Francisco Pizarro
Hernán Cortés
Thomas Cromwell
Henry VIII
Mary I
Ivan I
Oliver Cromwell
Radisson
Peter the Great
Maria Theresa
Catherine the Great
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Alexander Hamilton
Francisco Pizarro ( 1471 – 1541)
Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that conquered the Inca Empire.
Francisco Pizarro was born in Trujillo, in Spain. He was the illegitimate son of a infantry colonel and a woman of poor means who abandoned him on the steps of a local church. Through his father, Francisco was a second cousin, once removed, of Hernán Cortés who conquered the Aztec Empire of the land later called Mexico. Little attention was paid to his education and he grew up illiterate. He grew up watching ordinary men like himself coming back from the newly discovered continent of the Americas with great fortunes.
In 1509, when Pizarro was 38, he sailed from Spain to the New World as an illiterate peasant soldier seeking fortune who ended up on an expedition on a search for the legendary El Dorado, a great land to the south rich with gold. These revelations, along with the accounts for Cortés' success in Mexico, caught the attention of Pizarro. Wanting to outdo his cousin, he started a series of expeditions to the south. He ended up to ruthlessly whipped out the Inca Empire killing in 15 years killing thousands of vulnerable natives and enslaving the rest. His acts were pursuit of gold, power and religious conversions. Few men have changed the course of history in such a violent and ruthless manner.
In 1924, at the age of 53, while still in Panama, Pizarro formed a partnership with a priest and a soldier to explore and conquer the South. They undertook 2 expeditions to conquer the Incan Empire which was in disarray suffering a long civil war. The first expedition was with 80 men and 40 horses, but turned out to be a failure. They sailed down the Pacific coast and reached no farther than Colombia before succumbing to bad weather, lack of food and skirmishes with hostile natives forced him to return to Panama leaving many of the men behind in a settlement called Tumbes. The locals had never seen white men before and when they saw their iron cladding, their guns and their bearded faces, they regarded them as gods.
Two years later they started the arrangements for a second expedition. Pizarro left Panama with 2 ships with 160 men and several horses, reaching as far as the Colombian San Juan River. Both expeditions failed as a result of native hostilities, bad weather and lack of provisions. The pair were very soon known for their ruthlessness towards the native like cutting off their noses, hands or feet.
4 years later, he reached northern Peru and found the natives rich with precious metals. This discovery gave Pizarro the motivation to plan a third expedition to conquer the area. He returned to Panama to make arrangements, but the Governor refused to grant permission for the project. Pizarro decided to leave for Spain and appeal to the sovereign King Charles I in Toledo in person.
He was able to convince the king to authorized Pizarro to proceed with the conquest of Peru and officially named him the Governor of New Castile for the distance of 200 leagues along the newly discovered coast. His family and friends joined him. This left Pizarro associates in secondary positions. This later lead to eventual discord. An expedition left the following year with 3 ships, 180 men and 27 horses. Pizarro's third and final expedition left Panama for Peru in 1530 when he was 59 years old. Hostile natives along the coast threatened the expedition.
Peruvian territory was home to several ancient cultures, ranging from the Norte Chico civilization in the 32nd century BC, the oldest civilization in the Americas, to the Inca Empire, the largest and most sophisticated state in pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Vice-royalty that encompassed most of its South American colonies, with its capital in Lima. Peru formally proclaimed independence in 1821 and secured independence in 1824. In the ensuing years, the country enjoyed relative economic and political stability, which ended shortly before the War of the Pacific with Chile. Throughout 20th century, Peru endured armed territorial disputes, coups, social unrest, and internal conflicts, as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.
In 1531, at the age of 60, Pizarro once again landed in the coasts near Ecuador where some gold, silver and emeralds were procured and then dispatched to Panama to gather more recruits. Soon 30 men arrived. Though Pizarro's main objective was then to set sail and dock at Tumbes like his previous expedition, he was forced to confront the natives who killed 4 of his men and wounded many. Soon after 100 volunteers and horses came to aid Pizarro and with him sailed towards Tumbes, only to find the place deserted and destroyed. The settlers had disappeared or died after natives attacked them and ransacked the place. As Tumbes no longer afforded safe accommodations, Pizarro led an excursion into the interior and established the first Spanish settlement in Peru. Leaving 50 men back at the settlement Pizarro proceeded with his conquest accompanied by 200 men. An envoy from the Inca arrived with presents and an invitation to visit the Inca ruler's camp.
Atahualpa, the Inca Emperor, had been resting in the Sierra of northern Peru, near Cajamarca, in the nearby thermal baths. Arriving at Cajamarca Pizarro had a force of just 110 foot soldiers and 67 cavalry. Atahualpa agreed to meet Pizarro in his Cajamarca plaza fortress the next day. After a Dominican friar expounded the "true faith" and the need to pay tribute to the Emperor Charles V, Atahualpa reply was too insulting to repeat. Pizarro and his force decided to attack with fewer than 200 solders against the 6,000 Inca army who were in Cajamarca and 50,000 who were scattered nearby. The Spanish killed over 2,000 Inca soldiers and captured the rest. Pizarro executed Atahualpa's 12-man honor guard and captured Atahualpa, the last Inca Emperor, as a hostage for the ransom of a room 7m by 5m with nearly 6,000kg of gold and 2 rooms filled with about 24,000kg of silver. The people used gold only for making religious object as gold symbolized the Sun which they worshiped. After the ransom was paid, Pizarro was able to force Atahualpa to order the death of his rival brother.
After 1 year in captivity, Atahualpa was starting to out-grow his usefulness. Then he charged him with various crimes and executed him by strangulation. After rewarding each soldier with the share of the ransom satisfying and keeping the greed of his men alive, Pizzaro entered the Inca capital of Cuzco, the spiritual home of the Incas. He made an agreement of sharing power with the Incas and set up a puppet Inca Emperor. He pillaged their temples of gold and encourages his soldiers to take the women as he thought that mixed blood would be a good way to cement the Spanish presence. Then he completed his conquest of Peru.
The conquistadors, as they liked to be called, got out of control. Their greed and bad behavior caused resentment among the Incas. There was an uprising and the following year, an additional 150 men with 50 horses arrived in Cajamarca. Pizarro advanced with his army of 500 Spaniards toward Cuzco.
In 1535, at the age of 64, he founded the capital city of Lima on Peru's central coast. He considered this his greatest achievement. 6 years later, Pizarro was violently assassinated in Lima while he was comfortably living in the huge palace he built for himself as governor of the lands he captured for his king.
Hernán Cortés was a Spanish Conquistador who tore into the New World of the newly discovered South America that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Pre-Columbian Mexico dates to approximately 8,000 BC, is recognized as one of seven cradles of civilization and was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the vice-royalty of New Spain. Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colony's Mexican War of Independence. The Mexican–American War (1846–48) led to the territorial cession of the extensive northern territories to the United States. A dictatorship occurred through the 19th century. The dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés often saw sailors returning with fortunes plundered from the New Lands that Columbus had discovered. The kings wanted new lands to exploit, and the church wanted new souls to exploit so there were plenty of chances for young men to pursue a livelihood in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda and, for a short time, became alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, an expedition which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.
Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. She would later give birth to his first son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest him, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. He wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of punished for mutiny.
Cortés was born in 1485 in the town of Medellín, in Spain. His father was an infantry captain of distinguished ancestry but slender means. Through his mother, Hernán was the second cousin once removed of Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire of the land later called Peru. As a child Cortés was a pale, sickly child. At the age of 14, he was sent to study Latin under an uncle-in-law. After 2 years, he tired of schooling, returned home to Medellín, much to the irritation of his parents, who had hoped to see him equipped for a profitable legal career. At this point in his life, Cortés was restless, haughty and mischievous 16-year-old boy returned home only to find himself frustrated by life in his small provincial town. By this time, news of the exciting discoveries of Christopher Columbus in the New World was streaming back to Spain.
Plans were made for Cortés to sail to the Americas with a family acquaintance and distant relative, but an injury he sustained while hurriedly escaping from the bedroom of a married woman from Medellín prevented him from making the journey. Instead, he spent the next year wandering the country listening to the tales of those returning from the Indies, who told of discovery and conquest, gold, Indians, and strange unknown lands. He finally left for Hispaniola in 1504 where he became a colonist. Upon his arrival, the 18-year-old Cortés registered as a citizen, which entitled him to a building plot and land to farm. He took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba, receiving a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his efforts from the leader of the expedition.
In 1511, at the age of 26, Cortés was made clerk to the treasurer with the responsibility of ensuring that the Crown received one fifth of the profits from an expedition to conquer Cuba. For the next 8 years which he took part of, the Governor of Cuba was so impressed with him that he secured a high political position for him in the colony. He became his secretary and was appointed municipal magistrate for 2 terms. In Cuba, Cortés became a man of substance and was provided Indian labor for his mines and cattle. This new position of power also made him the new source of leadership, which opposing forces in the colony could then turn to.
In 1514, Cortés led a group which demanded that more Indians be assigned to the settlers. It was not until he had been almost 15 years in the Indies that he began to look beyond his substantial status as mayor of the capital of Cuba and as a man of affairs in the thriving colony. In 1518, 7 years later, Cortés led an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. Accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses, and a small number of cannon, Cortés landed on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mayan territory. There he encountered a Spanish Franciscan priest who had survived a shipwreck followed by a period in captivity with the Maya, before escaping. The priest had learned the Maya language and was able to translate for Cortés. One year later, he formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown. He received 20 young indigenous women from the vanquished natives, and he converted them all to Christianity. He sank his own fleet of ships to eliminate the possibility of retreat.
In Veracruz, he met some of the tributaries of the Aztecs and asked them to arrange a meeting with Moctezuma II, the ruler of the Aztec Empire. Moctezuma repeatedly turned down the meeting, but Cortés was determined. Leaving a hundred men in Veracruz, he marched on Tenochtitlan along with 600 soldiers, 15 horsemen, 15 cannons, and hundreds of indigenous carriers and warriors. On the way to Tenochtitlan, he made alliances with indigenous peoples who decided to ally with the newcomers. He marched to the second largest city in central Mexico and massacred thousands of unarmed members of the nobility gathered at the central plaza, then partially burned the city.
By the time he arrived to the island city of Tenochtitlan the Spaniards had a large army. They were peacefully received by Moctezuma II who let Cortés enter the Aztec capital hoping to get to know their weaknesses better and to crush them later. Moctezuma gave lavish gifts of gold to the Spaniards which, rather than placating them, excited their ambitions for plunder. In his letters to King Charles, He learned at this point that he was considered by the Aztecs to be either an emissary of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl or Quetzalcoatl himself and took Moctezuma as a hostage in his own palace, indirectly ruling through him.
After Cortés left the capital leaving 200 men behind, one of his lieutenants committed a massacre in the Great Temple, triggering a local rebellion. He speedily returned to find Moctezuma was killed. Faced with a hostile population, he decided to flee. Much of the treasure looted was lost during this panicked escape. Having lost 870 men, Cortés's men finally prevailed with reinforcements arriving from Cuba. He began siege of Tenochtitlan cutting off supplies which ended in victory and the destruction of the city.
By 1521, Cortés was able to claim the entire Aztec Empire for Spain and personally governed Mexico for the next 3 years. He requested the Spanish monarch to send Franciscan and Dominican friars to Mexico to begin the work of converting vast indigenous populations to Christianity. In 1528, he returned to Spain. He presented himself with great splendor before Charles V's court. He was received by Charles with every distinction for his efforts in expanding the still young Spanish Empire.
He returned to Mexico in 1530 with new titles and honors, but with diminished power. On returning to Mexico, he found the country in a state of anarchy. There was a strong suspicion in court circles of an intended rebellion by Cortés, and a charge was brought against him that cast a fatal blight upon his character and plans. He was accused of murdering his first wife. The proceedings of the investigation were kept secret. No report, either exonerating or condemning Cortés was published. Had the Government declared him innocent, it would have greatly increased his popularity. Had it declared him a criminal, a crisis would have been precipitated by the accused and his party.
After his exploration of Baja California, Cortés returned to Spain in 1541, hoping to confound his angry civilians, who had brought many lawsuits against him for debts and abuse of power. On his return he was utterly neglected, and could scarcely obtain an audience. On one occasion he forced his way through a crowd that surrounded the emperor's carriage, and mounted on the footstep. The emperor, astounded at such audacity, demanded of him who he was. "I am a man," replied Cortés proudly, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities." The emperor finally permitted Cortés to join him and his fleet in the expedition against Algiers in 1541, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. During this unfortunate campaign, which was his last, he was almost drowned in a storm that hit his fleet while he was pursuing Barbarossa, one of the Turkish military leaders. Having spent a great deal of his own money to finance expeditions, he was now heavily in debt. In 1544, when he was already 59, he made a claim on the royal treasury, but was ignored for the next 3 years. Disgusted, he decided to return to Mexico 3 years later, but before he reached Seville, he was stricken with dysentery and died at the age of 62.
Like Columbus, he died a wealthy but embittered man. He left his many mestizo and white children well cared for in his will, along with every one of their mothers. Before he died he had the Pope legitimize 4 of his children. After all, he was a major figure in the catholic church's victory in converting the Aztecs and the natives to Christianity.
Thomas Cromwell was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540.
Cromwell was one of the strongest and most powerful advocates of the English Reformation. He helped to engineer an annulment of the king's marriage to Queen Catherine so that Henry could lawfully marry Anne Boleyn. Henry failed to obtain the Pope's approval for the annulment in 1534, so Parliament endorsed the king's claim to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, giving him the authority to annul his own marriage. Cromwell subsequently charted an evangelical and reformist course for the Church of England.
During his rise to power, Cromwell made many enemies, including his former ally Anne Boleyn. He played a prominent role in her downfall. He later fell from power, after arranging the king's marriage to German princess Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had hoped that the marriage would breathe fresh life into the Reformation in England, but Henry found his new bride unattractive and it turned into a disaster for Cromwell, ending in an annulment 6 months later. Cromwell was arraigned and executed for treason and heresy in 1540.
He was a central figure in the Tudor revolution in government. He was the presiding genius handling the break with Rome and creating the laws and administrative procedures that reshaped post-Reformation England. He translated royal supremacy into parliamentary terms, creating powerful new organs of government to take charge of Church lands, and largely removing the medieval features of central government.
Against significant opposition he secured acceptance of the king's new powers, created a more united and more easily governable kingdom, and provided the crown, at least temporarily, with a very significant landed endowment.
Thomas Cromwell was born the son of a blacksmith and cloth merchant, and owner of both a hostelry and a brewery. As a youth, he left his family and crossed the Channel to the continent and became a mercenary and marched with the French army to Italy. While in Italy, he entered service in the household of the Florentine banker. Later, he visited leading mercantile centers in the Low Countries, living among the English merchants and developing a network of contacts while learning several languages. At some point he returned to Italy. Cromwell returned to England, where in 1515 he married and had 3 children. Cromwell's wife died early in 1529 along with his 2 daughters.
In 1517, and again in 1518, Cromwell led an embassy to Rome to obtain from Pope Leo X a papal bull for the reinstatement of Indulgences. By 1520, Cromwell was firmly established in London mercantile and legal circles. In 1523, he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. After Parliament had been dissolved, Cromwell wrote a letter to a friend, jesting about the session's lack of productivity. From 1516 to 1530, Cromwell was a member of the household of Lord Chancellor Thomas Cardinal Wolsey. He was one of Wolsey's council by 1519, and his secretary by 1529. In the mid-1520s, Cromwell assisted in the dissolution of nearly 30 monasteries to raise funds for a school and a collage.
In 1526, Wolsey appointed Cromwell a member of his council and by 1529, Cromwell was one of Wolsey's most senior and trusted advisers. Soon after Wolsey had fallen from power. Cromwell had made enemies by aiding Wolsey to suppress the monasteries, but was determined not to fall with his master. Cromwell successfully overcame the shadow cast over his career by Wolsey's downfall. By 1529, he had secured a seat in Parliament and was reported to be in favor with the King and he was appointed to the Privy Council.
From 1527, Henry VIII had sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon annulled, so that he could lawfully marry Anne Boleyn. At the center of the campaign to secure the annulment was the emerging doctrine of royal supremacy over the church. By the autumn of 1531, Cromwell had taken control of the supervision of the king's legal and parliamentary affairs.
Cromwell favored the assertion of royal supremacy, and manipulated the Commons by resurrecting anti-clerical grievances. In 1532, the Commons delivered a supplication to the king, denouncing clerical abuses and the power of the ecclesiastical courts, and describing Henry as "the only head, sovereign lord, protector and defender" of the Church.
