An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 50

The United Provinces joined France, as did some of the German princes.

So the war was renewed, and French, Swedish, Spanish, and German soldiers ravaged an already exhausted country for a decade longer. The dearth of provisions was so great that the armies had to move quickly from place to place in order to avoid starvation. After a serious defeat by the Swedes, the emperor (Ferdinand III, 1637-1657) sent a Dominican monk to expostulate with Cardinal Richelieu for his crime in aiding the German and Swedish heretics against the unimpeachably orthodox Austria.

[Sidenote: France succeeds Spain in the military supremacy of western Europe.]

The cardinal had, however, just died (December, 1642), well content with the results of his diplomacy. The French were in possession of Roussillon and of Artois, Lorraine, and Alsace. The military exploits of the French generals, especially Turenne and Conde, during the opening years of the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715) showed that a new period had begun in which the military and political supremacy of Spain was to give way to that of France.

[Sidenote: Close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648.]

182. The partic.i.p.ants in the war were now so numerous and their objects so various and conflicting, that it is not strange that it required some years to arrange the conditions of peace even when every one was ready for it. It was agreed (1644) that France and the empire should negotiate at Munster, and the emperor and the Swedes at Osnabruck,--both of which towns lie in Westphalia. For four years the representatives of the several powers worked upon the difficult problem of satisfying every one, but at last the treaties of Westphalia were signed late in 1648.

Their provisions continued to be the basis of the international law of Europe down to the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: Provisions of the treaties of Westphalia.]

The religious troubles in Germany were settled by extending the toleration of the Peace of Augsburg so as to include the Calvinists as well as the Lutherans. The Protestant princes were, regardless of the Edict of Rest.i.tution, to retain the lands which they had in their possession in the year 1624, and each ruler was still to have the right to determine the religion of his state. The dissolution of the German empire was practically acknowledged by permitting the individual states to make treaties among themselves and with foreign powers; this was equivalent to recognizing the practical independence which they had, as a matter of fact, already long enjoyed. A part of Pomerania and the districts at the mouth of the Oder, the Elbe, and the Weser were ceded to Sweden. This territory did not, however, cease to form a part of the empire, for Sweden was thereafter to have three votes in the German diet.

As for France, it was definitely given the three bishoprics of Metz, Verdun, and Toul, which Henry II had bargained for when he allied himself with the Protestants a century earlier.[333] The emperor also ceded to France all his rights in Alsace, although the city of Strasburg was to remain with the empire. Lastly, the independence both of the United Netherlands and of Switzerland was acknowledged.[334]

[Sidenote: Disastrous results of the war in Germany.]

The accounts of the misery and depopulation of Germany caused by the Thirty Years' War are well-nigh incredible. Thousands of villages were wiped out altogether; in some regions the population was reduced by one half, in others to a third, or even less, of what it had been at the opening of the conflict. The flouris.h.i.+ng city of Augsburg was left with but sixteen thousand souls instead of eighty thousand. The people were fearfully barbarized by privation and suffering and by the atrocities of the soldiers of all the various nations. Until the end of the eighteenth century Germany was too exhausted and impoverished to make any considerable contribution to the culture of Europe. Only one hopeful circ.u.mstance may be noted as we leave this dreary subject. After the Peace of Westphalia the elector of Brandenburg was the most powerful of the German princes next to the emperor. As king of Prussia he was destined to create another European power, and at last to humble the house of Hapsburg and create a new German empire in which Austria should have no part.

General Reading.--The most complete and scholarly account of the Thirty Years' War to be had in English is GINDELY, _History of the Thirty Years' War_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2 vols., $3.50).

CHAPTER x.x.x

STRUGGLE IN ENGLAND FOR CONSt.i.tUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

[Sidenote: The question of absolute or limited monarchy in England.]

183. The great question which confronted England in the seventeenth century was whether the king should be permitted to rule the people, as G.o.d's representative, or should submit to the constant control of the nation's representatives, i.e., Parliament. In France the Estates General met for the last time in 1614, and thereafter the French king made laws and executed them without asking the advice of any one except his immediate counselors. In general, the rulers on the continent exercised despotic powers, and James I of England and his son Charles I would gladly have made themselves absolute rulers, for they entertained the same exalted notions of the divine right of kings which prevailed across the English Channel. England finally succeeded, however, in adjusting the relations between king and Parliament in a very happy way, so as to produce a limited, or const.i.tutional, monarchy. The long and bitter struggle between the house of Stuart and the English Parliament plays an important role in the history of Europe at large, as well as in that of England. After the French Revolution, at the end of the eighteenth century, the English system began to become popular on the continent, and it has now replaced the older absolute monarchy in all the kingdoms of western Europe.

