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The Last Years of James II | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...last-years-james-ii-1690-1701 James II in France William III
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  • For eleven years, from his defeat at the Boyne in July 1690 until his death in September 1701, James II lived at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (near Versailles) in one of the most spectacular royal palaces of the Baroque period
  • Louis was obliged to recognise William III as de facto King of England, as a condition for signing the peace treaty of Ryswick, which marked the end of the War of the League of Augsburg. The treaty in no way affected James II’s status as de jure King, nor his son’s status as de jure Prince of Wales, but James now had to tolerate the presence in Paris, and occasionally at the French Court, of a hostile English ambassador
  • At the tercentenary of the King’s death, it is surely time to take a closer look at the life that James led in France
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  • When James returned from Ireland in the summer of 1690 he was intent on preparing an invasion of England across the Channel from Normandy. Energetically supported by the leading Jacobites in exile, his negotiations with Louis XIV resulted in the major Franco-Jacobite invasion attempt of June 1692
  • James calculated, correctly, that these three ingredients would stimulate loyalty and attract visitors to his Court – whether Jacobites already in exile, others impatiently awaiting his return to England, or the many French courtiers who, like Louis XIV himself, regularly made the short journey from Versailles to Saint-Germain
  • James’s optimism remained with him throughout the period 1690-92, particularly when his able and devoted Secretary of State, the Earl of Melfort, rejoined him from a lengthy embassy to Rome at the end of 1691
  • He wrote to Louis XIV, blaming himself for bringing bad luck to the French fleet and offering to leave France, so that Louis’ military and naval successes could be resumed. The King of France kindly rejected his offer
  • Religious nonconformity had been illegal in France since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, so James had to be cautious. He knew perfectly well that Louis had strong feelings on the subject, and that he had refused to allow Anglican and other Protestant services to be held openly, even within the Château de Saint-Germain
  • The disappointment which James  had experienced in 1692 was repeated in 1696. At the end of February, James left Saint-Germain and travelled to Calais, where an army had been assembled to invade England
  • The abortive Assassination Plot, an unauthorised attempt by certain Jacobites to break the deadlock by killing William III, resulted in the cancellation of the planned invasion and James’s return (his third) to Saint-Germain
  • William III used Louis’ recognition of James III as de jure king of England to renew his war with France, but it was no more than a pretext. All English kings, including William himself, claimed to be the de jure kings of France. During the 1690s, James II had been admitted as a Canon of Tours Cathedral because that was a privilege claimed by the English kings as de jure Counts of Anjou
  • It is extraordinary that the last years of any British king, and particularly one whose life is quite well documented, should have received such little attention from generations of British historians
  • These medals were intended to remind people that his son was the de jure Prince of Wales, and that one day he would unavoidably become King James III
  • James wanted to be absolutely sure that Louis XIV would recognise his son as James III when he was dead. He need not have worried. Recognition was in no sense contrary to the Treaty of Ryswick, and Louis already knew that it was his religious duty to recognise the legitimate succession
  • Louis would become the guardian of both of James’s children, and would recognise his son as James III so long as he remained a Catholic. James II recorded Louis’ side of the agreement in a codicil to his will, dated March 5th
  • In this way it was already settled that Louis would eventually give the same treatment to James III as he was already giving to James II, not in September 1701 – an important point which all historians seem to have overlooked
  • At the end of the year he was distressed to discover that Louis XIV intended to lay off even more Irish troops and wrote unsuccessfully to dissuade him
  • The letter contained some confidential comments, as one might expect between two brothers, about the Jacobite sympathies of various Scottish noblemen and the chances of persuading France to resume its support for James II’s claims to the British thrones
  • All that remained was to remind the prince repeatedly that he must continue to be a Catholic if he was to retain and deserve the support of Louis XIV. James finally died on September 16th. Louis’ recognition of James III, as we have seen, had been arranged long before it finally came into effect
  • James II decided to establish in the Chapel Royal at Saint-Germain the devotion known as Bona Morte, a confraternity of people who would meet together to contemplate the Passion of Christ
  • When England terminated the Treaty of Ryswick by declaring war on France in 1702, Louis XIV was able to resume the support of the Stuarts which he could not do while the Treaty remained in force
  • The circumstances of his death make James II an ideal subject for the study of royal DNA. His remains are more accessible than those of any other British monarch, and thus allow us to determine definitely, one way or the other, if the porphyria gene which was passed down by Mary, Queen of Scots through James I to his daughter Elizabeth, the ‘Winter Queen’ (and from her to the Hanoverians and their descendants today) was also transmitted by Charles I to the later Stuarts, including James III and Bonnie Prince Charlie.
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The Spider King: Louis XI of France | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...spider-king-louis-xi-france Louis XI France Medieval
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  • The occasion of his liberty was the joyous passage through Meung of the new King, Louis XI, whose reign was to change the France in which Villon had pursued his rogue’s career out of all recognition
  • Of all the princes that I ever had the honour to know”, wrote Commines, “the wisest and most dexterous to extricate himself out of any danger or difficulty in time of adversity was our master King Louis XI.”
  • Louis was born in 1423, the year after the Dauphin, his father, had claimed his inheritance at the deaths of Henry V of England and Charles VI
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  • He took advantage of a misunderstanding between his ineffective brother and Francis II to recover Normandy, and at the same time distracted Burgundy by encouraging the revolt of the cities of Dinant and Liege. Having bought off Brittany and Charles de France, he sought to detach them from their Burgundian alliance by revealing the details of their defection
  • Yet Philip the Good felt himself increasingly isolated by French negotiations with Frederick III and the Swiss cantons. The opportune arrival of the Dauphin allowed him to reassert his influence at the French court and to arbitrate between father and son
  • Louis XI appeared to represent all the forces of feudal and Burgundian reaction
  • The independent duchy of Brittany possessed its own governmental institutions, and its ruler, Francis II, refused anything but simple homage to both Charles VII and his successor
  • If his royal connections and foreign ambitions had induced this capricious and luxury-loving prince to avoid open conflict with the crown, his impetuous son, John of Calabria, was foremost in every plot and affray
  • Louis XI might dismiss his father’s favourites; but he could not afford to reverse his policy. He refused support for John of Calabria’s ill-fated venture in Italy, quarrelled with Philip the Good, and disputed the right of Francis II to control the church in Brittany.
