisoned towns, such as La Rochelle.
• To enforce the Edict, provincial courts were set up with equal numbers of Protestant and Catholic members.
• But In the highest court – the Parlement of Paris – Catholics had a majority (of 10-6, and later 10-1).
Henry IV: religious tensions after the Edict.
• Though the Edict theoretically gave Huguenots full rights, in practice governments favored
Catholics, and Huguenot rights were eroded.
• Some Catholics thought the Edict was wrong, since it was sinful to tolerate heresy; some believed it was foolish to have an armed religious minority in the country.
• Assassination attempts by Catholic fanatics against Henry continued after he converted to Catholicism.
• After one of these, in 1595, the Jesuits (many of whom had sided with the League) were exiled from Paris.
Henry IV: religious
tensions after the Edict. • In 1604 the Jesuits were
readmitted to Paris; one of them – Pierre Coton – became the King’s confessor.
• Many Jesuits were ultramontanes.
• Many members of the Parlement of Paris were Gallicans.
• In 1610 Henry IV was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic, François Ravaillac.
• There were suspicions that Ravaillac was influenced by Jesuits; the Parlement burned Juan de Mariana’s De Rege et
regis institutione (1599), and took further action against ultramontane ideas in the following years.
Sully and domestic policy • One of Henry’s leading ministers
was the Huguenot Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully (1560-1641).
• Henry and Sully re-established order and economic prosperity; central to this was the simple fact that peace had been restored.
• Sully became superintendent of finances, grand commissioner of highways and public works, and
grand master of the artillery.
A statue of Sully by Gabriel-Vital Dubray, c.1853; in the Louvre
Sully and domestic policy • Sully rooted out financial
corruption by administrators (apart from himself).
• The taille (tax on land or personal property) fell slightly but the gabelle (tax on salt) rose.
• Sully built up a large surplus of revenue, enabling Henry to pay of debts to foreign powers.
• In the case of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, Henry got out of paying his debts by marrying the Grand Duke’s daughter, Marie de’ Medici.
Marie de’ Medici (1575-1642) married Henri IV in 1600; here she is c.1606 In 1601, Marie gave birth to a son,
who became Louis XIII in 1610; here they are in 1603
Marie acted as Regent while Louis
was a boy; this dates from 1614. Elisabeth (1602-44)
married Philip IV of Spain In 1608 she gave birth to
another son, Gaston, Duke of Orléans (1608-60) Henrietta Maria (1609-69), the daughter of Henry IV and Marie, married Charles I
of England in 1625
Sully and domestic policy • Sully improved internal
communications, and planned a network of canals, and improving roads.
• Sully encouraged agricultural improvement and the draining of marshes.
• Henry supposedly said that he wanted every French family to have a “chicken in the pot” (poule au pot).
• Henry encouraged Sully to set up silk factories and plant mulberry trees.
Henry IV: rebellions and foreign affairs
• A conspiracy fomented by France’s neighbor Savoy was suppressed in 1602; the chief conspirators were the Huguenot Henry de la Tour d’Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, and the
Catholic Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Biron; Bouillon fled and was later pardoned; Biron was beheaded.
• Henry fought a brief campaign in Savoy, 1600-1.
• Henry was instrumental in resolving the affair of the Venetian Interdict in 1606-7, arguably averting a European-wide war.
Henry IV: foreign affairs • Henry became infatuated with
Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, the fifteen-year
old wife of his cousin Henry de Bourbon, Prince of Condé; the Prince fled with her to the Spanish Netherlands.
• Henry made plans for war with the Habsburgs; perhaps he intended to pressure them into returning Charlotte; or maybe his main intention was to intervene in the Cleves/ Jülich succession crisis.
• Before he could take military action, he was stabbed to death by Ravaillac.
Ravaillac assassinates
Henry IV, May 14 1610 Memorial, at the place
where Ravaillac assassinated Henry Louis XIII (1610-43):
Minority 1610-17 • Marie de’ Medici: Regent to 1614
(effectively to 1617). • Marie: greedy; pious; venerates
the Virgin Mary; pro-Habsburg (her mother was the daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand I); dévot.
• She confirmed the Edict of Nantes.
• The high nobility, including Condé, resented her power, and protested that her regime was corrupt.
