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In 1725 Stanisław’s daughter Marie married Louis XV of France

When Augustus died in 1733, Stanisław sought to regain the Polish throne with the help of French support for his candidacy

he was elected king of Poland by an overwhelming majority of the Diet

Russia and Austria, fearing Stanisław would unite Poland in the Swedish-French alliance, invaded the country to annul his election

Stanisław was once more deposed, and, under Russian pressure, a small minority in the Diet elected the Saxon elector Frederick Augustus II to the Polish throne as Augustus III

The Peace of Vienna in 1738 recognized Augustus III as king of Poland but allowed Stanisław to keep his royal titles while granting him the provinces of Lorraine and Bar for life

In Lorraine, Stanisław proved to be a good administrator and promoted economic development

built in 1020 by Werner

in the Aargau

in what is now Switzerland

rebelled against the German king Otto I in 950

Rudolf II of Habsburg (died 1232)

Rudolf III’s descendants, however, sold their portion, including Laufenburg, to Albert IV’s descendants before dying out in 1408

Albert IV’s son Rudolf IV of Habsburg was elected German king as Rudolf I in 1273. It was he who, in 1282, bestowed Austria and Styria on his two sons Albert (the future German king Albert I) and Rudolf (reckoned as Rudolf II of Austria). From that date the agelong identification of the Habsburgs with Austria begins

the most formidable dynasty was no longer the Habsburg but the Bourbon. In the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97) the rising powers that 100 years earlier had been Habsburg Spain’s principal enemies and feeble France’s most fluent encouragers

Apart from the Bourbon ascendancy

The physical debility of Charles II of Spain was such that no male heir could be expected to be born to him

his crowns would pass to the electoral prince of Bavaria, Joseph Ferdinand, son of his niece Maria Antonia, daughter of the emperor Leopold I.

Charles II’s next natural heirs were the descendants (1) of his half-sister, who had married Louis XIV of France, and (2) of his father’s two sisters, of whom one had been Louis XIV’s mother and the other the emperor Leopold I’s

Critical tension developed: on the one hand neither the imperial Habsburgs nor their British and Dutch friends could consent to their Bourbon enemy’s acquiring the whole Spanish inheritance

Charles II in the meantime regarded any partition of his inheritance as a humiliation to Spain: dying in 1700, he named as his sole heir a Bourbon prince, Philip of Anjou, the second of Louis XIV’s grandsons. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued

To allay British and Dutch misgivings, Leopold I and his elder son, the future emperor Joseph I, in 1703 renounced their own claims to Spain in favour of Joseph’s brother Charles, so that he might found a second line of Spanish Habsburgs distinct from the imperial

Sardinia, however, was exchanged by him in 1717 for Sicily, which the peacemakers of Utrecht had assigned to the House of Savoy.

Charles remained technically at war with Bourbon Spain until 1720

Meanwhile the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs’ male line and the death of his brother Joseph left Charles, in 1711, as the last male Habsburg. He had therefore to consider what should happen after his death. No woman could rule the Holy Roman Empire, and furthermore the Habsburg succession in some of the hereditary lands was assured only to the male line

he issued his famous Pragmatic Sanction of April 19, 1713, prescribing that, in the event of his dying sonless, the whole inheritance should pass (1) to a daughter of his, according to the rule of primogeniture, and thence to her descendants; next (2) if he himself left no daughter, to his late brother’s daughters, under the same conditions; and finally (3) if his nieces’ line was extinct, to the heirs of his paternal aunts

The attempt to win general recognition for his Pragmatic Sanction was Charles VI’s main concern from 1716 onward

By 1738, at the end of the War of the Polish Succession (in which he lost both Naples and Sicily to a Spanish Bourbon but got Parma and Piacenza

acknowledged the Pragmatic Sanction. His hopes were illusory: less than two months after his death, in 1740, his daughter Maria Theresa had to face a Prussian invasion of Silesia, which unleashed the War of the Austrian Succession

Bavaria then promptly challenged the Habsburg position in Germany; and France’s support of Bavaria encouraged Saxony to follow suit and Spain to try to oust the Habsburgs from Lombardy

The War of the Austrian Succession cost Maria Theresa most of Silesia, part of Lombardy, and the duchies of Parma and Piacenza (Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748) but left her in possession of the rest of her father’s hereditary lands

her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, who in 1737 had become hereditary grand duke of Tuscany, was finally recognized as Holy Roman emperor, with the title of Francis I. He and his descendants, of the House of Habsburg–Lorraine, are the dynastic continuators of the original Habsburgs

An Austro-French entente was subsequently maintained until 1792: the marriage of the archduchess Marie-Antoinette to the future Louis XVI of France (1770) was intended to confirm it

the Habsburgs exerted themselves to consolidate and to expand their central European bloc of territory

when the emperor Francis I died (1765), his eldest son, the emperor Joseph II, became coregent with his mother of the Austrian dominions, but Joseph’s brother Leopold became grand duke of Tuscany