  • The King did indeed learn much from the League of the Common Weal
  • The supposed humiliation of attending the sack of Liege by the Burgundian army cost him little; and he avoided the second condition imposed by Charles—the award of Champagne and Brie to Charles de France—by persuading his brother to accept the more remote province of Guyenne in their place
  • Louis XI also anticipated later methods of economic warfare. He deprived his Burgundian enemy of specie and procured the withdrawal of the support afforded him by the Medici bank. His concessions to English, Swiss and Hanseatic merchants were designed to detach them from Burgundian commerce
  • In these years Louis XI was conducting equally complex negotiations in Aragon and England
  • While Louis won over Warwick, and reconciled the King-Maker with Margaret of Anjou to secure the brief Lancastrian restoration of 1470, the Burgundian Duke responded by publicly welcoming the return of Henry VI, and secredy promoting the triumph of his Yorkist brother-in-law, Edward IV.
  • Pot-bellied and spindle-shanked, Louis XI was an unlikely figure, either as a monster of vice or, as he described himself, as the restorer of the splendours of Charlemagne and St. Louis
  • Louis employed the agents of the former financier, Jacques Coeur, whose condemnation under Charles VII he declared invalid. From Tours he drew the merchant financiers of the Beaune and Briçonnet families, and from Berry the Bochetels, who founded a notable line of royal secretaries
  • It is doubtful whether Louis XI had any general plan to transform the social order, but he found the middle classes his most convenient allies against the forces of disorder from above and below
  • In the towns Louis XI accelerated the trend to the formation of urban patriciates. He widened the special form of ennoblement available to municipal councillors.
  • From the number of national assemblies convoked by Louis XI it is sometimes conjectured that his government proceeded by consultative methods. But of the twelve such bodies convened by the King only one was a full Estates General, the others being merely assemblies of notables
  • The Estates General of Tours in 1468 was skilfully won over to the royal cause, and persuaded that to grant Normandy to the King’s brother would be to detach it from France and expose it to English and Burgundian influence
  • Trade prospered under Louis XI, but the recovery of agriculture was slow in the aftermath of the Hundred Years War. Choisnet had written in the Rosier des Guerres that “the King should see for himself the condition of his people, and should watch over them as a good gardener does his garden.”
  • Charles VII exiled him to his government in Dauphiné. The nine years he spent there were occupied with strengthening the provincial administration and resisting the authority of the Crown
  • As Charles VII had promoted the trade fairs of Lyon to ruin Geneva, so Louis established fairs at Caen and Rouen to challenge those of Bruges and Antwerp
  • Charles the Rash pursued chimerical schemes in Alsace, and clashed with the German Emperor. His preoccupation with affairs in the electorate of Cologne prevented him from supporting an English invasion of France in 1475, and Louis bought off Edward IV with the Treaty of Picquigny
  • Maximilian, the son of Frederick III, married the Burgundian heiress, Mary, and defended her lands against France until the Treaty of Arras brought peace in 1482. In all his calculations the Spider King could not have foreseen that Philip, the issue of this match, would marry the daughter and heiress of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile— an alliance which itself was in part a response to Louis’ policy in Catalonia
  • A new France had been nurtured by measures that seem at times not merely generations but centuries in advance of their age. Yet for all the surprising modernity of his policies, the manner in which Louis died revealed the extent to which he was still in thrall to the forces of the past.
  • The arcana of kingship which he bad penetrated were not of this kind. The first of modern national rulers went to his death surrounded by all the trappings of magic
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Philip VI | king of France | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Philip-VI Valois Dynasty First King France 1330s-1450s
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  • first French king of the Valois dynasty
  • continued the efforts of the 13th-century Capetians toward the centralization of the administration in Paris.
  • The elder son of Charles of Valois, Philip was first cousin to the brothers Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV, the last Capetian kings of the direct line. On the death of Charles IV in 1328, Philip, in the face of opposition from the partisans of the claim of Edward III of England, assumed the regency until the end of the pregnancy of Charles IV’s widow. When the widow produced a daughter, who therefore could not succeed to the throne, Philip became king and was crowned at Reims in May 1328.
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  • When Philip died, he left France divided by war and plague, although by purchase he had made some important additions to the territory of the kingdom.
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Henry VI | Biography & Facts | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Henry-VI-king-of-England King of England and France Henry VI 1420s
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  • Henry succeeded his father, Henry V, on September 1, 1422, and on the death (October 21, 1422) of his maternal grandfather, the French king Charles VI, Henry was proclaimed king of France in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) made after Henry V’s French victories.
  • the English hold on France was steadily eroded; despite a truce—as part of which Henry married (April 1445) Margaret of Anjou, a niece of the French queen—Maine and Normandy were lost and by 1453 so were the remaining English-held lands in Guyenne.
  • York was lord protector, but his hopes of ultimately succeeding Henry were shattered by the birth of Edward, prince of Wales, on October 13, 1453
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  • After the Yorkists had captured Henry at Northampton (July 1460), it was agreed that Henry should remain king but recognize York, and not his own son Edward, as heir to the throne. Although York was killed at Wakefield (December 30, 1460), and Henry was recaptured by the Lancastrians at the second Battle of St. Albans (February 17, 1461), York’s heir was proclaimed king as Edward IV in London on March 4. Routed at Towton in Yorkshire (March 29), Henry fled with his wife and son to Scotland, returning to England in 1464 to support an unsuccessful Lancastrian rising.
  • A quarrel between Edward IV and Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, led Warwick to restore Henry to the throne in October 1470, and Edward fled abroad. But he soon returned, defeated and killed Warwick, and destroyed Queen Margaret’s forces at Tewkesbury (May 4, 1471). The death of Prince Edward in that battle sealed Henry’s fate
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Francis I | king of France | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Francis-I-king-of-France Francis I Charles V
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  • the first of five monarchs of the Angoulême branch of the House of Valois.
  • he waged campaigns in Italy (1515–16) and fought a series of wars with the Holy Roman Empire (1521–44).
  • Francis was the son of Charles de Valois-Orleáns,
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  • On the accession of his cousin Louis XII in 1498, Francis became heir presumptive and was given the Duchy of Valois.
  • Louis XII, distrustful of Francis, did not allow him to dabble in affairs of state but sent him off at the age of 18 to the frontiers
  • the Emperor had his mind set on a universal monarchy. His chief obstacle was the King of France. A mortal hatred emerged from this rivalry
  • Ambitious for glory and urged on by turbulent young nobles, he made sure of peace with his neighbours, entrusted the regency to his mother, and galloped off to Italy.
  • He also signed a perpetual peace treaty with the Swiss and bought back Tournai from Henry VIII of England.
  • Princess Louise, was affianced to the Habsburg prince Charles, heir to the Netherlands and, at 16, the new king of Spain.
  • Everything forecast a great reign. Francis I formed a brilliant and scholarly court at which poets, musicians, and learned men mingled
  • he was the most powerful sovereign in all Christendom when, in 1519, the German emperor Maximilian died. The election as emperor of Maximilian’s grandson Charles spelled ruin for Francis I, for Charles, who was already king of Spain, now encircled France with his possessions.