• They pressured her into calling the Estates-General in 1614.
Louis XIII (1610-43): Minority 1610-17
• The Estates-General achieved little; Marie dissolved it in 1615.
• In 1616 she had Condé arrested and removed some of his main allies from office.
• She ruled with her greedy Italian favorites Concino Concini and
Leonora Dori Galigaï. • In 1616 Marie and Concini
brought in to their administration, as secretary of state, Richelieu.
Concino Concini (1575-1617), Marquis d’Ancre and Marshal of France
Leonora Dori Galigaï (1568-1617); Lady-in-waiting and favorite of Marie de’
Medici
Louis and Luynes, 1617-21
• Louis XIII took power for himself and his favorite Charles d’Albert,
lord (Duke 1619) of Luynes. • Louis was pious, with a high
sense of duty; he liked outdoor sports, and especially hunting (most of all with falcons or vultures); he was suspicious of intellectuals.
• He befriended aristocrats with similar interests, especially Luynes, whom he made Grand Falconer of France in 1616.
• Luynes organized a coup against Marie in 1617; Concini was ambushed, assassinated, and torn apart.
The execution of Leonora Dori Galigaï, 1617
Louis XIII in the early 1620s
Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, 1578-1621
Louis and Luynes, 1617-21
• Leonora Dori Galigaï was convicted of bewitching Marie, and of Judaizing; she was beheaded and then burned at the stake.
• Marie soon recovered power as one of the King’s advisors.
• Marie, Louis, and Luynes and Louis agreed that the Huguenots held too much military power.
• Béarn in the Pyrenees was in the Kingdom of Navarre, and so theoretically independent of France.
Louis and Luynes, 1617-21
• Louis and Luynes used force to end the independence of Béarn, and to promote Catholicism
there. • Some Protestant nobles
elsewhere in France resented these actions, and openly resisted the King.
• 1621: while he was campaigning against them, Luynes caught a fever and died, leaving Louis without a chief minister.
The Rise of Richelieu • Eventually (by 1624) Richelieu
became Louis’ leading advisor. • Richelieu was born in 1585. He
was Armand-Jean du Plessis; his father was lord (seigneur) de Richelieu; Richelieu is in Poitou,
west central France. • Richelieu was the fourth of five
children (and the third son). • His father died in 1590, when he
was five.
The Rise of Richelieu • Richelieu’s father had been a
supporter of Henry III (and later of Henry IV).
• Henry III rewarded the family by giving it the right to appoint the Bishop of Luçon; it became the family bishopric.
• Richelieu was not in line to inherit lands or the title; the heir
was his eldest brother Henry. • The next brother was Alphonse,
who was intended for the bishopric.
The Rise of Richelieu • Richelieu was trained to be a
soldier; he attended the University of Paris, and then a school for nobles which taught courtly manners and fencing; Richelieu retained military interests throughout life.
• Brother Alphonse (intended for the bishopric) got religion to such an extent that he became a monk. Richelieu retrained for the
bishopric, studying theology.
The Rise of Richelieu • Since he was under the canonical
age (26) to be a bishop, Richelieu went to Rome to plead for a dispensation from the pope in 1606.
• His intelligence, quick wits, and abilities as a speaker, greatly impressed the pope, who granted the dispensation.
• In 1608 Richelieu took up the job as bishop.
• He was a hard-working, committed, Counter-Reformation
bishop, who looked after the spiritual interests of his diocese, and wrote against Protestantism. Richelieu’s Principaux Points de la Foy
(1618 Paris reprint of a book published at Poitiers in 1617)
The Rise of Richelieu • In 1614 the clergy of Poitou
elected as one of their two representatives in the Estates-General.
• In Paris for the Estates-General, he met and cultivated Concino and Marie, and was appointed secretary of state in 1616.
• When Concino fell, Richelieu was
driven out of office. • 1619: Richelieu’s brother Henry
died in a duel; Richelieu inherited the title.
• When Marie de’ Medici returned to favor, Richelieu did so too.
In 1615 Louis XIII married Anne of
Austria (1601-66) daughter of Philip III of Spain; this portrait, by Rubens, dates
from the early 1620s
Richelieu gains power • Louis XIII was suspicious of
Richelieu, and at first saw him as his mother’s servant.
