Outlines of Universal History Part 38

THE GALLICAN CHURCH.--_Louis XIV._ desired, without any rupture with Rome, to take to himself a power in ecclesiastical affairs like that a.s.sumed in England by _Henry VIII_. Under the pontificate of _Innocent XI._, the a.s.sembly of the French clergy pa.s.sed four propositions a.s.serting the rights of the national Gallican Church, and limiting the Pope's prerogative (1682). The king had for his ecclesiastical champion the able and eloquent _Bossuet_, the Bishop of Meaux. Subsequently, under _Innocent XII._, _Louis_, afraid of a schism and anxious to procure other advantages, yielded up the four obnoxious propositions.

JANSENISM.--The controversy raised by the _Jansenists_ was an important event in the history of France. They took their name from _Jansenius_, who had been Bishop of _Ypres_, an ardent disciple of _St. Augustine's_ theology. They strenuously opposed the theology and moral maxims of the powerful Jesuit order. Their leaders, _St. Cyran_, _Pascal_, _Arnauld_, _Nicole_, and others, were called _Port Royalists_, from their relation to a cloister at _Port Royal_, where some of them resided. They were men of literary and philosophical genius, as well as theologians and devotees. _Blaise Pascal_ wrote the "Provincial Letters," a satirical and polemical work against the Jesuit doctrines. This has always been deemed in style a masterpiece of French prose. His posthumous _Thoughts_ is a profound and suggestive fragment on the evidences of religion. In the heated controversy that arose, the Jansenist leaders were for a more limited definition of the Pope's authority in deciding questions of doctrine. The French court at length took the side of the Jesuits. In 1713 the Pope's bull against the _Moral Reflections_ of _Quesnel_, a Jansenist author, was a heavy blow at his party. Finally, the Jansenists were proscribed by the king, and the cloister at Port Royal leveled to the ground. The Jansenist influence made a part of the tendencies to liberalism that led to the Revolution at the close of the century.

THE HUGUENOTS.--After _Mazarin's_ death, the king fell under the influence of a party hostile to the Huguenots. _Louvois_ fostered this feeling in him, as did _Madame de Maintenon_, whom he had secretly married, and by whom he was influenced through life. As he grew older, he sought to appease a guilty conscience by inflicting tortures on religious dissenters. He issued edicts of the most cruel character. He adopted the atrocious scheme of the _dragonade_, or the billeting of soldiers, over whom there was no restraint, in Huguenot families. In the course of three years, fifty thousand families, industrious and virtuous people, had fled the country. In 1685 the _Edict of Nantes_, the charter of Protestant rights, was revoked. Emigration was forbidden; yet not far from a quarter of a million of refugees escaped, to enrich by their skill and labor the Protestant countries where they found an asylum. Many of the refugees were received by the Elector _Frederick_, and helped to build up _Berlin_, then a small city of twelve thousand inhabitants. France was not only in a degree impoverished by those who fled, but, also, by the much larger number who remained to be hara.s.sed and ruined by the foolish and brutal bigotry of their ruler.

The loss to France by the exile of the Huguenots was incalculable.

"Here were the thriftiest, the bravest, the most intelligent of Frenchmen, the very flower of the race; some of their best and purest blood, some of their fairest and most virtuous women, all their picked artisans. In war, in diplomacy, in literature, in production of wealth, these refugees gave what they took from France to her enemies; for they carried with them that bitter sense of wrong which made them henceforth foremost among those enemies, the forlorn hope of every attack on their ancient fatherland. Large numbers of officers, and those among the ablest, emigrated; among them pre-eminent Marshal Schomberg, 'the best general in Europe.' The fleet especially suffered: the best of the sailors emigrated; the s.h.i.+ps were almost unmanned. The seamen carried tidings of their country's madness to the ends of the earth: as Voltaire says, 'the French were as widely dispersed as the Jews.' Not only in industry, but in thought and mental activity, there was a terrible loss. From this time literature in France loses all spring and power."