  • The pomp of the Reims coronation, the sumptuous cortege of the solemn entry into Paris, and the lavish feasts revealed his love of ceremony and also pleased the people of Paris, who had been disheartened by a long succession of morose and sickly sovereigns.
  • In 1520, on the Field of Cloth of Gold near Calais, where both displayed unprecedented magnificence, Francis vainly sought an alliance with Henry VIII.
  • The King, unconcerned, arose late, paid little attention to his council, and gave orders without seeing that they were carried out. Money disappeared into thin air. A few paymasters were hanged, though in vain.
  • In 1523 the King demanded the return to the French state, according to law, of the vast provinces that the great feudal duke Charles de Bourbon thought he had inherited from his wife.
  • the French, weary of the prodigality of their sovereign, would rise up on an appeal from him.
  • At the Battle of Pavia in 1525, defeated and wounded, he was taken prisoner.
  • As the price for the King’s freedom, the Emperor demanded one-third of France, the renunciation of France’s claim to Italy, and restitution to Bourbon of his fiefs
  • Although Francis finally recovered, he did not cease to suffer.
  • Their raging hatred impelled Charles and Francis to challenge each other to a duel, which was, however, prevented. During one of the King’s relapses, his mother reached an agreement with Margaret of Austria, the Emperor’s aunt, to stop this deadly struggle.
  • His foolish expenditures had emptied the treasury, and the ransom was collected only with difficulty.
  • In 1531 the King’s mother succumbed to the plague. Marguerite, having married the King of Navarre, lived at some distance.
  • The war with Charles V was resumed in 1536.
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Sigismund III Vasa | king of Poland and Sweden | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Sigismund-III-Vasa Poland Sweden Wars United Crowns
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  • king of Poland (1587–1632) and of Sweden (1592–99)
  • sought to effect a permanent union of Poland and Sweden but instead created hostile relations and wars between the two states lasting until 1660
  • The elder son of King John III Vasa of Sweden and Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I the Old of Poland, Sigismund belonged to the Vasa dynasty through his father and to the Jagiellon dynasty through his mother, who brought him up as a Catholic. He was elected King of Poland in August 1587, succeeding his uncle King Stephen Báthory.
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  • Leaving his paternal uncle Charles (later Charles IX) as regent in Sweden, Sigismund returned to Poland in July 1594. Charles, however, rose in rebellion, and, when Sigismund returned to Sweden with an army, Charles defeated him at Stångebro (1598) and deposed him in 1599.
  • from 1600 Poland and Sweden were involved in an intermittent war
  • His Swedish wars resulted, moreover, in Poland’s loss of Livonia and in a diminution of the kingdom’s international prestige.
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France - The age of the Reformation | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...The-age-of-the-Reformation Francis I II Charles IX Henry III Edict of January Catherine de Médicis
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  • in 1521 Francis I, who was on the point of war with Emperor Charles V and King Henry VIII of England and who wanted to demonstrate his orthodoxy, forbade their publication.
  • Henry II (1547–59) pursued his father’s harsh policies, setting up a special court (the chambre ardente) to deal with heresy and issuing further repressive edicts, such as that of Écouen in 1559. His sudden death from a jousting accident in 1559 and the demise the following year of his eldest son, Francis II, left royal policy uncertain.
  • Calvinism provided both a rallying point for a wide cross section of opposition and the organization necessary to make that opposition effective.
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  • This organization was ultimately headed by Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé, who assumed the title of protector general of the churches of France, thus putting all the prestige of the house of Bourbon behind the Huguenot cause. By doing so, he added a new dimension to the age-old opposition of the mighty feudal subject to the crown: that opposition was now backed by a tightly knit military organization based on the Huguenot communities, by the financial contributions of wealthy bankers and businessmen, and by the dedicated religious zeal of the faithful, inspired by the example of Geneva.
  • The struggle between the families of Guise, Bourbon, and Montmorency for political power at the centre of government after Henry II’s death; the vacillating policy of Catherine de Médicis, widow of Henry II, who strongly influenced the three sons who successively became king; and, most important, the ineptitude of those rulers—Francis II (1559–60), Charles IX (1560–74), and Henry III (1574–89)—meant that local government officials were never confident of their authority in seeking to curb the growing threat of Huguenotism. After the death of Francis II, Catherine de Médicis, who was ruling in the name of her second son, Charles IX, abandoned the repressive religious policy of Francis I and Henry II and attempted to achieve religious reconciliation.
  • in the following year she issued the Edict of January, which allowed the Calvinists a degree of toleration. These signs of favour to the Protestants brought a violent reaction from devout Catholics, who found leadership in the noble house of Guise, the champions of Roman Catholicism in France.
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Henry VIII | Biography, Wives, & Facts | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Henry-VIII-king-of-England England Foreign Policy Henry VII Tudor
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  • Henry was the second son of Henry VII, first of the Tudor line, and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, first king of the short-lived line of York. When his elder brother, Arthur, died in 1502, Henry became the heir to the throne; of all the Tudor monarchs, he alone spent his childhood in calm expectation of the crown, which helped give an assurance of majesty and righteousness to his willful, ebullient character.
  • More serious was Henry’s determination to engage in military adventure. Europe was being kept on the boil by rivalries between the French and Spanish kingdoms, mostly over Italian claims; and, against the advice of his older councillors, Henry in 1512 joined his father-in-law, Ferdinand II of Aragon, against France and ostensibly in support of a threatened pope, to whom the devout king for a long time paid almost slavish respect.
  • The cardinal had some occasional ambition for the papal tiara, and this Henry supported; Wolsey at Rome would have been a powerful card in English hands. In fact, there was never any chance of this happening, any more than there was of Henry’s election to the imperial crown, briefly mooted in 1519 when the emperor Maximilian I died, to be succeeded by his grandson Charles V.
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  • In Charles, the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), and Austria were united in an overwhelming complex of power that reduced all the dynasties of Europe, with the exception of France, to an inferior position.
  • at Pavia (1525), for the moment, destroyed the rival power of France.
  • It provoked a serious reaction in England, and Henry concluded that Wolsey’s usefulness might be coming to an end.
  • Since Henry knew how to work with parliaments, the immediate effect was to make him appear more dominant than ever and to give to his reign a spurious air of autocracy—spurious because in fact the rule of law remained to control the sovereign’s mere will.
  • Between 1538 and 1541 the families of Pole and Courtenay were destroyed by the axe for treasons linked with efforts abroad to reverse the course of events in England but mainly because they could claim royal blood and represented a dynastic danger to the unprolific Tudor line.