• But at Marie’s request he got the
pope to appoint Richelieu a Cardinal in 1622.
• 1624: Richelieu became a member of the King’s main advisory council – the Conseil des Affaires – and then its head.
• He began to diverge politically from Marie.
Richelieu c. 1637 Richelieu consolidates
power 1624-30 • Marie supported the dévots, who
wanted good relations with the Habsburg powers.
• The dévots included many
reforming Catholics who were suspicious of the military power of the Huguenots.
• Leaders of the dévots included Michel de Marillac (keeper of the seals) and Gaston d’Orléans (heir to the throne until 1638, when Anne of Austria gave birth to Louis XIV)
Richelieu consolidates power 1624-30
• Marillac favored internal reforms to build up the economy; Code Michaud 1629.
• Richelieu shared many of
Marillac’s views on the importance of internal reform, and like the dévots he thought that the Huguenots should be deprived of military power.
• But Richelieu supported the bons français who argued that France’s political interests required war against the Habsburgs, and who argued that the Habsburgs acted through self-interest and ambition for power, and used religion as a pretext.
Richelieu consolidates power 1624-30
• In 1627-8 the Huguenots revolted at La Rochelle; bons français and dévots agreed that the the Revolt had to be suppressed.
• La Rochelle was besieged; it surrendered on October 28, 1628; the Peace of Alais (1629) ended the military power of the Huguenots.
• In 1628, the Mantuan Succession Crisis raised the question of whether France should intervene militarily against the Habsburgs in Italy.
Louis XIII and Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle,
1628 Richelieu at the siege of
La Rochelle, by Henri Motte, 1881
Richelieu consolidates power 1624-30
• Richelieu persuaded Louis to lead an army into Italy in 1629.
• At court on 10 November 1630, Marie threw a tantrum, demanding that Louis dismiss
Richelieu; Louis appeared to give in, but the next day he ordered Richelieu to remain in office; Marillac was imprisoned; the Day of the Dupes.
• 1631: Richelieu was made a Duke; Marie went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands.
Representative Assemblies; (3) Intendants; (4) The Economy.
• Plots and Revolts by Nobles:
• 1626: the Count of Chalais (Henri de Talleyrand-Périgord) plotted with Gaston d’Orléans and was executed.
• 1632: Revolt of Languedoc under Henry, Duke of Montmorency, supported by Gaston d’Orléans.
• 1641: Revolt of Louis de Bourbon, Count of Soissons (a member of the royal family).
• 1642: Execution of Henri Coiffier de Ruzé d’Effiat, Marquis of St-Mars.
Louis de Bourbon, Count
of Soissons (1604-41), in 1640
Henri de Coiffier de Ruzé d’Effiat, Marquis of Cinq-
Mars, 1620-42 Richelieu: Domestic Policy • Nobles; the Problem of Dueling: • 1626: an edict institutes the
death penalty for dueling; it was flagrantly flouted by aristocrats including François de Montmorency-Bouteville; so Richelieu and Louis enforced the edict by having Montmorency-
1614-15 (not again until 1789); Assembly of Notables 1627 (not again until 1787).
Montmorency-Bouteville (1600-27), the champion duelist of his generation,
dueled once too often in 1627 • 1627: François de Montmorency-
Bouteville, Duke of Luxembourg, fought a duel in Paris (he had fought 21 previous duels); his second, the Count of Chapelles, killed his opponent’s second (Bussy d’Amboise)
Normandy 1635. • Parlement of Paris; lit-de-justice;
Chambre de l’Arsenal 1631; 1641 edict limits Parlement’s right of remonstrance.
• Intendants. Venality of office. • Economy: Navy; Plans for state-
run trading companies; 1627 Compagnie de la Nouvelle France (Canada); 1630 national postage and stage-coach service; 1635 Académie française.
Richelieu: Foreign policy and reason of state
• Reason of state; ragione di stato;
Machiavelli; Botero; Cornelius Jansen, Mars Gallicus 1635.
• War drastically increases expenditure and taxation; before 1632, royal income was always below 50,000 livres a year; later in the 1630s it rose to 200,000.
• Revolts: Languedoc 1632; Normandy 1639.
• What was the purpose of the war?