In England, the Huguenot exiles quickened manufactures; in Holland, commerce; in Brandenburg, they made a new era in agriculture. Moreover, from this time the policy of Brandenburg was changed: the hostility to the emperor and the house of Austria gave way. An antagonism to France arose: "a process begun by the Great Elector, carried on by Frederick the Great, and brought to a triumphant close in our own days, dates from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes."

THE COST OF NATIONAL UNITY IN FRANCE.--From the beginning of the Reformation, the problem for the nations to solve was, how to combine _religious freedom_ with _national unity_. The intolerance of the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs deprived them of _Holland_, and broke down their power. This effort to secure uniformity of belief was shattered. A like effort in _Germany_ resulted in the Thirty Years' War, and the utter loss of the national unity which it aimed to restore. The civil wars in _France_, aiming at the same result, uniformity of belief, ended in an accommodation between the parties, secured by _Henry IV_. in the _Edict of Nantes_. There was a partial sacrifice of national unity. This was reestablished by the policy of _Richelieu_ and the acts of _Louis XIV.,_ but at a fearful cost. The loss of the Huguenot emigrants; the loss of character, with the loss of the spirit of independence, in the n.o.bles of France; the full sway of a monarchical despotism,--this was the price paid for national unity.

AGGRESSIONS OF LOUIS.--The readiness of the European states to accept the provisions of the _Nimwegen Treaty_ emboldened _Louis_ to further outrages and aggressions. Germany, split into a mult.i.tude of sovereignties, and for the most part inactive as if a paralysis lay upon her, was a tempting prey to the spoiler. He claimed that all the places which had stood in a feudal relation to the places acquired by France in the Westphalian and Nimwegen treaties, should become dependencies of France. He const.i.tuted _Reunions_, or courts of his own, to decide what these places were, and enforced their decrees with his troops (1679). He went so far, in a time of peace, as to seize and wrest from the German Empire the city of _Strasburg_, to establish his domination there, and to introduce the Catholic wors.h.i.+p, in the room of the Protestant, in the minster (1681). Instead of heeding the warning of the Prince of Orange, the empire concluded with _Louis_ the truce of _Regensburg_, by which he was suffered to retain these conquests. He evinced his arrogance in making a quarrel with _Genoa_, in bombarding the city, and in forcing the doge to come to Versailles and beg for peace (1684).

HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA.--The Emperor _Leopold_ was busy in the eastern part of his dominions. The success of the Turks, who gained possession of Lower Hungary, called out a more energetic resistance; but a victory gained by the imperial general, _Montecuculi_, at _St. Gothard_, on the Raab (1664), only resulted in a truce. The Austrian government, guided by the minister, _Lobkowitz_, used the opportunity to rob the Hungarians of their liberties and rights. Political tyranny and religious persecution went hand in hand. Protestant preachers were sold as galley-slaves. _Tokoly_, an Hungarian n.o.bleman, led in a revolt, and invoked the help of the Turks. In 1683 the Turks laid siege to _Vienna_, which was saved by a great victory gained under its walls by a united German and Polish army; the hero in the conflict being _John Sobieski_, king of Poland. The German princes and _Venice_ now united in the prosecution of the war. The conquest of Hungary from the Turks enabled _Leopold_ to destroy Hungarian independence. After their defeat by _Charles of Lorraine_ at _Mohacs_ (1687), the Diet of _Pressburg_ conferred on the male Austrian line the crown of Hungary, and abandoned its old privilege of resisting unconst.i.tutional ordinances (1687). A great victory gained over the Turks by Prince _Eugene_ at _Zenta_ was followed by the Peace of _Carlowitz_, which gave Hungary and Transylvania to Austria, Morea to Venice, and Azof to Russia. _Tokoly_ died in exile.

