I am the state.
The 17th century was full of war and crisis. The monarchs were powerful, and history from now on gets a bit more complicated as this is really the heart of early modern history.
Remember that France had just been through a lot with its wars of religion. Protestantism was still making waves, and even though the Peace of Augsburg helped a little bit, there was still quite a bit of unease running through Europe. Additionally, Calvinism still wasn’t really recognized in the Peace.
At this point, Spain wanted the German states because of territory in the Netherlands, France was uneasy about its proximity to Habsburg Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, and Sweden and Denmark felt like they wanted some more land. The Holy Roman Empire was all over the place (par for the course), but was heavily fragmented.
The Thirty Years' War is generally thought of as having four phases: the Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.
Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria was the Crown Prince in Bohemia. He was Catholic, and the Protestants in Bohemia weren’t particularly pleased with that. In 1618, they tossed some of his representatives out of a window in the Defenestration of Prague.
The Defenestration of Prague started the Bohemian revolt, which would move across the entirety of Europe. Protestant leaders moved the war to western Germany, and Philip IV of Spain was called to assist.
The Ottoman Empire decided to help out the Bohemian Protestants after they elected Frederick V as king, because the Ottomans were never particularly fond of Catholics in the first place. This triggered the minor Polish-Ottoman War (1620{n-}1621), and the Ottomans defeated the Poles at the Battle of Cecora. But, the Ottomans didn’t help the Bohemians at the Battle of White Mountain (near Prague) where Christian of Anhalt was defeated by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and the Count of Tilly.
In 1625, Christian IV of Denmark decided to help the Lutherans, resulting in the Low Saxon War. In response, Ferdinand II hired Albrecht von Wallenstein, a rich Bohemian who let Ferdinand use his army. Wallenstein and Tilly pushed Christian back.
Wallenstein moved north and took parts of Denmark, but wasn’t able to take Copenhagen. So after a bit more fighting, a small Treaty of Lubeck put the Danish Intervention mostly to rest.
After the War of Mantuan Succession between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, another black death swept across northern Italy.
In 1630, Lutheran Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, the Lion of the North, invaded Europe. The Swedish armies pushed the Catholics back, and Gustavus Adolphus took much of the land for himself. France and Bavaria allied with the 1631 Treaty of Fontainebleau. At the Battle of Breitenfeld, the Swedes defeated Tilly, who would end up dead soon. Other notable Swedish victories around this time included the Battle of the Rain.
Now that Tilly was dead, Ferdinand II asked Wallenstein for help again. The Swedes met Wallenstein at the Battle of Lutzen; even though the Swedes won, Gustavus Adolphus died. Near the end of this phase, Ferdinand II signed the Peace of Prague. Later, because of treachery against the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II would have Wallenstein assassinated.
France was a Catholic state; recall their difficulties with the Protestant Huguenots. However, their hatred of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs, and Spain transcended religious boundaries. Cardinal Richelieu, Chief Minister, had already subsidized Gustavus Adolphus’s invasion.
Emperor Ferdinand II died in 1637, and was succeeded by Ferdinand III. The new emperor wanted to end the war using negotiation, so he convened the Imperial Diet. In Flanders, the French defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Rocroi (soon after the death of Louis XIII), and proceeded to take the rest of the region.
In 1642, Richelieu died, but his war continued. The French continued to push through, winning battles such as Nordlingen (1645). By 1648, battles were coming all the way to Prague, where the final battle was fought.
It took four years for the war to be resolved. Much of the work was done at Osnabruck and Munster, in Westphalia. Other treaties that were part of the final Peace of Westphalia (1648) included the Treaty of Hamburg. The war was decided in favor of letting countries deal with religion for themselves.
