Thus the new King passed under the sullen eyes of the Old Guard, who were forced to salute the chief representative of the cause against which they had fought. It was necessary to disband many imperial regiments, but a mistake to create new guard regiments in which, in the bad style of the old regime, all the privates had the rank of officers

When Louis XVIII entered his capital again, it was to preside over a Restoration really imposed by the bayonets of the victors, in a country where it was impossible to believe, any longer, in the fiction of a people cured of its follies and returning gladly to the obedience due to its rightful king

When, in 1830, that did not pay, Charles X proposed to alter the rules again and, in so doing, lost his throne

Probably Louis XVIII has gained more than his deserts by contrast with Charles X. He was selfish, a Voltairean who yet believed in the divine right of kings, at any rate of the King of France and Navarre

The Princes had spent most of their exile in England. Far more consistently than Austria, Russia or Prussia, England had resisted both the Revolution and Bonaparte. British troops had shown far better discipline than had those of the other allies; indeed, the most serious complaint made against them was their too open scorn for Louis XVIII

The last time these elections were held, in 2014, the euroskeptic U.K. Independence Party won 17 percent of the vote. UKIP went on to help lead the successful Brexit “leave” campaign. But the party has faltered since the 2016 referendum, going through a series of leaders as voters switched back to bigger parties. It is likely to see its share of the vote plummet this time around.

The reason essentially was because he didn’t have any power.

Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas, both to differing degrees autocratic monarchs, had gone to strenuous lengths to ignore aspects of the political landscape they didn’t like or found offensively modern

Nicholas, meanwhile, did everything he could to avoid having to engage with the modern world in any shape or form, terrified that any change would threaten his control over Russia. He regarded autocracy as a sacred trust handed down to him that must be kept intact whatever.

As for the workers and peasants

Nicholas simply never encountered them

The king and his secretaries believed the British royal family must sell itself to the nation, justify its existence and seem entirely unthreatening.

Of the seven kings at Edward’s funeral, only three others kept their thrones: Belgium, Norway and Denmark. All three were constitutional monarchies.

Charles also felt threatened by the personal union of England and the United Provinces begun under William III in 1688, and he maintained Sweden’s virtual neutrality during the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97).

After more than three decades as Russia's absolute ruler, she died in 1796

Catherine II, often called Catherine the Great, became empress consort of Russia when her husband, Peter III, ascended to the throne following the death of his aunt, Elizabeth of Russia, on December 25, 1761

During his brief time in power, Catherine II conspired with her lover, Gregory Orlov, a Russian lieutenant, and other powerful figures to leverage the discontent with Peter and build up support for his removal

Catherine II finally produced a heir with son Paul, born on September 20, 1754. The paternity of the child has been a subject of great debate among scholars, with some claiming that Paul's father was actually Sergei Saltykov, a Russian noble and member of the court

Concerned about being toppled by opposing forces early in her reign, Catherine II sought to appease the military and the church

she also returned the church's land and property that had been taken by Peter, though she later changed course on that front, making the church part of the state

While Catherine believed in absolute rule, she did make some efforts toward social and political reforms

During Catherine's reign, Russia expanded its borders. She made substantial gains in Poland, where she had earlier installed her former lover, Polish count Stanislaw Poniatowski, on the country's throne

Catherine gave parts of Poland to Prussia and Austria, while taking the eastern region herself.

Russia's actions in Poland triggered a military conflict with Turkey. Enjoying numerous victories in 1769 and 1770, Catherine showed the world that Russia was a mighty power. She reached a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire in 1774, bringing new lands into the empire and giving Russia a foothold in the Black Sea

Catherine II started out as a minor German princess. Her birth name was Sophie Friederike Auguste, and she grew up in Stettin in a small principality called Anhalt-Zebst. Her father, Christian August, a prince of this tiny dominion, gained fame for his military career by serving as a general for Frederick William I of Prussia

Princess Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, Catherine II's mother

By the mid-1790s, Catherine had enjoyed several decades as Russia's absolute ruler. She had a strained relationship with her son and heir, Paul, over her grip on power, but she enjoyed her grandchildren, especially the oldest one, Alexander

Historians have also criticized her for not improving the lives of serfs, who represented the majority of the Russian population. Still, Catherine made some significant contributions to Russia, bringing forth educational reforms and championing the arts. As leader, Catherine also extended the country's borders through military might and diplomatic prowess

In a manner similar to the Viking raids, the Swedes made themselves masters of the Baltic like their distant ancestors, and struck at the heart of Polish  trade, by attacking the sea port of Gdansk.