THE RESTORATION IN ENGLAND (1660).--_Richard Cromwell_ quietly succeeded to the Protectorate. But the officers of the army recalled the "Rump" Parliament, the survivors of the Long Parliament. After eight months _Richard_ gave up his office. The "Rump" was soon in a quarrel again with the army, and was expelled by its chief, _Lambert_. _Monk_, the commander of the English troops in _Scotland_, refused to recognize the government set up by the officers in London. The fleet declared itself on the side of Parliament. _Lambert_ was forsaken, and _Monk_ entered London (1660). A new Parliament or Convention was convoked, which included the Upper House. The restoration of _Charles II_. was now effected by means of the combined influence of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and through the agency of _Monk_. _Charles_, in his Declaration from _Breda_, prior to his return, promised "liberty to tender consciences." This and subsequent pledges were falsified: he had the Stuart infirmity of breaking his engagements. With an easy good-nature and complaisant manners, he was void of moral principle, and in his conduct an open profligate. At heart he was a Roman Catholic, and simply from motives of expediency deferred the avowal of his belief to his death-bed. The army was disbanded. Vengeance was taken on such of the "regicides," the judges of _Charles I_., as could be caught, and on the bodies of _Cromwell_, _Ireton_, and _Bradshaw_. The Cavalier party had now every thing their own way. The Episcopal system was reestablished, and a stringent _Act of Uniformity_ was pa.s.sed. Two thousand Presbyterian ministers were turned out of their parishes. If there was at any time indulgence to the nonconformists, it was only for the sake of the Roman Catholics. _John Bunyan_, the author of "Pilgrim's Progress," was kept in prison for more than twelve years. The sale of _Dunkirk_ to France (1662) awakened general indignation.

THE "YEAR OF WONDERS:" THE CONDUCT OF CHARLES.--The year 1665 was marked as the year of the _Great Plague_ in London, where the narrow and dirty streets admitted little fresh air. It was estimated that not less than one hundred thousand people perished. In less than a year after the plague ceased, there occurred the _Great Fire_ in London (Sept., 1666), which burned for three days, and laid London in ashes from the Tower to the Temple, and from the Thames to Smithfield. St. Paul's, the largest cathedral in England, was consumed, and was replaced by the present church of the same name, planned by _Sir Christopher Wren_. The king showed an unexpected energy in trying to stay the progress of the flames. But neither public calamities, nor the sorrow and indignation of all good men, including his most loyal and attached adherents, could check the shameless profligacy of his palace-life. The diaries of _Evelyn_ and of _Pepys_, both of whom were familiar with the court, picture the disgraceful depravation of morals, which was stimulated by the king's example. But the nation was even more aggrieved by his conduct in respect to foreign nations. In a war with Holland, arising out of commercial rivalry, the English had the mortification of seeing the Thames blockaded by the Dutch fleet (1667). _Hyde_, Earl of Clarendon, Charles's princ.i.p.al adviser, whose daughter married the Duke of York, was driven from office, and went into exile to escape a trial. The _Triple Alliance_ against Louis (p. 453) was gratifying to the people; but in the _Treaty of Dover_ (1670), _Charles_ engaged to declare himself a Roman Catholic as soon as he could do so with prudence, and promised to join his cousin, _Louis XIV_., against Holland, and to aid him in his schemes; in return for which he was to receive a large subsidy from _Louis_, a pension during the war, and armed help in case of an insurrection in England.

THE "CABAL" MINISTRY.--A _cabinet_, as we now term it,--a small number of persons,--had, before this reign, begun to exercise the functions which belonged of old to the King's Council. At this time, the _cabal_ ministry--so called from the first letters of the names, which together made the word--was in power. In 1672 war with _Holland_ was declared, and was kept up for two years.

DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.--When _Charles_ began this second Dutch war, he issued orders for the suspension of the laws against the Catholics and Dissenters. His design was to weaken the Church of England. The anger of Parliament and of the people at this usurpation obliged him to recall the declaration.

THE TEST ACT.--Parliament, in 1673, pa.s.sed an act which shut out all Dissenters from office. This act the king did not venture to reject; although the effect of it was to oblige his brother _James_, the Duke of York, to resign his office of lord high admiral.

DANBY'S MINISTRY.--The cabal ministry was gradually broken up; and _Shaftesbury_, an able minister, went over to the other side. The _Earl of Danby_ became the chief minister. He was in agreement with the House of Commons. He favored the marriage which united _Mary_, the daughter of the Duke of York, to _William_, Prince of Orange.

