Absolutism

Response to 17th century crises

• Absolutism & divine right of kings
• Absolute monarchs = make laws, levy taxes, administer justice, control state's officials, determine foreign policy
• Best example = Louis XIV of France

French Ministers

• Cardinal Richelieu & Cardinal Mazarin = ministers who helped preserve monarchy
• Richelieu took political & military rights from Huguenots
• Other efforts to overthrow young kings thwarted
• Many believed best chance for stability meant a monarch

Louis XIV

• Took power in 1661 at 23
• the Sun King - source of light for his people
• Royal Court at Versailles - 3 purposes:
• king's household, location of chief offices of state, & place where powerful could find favors & offices for themselves
• Ruled w/ absolute authority in FOREIGN POLICY, THE CHURCH, & TAXES

Louis XIV

• Hoped court life would distract nobles & princes from politics
• anti-Huguenot policy, mercantilist policies gave him the money he needed
• standing army of 400,000
• died 1715

Prussia

• Prussia - Frederick William the Great Elector
• efficient standing army of 40,000 - 4th largest in Europe
• Commissariat used to oversee army & as agency for civil government
• son King Frederick I 1701

Austria

• long played role in European politics as Holy Roman emperors
• lost German Empire
• gained control of other territories
• no common sentiment tied regions together

Russia

• Ivan IV, first Russian czar, ruthlessness, expanded Russia eastward & crushed power of boyars (nobility)
• Time of Troubles ended when national assembly chose Michael Romanov as czar in 1613
• Romanov dynasty lasted until 1917

Peter the Great

• 1689, absolute & believed in divine right
• determined to Europeanize Russia
• drafted peasants to create army
• formed 1st Russian navy
• introduced Western customs & etiquette
• acquired lands to secure port w/ access to Europe through Baltic Sea (St. Petersburg)

Political Thought

• Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan (1651)
• "state of nature," life is brutal & violent b/c human nature is self-interested
• not about morals, but self-preservation
• preserve social order by agreeing to be governed by absolute ruler

Political Thought

• John Locke - Two Treatises of Government (1690)
• people lived in state of freedom & equality; had natural rights
• people had trouble protecting their natural rights
• contract b/n people & govt establishes mutual obligations
• people can overthrow govt if contract broken