When Elizabeth I died in 1603, her closest Protestant relative was James VI of Scotland, who was crowned James I of England in the Union of the Crowns. He quickly made peace with the Spanish, and the English didn’t really deal with the rest of Europe for a good part of the 17th century. In the Spanish Match, he tried to find a Habsburg Infanta wife for his son Charles, but that failed. He was called the “wisest fool in Christendom” because he was educated but kind of foolish. He wrote the The True Law of Free Monarchies and the Basilikon Doron. James also started the North Berwick witch trials.
There were people who weren’t particularly happy with the Protestant James as king, and they tried to kill him every once in a while, notably with the Main Plot and the Bye Plot in 1603. He was held hostage during the Ruthven Raid, and he set up the Treaty of Berwick.
On the fifth of November, 1605, a group of Catholics led by Sir Robert Catesby schemed to kill James I. This Gunpowder Plot aimed to blow up Parliament. Guy Fawkes, a conspirator, rented a room in the Whynniard House under the name “John Johnson” from Thomas Percy in preparation for the event. When Robert Cecil found a warning letter from Francis Tresham to his brother-in-law William Parker, Lord Monteagle, they looked around a bit and found Fawkes with 36 barrels of gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament. In the aftermath, the principal Jesuit in England, Henry Garnet, was convicted of treason and killed. These days, Guy Fawkes Day is commemorated with fireworks and bells and such.
James I was succeeded by Charles I in 1625. At this point, the Parliament didn’t really have a lot of power and it was summoned whenever the king felt like it. However, it was particularly useful in that it could raise taxes, which the king was particularly fond of. In 1628, a new Parliament drafted the Petition of Right, which further restricted Charles’s power.
For the next ten years, Charles didn’t call Parliament in a period called the “Personal Rule”. He believed in High Anglicanism, which he supported through his appointment of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Let’s talk about ship money. England is on an island, and as such, often needs a good navy to handle war. So when the country was at war, the king generally could levy a “ship money” tax without approval of Parliament, in order to raise a navy for defense. Usually, the only people that had to pay ship money were people on the coastal areas of the island, seeing how they would be affected if a marauding band of killers decided to land on Great Britain. In 1634, Charles decided to start asking inland residents for ship money, making everyone mad.
In 1640, Charles’s religious beliefs resulted in the Bishops' War, an uprising in Scotland, which he managed to stop with the Pacification of Berwick. It didn’t take, and the Scots started another war. Charles didn’t have enough money to fight the Scots, so he had to call a new Parliament in 1640, led by John Pym. Parliament wasn’t nice enough to Charles, so he disbanded them after a few weeks, so it’s now called the Short Parliament. Then, Charles went back into Scotland but didn’t do very well.
In November 1640, he called another Parliament under pressure: the Long Parliament. They started to air their grievances and made it so a Parliament must convene at least every 3 years (Triennial Act). They also passed the Ship Money Act, stopping the ridiculous ship money taxes that Charles had put into effect. They accused Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, of treason. Charles tried to capture five members of Parliament but he failed.
In 1642, after the failed capture by Charles, an English Civil War broke out between Parliament and the crown. Parliament armies were known as the Roundheads, and Charles’s forces were the Cavaliers. The first battle of the war was fought at Edgehill in 1642, which ended inconclusively. After the Battle of Turnham Green, Charles was pushed back to Oxford.
At the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, Parliament won with the help of the Scots under the strong leadership of Oliver Cromwell. Parliament proceeded to create a New Model Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell.
At the Battle of Naseby in 1645, Parliament destroyed Charles’s forces. The First English Civil War ended with the imprisonment of Charles. In 1647, Cromwell and others argued in the Putney Debates against the Levellers, who wanted more political equality.
Charles escaped, and the Second English Civil War was a short conflict, which ended with the New Model Army securing the country. The Long Parliament was disbanded in a coup known as Pride’s Purge, and Charles was tried at the Rump Parliament, after which his head was taken from him in 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.