  • from Cromwell’s fall (which he regretted too late), the only maker of policy. Policy in the hands of a sick, unhappy, violent man was not likely to be either sensible or prosperous, and so it proved. Left to himself, Henry concentrated on keeping the realm united, despite the growing strife between the religious factions, and on keeping before the world his own image as the glorious monarch of the age. The first resulted in frequent explosions against the ingratitude of his subjects and against his councillors. The second brought him back to his first love—war and conquest, the sport of kings.
  • In 1542 the emperor and the king of France resumed hostilities. After a pretense of independence, Henry again joined the former; the Scots promptly joined the French.
  • But the Scottish dream quickly collapsed as Henry’s crude handling of that nation gave control to a pro-French party, determined to resist even an alliance with England; physical conquest was beyond the king’s means.
  • As king of England from 1509 to 1547, Henry VIII presided over the beginnings of the English Reformation, which was unleashed by his own matrimonial involvements, even though he never abandoned the fundamentals of the Roman Catholic faith.
  • Henry VIII has always seemed the very embodiment of true monarchy. Even his evil deeds, never forgotten, have been somehow amalgamated into a memory of greatness.
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Kings, Presidents and Foreign Subversion | TalKing Points Memo - 0 views

talkingpointsmemo.com/...sidents-and-foreign-subversion presidency authority power fiduciary
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  • After the Stuart Restoration, Charles II sought to loosen his dependence on Parliament by among other things receiving subsidies (large cash payments) from Louis XIV, King of France. The ability to supply tax revenue for impoverished Kings is basically the root of all parliamentary power in what is now the United Kingdom. At the time the King being in the pay of a foreign King wasn’t without controversy. But it didn’t seem absurd on its face, as it would to us today, because in many ways the theory was that the King owned the country.
  • But the King owned his power. His sovereignty and the bundle of powers he used to enforce it were his. Any sense of what was in the public interest or his personal interest was an irrelevancy or not even entirely comprehensible because again, he was King. He didn’t just have the powers. He owned them. In a sense he owned the whole country.
  • This is a critical backdrop to all those provisions in the US Constitution about foreign subversion and subsidies. Seen through this perspective, which is the proper one, there are numerous provisions in the Constitution meant to ensure that the President remains beholden to the Constitution and the Congress. He doesn’t own his powers.
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  • The US constitution gives the President a great deal of power. That power has been added to immensely by constitutional interpretations from the 20th century and especially those from the late 20th century tied to the President’s powers as “commander-in-chief” of the US armed forces.
  • ut the powers are real and they were a key element behind the passage of the constitution itself in 1787
  • There was a growing consensus that the Articles of Confederation that preceded them, designed in the context of extreme wariness of monarchical and executive power, simply lacked the energy and executive power to defend itself and what remained a generally weak country. A great deal of the debate in essays of ‘The Federalist’ grapple with how to make an executive potent and yet restrainable.
  • But the key through-line through the whole constitutional document is that the powers of the President are given to him or her for the specific and sole purposes of protecting the constitution, enforcing the laws and protecting the national interest. They are not owned but on loan.
  • The President is a fiduciary of the American people, much as a financial advisor or lawyer or trustee to whom you give a great deal of power but only to act on your behalf. The moment they start using the power you’ve given them to act on your behalf but rather use it to solicit money for themselves the power instantly becomes illegitimate.
  • the President has no power at all to use these powers – which are vast and on loan – to enrich himself or to retain his hold on power
  • It really is like you’re a rich person with wealth manager managing your assets and you find out they made the decision to manage your assets by giving every third dollar to themselves. But, instead of hoping a plane to Uruguay as most self-respecting crooked wealth managers might, this one said: No, this was the decision I made. My power is complete. Don’t second guess me!
  • This is why all the chatter about well Presidents do quid pro quos all the time, or they withhold aid from countries or they bargain over things with foreign leaders. Well, sure they do. But they can do that because they’re advancing what they understand to be the national interest. Your wealth manager or lawyer can make deals on your behalf but not theirs. It’s really not complicated
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Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy: civil rights' wary allies - CSMonitor.com - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...nnedy-civil-rights-wary-allies
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  • Candidate Kennedy’s purpose was simply to express sympathy to Coretta Scott King over her husband’s plight. Many of his aides opposed the call as likely to lose votes in the South. But King was released from jail shortly afterwards, and reports of Kennedy’s concern energized African-Americans. Many historians feel it shifted crucial votes in Northern states away from Richard Nixon to give JFK his razor-thin victory.
  • They admired each other’s best qualities but were suspicious of the other’s flaws. On civil rights, they marched to different cadences.Early in his administration, President Kennedy did not want to be seen as too eager to press for such moves as equal housing and voting protection for minorities, even though he saw such changes as inevitable. King was not invited to his inauguration or to an initial meeting of civil rights figures in the Oval Office
  • In June 1963, Kennedy unveiled sweeping civil rights legislation. Among other things, it promised the right to vote to all citizens with a grade-school education, and eliminated legal discrimination in public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants.Kennedy remained hesitant to embrace the nation’s most prominent civil rights figure, however. In part this was due to allegations that a key King aide had communist ties, as well as the FBI’s notorious surveillance of King, which produced evidence of womanizing.The FBI’s file on King’s sex life was dauntingly thick, Berl L. Bernhard, staff director of the US Commission on Civil Rights from 1958 to 1963, said in an oral history at the Kennedy Library.“I do think the president was aware of it, and I know [darn] well some people in the administration were aware of it,” Mr. Bernhard said.Kennedy himself had numerous affairs, of course. It’s unknown how he felt about the juxtaposition of his own recklessness with the King allegations.In the summer of 1963 the administration was worried about the upcoming March on Washington to highlight civil rights. Unable to stop the planning, the White House recruited white union and labor groups to participate, to counter criticism that whites were not interested in sweeping civil rights changes.
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  • In the end the bill did pass. It is an enduring legacy of the Kennedy era. But it was muscled through those Southern-dominated committees by President Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy’s assassination.In part it was LBJ’s legislative craftsmanship that carried the day. In part it was enabled by emotional appeals to the spirit of JFK.“By this and other efforts of mourning, Kennedy acquired the Lincolnesque mantle of a unifying crusader who had bled against the thorn of race,” wrote historian Taylor Branch in “Parting the Waters,” his Pulitzer-winning chronicle of the civil rights movement. “Honest biographers later found it impossible to trace an engaged personality in proportion to the honor.”
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Life returns -- slowly -- to MLK's old neighborhood - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
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  • Besides, Smith says, he had just about everything he needed up on Auburn Avenue, then the center of black life in Atlanta. In 1956, Fortune magazine dubbed it the "richest Negro street in the world."