The northeastward expansion of Habsburg central Europe, which came about in Joseph II’s time, was a result not so much of Joseph’s initiative as of external events: the First Partition of Poland (1772)

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars brought a kaleidoscopic series of changes

On Napoleon’s downfall the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) inaugurated the Restoration, from which the battered House of Habsburg naturally benefitted

a brother of the Holy Roman emperors Joseph II and Leopold II, had in 1771 married the heiress of the House of Este; and Napoleon’s Habsburg consort, Marie Louise

The history of the House of Habsburg for the century following the Congress of Vienna is inseparable from that of the Austrian Empire

German, Italian, Hungarian, Slav, and Romanian—gradually eroded. The first territorial losses came in 1859, when Austria had to cede Lombardy to Sardinia–Piedmont, nucleus of the emergent kingdom of Italy

Next, the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866, in which Prussia, exploiting German nationalism, was in alliance with Italy, forced Austria both to renounce its hopes of reviving its ancient hegemony in Germany and to cede Venetia.

Franz Joseph took a step intended to consolidate his “multinational empire”

he granted to that kingdom equal status with the Austrian Empire in what was henceforth to be the Dual Monarchy of Austria–Hungary.

The ardent German nationalists of the Austrian Empire, as opposed to the Germans who were simply loyal to the Habsburgs, took the same attitude as did the Magyars

Remote from Austria’s national concerns but still wounding to the House of Habsburg was the fate of Franz Joseph’s brother Maximilian: set up by the French as emperor of Mexico in 1864

In 1878 Austro-Hungarian forces had “occupied” Bosnia and Herzegovina, which belonged to declining Turkey

World War I led to the dismemberment of the Habsburg Empire. While Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Italians were all claiming their share of the spoil, nothing remained to Charles, the last emperor and king, but “German” Austria and Hungary proper

The King’s delight in his children was boundless, and his affection recognized no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate

he recognized the political significance of the eldest legitimate son in an hereditary monarchy, and as a matter of course the Dauphin was accorded special status. The King knew well the importance of forging personal ties between the sovereign and his people, and at the age of one month the future Louis XIII was introduced to public life:

Henry’s premature death ended César’s role in government; lacking his royal father’s support, he was reduced instantly to that anomalous status attendant upon a former monarch’s illegitimate offspring. During the reign of his half-brother he was naturally a rebel against the Crown

Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon and Marie-Henriette de Bourbon suffered the usual fate of unmarriageable daughters; they were relegated to convents

Throughout the last decade of Henry’s reign, speculation centred around the ‘Spanish marriages,’ a system of alliances

These schemes were encouraged by the Pope, who wished to unite the two great Catholic powers of Europe; and the Queen herself (who was half-Habsburg) voiced approval of alliance with Spain.

Her marriage to the Dauphin would have incorporated Lorraine in the French crown by peaceful annexation, strengthening France’s north-eastern frontier

The contract, signed a few weeks before the King’s murder, provided for an offensive and defensive league against Spain in which Henry agreed to support Savoy’s claims to Milan

Henry’s assassination in May of 1610 left Marie de Médicis Regent of a kingdom poised for attack against the forces of Austria and Spain, and she scrambled frantically to extricate France from the anti-Habsburg coalition without leaving herself diplomatically isolated. Charles Emmanuel of Savoy finally agreed to accept the younger princess, Christine, as his son’s bride

Thus Elisabeth was available for another alliance, and the long-discussed ‘Spanish match’ was realized in a double marriage in 1615: Louis XIII received the Infanta as his wife and Elisabeth went to Spain as the bride of the future Philip IV

In order to win Habsburg good will, the Regent had sacrificed the advantages of a match with Lorraine

At the front the month continued as it had begun. On August 17th Marshal Foch, the Allied Generalissimo, extended the offensive southward in the Battle of Noyon, pulling in the French Third Army. On the 21st Haig extended it northward, bringing in the British Third Army for the Battle of Albert; on the 26th the British First Army began the Fourth Battle of the Scarpe; on the 30th the Third and Fourth Armies were engaged in the Battle of Bapaume

An emissary of the High Command set off for Berlin on the evening of September 29th to demand that the Government should take immediate steps to procure an armistice; six weeks would elapse before that became effective. During those weeks, the quiet Belgian town of Spa became the last citadel of the German Empire

The Kaiser had returned to Berlin, where this demand (signed ‘Hindenburg’, but actually from Ludendorff) was naturally regarded as a cry of despair, gravely complicating the search for a new Chancellor