Having killed Charles I, Cromwell proceeded to subjugate Scotland, Ireland, and the rest of England. In Ireland, he won the Siege of Drogheda in 1649, killing 3,500 people. In 1653, John Lambert wrote the Institution of Government, giving Cromwell the title of Lord Protector for life, making him “king in all but name”. Cromwell disbanded the Rump Parliament and established the Barebones Parliament.
Cromwell ended the First Anglo-Dutch War and died in 1658. Power passed to his son Richard Cromwell, but Richard was ineffective and his father’s Protectorate crumbled around him.
In 1659, Richard Cromwell was forced to abdicate. The newly elected Parliament let the exiled king back from the Netherlands, and he sailed back from Scheveningen in 1660. The monarchy was restored to England, and Charles II (The “Merry Monarch”) became king. He had many mistresses, including the “pretty, witty” Nell Gwyn; he had at least twelve children, but none by his wife, Catherine of Braganza.
Parliament passed the Clarendon Code, which was comprised of the Conventicle Act, the Corporation Act and the Act of Uniformity. It aimed to make the Church of England the dominant faith in Britain. In 1665, the Great Plague of London swept through the city, and Charles and his family fled to Salisbury.
In 1666, the Great Fire of London started in a bakery in Pudding Lane. It burned down much of the city including St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was restored by Christopher Wren. The fire was chronicled, along with much of Charles’s reign, in the journal of Samuel Pepys.
Charles’s brother James was the heir because of Catherine’s inability to have kids. In 1678, Titus Oates, a priest, warned Charles of the “Popish Plot” which aimed to kill him. He was making it all up, but Charles had his minister Lord Danby investigate, causing panic. Charles would later have Lord Danby imprisoned for treason and other crimes.
Charles died in 1685 and his Catholic brother James II took the crown. James’s wife was Mary of Modena. After James Scott tried to overthrow James II in the Monmouth Rebellion, the king had Judge Jeffrys begin a set of trials called the Bloody Assizes following the Battle of Sedgemoor. He set out the Declaration of Indulgence, a step toward religious freedom, but it was opposed by seven Anglican bishops, who were upset by it.
People weren’t happy with James, so a group called the Immortal Seven asked his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William III of Orange to take power in the country. In the Glorious Revolution, beginning in 1688, William landed in England and was crowned. James tried to fight back in the Williamite War, but William defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690.
In 1689, the English Bill of Rights was passed. It stated that monarchs could not be Catholic, and it gave the Parliament more power. But, Catholics loyal to James were still trying to take the throne back. This resulted in 1692 at the Massacre of Glencoe. Jacobite rebellions continued until the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie were defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
When Henry IV was killed in 1610, Louis XIII succeeded him. He was only nine, so his mother Marie de' Medici was his regent. But she wasn’t very competent so she got exiled by the king in 1617 while he proceeded to kill a bunch of her followers, such as Concino Concini.
Louis then worked closely with chief minister Cardinal Richelieu, who had succeeded the Duke Charles de Luynes in the position. Richelieu had previously implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent in France.
At one point, Richelieu was exiled to Avignon, and in another event, he had to run to Blois after Concino Concini was killed. He created the Company of One Hundred Associates and started the “reformation of the third order of the realm”.
In 1627, in an attempt to defeat the Huguenots, Richelieu ordered the Siege of La Rochelle. The city, led by Jean Guiton, stood for a whole year before surrendering in 1628 with the Peace of Ales. In 1630, Marie and enemies of Richelieu tried to get the king to dismiss Richelieu. They thought they were successful, but Louis kept Richelieu and the event came to be called the Day of the Dupes. This is important because it shows how reliant Richelieu was on Louis for his power.
While Louis XIII was in power, the French won at Veillane against the Spanish, and he helped Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, secure Mantua. His brother Gaston, working with Counts of Montresor and Soissons, tried to overthrow Louis, but he failed.
Louis died in 1543, just a few days before the Battle of Rocroi. His son succeeded him.
Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, was one of the most important French kings. He reigned from 1643 to 1715, the longest reign of any monarch so far in European history. When his father died, Louis’s mother Anne of Austria was in charge, being advised Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin.
Louis’s minority included dealing with the Fronde immediately after the Peace of Westphalia, in which a bunch of nobles rebelled against Mazarin. The event was named after the slings people used to smash windows during it. There were two phases to the Fronde: the phase of the Parlements and the phase of the Princes. The first phase was put to rest by the Peace of Rueil, and the Battle of Rethel was the decisive battle of the second. The 1652 Battle of Faubourg St. Antoine took place next to the Bastille.
Louis XIV truly came to the crown in 1661 when Mazarin died. He started fiscal reform by appointing Jean-Baptiste Colbert as his finance minister. He first neutralized the Superintendent of Finances, Nicolas Fouquet, by convicting him of embezzlement after a feast at the Chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Colbert proceeded to lessen national debt and improve taxation. Louis’s other advisors included Michel Le Tellier and Hugues de Lionne.
Under Louis XIV, the Midi Canal was built while he was at Languedoc. He also built the Royal Mirror-Glass Factory. In 1685, Louis issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the Edict of Nantes and the privileges it gave Protestants.
While he was young, Louis’s France fought in some wars with other countries as well. During the Franco-Spanish War, France and Britain won a big victory at the Battle of the Dunes under the command of Turenne.
Early in his rule, Louis XIV participated in the War of Devolution, in which he fought with Habsburgs in the Spanish Netherlands. The war was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Louis was also involved in the War of the League of Augsburg, also called the Nine Years' War (1688{n-}1697). In 1685, the Elector Palatine Charles II died, and Maximilian of Bavaria, an ally of France, died in 1688. In order to stop Louis from becoming too powerful, the Holy Roman Emperor organized a League of Augsburg. When William and Mary took the throne in England, they took up arms against the French and the League of Augsburg became known as the Grand Alliance. The war ended with the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 when France was mostly exhausted by war.
Charles II of Spain ruled a large empire, encompassing Spain, Milan, parts of the Netherlands, etc. But, he had no children, and when he died, he reneged on an agreed will, giving the entirety of the empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou. Louis XIV decided to accept the new will, and Philip became King Philip V of Spain.
Naturally, this triggered some tensions in Europe, starting the War of the Spanish Succession (1701{n-}1714). The French started winning, but the work of John Churchill, Duke of Marlboro, and Eugene of Savoy repelled him. The Austrians and the Palatinate took Bavaria after the Battle of Blenheim, which ended with many French troops drowning in the Danube and a victory for the Duke of Marlborough. Maximilian II, Elector of Bavaria, fled. Other important battles included Ramillies, Turin, and Oudenarde. France and Spain won at Villaviciosa and Brihuega, while the Allies won a Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Malplaquet. France eventually won at Denain and regained their momentum. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 brought peace to France, Spain, Britain, and the Dutch. Afterwards, the Holy Roman Emperor made peace in the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden. Spain would later stop its attempts at conquest after losing the War of the Quadruple Alliance, long after Louis was dead.
Louis XIV died of gangrene at Versailles, the palace he built, in 1715. He was succeeded by his great-grandson, the five year old Louis XV.
Louis XV (1710{n-}1774), the Beloved, took the throne when he was only five. While he was a child, his great-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, was regent, and Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister. Philippe dealt with the Mississippi bubble, in which there was a lot of investor interest in the Mississippi Company. Philippe was targeted in the Cellamare Conspiracy, in which Antonio del Guidice, Spanish Ambassador, tried to put Philip V of Spain in power.
After Philippe’s death, Louis married Maria, daughter of Stanislaw Leszczynski, although Madame de Pompadour is probably his better known lover.
He participated in the Battle of Fontenoy in the War of the Austrian Succession, and he returned the Austrian Netherlands to Austria in 1748. During the Seven Years' War, Louis lost a good chunk of French India and New France.