THE "POPISH PLOT" (1678).--The already exasperated nation was infuriated by an alleged "Popish Plot" for the subverting of the government, and for the murder of the king and of all Protestants. _t.i.tus Oates_, a perjurer, was the main witness. Many innocent Roman Catholics were put to death. This pretended plot led to stringent measures shutting out papists from office. _Halifax_, an able man who called himself "a trimmer,"

because he did not always stay on one side or with one party, opposed a bill that would have excluded the king's brother from the succession, and it failed.

HABEAS CORPUS ACT.--In 1679 the _Habeas Corpus Act_ was pa.s.sed, providing effectually against the arbitrary imprisonment of subjects. Persons arrested must be brought to trial, or proved in open court to be legally confined.

PARTIES: RUSSELL AND SIDNEY.--At this time the party names of _Whig_ and _Tory_ came into vogue. Insurgent Presbyterians in Scotland had been called "Whigs," a Scotch word meaning whey, or sour milk. The nickname was now applied to _Shaftesbury's_ adherents, opponents of the court, who wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne on account of his being a Catholic. _Tories_, also a nickname, the designation of the supporters of the court, meant originally Romanist outlaws, or robbers, in the bogs of Ireland. Many of the Whigs began to devise plans of insurrection, from hatred of _Charles's_ arbitrary system of government. Some of them were disposed to put forward _Monmouth_, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, and a favorite of the common people. The "_Rye-House Plot_" for the a.s.sa.s.sination of the king and his brother was the occasion of the trial and execution of two eminent patriots,--_William_, Lord _Russell_, and _Algernon Sidney_, a warm advocate of republican government. Both, it is believed, were unjustly condemned. The Duke of York a.s.sumed once more the office of admiral. _Charles_, before his death, received the sacrament from a priest of the Church of Rome (1685).

JAMES II. (1685-1688): MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.--A few months after James's accession, the Duke of Monmouth landed in England; but his effort to get the crown failed. His forces, mostly made up of peasants, were defeated at _Sedgemoor_; and he perished on the scaffold. Vengeance was taken upon all concerned in the revolt; and Chief Justice _Jeffreys_, for his brutal conduct in the "b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes," in which, savage as he was, he nevertheless became rich by the sale of pardons, was rewarded with the office of lord chancelor.

JAMES'S ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT.--James paid no heed to his promise to defend the Church of England. Of a slow and obstinate mind, he could not yield to the advice of moderate Roman Catholics, and of the Pope, _Innocent XI._; but set out, by such means as dispensing with the laws, to restore the old religion, and at the same time to extinguish civil liberty. He turned out the judges who did not please him. He created a new _Ecclesiastical Commission_, for the coercion of the clergy, with the notorious _Jeffreys_ at its head. After having treated with great cruelty the Protestant dissenters, he unlawfully issued a _Declaration of Indulgence_ (1687) in their favor, in order to get their support for his schemes in behalf of his own religion. He turned out the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for refusing to appoint a Catholic for their president. He sent seven bishops to the Tower in 1688, who had signed a pet.i.tion against the order requiring a second Declaration of Indulgence to be read in the churches. Popular sympathy was strongly with the accused, and the news of their acquittal was received in the streets of London with shouts of joy.

REVOLUTION OF 1688: WILLIAM AND MARY (1689-1694).--The birth of a Prince of Wales by his second wife, _Mary of Modena_, increased the disaffection of the English people. His two daughters by his first wife--_Mary_ and _Anne_--were married to Protestants; _Mary_, to _William_, Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, and _Anne_ to _George_, Prince of Denmark. By a combination of parties hostile to the king, _William_ was invited to take the English throne. _James_ was blind to the signs of the approaching danger, and to the warnings of _Louis XIV_. of France. When it was too late, he attempted in vain to disarm the conspiracy by concessions. _William_ landed in safety at _Torbay_. He was joined by persons of rank. Lord _Churchill_, afterwards the celebrated _Duke of Marlborough_, left the royal force of which he had the command, and went over to him. The king's daughter, _Anne_, fled to the insurgents in the North. _William_ was quite willing that _James_ should leave the kingdom, and purposely caused him to be negligently guarded by Dutch soldiers. He fled to France, never to return. Parliament declared the throne to be, on divers grounds, vacant, and promulgated a _Declaration of Right_ affirming the ancient rights and liberties of England. It offered the crown to _William and Mary_, who accepted it (1689). A few months later, the estates of Scotland bestowed upon them the crown of that country. Presbyterianism was made the established form of religion there. The union of the kingdoms was consummated under their successor, _Anne_, when Scotland began to be represented in the English Parliament.