The king's gratitude to Cromwell was expressed in a grant of a lordship and appointment to 3 offices. The appointments were an indication of royal favor, and gave Cromwell a position in 3 major institutions of government: the royal household, the Judicial court and the treasury.
The King authorized Cromwell to discredit the papacy and the Pope was attacked throughout the nation in sermons and pamphlets. In 1534 a new Parliament was summoned, again under Cromwell's supervision, to enact the legislation necessary to make a formal break of England's remaining ties with Rome.
In April 1534, Henry confirmed Cromwell as his principal secretary and chief minister, a position which he had held for some time in all but name. Cromwell immediately took steps to enforce the legislation just passed by Parliament. Before the members of both houses returned home they were required to swear an oath accepting the Act of Succession, and all the King's subjects were now required to swear to the legitimacy of the marriage and, by implication, to accept the King's new powers and the break from Rome.
Cromwell brought in the most significant revision of the treason laws since 1352, making it treasonous to speak rebellious words against the Royal Family, to deny their titles, or to call the King a heretic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper. The Act of Supremacy also clarified the King's position as head of the church. Cromwell conducted a census in 1535 to enable the government to tax church property more effectively. Anne Boleyn, formerly one of Cromwell's strongest allies wanted the proceeds of the dissolution of monasteries to be used for educational and charitable purposes, not paid into the King's coffers.
Anne, who had many enemies at court, had never been popular with the people and had so far failed to produce a male heir. The King was growing impatient, having become enamored of the young Jane Seymour and encouraged by Anne's enemies particularly the Seymours. Anne was accused of adultery with a musician of the royal household, the King's groom and one of his closest friends among others. Cromwell claimed that he was acting with the King's authority to engineer her fall and execution. Cromwell's position was now stronger than ever and he was raised to the peerage as a Baron.
Cromwell orchestrated the dissolution of the monasteries and visitations to the universities and colleges in 1535, which had strong links to the church. This resulted in the dispersal and destruction of many books deemed 'popish' and 'superstitious'. This was the greatest single disaster in English literary history. Oxford University was left without a library collection until 1602.
In 1536, the first attempt was made to clarify religious doctrine after the break with Rome. There were widespread popular and clerical uprisings which found support among the gentry and even the nobility. The rebels' grievances were wide-ranging, but the most significant was the suppression of the monasteries, blamed on the King's "evil counselors", principally Cromwell.
The suppression of the risings spurred further Reformation measures. However, Cromwell's success in Church politics was offset by the fact that his political influence had been weakened by the emergence of a Privy Council, a body of nobles and office-holders that first came together in opposition.
In 1538, Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what was termed "idolatry" by the followers of the old religion. Statues and images were attacked, culminating with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket.
Cromwell also declared open war on "pilgrimages, feigned relics or images, or any such superstitions" and commanding that "one book of the whole Bible in English" be set up in every church. Moreover, following the "voluntary" surrender of the remaining smaller monasteries during the previous year, the larger monasteries were now also "invited" to surrender throughout 1538, a process legitimized in the 1539 session of Parliament and completed in the following year.
The King was becoming increasingly unhappy about the extent of religious changes, and the conservative faction was gaining strength at court. Cromwell took the initiative against his enemies. He imprisoned 3 of the nobles on charges of treason in 1538 and all were executed.
In 1538, the Inquisitor-General of France forbade the printing of Miles Coverdale's Great Bible. Cromwell persuaded the King of France to release the unfinished books so that printing could continue in England. The first edition was finally available in 1539. The publication of the Great Bible was one of Cromwell's principal achievements, the first authoritative version in English. The King, however, continued to resist further Reformation measures. A Parliamentary committee was established to examine doctrine, and Six Articles passed that reaffirmed a traditional view of the Mass, the Sacraments, and the priesthood.
Queen Jane had died in 1537, less than 2 weeks after the birth of her only child, the future Edward VI. In 1539, the King finally accepted Cromwell's suggestion that he should marry Anne of Cleves, the sister of Duke Wilhelm of Cleves partly on the basis of a portrait of her. When Anne arrived a year later, the King met her and was immediately repelled by her physically. The wedding ceremony took place but the marriage was not consummated. Henry said that he found it impossible to enjoy conjugal relations with a woman whom he found so unattractive.
In 1540, Henry granted Cromwell the earldom of Essex and the senior Court office of Lord Great Chamberlain. Despite these signs of royal favor, Cromwell's tenure as the King's chief minister was almost over. The King's anger at being forced to marry Anne was the opportunity Cromwell's conservative opponents, most notably the Duke of Norfolk, needed to topple him.
During 1536 Cromwell had proven himself an adept political survivor. He skillfully managed Crown finances and extended royal authority. He strengthened royal authority in the north of England, and introduced Protestantism in Ireland, and promoted stability and gained acceptance for the royal supremacy in Wales. He also introduced important social and economic reforms in England in the 1530s, including action against enclosures, the promotion of English cloth exports and the poor relief legislation of 1536.
Enclosure was the legal process in England of consolidating (enclosing) small landholdings into larger farms. Once enclosed, use of the land became restricted to the owner, and it ceased to be common land for communal use. The term is also used for the process that ended the ancient system of arable farming in open fields. Under enclosure, such land is fenced (enclosed) and deeded or entitled to one or more owners. The process of enclosure began to be a widespread feature of the English agricultural landscape during the 16th century. By the 19th century, unenclosed commons had become largely restricted to rough pasture in mountainous areas and to relatively small parts of the lowlands.
Enclosure could be accomplished by buying the ground rights and all common rights to accomplish exclusive rights of use, which increased the value of the land. The other method was by passing laws causing or forcing enclosure sometimes accompanied by resistance, and bloodshed.
Rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit. During the Georgian era, from 1740-1837, the process of enclosure created a landless working class that provided the labor required in the new industries developing in the north of England.
Enclosure is considered one of the causes of the British Agricultural Revolution. Enclosed land was under control of the farmer who was free to adopt better farming practices. There was widespread agreement in contemporary accounts that profit making opportunities were better with enclosed land. Following enclosure, crop yields increased while at the same time labor productivity increased enough to create a surplus of labor. The increased labor supply is considered one of the causes of the Industrial Revolution.
Cromwell was gaining many enemies who wanted him toppled. Reasons were many, from his gradual slide towards Protestantism to his ill-fated suggestion for Henry to marry Anne. Henry felt cheated and betrayed by Cromwell's exaggerated claims of Anne's questionable beauty. Cromwell was condemned to death without trial, lost all his titles and property and was beheaded. the day of the King's marriage to Catherine Howard.
Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 until his death. Henry was the second Tudor monarch, succeeding his father, Henry VII.
Henry is best known for his six marriages and, in particular, his efforts to have his first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, annulled. His disagreement with the Pope on the question of such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries. Despite his resulting excommunication, Henry remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings.
Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering into England the theory of the divine right of kings. Besides asserting the sovereign's supremacy over the Church of England, he greatly expanded royal power during his reign. Charges of treason and heresy were commonly used to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial. He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Cromwell, figured prominently in Henry's administration.
Henry was an extravagant spender and used the proceeds from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament to convert into royal revenue the money that was formerly paid to Rome. Despite the influx of money from these sources, Henry was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance as well as his numerous costly continental wars, particularly with Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as he sought to enforce his claim to the Kingdom of France. At home, he oversaw the legal union of England and Wales and was first English monarch to rule as King of Ireland.
He was an attractive, educated and accomplished king described as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne. He was an author and composer. As he aged, Henry became severely obese and his health suffered, contributing to his death in 1547. Later in life, he became a lustful, egotistical, harsh, and insecure king. He was succeeded by his son Edward VI.
Born the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. At the age of 2, Henry was appointed to many posts. He was not expected to become king. The reason for all the appointments was so his father could keep personal control of lucrative positions and not share them with established families. Henry was given a first-rate education from leading tutors, becoming fluent in Latin and French, and learning at least some Italian.
When he was 10 years old, his older brother Arthur who was married to Catherine of Aragon, the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile died. Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering his 10 year old second son in marriage to Arthur's widow Catherine. Both Isabella and Henry VII were keen on the idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur's death. In1503 a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed 2 days later.
Cohabitation was not possible because Henry was too young. Isabella's death in 1504, and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile, complicated matters. Her father preferred her to stay in England, but Henry VII's relations with Ferdinand had deteriorated. Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time, culminating in Prince Henry's rejection of the marriage as soon he was able, at the age of 14. Ferdinand's solution was to make his daughter ambassador, allowing her to stay in England indefinitely. Devout, she began to believe that it was God's will that she marry the prince despite his opposition.
Henry VII died in 1509, and the 17-year-old Henry succeeded him as king. Soon after his father's burial Henry suddenly declared that he would indeed marry Catherine. The new king maintained that it had been his father's dying wish that he marry Catherine.
Two days after his coronation, Henry arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers. They were charged with high treason and were executed. Such executions became Henry's primary tactic for dealing with those who stood in his way. Henry also returned to the public some of the money supposedly extorted by the 2 ministers. By contrast, Henry's view of the House of York – potential rival claimants for the throne – was more moderate than his father's had been. Several who had been imprisoned by his father were pardoned.
Soon after, Catherine conceived, but the child, a girl, was stillborn. About 4 months later, Catherine again became pregnant and the child they called Henry was born in 1511. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were pleased to have a boy and festivities were held, however, the child died 7 weeks later. Catherine had 2 stillborn sons in 1514 and 1515, but gave birth in 1516 to a girl, Mary, later to become Queen Mary I, also known as “Bloody Mary“. Relations between Henry and Catherine had been strained, but they eased slightly after Mary's birth.
It was revealed in 1510 that Henry had been conducting an affair with one of the sisters of a Duke. Catherine did not protest, and in 1518 fell pregnant again with another girl, who was also stillborn.
In 1510, France, with a fragile alliance with the Holy Roman Empire was winning a war against Venice. Henry renewed his father's friendship with Louis XII of France, an issue that divided his council. Certainly war with the combined might of the 2 powers would have been exceedingly difficult. Shortly thereafter Henry also signed a pact with Ferdinand. After Pope Julius II created the anti-French Holy League in 1511, Henry followed Ferdinand's lead and brought England into the new League.
An initial joint Anglo-Spanish attack was planned for the spring to recover Aquitaine for England, the start of making Henry's dreams of ruling France a reality. The French were pushed out of Italy soon after, and the alliance survived, with both parties keen to win further victories over the French. Henry then pulled off a diplomatic coup by convincing the Emperor to join the Holy League. Remarkably, Henry had also secured the promised title of "Most Christian King of France" from Julius and possibly coronation by the Pope himself in Paris, if only Louis could be defeated.
In 1513, Henry invaded France, and his troops defeated a French army. He had been supporting Ferdinand and Maximilian financially during the campaign but had received little in return. England's coffers were now empty. With the replacement of Julius by Pope Leo X, who was inclined to negotiate for peace with France, Henry signed his own treaty with Louis - his sister Mary would become Louis' wife, having previously been pledged to the younger Charles, and peace was secured for 8 years.
Charles V ascended the thrones of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire following the deaths of his grandfathers. Francis I likewise became king of France upon the death of Louis in 1515 leaving three relatively young rulers and an opportunity for a clean slate.
Careful diplomacy resulted in the Treaty of London in 1518, aimed at uniting the kingdoms of western Europe in the wake of a new Ottoman threat, and it seemed that peace might be secured. Henry met Francis I in 1520 for a fortnight of lavish entertainment. Both hoped for friendly relations in place of the wars of the previous decade. The strong air of competition laid to rest any hopes of a renewal of the Treaty of London, however, and conflict was inevitable.
Henry had more in common with Charles, whom he met once before and once after Francis. Charles brought the Empire into war with France in 1521. Henry offered to mediate, but little was achieved and by the end of the year Henry had aligned England with Charles. He still clung to his previous aim of restoring English lands in France, but also sought to secure an alliance with Burgundy, then part of Charles' realm.
During his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry had an affair with Mary Boleyn, Catherine's lady-in-waiting. He became enamored of Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne, then a charismatic young woman of 25 in the Queen's entourage. Anne, however, resisted his attempts to seduce her, and refused to become his mistress as her sister Mary Boleyn had. It was in this context that Henry considered his options for finding a dynastic successor.
Seeing the possibility of marrying Anne was ultimately the most attractive possibility to the 34-year-old Henry, and it soon became the King's absorbing desire to annul his marriage to the now 40-year-old Catherine. It was a decision that would lead Henry to reject papal authority and initiate the English Reformation.
In 1532, Henry met with Francis I and enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage. Immediately upon returning, Henry and Anne went through a secret wedding service and she soon became pregnant.
Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen, becoming instead "princess dowager" as the widow of Arthur. In her place, Anne was crowned queen consort in 1533. The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely christened Elizabeth, to become Elizabeth I Queen of England and Ireland who ruled for 41 years. She was referred to as The Virgin Queen. She last monarch of the House of Tudor.
With the Act of Succession 1533, Catherine's daughter, Mary, was declared illegitimate; Henry's marriage to Anne was declared legitimate; and Anne's daughter Elizabeth was decided to be next in the line of succession. With the Acts of Supremacy in 1534, Parliament also recognized the King's status as head of the church in England and, with the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532, abolished the right of appeal to Rome. It was only then that Pope Clement took the step of excommunicating Henry.
The king and queen were not pleased with married life. The royal couple enjoyed periods of calm and affection, but Anne refused to play the submissive role expected of her. The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had made her so attractive as an illicit lover made her too independent for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it made her many enemies. For his part, Henry disliked Anne's constant irritability and violent temper. After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534, he saw her failure to give him a son as a betrayal. Henry started discussing the chances of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine.
Opposition to Henry's religious policies was quickly suppressed in England. A number of dissenting monks were executed and many more pilloried. The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse.
The most prominent resisters were convicted of high treason and executed. Some 20,000 to 40,000 rebels marched in protest. Henry VIII promised the rebels he would pardon them and thanked them for raising the issues. Henry saw the rebels as traitors and did not feel obliged to keep his promises with them, so when further violence occurred after Henry's offer of a pardon he was quick to break his promise of clemency. The leaders with 200 followers were arrested and executed for treason.
Henry convinced himself that in marrying Catherine, his brother's wife, he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20:21, an impediment Henry now believed that the Pope never had the authority to dispense with. It was this argument Henry took to Pope Clement VII in 1527 in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine annulled, forgoing at least one less openly defiant line of attack. In going public, all hope of tempting Catherine to retire to a nunnery or otherwise stay quiet were lost. The Pope did not agree.
Other missions concentrated on arranging an ecclesiastical court to meet in England, with a representative from Clement VII. Though Clement agreed to the creation of such a court, he never had any intention of empowering his legate to decide in Henry's favor.
With the chance for an annulment lost and England's place in Europe forfeit, Cardinal Wolsey bore the blame. He was charged with putting Pope ahead of King in 1529. His fall from grace was "sudden and total". A year later he was charged once more, this time for treason, but died while awaiting trial.
A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her rooms were given to Anne. Anne was an unusually educated and intellectual woman for her time, and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas of the Protestant Reformers, though the extent to which she herself was a committed Protestant is much debated. When Archbishop of Canterbury died, Anne's influence and the need to find a trustworthy supporter of the annulment had Thomas Cranmer appointed to the vacant position. This was approved by the Pope, unaware of the King's nascent plans for the Church.
In 1536 news reached the king and the queen that Catherine of Aragon had died. Henry called for public displays of joy regarding Catherine's death. The queen was pregnant again, and she was aware of the consequences if she failed to give birth to a son. Later that month, the King was unhorsed in a tournament and was badly injured and it seemed for a time that his life was in danger. When news of this accident reached the queen, she was sent into shock and miscarried a male child that was about 15 weeks old, on the day of Catherine's funeral.
For most observers, this personal loss was the beginning of the end of the royal marriage. Although the Boleyn family still held important positions on the Privy Council, Anne had many enemies. The Boleyns preferred France over the Emperor as a potential ally, but the King's favor had swung towards the latter because of Cromwell, damaging the family's influence.
A second annulment was now a real possibility and Cromwell's anti-Boleyn influence led opponents to look for a way of having her executed. Anne's downfall came shortly after she had recovered from her final miscarriage. Early signs of a fall from grace included the King's new mistress, the 28-year-old Jane Seymour, being moved into new quarters. Five men, including Anne's brother, were arrested on charges of treasonable adultery and accused of having sexual relationships with the queen. Anne was also arrested, accused of treasonous adultery and incest. The accused were found guilty and condemned to death.
