Transcript Bourbons - Mr. Weiss - Honors World History

Greatest extent of French Influence. Quebec until 1763
Louisiana until 1803. Haiti until 1804. Eastern Hemisphere
Colonies to mid 1900s.
THE BOURBONS
HENRY IV
LOUIS XIII
LOUIS XIV
Henry of Navarre was the first important leader of the Bourbon
family.
Q: Where is Navarre?
The Bourbons were Protestants ruling
Navarre, a small kingdom on the border
of Spain and France. In France,
Protestants were known as Huguenots.
In 1572, Henry married
into a the French royal
family, which was
Catholic.
The wedding was on
the feast day of Saint
Bartholomew.
Henry’s wife was Marie de Medicis.
What was the significance of this?
The Catholics of
France were so angry
to have a Protestant in
their royal family that
they killed thousands
of Huguenots, in an
atrocity known as the
Saint Bartholomew’s
Day Massacre.
Henry of Navarre converted to
Catholicism in order to become
King Henry IV of France.
He famously said that, “Paris is
well worth a mass.”
In 1598 he issued the Edict of
Nantes, which gave everyone
the right to be either Catholic or
Huguenot.
A Catholic fanatic assassinated
him in 1610. His son, Louis
XIII, became King of France.
Explain Henry’s quote about Paris.
Louis XIII was only nine years old
when he became king. The kingdom
was really run by a Catholic Cardinal,
Richelieu. Richelieu’s power came
from the king, so he did everything he
could to turn France into an absolute
monarchy.
Richelieu fought all of the people who stood in the king’s way,
including the Huguenots and the nobles in the French Parlement.
He set up royal administrators called intendants to replace the
nobles in each province of France. The nobles fought back in the
Fronde rebellion, but lost.
The 30 Years War between Catholics and Protestants was raging
in Europe from 1618-1648. Most of the war was fought in the
Holy Roman Empire.
Even though the war began over religion, national rivalries
became more important by the end. Cardinal Richelieu fought
against the Catholic Hapsburgs, because he wanted to make
France the strongest country in Europe.
France received the province of Alsace at the end of the war,
the independence of the United Provinces and Switzerland
was recognized, and the Hapsburg family was greatly
weakened both in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 marked the end of dynastic
or ecclesiastic rule in Europe, and the beginning of the
nation-state system.
What do we mean by the words dynastic, ecclesiastic, and nation-state?
When Louis XIII died in 1643,
his son, Louis XIV, became
king.
Like his father, he was just a
boy when he became king.
A new Catholic Cardinal,
Mazarin, tried to run France
just as Richelieu had.
Louis XIV strengthened his
position by marrying Marie
Therese, a Spanish
Hapsburg princess.
When Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661, 23 year old
Louis XIV explained that he wanted to be a real King
and the only power in France:
"Up to this moment I have been pleased to entrust
the government of my affairs to the late Cardinal. It
is now time that I govern them myself. You
[secretaries and ministers of state] will assist me with
your counsels when I ask for them. I request and
order you to seal no orders except by my command, .
. . I order you not to sign anything, not even a
passport . . . without my command; to render
account to me personally each day and to favor no
one."
Louis XIV turned France into the most powerful
absolute monarchy in Europe.
He called himself
“The Sun King.”
He is rumored to have said:
“L'État, c'est moi!"
(“I am the State!”)
He moved the court to Versailles and made the
nobles live there, so he could keep his eye on them
and control them.
He also knew that the people would respect him more if
they saw him less.
How does this relate to Machiavelli’s The Prince?
Louis XIV made Versailles such
a wonderful place that no noble
would ever complain.
The nobles even competed with
each other to take turns
serving the king or helping him
get dressed.
The King controlled his own
government until his death,
by hiring and firing his own
government ministers.
One important minister was
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who
strengthened the treasury
with tariffs and taxes.
With
Colbert’s
help,
French
colonies
abroad
also came
under
strict royal
control.
•The turning point in Louis's reign came
after Colbert's death in 1683.
•In 1685 the king revoked the Edict of
Nantes, which had protected French
Protestants – called Huguenots
•200,000 Huguenots left the country,
taking with them considerable capital as
well as skills.
Next he fought the War of Spanish Succession
(1701-14), in which he defended his grandson Philip
V's inheritance of Spain when Charles II died.
France - inherited by Louis XIV
captured by 1659 - Dunkerque was taken
from Spain by Cromwell 1658, sold to
France by Charles II in 1662.
captured by 1680
captured by 1680, given back 1713
1713 boundary of France
remaining under Spanish control
Spain recognised the independence of the
northern Low Countries as the Dutch
Republic in 1648
•France lost some of its earlier conquests, and
the Spanish empire was divided between Philip
V and Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI
•Louis was forced to agree that the crowns of
France and Spain would remain separate despite
the family connection
Ultimately, Louis and his
court came to set the
standard for monarchies
and aristocracies all over
Europe.
Less than fifty years after
his death, the great
French writer Voltaire used
the title "Age of Louis XIV"
to describe his history of
Europe from 1661 to
1715. Historians have
tended to use it ever since