The only likely candidate at this stage was Prince Max of Baden, ‘the one prominent royalist liberal in the Empire’, who was known to want an early peace. But not that early: every instinct of statemanship indicated the need to prepare the ground, to avoid what must otherwise look like sheer capitulation. The High Command, however, was adamant; and the Kaiser supported it

An obvious divergence between the views of the German leaders and the American President existed in the matters of Alsace-Lorraine and the Polish districts of East Prussia, both regarded by the High Command as integral German territory

The High Command, in fact, regarded the Fourteen Points merely as heads of discussion, admissible only to bring the disastrous fighting to a stop. With misgiving, Prince Max composed a Note to President Wilson which was forwarded to him via Switzerland on October 4th; it accepted the Fourteen Points, and certain subsequent elucidations by the President, ‘as a basis for peace negotiations’

was the German Note simply a new move in an old game, or was there a more estimable thrust behind it

Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and war...’ - a concept that had threatened to bring Britain and America to blows in 1915

There could be, he said, no cessation of hostilities until the Germans had evacuated the invaded territories, and returned their inhabitants. Among these territories he firmly listed Alsace-Lorraine. He demanded bridgeheads over the Rhine and Allied occupation of the whole left bank as security for reparations; everything that the Germans could not remove in the prescribed time should become allied property

And the Germans, with that extraordinary talent for self-destruction which they sometimes displayed, now powerfully reinforced every instinct towards harshness on the Allied side. On October 10th the mail-packet Leinster was twice torpedoed in the Irish Channel with a loss of 527 lives, causing, as Lloyd George says, ‘a howl of indignation’. The timing could hardly have been worse; but one cannot blame the U-boat captain; it is the German Government that has to be blamed for not suspending the submarine campaign while negotiations were in progress

But now the President reminded the Germans that, in a speech on the Fourth of July, he had also spoken of ‘the destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately, secretly and of its single choice, disturb the peace of the world’; and this was one of the supplementary pronouncements that the Germans had also agreed to accept. It now became clear that the ‘arbitrary power’ in question was the German Empire; the Allies were either unaware of, or chose to ignore, the fact that the Empire had undergone a drastic change; nothing would satisfy them now but the abdication of the Kaiser

Upon Augustus’s death in 1733, Stanisław I, seen this time as a symbol of Poland’s independence and supported by France (his daughter, Marie Leszczyńska, married Louis XV), was elected once again. The counterelection of Augustus III followed, and Russian troops drove Stanisław out of the country. He abdicated, receiving as compensation (after the so-called War of the Polish Succession) the duchy of Lorraine.

The reign of Augustus III (1733–63)—during which 5 out of 15 Sejms were dissolved while the remainder took no decisions—witnessed the nadir of Polish statehood. The Commonwealth no longer could be counted as an independent participant in international relations; the king’s diplomacy was conducted from Dresden in Saxony. Poland passively watched the once-Polish territory of Silesia pass from the Habsburgs to Prussia as a result of the War of the Austrian Succession. Prussia, under Frederick II (the Great), whose grandfather had already been recognized in 1701 as “king in Prussia” by Augustus II, was becoming a great power. During the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), Austrian and Russian troops marched through Poland, and Frederick flooded the country with counterfeit money. The Commonwealth was being treated as a wayside inn.

Rising from the middle nobility (though his mother was a Czartoryska), the candidate was handpicked by Catherine II (the Great) of Russia not only because he had been her lover but because she felt that he would be completely dependent on her.

The king’s adroitness and personal charm allowed him in time to win over some of his adversaries, but he lacked a strong will and showed none of the military inclination so cherished by the Poles.

The king’s policies, however, were constantly undermined by neighbouring powers. Frederick II’s view that Poland ought to be kept in lethargy was shared by St. Petersburg, which sought to isolate Stanisław by encouraging both religious dissenters (i.e., non-Catholics) and the conservative circles to form confederations. The presence of Russian troops terrorized the Sejm, and Russia formally guaranteed as immutable such principles of Polish politics as liberum veto, elective monarchy, and dominance of the szlachta.

Austria, which had opposed the scheme (Maria Theresa had found it immoral), unwittingly created a precedent by annexing some Polish border areas.

he maps below compare the results with those in 2010’s regional elections: the Socialist party (PS) and its allies are marked in pink, the far left in red, the centre right (now Les Républicains, then the UMP) and allies in light blue, and the FN in dark blue:

The second round takes place on 13 December between candidates who won at least 10% of the vote in the first round (but less than the 50% required to have won in a single round)

Les Républicains and its allies had a disappointing election, winning 27% of the vote. While the PS took only 23%, the party did better than polls predicted.

In Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine, the PS candidate, Jean-Pierre Masseret, who came third, has said he will not withdraw.

The two regions the FN could win are Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, where Marine Le Pen, won 40.5% of the vote, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, where her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, gained 40.6%. The Socialists are expected to drop out of both races

The FN also stands a strong chance in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The party came first there with 32% of the vote in the first round, while the centre right (24%) and socialist vote (23%) is split and a formal alliance is improbable.