The day after Anne's execution in 1536 the 45-year-old Henry became engaged to Seymour, who had been one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. They were married ten days later. A year later, Jane gave birth to a son, Prince Edward, the future Edward VI. The birth was difficult, and the queen died from an infection. The euphoria that had accompanied Edward's birth became sorrow, but it was only over time that Henry came to long for his wife. At the time, Henry recovered quickly from the shock. Measures were immediately put in place to find another wife for Henry. Meanwhile Cromwell and the court were focused on the European continent.
In 1538, the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what was termed "idolatry" by the followers of the old religion, culminating with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. As a consequence, the king was excommunicated by Pope Paul III. Henry sanctioned the complete destruction of shrines to saints.
The 1539 alliance between Francis the King of France and Charles the king of Spain and Holy Emperor had soured, eventually degenerating into renewed war. With Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn dead, relations between Charles and Henry improved considerably, and Henry concluded a secret alliance with the Emperor and decided to enter the Italian War in favor of his new ally.
When Charles and Francis made peace in 1539, Henry became increasingly paranoid, perhaps as a result of receiving a constant list of threats to the kingdom supplied by Cromwell in his role as spymaster. Enriched by the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry used some of his financial reserves to build a series of coastal defenses and set some aside for use in the event of a Franco-German invasion.
Having considered the matter, Cromwell suggested Anne, the 25-year-old sister of the Duke of Cleves, who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England, for the duke fell between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Hans Holbein was dispatched to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne for the king.
Despite speculation that Holbein painted her in an overly flattering light, it is more likely that the portrait was accurate as Holbein remained in favor at court. After seeing Holbein's portrait, and urged on by the complimentary description of Anne given by his courtiers, the 49-year-old king agreed to wed Anne.
However, it was not long before Henry wished to annul the marriage so he could marry another. Anne did not argue, and confirmed that the marriage had never been consummated. The marriage was subsequently dissolved, and Anne received the title of "The King's Sister", 2 houses and a generous allowance. It was soon clear that Henry had fallen for the 17-year-old Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece, the politics of which worried Cromwell, for Norfolk was a political opponent.
Shortly after, the religious reformers were burned as heretics, Cromwell fell out of favor and was now surrounded by enemies at court. Cromwell was charged with treason, selling export licenses, granting passports, and drawing up commissions without permission, and blamed for the failure of the foreign policy that accompanied the attempted marriage to Anne. He subsequently lost not only his property and hereditary titles, but also the right to pass them on to his heirs. Then he was beheaded.
On the same day Cromwell was executed, Henry married the young Catherine Howard, a first cousin and lady-in-waiting of Anne Boleyn. He was absolutely delighted with his new queen, and awarded her the lands of Cromwell and a vast array of jewelry. Soon after the marriage, however, Queen Catherine had an affair with the courtier Culpeper. She also employed Dereham, who had previously been informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage, as her secretary. The court was informed of her affair with Dereham whilst Henry was away. Culpeper and Dereham were both executed, and Catherine too was beheaded in 1542. England's remaining monasteries were all dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown. Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and bishops remained.
Henry married his last wife, the wealthy widow Catherine Parr, in 1543. A reformer at heart, she argued with Henry over religion. Ultimately, Henry remained committed to an idiosyncratic mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism. The reactionary mood which had gained ground following the fall of Cromwell had neither eliminated his Protestant streak nor been overcome by it.
An invasion of France was planned and in preparation for it, Henry moved to eliminate the potential threat of Scotland under the youthful James V. Despite several peace treaties, unrest continued in Scotland until Henry's death. Despite the early success with Scotland, Henry hesitated to invade France, annoying Charles.
Henry finally went to France in 1544 with a two-pronged attack. However, Henry had refused Charles' request to march against Paris. Charles' own campaign fizzled, and he made peace with France that same day. Henry was left alone against France, unable to make peace. Francis attempted to invade England a year later, but reached only the Isle of Wight before being repulsed. Out of money, France and England signed a treaty to give up land for money.
Late in life, Henry became so obese that he had to be moved about with the help of mechanical inventions. He was covered with painful, pus-filled boils and suffered from swollen joints. His obesity and other medical problems can be traced from the jousting accident in 1536, in which he suffered a leg wound. The accident re-opened and aggravated a previous injury he had sustained years earlier, to the extent that his doctors found it difficult to treat. The wound festered for the remainder of his life and became ulcerated, thus preventing him from maintaining the level of physical activity he had previously enjoyed. The jousting accident also caused Henry's mood swings, which had a dramatic effect on his personality and temperament including his multiple marriages.
Henry's obesity hastened his death at the age of 55.
Upon Henry's death, he was succeeded by his son Edward VI. Since Edward was then only 9 years old, he could not rule directly. Instead, Henry's will designated 16 executors to serve on a council of regency until Edward reached the age of 18. If Edward died childless, the throne was to pass to Mary, Henry VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, and her heirs. If Mary's issue failed, the crown was to go to Elizabeth, Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, and her heirs. Finally, if Elizabeth's line became extinct, the crown was to be inherited by the descendants of Henry VIII's deceased younger sister, Mary, the Greys.
Edward VI (1537-1553) was King of England and Ireland 6 years from 1547 until his death. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and England's first monarch to be raised as a Protestant. During his reign, the realm was governed by a Regency Council because he never reached legal age. Edward's reign was marked by economic problems and social unrest that in 1549 erupted into riot and rebellion. It was during Edward's reign that Protestantism was established for the first time in England with reforms that included the abolition of clerical celibacy and the Mass and the imposition of compulsory services in English.
At age 15, Edward fell ill. When his sickness was discovered to be terminal, he and his Council drew up a "Devise for the Succession", to prevent the country's return to Catholicism. Edward named his first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, as his heir, excluding his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. This decision was disputed following Edward's death, and Jane was deposed by Mary 9 days after becoming queen. During her reign, Mary reversed Edward's Protestant reforms.
Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake. After Mary's death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, at the beginning of the 45-year Elizabethan Era.
Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was Queen of England and Ireland 5 years until her death. She was refereed to as The Virgin Queen, Good Queen Bess. She was the last monarch of the House of Tudor going to the Scottish House of Stuart.
Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two-and-a-half years after Elizabeth's birth. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Jane Grey and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, in spite of statute law to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.
In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor and which evolved into the Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became celebrated for her virginity.
In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After the pope declared her illegitimate in 1570 and released her subjects from obedience to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers' secret service. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, maneuvering between the major powers of France and Spain. By the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. England's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history.
Elizabeth was a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor in an era when government was ramshackle and limited, and when monarchs in neighboring countries faced internal problems that jeopardized their thrones. Such was the case with Elizabeth's rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she imprisoned in 1568 and had executed in 1587. After the short reigns of Elizabeth's half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity.
Mary I was the most hated Queen in British history. During her 5 year reign, she threw all of England into chaos. Mary beheaded traitors, burnt protestants and had pregnant women burned to death in the name of her religious fanaticism. The entire nation lived in fear. There were burnings every week and thousands fled into hiding and the streets of England lingered with the putrid smell of burning flesh. She created such terror that she became to be known as “Bloody Mary".
She was the only child of Henry VIII by his first of 8 wives, Catherine of Aragon, to survive to adulthood. Henry desperately wanted a son and when Catherine could not provide him one he blamed it on God not honoring his marriage because it was not legitimate in God's eyes, so he could remarry and hopefully have a son. This made Mary's claims to the throne also illegitimate which Mary ruthlessly fought. When the Pope refused to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine, Henry officially broke England away from the Catholic Church. Mary and her mother became fervent Catholics.
Her younger half-brother Edward VI succeeded their father in 1547 under the protection of protestant advisers. When Edward became mortally ill 6 years into his reign, there was an attempt to have Mary removed from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death, their first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, was proclaimed queen. 9 days later Mary assembled a force and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Hapsburg Spain on his accession in 1556. Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after her half-brother's short-lived Protestant reign. During her 5 year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake.
Mary was a precocious child well advanced beyond her age. When scarcely four and a half years old, she entertained a visiting French delegation with a performance on her harpsichord. A great part of her early education came from her mother, who commissioned a treatise on the education of girls. By the age of 9, Mary could read and write Latin. She studied French, Spanish, music, dance, and Greek. Henry VIII doted on his daughter. Mary had, like both her parents, a very fair complexion, pale blue eyes and red or reddish-golden hair. She was also ruddy cheeked, a trait she inherited from her father.
Despite his affection for Mary, Henry was deeply disappointed that his marriage had produced no sons. By the time Mary was 9 years old, it was apparent that Henry and Catherine would have no more children, leaving Henry without a legitimate male heir. He sent 9 year old Mary to preside, in name only, over the Council of Wales. She lived in the Welsh Marches, making regular visits to her father's court, before returning permanently to London in 1528, when she was 22 years old. Throughout her childhood, Henry negotiated potential future marriages for her. By this time she was developing into a pretty, well-proportioned young lady with a fine complexion.
Meanwhile, the marriage of Mary's parents was in jeopardy. Disappointed at the lack of a male heir, and eager to remarry, Henry attempted to have his marriage to Catherine annulled, but Pope Clement VII refused his request. Henry claimed, citing biblical passages that his marriage to Catherine was unclean because she was the widow of his brother. Catherine claimed that her marriage to his brother was never consummated and so was not a valid marriage. Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief minister was able to arrange the annulment.
Mary was often sick with irregular menstruation and depression. She was not permitted to see her mother, who had been sent to live away from court by Henry. When Mary was 18, Henry married Anne Boleyn his second wife who produced a daughter, Elizabeth and took Mary`s place in the succession line. When the Pope refused to annul the marriage, Henry broke with the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England.
Mary determinedly refused to acknowledge that Anne was the queen or that Elizabeth was a princess, further enraging his father. Under strain and with her movements restricted, Mary was frequently ill, which the royal physician attributed to her "ill treatment". The relationship between Mary and her father worsened and they did not speak to each other Mary was refused permission to visit her dying mother.
Anne Boleyn fell from the king's favor and was beheaded. Elizabeth, like Mary was removed from the line of succession. Within 2 weeks of Anne's execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, his third wife who urged him to make peace with Mary. Henry insisted that Mary recognize him as head of the Church of England, repudiate papal authority, acknowledge that the marriage between her parents was unlawful, and accept her own illegitimacy. She was eventually bullied into signing a document agreeing to all of Henry's demands. The following year Jane died after giving birth to a son, Edward. Cromwell fell from favor and was arrested for treason. One of the unlikely charges against him was that he had plotted to marry Mary himself and Cromwell was beheaded. Henry VIII died in 1547 and 6 year old Edward succeeded him.
For most of Edward's reign, Mary remained on her own estates and rarely attended court. A plan to smuggle her out of England to the safety of the European mainland came to nothing. Religious differences between Mary and Edward continued. When Mary was in her thirties, she attended a reunion with Edward and Elizabeth for Christmas, where 13-year-old Edward embarrassed Mary by publicly reproving her for ignoring his laws regarding worship. Mary repeatedly refused Edward's continuing and never ending demands that she abandon Catholicism.
Edward VI died from a lung infection when he was 15 years old. He did not want the crown to go to Mary, because he feared she would restore Catholicism and undo his reforms as well as those of his father's and so he exclude her from the line of succession in his will. When his advisers told him that he could not disinherit only one of his sisters- he would have to disinherit Elizabeth as well, even though she was a Protestant. Edward excluded both of his sisters from the line of succession in his will. Edward named the protestant Lady Jane, the granddaughter of his aunt his successor. 9 days after Lady Jane was proclaimed queen, Mary and her supporters assembled a military force and deposed her and locked her up in the Tower of London. Mary rode triumphantly into London on a wave of popular support. She was accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen.
In 1553, at the age of 37, she was crowned queen of England. She was determined to restore the Catholic allegiance and to punish those who have made the last 25 years a misery. She cemented her ties to the catholic Europe in a marriage of alliance with Prince Philip of Spain, the son of her cousin King of Spain, Charles V.
In the month following her accession, Mary issued a proclamation that she would not compel any of her subjects to follow her religion, but within months, leading Protestant churchmen were imprisoned. Mary's first parliament, church doctrine was restored to the form it had been before and re-affirmed clerical celibacy returning the English church to Roman jurisdiction.
Reaching an agreement took many months and Mary and Pope Julius III had to make a major concession. The monastery lands confiscated were not returned to the church but remained in the hands of their influential new owners. The pope approved the deal. Mary's plan to cleanse England of the protestant curse turned into a frenzy of killings. Hundreds were burned to death. The Heresy Acts were revived and numerous Protestants were persecuted exiled and executed.
The imprisoned archbishop of Canterbury was forced to watch his Bishops burn at the stake and forced to recanted and repudiated Protestant theology, and rejoin the Catholic faith, just to end up being burned at the stake. In total, 283 were executed, most by burning. Mary was supported by the Spanish crown who were burning common protestants at the stake for rejecting Catholicism.
In Mary's England, the common protestant heretics were nobles of powerful families. She became to be feared and hated. She was despised for marrying Philip of Spain and giving England a foreign King 11 years younger than she was. The nation eventually united against her. After 5 years of tyranny, Bloody Mary had become a hated monarch.
In 1556, Philip's father abdicated and Philip was declared King of Spain. Philip persuaded Mary to support Spain in a renewed war against France. Mary was in favor of declaring war, but her councilors opposed it because French trade would be jeopardized. A series of poor harvests meant England lacked supplies and finances. War was only declared in 1557 after a failed attempt with French help to depose Mary. As a result of the war, relations between England and the Papacy became strained, since Pope Paul IV was allied with France. One year late, French forces took Calais, England's sole remaining possession on the European mainland.
The years of Mary's reign were consistently wet. The persistent rain and subsequent flooding led to famine and a steep decline of the cloth trade. Despite Mary's marriage to Philip, England did not benefit from Spain's enormously lucrative trade with the New World. In an attempt to increase trade and rescue the English economy, Mary's counselors continued seeking out new commercial opportunities. Adventurers sailed south in an attempt to develop links with the coast of Africa.
Financially, Mary's regime tried to reconcile a modern form of government with high spending with a medieval system of collecting taxation and dues. Mary's government published a revised "Book of Rates" which listed the tariffs and duties for every import. English coinage was debased under both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Mary drafted plans for currency reform.
In 1557, Mary thought she was pregnant again. She decreed in her will that her husband would be the regent during the minority of their first born child. However, no child was born, and Mary was forced to accept that Elizabeth was her lawful successor. Mary was weak and ill and she died a year later at the age of 42 during an influenza epidemic without producing an heir. She was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth who was a protestant.
Although Mary's rule was ultimately ineffectual and unpopular, the policies of fiscal reform, naval expansion, and colonial exploration that were later lauded as Elizabethan accomplishments were started in Mary's reign. She was a king's daughter; she was a king's sister; she was a king's wife. She was a queen, and by the same titles a king also. She was the first woman to succeed in claiming the throne of England, despite competing claims and determined opposition, and enjoyed popular support and sympathy during the earliest parts of her reign, especially from the Roman Catholics of England.
Her marriage to Philip was unpopular among her subjects and her religious policies resulted in deep-seated resentment. The military losses in France, poor weather, and failed harvests increased public discontent. Philip spent most of his time abroad, while his wife remained in England, leaving her depressed at his absence and undermined by their inability to have children. After Mary's death, Philip sought to marry Elizabeth but she refused him. Thirty years later, he sent the Spanish Armada to overthrow her, without success.
One of Elizabeth's first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor and which eventually evolved into the Church of England. It was expected that she would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity.
Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era. The period is famous for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Francis Drake.
Ivan I commonly known as Ivan the Terrible was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, then the fist "Tsar of All Russia" for 39 years until his death. The last title was used by all his successors. He waged a 40 year war on his own country. He devised cruel and sadistic punishments in his personal torture chamber. He watched prisoners flayed, boiled and even fried. Ivan destroyed villages, towns and an entire city.
Russia emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 200AD and 700AD. Founded and ruled by a Viking warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988AD it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states. Most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire - the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the east.
During his reign, Russia conquered many nearby lands becoming a multi-ethnic and multi-continental vast spanning state. Ivan exercised autocratic control over Russia's hereditary nobility and developed a bureaucracy to administer his new territories. He transformed Russia from a medieval state into an empire, though at immense cost to its people, and its broader, long-term economy.
He was intelligent and devout, yet given to rages and prone to episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased with his age. In one such outburst, he killed his older son and heir. This left his the pious but politically ineffectual younger son, to inherit the throne.
Ivan was an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, and founder of Moscow`s first publishing house. He was popular among Russia's commoners, except possibly the people of Novgorod and surrounding areas which he ended up massacring. He was also noted for his paranoia and harsh treatment of the Russian nobility.