Gustav III and Stanislaus Augustus. Both were keen patrons of the arts and sciences and in the latter half of the eighteenth century the Warsaw Royal Castle became a centre for artistic activity

The hereditary monarchy was re-established, removing the threat of foreign interference.

Yet the fate of the country was sealed. Stanislaus Augustus, the last Polish king, was an unrealistic ruler who angered the gentry by trying to appease the Russian Empress Catherine the Great.

the country was divided up and the name of Poland, wiped from the map for over a hundred years. Neither the Polish kings nor the Swedish kings could do anything to reverse the situation

Adolf Fredrik, Gustav III’s father, was described by one English contemporary as having ‘the title of king, with hardly the privileges of a subject’. Unlike his British counterpart George II, he had no power to summon or dissolve his parliament.

all radical improvements in national character take place during the severest wars’. Russia, having annexed the Crimea, had embarked on a titanic struggle with the Ottoman Empire which was absorbing stupendous quantities of manpower and treasure. At the beginning of 1788 he began making plans to attack Russia from the rear.

The new constitution that Gustav now promulgated, in place of that of 1720-72, brought Sweden more into line with contemporary Britain.

The main difference between the British and Swedish systems was that, whereas in Britain the monarch’s executive power was in practice delegated to ministers more industrious, more  proficient and, for the most part,  more intellectually gifted than their royal master, in Sweden it was Gustav III himself who was indisputably in day to day charge

No other of the Enlightened Despots was more fond than Gustav of the time-wasting rituals of court life, the levées, formal audiences and ceremonial entries and exits.

Whereas Napoleon, in his coup d’etat of 19e Brumaire 1799 broke down and began mumbling in front of the popular assembly he was trying to overawe, Gustav III easily faced down his opponents in the Riksdag

Gustav III may well have held a record among monarchs prior to the nineteenth century for the number of other crowned heads he met. What Louis XV and Louis XVI of France or Ferdinand IV of Naples thought of him is uncertain, though none of these Bourbons were exactly noted for their insight into character. Pope Pius VI pretended to be delighted with Gustav (the first Protestant monarch ever to meet a pope) and made him a Knight of the Golden Spur. The other Enlightened Despots, Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great and Joseph II, agreed in thinking Gustav charming in a wearying sort of way, and faintly ridiculous. Leopold II, Joseph II’s brother and successor, perhaps the ablest politician among the Enlightened Despots – he was still only Grand Duke of Tuscany when Gustav met him

the Swedish king was a positive menace with his incessant scheming and readiness to interfere in other governments’ affairs

Gustav was an unimpressive figure physically, weedy and foppish, and slightly lame since birth, but when he addressed the members of the Riksdag he made them flinch with his phrases of masterful contempt

Gustav found himself far from his capital, stuck with an army that would not obey him. He was rescued  by the Danish government declaring war on him. Hurrying back to Sweden, Gustav rode to Gothenburg, 250 miles cross country in forty-eight hours – the last sixty miles quite alone and on borrowed farm horses, in blinding hailstorms – to rally the defences of the city against the invading Danes

The senior Swedish officers rejected all the courses of action proposed by Gustav and his latest discovery, William Sidney Smith, a British naval captain who had turned up without the permission of his own government; they even, according to Smith, talked of ‘proposing terms of Capitulation independent of the King’.

Catherine, still preoccupied with the war with Turkey, was glad to patch up a compromise peace

While the Stockholm crowds stood outside cheering him, Gustav confronted the chamber of nobles with a new constitution, and when they howled it down he coolly ordered the secretary of the chamber to record their vote as yes: a piece of blatant illegality combined with intimidation that anticipates the tactics of twentieth-century dictators. In fact, apart from giving the King the power to make war without the Riksdag’s consent, the new constitution marked little advance on that of 1772

Eleven weeks after Gustav rammed his new constitution down the throats of the nobles, the Estates General met at Versailles and by the time of the peace settlement with Russia the French ancien régime was well on the way to dissolution.