The numbers suggest Les Républicains will comfortably win control of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Pays de la Loire.

The Socialist party will almost certainly control Bretagne (Brittany), where the defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was comfortably ahead in the first round.

Le Pen’s party and France’s two mainstream political outfits will vote when faced with a runoff contest. This will be particularly interesting with a presidential election due in 2017.

However, FN support is clearly on the rise and it is not clear where its ceiling is. Between the previous regional vote in 2010 and the 2012 presidential election, support for the party nearly tripled in terms of votes won.

FN-controlled Hénin-Beaumont has a population of 26,000. Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie has one of nearly 6 million – a different ballgame. How the responsibility and scrutiny of government plays out for the FN will go a long way in determining the shape of French politics over the next two years and beyond.

A bigoted Roman Catholic, Henry was rigorous in the repression of Protestantism, which was approaching the zenith of its power in France.

The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was to be cemented by the marriages of Henry’s daughter Elizabeth and his sister Margaret to Philip II of Spain and to Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, respectively

He left four sons by his marriage to Catherine de Médicis: the future kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III and François

Claude, who married Charles III the Great, Duke of Lorraine

Margaret, who married Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV)

There were, however, always a few who ruled their kingdom in their own right even when, like the fifteenth-century Isabel of Castile, they were married. When she died, Isabel was still independent enough to will her kingdom not to her husband, but to her eldest daughter

Yet from 1553 to 1603 two English queens ruled the kingdom, between them reigning for half a century. This happened because despite his six marriages, when Henry VIII died in 1547, only one young male heir, and his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, survived him

Faced with the proclamation of ‘Queen Jane’, and despite having no visible support from any of the great men of the realm, Mary proclaimed herself as the true queen

Henry had arranged that if his son, Edward VI, died without an heir, then his elder daughter Mary would succeed him. If she had no heirs, then Elizabeth should take the throne.

As the next brief reign was ending, and to defend the more advanced Protestantism established during his rule, the dying Edward VI (1549-1553) made a will excluding both his sisters from the throne

The installation of Queen Jane also had the support of the French

As a result of the new religious regime, and although Mary had been brought up a Catholic, the much younger Elizabeth was reared within the independent Church of England. Both, however, appeared to be content with the church order Henry VIII had established by the end of his reign

Once on the throne, Mary found that the transition from male to female monarchy in 1553 produced some obvious and some unexpected problems. She was, however, well placed to address them. Her mother had always believed Mary had the strongest claim to the English throne, and her father seems to have shared this view at least until the mid 1520s

Although Edward was personally much closer to Elizabeth than he was to Mary, he believed she was an equally unsuitable heir. After all, her mother, Anne Boleyn, had been disliked by many within and beyond the royal court, and had been scandalously executed on the (admittedly highly improbable) charge of having committed adultery with several men, including her own brother

The initiative for the challenge had come from Mary, and without her actions the Janeite coup would almost certainly have succeeded

But she was also aware that since the contemporary prescriptive literature consistently taught the importance of very clear gender differentiation between the expected roles of men and women, there were inevitably going to be problems for England’s first queen regnant

Yet with Mary, as yet unmarried, the rituals had to represent a monarch who was, as contemporaries remarked, both king and queen. Mary’s coronation saw her accepting all the regalia of a male monarch, even though she went to her coronation dressed as a queen consort, with her hair down

Tudor historians are now much more aware of the importance of magnificence in Tudor royal theatres of power. But that was for kings. Surviving accounts – and portraits – also stress the subordinate role and demure postures in which royal wives were habitually portrayed, and so images of queens consort provided a very limited model for representations of power for queens regnant

French and English monarchs had long been famous for their claims to be able to heal certain illnesses by a power called ‘the royal touch’

As well as helping her subjects through them, she even sent such cramp rings to, among others, the Emperor Charles V, the Queen Dowager of France and the Duchess of Lorraine. In the face of explicit French polemics to the contrary, and a great deal of implicit opposition from conventional beliefs about the necessarily masculine nature of any priestly power, every time she exercised her healing powers Mary demonstrated that female monarchy was as sacred as male. This was another precedent Elizabeth was pleased to follow

Parliamentary statutes were also used to further clarify the status of a female monarch. For reasons still not fully understood, a rumour spread that Queen Mary, unlike any English king, had completely unlimited power, because all statutes aimed at limiting royal power referred only to kings

In other matters, Philip was to be effectively political wife to the monarch of England. Most coinage, charters, seals, and other representations to the two monarchs showed Philip seated on his wife’s left (subordinate) side, just as he was accommodated in what had always been the ‘queen’s’ quarters in royal palaces. The treaty left little doubt who was actually monarch of England, however the married couple might subsequently redefine their relationship.

