Terms to Remember
Divine right
The belief that God chose a ruler to rule.
Absolute monarchy
A monarch who has unquestioned, absolute rule and power
Monarch
A ruler who is part of a ruling family that passes down power from generation to generation
Balance of power
Countries have equal strength in order to prevent any one country from dominating the others
Constitutionalism
Limited form of government
Stuart dynasty
England
Romanov Dynasty
Russia
Bourbon Dynasty
France
Dutch Netherlands
Republic
Stadtholder
William of Orange
Dutch East India Company
England under the Stuart dynasty
James I ruled as a Divine Right monarch (Failed Gun powder plot, legalized soccer and tobacco, taxation)
Charles I (responsible for the English Civil War, Taxation without Representation, declared war on Spain)
Charles II (Absolute, turns England Catholic, gets replaced by parliament)
James II (Catholic)
English Civil War
Petition of Rights written by parliament against Charles I)
Parliament is Split
Roundheads (Puritan Army led by Oliver Cromwell)
Cavaliers (Army of men loyal to Charles I)
Oliver Cromwell becomes “Lord Protector” (Puritan dictatorship
England’s Glorious Revolution
peaceful revolution
Willian and Mary
English Bill of Rights
Act of Walpole (Sir Robert Walpole - the first British prime minister, built up the British empire through trade)
Philosophers of Absolutism and Constitutionalism
Jean Bodin and Jacques Bossuet (believed in Divine Right Absolutism)
Thomas Hobbes (Philosophical Absolutism)
Wrote the Leviathan
believed people were born bad (reason: English Civil War)
Rule by decree (People chose a sovereign to maintain order by governing absolutely. People do not have the right to overthrow the sovereign)
John Locke (Constitutionalism)
Wrote the Two Treatises on Government
believed people were born good (reason: Glorious Revolution)
believed in the right of revolution
Natural Rights (Life, Liberty, Property)
Bill of Rights (consent of the governed: the people maintain their sovereignty and may overthrow any government that fails to protect natural rights)
Where Hobbes and Locke agree
They both agree that people are born into a state of nature (bad or good)
both rejected the Divine Right Theory
Prussia
Prussian Militarism
Prussia made up for its small size by maintaining a large, well-trained army
the “Fredricks” of Prussia
Prussia-Brandenburg
“The Sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire”
Devastated by the Thirty Years’ War
Frederick William I (“The Great Elector”)
King of Prussia
-Frederick I
-Frederick William I
-Frederick II (“The Great“)
Hohenzollern family
House of Hohenzollern
Power to tax by decree (“Servant of the state“)
France under Louis XIV
L'État, c'est moi
“I am the State “
Cardinal Richelieu
Mostly associated with Religious Wars such as the 30 Years’ War
Cardinal Mazarin
Mostly associated with Mercantilism (Helping Louis XIV with getting as much gold and silver as he could)
Estate General
French representative body
Building the Palace of Versailles
Where the nobles had to live
Revoking the Edict of Nantes
End of religious tolerance in France
Un Roi, Une Loi, Une foi
“One King, One Law, One Faith “
Fronde
Nobels
War of Spanish Succession
Multiple European Powers come together to prevent the unification of France and Spain
War concludes with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt
The treaties made sure that France and Spain could never unite. In the end, England gets Canada and Gibraltar
Russia
Peter the Great
He made himself the ultimate authority meaning he made decisions without needing approval from other governing bodies
Warm Water Ports
The Baltic and Black Sea
War (Azov Campaigns, Great Nothern War)
Westernization
Military reform
Social reform
Government reform
Table of Ranks
Ivan the Terrible
Seized power at 16 years old
First ruler in Russia to crown themselves with the title “Czar” or “Tsar”
Ivan the Terrible had already reduced the power of the boyars a century before, but Peter furthered this trend toward absolutism
Boyars
Nobles
Intendants
agents who collected taxes and administered justice