• Breisach. Pinerolo. Alsace.
(Cornelius Jansen,) Mars Gallicus, 1639
• Typically of highly controversial books, this edition of Mars Gallicus has a false
author’s name – Alexander Patrick of Armagh – and no printer’s name or place of publication; sometimes the date was also falsified in such works.
A Medal of 1638, commemorating the capture of Breisach by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; it went to France on his death
in 1639
Breisach’s strategic location on the Rhine
The Tomb of Richelieu, in the Sorbonne, 1694
The Richelieu medal gold, given by the modern Sorbonne (University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne) for outstanding contributions to
learning and the University.
1000 Franc banknote of 1957 (revalued at 10
Francs in 1960) Christoph Waltz as
Richelieu, 2011 First Midterm: Example
Questions • 1. Lutherans and Calvinists agreed on
which one of the following: (A) consubstantiation; (B) the independent power of churchmen; (C) the importance of predestination; (D) justification by faith alone.
• 2. Bethlen Gabor was: (A) a
Transylvanian Protestant; (B) the Dutch privateer who captured the Spanish treasure fleet in 1628; (C) the Duke of Mantua whose death sparked off the Mantuan succession crisis; (D) a prominent Catholic mercenary leader.
First Midterm: Example Questions (Contd.)
• 3. These two were thrown out of a window at the Hradschin Palace in Prague in 1618, beginning the Bohemian Revolt: (A) Frederick V and Elizabeth; (B) Ferdinand II and Maximilian of Bavaria; (C) Slavata and Martinic; (D) Tilly and Wallenstein.
• 4. Juros were: (A) the Spanish currency in the seventeenth century; (B) legal officials appointed by the crown to administer the law in the
localities; (C) Muslims who had outwardly been converted to Christianity but who were suspected of disloyalty and were expelled from Spain in 1609-14; (D) Spanish government bonds.
• 5. Which one of the following prominent French figures was not assassinated?: (A) Henry III; (B) Henry IV; (C) Henry Duke of Guise; (D) Louis XIII.
First Midterm: Example Questions (Contd.)
• 1. What were the main economic changes that occurred in seventeenth-century Europe, and what were their causes and effects?
• 2. Why did the Thirty Years’ War break out, why did it last so long, and why was it so destructive and violent?
• 3. What social, economic and political problems confronted Spain and France
in the age of Richelieu and Olivares, and how successful were the governments of the two countries in overcoming the problems?
The Dutch Republic to 1650: Outline
• (1) Society and Economy; (2) Government; (3) Religious and Intellectual History; (4) Narrative.
• The Heads of the Orange Family: (1) Maurice of Nassau (Maurits) 1585-1625; (2) Frederick Henry (half-brother of Maurice; both were sons of William of Orange, d. 1584) 1625-47 (there was also an older Catholic half-
brother who was Prince of Orange until his death in 1618; he was brought up in Spain); (3) William II 1647-50 (son of Frederick Henry).
Maurice of Nassau (1567/85-1625) Frederick Henry
(1584/1625-47; Maurice’s half-brother)
William II (1626/47-50) Johannes (/ Jan) Vermeer (1632-75), View of Delft
(c. 1660-1)
Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring,
(c. 1665). The Dutch Republic:
Society and Economy • Seven Provinces: Holland; Zeeland;
• 1590s: Philip II closed Iberian ports to Dutch; so they started to explore and trade globally.
• 1598-1601: Olivier van der Noort sails round the world.
• 1602: East India Company (VOC: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie).
• 1621: West India Company.
Fluyts c. 1647: inexpensive ships with large storage capacity
The Dutch Republic: Society and Economy
• Dutch build fleets for French, Danes and Swedes.
• Shortage of land; so wealthy invest in insurance and banking; financial expertise of Amsterdam banks encourages foreign deposits.
• City council (vroedschap);
regents; city militias; mob. A Dutch Leeuwendaalder (Dordrecht 1576); this
was a major international trade coin throughout the seventeenth century;
(Joachims)thal – thaler – daalder – dollar.
Dutch Government • 7 self-governing Provinces; towns
largely self-governing; but military affairs, foreign policy, and (sometimes) religion decided by the Provinces together.