Mary’s unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain provided Elizabeth with polemical ammunition for many years, whenever she wished to resist yet another proposed foreign match for herself

for many of her subjects, the rather scandalous princess of the Edwardian era was finally transformed into a demure, pious, courageous Protestant, a much better model for the woman soon to become England’s first Protestant queen

But it was only one of the many debts which Elizabeth owed to Mary

In public performance, public speaking, embodied female regality, and royal enactment of conventionally gendered public roles, Mary set an example which prepared the way for her sister’s much celebrated public performances. Perhaps it is time all those precedents were taken more seriously in reassessing Elizabeth’s achievements as second queen regnant of England

Henry was the sixth child and fourth son of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici

France had been embroiled in a civil war between the crown and its Protestant or Huguenot subjects since 1562. In 1567 Henry took command of the royal army

He travelled to Poland with an entourage, but during the summer of 1574 he was informed of the death of his brother, Charles IX. He thus became king of both France and Poland

Without so much as bidding adieu to his Polish subjects, Henry made haste to  return to France by way of Austria and northern Italy

In February 1575 he married Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the House of Lorraine, whose beauty had dazzled him on the eve of his departure for Poland

The situation had been aggravated by the accidental death of Henry II in 1559, which had left the kingdom in the hands of his widow, Catherine de’ Medici, and her young sons. As queen mother under Francis II, then as regent under Charles IX

In the absence of Henry begetting a son, the heir to the throne was his brother-in-law Henry of Navarre (1553-1610), who, as a Huguenot, was unacceptable to the Catholic majority in France. In 1576, a group of cities headed by Paris had formed an armed association, called the Catholic League, aimed at excluding Navarre from the throne. It chose Charles, cardinal of Bourbon,

As king, Henry III was apparently well-intentioned towards his subjects regardless of their faith. As he returned to Lyon from Poland in 1574, he declared a wish to be at peace with them all, and he seemed better equipped than his recent predecessors to succeed. He was probably the most intellectually gifted of the later Valois kings

The task of ruling France that the king faced in 1574 was far from easy, as so much hatred had arisen between Catholics and Huguenots

The court’s extravagance at a time of severe economic crisis incurred much criticism

He believed that his authority would be enhanced by distancing himself from his subjects

Although Henry III valued privacy, he liked to surround himself with a select group of intimate friends, mostly men of his own generation who came to be known as mignons

Whereas Charles IX had taken part in 109 civic entries during his ‘Grand Tour of France’ in 1564-66, Henry had only four in his entire reign

The king of France is so familiar with his subjects that he treats them all as his companions and no one is ever excluded from his presence, so that even lackeys of the lower sort are bold enough to wish to enter his privy chamber in order to see all that is going on there and to hear all that is being said… This familiarity, if it makes the nation insolent and arrogant, nevertheless inspires love, devotion and loyalty to its prince.

The supreme irony of Henry III’s reign was his failure to win over the capital by his presence

aloofness, extravagance and eccentricity

Believing Guise to be plotting a coup d’etat, Henry decided to exterminate him. Having lured the duke to his antechamber at Blois, the king stood by as his guards hacked Guise to death

This cold-blooded murder was by far Henry’s biggest blunder

Henry III’s only hope of regaining control of the capital was to join forces with  his appointed heir, the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre

Henry III on his deathbed appointing Navarre as his successor

Neither intellect nor good intentions had been sufficient to gain Henry III the love of his subjects. His life had been a tragedy

In 1564 the Spanish Ambassador in London, de Silva, reported to Philip II that ‘the leading men in Scotland’ had been bought by Elizabeth for eight thousand crowns

Two years later, when the English raided the Border town of Langton, the authorities in Edinburgh begged the Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, to appoint a nobleman ‘to have the cure and charge’ of the city, asking as their first preference for Bothwell.

The rebels sent a punitive expedition, led by Moray, in search of him, and Bothwell, in hiding nearby, had to watch while they sacked his castle at Crichton. The enmity lasted for the rest of his life, and ended by destroying both him and Mary

Bothwell now set out to see Mary in France, and took Anna with him as far as Flanders

In 1563 Anna, too, went to Scotland, using a passport from Mary which allowed her to live there and to enter and leave the country at will

Without trial, Bothwell was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle; but, knowing that he was likely to be murdered, he twisted back the bars of his cell window, climbed down the precipitous Castle Rock in darkness, made his way to the coast and set sail for France

He was, in fact, given six hundred crowns and the salary of a gentleman of the King’s chamber

Bothwell was recalled by the Queen’s pardon and urgent summons, for her marriage the month before to the treacherous Darnley threatened to spark off civil war with the Protestants, led by Moray and once again financed by the English

There followed a series of intrigues by Darnley, which he was too indiscreet to conceal, against a number of the rebels, including Moray

