History Readings

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

The war with England soon broke out again. Two new factors worked in favour of France. First, Charles’s alliance with Henry II of Trastámara, king of Castile, cost the English their naval supremacy; a Castilian fleet destroyed English reinforcements off La Rochelle in 1372, which effectively secured the success of French operations in the west. Second, Charles abandoned the defective policy of massive engagement with the enemy.

Although he had reestablished the political unity of France, Charles V left an uncertain future.

This meant the final loss of all Navarre’s Norman possessions except Cherbourg.

Charles desired an alliance with Edward, which so frightened John that he made another peace with Charles on Sept. 10, 1355.

John’s other bitter enemy was Charles II the Bad, king of Navarre, to whom John gave his daughter Joan as an offer of alliance; the enmity still remained strong

John further irritated Charles by giving the new constable of France, Charles de La Cerda, lands that were claimed by Charles of Navarre.

John signed a new truce with England on Sept. 12, 1351, but broke it by supporting the partisans of Charles of Blois (a pretender to Brittany, then held prisoner by Edward)

John took his revenge on Charles by having him imprisoned

Edward’s son Edward, prince of Wales (later called the Black Prince), attacked southern France. Unable to halt the English invasions because he lacked funds, John gathered the States General to seek money and to impose an unpopular salt tax.

The French army was decimated, and John was taken prisoner.

John was taken to London in April 1357, where he was lodged in the Savoy palace; there he concluded treaties (January 1358 and March 1359) so harsh that they were repudiated in France.

fixed John’s ransom at 3,000,000 gold écus and surrendered most of southwestern France to Edward. On Oct. 9, 1360, John was released to raise a ransom that France could not afford to pay, and hostages were accepted in his place. When one of the hostages (John’s own son) escaped, John, feeling dishonoured, returned to England on his own volition as a prisoner.

Intense efforts were then made to end the English war. Negotiations dragged past the term of truce set in 1356; when an initial and too humiliating treaty was rejected by the dauphin, Edward made yet another demonstration in France (1359).

When the Estates at Amiens (October 1363) refused to ratify an irresponsible agreement between the king’s replacement hostages and Edward III, John returned to captivity in London, where he died a few months later.

Charles ascended the French throne on April 8, 1364, on John’s death. He then challenged the King of Navarre over the succession of Burgundy.

When war broke out again with England in 1369 over France’s failure to abide by its treaty obligations, Charles followed du Guesclin’s military advice, winning for the French so many victories that, by 1375, the settlement of 1360 was virtually nullified. In 1378, after learning of plots of the King of Navarre, Charles dispossessed him of all his French lands except Cherbourg.

reorganizing the army, creating a new navy, instituting tax changes, and bringing Flanders, Spain, and Portugal into French alliances,

Edward III renounced his homage and again laid claim to the crown of France, starting the period of conflict that would come to be known as the Hundred Years’ War.

Philip’s failures were proving costly in money and political support.

But that prospect, like the war itself, evaporated when the Black Death struck Europe late in 1347, destroying life, fiscal resources, and resolve for several years thereafter.

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.

the power of the first consul was so well established that there was no hope of intervening in France. Instead, the house of Orléans became reconciled with the elder branch of the Bourbon family. Even so, Louis-Philippe never took up arms to fight with émigré forces for the royalist cause against other Frenchmen

On November 25 he married Marie-Amélie, a daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria. About this time there was some suggestion that Louis-Philippe should join the English forces in the Peninsular War. Maria Carolina—who held the real power in Naples and whose sister Marie-Antoinette had been executed by the French Revolutionary government—had long backed the campaign against the Revolutionary armies and Napoleon. She certainly would have supported such a move by her son-in-law, but nothing came of it, probably because Louis XVIII again feared any activity that might further the Orleanist cause.

Louis-Philippe returned to France at the First Restoration (1814). Although Louis XVIII refused to grant Louis-Philippe the style of royal highness (later allowed to him by Charles X), the king did grant Louis-Philippe the dignities traditionally held by the head of his family. More important perhaps, Louis-Philippe regained possession of the family estates and forests that had not been sold after his own emigration and his father’s execution. During the Hundred Days (1815) he returned to England instead of following the court to Ghent.

Under the second Restoration the duc d’Orléans was a steady and more or less open adherent of the liberal opposition

when Louis-Philippe had become king and his eldest son, Ferdinand-Louis-Philippe, was heir to the royal domain, he could reserve the Orléans inheritance for his other sons instead of merging it with the crown lands.

In 1830 Charles X’s attempt to enforce repressive ordinances touched off a rebellion (July 27–30) that gave Louis-Philippe his long-awaited opportunity to gain power.

The revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to power constituted a victory for the upper bourgeoisie over the aristocracy. The new ruler was titled Louis-Philippe, king of the French, instead of Philip VII, king of France. He consolidated his power by steering a middle course between the right-wing extreme monarchists (the Legitimists) on the one side and the socialists and other republicans (including the Bonapartists) on the other. The July Monarchy, with its “Citizen King,” could never command the support of all the factions, however. Its opponents resorted to political intrigue, insurrection, and even assassination plots. In July 1835 an attempt on the king’s life by Giuseppe Fieschi resulted in the deaths of 18 people and the wounding of many more, but the royal family escaped injury. Throughout Louis-Philippe’s reign, it was said that “for shooting kings there is no close[d] season.”

before abdicating in favour of his 10-year-old grandson, Henri Dieudonné d’Artois, comte de Chambord. On August 7 the provisional government of deputies and peers present in Paris declared the throne vacant. Following the terminology of the Constitution of 1791, Louis-Philippe was on August 9 proclaimed “king of the French by the grace of God and the will of the people.” A modified version of the Charter of 1814 was issued, which the new king was obliged to accept.

The death of the popular duc d’Orléans in a carriage accident in July 1842 not only grieved Louis-Philippe very deeply but also seriously weakened the dynasty. The new heir to the throne, the duke’s son Philippe d’Orléans, comte de Paris, was an infant for whom a regency had to be prearranged.

The marriage (August 1832) of his daughter Marie-Louise to Queen Victoria’s uncle Leopold I, king of the Belgians, established an excellent relationship between Paris and London, almost foreshadowing the Entente Cordiale.

The British were finally alienated by Louis-Philippe’s policy on the “Spanish marriages.” In an attempt to revive the traditional family alliance between the French and Spanish Bourbons, he had at first wanted his sons Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, and Antoine, duc de Montpensier, to marry Spanish Queen Isabella II and her sister and heiress presumptive, the infanta Luisa Fernanda, respectively. The British objected to this obvious threat of French predominance in Spain, and in 1843 Louis-Philippe agreed that Isabella should marry neither Henri nor the British nominee, Prince Albert’s cousin Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, but rather some Spanish Bourbon instead.

French opposition to the regime had become much more embittered. The industrial and agricultural depression of 1846 aroused widespread popular discontent, and Louis-Philippe’s constant refusal of any electoral reform meant that many members of the lower middle class—from whom he might still have drawn support—remained without the vote. Finally, his narrow-minded conservatism and his unwillingness to seek any solution for pressing political and social problems drove many divergent interests into union against him.

The July Monarchy was but one casualty of the great revolutionary movement that swept through Europe in 1848. In any case, a change had come to seem unavoidable in France.

The July Monarchy was really an anachronism. To the French people—for whom, whether or not they favoured the institution, monarchy meant the splendours and absolutism of the ancien régime

In power Louis-Philippe strove to implement his desire to rule as well as to reign. The political difficulties with which he was faced revealed in him the weaknesses of an obstinate man; increasingly, his only response to crises was words and theories, and ultimately inaction lost him his crown.

Bills to extend the suffrage (and the right to hold office) to the middle bourgeoisie were repeatedly introduced in parliament but were stubbornly opposed by Guizot. Even the National Guard, that honour society of the lesser bourgeoisie, became infected with this mood of dissatisfaction.Other factors, too, contributed to this mood. In 1846 a crop failure quickly developed into a full-scale economic crisis: food became scarce and expensive; many businesses went bankrupt; unemployment rose.

Toward the end of two days of rioting, Louis-Philippe faced a painful choice: unleash the army (which would mean a bloodbath) or appease the demonstrators. Reluctantly, he chose the second course and announced that he would replace the hated Guizot as his chief minister. But the concession came too late. That evening, an army unit guarding Guizot’s official residence clashed with a mob of demonstrators, some 40 of whom died in the fusillade. By the morning of February 24, the angry crowd was threatening the royal palace. Louis-Philippe, confronted by the prospect of civil war, hesitated and then retreated once more; he announced his abdication in favour of his nine-year-old grandson and fled to England.

Spain had been in a state of quasi-civil war since 1820, when a revolt by the so-called liberal faction in the army had forced King Ferdinand VII to grant a constitution and to authorize the election of a parliament. The European powers, disturbed at the state of semianarchy in Spain, accepted a French offer to restore Ferdinand’s authority by forcible intervention.

In the elections of 1824 the ultras increased their grip on the Chamber and won a further victory in September 1824 when the aged Louis XVIII died, leaving the throne to a new king who was the very embodiment of the ultra spirit.

Charles X, the younger brother of Louis XVIII, had spent the Revolutionary years in exile and had returned embittered rather than chastened by the experience.

a return to the unsullied principle of divine right, buttressed by the restored authority of the established church.

King and ministers prepared a set of decrees that dissolved the newly elected Chamber, further restricted the already narrow suffrage, and stripped away the remaining liberty of the press. These July Ordinances, made public on the 26th, completed the polarization process and ensured that the confrontation would be violent.

Charles X threw himself enthusiastically into the campaign for Catholic revival. The anticlericals of the liberal left were outraged,

King Charles and his ultra ministers might nevertheless have remained in solid control if they had been shrewd and sensitive men, aware of the rise of public discontent and flexible enough to appease it. Instead, they forged stubbornly ahead on the road to disaster.

the republicans of Paris began to organize; an Orleanist faction emerged, looking to a constitutional monarchy headed by the king’s cousin, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, duc d’Orléans.