  • and the nearby King Center, which pays homage to the neighborhood's most famous resident, the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.
  • which led families and businesses to leave the neighborhood, and its struggle to rebuild. In the past five or six years, the narrative has taken a cautiously optimistic turn as new businesses and residential real estate open in the area and Georgia State University's footprint in the neighborhood expands.
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  • Smith's journey from Auburn Avenue to Morehouse College to regional division manager of the Federal Aviation Administration is in many ways a realization of King's dream of upward mobility for African-Americans.
  • Today, the gas station is gone, replaced by a shopping plaza with a barber shop and a store selling homeopathic remedies, both popular with the seniors who live across the street in Wheat Street Towers. Ebenezer is still there, adjacent to the King Center, and King's birth home is up the street. The landmarks are the main destinations for tourists disembarKing at the King historic district. Due to its relative high foot traffic, the streetcar stop attracts panhandlers offering tour guide services in exchange for donations to get them a bed at the Atlanta Mission.
  • "He would be disappointed in all the violence that still goes on and the crime. He would've thought that we would've advanced more toward peace and liberty and respecting everybody's rights. I know we're not there yet."
  • History hides in plain sight; blink and you might miss the explanatory signs hanging on poles and historic plaques on sides of buildings. One block from Smith's childhood home -- past Atlanta's two oldest
  • ned funeral homes, a fast-food seafood joint and a convenience store -- is the masonic hall that was home to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's first office and its new Atlanta headquarters. Around the corner is a restored Madam C. J. Walker salon featuring antique hair care products.
  • lack-o
  • Today, it's home to a community urban garden, which started in 2010 and has proven sustainable through community farming initiatives.
  • A professional stylist who moved to Atlanta in the 1980s, de Forest was enchanted by the abandoned storefront with the salon's original signage miraculously preserved. Even better were the antique hair care products left behind.
  • Ten years ago, Sweet Auburn Bread Company owner Sonya James moved from the Sweet Auburn Curb Market on Edgewood into the Odd Fellows building, the former headquarters of the Atlanta Chapter of the Grand Order of Odd Fellows. The building's Jacobean revival architecture recalls the grandeur of the era when it served as a hub for black businesses and the site of a black social club.
  • General manager Douglas Jester, another Atlanta native, remembers when Auburn was the epicenter of the civil rights movement. Some of the pictures hanging on the restaurant's wall are of politicians -- Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young -- who visited Jester's school in the nearby Summerhill neighborhood to talk to students about black pride and the value of an education
  • "You're a product of your environment. I'm a good example of that. I would not have advanced in my life like I did had it not been for the environment I grew up in with Ebenezer and the Kings, feeling that failure is not an option," he said. "Then, there is systematic organized racism, against males and females and Hispanics and it's not getting any better with this presidential stuff we got going now. I think Dr. King and "Daddy King" would disappointed with some of the rhetoric we're hearing and the anti-Muslim stuff."
  • It's just one block away, but unlike on Auburn Avenue, white-owned businesses have anchored Edgewood Avenue for decades, many of which are still standing, said Joe Stewardson, president of the Old Fourth Ward Business Association. Even if white-owned businesses outnumber black-owned businesses on Edgewood, he says it's still among the most diverse business corridors and neighborhoods in Atlanta.
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War of the Polish Succession | European history | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...War-of-the-Polish-Succession Augustus II Charles III Poland Leszczyński
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  • War of the Polish Succession, (1733–38), general European conflict waged ostensibly to determine the successor of the king of Poland, Augustus II the Strong
  • The war resulted mainly in a redistribution of Italian territory and an increase in Russian influence over Polish affairs
  • After Augustus died (Feb. 1, 1733), Austria and Russia supported the election of his son Frederick Augustus II of Saxony as king of Poland
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  • who had been their king (1704–09) when the Swedes had temporarily forced Augustus II to be deposed and who also had become connected to France via the marriage of his daughter Marie to king Louis XV
  • Lombardy, which remained a Habsburg possession
  • But when a Russian army of 30,000 approached Warsaw, Leszczyński fled to Gdańsk, and another sejm of 3,000 delegates named Frederick Augustus as Poland’s new king, Augustus III (Oct. 5, 1733). France consequently formed anti-Habsburg alliances with Sardinia-Savoy (September 26) and Spain (November 7) and declared war on Austria (October 10)
  • It provided for Augustus to remain king of Poland. In addition, Don Carlos was to retain Naples-Sicily but had to give Austria both Parma and Piacenza, which he had inherited in 1731,
  • Don Carlos, the Spanish infante, led a Spanish army of 40,000 across Tuscany and the Papal States to Naples, defeated the Austrians at Bitonto (May 25, 1734), conquered Sicily, and was crowned king of Naples and Sicily as Charles III.
  • Leszczyński renounced the crown
  • On Nov. 18, 1738, France and Austria signed the final Treaty of Vienna, in which the provisions of the preliminary agreement were confirmed and in which France also conditionally guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction, by which Holy Roman emperor Charles VI named his daughter, the Austrian archduchess Maria Theresa, as the heiress to his Habsburg lands
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The Welsh Tudors: the Family of Henry VII | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...welsh-tudors-family-henry-vii Tudor Wars of the Roses Wales Henry VII Military
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  • The first of these rulers whom he served was Llywelyn the Great, the most eminent of all the independent Welsh princes, who married Joan, the daughter of King John, and played his part in the winning of the Great Charter
  • But the link between it and the dynasty was slender; merely that it belonged to the descendants of King Henry VII’s greatgrandfather’s eldest brother. This brother, that is, Goronwy, is known to have served in France, probably in the army of the Black Prince. He died by drowning in Kent in 1382, and his brother, Ednyfed, seems to have died about the same time
  • Through their mother, the five sons of Tudur ap Goronwy were first cousins of Glyn Dwr, and three of them, also, Goronwy, Rhys and Gwilym, are known to have been, at one time or another, in the retinue of Richard II
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  • The King also, in 1433, made his young half-brother, Edmund, earl of Richmond, and, two years later, arranged his momentous marriage with Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. About the same time he created Jasper earl of Pembroke. Naturally, when civil war broke out, their father supported his step-son, the King. But he was taken prisoner early in the war, at the disastrous battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and was executed at Hereford. He is said to have remarked ruefully as he placed his head on the block that it was “wont to lie on Queen Catherine’s lap.” His head was placed on the market cross, where a mad woman came and combed his hair and washed his face, and set it around with lighted candles. His body was buried in the chapel of the Grey Friars at Hereford
  • Even his cousin, Maredudd, the only surviving son of the rebel, Glyn Dwr, is known to have become “squire of the body” to King Henry V
  • It would be tempting to believe that he had taken the opposite side in the revolt; this would explain many things, but it is contradicted by the known fact that his possessions, like those of his brothers, were confiscated. And yet his son became a page in the household of King Henry V, the oppressor of the family. This son, whether he was bom in exile or not, bore the name of the rebel chieftain, Owain
  • It was in Jasper’s great castle of Pembroke that Edmund’s son, Henry Tudor, was born posthumously on January 28th, 1457. The child’s mother, the Lady Margaret, had not then yet reached the age of fourteen.