Bothwell dealt with both difficulties with his customary decision. In April, two months after Darnley’s murder, he assembled a force of 800 men a few miles west of Edinburgh and abducted Mary as she returned from a visit to her ten-month-old son at Stirling. Mary offered no resistance, and it was widely believed that Bothwell compelled her acquiescence in the marriage by rape; but Mary herself, in a letter to the Bishop of Dunblane, said that it was the best course she could take

There can be little doubt that they were determined to arrest Bothwell and execute him. Mary rejected their demand with indignation, and the two armies, which together numbered perhaps 8,000 men, faced each other for the rest of the day, each uncertain how to proceed

Bothwell sent a man aboard the Bjorn to explain that they were Scottish gentlemen who wished to serve the Danish king, Frederick II, in his prolonged war against Sweden, and that the only authority in Scotland who could provide papers was in prison.

It was now essential for Bothwell to conceal the fact that he was a fugitive and an outlaw. Asked for his passport, he blustered, and asked contemptuously who could give him one, since he was himself the highest authority in Scotland and the husband of the Queen; and he was inconsistent about the purpose of his voyage: sometimes he wanted to go to Denmark, sometimes to Holland, sometimes to France.

It happened that Rosenkrands was a kinsman of Anna Throndsen, and that she was living not far away, being known as ‘the Scottish lady’ on account of her stay in Scotland

Bothwell was unable to extricate himself in face of such evidence, and could do no more than offer her a pension of £100 a year from Scotland and the smaller of his two ships. Anna accepted, not knowing that his property in Scotland had been confiscated when he was declared an outlaw and that the ship was not his to give

By now Bothwell’s detention was known in Scotland, having been reported by the merchants in Bergen; and Moray, who had established himself as Regent for James VI sought his extradition on a charge of regicide - the beginning of his protracted efforts to put Bothwell out of the way for ever

he was able to reply to Frederick with truth that he had been acquitted of the charge by a Scottish court, that the acquittal had been confirmed by the Scottish Parliament, that Mary was a prisoner, and that his accusers were guilty of treason

Frederick now came under pressure from another quarter. In December 1567 the Scottish Parliament formally condemned Bothwell to forfeiture of ‘nobility, honours, life and possessions’, and Moray sought the help of Elizabeth and of Charles IX in Paris in obtaining his extradition

When Frederick declined this gambit, Moray sent a further request, this time in the name of the infant King James, that Clerk should be allowed to execute Bothwell in Denmark and take his head back to Scotland for public exhibition ‘in the place where his crime was committed’; for there was, he said, ‘a great clamour’ in Scotland against Bothwell

Most declined to offer advice, pointing out with irony that Frederick and his Council were well equipped to take their own decisions; a few suggested, as Frederick himself had done the year before, that Bothwell should be tried in Denmark; and others counselled him to temporize without offending either England or Scotland

On condition that his surrender of Bothwell would never be held against him, that Elizabeth and Lennox would reciprocate if the need should ever arise, and that Bothwell would receive a fair trial, Frederick half-agreed to the extradition; but Charles IX, alerted by Dangay, his Ambassador in Copenhagen, and by his Minister in London, ordered Dangay to take decisive action to prevent it

For Bothwell it would have been better had Charles not intervened, for Frederick’s attitude towards him soon changed abruptly. It has been suggested that the Massacre of St Bartholomew diminished sympathy for the Catholic Mary and hence Frederick’s sympathy for her consort.

More probably it had become clear that since Mary was now in the hands of the English and her faction in Scotland had been largely destroyed by Morton, who succeeded to the Regency on the murder of Lennox, Bothwell had ceased to have any value for Frederick in his complex political manoeuvres

The Danes treated him with greater consideration in death, and gave him a modest burial in a nearby village

Henry resumed the war against the Huguenots, but the Estates-General, meeting at Blois in 1576, was weary of Henry’s extravagance and refused to grant him the necessary subsidies

In 1584, however, the Roman Catholics were alarmed when the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV), became heir to the throne on the death of Henry III’s brother François, and the League was revived under the leadership of Henri, 3e duc de Guise

tried to depose him

caused the king to flee to Chartres

Henry III was compelled to ally himself with Henry of Navarre

Jacques Clément, a fanatical Jacobin friar, gained admission to the king’s presence and stabbed him. Before he died, Henry, who left no issue, acknowledged Henry of Navarre as his heir

could not save France from civil war

he was so extravagant as virtually to bankrupt his kingdom

establishment of an equality of trade conditions

national armaments will be reduced

adjustment of all colonial claims

the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight

The evacuation of all Russian territory

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored

restore confidence among the nations

All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored

the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all

A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy

occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea

The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development

An independent Polish state should be erected

A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity

On Oct. 3–4, 1918, Prince Maximilian of Baden, the German imperial chancellor, sent a note, via Switzerland, to President Wilson, requesting an immediate armistice and the opening of peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points

Germans would later argue a “betrayal” when faced by the harsher terms of the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles

While Maria Theresa regarded Protestants as heretics and Jews as the embodiment of the Antichrist

Joseph’s most radical measures in church matters were the Edict of Toleration (1781) and his monastic reforms.