Ivan was the first son of of a half Serbian and half Tatar descent claiming descent from a Mongol ruler. When Ivan was 3 years old, his father died from an abscess and inflammation on his leg that developed into blood poisoning. Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at the request of his father. His mother initially acted as regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison, in 1538 when Ivan was only 8 years old. The regency then alternated between several feuding families fighting for control. Ivan, along with his younger brother often felt neglected and offended by many of the mighty families.
Ivan developed sadistic interests at an early age. He was fascinated by torture, throwing dogs and cats from the roof and taking feathers off live birds for fun. At the age of 13, leading Nobel families were invited to a Christmas banquet he demanded the execution of one of the leading guests. He lashed out at his enemies destroying them. He wanted to have absolute power based on terror. By the age of 16, Ivan was brutalized, paranoid and embittered, but exhilarated by his newly discovered power. Throughout his life Ivan suffered a progressive bone disease and as his spine shrank, he was in constant agony. Seeking relief, he turned to mercury which made him violent and unpredictable. In 1547, at age 16, Ivan was crowned. He was the first to be crowned as "Tsar of All the Russias". Two weeks after his coronation, Ivan married his first wife, a member of the Romanov family.
By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia: he was now the one and only supreme ruler of the country, and his will was not to be questioned. The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent and parallel to those held by former Byzantine Emperor and the Tatar Khan, both known in Russian sources as Tsar. The political effect was to elevate Ivan's position. The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a new dimension of power, one intimately tied to religion. He was now a "divine" leader appointed to enact God's will.
Despite calamities triggered by the Great Fire of 1547, the early part of Ivan's reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code and founded a standing army, established the first Russian parliament and the council of the nobles and confirmed the position of the Church. He introduced local self-government to rural regions, mainly in the northeast of Russia, populated by the peasantry.
In 1547, Ivan recruited craftsmen in Germany for work in Russia, but all were arrested as they were crossing Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by Ivan on the River Narva in 1550 and continued to deliver goods in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.
In 1552 Ivan led a 150,000-strong Russian army towards the Muslim city of Kazan. The Russians used battering rams and a siege tower, undermining and 150 cannon. The Russians also had the advantage of efficient military engineers. The city's water supply was blocked and the walls were breached. Kazan finally fell and its fortifications were razed, and much of the population massacred. 100,000 Russian prisoners and slaves were released. The Tsar celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features. The fall of Kazan had as its primary effect the outright annexation of the Middle Volga.
By Ivan's order in 1553 the first printing press was introduced to Russia where several religious books in Russian were printed. The new technology provoked discontent among traditional scribes, leading to the Print Yard being burned in an arson attack. The first Russian printers were forced to flee from Moscow to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nevertheless, printing of books resumed from 1568 onward. Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom.
In 1556 Ivan destroyed the largest slave market on the Volga, and had a new fortress built on a steep hill overlooking the river. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe through Volga. As a result of the Kazan campaigns, Muscovy was transformed into the multinational and multi-faith state of Russia.
The Volga river, starting around Moscow, drains the central Russia basin. It , empties into the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world that is actually an inland Sea without any outflow, except for evaporation.
In 1558 Ivan launched the Livonian War in an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes. The war ultimately proved unsuccessful, stretching on for 24 years and engaging the Kingdom of Sweden, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Teutonic Knights of Livonia. The prolonged war had nearly destroyed the economy. With the Ottoman threat, Ivan's realm was being squeezed by 2 of the great powers of the time.
The 1560s brought hardships to Russia that led to dramatic change of Ivan's policies. Russia was devastated by a combination of drought and famine, unsuccessful wars against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Tatar invasions and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes and Poles.
When his first wife died in 1560, he suspected that she was poisoned, like his own mother was. He started a rage of killings of noble families and made the relative watch. He married 7 more times, but never again found peace.
This personal tragedy deeply hurt Ivan and is thought to have affected his personality, if not his mental health. To rub acid in the wound, one of Ivan's advisers defected to the Lithuanians, took command of the Lithuanian troops and devastated a Russian region at the same time. The series of treason made Ivan paranoically suspicious of nobility. The nobility was divided unsure whether to support Ivan and share in his glory, or to oppose him and risk their live, or live to swallow it all in silence.
In 1564, Ivan sent 2 letters in which he announced his abdication because of the alleged embezzlement and treason of the aristocracy and clergy. He was begged to return to the throne and he agreed on condition of being granted absolute power. He demanded that he should be able to execute and confiscate the estates of traitors without interference from the council or church. Ivan created his own unique terror force dressed in black to police a territory which was a rich part within the borders of northern Russia. He held exclusive power. Ivan and his handpicked police known and feared for their cruelty plundered and raped at will. He selected 300 of the best and installed them in his palace. He believed that he upheld the wishes of God and his palace transformed into a monastery, his men into monks and himself as their abbot. In his personal torture chamber in the cellar, Ivan reconstructed hell.
The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of Russia, notably the influential families. Ivan executed, or exiled prominent members. There was a purge of nobility. Of the 12,000 nobles there, 570 were allowed to stay and the rest were expelled.
Under the new political system, the nobles who were allowed to stay were given large estates, but unlike the previous landlords, could not be held accountable for their actions. These men took virtually all that the peasants possessed. They forced them to pay 'in one year as much as they used to pay in ten. This degree of oppression resulted in increasing cases of peasants fleeing, which in turn led to a drop in the overall production. The price of grain increased by a factor of ten.
Conditions were worsened by the 1570 epidemics of plague that killed 10,000 people. In Moscow it killed 600-1,000 daily. During the grim conditions of the epidemics, famine and ongoing wars, Ivan grew suspicious that noblemen of the wealthy city of Novgorod were planning to defect. He placed the city itself into the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then burned and pillaged Novgorod and the surrounding villages. The massacre lasted for 5 weeks with over 60,000 casualties. Men, women and children were tied to sleighs, which were then run into the freezing waters. Almost every day 500 or 600 people were killed or drowned.
Ivan established close ties with the Kingdom of England. With the use of English merchants, Ivan engaged in a long correspondence with Elizabeth I of England. While the queen focused on commerce, Ivan was more interested in a military alliance. During his troubled relations with the ruling families, the Tsar even asked her for a guarantee to be granted asylum in England should his rule be jeopardized. Elizabeth agreed on condition that he provided for himself during his stay.
1568 saw the first encounter between the Ottoman Empire and her future northern rival. A plan to unite the Volga which emptied into the North Sea, and the Don, which emptied into the Black Sea, by a canal was detailed in Constantinople. A large force of about 5,000 were sent to begin the canal works. In 1570, Ivan concluded a treaty at Constantinople that restored friendly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar. The displaced refugees fleeing the war compounded the effects of the simultaneous drought, and epidemics, causing much loss of life.
In the later years of Ivan's reign, the southern borders of Muscovy were disturbed by Crimean Tatars. Their main purpose was the capture of slaves. Crimea repeatedly raided the Moscow region. In 1571, the 40,000 strong Crimean and Turkish army launched a large-scale raid. Due to the ongoing Livonian War, Moscow's garrison was as small as 6,000, and could not even delay the Tatar approach. Unresisted, the enemy devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow and caused the 1572, Fire of Moscow with as many as 80,000 casualties. This defeat angered Ivan. Between 1571 and 1572, preparations were made upon his orders. In addition, innovative fortifications were set that defined the border. The following year, another raid on Moscow was launched with a 120,000 strong horde, equipped with cannons and reinforced by Turks.
In 1572, the horde destroyed the Russian vanguard of 200 noblemen and advanced towards Moscow. The Russian army was half the size, estimated at between 60,000-70,000 men; yet it was an experienced and equipped with modern firearms. The armies clashed for more than a week. The outcome was a decisive Russian victory. The Crimean horde was defeated so thoroughly that both the Ottoman Sultan and the Crimean khan, his vassal, had to give up their ambitious plans of northward expansion into Russia.
During Ivan's reign, Russia started a large-scale exploration and colonization of Siberia. In 1580 the conquest of Siberia started. 540 Cossacks started to penetrate and persuaded the various family-based tribes to change their loyalties and become tributaries of Russia. The campaign was successful, and the Cossacks managed to defeat the Siberian army. Ivan's empire expanded to the east and allowed him to style himself "Tsar of Siberia" in his last years.
Ivan was tall, stout and full of energy. His eyes were big, observing and restless and he had a long and crooked nose. His beard was reddish-black, long and thick, but most other hairs on his head were shaved off according to the Russian habits of the time. He had a broad shoulders and narrow waist.
Ivan was a devoted follower of Christian Orthodoxy and placed the most emphasis on defending the divine right of the ruler to unlimited power under God, which explains his the sadistic and brutal deeds. This includes burning or drowning the victims or roasting alive people, or torturing with boiling or freezing water, which corresponds to torments of Hell, consistent with Ivan's view of being God's representative on Earth with a sacred right and duty to punish. Ivan often disposed his rape victims by having them hanged, strangled, buried alive or thrown to the bears.
Ivan completely altered Russia's governmental structure, establishing the character of modern Russian political organization. Ivan's expedition against Poland failed at a military level, but it helped extend Russia's trade, political and cultural links with Europe. Peter the Great built on these connections in his bid to make Russia a major European power. At Ivan's death, the empire encompassed the Caspian to the southwest, and Siberia to the east. Southwards, his conquests ignited several conflicts with expansionist Turkey, whose territories were thus confined to the Balkans and the Black Sea regions.
Ivan's management of Russia's economy proved disastrous, both in his lifetime and after. He had inherited a government in debt, and in an effort to raise more revenue for his expansionist wars, he instituted a series of increasingly unpopular and burdensome taxes. Successive wars drained Russia of manpower and resources, bringing it to the brink of ruin leading to the time known as "Time of Troubles".
Ivan died when he was 54 years old from a stroke while playing chess. Upon Ivan's death, the Russian throne was left to his unfit and childless middle son Feodor who died childless in 1598, ushering in the Time of Troubles.
The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of an ancient ruling in 1598, and in combination with the famine of 1601-03 led to civil war. The Romanov Dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.
Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks were warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World. In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Cossacks in rebellion against Poland-Lithuania, in reaction to the social and religious oppression they had been suffering under Polish rule. In 1654, the Ukrainian leader, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar. Acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War. Finally, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper River, leaving the western part, right-bank Ukraine, under Polish rule and the eastern part and Kiev under Russian rule.
In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonization of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward and by the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648, the Bering Strait between Asia and North America was passed for the first time.
A little over a 100 years after Ivan died, under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power. Peter the Great expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized, and based on The Enlightenment.
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader. He served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 until his death, acting simultaneously as head of state and head of government of the new republic.
Cromwell was born into the middle gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell. He became an Independent Puritan after undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, taking a generally tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period. He was an intensely religious man, a self-styled Puritan and he fervently believed that God was guiding his victories. He was elected Member of Parliament in 1628 and and served till 1649.
He entered the English Civil War on the side of the Parliamentarians. He demonstrated his ability as a commander and was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to being one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces.
Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England as a member of the Parliament (1649–1653). He was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649–1650. Cromwell's forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. During this period, a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics who were a significant minority in England and Scotland but the vast majority in Ireland, and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651.
In 1653, he dismissed the Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly before being invited by his fellow leaders to rule as Lord Protector of England which included Wales at the time, Scotland and Ireland. As a ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. He died from natural causes when he was 59 years old. The Royalists returned to power in 1660, and they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded.
Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles, considered a regicidal dictator by some, a military dictator by some and a hero of liberty and a class revolutionary by others. His tolerance of Protestant sects did not extend to Catholics: his measures against them in Ireland have been characterized as genocidal and in Ireland his record is harshly criticized.
Cromwell was born to a privileged family. The family's estate was from Oliver's great-grandfather, a Welshman brewer who settled in London and married Katherine Cromwell born 1482 the sister of Thomas Cromwell, the famous chief minister to Henry VIII. The Cromwell family acquired considerable wealth by taking over monastery property during the Reformation. Oliver's father Robert Cromwell married Elizabeth Steward and they had 10 children.
Cromwell's paternal grandfather was one of the 2 wealthiest landowners but Cromwell's father Robert was of modest means but still a part of the gentry class.
Oliver went on to study at a college with a strong Puritan ethos. He left in 1617 without taking a degree, immediately after the death of his father when he returned home as his mother was widowed, and his 7 sisters unmarried and he was needed at home to help his family.
When he was 21 years old, he married the daughter of an influential leather merchant who had strong connections with Puritan gentry families. The marriage brought Cromwell into contact with leading members of the London merchant community. A place in this influential network proved crucial to Cromwell’s military and political career. The couple had 9 children.
Cromwell went through a period of personal crisis during the late 1620s and early 1630s. In 1628 he was elected to Parliament. Later that year, he sought treatment for a variety of physical and emotional ailments, including depression. In 1629 he was caught up in a dispute among the gentry over a new charter for the town, as a result of which he was called before the Privy Council in 1630.
In 1631 Cromwell sold most of his properties as a result of the dispute and moved to a farmstead. This signified a major step down in society compared with his previous position, and seems to have had a significant emotional and spiritual impact. Cromwell started to believe that he was called to be among “the congregation of the firstborn". He claimed to have been saved from sin by God's mercy. He believed that the Reformation had not gone far enough, that much of England was still living in sin, and that Catholic beliefs and practices needed to be fully removed from the church.
Along with his brother, Cromwell had kept a smallholding of chickens and sheep, selling eggs and wool to support himself. His lifestyle resembled that of a farmer. In 1636 Cromwell inherited control of various properties from his uncle on his mother's side, and his uncle's job as tithe collector for the Cathedral. As a result, his income rose till it returned to the ranks of acknowledged gentry. He had become a committed Puritan and had established important family links to leading families.
Cromwell became the Member of Parliament from 1628–1629. After dissolving this Parliament, Charles I ruled without a Parliament for the next 11 years. When Charles faced the Scottish rebellion, shortage of funds forced him to call a Parliament again in 1640. Cromwell was returned to this Parliament, but it lasted for only 3 weeks. Cromwell moved his family to London in 1640.
A second Parliament was called later the same year. Cromwell was again returned as member. As with the Parliament of 1628–29, it is likely that Cromwell owed his position to the patronage of others that had formed a group with an agenda of reformation. Cromwell took on a role in some of this group's political manoeuvres and promoting laws to outlaw the hierarchy of the governance of the Catholic church.
Failure to resolve the issues in the Parliament in 1642 led to armed conflict between Parliament and Charles I, and led to the English Civil War (1642-1651), a series of armed conflicts and political plotting between Parliamentarians and Royalists over, principally, the manner of England's government.
The overall outcome of the war was threefold:
- the execution of Charles I in 1649,
- the exile of his son, and
- the replacement of English monarchy with the Protectorate under the personal rule of Cromwell and subsequently his son Richard.
The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although the idea of Parliament as the ruling power of England was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was the overthrow of King James II of England with the Dutch William III, Prince of Orange, who was James's nephew and son-in-law. William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascension to the throne as William III of England jointly with his wife, Mary II, James's daughter. This led to the Bill of Rights 1689.
King James's policies of religious matters met with increasing opposition from members of leading political circles, who were troubled by the King's Catholicism and his close ties with France. The crisis facing the King came to a head in 1688, with the birth of his son, James which changed the existing line of succession by displacing the heir presumptive -his 26-year-old daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange, with young James as heir apparent. This made the establishment of a Roman Catholic dynasty in the kingdoms now seemed likely.
This led opposing parliamentarians to secretly initiate dialogue with William of Orange to come to England. William also feared a Catholic Anglo–French alliance and had already been planning a military intervention in England. William crossed the North Sea and English Channel with a large invasion fleet in 1688, and James's regime collapsed.
The Revolution permanently ended any chance of Catholicism becoming re-established in England. For British Catholics its effects were disastrous both socially and politically. Catholics were denied the right to vote and sit in the Westminster Parliament for over a century. They were also denied commissions in the army, and the monarch was forbidden to be Catholic or to marry a Catholic, this latter prohibition remaining in force until 2015.
The Bill of Rights was presented by the Parliament to William III and Mary II in 1689, inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. The Bill of Rights lays down limits on the powers of the monarch and sets out the rights of Parliament, including the requirement for regular parliaments, free elections, and freedom of speech in Parliament. It sets out certain rights of individuals including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and reestablished the right of Protestants to have arms for their defense within the rule of law. These ideas reflected those of the political thinker John Locke and they quickly became popular in England.
