European History (1450----1850)

Following the formation of his own church, Henry VIII became outraged at popular Protestant was becoming. even though he was bold in political matters, he was conservative in religion. the king imposed the Six Articles of 1539 to slow don the progress of the Protestant Reformation. He also instilled every English parish with the Great Bible, a Catholic Bible. King Henry VIII was perseverant in his efforts to revert England back to a Catholic nation.

The Scientific Revolution was the changes in scientific views of the universe that occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was a slow but very important process. The scientific view of nature conflicted with the religious views, which could lead to controversy. Natural philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers thrived at this time. However, the Church often disagreed with their findings.
Not only was the Scientific Revolution filled with discoveries about nature, it was also filled with political and religious views that are still valid today. The revolution started with the view of the universe. In primitive times until the revolution, many thought that the Earth was in the center of the solar system. However, Copernicus rejected that idea and came up with the heliocentric model, which demonstrated the sun in the center. There were many disputes and observtions on this subject, as well as the spiritual side. Was there a spiritual side to our universe? The Scientific Revolution contributed to the laws of gravitation, the empirical method, and teh controversial arguement, Science vs. Religion.

The Council of Trent was called by Emperor Charles V and Pope Paul III as an attempt to squander the Reformation. The council first met In 1545 in Trent and there were three sessions. The Council of Trent strengthened the bishops' powers, and called for the traditional education of the clergy. At first suspicious of the council, rulers soon sided with the council after assurance from the pope. The next generation of clergy were devout and better trained, which resulted in more peace.,

In an attempt to unify England's religious stance, Thomas Crammer's Book of Common Prayer was placed in all English churches. Protestants fled to England for refuge. England was nearly reformed. Three years later, a Second Act was imposed. The revised work of Thomas Crammer became the model for a moderate Protestant doctrine.

Many had recognized the irreversible influences of the Reformation. The Peace of Augsburg, created by Charles V, declared that the ruler of a land would determine its religion. If this meant migrating to a region of your religion, you were free to do so. Unfortunately, the Peace of Augsburg excluded Calvinism and Anabaptism. Both adjusted differently; Calvinists persevered for religious rights while Anabaptists broke off into separate communities.

Queen Elizabeth was King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's daughter. She was the third of Henry's children to rule after Edward VI and Mary I. There were several prejudices against women ruling at the time. Elizabeth proved them to be false by maintaining a neutral stance on religion and strong foreign policy. Elizabeth held tolerance for Protestant and Catholic religions, settling the religious feud for England.

France was anti-Protestant until 1589 when Henry IV of Navarre took to the throne. Henry III was King Henry II's son. He wanted to maintain a middle route in the religious dispute. However, he was killed by an angry friar. Henry IV of Navarre took to the throne and gained the people's favor because he was a politique. He created the Edict of Nantes to grant Huguenots public and political freedoms, which only made the division worse.

The agricultural part of the 16th and 17th century aided in building further industries. The Agricultural Revolution was the innovations in farm productions at this time. Crops were slowly produced and slowly sold. The prices raised considerably, yet some people could not survive without agriculture. The agricultural revolution would solve all of this.
The first invention that sped up the process of farming was Jethro Tull's seed drill. The drill planted the seed deeper than farmers did, increasing the wheat crops. Enclosures replaced the Open-Field Method. Before the Agricultural Revolution, crops were out in the open, reducing the quality which ultimately reduced the profit. Enclosures increased production and achieved greater commercial profits. The Agricultural Revolution also expanded land eastward, and increased the population because there was more jobs and more produce,.

The results of the Industrial Revolution were found in the Commercial Revolution. Due to the Industrial Revolution, jobs increased and so did products, The new opportunities pulled people towards European countries. The boom in commercial success caused the term the Commercial Revolution. The revolution was of course slow in process, but it was very valuable for our modern society.
There was an increase in the desire and the possibility of consuming good an services. Something that contributed to this was the wealth of Europe in the eighteenth century. Wealthy from the industries or the agriculture, Europe was wealthier than it had ever been collectively. This drove people to consume goods and services. there are controversies over the lavishness of this period and how the Europeans spent their newfound wealth. No matter what, however, our modern day economy could have not been made possible without the Commercial Revolution.