I cannot allow that it is right to support rebels against their Lawful King

Despite the fact that Sweden was virtually bankrupt in the aftermath of the Russian war he now offered to land 16,000 Swedish and 8,000 Russian troops at Ostend, in Austrian territory, and to march on Paris to overthrow the Constituent Assembly, with the support of an Austrian army advancing from the Rhine. In June 1791 he went to Aachen and was greeted there as a saviour by the French royalist exiles. While he was there Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette made their bid to escape from Paris

Marie Antoinette’s brother Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph II as Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Austria the year before, was enraged by Gustav’s interference: there were some too, including Gustav’s uncle Henry of Prussia, who believed that his schemes for an armed intervention in France were merely a cover for a secret plan to seize Norway from the Danes

On March 1st, 1792, Leopold died – poisoned, it is said, by an aphrodisiac of his own concoction – but Gustav was destined never to learn that there was no longer any challenge to his self-appointed role as leader of the monarchist opposition to the French Revolution

Gustav III was only forty-six when he died. That was at least eight years older than the most brilliant of his predecessors on the Swedish throne, Gustav II Adolf, Karl X and Karl XII – and if he had lived a normal span he would still have been king at the time of Waterloo.

The economic weakness of his country, the inveterate opposition of the social class that elsewhere might have been a king’s chief support, and the increasing influence of the revolutionary ferment in France may have meant that, even if he had lived, he would not have been able to go as far as he dreamed: he is one of the great might-have-beens of history.

Louis-Philippe disappointed the country, and many of his supporters, when he began to govern as an autocrat

those who felt he was an illegitimate king (Charles X had abdicated in favor of his grandson, so "Legitimists" considered Louis-Philippe a usurper

As he had taken power after the July Revolution, his reign was known as the July Monarchy

During his reign, Louis-Philippe escaped from eight assassination attempts

in 1848. Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne on February 24, fleeing to England as "Mr. Smith."

After his abdication, France set up its Second Republic, while Louis-Philippe spent the remainder of his life in England

Charles's political awakening began in 1786, when an indebted France struggled to implement fiscal reform

In January 1814, Charles traveled to southern France to join the pro-monarchy coalition force.

with Charles as his regent

Charles remained staunchly conservative

Louis XVIII died in September 1824, and his brother succeeded him to the throne as King Charles X of France. In the first few months of his reign, Charles's government passed a series of laws that bolstered the power of the nobility and clergy. Charles's government attempted to re-establish male primogeniture and successfully extended France's imperial power by conquering Algeria

Charles was already unpopular when he dissolved much of the government in 1830.

Charles and his ministers suspended the constitution.

In August, Charles X abdicated in favor of his young grandson Henry, Duke of Bordeaux

Fearing bodily harm, Charles X and his family fled France and settled in England

The Bourbons moved to Prague in the winter of 1832, residing at the Hradschin Palace at the invitation of Emperor Francis I of Austria

In all my travels across India, now extending over seventy-seven years, I have never once been assaulted, or robbed or even been verbally abused. Official indifference, yes, when it comes to banks and getting permits, but in every circumstance I have always been met with … India’s proverbial and fully deserved tradition of hospitality.

Neolithic Chinese ink had different cultural requirements from medieval manuscript ink; printing ink is most certainly different from that found in modern fountain pens

Recently, Maya Blue has been a key piece of evidence in evaluating the authenticity of one of only four Maya codices to survive into the 21st century, the Grolier Codex.

In 2007, however, a detailed chemical analysis of the pigments found in the Grolier matched elements to the Maya Blue found in other codices and artifacts. Although the Grolier contains very little visible blue, these findings, along with other pre-Hispanic materials found in its inks, authenticated the codex.

In traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, the inkstick – along with the inkstone for grinding, a brush and paper – were the classic tools of the trade.

From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, iron gall ink was one of the most frequently made and used inks in Europe – so much so that it was often referred to as ‘common ink’.

The neat biblical verses were penned in iron gall ink, with the distinctive rusty hue as a clear indication of the ink used

While historically pervasive, iron gall ink is also inherently corrosive. Once put to paper, parchment or vellum it bites into and eats away at the surfaces

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced mass printing to Europe in the 1440s, the technological breakthrough was more than just a metal, moveable type press. A new kind of ink had to be developed

In the centuries prior to Gutenberg’s press, books and codices written out in longhand used water-based inks.