• Provinces had representative assemblies = States; States of Holland met at the Hague and represented 18 towns (with one vote each); the nobility had only one vote.
• Amsterdam paid about a quarter of the taxes of the whole Republic, and
had a large say in its affairs.
Dutch Government • Holland: head of civil
administration was Advocate (to 1618) and then Pensionary.
• The States General (meeting daily from 1593, usually at the Hague; unanimity was required on important matters; it voted taxes for military purposes, giving each Province a quota.
• Decentralization; lack of uniformity.
Dutch Government • Stadholder (lieutenant; deputy). • Orange family; head of the family was
Stadholder of Holland and most of the other Provinces, and Captain-General.
• The Captain-General’s power grew in war; so he often favored an aggressive foreign policy.
• Calvinist clergy tended to support aggression (against foreign Catholic powers).
• The merchants of Holland tended to oppose it; the Captain-General often supported the other Provinces against Holland, and the Calvinist clergy against total toleration.
Dutch Religious and Intellectual History
• A reason for the Revolt against Spain was to oppose religious persecution.
• Erasmian tradition of tolerance; Grotius. • 1573 William the Silent (Prince of
Orange) became Calvinist. • Calvinism established as state religion;
clergy receive public funding. • But local lay authorities (e.g. regents of
Holland) want to restrict power of Calvinist clergy and tolerate other groups.
Dutch Religious and Intellectual History
• In practice, non-Calvinists enjoyed a large measure of toleration, especially in towns, where the lay authorities protected them.
• Catholics (a third of population 1650); Mennonites; Jews (got right of public worship 1597).
• Dutch witches: last execution 1595; last trial (acquittal) 1610.
• Tolerance (and high salaries in universities – e.g. Leiden) attracted important intellectuals.
• Descartes; Spinoza; Locke (Epistola de Tolerantia 1689).
• Publishing. Elzevir family.
Dutch Religious and Intellectual History
• Religious and intellectual disputes:
• In the later part of the century, between Calvinists and Cartesians.
• In the early years of the century, between Arminians and Calvinists/ Gomarists.
Theology of Grace: TULIP • Total Depravity. • Unconditional Election. • Limited Atonement. • Irresistible Grace.
• Perseverance of the Saints. • (nothing to do with the great
Tulip Bubble, which burst in 1637).
Dutch History: Narrative • Jan van Oldenbarnevelt; Maurice
of Nassau. • 1609: Twelve Years Truce. • 1610: Remonstrance;
Remonstrants; Arminians; Simon Episcopius; Johan Uytenbogaert.
• Counter- (/ Contra-) Remonstrants.
• 1618-19: Synod of Dort (Dordrecht).
• 1619: execution of Oldenbarnevelt.
• Grotius imprisoned in Loevestein Castle (to 1621).
The Synod of Dort (Dordrecht) 1618-19
Dutch History: Narrative • 1621: Renewal of War with Spain. • Arminians; Academy at
Amsterdam 1632; Philip van Limborch.
• 1625: loss of Breda; succession of Frederick Henry; recapature of ‘s-Hertogenbosch 1629;
• Maastricht 1632; Breda 1637
(but not Antwerp). • Alliance with France 1635.
Dutch History: Narrative • 1641: marriage alliance with
England links Orange and Stuart families; 14-year old Prince William marries 9-year old Princess Mary.
• 1647: William II (now 20) succeeds Frederick Henry.
• 1648 peace with Spain; question of whether to disband army, and of religion in Generality lands.
• 1650: William’s coup against Holland; he dies of smallpox; William III born.
• 1653-72: Johan de Witt Pensionary; stadholderless period.
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• Elizabeth I, 1558-1603: divisions on religious questions; puritans and papists; growth of the House of Commons; Spanish Armada 1588; Ireland and the Nine Years War 1594-1603.
• James I, 1603-25: divisions on constitutional and religious issues; Divine Right of Kings; foreign policy and the Spanish
Match; Buckingham. • Charles I, 1625-49: Arminianism;
constitutional issues; the Personal Rule 1629-40; the Scottish troubles 1637-41; the Irish Revolt 1641.