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

On the death of Elizabeth in 1603, James I, the first of the Stuarts, ascended the English throne. He was, it will be remembered, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and was known in Scotland as James VI; consequently England and Scotland now came under the same ruler. This did not, however, make the relations between the two countries much happier, for a century to come at least.

[Sidenote: James' belief in the 'divine right' of kings.]

The chief interest of James' reign lay in his tendency to exalt the royal prerogative, and in the systematic manner in which he extolled absolute monarchy in his writings and speeches and discredited it by his conduct. James was an unusually learned man, for a king, but his learning did not enlighten him in matters of common sense. As a man and a ruler, he was far inferior to his unschooled and light-hearted contemporary, Henry IV of France. Henry VIII had been a heartless despot, and Elizabeth had ruled the nation in a high-handed manner; but both of them had known how to make themselves popular and had had the good sense to say as little as possible about their rights. James, on the contrary, had a fancy for discussing his high position.

[Sidenote: His own expression of his claims.]

"As for the absolute prerogative of the crown," he declares, "that is no subject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what G.o.d can do: ... so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king cannot do this or that." The king, James claimed, could make any kind of law or statute that he thought meet, without any advice from Parliament, although he might, if he chose, accept its suggestions. "He is overlord of the whole land, so is he master over every person who inhabiteth the same, having power over the life and death of every one of them: for although a just prince will not take the life of one of his subjects without a clear law, yet the same laws whereby he taketh them are made by himself and his predecessors; so the power flows always from himself." A good king will act according to law, but he is above the law and is not bound thereby except voluntarily and for good-example giving to his subjects.

[Sidenote: The theory of 'divine right.']

These theories, taken from James' work on _The Law of Free Monarchies_, seem strange and unreasonable to us. But he was really only claiming the rights which his predecessors had enjoyed, and such as were conceded to the kings of France until the French Revolution. According to the theory of "divine right," the king did not owe his power to the nation but to G.o.d, who had appointed him to be the father of his people. From G.o.d he derived all the prerogatives necessary to maintain order and promote justice; consequently he was responsible to G.o.d alone, and not to the people, for the exercise of his powers. It is unnecessary to follow in detail the troubles between James and his Parliament and the various methods which he invented for raising money without the sanction of Parliament, for all this forms only the preliminary to the fatal experience of James' son, Charles I.

[Sidenote: James I's foreign policy.]

In his foreign policy James showed as little sense as in his relations with his own people. He refused to help his son-in-law when he became king of Bohemia.[335] But when the Palatinate was given by the emperor to Maximilian of Bavaria, James struck upon the extraordinary plan of forming an alliance with the hated Spain and inducing its king to persuade the emperor to reinstate the "winter king" in his former possessions. In order to conciliate Spain, Charles, Prince of Wales, was to marry a Spanish princess. Naturally this proposal was very unpopular among the English Protestants, and it finally came to nothing.

[Sidenote: Literature in the time of Elizabeth and James I.]

[Sidenote: Shakespeare, 1564-1616.]

[Sidenote: Francis Bacon, 1561-1626.]

[Sidenote: The King James translation of the Bible.]

Although England under James I failed to influence deeply the course of affairs in Europe at large, his reign is distinguished by the work of unrivaled writers who gave England a literature which outshone that of any other of the European countries. Shakespeare is generally admitted to have been the greatest dramatist the world has ever produced. While he wrote many of his plays before the death of Elizabeth, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _King Lear_, and _The Tempest_ belong to the reign of James. Francis Bacon, philosopher and statesman, did much for the advancement of scientific research by advocating new methods of reasoning based upon a careful observation of natural phenomena instead of upon Aristotle's logic. He urged investigators to take the path already indicated over three centuries earlier by his namesake, Roger Bacon.[336] The most worthy monument of the strong and beautiful English of the period is to be found in the translation of the Bible, prepared in James' reign and still generally used in all the countries where English is spoken.[337]

[Sidenote: Charles I, 1625-1649.]