In 1968, the Japanese company Epson built the first electronic printer; 16 years later, Hewlett Packard released the first laser jet. By the late 1990s, inkjet printing was inexpensive enough to be ubiquitous in personal computing.

Indelible voting ink was invented in 1962 by scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in Delhi, just before the third election in a newly independent India to help combat voter fraud.

voters’ ink-stained fingers have become a cultural shorthand and symbol of fraud-free, democratic elections.

Suffrage campaigners objected to the inequalities, but accepted them as a first step and vowed to fight on.

Women then campaigned successfully for legal changes, including gender equality in divorce, property rights and child custody, and access to professions including the law.

women wanted equal voting rights. When the Conservatives won the 1924 election, the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, promised women the vote. He then did nothing until, by 1928, tired of his evasions, they threatened a return to militancy.

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

Ahmed I did go on to produce sons, but, at his death in 1617, his eldest was only 13 years old. This prompted the imperial council to allow Mustafa, then aged 25, to ascend the throne as Mustafa I, although he would be deposed and re-enthroned several times throughout his life

a key turning point in the power structures of the Ottoman Empire

It is a truth universally acknowledged that royal depositions must, sooner or later, be in want of a regicide. The first in the history of the Ottoman Empire occurred on Friday 20 May 1622, with the death of Osman II, son of Ahmed I. Known as Osman the Young, he had ascended the throne in 1618 at the age of 14, following the coup that deposed Mustafa I, his uncle, for the first time. In 1622, aged 17, he had still not succeeded in legitimising himself as a conqueror of territory and so sought to cultivate the role of a pious sultan instead

That Osman II announced his intention to undertake the pilgrimage immediately after returning to Istanbul from Edirne provoked fears that he might become an absentee monarch, who might be seeking to return the capital to its original site – Edirne

The introduction of the ‘cage’ and the survival of a number of other viable candidates for the throne meant the sultan faced a greater danger of depositions and coups by interested individuals or parties seeking to wield power.

The dynasty continued with variable succession methods until the end of the sultanate, with Mehmed VI, who ruled from 1918 until 1922. Following the official declaration and recognition of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Mehmed VI went into exile

the title of Head of the House of Osman is still passed down and used today

Francis married Claude in May 1514 and, in October of the same year, Louis XII married the young and beautiful Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII. Had she conceived a son, all Francis' hopes would have been dashed. Yet, less than three months after his marriage, Louis XII was dead and the 20-year-old Francis was proclaimed king of France on January 1st, 1515

He inherited Charles VIII's claim to the Kingdom of Naples, which included Sicily and most of southern Italy. He claimed certain territories along the ill-defined border between France, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire, whose Habsburg overlord was the future emperor, Charles V. Francis also wanted the city of Tournai, conquered by Henry VIII in 1513, to be returned to France. For roughly 20 of his 32 years as king, Francis was preparing for war, active in it, or managing its consequences in expensive and convoluted diplomacy

Barely nine months after his accession, in September 1515, Francis conquered Milan, after defeating a Swiss mercenary army at the battle of Marignano

He secured this prominence through peace treaties and alliances, culminating in his inclusion in the 'Universal Peace' of 1518, agreed in the name of Pope Leo X but actually organised under the auspices of Henry VIII, who felt a keen and life-long rivalry with Francis

Francis had hoped to impress and intimidate Henry into committing himself as an ally against Charles V, whose power in Italy unnerved Francis

appreciated that securing and maintaining the support of interest groups, particularly the nobility, was vital to effective kingship

He made an ill-advised pre-emptive strike against imperial territory in the Netherlands and Spain in early 1521

Disappointed by Charles V's lack of support for his own claim to France, Henry once more turned the tables on the emperor. A renewed Anglo-French alliance enabled Francis to repudiate the treaty of Madrid and led indirectly to a more acceptable agreement

Francis maintained peace with his English counterpart until 1542

He never finally secured Milan from Charles but he did, nevertheless, maintain his dynastic rights against the emperor's potentially overwhelming power. This he did in part by allying with the papacy, with various Italian states, with the heretical Henry VIII and with the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. These last two alliances scandalised Catholic Europe, but keeping Charles' enemies close for as long as he could assisted Francis in projecting royal power well beyond the borders of the French state throughout his reign