William II and Maria Henrietta Stuart, 1641; by
Anthony Van Dyck England before the Civil
War, 1600-42 • Elizabeth I, 1558-1603. • The Elizabethan Reformation:
1559 Acts of Supremacy and
Uniformity. • The Royal Supremacy: personal or
parliamentary? • Puritans (ceremonies and
vestments); Presbyterians; Separatists.
• Catholics (papists; recusants); seculars and regulars; Jesuits (from 1580).
Elizabeth I (1533/58-1603): the Rainbow Portrait (c.1600-2)
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• Elizabeth I, 1558-1603: • The Spanish Armada 1588. • Growth of the House of
Commons. • The Nine Years’ War (1594-1603)
and the conquest of Ireland. • Fiscal conservatism; sale of royal
land. • James I, 1603-25. • The Stuarts - a new and foreign
dynasty; Great Britain. • Character; the Divine Right of
Kings; extravagance.
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• James I, 1603-25: • Ulster. • Tensions with parliament. • The Union; Robert Cecil
(Salisbury) and impositions; the Great Contract (1610); parliaments – 1604-10; the Addled Parliament 1614; Howard family. George Abbot.
War, 1600-42 • James I, 1603-25: • Economic crisis: Alderman
Cockayne’s project 1614; Thirty Years War.
• Sir Edward Coke (sacked 1616). • Buckingham (George Villiers).
• Foreign Policy: the Spanish Match; Frederick and the Palatinate.
• 1621 Parliament: monopolies; impeachment (Bacon); foreign policy; Protestation of the Commons.
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) England before the Civil
War, 1600-42 • James I, 1603-25: • 1623: Jack and Tom Smith go to
Spain. • 1624: Parliament calls for war
with Spain. • 1625: death of James. • Charles I, 1625-49: • Character; Arminianism. • 1625: Parliament: impositions
and tonnage and poundage. • 1625: the Cadiz expedition.
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• Charles I, 1625-49: • 1626: attempted impeachment of
Buckingham. • 1626-7: war with France as well
as Spain; Forced Loan; imprisonment of refusers,
without cause shown; Five Knights’ Case (1627; habeas corpus).
• 1628: Petition of Right. Assassination of Buckingham.
• 1629: the three resolutions; Arminianism and tonnage and poundage.
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• Charles I, 1625-49: • The Personal Rule 1629-40 (/
Eleven Years’ Tyranny). • William Laud; Thomas
Wentworth (Earl of Strafford);
“thorough”. Star Chamber; High Commission; new ceremonies; the “beauty of holiness”. Ship Money.
• Persecution of puritans; Burton; Bastwick; Prynne (1637).
Charles I, Henrietta Maria, and Princes
Charles and James, by Van Dyck, 1633
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• Charles I, 1625-49:
• 1637: the Scottish Prayer Book.
• 1638: the Scottish National Covenant.
• 1639-40: the Bishops’ Wars. • 1640: April-May: the Short
Parliament. • 1640: the Scots invade
England.
England before the Civil War, 1600-42
• 1640: November 3: the Long Parliament (to 1648/1660).
• 1641-2: divisions on social and
religious issues; attainder of Strafford (May 1641); reforming legislation; bishops; the mob; formation of parties (royalist and parliamentarian; Pym; St John; Hyde; Falkland).
• 1641 October: Irish Revolt. • 1642: outbreak of Civil War.
Protestant English depictions of the Irish
Revolt, 1641 Russia to 1682
• Outline: • Russia and Poland: contemporary
views. • Feodor I (1584-98) and Boris
Godunov (1598-1605): nobles, serfs, and the patriarchate.
• The Time of Troubles 1598-1613; Feodor II (1605); Vasili IV Shuisky 1606-10.
• Michael Romanov 1613-45. • Alexis 1645-76: rebellions;
Ukraine; Nikon and the Schism. • Feodor III 1676-82.
Russia: Feodor I and Boris Godunov
• Ivan IV, the Terrible (ruled 1553-84); boyars.
• Feodor I (1557/84-98): simple, saintly, feeble; 1580 married Irina, sister of
• Boris Godunov (1551/98-1605), who ruled for Feodor.
• Tsar = Caesar. Orthodox church; Constantinople.
• 1589: Patriarchate of Moscow. • Pomestie (estate of a service
noble); pomeshchiki (service nobles).