When Joseph became sole ruler, he was determined to implement his own policies

Another of Joseph’s famous reforms was the abolition of serfdom, which was not quite a total abolition but certainly changed considerably the status of the peasants.

Toward the end of Joseph’s reign, there was indeed increasing dissatisfaction. Religious elements were unhappy with many of his reforms

To add to the Hungarians’ horror, Joseph refused to submit to a coronation in Hungary lest he have to swear to uphold laws that he did not wish to, and then he had the sacred crown of the kingdom moved to Vienna.

By 1787 resistance to Joseph and his government was intensifying. One Habsburg possession that had escaped reforms during the reign of Maria Theresa and Joseph was the Austrian Netherlands,

Joseph’s reforms might not have generated as much opposition had it not been for his foreign policy.

Kaunitz firmly believed that Austria could check Prussia only with the help of Russia. Consequently, in 1781 he and Joseph negotiated with Catherine the Great a pact that provided for Russian help for Austria in case of war with Prussia

In exchange, Austria promised to help Russia in case of war with the Ottoman Empire.

Catherine then engaged in a series of provocations toward the Turks that resulted in 1787 in a declaration of war by the sultan. Although Joseph had no real desire to participate in this war, his treaty obligations with Russia required him to do so

In 1788 the Austrians waited for the Russians to take the offensive in Romanian lands—which they failed to do—only to be themselves attacked by the Turks and sent scurrying north from the Danube in an effort to reconsolidate their lines

Faced with these difficulties, Joseph revoked many of the reforms that he had enacted earlier

he consented to return the crown to Hungary and to his own coronation as that country’s king. The crowning never came to pass, however, for Joseph died the following month.

On the death of his elder brother in April 1417, Charles became dauphin (heir to the throne) at the age of 14. He was named lieutenant general of the kingdom, but his mother left Paris and allied herself with John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy.

There he put himself at the head of the Armagnac party (rivals of the Burgundians) and at the end of 1418 assumed the title of regent for the deranged Charles VI.

Faced with the threat of the English, who had invaded France, and the demands of the English king, Henry V, who claimed the French crown, Charles attempted to reconcile his differences with the Duke of Burgundy.

In 1420 the Treaty of Troyes recognized Henry V as heir to the French throne, excluding Charles. Charles’s supporters, however, included not only the Armagnacs but also the “party of the King,” which backed his claim to the succession.

On the death of his father on Oct. 21, 1422, Charles assumed the title of king of France. His worst difficulties were of a financial nature: the taxes voted by the States General (representative assembly) were insufficient for his needs

Joan of Arc, the visionary peasant girl from Lorraine, travelled across the country to fortify the King’s intentions to fight for France. He received her at Chinon in February 1429. She restored the French army’s confidence, and they liberated Orléans. On July 17, after a victorious journey with his army, Charles was crowned at Reims

the King condemned the murder of Philip’s father, and the Duke recognized Charles as his sovereign. A new phase then opened up in Charles’s life.

The power of the nobility was lessened by his reforms; encouraged by the Duke of Burgundy—and especially by Charles’s son, the dauphin Louis (later King Louis XI)—they formed a coalition against the King (the Praguerie).

Philip of Burgundy dreamed of dominating France, and the Dauphin, who was approaching 40, had difficulty in concealing his impatience to reign.

Charles VII’s reign was one of the most important in the history of the French monarchy. Although France had lost the economic prosperity and commercial importance it had enjoyed in the preceding centuries and the great nobles had become independent during the long partisan struggles of the Hundred Years’ War period, Charles was able to begin the work of reunifying the kingdom by rallying the peoples’ loyalty to himself as the legitimate king.

In the early hours of 30 June, she died. She was 26.

Louis’ suspicions had been aroused and he ordered an autopsy, which was performed by French doctors and witnessed by others sent from England

He expressed his doubts to the grief-stricken Charles II, who earnestly believed that his sister had been murdered.

Seizing upon Henriette’s dying reproach of Philippe, he asserted that she had been the victim of a plot orchestrated by Lorraine, who held Henriette responsible for his exile and sought revenge.

Saint-Simon asserted that Louis was so thankful that his brother was innocent of the crime that he decided not to prosecute the perpetrators

The sudden onset of Henriette’s illness, the severe pain and the short time between the onset of her symptoms and her death suggested to her contemporaries that she had been poisoned.