Queen Elizabeth had Mary, Queen of Scots, thrown in jail after an assassination conspiracy, She then granted James, Mary's son, a chance to become her heir. Upon her death, James became king and inherited the debt and religious battles that Elizabeth had been trying to solve. James I denied religious freedom to the Puritans and enhanced the Anglican episcopacy, as well as attempted to soften the punishments against Catholics. This made people doubt his loyalty to the Protestant faith.

Galilieo Galilei was an Italian mathematician and natural philosopher. In 1609, Galileo used the Dutch telecope to view space like no one had ever done before. He discovered craters, sun spots, and moons orbiting other planets. he used these discoveries to advocate Copernican interpretation of the heavens, rather than a Ptolemaic one. He also turned the universe into a mathematically, rational subject of nature.

Twelve years after the edict, Henry IV was assassinated. An enraged Catholic fanatic killed him. Henry's policies laid foundation for the absolute state France would become. Henry Iv's legacy lived on trough the Edict of Nantes until King Louis XIV revoked it. This led to occurring wars of religion in France.

Frederick William ruled Prussia for 48 years and his reign proved to be effective. Frederick united power by breaking down noble estates across Prussia and organized a royal estate. At first, the Great Elector did not have the efficient army to carry out his plans. His practice of force in order to rally taxes helped him create a strong army across his nation. The large army also made Prussia a more desirable potential ally.

One of the most famous works of the philosophical advances in the Scientific Revolution was the Leviathan. It as written by the most original political philosopher of the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes. In it, Hobbes regarded all human desires and motives as vain and pleasure seeking. According to Hobbes, people seek no spiritual truth, only things that enhance pleasure and reduce pain. Hobbes agreed on absolute government because he believed that the consequences of anarchy overruled those of tyranny.

Jansenism was a Roman Catholic religious movement that arose in the opposition of the Jesuits. Jansenism was popular among Paris, who were against the Jesuits, as well. Many of their views came from St. Augustine, such as the idea of original sin. Pope Innocent X declared their beliefs heretical, which had a huge impact on their progress. The Jansenists soon retracted or went into hiding.

Peter ascended to the throne as a child co-ruler to his half brother Ivan V. In 1689, he began to rule personally after his followers overthrew his sister. Peter eventually became known as Peter the Great for his curiosity and bravery. He built a navy and sustained an attack on the boyars. Peter the Great was an important tool in westernizing Russia.

Catholicism was practiced by the majority of France. Protestants were declining in numbers and support. Louis XIV, influenced by his second wife, campaigned against the Huguenots. He revoked the Edict of Nantes after years of harassing the rights of the Protestants. By doing this, he drove many skilled people from France and made France the face of religious repression.

Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica was a large influence to the Enlightenment. The work was a part of the print culture that helped in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment. In Newton's Principia Mathematica, Isaac explained inertia in a mathematical form. This work inspired scientist to use advanced math and physics to correct and prove their work. Emilie du Chatelet aided in translating this work from Latin to French. It was now accessible to more people.

The Glorious Revolution was a time of peace and liberation for England. The overwhelming Catholic King James II was replaced by Mary, his eldest daughter, and her husband William III of Orange. William and Mary limited the monarch's power and created rights for the people in a Bill of Rights. The bill prohibited Roman Catholics from taking to the throne. These political advances initiated new departures for Britain from monarch to monarch after William and Mary's reign.

John Locke was the most influential philosophical and political thinker of the 17th century. He criticized absolutism, contrary to Hobbes. He created two treatises, the first denying the patriarchal model's influence on political authority. In his second treatise, Locke argued that people naturally deserve life, liberty, and [the pursuit of] property. In his eyes, humans were naturally good and peaceful until they entered a political environment. lock's ideal nation had limited government authority.

