AP EUROPEAN HISTORY UNIT 3 - ABSOLUTISM AND CONSTITUTIONALISM ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

The Fronde

A series of peasant rebellions between 1649-1652 in France. These events scared young (future king) Louis XIV and eventually led him to consolidating absolute power

Divine Right

The right of a sovereign to rule as set forth by the theory of government that holds that a monarch receives the right to rule directly from God and not from the people

King Louis XIV of France

The model of an absolute monarch. Had control over the nobles, used funds whenever he wanted, and did not have power checks.

Palace of Versailles

Lous XIV’s grand palace, costed France billions. Was a way for Louis XIV to dominate the French nobility and the Parisian mob

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Louis XIV’s finance minister. Colbert centralized the French economy by instituting a system known as mercantilism

Mercantilism

The central goal of mercantilism was to build up the nation’s supply of gold by exporting goods to other lands and earning gold from their sale.

Edict of Fontainebleau

Issued by Louis XIV, which revoked the previous Edict of Nantes that granted religious freedom to Huguenots. As a result, the French state was greatly weakened since the Huguenots were an important part of the French Economy and most of them fled

War of Spanish Succession

Fought between France and England and Dutch allies from 1702-1713 to prevent the same monarch from ruling both Spain and France. Ended with the Treaty of Utrecht.

Treaty of Utrecht

Left a Bourbon (Louis’s grandson) on the Spanish throne but forbade the same monarch from ruling both Spain and France

Louis XIV’s Wars

In his constant desire to expand outside of France and to obtain glory, Louis XIV heavily taxed the French peasantry in order to fund his wars

The English Revolution

Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army defeated the King in 1648 and in the following year, Cromwell made the decision to execute the king, a move that horrified most of the nation

The Commonwealth

From 1649-1660 England was officially a republic, but it was essentially a military dictatorship governed by Cromwell.

Restoration of the Monarchy

By the time Cromwell died, an exhausted England wanteed to bring back the Stuart dynasty. In 1660, the eldest son of the executed monarch became Charles II. However, the return of the Stuarts turned back the clock to 1642 as the same issues that had led to the revolution against Charles’s father remained unresolved

Test Act

An act passed during Charles II’s reign that effectively barred Catholics from serving as royal officials or in the military.

Declaration of Indulgence

Created by James II. Suspended all religious tests for office holders and allowed for freedom of worship.

James II

On the surface, James II appeared to have been a champion of religious freedom; this was deceptive. What James really wished to achieve in England was royal absolutism; however, the steps that he took to achieve this goal were illegal

The Glorious Revolution

A bloodless transfer of the throne from James II to William, the Stadholder of the Netherlands and James II’s daughter, Mary. What followed was a constitutional settlement that finally attempted to address the pervasive issues of this century of revolution

The Bill of Rights (1689)

Forbade the use of royal prerogative rights as Charles and James had exercised in the past. The power to suspend and dispense with laws was declared illegal. Armies could not be raised without parliamentary consent.

The Act of Toleration (1689)

The Act of Toleration was in many ways a compromise bill. To get nonconformists" (Protestants who were not members of the Church of England) support in the crucial months of 1688, Whigs and Tories (Whigs being the more liberal parliamentary faction than the Tories) promised that an act of toleration would be granted when William became king. The nonconformists could have achieved liberty of worship from James Il's act of toleration, but an act from a popular Protestant monarch would prove to be a better safeguard to their liberties. The Act of Toleration granted the right of public worship to Protestant nonconformists but did not extend it to Unitarians or to Catholics. (Those two groups were also left alone, although legally they had no right to assemble to pray.) The Test Act remained, which meant nonconformists, Jews, and Catholics could not sit in Parliament, until the law was changed in the 19th century

The Mutiny Act (1689)

authorized the use of civil law to govern the army, which previously had been governed only by royal decree. It also made desertion and mutiny civil crimes, for which soliders could be punished during peacetime. But the act was only in effect on a year-by-year basis, which meant that a Parliament had to be summoned annually if for no other reason than to pass this act. Along with the Bill of Rights' provision against standing armies in peacetime, the Mutiny Act brought the army under effective parliamentary control.

The Act of Settlement (1701)

was passed to prevent the Catholic Stuart line from occupying the English throne. In 1714, when Queen Anne, the second Protestant daughter of James Il, died childless, the throne passed to George I, the Elector of Hanover, a Protestant prince and a distant kinsman of the Stuarts.

The Act of Union (1707)

marked the political reunification of England and Scotland, forming the entity known as Great Britain. This union was by no means a love match and, in fact, primarily occurred because relations between the two previously independent states were so bad that on his deathbed, William III urged that union take place to forestall Scotland from going to war with England as an ally of France. As part of the agreement, Scotland gave up its parliament but was allowed to maintain the state-sponsored Presbyterian Church and its Roman-based legal system.

Golden Age in the Netherlands

Produced a high standard of living, with wealth being more equally distributed than any other place in Europe. The Netherlands also stood out from the rest of Europe for its tolerant attitude towards religious minorities, with Jews fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition and Anabaptists as well as Catholics finding a place among the majority Calvinst population