  • But the defeat of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury in 1471, and the death of both King Henry VI and his heir, Prince Edward, led to a complete reversal of fortune
  • Prophecy in general terms had been easy enough, but the result of a specific event was not so easy to foretell. The bard, in a quandary, consulted his wife, who told him to prophesy victory, for if the prince were successful he might reward the prophet, but if he were unsuccessful he was not likely to return.
  • Henry promised to deliver the Welsh from “such miserable servitudes as they have pyteously longe stand in,” that is to say, from the penal laws of King Henry IV. This he did not do, for the laws remained on the statute book till the reign of James I
  • In his exile, Henry had fathered a son by a Breton lady. He was called Roland Velville, and his father knighted him when he ascended the throne and made him constable of Beaumaris Castle. Velville died in 1527, five years before the marriage of his daughter Jane to Tudur ap Robert Fychan, of Berain in modem Denbighshire
  • He was an associate of Sir Thomas Gresham, and had made much money in trade with the Netherlands. When he did die, Catherine did take Maurice Wynn as her third husband, thereby becoming step-mother to the writer Sir John Wynn of Gwydir
  • By that time the Tudors had been on the throne for a hundred years, and such Welsh sentiment as they had ever possessed was already worn thin.
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Charles III of Spain: an Enlightened Despot, Part I | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...pain-enlightened-despot-part-i Charles-III Spain History
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  • there is one man who stands out from the general level of mediocrity, a King who tried with some success to arrest the decadence—Charles III, King of Spain, 1759-1788
  • This zeal for the general welfare of his people brought him into rough conflict with the two main powers in the land; the nobility and the clergy
  • Philip had to withdraw his abdication; but the bouts of insanity continued, and Isabella Farnese became de facto ruler of the country
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  • the Two Sicilies were happier under Charles than they had been for many a long century
  • he reversed his predecessor’s policy of neutrality and involved Spain in two expensive wars against Britain, for which she was ill-prepared; and he committed the country’s pride and strength to a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to recover Gibraltar
  • Born in Madrid in 1716, the son of Spain’s first Bourbon King, Philip V, and of his second wife, Isabella Farnese, he enjoyed in some respects a happy and normal childhood
  • to bend the foreign policy of Spain solely for the purpose of providing kingdoms for her offspring
  • I would like to deserve to be called Charles the Wise
  • Philip V inherited the melancholy, the longing for seclusion that at times overcame all reason
  • the King had become so deranged that he had to abdicate in favour of Louis
  • In October 1731 he set off for Italy to take over the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and to garrison Tuscany, an inheritance arranged for him by Isabella
  • the Austrians had to withdraw and Naples was ensured a separate existence under the Bourbons. Charles returned to his regime of hunting, building and reform.
  • Taking advantage of Austria’s preoccupations elsewhere in the war of the Polish Succession, Isabella decided to attack in Italy. The aim was to recover for Spain the provinces of the Two Sicilies which had been Spanish for two centuries until 1713 when they had been handed over to Austria under the Treaty of Utrecht. Spain declared war on Austria in December 1733, and Charles was made titular commander-in-chief of the 30,000 Spanish troops that landed at Leghorn
  • Austria withdrew without a fight and in 1734 Charles became King of the Two Sicilies, a territory now independent for the first time. But as part of the general settlement he had to give up his rights in the Duchies; and a commitment was made, which for him cast a shadow before, that the crowns of Spain and of the Two Sicilies would never be united
  • As in Spain later, Charles challenged and reduced the powers and privileges of the aristocracy and clergy. He reformed the archaic legal and economic systems. His aim was ‘to sweep away feudalism’,
  • Naples before him had been without industry or trade
  • Naples rose and flourished, a European capital of the arts
  • he astounded the aristocracy of Madrid by the purity of his life
  • His mother was once again meddling in Italian affairs, trying this time to exploit Vienna’s preoccupation with the war of the Austrian Succession to recover the central Italian duchies for Philip, her second surviving son. Charles was forced to send troops north to support his brother’s Spaniards who had landed under the Duke of Montemar
  • he nourished a grievance against Britain
  • he helped to defeat the Austrian troops at Velletri. He showed courage and leadership in the battle, having survived an attempt at capture
  • identify government not only with order and tradition, but with reform, and thereby helped to avert revolution.
  • This routine was shattered in 1759 by the death of his childless half-brother Ferdinand VI who had been King of Spain since 1746; a King who, true to family tradition, had gone mad
  • For months the kingdom of Spain languished under this rule
  • From the moment of his arrival in Madrid in December 1759, Charles showed that he was not prepared to follow in Ferdinand’s easy-going footsteps. Government was a serious business, and would be conducted by himself in the interests of the people
  • Italian influence came in with him like a tidal wave, sweeping over muph of Spanish life
  • But it was in administrative reform that the sharpest note of change was stock. The economy of the country was sagging, yet Charles badly needed more money—among other things to pay off his father’s debts, and to strengthen the almost non-existent defences of Spain and the Indies. A flow of decrees poured forth regulating commerce and providing for the collection of revenue.
  • cleaning as was done was carried out by private enterprise, by troops of sweepers
  • Charles set about a radical clean-up
  • Since reaching Madrid, Charles had been under pressure from both sides to join in the war between Britain and Prussia on the one hand, and France and Austria on the other, which had broken out in 1756
  • Ferdinand VI had managed to stay neutral and Maria Amalia had been a strong influence for peace, but after her death, Charles changed his policy
  • life-long grudge against the British for having taken Gibraltar from his father—a feeling compounded by Commodore Martin’s insult
  • if he joined the French alliance, might help him to recover Minorca and Gibraltar. So in August 1761 he agreed to the Family Compact with Louis XV which brought him into war against Britain
  • Spain was heavily defeated by the British fleet which captured Havana and Manila
  • British power had greatly increased, partly at the expense of Spain
  • The country was exhausted, and there was much resentment against the French. Charles personally would have liked to have shaken himself out of the family straight-jacket
  • But Louis XV dismissed Choiseul and wrote to Charles in his own hand: ‘My minister would have war, but I will not
  • Charles had no alternative but to capitulate to the British
  • the Madrid mutiny of 1766
  • The favour he had shown early on towards the bourgeoisie, his concern for the poor, and the reforming zeal of his Ministers had all helped to generate distrust amongst the nobility and clergy
  • the discontent did not stop with the rich
  • There was widespread public unrest caused by the effects of the war, prolonged drought and high prices. Far from assuaging this, Charles had aggravated it, particularly in Madrid
  • public indignation
  • Squillace was the main target of public wrath
  • Within a week the King capitulated and agreed to everything
  • the Jesuits the scapegoat for the mutiny. In 1767 they were expelled from Spain with ruthless efficiency
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Charles XIV John | king of Sweden and Norway | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Charles-XIV-John Sweden Bernadotte Napoleon Gustave IV
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  • original name Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
  • French Revolutionary general and marshal of France (1804), who was elected crown prince of Sweden (1810), becoming regent and then king of Sweden and Norway (1818–44).
