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Censorship was extremely rigorous in 18th-century France during the reign of Louis XV

remained within a small circle of friends who shared an interest in subversive writings

Voltaire asked his friend, the writer Nicolas-Claude Thiriot, to provide him with a handwritten copy of priest Jean Meslier’s dangerous philosophical will

Hercules for his brave struggle with the hydra of the Inquisition

With him in charge of the government, Charles was able to get into his stride as an enlightened despot: schools were founded to fill the void left by the expulsion of the Jesuits; the currency was reformed; a census was taken; and Madrid became, for the first time, a city worthy of Europe

He did not like it, but he believed that the Spaniards wanted it, and the events of 1766 had taught him the danger of offending national prejudices

The continuing military, as maritime, supremacy of Spain could hardly have been more sensationally demonstrated than by these twin events

dramatic evidence of Spain's right to universal empire, but had also caused, by their determination and devotion

the twenty-year-old Philip IV deserved to be called 'el Rey Planeta' – the Planet King

On July 31st, 1589, a young Jacobin friar, Jacques Clément, left Paris for the suburb of Saint-Cloud where Henry III of France had set up his military encampment.

As he did so, the friar produced a knife that he had hidden in the capacious sleeve of his habit and plunged it into Henry’s abdomen

Henry died early the next morning bringing to an end the Valois dynasty that had occupied the French throne since 1328. Henry III was the first king of France to be assassinated by one of his own subjects

under whose reign the prolonged crisis of the Wars of Religion was made worse by dynastic rivalries arising because the male line of the Valois dynasty was going to die out with him

In 1572 she presented him as a candidate for the vacant throne of Poland, to which he was finally elected in May 1573. In May 1574, however, Charles died, and Henry abandoned Poland and was crowned at Reims on Feb. 13, 1575. He was married two days later to Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the house of Lorraine. The marriage proved childless.

The French Wars of Religion (1562–98) continued during Henry III’s reign

Philip II was a loyal son of the Catholic Church

Philip's sense of religious mission crucially shaped foreign and imperial policy

It was the 1590s before the Inquisition managed to extend its control over printed materials beyond Castile to the rest of Spain, and any resourceful person with a taste for suspect literature could obtain prohibited texts from Italy, France, and the Low Countries

This was the reputation acquired by Francis the First in his own time and reverently preserved by subsequent generations. His mother, Louise of Savoy, laid its foundation even before it was certain that he would inherit the throne of his second cousin, Louis XII. In 1504 she had a medallion engraved in honour of the ten-year-old Duke of Valois

While Francis I has been remembered as the chivalrous leader who sustained a long and unequal struggle against the Hapsburg Emperor, Charles V, he has also been described as the King of the Renaissance

There are, however, other aspects of Francis I that are less consistent with the popular impression. He was the autocrat who built upon the work of Louis XI in creating the despotism of the new monarchy.

France was then sharply divided by religion. Thousands of Protestants, or Huguenots, had been massacred in Paris and other cities in 1572, but they remained strong in the south and west, while Paris was fiercely Catholic. Though a Catholic himself, Henry III lacked the means to take on the Huguenots in an all-out war.

accused the mignons of destroying Henry III’s virility

Monarchs were used to distributing special favours to certain members of their entourage in return for their loyalty and services. The first French king to do so was Philip III, ‘the Bold’ (1270-85). A long line of favourites can be traced through the succeeding reigns until that of Louis XIV, who had none. Henry III seems to have had more than any other French king. They can be divided into two groups: the first, formed in the 1570s, comprised some 20 young men, roughly of the same age as Henry. They belonged to families of the provincial nobility (or noblesse seconde), which had served the crown for generations. The second group was formed in the 1580s. It consisted of only two men, Anne de Joyeuse, baron d’Arques and Jean-Louis de La Valette. They became far more powerful than their predecessors and were known as the archimignons

Henry IV of France was an engagingly flamboyant monarch, famous for his vitality and wit, his forcefulness and determination

Accepting the heavy responsibilities of his crown, he used or planned to use his offspring to strengthen the Bourbon monarchy

As Henry’s marriage with Marguerite de Valois (the occasion of the massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day) proved childless and was annulled, his legitimate line derived from his second wife, Marie de Médicis.

On June 7th, 1654, Louis XIV was crowned in the traditional manner at the cathedral of Reims

It was indeed one of the least significant events in the whole reign of Loins XIV

The minority had ended at rather an early age, but kings of France were not as ordinary men, in that, among other things, they had the capacity of coming of age prematurely

Philip VI of Valois (reigned 1328–50), grandson of Philip III, was of mature age when he became regent of France in 1328. Upon the birth of a daughter to the widow of his cousin Charles IV, the familiar issue of the succession was posed anew. It was the regent’s experience, together with the circumstance that Edward III of England, grandson of Philip the Fair, was under the influence of his disreputable mother, Isabella of France, that probably disposed the council at Vincennes to recognize Philip as king (April 1328).