Russia: Feodor I and Boris Godunov
• Serfs; state peasants in North;
private serfs in South, tied to land, and taxable; largely rightless.
• Slaves. • Cossacks. • Mestnichestvo system (abolished
1682). • The succession: death of Feodor’s
half-brother Dmitri 1591 (not yet 9) in odd circumstances.
• 1598: Godunov succeeds.
The Time of Troubles 1598-1613
• 1601-3: bad harvests, seen as judgment of God against Boris
Godunov. • Appearance of the first false
Dmitri (Gregory Otrepiev? Or the real Dmitri?); he left Russia for Poland, gained some Polish support, and married the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszech.
• 1604 Dmitri leads a Polish and Cossack army into Russia.
Boris Godunov (c.1551/1598-1605)
The Time of Troubles 1598-1613
• 1605: death of Godunov; murder in Moscow of his son Feodor II;
with boyar support, Dmitri I enters Moscow, but soon makes enemies; 1606 boyars kill him, and make one of themselves tsar:
• 1606-10: Vasili IV Shuisky; but his power was soon challenged by widespread unrest and in
• 1607 a second false Dmitri appeared; identity unknown (the first false Dmitri’s associate Mikhail Molchanov pretended to be Dmitri for a while but gave up in 1606); he (re-)married Marina Mniszech.
The Time of Troubles
1598-1613 • 1608-10: supported by Poles,
Cossacks, and opponents of the boyars, he defeated Shuisky, and threatened Moscow; in 1610 he was murdered by a follower.
• 1610: the boyars deposed Shuisky, and tried to rule through their own duma.
• 1610-13: Sigismund III of Poland invaded Russia and took Moscow; the Swedes invaded and took Novgorod (and briefly ran their own – third – false Dmitri).
Russia in the Time of
Troubles The Time of Troubles
1598-1613 • Invasion by Catholic Poles and
Lutheran Swedes helped to unite the Russians under leaders including the butcher/ trader Kuzma Minin.
• 1612: Russians recaptured Moscow.
• 1613: a zemskii sobor (land assembly) met and elected as tsar the 16 year-old Michael Romanov.
• 1619: Michael’s father released
from captivity in Poland; this was Filaret (/ Philaret; Feodor Nikitich Romanov); as Patriarch, Filaret ruled jointly with Michael until Filaret died in 1633.
Nicholas II, 1913 Ruble commemorating 300 years of the
Romanov dynasty
Michael and Alexis • Michael 1596/ 1613-45: • 1637: Cossacks captured Azov; in
1642 they offered it to Michael in return for military aid against the Turks; after consulting a zemskii sobor Michael declined.
• Alexis 1629/ 1645-76:
• Rebellions: 1648 Moscow, protesting against boyar favorites; 1649 law code (serfdom the default status for peasants).
• Debasement of the coinage fueled economic problems; together with the worsening position of peasants, these helped cause the rebellion of Stenka Razin 1670-1.
Tsar Alexis (Alexei) 1629/45-1676
Alexis and the Ukraine • Alexis debased the coinage to
help pay for war.
• Ukraine under Poland, but in practice largely controlled by self-governing, egalitarian, Orthodox, Cossack communities.
• Poles Catholicize through Uniate Church (1596) and try to spread serfdom.
• 1648: outbreak of revolt of Bogdan Khmelnitsky (Bohdan Chmielnicki; d. 1657).
• 1654: Russia intervenes; gains East Ukraine (including Kiev).
• 1667: Treaty of Andrusovo.
Russian gains from
Poland, including Kiev and Smolensk
Alexis: Nikon and the Schism
• Nikon (1605-81): from a peasant family; became a cleric and monk, and in 1652 Patriarch of Moscow.
• Nikon’s high views of the Patriarch’s powers.
• The reforms: changes in ceremonies.
• 1666-7: church council deposes Nikon; accepts his reforms.
The Patriarch Nikon c. 1660-5: His signature and titles:
After Alexis • Feodor III (1676-82): succeeds at
14; dead at 20; abolition of mestnichestvo system 1682.
• 1682: disputed succession: Ivan V (b. 1666; supported by sister Sophia) and Ivan’s half-brother Peter I (b. 1672; supported by his mother Natalya). Ivan and Peter shared power.