What was the Enlightenment? The Enlightenment was a time of educational, social, literary growth in the eighteenth century. It was inspired by the Scientific Revolution. Just like that revolution, it took some time to get to its height. Unlike the Scientific Revolution, it was more independently made.
The Enlightenment was predominantly inspired by the works of Isaac Newton and John Locke. They had laid the grounds for the philosophies and logic skills of the Enlightenment. Print culture and public opinion emerged as well. Print could influence everyone and so the print (books, journals, newspapers) increased tremendously. Also, a new religious stance arrived, which was deism, the belief in a rational God who had created the earth and then left the earth to function without his interference. The Enlightenment was all about theories, ideals, and opinions. Unlike the Scientific Revolution, this one was based more off of conscious logic instead of scientific reason.

Following the Glorious Revolution, the parliament closed all tension with the Act of Settlement in 1701. This promised the English crown to the Protestant House of Hanover in Germany after Queen Anne's death. However, England and Scotland had been combined in an Act of Union in 1707. This action made the next king of Great Britain George I. This benefited England in the long run, as England became a world power under his rule.

Charles VI took control of Austria, succeeding Joseph I. Previously. before the Thirty Years' War, the Habsburgs ruled fiercely, gaining power from territories outside of Germany. However, when Charles VI took to the throne, he feared that the empire would fall after his death due to his lack of a male heir. Therefore, he called for a document, the Pragmatic Sanction, to be approved. This kept the succession of the Habsburgs through his daughter Maria Theresa.

The Treaty of Utrecht confirmed the boundaries of each mercantile empire in the early to mid 1700s. The major ones were the Spanish, British, French, and Dutch powers. The treaty regulated which empires owned which regions inside of their trade routes. All of the powers also reigned over smaller islands in the Caribbean. Three of these powers-----Spanish, French, and the British grew to rival each other and powers that attempted to secure lands outside of Europe.

John Law, the financial manager at the time, strongly believed that paper Monet would help France out of its economic hole. He established a bank that distributed paper money in the capital. He also organized the Mississippi Company, which traded with the French colony of Louisiana. the Mississippi Company stock aided France's debt, as well as investors' wealth. Unfortunately, in 1720, the stock did not have enough gold to exchange for paper money and the payments were stopped.

Francois-Marie Arouet was known as Voltaire and was an influential and outspoken philosophe. He was imprisoned several times for criticizing or denying the French government. While exiled in England, Voltaire observed the tolerant behavior of the English. He returned to France and wrote Letters on the English, criticizing the French and praising the English. Needless to say, the French government was furious. Voltaire soon fled to Cirey where he lived with his mistress Emilie Du Chatelet.

By the mid-eighteenth century, mercantile powers were fierce competitors, always trying to outdo trading competitors. The Spanish ruled over a popular trading spot, the West Indies, and were serious about their coastal security. Their soldiers would do routine searches of the English vessels before departure. In 1731, there was an altercation during this routine. The Spaniards cut off the ear of the English captain Robert Jenkins, which he put in a jar of brandy for 7 years. In 1738, he presented his severed ear to Parliament and Britain went to war with Spain.

In 1740, Frederick II seized Silesia in eastern Germany. For the recent queen. Maria Theresa, this action ended the Pragmatic Sanction and shifted the Austrian power. However, Maria preserved her empire by gaining the loyalty of her nobilities and weakening the central government, namely in Hungary. She sustained her right to rule, even though Hungry grew I power over Maria's actions. After the War of Austrian Succession, France decided to support Prussia's attacks n Austria, bringing Britain into war.

Baron de Montesquieu was a man of impeccable stature wo was educated enough to realize that France needed reform. His works often displayed the irrational European life at the time. In Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu advocated an empirical method in order to provide understanding. He concluded that no set of laws could pertain to everyone at once; it depended on variables. One could only decide what type of government was needed after closely evaluating these variables.