THE Ma.s.sACRE OF GLENCOE.--A Highland chief, _MacIan_ of _Glencoe_, with many of his followers, was treacherously slaughtered by order of _Dalrymple_, the Master of Stair, who governed Scotland, and had obtained by misrepresentation from William leave to extirpate that "set of thieves," as he had called them.

WILLIAM IN IRELAND.--The sovereignty of Ireland pa.s.sed, with that of England, to _William_ and _Mary_. There _James II_., supported by France, made a stout resistance. It was a conflict of the Irish Catholics, together with the descendants of the Norman-English settlers, comprising together about a million of people, against the English and Scottish colonists, not far from two hundred thousand in number. The latter, with steadfast courage, sustained a siege in _Londonderry_ until the city was relieved by s.h.i.+ps from England. Many of the inhabitants had perished from hunger. The victory of William at _Boyne_ (1690), where _Schomberg_, his brave general, a Huguenot French marshal, fell, decided the contest. _William_ led his troops in person through the Boyne River, with his sword in his left hand, since his right arm was disabled by a wound. _James_ was a spectator of the fight at a safe distance.

ENGLISH LIBERTY.--In _William's_ reign, liberty in England was fortified by the _Bill of Rights_, containing a series of safeguards against regal usurpation. Papists were made ineligible to the throne. The _Toleration Act_ afforded to Protestant dissenters a large measure of protection and freedom. The press was made free from censors.h.i.+p (1695), and newspapers began to be published. Provision was made for the fair trial of persons indicted for treason. The _Act of Settlement_ (1701) settled the crown, if there should be no heirs of _Anne_ or of _William_, upon the Princess _Sophia, Electress of Hanover_, the daughter of _Elizabeth_ of Bohemia, and granddaughter of _James I_., and on her heirs, being Protestants.

THE GRAND ALLIANCE: TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK.--The next war which _Louis XIV_. began was that of the succession in the territory of the Palatinate, which he claimed, on the extinction of the male line of electors, for _Elizabeth Charlotte_, the gifted and excellent sister of the deceased Elector _Charles_, and the wife of the _Duke of Orleans_, the king's brother.

The table which follows will show the nature of this claim:--

FREDERIC, V, 1610-1632, Elector and King of Bohemia, _m_.

Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England.

| +--CHARLES LEWIS, 1649-1680.

| | | +--CHARLES, 1680-1685.

| | | +--Elizabeth, _m_. Philip, Duke of Orleans, _d_. 1701.

| +--Sophia, _m_. Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover.

| +--George I of England.

_Philip_, _Duke of Orleans_, was the only brother of Louis XIV. From him descended King _Louis Philippe_ (1830-1848).

Another reason that Louis had for war was his determination to secure the archbishopric of Cologne for the bishop of Strasburg, a candidate of his own. In 1686 the _League of Augsburg_ had been formed by the emperor with Sweden, Spain, Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatinate, for defense against France. The _Grand Alliance_, in which England and Holland were included, was now made (1689). In the year before, by the advice of _Louvois_, the French had deliberately devastated the Palatinate, demolis.h.i.+ng buildings, and burning cities and villages without mercy. The ruins of the _Castle of Heidelberg_ are a monument of this worse than vandal incursion, the pretext for which was a desire to prevent the invasion of France. In the war the English and Dutch fleets, under _Admiral Russell_, defeated the French, and burned their s.h.i.+ps, at the battle of _La Hogue_ (1692). This battle was a turning-point in naval history: "as at Lepanto," says Ranke, where the Turks were defeated (1571), "so at La Hogue, the mastery of the sea pa.s.sed from one side to the other." But in the Netherlands, where _William III_., the soul of the League, steadfastly kept the field, after being defeated by _Luxemburg_; in Italy, where the Duke of Savoy was opposed by the Marshal _Catinat_; and in a naval battle between the English and French at _Lagos Bay_,--the French commanders were successful. In 1695 _William's_ troops besieged and captured the town of _Namur_. At length _Louis_ was moved by the exhaustion of his treasury, and the stagnation of industry in France, to conclude the _Peace of Ryswick_ with England, Spain, and Holland (1697). The _Duke of Savoy_ had been detached from the alliance. Most of the conquests on both sides were restored. _William III._ was acknowledged to be king of England. In the treaty with the emperor, France retained _Strasburg_. _William_ was a man of sterling worth, but he was a Dutchman, and was cold in his manners. The plots of the Jacobites, as the adherents of James were called, did more than any thing else to make him popular with his subjects.