• 1689: Sophia plotted with the
streltsy (elite city guards) to obtain full power; the plot backfired; she became a nun.
• 1694: death of Natalya; 1696 death of Ivan.
Poland-Lithuania: Outline • Society: a paradise for nobles. • Government and religion: Sejm;
pacta conventa; Golden Freedom; confederation; Rokosz.
• Narrative: Sigismund III 1566/ 87-1632; Władysław IV 1595/ 1632-48; John II Casimir 1609/ 48-68; Michael 1640/ 69-73; John III (Jan Sobieski; 1629/ 74-96).
Poland-Lithuania: Society • Commonwealth of Poland-
Lithuania. • Union of Lublin 1569. • Paradise of nobles. Szlachta.
Sejm. • Serfs. • Grain exports: 200,000 metric
tonnes annually in first years; peak 1618 250,000; 100,000 mid-century.
• Gdnask/ Danzig; Warsaw. Loss to Sweden of Riga and Dorpat/ Tartu 1621, 1629.
Poland-Lithuania and
neighbors 1617 Poland-Lithuania:
Government and Religion • Sejmik (sejmiki); dietine. • Sejm: Senate; Chamber of
Envoys. • 1573: elective kingdom; pacta
conventa. • All nobles elect King. • Golden Freedom; religious
toleration; Socinians; Raków; Arians; 1638 Socinian Academy closed; 1658 Socinians and Arians banished.
Poland: Government and
Religion • Nobles could form a
confederation if they believed King had infringed conditions of rule.
• If the King persisted in breaking the conditions, nobles could arm the confederation: Rokosz (1606-9; 1665-6).
• Consensus politics; the liberum veto – first used 1652; first used at the start of the Sejm 1688.
Poland-Lithuania: Narrative
• Vasa family: rulers of Sweden
from 1523. • 1587 Sigismund Vasa elected
Sigismund III of Poland; he became King of Sweden in 1592, but was deposed in 1599.
• 1605: he married a Habsburg (Constance; sister of Ferdinand II), without the consent of the Sejm; he planned constitutional reforms.
• 1606: Rokosz of Mikołaj Zebrzydowski.
Sigismund (Zygmunt) III (1566/87-1632), c. 1590
Poland-Lithuania: Narrative
• 1609: the Sejm ends the Rokosz with an amnesty; henceforth a Rokosz will be justified only after the Sejm has given the King three warnings.
• Władysław IV 1632-48. Cossacks in Ukraine, resent Polish attempts to Catholicize them and to introduce serfdom; Władysław plans to lead Cossack in attacking Tatars (in Crimea) and Turks; Sejm vetoes the plan.
• 1648: revolt of Bogdan
Khmelnitsky; death of Władysław.
Monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky, central Kiev (1888; bronze; weighs
ten tons)
Poland-Lithuania: Narrative
• John II Casimir (1609/ 48-68; half-brother and first cousin of Władysław IV; their mothers were sisters). Maria Louisa (Ludwika Maria) of Gonzaga-Nevers.
• Lubomirski. Radziwiłł. Janusz Radziwiłł.
• Russian invasion; 1655 fall of
Vilnius; Radziwiłł invites in the Swedes; 1655-60: Potop (the Deluge).
• 1665-6: the Rokosz of Jerzy Lubomirski.
Janusz Radziwiłł 1612-55 (here c. 1654)
The Black Madonna of Częstochowa
• This medieval icon of the Virgin Mary miraculously saved the monastery of Jasna Góra from the Swedes in 1655, and inspired Poles to fight back against the invasion. In 1656 John II Casimir declared Mary the Queen and
Protector of Poland.
Poland-Lithuania: Narrative
• 1668: Abdication of John II Casimir (d. in France 1672).
• 1669-73: Michael (Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki; b. 1640; married a daughter of the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III).
• 1674-96: John (Jan) III Sobieski (b. 1629; grand hetman under Michael).
• 1683: Sobieski helps save Vienna from the Turks.
King Michael (Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki;
1640/ 69-73) Poland-Lithuania 1686
351-2015 B
Seventeenth Century Europe
2015
Popular Revolts
• Historiography:
• Marxism; class struggle; ideas as epiphenomena of economic reality. Boris Porchnev.