During the second half of the eighteenth century, Europe began to become more mechanized. This resulted in the Industrial Revolution, which benefited Europe greatly. Without it, modern Europe could have never existed. The Industrial Revolution emphasized machinery as well as profits. People started to comprehend how much they could make using mechanized labor instead of human labor.
Before the Industrial Revolution, cities would grow to a capacity and then stop. However, that changed with the expansion of the cities in order to make more factories and stores. The Industrial Revolution also increased jobs and economic growth, however, it took longer than most revolutions did. The term revolution is not as literal in this stance as other revolutions. Though the growth had a phenomenal impact.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a brilliant philosophe who distanced himself away from others. He believed man to be corrupt and in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, he declared worldly evil came from uneven distributions of property. Unlike others ho had said humans were naturally corrupt, Rousseau believed that society had corrupted humans. The pressure to conform had led humans to turn from good. However, Rousseau had always had disdain for the world in which he lived in.

The Seven Years' War was initiated by Frederick II's attack on Saxony, In response, France and Austria became allies again in order to end Prussia. However, due to Britain's financial aid an the Russian Empress's death, Austria and France were unsuccessful. Russia was an ally to Austria and France but Empress Elizabeth's successor deeply admired Frederick and made peace. This shifted the war into the favor of Prussia. Prussia finally became ranked with the gret powers after the Seven Year's War.

Jon Wilkes was a London radical and Parliament member. He published a newspaper, the North Briton, which criticized Britain's government, He was arrested but was released due to his being a Parliament member. Consequently, the Parliament expelled him and he was outlawed. He was reelected four more times, however, Parliament would not seat him. Demonstrations were held supporting Wilkes, with the slogan "Wilkes and Liberty". He was finally seated in 1774.

In the 1760s, Britain obtained a new king George III, and a new minister, Earl of Bute. The Earl of Bute called for a peace treaty and in 1763, the Treaty of Paris of 1763 was passed. The lands were distributed among Britain and France. Britain returned Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Guadeloupe, and Martinique to the French. With their strong authority and vast territorial reign, Britain had become world power.

The Industrial revolution was made possible by the textile industry. However, the thread needed was produced very slowly in very small amounts. In 1765, inventor James Hargreves patented the Spinning Jenny. The machine was used to spend up to 16 spindles of thread at the same time. The Spinning Jenny revolutionized the textile industry.

The steam engine was the first invention to provide humans with unlimited inanimate power. It was originally invented by Thomas Newcomen. However, his model was inefficient because of its heated cylinder and condenser, and its weigh, which made it immobile. Finally, a Scottish engineer by the name of James Watt came to the conclusion that the condenser and the cylinder needed to be separated. In 1769. he had his improved engine patented. Although it was not commercially applied until 1776.

Until 1769, cotton-textile manufacture was done in households, then sold to agents. Richard Arkwright's invention, the water frame, resolved that problem. Arkwright's water frame was a water powered machine that made pure cotton fabric. This shifted the production of cotton from the cottage to the factory. Cotton production and distribution increased, aiding the Industrial Revolution.

The American colonies grew restless of Britain's control over them. In order to punish them and maintain authority, parliament passed a series of laws and taxes on the colonies. These measures included the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, and the Townshend Acts. The Americans were enraged and called for independence from Great Britain. The movement immediately led to the American Revolution.

Following the Intolerable Acts, the Amsericans formed the Continental Congress. The first Continental Congress organized in 1774, in Philadelphia. The Second Continental Congress organized a year later. Both were attempts to gain freedom from Britain. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, which called for the self government of the colonies.

The American Revolution was a stubborn war. Both sides were equal in their beliefs. The French and Spanish aided the colonies as well. In 1781, George Washington's troops defeated Lord Cornwallis's at Yorktown. The fighting was over. However, the war did not end until the 1783 Treaty of Paris declared the colonies free.