CHAPTER II. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT, 1713); DECLINE OF THE POWER OF FRANCE: POWER AND MARITIME SUPREMACY OF ENGLAND.

OCCASION OF THE WAR.--The death of _Charles II._ of Spain (1700) was followed by the War of the Spanish Succession. The desire of _Louis_ to have his hands free in the event of _Charles's_ death had influenced him in making the Treaty of _Rysivick_. _Charles_ had no children. It had been agreed in treaties, to which France was a party, that the Spanish monarchy should not be united either to Austria or to France; and that Archduke _Charles, second_ son of the Emperor _Leopold I._, should have Spain and the Indies. But _Charles II._ of Spain left a will making Louis's second grandson, _Philip_ Duke of Anjou, the heir of all his dominions, with the condition annexed that the crowns of France and Spain should not be united. Instigated by dynastic ambition, _Louis_ made up his mind to break the previous agreements, and seize the inheritance for Philip. _Philip V._ thus became king of Spain. On the death of _James II._ (1701), _Louis_ recognized his son _James_, called "the Pretender," as king of Great Britain. This act, as a violation of the Treaty of Ryswick, and as an arrogant intermeddling on the part of a foreign ruler, excited the wrath of the English people, and inclined them to war. The _Grand Alliance_ against France (1701) included the Empire, England, Holland, Brandenburg (or Prussia), and afterwards Portugal and Savoy (1703). France was supported by the electors of Bavaria and Cologne, and at first by Savoy. _William III._ died in 1702, and was succeeded by _Anne_, the sister of his deceased wife, and the second daughter of _James II_.

The following table will help to make clear the several claims to the Spanish succession:--

Philip III, King of Spain, 1598-1621.

| +--Maria Anna, _m._ Emperor Ferdinand III.

| | | +--Leopold I, _m._ (3) Eleanor, daughter of Elector Palatine.

| | | | | +--Joseph I, d. 1711.

| | | | | +--Charles VI.[2]

| | | +--Anna Maria | _m._ +--PHILIP IV (1621-1665) | | | +--CHARLES II, 1665-1700.

| | | +--Margaret Theresa _m._ Leopold I | | | | | +--Maria Antonia _m._ Maximilian of Bavaria | | | | | +--Joseph Ferdinand, [1] Electoral Prince of Bavaria.

| | | +--(1) Maria Theresa.

| _m._ | +--Louis XIV | | | | | +--Louis, the Dauphin.

| | | | | +--Philip of Anjou [2] (PHILIP V of Spain), d. 1746.

| | +--Anne. _m._ Louis XIII of France

1 Recognized as heir of Charles II of Spain until his death.

2 Rival claimants for the Spanish crown after Charles II, the elder brother of each having resigned his pretensions.

EVENTS OF THE WAR.--In this war, there were displayed the military talents of two great generals,--the _Duke of Marlborough_ and Prince _Eugene_ of Savoy. _Marlborough_ had two glaring faults, He was avaricious, and, like other prominent public men in England at that day, was double-faced. After deserting the service of _James_ for that of _William_, he still kept up at times a correspondence with the exiled house. He was a man of stately and winning presence, a careful commander, in battle cool and self-possessed. At the council board, he had the art of quietly composing differences by winning all to an adhesion to his own views.