King Louis XIII of France was a weak and sickly king, who left most of the ruling to be done by his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Richelieu’s main aims were to centralize power, and to weaken the Hapsburg family that ruled in Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, The Netherlands and more. While he was a Catholic Cardinal, he put France first and was willing to favor Protestants over Catholics if it meant getting France what it wanted. He took power away from the previously feudal lords and ordered fortified castles razed excepting those on the border. He generally favored religious toleration, though when the Huguenot city of La Rochelle began to operate as a separate entity, he besieged the city and conquered it, though was much more lenient with the rebels than was usual for the time.

Since the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English in 1588, and the death of King Phillip II in 1598, Spain had been on the decline due to multiple factors. The first was plaques. The populations of Aragon and Castile from 1590 to 1700 dropped from ten-million people to six-million people. Another factor was that Spain did not have a free economy. The Spanish government handed monopolies to people they favored, and inhibited trade. The amount of precious metals from the new world slowed as the mines emptied, which ended the semi-artificial prosperity that Spain had in the 16th century. Perhaps the worst thing was that under Phillip III, the entire Morisco (former Muslims) population of Valencia, was displaced and forced to go to Islamic countries such as Morocco. Many were robbed and killed along the way, and when they got to the Islamic countries they were killed, because they had said they were Christians. Over the following decades Moriscos from all over Spain were forced to leave, which created an obvious economic downturn by getting rid of four-hundred-thousand hard working people. The enormous spending by Kings Phillip III and Phillip IV on wars and luxury eventually forced Spain to withdraw from foreign involvement because they simply did not have the money or resources to do so.

In the 17th century the idea of constitutionalism was beginning to take root. Constitutionalism is the idea that something, whether it be tradition, parliament, a document or anything else limits the power of the government. One of the key thinkers in constitutionalism was Juan De Mariana, a Spanish Jesuit, whose main work was “De Rege” (On Kingship). In this work he states that the power lies in the people and that people can and should overthrow monarchs who abuse their power. He also said that it was in the power of the people to veto laws, determine taxation, and determine the succession if the king has no heir. He was firmly against absolutism, calling absolutist kings tyrants who want to injure and ruin everybody. The Spanish government was not pleased with this work, but it was when Mariana published a work against inflation that the king hauled off the seventy-seven year old to jail. He was released a few months later, but the Spanish government so hated this anti inflation work, that they bought every copy to prevent circulation and destroyed so many, that there are only a few in existence today.

In 1649 King Charles I was executed following the English Civil war between the royalists and parliamentarians. One of the men most pushing for Charles death, leader of the new model army, which had greatly aided the parliamentarians in their defeat of the royalists. In 1653 he became official ruler of England under the title of Lord Protector. He was staunch about Puritanism, and many new laws came into being to make sure that the people of England followed these rules. Most sports were banned, and boys playing football on a Sunday could be whipped as punishment. In fact any form of unnecessary work on a Sunday was illegal, and taking a walk, except to church, could lead to a hefty fine. Women were expected to dress modestly, and too colorful dresses were banned. Illegal makeup could suddenly be scrubbed off the faces of unsuspecting women caught wearing it by Puritan leaders. Any form of Christmas celebration was banned, and soldiers roamed London forcibly taking food meant for Christmas celebrations, and Christmas decorations were illegal. Cromwell particularly hated the Irish Catholics, who he thought were all traitors waiting to help any invading army. Irish were slaughtered in towns which refused to surrender to him, and all Irish children were ordered to work as slaves on sugar plantations in the West Indies, even though he knew many would die, but then at least they would not grow up in to adults and have more children. Though he imposed religious tyranny upon everyone else, he enjoyed music and hunting, and even allowed full scale entertainment at his daughters wedding. He died in 1658 after ruling more and more militaristically as his rule went on.

After a brief rule by Cromwell’s son Richard, who left office in 1659, parliament invited Charles I son, Charles II, to come back and become king of England, dispelling the office of Lord Protector. After ruling until his death in 1685, with no legitimate children, his detested brother, James II became king. James II was a Catholic and peoples fears that he would make England Catholic were not appeased when he began appointing Catholics to offices. James II favored religious toleration, but this was ignored and instead people were horrified that Catholics were being appointed to the highest offices available. James also enlarged the standing army to protect himself furthering peoples suspicions that he was plotting to bring in an army to make England Catholic. At this time his wife had a son, which meant that when James died instead of his protestant daughter becoming Queen, his Catholic son would. At this parliament asked James protestant daughter, princess Mary, and her husband William of Orange to come and become monarch. In 1688 William and Mary landed in England with their army and virtually any allegiance to James II dissolved. James fled to France, who offered him a palace and a pension. William and Mary marched to London and in 1689 became Co-Monarchs of England. Before they were crowned however they signed the bill of rights, a document that limited the power of the monarch and gave power to parliament. This is a very important document in English history, especially when at this time many monarchy’s were absolutist, meaning the monarch had absolute power.