Before joining Parliament's forces Cromwell's only military experience was in the trained bands, the local county militia. By 1644, Cromwell had risen to the rank of Lieutenant General. The success of his cavalry in breaking the ranks of the Royalist cavalry and then attacking their infantry from the rear was a major factor in the Parliamentarian victory. Cromwell fought at the head of his troops in the battle and was slightly wounded in the neck, stepping away briefly to receive treatment during the battle but returning to help force the victory.
Parliament passed a decree that the army be "remodeled" on a national basis, replacing the old county associations. Cromwell contributed significantly to these military reforms. In 1645 the New Model Army finally took to the field with Cromwell as Lieutenant-General of cavalry and second-in-command.
The New Model Army smashed the King's major army ending the King's hopes of victory, and the subsequent Parliamentarian campaigns involved taking the remaining fortified Royalist positions in the west of England. Cromwell besieged and took the wealthy and formidable Catholic fortress later to be accused of killing 100 of its 300-man Royalist garrison after its surrender. Charles I surrendered to the Scots effectively ending the First of the 3 Civil wars which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651.
Cromwell had no formal training in military tactics, and followed the common practice of ranging his cavalry in 3 ranks and pressing forward, relying on impact rather than firepower. His strengths were an instinctive ability to lead and train his men, and his moral authority. In a war fought mostly by amateurs, these strengths were significant and are likely to have contributed to the discipline of his cavalry.
Cromwell introduced close-order cavalry formations, with troopers riding knee to knee; this was an innovation in England at the time, and was a major factor in his success. He kept his troops close together following skirmishes where they had gained superiority, rather than allowing them to chase opponents off the battlefield. This facilitated further engagements in short order, which allowed greater intensity and quick reaction to battle developments. This style of command was decisive in his victories.
In 1647 Cromwell suffered from an illness that kept him out of political life for over a month. By the time he had recovered, the Parliamentarians were split over the issue of the King. A majority in both Houses pushed for a settlement that would pay off the Scottish army, disband much of the New Model Army, and restore Charles I in return for a Presbyterian settlement of the Church. Cromwell rejected the Scottish model of Presbyterianism, which threatened to replace one authoritarian hierarchy with another.
The New Model Army, radicalized by the failure of the Parliament to pay the wages it was owed, petitioned against these changes, but the Commons declared the petition unlawful. In 1647 Cromwell was sent to the army's headquarters in to negotiate with them, but failed to agree.
A troop of cavalry seized the King from Parliament's imprisonment. With the King now present, Cromwell was eager to find out what conditions the King would acquiesce to if his authority was restored. The King appeared to be willing to compromise, so Cromwell employed his son-in-law to draw up proposals for a constitutional settlement. Proposals were drafted multiple times with different changes until finally one pleased Cromwell in principle and would allow for further negotiations. It was designed to check the powers of the executive, to set up regularly elected parliaments, and to restore a non-compulsory Episcopalian settlement concerning the hierarchical church governance.
Many in the army thought this was not enough and demanded full political equality for all men, leading to tense debates that ultimately broke up without reaching a resolution. The failure to conclude a political agreement with the King led eventually to the outbreak of the Second Civil War in 1648, when the King tried to regain power by force of arms. Cromwell dealt leniently with the ex-royalist soldiers, but less so with those who had previously been members of the parliamentary army, eventually being executed in London after the drawing of lots.
Cromwell then marched north to deal with a pro-Royalist Scottish army who had invaded England. Cromwell, in sole command for the first time and with an army of 9,000, won a decisive victory against an army twice as large.
During 1648, Cromwell's letters and speeches started to become heavily based on biblical imagery, many of them meditations on the meaning of particular passages. For example, after a victorious battle, he he informed the Parliament with a reference to Psalms 17 and 105:
"they that are implacable and will not leave troubling the land may be speedily destroyed out of the land".
It was Cromwell's faith, rather than a commitment to radical politics, coupled with Parliament's decision to engage in negotiations with the King that convinced him that God had spoken against both the King and Parliament as lawful authorities.
For Cromwell, the army was now God's chosen instrument. The episode shows Cromwell’s firm belief that God was actively directing the affairs of the world, through the actions of "chosen people" whom God had "provided" for such purposes. Cromwell believed, during the Civil Wars, that he was one of these people, and he interpreted victories as indications of God's approval of his actions, and defeats as signs that God was directing him in another direction.
The parliament agreed that Charles should be tried on a charge of treason. Cromwell also believed that killing Charles was the only way to end the civil wars. Cromwell approved the justification for the trial and execution of the King on the basis of the Book of Numbers, chapter 35 and particularly verse 33
"The land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it."
The death warrant for Charles was eventually signed by 59 of the trying court's members, including Cromwell. Though it was not unprecedented, execution of the King, or "regicide", was controversial, if for no other reason due to the doctrine of the divine right of kings.
After the execution of the King, a republic was declared, known as the "Commonwealth of England". The "Rump Parliament" exercised both executive and legislative powers, with a smaller Council of State also having some executive functions. Cromwell remained a member of the "Rump" and was appointed a member of the Council. In the early months after the execution of Charles I, Cromwell tried but failed to unite the original group of "Royal Independents" which had fractured.
Cromwell had been connected to this group since before the outbreak of civil war in 1642 and had been closely associated with them during the 1640s. However, only St John was persuaded to retain his seat in Parliament. The Royalists, meanwhile, had regrouped in Ireland, having signed a treaty with the Irish known as "Confederate Catholics". Cromwell was chosen by the Parliament to command a campaign against them. Preparations for an invasion of Ireland occupied Cromwell in the subsequent months.
In the latter part of the 1640s, Cromwell came across political dissidence in his "New Model Army" in the form of a political movement that emphasized popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance. Cromwell disagreed with these sentiments in that they gave too much freedom to the people. They believed that the vote should only extend to the landowners. This new line of thinking cause great debates that turned into rebellions and mutinies that led Cromwell to lead the charge in quelling these rebellions.
Cromwell's hostility to the Irish was religious as well as political. He was passionately opposed to the Catholic Church, which he saw as denying the primacy of the Bible in favor of papal and clerical authority, and which he blamed for suspected tyranny and persecution of Protestants in continental Europe. Cromwell's association of Catholicism with persecution was deepened with the Irish Rebellion of 1641. This rebellion, although intended to be bloodless, was marked by massacres of English and Scottish Protestant settlers in Ireland. These settlers had settled on land seized from former, native Catholic owners to make way for the non-native Protestants. These factors contributed to the brutality of the Cromwell military campaign in Ireland.
Parliament had planned to re-conquer Ireland since 1641 and had already sent an invasion force there in 1647. Cromwell's invasion of 1649 was much larger and, with the civil war in England over, could be regularly reinforced and re-supplied. His nine-month military campaign was brief and effective, though it did not end the war in Ireland. Before his invasion, Parliamentarian forces held only outposts in Dublin and Derry. When he departed Ireland, they occupied most of the eastern and northern parts of the country. After his landing at Dublin in 1649 Cromwell's troops killed nearly 3,500 people, comprising 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including some civilians, prisoners and Roman Catholic priests.
Cromwell wrote afterwards that:
“I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret".
Soon after, another massacre took place under confused circumstances. While Cromwell was apparently trying to negotiate surrender terms, some of his soldiers broke into the town, killed 2,000 Irish troops and up to 1,500 civilians, and burned much of the town.
One of his major victories in Ireland was diplomatic rather than military. Cromwell persuaded the Protestant Royalist troops to change sides and fight with the Parliament.
The Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland dragged on for almost 3 years after Cromwell's departure. The last Catholic-held town surrendered in 1652 and the last Irish Catholic troops surrendered the following year.
In the wake of the Commonwealth's conquest of the island of Ireland, the public practice of Roman Catholicism was banned and Catholic priests were killed when captured. All Catholic-owned land was confiscated and given to Scottish and English settlers, Parliament's financial creditors and Parliamentary soldiers. The remaining Catholic landowners were allocated poorer land.
The massacres were typical of the day, especially in the context of the recently ended Thirty Years War.
Cromwell said of the slaughter to the Council of State:
"I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think 30 of the whole number escaped with their lives. I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town following their request to surrender which was refused.”
The military protocol of the day was that a town or garrison that rejected the chance to surrender were not entitled to clemency or mercy and the sparing of life in return for unconditional surrender.
Cromwell left Ireland in 1650 and several months later invaded Scotland after the Scots had proclaimed Charles I's son Charles II as King. Cromwell was much less hostile to Scottish Presbyterians, some of whom had been his allies in the First English Civil War, than he was to Irish Catholics. He described the Scots as a people "fearing God, though deceived". He made a famous appeal to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, urging them to see the error of the royal alliance.
His appeal rejected, Cromwell's veteran troops went on to invade Scotland. At first, the campaign went badly, as Cromwell's men were short of supplies and held up at fortifications manned by Scottish troops. Sickness began to spread in the ranks. Cromwell was on the brink of evacuating his army by sea when he was able to smash the main Scottish army killing 4,000 Scottish soldiers, taking another 10,000 prisoner, and then capturing the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.
The following year, Charles II and his Scottish allies made a desperate attempt to invade England and capture London while Cromwell was engaged in Scotland. Cromwell followed them south and caught them and his forces destroyed the last major Scottish Royalist army. Charles II barely escaped capture, and subsequently fled to exile in France and the Netherlands, where he remained until 1660. Many of the Scottish prisoners of war taken in the campaigns died of disease, and others were sent as indentured laborers to the colonies.
To fight the battle, Cromwell organized an envelopment followed by a multi-pronged coordinated attack from 3 directions with 2 rivers partitioning his force. During the battle, Cromwell switched his reserves from one side of the river to the other and back again.
In the final stages of the Scottish campaign, Cromwell's men killed up to 1,000 men and 140 women and children. Cromwell's conquest, unwelcome as it was, left no significant lasting legacy of bitterness in Scotland. The rule of the Commonwealth and Protectorate was, the Highlands aside, largely peaceful. Moreover, there were no wholesale confiscations of land or property. Three out of every four Justices of the Peace in Commonwealth Scotland were Scots and the country was governed jointly by the English military authorities and a Scottish Council of State.
Cromwell conducted a deliberate programme of ethnic cleansing in Ireland. Faced with the prospect of an Irish alliance with Charles II, Cromwell carried out a series of massacres to subdue the Irish. Then adopted a deliberate policy of crop burning and starvation, which was responsible for the majority of an estimated 600,000 deaths out of a total Irish population of 1,400,000.
In 1953, after the dissolution of the Parliament, Cromwell was made Lord Protector for life to undertake “the chief magistracy and the administration of government”. It soon became the norm for others to address him as "Your Highness". As Protector, he had the power to call and dissolve parliaments but was obliged under the Instrument to seek the majority vote of a Council of State. Nevertheless, Cromwell's power was buttressed by his continuing popularity among the army.
Cromwell had two key objectives as Lord Protector. The first was "healing and settling" the nation after the chaos of the civil wars and the regicide, which meant establishing a stable form for the new government to take. Social priorities took precedence over forms of government. The social priorities did not, despite the revolutionary nature of the government, include any meaningful attempt to reform the social order. Direct taxation was reduced slightly and peace was made with the Dutch, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War.
After a royalist uprising in 1655, Cromwell divided England into military districts ruled by Army Major Generals who answered only to him. The 15 major generals and deputy major generals called "godly governors" were central not only to national security, but Cromwell's crusade to reform the nation's morals. The generals not only supervised militia forces and security commissions, but collected taxes and ensured support for the government in the English and Welsh provinces.
Commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth were appointed to work with them in every county. While a few of these commissioners were career politicians, most were zealous puritans who welcomed the major-generals with open arms and embraced their work with enthusiasm. However, the major-generals lasted less than a year. Many feared they threatened their reform efforts and authority. Their position was further harmed by a tax proposal to provide financial backing for their work, which was voted down for fear of a permanent military state. Ultimately Cromwell's failure to support his men, sacrificing them to his opponents, caused their demise. Their activities had reopened the wounds of the 1640s and deepened antipathies to the regime.
As Lord Protector, Cromwell was aware of the Jewish community's involvement in the economics of the Netherlands, now England's leading commercial rival. It was this, allied to Cromwell's tolerance of the right to private worship of those who fell outside Puritanism that led to his encouraging Jews to return to England in 1657, over 350 years after their banishment by Edward I. He did this in the hope that they would help speed up the recovery of the country after the disruption of the Civil Wars. There was a longer-term motive for Cromwell's decision to allow the Jews to return to England, and that was the hope that they would convert to Christianity and therefore hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, as prophsized in the Bible.
Cromwell was offered the crown by Parliament as part of a revised constitutional settlement, presenting him with a dilemma since he had been "instrumental" in abolishing the monarchy. He was ceremonially re-installed as Lord Protector sitting upon King Edward's Chair, which was moved specially from Westminster Abbey for the occasion. The event in part echoed a coronation, using many of its symbols and regalia, such as a purple ermine-lined robe, a sword of justice and a scepter, but not a crown or an orb.
The office of the Lord Protector was still not to become hereditary, though Cromwell was now able to nominate his own successor. Despite failing to restore the Crown, this new constitution did set up many of the vestiges of the ancient constitution including a house of life peers in place of the House of Lords. For a while it was called the Other House as the Commons could not agree on a suitable name. Furthermore, Oliver Cromwell increasingly took on more of the trappings of monarchy.
In 1658 he was struck by a sudden bout of malarial fever, followed directly by illness symptomatic of a urinary or kidney complaint and died at the age of 59 years old.
He was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard. Although not entirely without ability, Richard had no power base in either Parliament or the Army, and was forced to resign in 1659, ending the Protectorate. There was no clear leadership from the various factions that jostled for power during the short-lived reinstated Commonwealth, so the English governor of Scotland, at the head of New Model Army regiments was able to march on London, and restore the Long Parliament. The necessary constitutional adjustments were made so that in 1660 Charles II could be invited back from exile to be King under a restored monarchy.
In 1661, the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I, Cromwell's body was exhumed and was subjected to a posthumous execution. His disinterred body was hanged in chains and then thrown into a pit. Cromwell's severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685.
Radisson was a French fur trader and explorer. The decision of Radisson and his brother-in-law Groseilliers to enter the English service led to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. His career was particularly notable for its repeated transitions between serving Britain and France.
Radisson was born near the town of Avignon. He immigrated from France to Canada in 1651 when he was 15 years old. He arrived with his half-sister Marguerite who would go on to marry Radisson's eventual fur-trading partner. Shortly after arriving in Trois-Rivières, he had been hunting fowl with several other men near his home when he was captured by the Iroquois.
Initially a petty squabble had separated him from his friends and by the time he had found them, they had been killed by a Mohawk raiding party. The Mohawks were feared warriors of the Irroquois nation. Citing his youth as the reason he was left alive, he claims that the Iroquois, after immediately capturing him, treated him relatively kindly and that he, partially by showing an interest in Mohawk language and culture, was assimilated into a local Mohawk family.
This assimilation was the custom for the Mohawk, who often replaced people lost to disease and warfare and adopted young captives from other tribes and European nations. After approximately 6 weeks of gradual integration, his assimilation and partial adoption of Iroquois nationality was largely solidified.
However, shortly thereafter, while out hunting with three Iroquois, Radisson reluctantly agreed to attempt escape after meeting an Algonquin man who offered to help him return to Trois-Rivières. After successfully killing Radisson's Iroquois companions, Radisson and the Algonquin man traveled for 14 days until they were within sight of Trois-Rivières, but were recaptured by patrolling Iroquois shortly before reaching the town. The Mohawks killed the Algonquin and subjected Radisson, along with approximately 20 other prisoners, to ritual torture, but much of his punishment was lessened as a result of the advocacy of his adopted Mohawk family.
Radisson had his fingernails pulled out and one of fingers cut to the bone while being forced to watch 10 Huron Indians being tortured to death. He was spared death as his adopted parents gave gifts as compensation to the families of the men he had killed. Radisson's adopted parents told him that he must be brave for the next several days as the Iroquois despised cowards, and if he showed fear, he would be killed. At the same time, the Iroquois liked to eat the hearts of brave men out of the belief that one could acquire their courage, so he was warned to be only moderately brave. The day after his fingernails were pulled out, he was tied to a scaffold, and not knowing of his fate, was first burned by an old and then had an young man force a red-hot dagger though his foot. Throughout it all, he displayed much stoicism, knowing his life depended upon being brave.
After 3 days of being tied to the scaffold and being repeatedly burned and stabbed, the Iroquois brought out a group of Huron prisoners, and Radisson watched as some of them had their heads smashed in with tomahawks while the rest were proclaimed to be Iroquois who were now to be adopted by Iroquois families. Eventually he was released, and, overwhelmed with relief, described the experience as a moment in which "all my pains and griefs ceased, not feeling the least pain.” Knowing that it was his adopted parents who by his account loved him very much who saved him from execution, He described feeling a deep sense of gratitude to his adopted parents who limited his punishment only to being tortured.