184. Charles I was somewhat more dignified than his father, but he was quite as obstinately set upon having his own way and showed no more skill in winning the confidence of his subjects. He did nothing to remove the disagreeable impressions of his father's reign and began immediately to quarrel with Parliament. When that body refused to grant him any money, mainly because they thought that it was likely to be wasted by his favorite, the duke of Buckingham, Charles formed the plan of winning their favor by a great military victory.

After James I had reluctantly given up his cherished Spanish alliance, Charles had married a French princess, Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Henry IV. In spite of this marriage Charles now proposed to aid the Huguenots whom Richelieu was besieging in their town of La Roch.e.l.le. He also hoped to gain popularity by prosecuting a war against Spain, whose king was energetically supporting the Catholic League in Germany.

Accordingly, in spite of Parliament's refusal to grant him the necessary funds, he embarked in war. With only the money which he could raise by irregular means, Charles arranged an expedition to take Cadiz and the Spanish treasure s.h.i.+ps which arrived there once a year from America, laden with gold and silver. The expedition failed, as well as Charles' attempt to help the Huguenots.

[Sidenote: Charles' exactions and arbitrary acts.]

In his attempts to raise money without a regular grant from Parliament, Charles had resorted to vexatious exactions. The law prohibited him from asking for _gifts_ from his people, but it did not forbid his asking them to _lend_ him money, however little prospect there might be of his ever repaying it. Five gentlemen who refused to pay such a forced loan were imprisoned by the mere order of the king. This raised the question of whether the king had the right to send to prison those whom he wished without showing legal cause for their arrest.

[Sidenote: The Pet.i.tion of Right.]

This and other attacks upon the rights of his subjects roused Parliament. In 1628 that body drew up the celebrated Pet.i.tion of Right,[338] which is one of the most important doc.u.ments in the history of the English Const.i.tution. In it Parliament called the king's attention to his illegal exactions, and to the acts of his agents who had in sundry ways molested and disquieted the people of the realm.

Parliament therefore "humbly prayed" the king that no man need thereafter "make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge" without consent of Parliament; that no free man should be imprisoned or suffer any punishment except according to the laws and statutes of the realm as presented in the Great Charter; and that soldiers should not be quartered upon the people on any pretext whatever. Very reluctantly Charles consented to this restatement of the limitations which the English had always, in theory at least, placed upon the arbitrary power of their king.

[Sidenote: Religious differences between Charles and the Commons.]

The disagreement between Charles and Parliament was rendered much more serious by religious differences. The king had married a Catholic princess, and the Catholic cause seemed to be gaining on the continent.

The king of Denmark had just been defeated by Wallenstein and Tilly, and Richelieu had succeeded in depriving the Huguenots of their cities of refuge. Both James and Charles had shown their readiness to enter into engagements with France and Spain to protect English Catholics, and there was evidently a growing inclination in England to revert to the older ceremonies of the Church, which shocked the more strongly Protestant members of the House of Commons. The communion table was again placed by many clergymen at the eastern end of the church and became fixed there as an altar, and portions of the service were once more chanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles I (After a painting by Vand.y.k.e)]

[Sidenote: Charles dissolves Parliament (1629) and determines to rule by himself.]

These "popish practices," with which the king was supposed to sympathize, served to widen the breach between him and the Commons which had been opened by the king's attempt to raise taxes on his own account.

The Parliament of 1629, after a stormy session, was dissolved by the king, who determined to rule thereafter by himself. For eleven years no new Parliament was summoned.

185. Charles was not well fitted by nature to try the experiment of personal government. Moreover, the methods resorted to by his ministers to raise money without recourse to Parliament rendered the king more and more unpopular and prepared the way for the triumphant return of Parliament.

[Sidenote: Charles' financial exactions.]

According to an ancient law of England, those who had a certain amount of land must become knights; but since the decay of the feudal system, landowners had given up the meaningless form of qualifying themselves as knights. It now occurred to the king's government that a large amount of money might be raised by fining these delinquents. Other unfortunates who had settled within the boundaries of the royal forests were either heavily fined or required to pay enormous arrears of rent.