The Thirty Years War erupted in 1618 between the Catholics and Protestants of the Holy Roman Empire. Unrest began with the King of Bohemia (one of the German states) Ferdinand IIs strong anti-protestant tendency’s. Protestant nobles lead by Count Thurn met with Catholic representatives in the Castle of Prague. The Catholics were defenestrated ( To throw (a person or thing) out of a window) leading the event to be titled as the defenestration of Prague. All three representatives survived. Ferdinand II was deposed as King of Bohemia and the Protestant Frederick was declared King of Bohemia. Two days later Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. This made war almost inevitable, and indeed it was not avoided, and the Imperial-Catholic league army marched to Bohemia thus starting the Thirty years war. The course of this war was incredibly brutal and complicated, but finally ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. This was a series of treaties making slight territorial changes, and also restating the rule that had been made at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, that the king of a states religion was the official religion of that state. But added on to this was that during certain hours you could worship publicly in either Protestantism or Catholicism and you could worship privately whenever you wanted.

At the close of the Thirty Years War was the beginning of The English Civil War, which started in 1642. The King was Charles II, who had absolutist tendency’s. He did not call Parliament into session for the whole of the 1630s, and so revived old taxes to pay for his lavish lifestyle. Like his father King James I he believed that kings ruled by divine right and that they should be the head of power. He was disliked for his advisor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Many believed the king was trying to bring back Catholicism with the ornate Anglican service he promoted, which some thought looked like a Catholic Mass. This was particularly unpopular with the Presbyterian Scottish and lead to a Scottish revolt. To defeat the Scottish he had to recall parliament in 1640 to get money for an army. They were furious at him for not calling parliament for over ten years, and so made him sign many agreements stating that he would regularly call parliament and other such things including many anti-Papist themes. However all of this was to no avail since most parliamentarians believed Charles was biding his time until he could reject the agreements he had signed. All this dislike cascaded into Civil war with the Cavaliers (Royalists) and Roundheads (parliamentarians) fighting against each other. The fighting eventually lead to the capture of Charles II and his execution in 1649. This shocked many people that the legitimate heir to the throne had been executed. Though during this time of turmoil a group called the Levelers arose promoting free trade, the abolition of corruption, natural rights, and the assurance that you own yourself, your property, and your life. These were the forerunners of the modern day Libertarians.

Charles V was king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. He became king of Spain in 1516 and was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. However he was not originally from Spain he was born in the low countries (modern day Netherlands) and all his attendants that travelled with him to Spain when he became king, were Dutch, and not particularly fond of the Spanish people. In fact Charles could not even speak Spanish. This angered a great many people so when he left to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperor the people were ready to revolt. They were at first supported by the nobility but when they saw that this would diminish their power as well they began to grow wary of this uprising. Meanwhile Charles had returned from his coronation and was able to dispel the uprising on account of the Spanish people wearying of all the fighting that had occurred.

Charles Vs son, Phillip II inherited his fathers empire and was a proponent of an absolute monarchy. He believed in religious unity and decided to root out all the protestants that were living in the Netherlands. He expanded the inquisition and raised taxes all the while centralizing more power to him. There was rioting in Flanders and Brussels so in response Phillip II sent the Duke of Alba with 10,000 troops to suppress the revolt. Alba beheaded two Catholic nobles on account of them being “too lenient” with the protestants. He then proceeded to kill one thousand people suspected of disloyalty to the king, which further fueled the anger for a revolt. Indeed revolt did come and lasted for eighty four years ending with the separation of the upper seven provinces from the lower ten and creating the Dutch Republic. The Republic had assurance of private property, free trade and religious toleration, which in turn made The Republic a very prosperous nation and began a demonstration effect among other countries.

The English reformation and the German reformation essentially came to the same results but in very different ways. Whereas the German reformation came about by the spread of the teachings of Luther and the adoption of these teachings by the German people, the English reformation was formed because King Henry VIII wanted a new wife. His current wife had failed to give him a male child and he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. The pope would not grant an annulment since he saw there was no grounds for one, so the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who had great protestant sympathies, convinced Henry VIII to bypass the pope and get permission from the church in England. This lead to the Henry denying papal authority and declaring himself head of the church in England, though he himself was not a Lutheran and very much still believed in Catholic teachings. The job of making England more protestant was made under Henrys son Edward III and solidified under Queen Elizabeth.

While the protestant reformation was going on a second Catholic Reformation was going on as well, reforming the Catholic to church to have better clergy without corruption and defending Catholic teachings. One important man was St. Ignatius of Loyola who founded the Catholic order of the Jesuits. He wrote a popular book called the Spiritual Exercises, in which he gives rules for every good Catholic to follow. One member of the new Jesuit order was St. Francis Xavier, who was a missionary who travelled to India, Africa, and Japan to spread the Catholic faith. In one of his letters he tells that many people were made Christians and that his hands grew weary of baptizing so many people. If someone was found worshipping idols the children would go and smash and destroy the idols.