In contrast, he wrote about the fate of a captured French woman:
"They burned a Frenchwoman; they pulled out her breasts, and took a child out of her belly, with they broiled and made the mother eat it, so in short she died".
Afterwards, following the healing of his torture wounds and a subsequent 5 months war-party expedition, Radisson departed for a trading trip, alongside other Mohawk warriors.
In 1657, he accompanied a joint Franco-Huron-Iroquois expedition into the territory of the Iroquois, attempting to more thoroughly establish a Jesuit mission in the area and promote further fur trading. The expedition ended in 1658 after rising tensions with local Iroquois caused the French to flee rather abruptly. He returned to Quebec soon thereafter.
Radisson's biggest impact in Canadian history came from 1658 to 1684, when he was an active fur trader and explorer. In 1659, he persuaded his brother-in-law to hire him for his journey around Lake Superior. The reason for the year long trip was to collect furs, in order to participate in the ever-lucrative fur trade.
In the winter of 1660, Radission and Des Groseillers lived just south of Lake Superior in what is now Wisconsin, associating with groups of Huron, Ottawa, Ojibwa and Sioux Indians. When Radisson arrived at an Ojibwa village on the shores of Lake Superior, where he spent much of the winter, he gave presents to the men, women and children of the village.
Ojibwa women played important roles in the fur trade, and often used their sexuality as a way of establishing long-term relations, so to speak, with the French in order to ensure the continued supply of European goods and prevent the French from trading with other Indians. Radisson reported on visiting one Ojibwa village in the spring of 1660, there was a welcoming ceremony where the women threw themselves backward on the ground as a welcome.
He was confused at first by what was meant by this gesture, but as the women started to engage in more overtly sexual behavior, he quickly realized what they were offering. Several tribal elders informed Radisson that they did not want him trading with their enemies, the Sioux and that he and his partner were free to sleep with the unmarried women of the village just as long as they did not trade with the Sioux.
The return of Radisson and Groseillers to Quebec, he was received with joy by the merchants who were waiting on them, to return to Europe but was received with jealousy from the Governor. Seeing the success of the trip and the number of furs they had brought back, the Governor levied high taxes on them, as they had been gone for a couple of days past their year-long permit. After a number of unsuccessful attempts in the courts to regain what had been confiscated from them by the Governor, Radisson and Groseillier decided to base themselves out of the British Thirteen Colonies for their next explorations.
Throughout their 1660 voyage, the French explorers kept hearing of the "salt sea" as an area with an abundance of good furs. The "salt sea" they determined must be Hudson Bay and so looked for financing and sea-going ships for their new explorations. What was different between their approach to the trip was they would reach it from outside of the continent, instead of through a number of internal rivers.
The first voyage to Hudson Bay was unsuccessful, the winter of that year came too early, and the rations on board wouldn't be sufficient for the winter. They were forced to make their way back to Boston but were promised 2 ships and crew for a second attempt the following year. This second attempt however never occurred since one of the ships was destroyed in a storm, though the 2 were invited to King Charles II's in 1665. There they passed the winter, and in the spring left for the New World with ships crew that had been promised to them by the King.
The Eaglet, which was carrying Radisson to Hudson's Bay nearly sank in an Atlantic storm and was forced to turn back to Plymouth. In 1668, the Nonsuch landed in the Rupert river region on the shores of James Bay, where Des Groseillers used his knowledge of frontier living to build dwellings for the crew to pass the winter in. About 300 Cree Indians came up in the spring of 1669 to trade furs in exchange for European goods.
Radisson sought the support of a royal patron to secure a crown monopoly on trade with in the Hudson's Bay region, and found one in the form of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the king's first cousin and a war hero on the royalist side during the English Civil War. Prince Rupert was not considered to be a good businessman and was not of the king's closest friends, but as the only member of the royal family prepared to champion the Radisson-Des Groseillers project of fur trading on the shores of Hudson's Bay. He was their only hope of getting a royal charter from Charles II. Radisson and des Groseillers, in their dealings in London to receive financing from the City, had the advantages of being the only men who knew not only how to survive in the north, but also the local languages, customs, and geography.
In 1670, Radisson was back in England and on May 2, received a royal charter giving him and his partners the exclusive rights to the land surrounding Hudson Bay, ultimately founding the Hudson's Bay Company. The next few years are filled with a number of highly profitable trips between England and the Bay region. King Charles II in his charter for the Hudson's Bay Company founded a proprietary colony named Rupert's Land declaring that the lands adjutant to Hudson's Bay or rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company.
In theory, much of modern Canada now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company as Rupert's Land was a vast region, but in practice, the company only had a few forts on the sea coasts of northern Ontario and northern Quebec, to which were later added forts on the sea coast of Manitoba. It was not until the late 18th century that the Hudson's Bay Company showed any interest in moving inland and making good its claims to control Rubert's Land.
Both Radisson and Grosseiliers operated within the Hudson's Bay Company with the support of Prince Rupert. They were successful in having the Company receive much capital from the City in order to fund its operations. Radisson married the daughter of one of the investors in the Hudson's Bay Company. As anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiment increased in England, Prince Rupert decreased his support. Radisson finally left London in 1675 with Grosseiliers to reenter the service of France, leaving his wife behind in England.
After leaving Britain, Radisson found himself unpopular in the royal court. In 1677 he decided to join the navy and to fund an expedition in the Franco-Dutch War to conquer the island of Tobago, winning many favors. Following his involvement in the war, he failed in an attempt to pay to bring his wife back from Britain, and subsequently failed to regain a position in the Hudson's Bay Company, as a further result of anti-French prejudice.
In 1681 Radisson headed out to found a fort on the Nelson River under a French flag, albeit against the wishes of the French state. He did so as a means of capturing the market, fearing the construction of a British fort on the same river and thus further dominance of the bay by the Hudson's Bay Company. He recruited Grosseiliers the following year to build a more permanent base. In the winter of 1683 he and Groseilliers went to France to deal with their legal problems. Radisson was seduced to return back into the English service and Groseilliers returned to Quebec.
In 1687 he made serious charges against a superintendent of the Hudson Bay Company which were rejected by the company and Radisson was removed. Thereafter he lived in England on an HBC pension which was irregularly paid.
He died when he was 70 years old.
Peter the Great became Tzar when he was 10 years old. He did not have actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother. It was only when she died in 1694 when he was 22 years old that Peter became an independent sovereign.
In 1689, when he was 17 years old planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired to aroused disorder and dissent. Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-Tzars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name and her position as a member of the royal family.
Peter implemented sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia. Heavily influenced by his advisers from Western Europe, Peter reorganized the Russian army along modern lines and dreamed of making Russia a maritime power. Peter implemented social modernization in an absolute manner by introducing French and western dress to his court and requiring courtiers, state officials, and the military to shave their beards and adopt modern clothing styles. One means of achieving this end was the introduction of taxes for long beards and robes.
To improve his nation's position on the seas, Peter sought to gain more maritime outlets. His only outlet at the time was the White Sea by the Artic Ocean. The Baltic Sea was at the time controlled by Sweden in the north, while the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea were controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Empire respectively. Peter attempted to acquire control of the Black Sea. To do so he expelled the Tatars from the surrounding areas. The Tatars are a semi-nomadic ethnic group who allied with the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1206.
As part of an agreement with Poland which ceded Kiev to Russia, Peter was forced to wage war against the Crimean Khan and against the Khan's overlord, the Ottoman Sultan. Peter's primary objective became the capture of the Ottoman fortress of Azov, near the Don River. In 1695 Peter organized the Azov campaigns to take the fortress, but his attempts ended in failure. Peter returned to Moscow and began building a large navy.
He launched about 30 ships against the Ottomans capturing Azov. Peter knew that Russia could not face the Ottoman Empire alone. In 1697 he traveled incognito to Western Europe on an 18-month journey with a large Russian delegation. Since he was far taller than almost anyone else, his fake name allowed him to escape social and diplomatic events, but did not fool anyone of importance. One goal was to seek the aid of the European monarchs. Peter's hopes were dashed; France was a traditional ally of the Ottoman Sultan, and Austria was eager to maintain peace in the east while conducting its own wars in the west. Peter, furthermore, had chosen the most inopportune moment; the Europeans at the time were more concerned about who would succeed the childless Spanish King Charles II than about fighting the Ottoman Sultan.
While visiting the Netherlands, Peter learned much about life in Western Europe and shipbuilding. During his stay the Tzar engaged many skilled workers such as builders of locks, fortresses, shipwrights, and seamen including a vice-admiral who became Tzar's adviser in maritime affairs. Peter later put his knowledge of shipbuilding to use in helping build Russia's navy.
Peter's visit to England was cut short in 1698, when he was forced to rush home by a rebellion. Peter acted ruthlessly towards the mutineers. Over 1,200 of the rebels were tortured and executed, and Peter ordered that their bodies be publicly exhibited as a warning to future conspirators. The Nobel rebels were disbanded, and the individual they sought to put on the Throne—Peter's half-sister Sophia—was forced to become a nun.
In 1698 Peter sent a delegation to Malta to observe the training and abilities of the Knights of Malta and their fleet. Discussed were future joint ventures with the Knights, including action against the Turks and the possibility of a future Russian naval base. Peter's visits to the West impressed upon him the notion that European customs were in several respects superior to Russian traditions. He commanded all of his courtiers and officials to wear European clothing and cut off their long beards, causing Nobles who were very fond of their beards, great upset. Those who sought to retain their beards were required to pay an annual beard tax. Peter also sought to end arranged marriages, which were the norm among the Russian nobility, because he thought such a practice was barbaric and led to domestic violence, since the partners usually resented each other.
Peter made a temporary peace with the Ottoman Empire that allowed him to keep the captured fort of Azov, and turned his attention to Russian maritime supremacy. He sought to acquire control of the Baltic Sea, which had been taken by the Swedish Empire a half-century earlier. Peter declared war on Sweden which was also opposed by Denmark–Norway, Saxony, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Russia was ill-prepared to fight the Swedes, and their first attempt at seizing the Baltic coast ended in disaster.
To mitigate the disaster, he founded the city of Saint Petersburg. He forbade the building of stone edifices outside Saint Petersburg, which he intended to become Russia's capital, so that all stonemasons could participate in the construction of the new city. The construction of Peterhof, a palace near Saint Petersburg was completed in 1725 and became to be known as the "Russian Versailles".
Charles XII refused to retreat to Poland or Sweden, but instead invaded Ukraine. When Sweden attacked Russia in the north, Peter withdrew his army southward, employing scorched earth, destroying along the way anything that could assist the Swedes. Deprived of local supplies, the Swedish army was forced to halt its advance in the winter of 1708-1709. In the summer of 1709, they resumed their chase southward and made a failed attempt to capture Ukraine. The battle was a decisive defeat for the Swedish forces, forcing them south and to seek refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This made the Russian military known as a force to avoid.
Peter's ego and pride grew to the point where he attacked the Ottoman Empire, initiating the Russo-Turkish War of 1710. Peter's campaign in the Ottoman Empire was disastrous, and he was forced to return the Black Sea ports he had seized in 1697.
Normally, the parliament of powerful families would have exercised power during his absence. Peter, however, mistrusted them and abolished them and created a Senate of 10 members which became the highest state institution to supervise all judicial, financial and administrative affairs.
Originally established only for the time of the monarch's absence, the Senate became a permanent body after his return. A special high official the Ober-Procurator, served as the link between the ruler and the senate and acted as the sovereign's eye. Without his signature no Senate decision could go into effect. The Senate became one of the most important institutions of Imperial Russia. Peter's northern armies took the Swedish province of Livonia driving the Swedes into Finland. In 1714 the Russian fleet occupied most of Finland.
Peter's last years were marked by further reform in Russia. Peter decided that all of the children of the nobility should have some early education, especially in the areas of science. He issued a decree calling for compulsory education, which dictated that all Russian 10- to 15-year-old children of the nobility, government clerks, and lesser-ranked officials, must learn basic mathematics and geometry, and should be tested on it at the end of their studies.
In 1718 Peter investigated why the ex-Swedish province of Livonia was so orderly. He discovered that the Swedes spent as much administering Livonia (300 times smaller than his empire) as he spent on the entire Russian bureaucracy. After 1718, Peter established colleges in place of the old central agencies of government. The new agencies were originally 9 in number. Foreign affairs, war, navy, expense, income, justice, inspection. Later others were added. Each college consisted of a president, a vice-president and a number of councilors, assessors in addition to one procurator. Some foreigners were included in various colleges but not as president. Peter believed he did not have enough loyal and talented persons to put them in full charge of the different departments. Peter preferred to rely on groups of individuals who would keep check on one another. Decisions depended on the majority vote.
In 1721, soon after peace was made with Sweden, he was officially proclaimed Emperor of All Russia. Some proposed that he take the title Emperor of the East, but he refused. One year later he created a new order of precedence for the Nobility. Precedence had been determined by birth. Peter directed that precedence should be determined by merit and service to the Emperor. This continued to remain in effect until the Russian monarchy was overthrown 200 years later in 1917.
Peter introduced new taxes to fund improvements in Saint Petersburg. He abolished the land tax and household tax, and replaced them with a poll tax. The taxes on land and on households were payable only by individuals who owned property or maintained families; the new poll taxes, however, were payable by serfs and paupers.
By this same time, the once powerful Persian Safavid Empire to its neighboring south was heavily declining. Taking advantage of the profitable situation, Peter launched the Russo-Persian War of 1722-1723, which drastically increased Russian influence for the first time in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea, and prevented the Ottoman Empire from making territorial gains in the region at the expense of declining Safavid Iran. After considerable successes and the capture of many provinces and cities in the Caucasus and northern mainland Persia, the Safavids were forced to hand over their territories to Russia. However, 9 and 12 years later all territories seceded back to Persia.
Peter was not religious and had a low regard for the Church, and kept it under tight governmental control. Peter could not tolerate the thought that the church hierarchy have power superior to the Tzar, as indeed was the case. He therefore abolished the Patriarchy, replacing it with a Holy Synod a council of 10 clergymen that was under the control of a senior bureaucrat with the Tzar appointing all bishops. Peter implemented a law that stipulated that no Russian man could join a monastery before the age of 50. He felt that too many able Russian men were being wasted on clerical work when they could be joining his new and improved army. A clerical career was not a route chosen by the upper-class. Most parish priests were sons of priests, were very poorly educated, and very poorly paid. The monks in the monasteries had a slightly higher status; they were not allowed to marry. Politically, the church was impotent.
Peter had 2 wives, with whom he had 14 children, 3 of whom survived to adulthood. Peter's mother selected his first wife consistent with previous Romanov tradition by choosing a daughter of a minor noble. This was done to prevent fighting between the stronger noble houses and to bring fresh blood into the family. He also had a mistress from Germany.
Upon his return from his European tour in 1698, Peter sought to end his unhappy marriage. He divorced his wife and forced her to join a convent. She had borne Peter 3 children, although only one had survived past his childhood. He took a peasant, named Martha as a mistress. She changed her name to Catherine and he married her 10 years later and in 1724, Peter had her crowned as Empress.
His eldest child and heir, Alexei, was suspected of being involved in a plot to overthrow Peter. Alexei was tried and confessed under torture during questioning conducted by a secular court. He was convicted and sentenced to be executed. The sentence could be carried out only with Peter's signed authorization, and Alexei died in prison, as Peter hesitated before making the decision. Alexei's death most likely resulted from injuries suffered during his torture.
In 1725, when he was 52 years old, Peter was struck with uremia. He lapsed into unconsciousness and died having reigned for 42 years.
Maria Theresa was the only female ruler of the Hapsburg dominions and the last of the House of Hapsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Milan, and the Austrian Netherlands. By marriage, she was Holy Roman Empress.
She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died in 1740. Frederick II of Prussia who became Maria Theresa's greatest rival for most of her reign promptly invaded and took the affluent Hapsburg province of Silesia in the 7-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession. Over the course of the war, despite the loss of Silesia and a few minor territories in Italy, Maria Theresa successfully defended her rule over most of the Hapsburg empire. Maria Theresa later unsuccessfully tried to reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years' War.
Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, had 11 daughters, including the Queen of France, the Queen of Naples and Sicily, the Duchess of Parma, and 5 sons, including two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II and Leopold II. Of the 16 children, 10 survived to adulthood. Though she was expected to cede power to Francis and Joseph, both of whom were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. She criticized and disapproved of many of Joseph's actions. She understood the importance of her public persona and was able to simultaneously evoke both esteem and affection from her subjects.