Philip’s reign began well.

This initial success was soon undone.

Before ascending the throne he was known as the Dauphin and was regent for his father, Charles VI, from 1418.

Charles VII was the 11th child of King Charles VI and his wife, Isabella of Bavaria.

Crises caused by his father’s insanity were frequent.

In 1620, following the defeat of Frederick V (the elector palatine, or prince, from the Rhineland who had accepted the crown of Bohemia when it was offered to him in 1618) and the Bohemians, Spanish troops from the Netherlands entered the “Winter King’s” hereditary dominions of the Rhenish Palatinate. Militarily, Spain was now in a favourable position to restart the war with the United Provinces at the expiration of the truce in 1621

Little was said about religion or even the king’s authority, while the protection of the overseas empire had become the central consideration in Spanish relations with the Dutch rebels.

Having decided on war, Olivares pursued a perfectly consistent strategy: communications between Spain and the Spanish Netherlands were to be kept open at all costs

Two features distinguished the reforms of Charles III (the “Caroline” reforms) from those of the early Bourbons. First, Charles was a “reformer’s king” in that he consistently supported reforming ministers.

After 1714 Spain experienced a gradual economic recovery, which became quite marked in the second half of the 18th century.

Charles III maintained that the key to Spain’s prosperity lay in the development of an American market in the Indies. He saw clearly that Spain alone could not preserve an overseas market closed to the outside world against Britain.

When Charles VIII (reigned 1483–98) led the French invasion of Italy in 1494, he initiated a series of wars that were to last until the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559.

organization appeared during the Wars of Religion of the 16th century and survived until the time of Louis XIV.

In the later part of the 17th century, the reforms of the army by Michel Le Tellier and his son the marquis de Louvois provided Louis XIV with a formidable weapon.

Louis-Philippe d'Orléans was France's last king. He took power in 1830 after the July Revolution, but was forced to abdicate after an uprising in 1848.

With the monarchy restored and Louis XVIII in power, Louis-Philippe, holding the title of Duke of Orléans, took possession of his familial estates

In 1824, Louis XVIII was succeeded on the throne by his brother, Charles X. As the unpopular Charles X angered the bourgeoisie with his policies, Louis-Philippe, now one of the wealthiest men in France, maintained contact with liberal opposition groups. When Charles X issued four repressive ordinances in 1830, the July Revolution led to a loss of control for the monarchy. Louis-Philippe stepped into the power vacuum and was elected lieutenant general of France. After Charles X abdicated, Louis-Philippe was sworn in as King Louis-Philippe I on August 9, 1830

Catherine II served as empress of Russia for more than three decades in the late 18th century after overthrowing her husband, Peter III

was born in Prussia in 1729 and married into the Russian royal family in 1745

Catherine orchestrated a coup to become empress of Russia in 1762

made it a major European power

Gustav was the eldest son of Charles IX and his second wife, Christina of Holstein.

Charles IX had usurped the throne, having ejected his nephew Sigismund III Vasa (who was also king of Poland) in 1599, and the resulting dynastic quarrel involved Sweden and Poland in a war that continued intermittently for 60 years.

A personal union with Saxony, where Augustus II was a strong ruler, seemed at first to offer some advantages to Poland. A king with a power base of his own might reform the Commonwealth, which was still a huge state and potentially a great power. But such hopes proved vain. Pursuing schemes of dynastic greatness, Augustus II involved unwilling Poland in a coalition war against Charles XII of Sweden that proved disastrous. In 1702 Charles invaded the country, forced Augustus out, and staged an election of the youthful Stanisław I Leszczyński as king.

The country, split between two rival monarchs, plunged into chaos. The slowly proceeding demographic and economic recovery was reversed as the looting armies and an outbreak of bubonic plague decimated the people. A crushing defeat of Sweden by Peter I (the Great) of Russia at the Battle of Poltava (Ukraine, Russian Empire) in 1709 eventually restored Augustus to the throne but made him dependent on the tsar.

He was even suspected of plotting partitions of the Commonwealth. During the remaining years of his reign, Augustus’s main preoccupation was to ensure the succession of his son.

The Russian army, which had invaded Sweden’s Baltic provinces, was shortly afterward overwhelmingly beaten by Charles’s troops at the Battle of Narva.

Charles spent the next five years in Bender (now Bendery, Moldova), then under Turkish rule, attempting in vain to persuade the Turks to attack Russia.

Charles XII had no successor. In 1718 his sister Ulrika Eleonora had to convene the Diet in order to be elected. In 1720 she abdicated in favour of her husband, Frederick of Hessen (ruled 1720–51).