Another important factor in Francis' capacity to project this power was his widespread reform of crown fiscal administration after his return from Spain in 1526. These were prompted first and foremost by the need to pay huge debts incurred in the war and in securing peace with Henry and Charles

His sale of judicial offices set up long-lasting difficulties for the monarchy

Francis was taken to Spain as the emperor's prisoner. France was left vulnerable to its enemies and to internal dissent, which Louise de Savoie, as her son's regent, had much to do to overcome while trying to secure Francis' release. She immediately sought the assistance of the English and sympathetic Italian states, who were wary of the immense power of Charles V in the wake of his triumph at Pavia

Daily life there was never as elaborately choreographed under Francis as it would be under his successors. He is perhaps second only to Henry IV in his reputation for informality and spontaneity as a French king.

The 'big boy' had come close at times to ruining everything, but had also made France a power to be reckoned with and made his own mark on its history

Under Francis, the court of France was at the height of its prestige and international influence during the 16th century.

his first priority was political security. This is the first respect in which his reign parallels that of Henry VII. The first Tudor had also rebelled against his sovereign, ultimately seizing the crown itself from Richard III in 1485

Within six months of his accession Louis had his first marriage, to Louis XI's daughter, Jeanne, annulled. He then married Charles's widow, Anne of Brittany, the daughter of duke Francis. Louis thereby retained the French crown's hold on Brittany. Like Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York, Louis's marriage to Anne also enabled him to extend his domestic power base beyond his immediate family and those favoured by the previous monarch.

Henry did besiege Boulogne in October 1492, ostensibly to assert his claim to the crown of France following Anne of Brittany's marriage to Charles VIII in 1491. To buy him off, Charles offered Henry a pension of 745 000 crowns under the treaty of Etaples.

Like Henry VII, Louis was expected to ‘live off his own’. He was reasonably successful at this task. He did not make the monarchy profitable in the way Henry was able to, but neither did he impoverish it. Louis inherited a deficit of about 1.4 million livres and left Francis I a deficit of about the same amount – and this despite several very expensive military campaigns of the kind which Henry VII studiously avoided and Louis’s reduction of the taille

There was nothing in France to parallel the renowned English system of 'Chamber' finance begun by Edward IV and adopted by Henry VII to increase control over the collection and disbursement of domainal revenues.

This suggests that the system worked well enough until the end of his reign, but it was overhauled substantially by Francis I.

Louis was less innovative than Henry VII in developing legal machinery and institutions with which to control the nobility. Bonds and recognizances or institutions such as the Council Learned at Law were once seen as evidence that Henry VII was a 'new' monarch whose regime was dominated by lawyers and financial officials upon whom he depended to marginalise the unreliable nobility, the traditional royal servants

Louis continued Henry's pension conducted relatively warm relations with him, although he worried about England's ties with the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. He had good cause to after Henry VIII's accession in April 1509

Louis's fortunes began to fade in 1510. The new pope, Julius II, was determined to recover the papal lands which Borgia predecessor, Alexander VI, had with French help, alienated to his son Cesare

Then in August the Swiss invaded Burgundy and besieged the city of Dijon. They only withdrew on Louis's promise to relinquish his claim to Milan and to pay then a sizeable indemnity. On top of all of this, Queen Anne died in January 1514 leaving Louis no surviving male heir

Maximilian and Ferdinand of Spain followed suit, deserting their erstwhile ally Henry VIII, who was furious. Under pressure from Leo X, Henry dramatically reversed his isolation by becoming Louis's ally. His young and very beautiful sister Mary married Louis in October 1514.

Compared with that of his successor, Louis' artistic and intellectual patronage was not exceptional. He did not influence Henry VII in the direct way that Francis I did Henry VIII

Louis XII died on New Year's Day 1515. Despite his apparently fatal vigour with which he took to his third marriage, it provided him with no son. He was succeeded by Francis of Angouleme, during whose reign Louis's was oevrshadowed on every count except. perhaps, popularity among commoners. His various campaigns against Milan were disparaged by the new regime. However, Francis's campaigns may have been more glamorous but ultimately they were no more successful. It would be idle to claim Louis as one of France's great military commanders, but for 12 of his 16 years as king he did practise successful warfare, outdoing the deeds of Maximilian, Ferdinand and Henry VII