Maria Theresa promulgated financial and educational reforms, promoted commerce and the development of agriculture, and reorganized Austria's ramshackle military, all of which strengthened Austria's international standing. However, she refused to allow religious pluralism and advocated for the state church and contemporary adversary travelers criticized her regime as bigoted and superstitious.
She was the second and eldest surviving child of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Her father was the only surviving male member of the House of Hapsburg and hoped for a son who would prevent the extinction of his dynasty and succeed him. Thus, her birth was a great disappointment to him and the people of Vienna.
She was a serious and reserved child who enjoyed singing and archery. She was barred from horse riding by her father, but she would later learn the basics for the sake of her Hungarian coronation ceremony. The imperial family staged opera productions, often conducted by Charles VI, in which she relished participating. Her education was overseen by Jesuits who did not educate her well. Her spelling and punctuation were unconventional and she lacked the formal manner and speech which had characterized her Hapsburg predecessors. Her father allowed her to attend meetings of the council from the age of 14 but never discussed the affairs of state with her. Even though he had spent the last decades of his life securing Maria Theresa's inheritance, Charles always expected a son and never prepared his daughter for her future role as sovereign.
Theresa married in 1736 when she was 19. She was very jealous of her husband and his infidelity was the greatest problem of their marriage. Charles VI died in 1740 of mushroom poisoning. Maria Theresa found herself in a difficult situation. She did not know enough about matters of state and she was unaware of the weakness of her father's ministers. She decided to rely on her father's advice to retain his counselors and to defer to her husband, whom she considered to be more experienced, on other matters. Both decisions, though natural, later gave cause for regret. Ten years later, Maria Theresa recalled the circumstances under which she had ascended:
"I found myself without money, without credit, without army, without experience and knowledge of my own and finally, also without any counsel because each one of them at first wanted to wait and see how things would develop."
She dismissed the possibility that other countries might try to seize her territories and immediately started ensuring the imperial dignity for herself; since a woman could not be elected Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa wanted to secure the imperial office for her husband, but Francis Stephen did not possess enough land or rank within the Holy Roman Empire. In order to make him eligible for the imperial throne and to enable him to vote in the imperial elections as elector of Bohemia which she could not do because of her sex, Maria Theresa made Francis Stephen co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands.
Despite her love for him and his position as co-ruler, Maria Theresa never allowed her husband to decide matters of state and often dismissed him from council meetings when they disagreed. Immediately after her accession, a number of European sovereigns who had recognized Maria Theresa as heiress broke their promises. Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia and requested that Maria Theresa cede it, threatening to join her enemies if she refused. Maria Theresa decided to fight for the mineral-rich province. Frederick even offered a compromise. He would defend Maria Theresa's rights if she agreed to cede to him at least a part of Silesia. Francis Stephen was inclined to consider such an arrangement, but the Queen and her advisers were not.
Maria Theresa's firmness soon assured Francis Stephen that they should fight for Silesia, and she was confident that she would retain "the jewel of the House of Austria". A significant amount of support for the young Queen came from Hungary. Francis Stephen was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1745. Prussia recognized Francis as emperor, and Maria Theresa once again recognized the loss of Silesia.
Over the course of 20 years, Maria Theresa gave birth to 16 children, 13 of whom survived infancy. Shortly after giving birth to the younger children, Maria Theresa was confronted with the task of marrying off the elder ones. She led the marriage negotiations along with the campaigns of her wars and the duties of state. She treated her children with affection but used them as pawns in dynastic games and sacrificed their happiness for the benefit of the state. A devoted but self-conscious mother, she wrote to all of her children at least once a week and believed herself entitled to exercise authority over her children regardless of their age and rank.
In April 1770, Maria Theresa's youngest daughter, Maria Antoinette married Louis XV1 of France. Maria Theresa kept up a fortnightly correspondence with Marie Antoinette, in which she often reproached her for laziness and frivolity and scolded her for failing to conceive a child. Like all members of the House of Hapsburg, Maria Theresa was a Roman Catholic, and a devout one. She believed that religious unity was necessary for a peaceful public life and explicitly rejected the idea of religious toleration. However, she never allowed the Church to interfere with what she considered to be prerogatives of a monarch and kept Rome at arm's length. She controlled the selection of archbishops, bishops and abbots.
Her approach to religious piety differed from the approach of her predecessors. The empress actively supported conversion to Roman Catholicism by securing pensions for converts. She tolerated Greek Catholics and emphasized their equal status with Roman Catholics. Besides her devotion to Christianity, she was widely known for her ascetic lifestyle, especially during her 15-year-long widowhood.
Her relationship with the Jesuits was complex. Members of this order educated her, served as her confessors, and supervised the religious education of her eldest son. The Jesuits were powerful and influential in the early years of Maria Theresa's reign. However, the queen's ministers convinced her that the order posed a danger to her monarchical authority. Not without much hesitation and regret, she issued a decree that removed them from all the institutions of the monarchy, and carried it out thoroughly. She forbade the publication of Pope Clement XIII's bull, which was in favor of the Jesuits, and promptly confiscated their property.
Though she eventually gave up trying to convert her non-Catholic subjects to Roman Catholicism, Maria Theresa regarded both the Jews and Protestants as dangerous to the state and actively tried to suppress them. The empress was probably the most anti-Semitic monarch of her time, having inherited the traditional prejudices of her ancestors and acquired new ones. This was a product of deep religious devotion and was not kept secret in her time. In 1777, she wrote of the Jews:
"I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit, usury and avarice is driving my subjects into beggary. Therefore as far as possible, the Jews are to be kept away and avoided."
She imposed extremely harsh taxes on her Jewish subjects, and in 1744 proposed to her ministers the expulsion of Jews from her hereditary dominions. She also transferred Protestants from Austria to Transylvania and reduced the number of religious holidays and monastic orders. In the third decade of her reign, Maria Theresa issued edicts that offered some state protection to her Jewish subjects. Notwithstanding her strong dislike of Jews, Maria Theresa supported Jewish commercial and industrial activity in Austria.
In 1777, she abandoned the idea of expelling Protestants after her son Joseph, who was opposed to her intentions, threatened to abdicate as emperor and co-ruler. Finally, she was forced to grant them some toleration by allowing them to worship privately. Joseph regarded his mother's religious policies as "unjust, impious, impossible, harmful and ridiculous".
Maria Theresa doubled the state revenue between 1754 and 1764, though her attempt to tax clergy and nobility was only partially successful. These financial reforms greatly improved the economy. Aware of the inadequacy of bureaucracy in Austria, and wishing to improve it, she reformed education in 1775. In a new school system based on the Prussian one, all children of both genders from the ages of 6-12 were required to attend school. Education reform was met with hostility from many villages.
Emperor Francis died in 1765. After much contemplation, she chose not to abdicate. Joseph her son himself often threatened to resign as co-regent and emperor, but he, too, was induced not to do so. Her threats of abdication were rarely taken seriously. It was in Joseph's interest that she remained sovereign, for he often blamed her for his failures and thus avoided taking on the responsibilities of a monarch.
Joseph arranged the First Partition of Poland despite Maria Theresa's protestations. Her sense of justice pushed her to reject the idea of partition, which would hurt the Polish people. The duo argued that it was too late to abort now. Besides, Maria Theresa herself agreed with the partition when she realized that Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia would do it with or without Austrian participation.
The empress fell ill in 1780 and died shortly after. With her, the House of Hapsburg died out.
Joseph her son, already co-sovereign of the Hapsburg dominions, succeeded her. Her longtime rival Frederick II of Prussia, on hearing of her death, said that she had honored her throne and her sex, and though he had fought against her in 3 wars, he never considered her his enemy. After several diplomatic failures and military defeats in the 1730s, Austria seemed to be declining, or even on the verge of collapse. After her 40 years reign, Maria Theresa left a revitalized empire that influenced the rest of Europe throughout the 19th century. She gave the Hapsburg dominions an efficient administrative system that allowed it to remain a great power in its own right, without the support of the Holy Roman Empire. Her descendants followed her example and continued reforming the empire.
Catherine the Great was Empress of Russia for 34 years from 1762 until her death. She came to power following a coup d'état when her husband,Peter III, was assassinated. Under her reign, Russia was revitalized. It grew larger and stronger, and was recognized as one of the great powers of Europe.
In both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favorites and highly successful generals and admirals. She governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean was crushed following victories over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish wars. Russia colonized the territories along the coast of the Black Sea and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the east, Russia started to colonize Alaska.
An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernize Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to increased levels of reliance on serfs. This was one of the chief reasons behind several rebellions, including those of the Cossacks and peasants.
The period of Catherine the Great's rule is the Golden Age of the Russian Empire and the Russian nobility. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. As a patron of the arts she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, a period when the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.
Catherine's childhood was quite uneventful. She received her education chiefly from a French governess. Although Catherine was born a princess, her family had very little money. Her rise to power was supported by her mother's wealthy relatives who were both wealthy nobles and royal relations. Catherine's father belonged to a ruling German family and held the rank of a Prussian general in his capacity as Governor of a polish city.
Catherine first met Peter III at the age of 10 when he was only 9. She found Peter detestable upon meeting him. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age. Peter still played with toy soldiers. Catherine later wrote that she stayed at one end of the castle, and Peter at the other.
Catherine was a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her mother's hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming empress of Russia, but she infuriated Empress Elizabeth, who eventually banned her from the country for spying for King Frederick of Prussia. Initially Empress Elizabeth took a strong liking to Catherine who on arrival in Russia in 1744, when she was 15, spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with the Empress Elizabeth, but with her husband and with the Russian people. She applied herself to learning the Russian language with such zeal, she rose at night and walked about her bedroom barefoot, repeating her lessons.
Her father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1745 when she was 16, she married Peter who became Peter III when he gained the Russian throne. Peter III's temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He announced drills in the morning to male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours. Due to various rumors of Catherine's promiscuity, she angered Peter and thus spent much of her time alone in her own private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality.
After the death of the Empress Elizabeth in 1762, Peter succeeded to the throne as Emperor Peter III, and Catherine became empress consort. His eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for the Prussian king, Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated. Russia and Prussia fought each other during the Seven Years' War that was fought between 1756 and 1763. Peter's insistence on supporting Frederick II of Prussia, who had seen Berlin occupied by Russian troops in 1760, but now suggested partitioning Polish territories with Russia, eroded much of his support among the nobility.
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned 5 continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into 2 coalitions, led by Britain including Prussia, Portugal, and other small German states on one side and France including the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Spain, and Sweden on the other.
Seeing the opportunity to curtail Britain's and Prussia's ever-growing might, France and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a grand coalition of their own, bringing most of the other European powers to their side. French efforts ended in failure when the Anglo-Prussian coalition prevailed, and Britain's rise as among the world's predominant powers destroyed France's supremacy in Europe, thus altering the European balance of power.
Catherine made Russia the dominant power in south-eastern Europe after her first Russo-Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire (1768–74), which saw some of the heaviest defeats in Turkish history. Her victories allowed her access to the Black Sea and to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine. Catherine annexed the Crimea in 1783, 9 years after the Crimean Khanate had gained nominal independence which had been guaranteed by Russia from the Ottoman Empire as a result of her first war against the Turks. The Ottomans restarted hostilities in the second Russo-Turkish War (1787–92). This war, catastrophic for the Ottomans, ended with the legitimization of Russian's claim to the Crimea.
In 1762, barely 6 months after becoming emperor, Peter took a holiday leaving her alone. She asked her soldiers to protect her from her husband and the clergy ordained her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne. Catherine rallied the troops to her support and declared herself Catherine II, the sovereign ruler of Russia. She had her husband arrested and forced him to sign a document of abdication leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. Shortly after his arrest, Peter was strangled to death by Catherine's supporters having ruled only 6 months.
During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire southward and westward to absorb New Russia, Crimea, Northern Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see the benefits of Britain's friendship, she was wary of Britain's increased power following its victory in the Seven Years' War, which threatened the European balance of power.
In 1764, Catherine placed her former lover on the Polish throne. Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from the King Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in carrying it out in the 1790s. In 1768, she formally became protector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland.
After the French Revolution of 1789, Catherine rejected many principles of the Enlightenment she had once viewed favorably. After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish–Russian War of 1792, Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria. Later uprisings in Poland led to the third partition in 1795, one year before Catherine's death. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation until 1918, in the aftermath of WWI.
Catherine nationalized all of the church lands to help pay for her wars, largely emptied the monasteries, and forced most of the remaining clergymen to survive as farmers or from fees for baptisms and other services. Very few members of the nobility entered the Church, which became even less important than before. She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution.
Catherine chose to assimilate Islam into the state rather than eliminate it when public outcry against equality got too disruptive. After the "Toleration of All Faiths" Edict of 1773, Muslims were permitted to build mosques and practice all of their traditions, the most obvious of these being the pilgrimage to Mecca which had been denied previously. In 1785, Catherine approved subsidies for new mosques and new town settlements for Muslims in an attempt to organize and passively control the outer fringes of her country.
By building new settlements with mosques placed in them, Catherine attempted to ground many of the nomadic people who wandered through southern Russia. In 1786, she assimilated the Islamic schools into the Russian public school system, to be regulated by the government in an attempt to force nomadic people to settle. This allowed the Russian government to control more people, especially those who previously had not fallen under the jurisdiction of Russian law.
Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity, where Jews were maintained with a separate legal and bureaucratic system. Judaism was a small, if not nonexistent, religion in Russia until 1772. When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland, the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. In keeping with their treatment in Poland, Catherine allowed the Jews to separate themselves from Orthodox society, with certain restrictions. She levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism. If a family converted to the Orthodox faith, that additional tax was lifted. Jewish members of society were required to pay double the tax of their Orthodox neighbors. Converted Jews could gain permission to enter the merchant class and farm as free peasants under Russian rule.
In an attempt to assimilate the Jews into Russia’s economy, Catherine included them under the rights and laws of the Charter of the Towns of 1782. But in 1785, Catherine declared Jews to be officially foreigners, with foreigners’ rights. This re-established the separate identity that Judaism maintained in Russia. In 1790, she banned Jewish citizens from Moscow’s middle class. Catherine’s decree also denied Jews the rights of an Orthodox or naturalized citizen of Russia. Taxes doubled again for those of Jewish descent in 1794. By separating the public interests from those of the church, Catherine began a secularization of the day-to-day workings of Russia. She transformed the clergy from a group that wielded great power over the Russian government and its people to a segregated community forced to depend on the state for compensation.
Catherine, throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest, and then pensioning them off with gifts of serfs and large estates. The percentage of state money spent on the court increased from 10.4% in 1767 to 13.5% in 1795.
Catherine owned 500,000 serfs. A further 2.8 million belonged to the Russian state. The landowning noble class owned serfs who were bound to the land they tilled. Children of serfs were born into serfdom and worked the same land their parents had. The serfs had very limited rights, but they were not exactly slaves. While the state did not technically allow them to own possessions, some serfs were able to accumulate enough wealth to pay for their freedom. To become serfs, people would give up their freedoms to a landowner in exchange for their protection and support in times of hardship. In addition, they would receive land to till, but would be taxed a certain percentage of their crops to give to their landowners. These were the privileges a serf was entitled to and that nobles were bound to carry out.
Catherine did initiate some changes to serfdom, though. If a noble did not live up to his side of the deal, then the serfs could file complaints against him by following the proper channels of law. Catherine gave them this new right, but in exchange they could no longer appeal directly to her. She did not want to be bothered by the peasantry, but did not want to give them reason to revolt, either. In this act, though, she unintentionally gave the serfs a legitimate bureaucratic status they had lacked before. Some serfs were able to use their new status to their advantage. For example, serfs could apply to be freed if they were under illegal ownership - non-nobles were not allowed to own serfs. Some serfs did apply for freedom and were successful.
The rights of a serf were very limited. A landowner could punish his serfs at his discretion, and under Catherine they gained the ability to sentence their serfs to hard labor in Siberia, a punishment normally reserved for convicted criminals. The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was to kill them. The life of a serf belonged to the state. While the majority of serfs were farmers bound to the land, a noble could also have his serfs sent away to learn a trade or be educated at a school, in addition to employing them at businesses that paid wages. This happened more often during Catherine’s reign because of the new schools she established. The peasants were discontented because of many other factors, as well, including crop failure, and epidemics, especially a major epidemic in 1771. The nobles were also imposing a stricter rule than ever, reducing the land of each serf and restricting their freedoms further beginning around 1767. Their discontent led to widespread outbreaks of violence and rioting in 1774.