Some of Polignac’s ministers urged a royal coup d’état at once, before the rejuvenated opposition could grow too strong.

Under the Bourbons several new missionary orders and lay organizations were founded in an effort to revive the faith and to engage in good works.

The king retaliated by dissolving the Chamber and ordering new elections in July.

Sully was not an original financial thinker. He undertook no sweeping changes, contenting himself with making the existing system work, for example, by shifting the emphasis from direct to indirect taxation. He succeeded in building both an annual surplus and substantial reserves.

the introduction in 1604 of a new tax, the paulette, named after the financier Charles Paulet, which enabled officiers (officeholders) to assure the heritability of their offices by paying one-sixtieth of the purchase price each year.

Henry IV believed in direct state intervention, and he took steps to fix wages and to prohibit strikes and illegal combinations of workmen. Henry’s policies bore fruit especially in the textile industries, where the production of luxury silk goods and woolen and linen cloth greatly increased. Henry also took the initiative in making commercial treaties with Spain and England, thereby increasing the volume of French trade and stimulating the export of grain, cattle, and wine.

he was able to prevent them from once more dividing his kingdom.

He did have to counter a conspiracy led by one of his own marshals, Charles de Gontaut, baron et duc de Biron, who plotted with the king of Spain and almost succeeded in raising southwestern France in revolt. Henry, however, had Biron arrested and executed in 1602; this strong action against an old friend and powerful enemy had the effect of subduing the political rising and strengthening Henry’s own authority.

When Henry IV was assassinated by François Ravaillac, a Catholic fanatic, in May 1610, he had gone a long way toward restoring the monarchy to a position of authority similar to that held by Francis I and Henry II and had reunified a state greatly threatened at his accession from both within and without.

The growth of a large royal army, however, was only one effect of the increased level of military activity. The financial administration of the country also underwent a drastic reorganization

By the reign of Francis I, the king, even in times of peace, was unable to make do with his ordinary revenue from rents and seigneurial dues. In 1523 Francis established a new central treasury, the Trésor de l’Épargne, into which all his revenues, ordinary and extraordinary, were to be deposited.

Successive monarchs were forced, therefore, to seek additional revenue. This was no simple matter, because French kings traditionally could not tax their subjects without their consent.

The early Valois kings had negotiated with the Estates-General or with the provincial Estates for their extra money; but in the middle of the 15th century, when the Hundred Years’ War with England was reaching a successful conclusion, Charles VII was able to strike a bargain with the Estates. In return for a reduction in overall taxation, he began to raise money to support the army without having to seek the Estates’ approval.

The July Revolution of 1830 brought Louis-Philippe and the Orleanists into power.

The Orleanists supported Louis-Philippe’s grandson and heir, Louis-Philippe-Albert, count de Paris, after the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848 and during the Second Republic and Second Empire. The demise of the Second Empire, in 1870, offered another chance for a restoration of the monarchy, but the Third Republic was born while the Orleanists and Legitimists were still arguing over a candidate. After the direct male line of the elder Bourbons died out in 1883, most of the Legitimists joined the Orleanists in fruitlessly supporting the count de Paris for the throne.

With little concern for the safety of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who were held captive in Paris, the Comte de Provence issued uncompromising counterrevolutionary manifestos, organized émigré associations, and sought the support of other monarchs in the fight against the Revolution. When the King and Queen were executed in 1793, he declared himself regent for his nephew, the dauphin Louis XVII, at whose death, in June 1795, he proclaimed himself Louis XVIII.

On May 2, Louis XVIII officially promised a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral parliament, religious toleration, and constitutional rights for all citizens.

Louis XVIII’s reign saw France’s first experiment in parliamentary government since the Revolution. The King was invested with executive powers and had “legislative initiative,”

After 1820, however, the ultras exercised increasing control and thwarted most of Louis’s attempts to heal the wounds of the Revolution. At his death he was succeeded by his brother, the comte d’Artois, as Charles X.

The Central Junta and its successor, the regency, were compelled to summon a Cortes in order to legitimize the situation created by the absence of Ferdinand VII, who was a prisoner in France. Conservatives conceived of this task as the mere supply of the sinews of war on behalf of an absent king.

With the help of an army corps and of conservative sentiment that had been outraged by the liberalism of 1812, Ferdinand returned from exile in France to rule Spain as an absolute monarch. In 1820 he was forced by military sedition to return to constitutionalism during the Liberal Triennium (1820–23). For the last, “ominous” decade of his reign, he returned to a relatively enlightened form of ministerial despotism. From 1814 to 1820 Spain attempted to reestablish its rule in America and to maintain an inflated wartime army with a permanent economic deficit.

When, on September 29, 1833, Ferdinand died, Isabella was proclaimed queen, with María Cristina as regent, precipitating almost immediately the outbreak of the First Carlist War (1833–39).