Louis once tactlessly referred to her as ‘the bones of the Holy Innocents’

The true cause of Henriette’s death can never be known

Bismarck was less circumspect in his conduct of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Seeing the opportunity to unify Germany’s loose confederations against an outside enemy, Bismarck stirred political tensions between France and Prussia, famously editing a telegram from William I to make both countries feel insulted by the other. The French declared war, but the Prussians and their German allies won handily. Prussia levied an indemnity, annexed the French border provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and crowned William emperor of a unified Germany (the Second Reich) in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles—a tremendous insult to the French.

In the 1880s Bismarck set aside his conservative impulses to counter the socialists by creating Europe’s first modern welfare state, establishing national healthcare (1883), accident insurance (1884) and old age pensions (1889). Bismarck also hosted the 1885 Berlin Conference that ended the “Scramble for Africa,” dividing the continent between the European powers and establishing German colonies in Cameroon, Togoland and East and Southwest Africa.

William I died in 1888 and was succeeded by his son Frederick III and then his grandson William II, both of whom Bismarck found difficult to control. In 1890 the new king forced Bismarck out. William II was left in control of a flourishing unified state but was ill-equipped to maintain Bismarck’s carefully manipulated balance of international rivalries. Respected and honored by the time of his death eight years later, Bismarck quickly became a quasi-mythic figure invoked by political leaders calling for strong German leadership—or for war.

"It was a powerful moment because he did his own eulogy."

The following day, Ester and a number of King supporters, gathered at the Lorraine Motel, where the civil rights leader was staying.

"All of a sudden what sounded like a truck backfiring goes off and I can hear people saying, 'Get down, get down!' "

"I'm looking, still, at Dr. King being thrown back and I take off and I run up the steps. And when I get up to where he's laying, I notice this pool of blood around his head,"

In that moment, kneeling over his body, Ester said King's fateful words from the night before were echoing in her head: I may not get there with you. I may not get there with you.

hate "took over." It stemmed, she said, from "white America [who] don't want to see us with freedom, so you take out our leader, our king."

"Every time I want to believe that Dr. King's life changed everything — I've witnessed George Floyds and so many others that have lost their lives," Ester said, referring to the man fatally killed by Minneapolis police last May.

Still, in contemplating what King's legacy has meant after decades of violence against Black people, Clara said, "You think that's gonna destroy his dream? Y'all are wrong. I think children years and years to come will continue to have his dream."

While Mr. Kelly voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, his adult children remained dedicated Democrats. That changed, however, with the unrest over the summer. #notifications-inline { font-family: nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif; min-height: 111px; margin: 40px auto; scroll-margin-top: 80px; max-width: 600px; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid #e2e2e2; border-bottom: 1px solid #e2e2e2; padding: 20px 0; } .Hybrid #notifications-inline { max-width: calc(100% - 40px); } #notifications-inline h2 { font-size: 1.125rem; font-weight: 700; flex-shrink: 0; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } #notifications-inline .styln-signup-wrapper { margin-top: 20px; max-width: 400px; } @media screen and (min-width: 768px) { #notifications-inline { min-height: 90px; } #notifications-inline .main-notification-container { align-items: center; } #notifications-inline .notification-stack { display: flex; } #notifications-inline .notification-stack > div:not(:first-child) .styln-signup-wrapper { padding-left: 20px; margin-left: 20px; border-left: 1px solid #e2e2e2; } #notifications-inline .notification-stack > div .styln-signup-wrapper { display: flex; position: relative; } #notifications-inline .notification-stack > div .styln-signup-wrapper .signup-error { position: absolute; bottom: 0; left: 20px; transform: translateY(100%); } #notifications-inline .notification-stack > div:first-child .styln-signup-wrapper .signup-error { position: absolute; left: 0; } #notifications-inline .notification-stack > div { display: flex; } #notifications-inline .styln-signup-wrapper { margin-top: 13px; } }

“It feels as though we are being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils,” Mr. Kelly said. He will be voting again for Mr. Trump and will be joined by his children this year.

Winning Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes has been a priority for Democrats since Mr. Trump’s narrow victory there in 2016. Outside the Ozaukee Democrats office, James Quick, 58, said that people who sat out that election were now energized by anti-Trump sentiment. The suburbs of Milwaukee, however, remain split between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.

Mayor Shawn Reilly of Waukesha, a Republican, has become more outspoken about his views. He did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2016, he said, and he won’t this time either. He said a billboard near Lake Mills that simply says “ENOUGH” resonates with him.

When Conor Lamb, a Democrat, won a special election in 2018 to represent a Pittsburgh-area district in Congress, his party saw how crucial suburban support could be.

The front lawn of Bobbi Bauer’s two-story brick home in Elizabeth Township, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, is decorated with rose bushes, small American flags and a giant Trump banner stretched across her white garage. She runs a day care at her home, and her clients have a mix of party affiliations.