CHAPTER II.

ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS: THE ENGLISH REVOLU TION (1603-1714).

ment.

I. THE FIRST TWO STUARTS.

1. Reign of James the First (1603-1625).

Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland. The accession of the Stuart line brought England and Scotland under the same sovereign, though each country still retained its own parliaJames was the first to bear the title of "King of Great Britain." 1 The union of the two countries was symbolized by a new flag, upon which were blended the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, the former the patron saint of England and the latter of Scotland.

The King. There was nothing royal in James's person or demeanor. An unfortunate weakness in his limbs gave him an awkward, shambling gait. He was equally weak in character, for which fault he was more responsible. He was conceited and obstinate, and was charged with drunkenness and buffoonery. He affected authorship, and wrote several books, one on witchcraft, in which he believed, and another on the use of tobacco, - just introduced by Raleigh, in which he did not believe. The sycophants of his court called him the "British Solomon," which drew from the French Duke of Sully the retort that he was the "wisest fool in Europe."

His full title was "King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland."

THE "DIVINE RIGHT" OF KINGS, ETC.

505

He was constitutionally a coward, and would tremble at the sight of a drawn sword. His clothes were thickly padded as a precaution against assassination. This disposition inclined him to a peace policy, so that the history of his reign is signalized by no important wars. It also, in connection with his general femininity, earned for him the title of "Queen James," while his predecessor was alluded to as "King Elizabeth."

-

The "Divine Right" of Kings and the "Royal Touch." James was a firm believer in the doctrine of the "divine right" of kings. He held that hereditary princes are the Lord's anointed, and that their authority can in no way be questioned or limited by people, priest, or parliament. His own words were, "As it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do, so it is high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do, or to say that the king cannot do this or that."

This doctrine found much support in the popular superstition of the "Royal Touch." The king was believed to possess the power a gift transmitted through the royal line of England from Edward the Confessor of healing scrofulous persons by the laying on of hands.' James's son Charles is said to have touched 100,000 persons during his reign. The testimony as to the genuineness of the cures effected is often very strong and seemingly unimpeachable.

It is the bearing of this strange superstition upon the doctrine of the divine right of kings that concerns us now. "The political importance of this superstition," observes Lecky, "is very manifest. Educated laymen might deride it, but in the eyes of the English poor it was a visible, palpable attestation of the indefeasible sanctity of the royal line. It placed the sovereignty entirely apart from the categories of mere human institutions."2

By bearing in mind this superstition, it will be easier for us to

1 Consult Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. I. P. 73. The French kings were also supposed to possess the same miraculous power, inherited, as most believed, from Louis the Saint.

Ibid., Vol. I. p. 77.

towns and fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, besides the province of Franche-Comté and several Imperial cities on his German frontier.

Louis is called "Great." - Thus Louis came out of this tremendous struggle, in which half of Europe was leagued against him, with enhanced reputation and fresh acquisitions of territory. People began to call him the Grand Monarch; and, as if to justify their judgment in conferring upon him this title of Great, he seized the free city of Strasburg and other places along his Rhenish frontier, made a most wanton attack upon Genoa, quarreled with Spain, confiscated some of the possessions of the Pope, and deported himself generally in that overbearing, insolent, and intolerant manner which is the prerogative of titled greatness.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). — Louis now committed an act the injustice of which was only equalled by its folly, an act from which may be dated the decline of his power. This was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the well-known decree by which Henry IV. secured religious freedom to the French Protestants. It seems strange that two of the worst crimes of French history should have been instigated by women; for, as to the name of Catherine de Medici will ever attach the infamy of St. Bartholomew, so to that of Madame de Maintenon1 will ever cling the shame of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

By this cruel measure all the Protestant churches were closed, and every Huguenot who refused to embrace the Roman Catholic faith was outlawed. The terrible persecution that now fell upon the unfortunate Huguenots is known as the Dragonnades, from the circumstance that dragoons were quartered upon the Protestant families, with full permission to annoy and persecute them in every way "short of violation and death," to the end that the victims of these outrages might be constrained to recant, which multitudes did.

Under the fierce persecutions of the Dragonnades, probably

1 The second wife of Louis XIV., who persuaded the king to the act of which we are speaking.

THE WAR OF THE PALATINATE.

497

as many as three hundred thousand of the most skilful and industrious of the subjects of Louis were driven out of the kingdom. Several of the most important and flourishing of the French industries were ruined, while the manufacturing interests of other countries, particularly those of Holland and England, were correspondingly benefited by the energy, skill, and capital which the exiles carried to them. Many of the fugitive Huguenots found ultimately a refuge in America; and no other class of emigrants, save the Puritans of England, cast

"Such healthful leaven 'mid the elements

That peopled the new world."1

The War of the Palatinate (1689-1697).—The indirect results of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were quite as calamitous to France as were the direct results. The indignation that the barbarous measure awakened among the Protestant nations of Europe enabled William of Orange to organize a formidable confederacy against Louis, known as the League of Augsburg (1686). England did not immediately become a member of the League (notwithstanding the Protestants of that country were filled with resentment towards Louis), for the reason that the English throne was at this time held by James II., whose notions of the divine right of kings naturally led him to seek the friendship and alliance of the Grand Monarch. But a little later (in 1688). came the Revolution which drove James out of England, and placed that kingdom in the hands of the Prince of Orange. England was thus drawn away from the side of the French king, and added to the enemies of Louis.

Louis now resolved to attack the confederates of Augsburg. Seeking a pretext for beginning hostilities, he laid claim, in the name of his sister-in-law, to portions of the Palatinate, and hurried a large army into the country, which was quickly overrun. But being unable to hold the conquests he had made, Louis ordered that the country be turned into a desert. The Huns of an Attila could not have carried out more relentlessly the barbarous command

1 See Baird, History of Huguenot Emigration to America.

FOURTH PERIOD.-THE ERA OF THE POLITICAL

REVOLUTION.

(FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA, IN 1648, TO THE PRESENT TIME.)

CHAPTER I.

THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE UNDER THE ABSOLUTE GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS XIV. (1643-1715).

The Divine Right of Kings. Louis XIV. stands as the representative of absolute monarchy. This indeed was no new thing in the world, but Louis was such an ideal autocrat that somehow he made autocratic government strangely attractive. Other kings imitated him, and it became the prevailing theory of government that kings have a "divine right" to rule, and that the people should have no part at all in government.

According to this theory, the nation is a great family with the king as its divinely appointed head. The duty of the king is to govern like a father; the duty of the people is to obey their king even as children obey their parents. If the king does wrong, is harsh, cruel, unjust, this is simply the misfortune of his people: under no circumstances is it right for them to rebel against his authority, any more than for children to rise against their father. The king is responsible to God alone, and to God the people, quietly submissive, must leave the avenging of all their wrongs.

Before the close of the period upon which we here enter, we shall see how this theory of the divine right of kings worked out in practice, how dear it cost both kings and people, and how