The Industrial revolution could have not been done without the machinery that was invented at the time. One of these inventions was the power loom. Invented by Edmund Cartwright, the power loom amped machine weaving. Hand weavers were replaced with machine weavers. However, the technological changes did not occur overnight. It was not until the 1830s that there would be more power-loom weavers than hand loom weavers.

Sometimes things must fall apart before they can work again. France was no exception. Tired and poor after the American Revolution, the French grew restless of their monarchy. It consisted of King Louis XVI and his foreign wife Marie Antoinette. The monarchs distanced themselves from their people and ignored their pleads for justice and freedom. Finally, the French took matters into their own hands.
What stretched out into a decade, the French Revolution was the fight of the people of France. They held revolts, demonstrations, and marched on the palace grounds demanding fair treatment. They soon got it too, when they executed the king and queen along with several supporters of the crown. Following this, France became its very own republic, governing itself. While the republic was short lived, the impact was not. France had proved itself to be a bold country and there was no turning back.

Bread was scarce and the price rose steadily. With tensions already being tested by King Louis XVI's hesitant ratifications, the people resolved to organized demonstrations. On October 5 of 1789, 7,000n armed Parisian women marched to Louis's gorgeous palace, Versailles, demanding that bread be given to the people. The king timidly agreed and returned back to Paris by order of the people. The bread was finally affordable and their king could ignore them no more.

In 1792, France invaded the Austrian Netherlands, stirring up trouble within the nation. France's Convention also opened the Scheldt River free to all commerce of all nations. A year later, France was at war with six nations, including Austria and Britain. The nations allied in order to preserve their social, political, and economic systems. This marked the beginning of the Reign of Terror.

The Treaties of Basel ended France's tension with Prussia and Spain. Fearing a resurface of radical democrats and revolts, the Convention adopted the Two-Thirds law. This law stated that at least two-thirds of the new legislature had must've served in the convention itself. This law was favored by the people who were already in office (aristocrats). The people began to fear the worst for their new legislature as they had their old one.

People in France grew restless quickly. There were food shortages and the price of what little food remained raised. It was almost effortless for General Napoleon Bonaparte to seize control of the nation. Though the Directory tried to resist, Napoleon's coup d'état was a better opponent. Napoleon had been a general that conquered and invaded various nations. Soon, France dominated all of the Italian Peninsula and Switzerland.

The renewed war caused a huge influence on France. the war started during the Haitian revolution. An overwhelmed Napoleon the sold his American empire (Louisiana) to the U.S. in order to focus on the war. He also withdrew his troops from Haiti =. France recognized their independence in 1804.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not elected for the role of ruler -----he seized it. He declared that creating dysnasty would secure the regime. Napoleon was so self-righteous, he crowned himself emperor. He did not want his strength as a ruler to reflect off of the church. from then on, Napoleon Bonaparte was Napoleon I.

Bourbon Ferdinand VII took an oath to abide by constitution once he was in power. Unfortunately, he immediately dissolved the parliament and ignored all claims of that constitution. A revolution soon broke out in Naples and succeeded; Ferdinand promised to accept a constitution. Revolts spread like wildfire, until Spain had to call Russia and Prussia, as well as Austria and Britain, for assistant. All were hesitant about intervening, however Austrian troop aided in suppressing the revolution in Two Sicilies. International restraint was becoming more popular in Europe. unlike before, diplomacy could be used to help instead of plot against one another. However, this was not the end of wars and revolts in Europe.

Napoleon's nephew, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte took office in 1848. After the corruption of the regime of Louis Philippe, Louis won the vote for president. People expected wonderful things from a Bonaparte. However, Bonaparte was selfish and used his presidency for his own fame and fortune. The National Assembly refused to grant him the power to be elected again, but he overthrew them. He seized the power, becoming a dictator like his uncle had done years before him. Despite his tyrannical ways, he won the majority vote. An empire was proclaimed and Emperor Napoleon III ruled over it.