World Class Education

Europe: State Building in the Seventeenth Century Elizabeth Hyde

 Great Britain: Constitutional Monarchy  France: Absolutism  United Provinces (The Netherlands): Republic

 James I and Divine Right of Kings  Charles I tangles with Parliament  “Petition of Right”  The reforms of the Long Parliament  Civil War  Execution of Charles I  Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of Republic  Restoration of the Monarchy  Charles II  James II  The “Glorious” or “Bloodless” Revolution  Ascension of William and Mary  Triumph of Constitutionalism and Parliament

Charles I Charles I

 Henri IV and Duc de Sully  French recovery, modernization  Office of intendant  Louis XIII and Richelieu  Internal threats to royal power  External threats  Reproductive threat to dynastic survival  Louis XIV and Mazarin  Fronde  Peace of the Pyrenees  Louis XIV “takes the reigns of government”  Centralization  Versailles as both symbol and model

© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education Versailles in 1668, BEFORE major expansion.

© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education The court in the gardens of Versailles, c

 Dutch government  Decentralized, local control

Dutch Republic in 1658.

 Seven Provinces  Each province ruled by “regents” in charge of local affairs.  States General  Elected representatives from each province serve in States General  A weak central authority  Dutch affairs dominated by province of Holland and House of Orange

 Dutch “character”  Militarily victorious  Mercantile triumphant  Religious toleration

 By the end of the seventeenth century, absolutist France was led by the most powerful kings in Europe:  France had become the wealthiest and most powerful nation in Europe  But it was increasingly challenged by countries with alternative political and economic models (i.e. the British and the Dutch) as they moved into the eighteenth century.