  • formed Swedish alliances with Russia, Great Britain, and Prussia, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig (1813)
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  • he enlisted in the French army
  • supporter of the Revolution
  • Bernadotte first met Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 in Italy. Their relationship, at first friendly, was soon embittered by rivalries and misunderstandings
  • In November 1799 Bernadotte refused to assist Bonaparte’s coup d’état that ended the Directory but neither did he defend it
  • When, on May 18, 1804, Napoleon proclaimed the empire, Bernadotte declared full loyalty to him and, in May, was named marshal of the empire
  • he was invited to become crown prince of Sweden. In 1809 a palace revolution had overthrown King Gustav IV of Sweden and had put the aged, childless, and sickly Charles XIII on the throne. The Danish prince Christian August had been elected crown prince but died suddenly in 1810, and the Swedes turned to Napoleon for advice.
  • Bernadotte was elected Swedish crown prince. On October 20 he accepted Lutheranism and landed in Sweden; he was adopted as son by Charles XIII and took the name of Charles John (Karl Johan). The Crown Prince at once assumed control of the government and acted officially as regent during the illnesses of Charles XIII. Napoleon now tried to prevent any reorientation of Swedish foreign policy and moreover sent an immediate demand that Sweden declare war on Great Britain
  • he respected his military ability, his skillful and humane administration of Hanover and the Hanseatic towns, and his charitable treatment of Swedish prisoners in Germany
  • Charles John was anxious to achieve something for Sweden that would prove his worth to the Swedes and establish his dynasty in power. He could, as many Swedes wished, have regained Finland from Russia, either by conquest or by negotiation
  • the conquest of Norway from Denmark, based on a Swedish alliance with Napoleon’s enemies. An alliance was signed with Russia in April 1812, with Great Britain in March 1813—with the British granting a subsidy for the proposed conquest of Norway—and with Prussia in April 1813. Urged by the allies, however, Charles John agreed to take part in the great campaign against Napoleon and to postpone his war with Denmark. The Crown Prince landed his troops at Stralsund, Ger., in May 1813 and soon took command of the allied army of the north
  • conserve his forces for the war with Denmark, and the Prussians bore the brunt of the fighting
  • After the decisive Battle of Leipzig (October 1813), Napoleon’s first great defeat, Charles John succeeded in defeating the Danes in a swift campaign and forced King Frederick VI of Denmark to sign the Treaty of Kiel (January 1814), which transferred Norway to the Swedish crown. Charles John now had dreams of becoming King or “protector” of France, but he had become alienated from the French people, and the victorious allies would not tolerate another soldier in charge of French affairs
  • Charles John conducted an efficient and almost bloodless campaign, and in August the Norwegians signed the Convention of Moss, whereby they accepted Charles XIII as king
  • At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), Austria and the French Bourbons were hostile to the upstart prince, and the son of the deposed Gustav was a potential pretender to the throne. But, thanks to Russian and British support, the status of the new dynasty was undisturbed
  • Upon the death of Charles XIII on Feb. 5, 1818, Charles John became king of Sweden and Norway, and the former republican and revolutionary general became a conservative ruler.
  • His foreign policy inaugurated a long and favourable period of peace, based on good relations with Russia and Great Britain
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Palace of Versailles: Facts & History | Live Science - 0 views

www.livescience.com/-versailles-facts-history.html
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  • Located about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southwest of Paris, the palace is beside the settlement of Versailles. The town was little more than a hamlet before becoming the seat of royal power. By the time of the French Revolution, it had a population of more than 60,000 people, making it one of the largest urban centers in France.
  • France's kings were first attracted to Versailles because of the area's prolific game. Louis XIII, who lived 1601-1643, bought up land, built a chateau and went on hunting trips.
  • The chateau Louis XIII built was little more than a hunting lodge having enough space to house the king and a small entourage. It was his successor, Louis XIV (1638-1715), the "Sun king," a ruler who chose the sun as his emblem and believed in centralized government with the king at its center, who would radically transform Versailles making it the seat of France's government by the time of his death.
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  • Spawforth notes that the palace contained about 350 living units varying in size, from multi-room apartments to spaces about the size of an alcove. The size and location of the room a person got depended on their rank and standing with the king. While the crown prince (known as the dauphin) got a sprawling apartment on the ground floor, a servant may have nothing more than a space in an attic or a makeshift room behind a staircase.
  • Scholars have suggested a number of factors that led him to build a great palace complex at Versailles and move the French government there. It's been noted that by keeping the king's residence some distance from Paris, it offered him protection from any civil unrest going on in the city. It also forced the nobles to travel to Versailles and seek lodging in the palace, something that impeded their ability to build up regional power bases that could potentially challenge the king.
  • A series of gardens, created in a formal style, stood to the west of the palace (one of them today is in the shape of a star) and contained sculptures as well as the pressurized fountains capable of launching water high into the air. The formality and grandeur of the gardens symbolized Louis XIV's absolute power, even over nature
  • Despite the richness of the palace, the kings had to make do with makeshift theaters up until 1768 when Louis XV allowed the building of the royal opera. It contained a mechanism that allowed the orchestra level to be raised to the stage allowing it to be used for dancing and banqueting. Spawforth notes that the opera required 3,000 candles to be burned for opening night and was rarely used due to its cost and the poor shape of France's finances.
  • After the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette would be stripped of power, brought to Paris and ultimately beheaded. The palace fell under the control of the new republican government.Many of its furnishings were sold to help pay for the subsequent Revolutionary Wars. When Napoleon came to power, he had an apartment created for himself in the Grand Trianon, complete with a map room.
  • In 1871, after France had lost a war against Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm I was proclaimed Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors, adding an extra layer of humiliation to the French defeat. For several years after this defeat, the situation in France was so bad that its Chamber of Deputies and Senate opted to meet at Versailles, rather than Paris, for reasons of safety.