Louis's ambitions were to secure his kingdom politically and to enhance the glory of his dynasty. For him, as for Henry VII, increased financial or judicial controls over the kingdom were means to these ends, not ends in themselves, As the founder of a new dynasty Henry's task was undoubtedly more difficult than Louis's and he showed greater ingenuity in developing methods of making his subjects accountable to him

Having begun uncertainly, both quickly projected a strong sense of their authority, but the efforts of some historians to characterise Louis as a 'proto-absolutist', anticipating the supposed ambitions of Francis I or even Louis XIV to centralise the state, were wide of the mark. Louis's 'good government' was essentially traditional

The recovery of Orleans and the coronation of Charles VII at Reims on July 17th, 1429 mark a turning point for the future also because, by that time, a real national feeling and the concept of patriotism had gained ground

Furthermore, the result of Henry V's and Bedford's policy of granting newly conquered land to the English soldiers, was that those who had nothing in England stayed in France to defend and increase their new possessions. For those who already had land in England, the time came when holding estates on both sides of the Channel became impossible and they had to make their choice.

Never did Henry VI acknowledge the Duke of Burgundy's claims on the French monarchy and, for his part, the Duke obstinately refused to meet Henry VI during the period the latter was in France from April 1430 to February 1432. Excluded from any participation in the control of the government of France, Philip the Good was able, at leisure and under cover of this alliance, to increase his possessions in the Low Countries

In an article published in England and her Neighbours 1066-1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais edited by M.C.E. Jones and M.G.A. Vale (Hambledon Press, 1989), Maurice Keen offers a stimulating explanation of the English disaster in the 1450s.

Armstrong has drawn attention to the close cultural links between England and Burgundy in the early fifteenth century and has shown that the real instigator of the treaty of Troyes was Philip the Good. For his part, Andre Legay (Poitiers colloquium) developed the idea that, if the Anglo-Burgundian alliance did last until the reconciliation of Charles VII and Philip the Good at the treaty of Arras (September 21st, 1435), it remained nevertheless fragile and limited

After Formigny (April 15th, 1450) and Castillon (July 17th, 1453), the inglorious truce agreed upon by Edward IV and Louis XI at Picquigny on August 29th, 1475, was yet another injury to England's pride. However, as Charles Ross in Edward IV (Methuen, 1974) points out, 'the days when England, even in alliance with Burgundy, could seriously challenge the most powerful and wealthy state in Europe were long since past

The very title of the colloquium, 'La France de la Fin du XV' siecle: Renouveau et Apogee' (published in 1985 by Editions du CNRS), shows to what extent the fundamental research carried out over the last twenty years has improved our understanding of the kingdom of Louis XI, Charles VIII and Louis XII, and has altered the old image of a France lacking any real identity and torn between the waning of the Dark Ages and the emergence of modernity

The incorporation of the ducal apanage of Burgundy was one of the major preoccupations of Louis XI

Therefore, Louis XI and Charles VIII had to battle against a real state, which had its own institutions and an efficient and organised army, and which was the mainstay of all the French and foreign oppositions (particularly English) to the progression of the French monarchy. It was only at the end of the 1487-91 war, and after the marriage of the Duchess Anne to Charles VIII (December 6th, 1491) and later to Louis XII (January 8th, 1499) that Brittany was united with France

The custom was first followed in France in the case of the funeral of Charles VI, a few weeks after the funeral of Henry V of England where this practice had been followed, and it is likely that the English presence in Paris influenced French custom in this respect

The failure of Richard II who, in the 1390s, instead of building up a retinue which reflected, and therefore drew strength from the realities of local politics, 'tried to establish local power-structures which reflected the image of his own court', is similar to the one Richard lII suffered in 1483-85

The monarchs were able to rely on a more numerous and permanent administration, loyal to the continuation of the State, and therefore they were less dependent upon their network of patronage. Peter Lewis (Tours colloquium, 1983) refutes the idea that Louis XI's pensioners could have formed a royal clientage: 'they did not represent a monarchical clan, but were para-administrators carrying out para-administrative tasks

a group of men, most of them closely related, who monopolised the most eminent functions and offices and who behaved as the masters of the realm (Recherches sur le personnel du Conseil du Roi sous Charles VIII et Louis XII, Librairie Honori Champion, 1980)

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