  • Today, Versailles is one of the most-visited sites in France. Visitors are drawn to its architectural grandeur, the stunning water features (concerts are often played in the gardens during the summer) and its sense of history. 
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MLK Day turns 30: Why we observe it - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
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  • This Monday, we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.It's a holiday that thankfully has been gaining in recognition since Congress passed a bill and President Ronald Reagan signed it in 1983, designating the third Monday in January, starting in 1986, to honor the civil rights leader. For years, some states declined to participate in the holiday, and Arizona lost the opportunity to host a Super Bowl over it. In 2000, South Carolina became the last state to recognize the holiday.
  • Had an assassin's bullet not taken his life at the age of 39, King would have turned 87 on Friday.Read MoreHad he lived, I believe King would have continued to inspire hope and would challenge us to fulfill his dream of a more inclusive society -- where everyone would have an equal opportunity for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
  • Not only are we reopening old wounds with regard to confrontation with law enforcement, we are also relitigating everything from voting rights to affirmative action. And now we confront, for the second year in a row, Hollywood -- which somehow ignores the talent of people of color when it comes to the Oscars.
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  • It was his faith, determination and hope, as much as his words, that sustained and inspired a generation to be actively engaged in the political process as voters -- and thus working to transform our nation by electing men and women of valor who sought to remove barriers and open once-closed doors to all. That was part of king's vision -- as he stated back in 1957 when he called on the country to "give us the ballot."king once said, "If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."
  • No one knew better than King of disappointment, yet he remained determined not to be discouraged. He saw in his own lifetime that racism was shifting from malicious, violent discrimination to softer means such as excluding people from voting, or from access to promotions in the workplace, or from access to certain careers, or from ever being able to rise above hand-to-mouth wages and salaries.
  • Finally, King believed in diversity. Diversity, the chorus of different voices, should be a song of harmony. As Americans, we cannot deny our heritage, our individual cultures, but rather we must continue to bring all that is good and just to the civic enterprise. King's legacy is action in the service of others. For he believed that "not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
  • So, whether on the job or off, let's use this day to commit ourselves to service through acts of goodness and kindness. Let's continue his work in the vineyards of justice and equality for all. And let us begin to live in what King called "the fierce urgency of now."
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Valois Dynasty | French dynasty | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Valois-dynasty Valois Dynasty French Kings 1589
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  • Valois Dynasty, the royal house of France from 1328 to 1589
  • the Valois-Angoulême branch, beginning with Francis I
  • The House of Valois was a branch of the Capetian family, for it was descended from Charles of Valois, whose Capetian father, King Philip III, awarded him the county of Valois in 1285
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  • The house subsequently had three lines
  • (1) the direct line, beginning with Philip VI, which reigned from 1328 to 1498; (2) the Valois-Orléans branch
  • begun under their predecessors, the Capetian dynasty
  • and was succeeded by the Bourbon dynasty, another branch of the Capetians
  • The early kings of the Valois dynasty were occupied primarily with fighting the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)
  • The Valois kings gradually increased their authority at the expense of the privileges of the feudal lords. The crown’s exclusive right to levy taxes and to wage war was established
  • the ultimately unsuccessful Italian wars of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These wars marked the start of Valois rivalry with the Habsburgs (ruling house of the Holy Roman Empire)
  • The Wars of Religion (1562–98) weakened the power of the last Valois kings
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Stanisław I | king of Poland | Britannica.com - 0 views

www.britannica.com/...Stanislaw-I Poland Sweden Charles XII Augustus II III of Saxony Louis XV Lorraine
shared by manhefnawi on 16 May 18 - No Cached
  • king of Poland (1704–09, 1733) during a period of great problems and turmoil
  • In 1702 King Charles XII of Sweden invaded Poland as part of a continuing series of conflicts between the powers of northern Europe. Charles forced the Polish nobility to depose Poland’s King, Augustus II (Frederick Augustus I of Saxony), and then placed Stanisław on the throne (1704)
  • In 1709 Charles was defeated by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava and withdrew to Sweden, leaving Stanisław without any real support. Augustus II regained the Polish throne, and Stanisław left the country
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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
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The Throne of Zog: Monarchy in Albania 1928-1939 | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...zog-monarchy-albania-1928-1939 Albania King Zog Europe Balkans
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  • September 1st, 1928, Europe gained a new kingdom and its only Muslim king: thirty-two year-old Zog I of Albania
  • the birth of the Kingdom of Albania – a native monarchy, not an alien imposition – did attract a flicker of international attention
  • For five decades, Albania was synonymous with hard-line Marxism-Leninism
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  • The modern state of Albania came into being as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 after 500 years of Ottoman Turkish rule
  • A population of just under one million lived in a territory about half as big again as Wales
  • The Ottomans had never really mastered these people
  • Language did act as a unifying force
  • Nominally neutral during the First World War, and without a recognised government, the country was overrun by seven foreign armies
  • Like other Balkan states, it should repudiate the legacy of the Ottoman period and strive to catch up with the rest of Europe
  • He had first been fascinated by the story of Napoleon Bonaparte during his schooldays in Istanbul. King Ahmed sounded too exclusively Islamic, so the new monarch adopted his surname (which means ‘bird’)
  • According to Zogists, the Albanian throne had a 2,500-year history
  • In 1928, Zog purported to be filling Skanderbeg’s throne, left vacant for 450 years, and he claimed the medieval hero’s helmet and sword as regalia
  • Prince Xhelal, his half-brother, played no part in royal events, remaining largely forgotten in Mati
  • The day-to-day lifestyle of Zog did not seem so lavish to upper middle-class Western European diplomats
  • Albanians endured the poorest living conditions in Europe.
  • Zog did not dare to tax the rich and powerful for fear of provoking rebellion
  • Great Britain, France, and the US had greeted the kingdom with a modicum of politeness. They wanted to believe Zog when he assured them that monarchy would help promote peace and stability
  • Though Albania was legally a sovereign nation, it was wholly subordinate to Italy in all its foreign affairs
  • The Albanian monarchy reached the peak of its publicity in April 1938
  • Zog had always wanted a Christian queen, as a Westernising influence and a mark of approval for mixed marriages in general
  • Albanian resistance was minimal, King Zog fled abroad with a considerable fortune, and the monarchy stood revealed as a failure as great as most of his other modernising schemes
  • Had their King meant any more to them than the Ottoman Sultan before him
  • King Zog himself had sometimes observed that his homeland was ‘centuries behind the rest of Europe in civilisation’
  • The King, who died in France in 1961, never abandoned his claim to the throne
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