In 1796, just before her death, she waged a new war against Persia after they invaded Georgia and expelled the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. The Russian overran without any resistance most of the territory of Azerbaijan. Catherine collapsed from a stroke and fell into a coma from which she never recovered. When Catherine died, her successor Paul ordered the troops to retreat to Russia.
George Washington was an American soldier and statesman who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. During the American Revolutionary War, Washington served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he presided over the convention that drafted the United States Constitution and came to be known as the "father of his country".
The American Revolutionary War also known as the American War of Independence (1775-1783) lasted 8 years. It was the armed conflict between Great Britain and 13 of its North American colonies, which became the independent United States of America. Early fighting took place primarily on the North American continent. France, eager for revenge after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, signed an alliance with the new nation in 1778 that proved decisive in the ultimate victory.
The war had its origins in the resistance of many Americans to taxes, which they claimed were unjustly imposed by the British parliament. Patriot protests escalated into boycotts and in 1773, the destruction of a shipment of tea in Boston. The British government retaliated by closing the port of Boston and taking away self-government. The Patriots responded by setting up a shadow government that took control of the province outside of Boston. 12 other colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and set up committees and conventions that effectively seized power. British attempts to seize American guns, gunpowder and ammunition in 1775 was the cause for the start of hostilities near Boston. This began open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 of its colonies. The Continental Congress appointed General George Washington to take charge of militia units besieging British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in 1776.
In 1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, and issued its Declaration of Independence. France and Spain provided the colonists with weapons, ammunition, and other supplies. In 1778, having failed in the northern states, the British shifted strategy toward the south, bringing Georgia and South Carolina under control in 1779 and 1780. The resulting surge of Loyalist support was far weaker than expected. In 1781 a combined Franco-American army captured more than 8,000 British troops. In 1783, the British Parliament voted to end offensive operations in North America and recognized the sovereignty of the United States. Washington was widely admired for his strong leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first 2 national elections. He oversaw the creation of a strong, well-financed national government.
Washington was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation. He supported Alexander Hamilton's programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade. Washington's Farewell Address was an influential primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism, and involvement in foreign wars. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home and plantation.
Upon his death, Washington was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". He was revered in life and in death.
Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. As President, Jefferson pursued the nation's shipping and trade interests and organized the Louisiana Purchase, almost doubling the country's territory. As a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. He was reelected in 1804.
Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, serving under John Adams from 1797 to 1801. A proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights. He motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation.
He was a land owner and farmer. Jefferson mastered many disciplines, which ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and mechanics. Jefferson was very interest in religion and philosophy. He shunned organized religion. He was well versed in linguistics and spoke several languages. He founded the University of Virginia after retiring from public office. Jefferson owned several plantations which were worked by hundreds of slaves. After the death of his wife in 1782, he had a relationship with his slave Sally and fathered at least one of her children.
Thomas Jefferson was born at the family home in the Colony of Virginia, the third of 10 children. His father was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was 14. His mother moved her family to one of the plantations the family owned. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres (4km x 5km) of land. He assumed full authority over his property at age 21.
At age 9, he began attending a local school and studied the natural world as well as Latin, Greek, and French. By this time he also learned to ride horses. Jefferson entered collage at age 16 and studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy and was introduced to the British Empiricists including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. Jefferson improved his French and Greek and his skill at the violin. He graduated 2 years later as lawyer.
In 1767, at the age of 24, Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia bar and pursued reforms to slavery. He invoked “Natural Law” to argue, that everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will and that this is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by God. 3 years later his home was destroyed by fire, including a library of 200 volumes inherited from his father. Nevertheless, he had replenished his library with 1,250 titles by 1773, and his collection grew to almost 6,500 volumes in 1814. That year, the British burned the Library of Congress and he sold more than 6,000 books to the Library. 2 years after that, Jefferson married his third cousin Martha.
Martha's father died the year later and the couple inherited 135 slaves, 11,000 acres and the estate's debts. The debts took Jefferson years to satisfy, contributing to his financial problems. A few months after the birth of her last child, she died.
In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts and Jefferson called for a boycott of all British goods. The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance of throwing a large tea shipment into Boston Harbor in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of Colonial goods. The acts took away Massachusetts' self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775.
Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. At age 33, he was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress beginning in 1775 at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, where a formal declaration of independence from Britain was overwhelmingly favored. Jefferson chose his words for the Declaration shortly after the war had begun, where the idea of Independence from Britain had long since become popular among the colonies. He was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, as well as by the writings of Locke and Montesquieu.
At the start of the Revolution, Jefferson was a Colonel. He was then elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1776, when finalizing a state constitution was a priority. For nearly 3 years, he assisted with the constitution and was especially proud of his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which forbade state support of religious institutions or enforcement of religious doctrine.
In 1778, Jefferson was given the task of revising the state's laws. He drafted 126 bills in 3 years, including laws to streamline the judicial system. Jefferson's proposed statutes provided for general education, which he considered the basis of "republican government". He had become alarmed that Virginia's powerful landed gentry were becoming a hereditary aristocracy. He repealed laws by which the oldest son inherited all the land but could not sell it. He had to bequeath it to his oldest son. As a result, increasingly large plantations, worked by white tenant farmers and by black slaves, gained in size and wealth and political power in the eastern tobacco areas.
Jefferson wrote at length about slavery, claiming that blacks and whites could not live together as free people in one society because of justified resentments of the enslaved. He also wrote of his views on the American Indian and considered them as equals in body and mind to European settlers.
The United States formed a Congress of the Confederation following victory in the War of Independence in 1783. Jefferson proposed a policy for the settlement of the western territories. He plotted borders for 9 new states in their initial stages and wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories.
Jefferson was sent to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as ministers in Europe for negotiation of trade agreements with England, Spain, and France. As the French Revolution began in 1789, Jefferson allowed his Paris residence to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. He was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and consulted with Lafayette while the latter drafted the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen". Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device and wrote important communications in code for the rest of his career. President Washington appointed him the country's first Secretary of State. Jefferson remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution, while opposing its more violent elements.
In 1791, he urged the president to rally the citizenry to a party that would defend democracy against the corrupting influence of banks as espoused by the Federalists. Jefferson had always admired Washington's leadership skills but felt that his Federalist party was leading the country in the wrong direction.
In the presidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the Electoral College vote to Federalist John Adams by 71–68 and was elected vice president. During the Adams presidency, the Federalists who supported big business and a strong centralized government, rebuilt the military, levied new taxes, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson believed that these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional.
The Democratic-Republican Party was formed by Jefferson in 1791-93 to oppose the centralizing policies of the Federalist Party run by Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury and chief architect of George Washington's administration.
Jefferson`s Party favored stronger rights for states as well as favoring farmers and was more populist. Jefferson firmly believed the power of the federal government should be strictly limited, believing they sap the self-reliance of the people, and therefore indirectly sap their liberty. Jefferson believed profoundly that government at all levels should be limited only to activities that meet two criteria:
- activities which are necessary, and
- activities which only the government alone can do.
If an activity can be done by ordinary people without recourse to the power of government, then the people should do it on their own. Jefferson strongly opposed massive federal budget deficits.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were 4 bills passed and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. They made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen, allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous or who were from a hostile nation and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government. The Federalists argued that the bills strengthened national security during an undeclared naval war with France. Critics argued that they were primarily an attempt to suppress voters who disagreed with the Federalist Party, and violated the right of freedom of speech in the First Amendment.
Three of the acts were repealed after Jefferson`s party came to power, but the Alien Enemies Act remained in effect. It was revised and codified in 1918 for use in WWI, and was used by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to imprison Japanese, German, and Italian aliens during WWII. Following cessation of hostilities, the act was used by President Harry S. Truman to continue to imprison, then deport, aliens of the formerly hostile nations. In 1948 the Supreme Court determined that presidential powers under the acts continued after cessation of hostilities until there was a peace treaty with the hostile nation.
The residency requirement for American citizenship was increased from 5 to 14 years. The majority of immigrants supported Jefferson. The president was given the power to imprison or deport aliens considered dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States at any time. The president also was given the power to imprison or deport any male citizen of a hostile nation above the age of 14 during times of war. The controversial Sedition Act restricted speech that was critical of the federal government. This resulted in the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the government.
The acts were denounced by Jefferson`s party and ultimately helped them to victory in the 1800 election, when Jefferson defeated the incumbent, President Adams. The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800. Jefferson contended once more against Federalist John Adams. Adams' campaign was weakened by unpopular taxes and vicious Federalist infighting.
Jefferson`s Democratic-Republicans pointed to the Alien and Sedition Acts and accused the Federalists of being secret monarchists, while Federalists charged that Jefferson was a godless libertine in thrall to the French. The election was one of the most acrimonious in the annals of American history. Jefferson secured the tie-breaking electoral vote by guaranteeing the retention of various Federalist posts in the government. It was one of the first popular elections in modern history that resulted in the peaceful transfer of power from one 'party' to another. Some of Jefferson's opponents argued that he owed his victory over Adams to the South's inflated number of electors, due to counting slaves as partial population.
Jefferson exhibited a dislike of formal etiquette and arrived to his inauguration alone on horseback without escort, dressed plainly and, after dismounting, retired his own horse to the nearby stable. His inaugural address struck a note of reconciliation. Ideologically, Jefferson stressed equal and exact justice to all men, minority rights, and freedom of speech, religion, and press. He said that a free and democratic government was the strongest government on earth. Upon assuming office, he first confronted the national debt. He began dismantling Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system. Jefferson's administration eliminated the whiskey excise and other taxes after closing unnecessary offices and cutting useless establishments and expenses.
He attempted to disassemble the national bank and its effect of increasing national debt. He shrank the Navy, deeming it unnecessary in peacetime. Instead, he incorporated a fleet of inexpensive gunboats used only for defense with the idea that they would not provoke foreign hostilities. After 2 terms, he had lowered the national debt by 25%.
Jefferson pardoned several of those imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson strongly felt the need for a national military university, producing an officer engineering corps for a national defense based on the advancement of the sciences, rather than having to rely on foreign sources for top grade engineers with questionable loyalty.
Spain ceded ownership of the Louisiana territory in 1800 to the more predominant France. Jefferson was greatly concerned that Napoleon's broad interests in the vast territory would threaten the security of the continent and Mississippi River shipping. He negotiated with Napoleon to purchase New Orleans and adjacent coastal areas from France. In 1803, Jefferson offered Napoleon nearly $10 million for 100,000 square kilometers of tropical territory.
Napoleon realized that French military control was impractical over such a vast remote territory, and he was in dire need of funds for his wars on the home front. He unexpectedly made a counter-offer to sell 2,144,480 square kilometers of French territory for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States. U.S. negotiators seized this unique opportunity and accepted the offer to acquire the most fertile tract of land of its size on Earth, making the new country self-sufficient in food and other resources. The sale also significantly curtailed British and French imperial ambitions in North America, removing obstacles to U.S. westward expansion.
Most thought that this was an exceptional opportunity, despite Republican reservations on the Constitutional authority of the federal government to acquire land. Jefferson initially thought that a Constitutional amendment was necessary to purchase and govern the new territory; but he later changed his mind, fearing that this would give cause to oppose the purchase, and he therefore urged a speedy debate and ratification. After the purchase, Jefferson preserved the region's Spanish legal code and instituted a gradual approach for integrating settlers into American democracy.
Jefferson anticipated further westward settlements due to the Louisiana Purchase and arranged for the exploration and mapping of the uncharted territory. He sought to establish a U.S. claim ahead of competing European interests and to find the rumored Northwest Passage and they persuaded Congress in 1804 to fund an expedition to explore and map the newly acquired territory to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson appointed Lewis and Clark to be leaders of the Corps of Discovery. The expedition lasted over 2 years and obtained a wealth of scientific and geographic knowledge, including knowledge of many Indian tribes.
In addition to the Corps of Discovery, Jefferson organized 3 other western expeditions which produced valuable information about the American frontier. Jefferson's experiences with the American Indians began during his boyhood in Virginia and extended through his political career and into his retirement. He refuted the contemporary notion that Indians were an inferior people and maintained that they were equal in body and mind to people of European descent.
As President, Jefferson adopted an assimilation policy towards American Indians known as his "civilization program" which included securing peaceful USA-Indian treaty alliances and encouraging agriculture. Jefferson believed that Indians should assimilate to American customs and agriculture. He advocated that Indian tribes should make federal purchases by credit holding their lands as collateral for repayment. Various tribes accepted Jefferson's policies, including the Shawnees the Creek, and the Cherokees. Jefferson believed that assimilation was best for American Indians; second best was removal to the west. He felt that the worst outcome of the cultural and resources conflict between American citizens and American Indians would be their attacking the whites. But Jefferson's actual Indian policies did little to promote assimilation and were a pretext to seize lands.
Jefferson's successful first term occasioned his re-nomination for president. Jefferson won overwhelmingly by 162 to 14, promoting their achievement of a strong economy, lower taxes, and the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1806, a split developed in Jefferson`s Party. He was viciously accused in moving too far in the Federalist direction. In so doing, Jefferson had backed resolutions to limit or ban British imports in retaliation for British actions against American shipping.
Jefferson was the first president to propose a broad Federal plan to build roads and canals across several states. This alarmed those who favored limited government. Jefferson's popularity further suffered in his second term due to his response to wars in Europe. Positive relations with Great Britain had diminished. After Napoleon's decisive victory in 1805, Napoleon became more aggressive in his negotiations over trading rights, which American efforts failed to counter.
Jefferson then led the enactment of the Embargo Act of 1807, directed at both France and Great Britain. This triggered economic chaos in the U.S. and was strongly criticized at the time, resulting in Jefferson having to abandon the policy a year later.
Following his retirement from the presidency, Jefferson continued his pursuit of educational interests. He sold his vast collection of books to the Library of Congress, and founded and built the University of Virginia in 1819 when he was 76 years old. Jefferson envisioned a university free of church influences where students could specialize in many new areas not offered at other colleges. He believed that education engendered a stable society, which should provide publicly funded schools accessible to students from all social strata, based solely on ability.
He purchased the location and was the principal designer of the buildings, planned the university's curriculum, and served as the first rector upon its opening in 1825. Jefferson was a strong disciple of Greek and Roman architectural styles. Each academic unit, called a pavilion, was designed with a two-story temple front, while the library "Rotunda" was modeled on the Roman Pantheon. The 10 pavilions included classrooms and faculty residences; they formed a quadrangle and were connected by colonnades, behind which stood the students' rows of rooms. Gardens and vegetable plots were placed behind the pavilions. The university had a library rather than a church at its center, emphasizing its secular nature, a controversial aspect at the time. Jefferson bequeathed most of his library to the university.
He settled into private life developed a daily routine of rising early. He would spend several hours writing letters, with which he was often deluged. In the midday, he would often inspect the plantation on horseback. In the evenings, his family enjoyed leisure time in the gardens; late at night, Jefferson would retire to bed with a book. However, his routine was often interrupted by uninvited visitors and tourists eager to see the icon in his final days.
In 1825, Jefferson's health began to deteriorate. A year later he was confined to bed and died shortly after.
Jefferson claimed that in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. They have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon. He claimed that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God and that there must be a separation between Church and State.
Jefferson distrusted government banks and opposed public borrowing, which he thought created long-term debt, bred monopolies, and invited dangerous speculation as opposed to productive labor. Jefferson thought a national bank would ignore the needs of individuals and farmers, and would violate the Tenth Amendment by assuming powers not granted to the federal government by the states. He argued each generation should restrict all debt and not impose a long-term debt on subsequent generations. As president, Jefferson was persuaded by Secretary of Treasury to leave the bank intact, but sought to restrain its influence.
Jefferson lived in a planter economy largely dependent upon slavery, and as a wealthy landholder, used slave labor for his household, plantation, and workshops. He first recorded his slave-holding in 1774, when he counted 41. Over his lifetime he owned about 600 slaves. He inherited about 175 while most of the remainder were born on his plantations. Jefferson purchased slaves in order to unite their families, and he sold about 110 for economic reasons, primarily slaves from his outlying farms.
He was a benevolent slave-owner who didn't overwork his slaves by the conventions of his time, and provided them log cabins with fireplaces, food, clothing and some household provisions, though slaves often had to make many of their own provisions. Additionally, Jefferson gave his slaves financial and other incentives while also allowing them to grow gardens and raise their own chickens. Jefferson did not work his slaves on Sundays and Christmas and he allowed them more personal time during the winter months. His nail factory was only staffed by child slaves, but many of those boys became tradesmen.
Jefferson felt slavery was harmful to both slave and master, but had reservations about releasing unprepared slaves into freedom and advocated gradual emancipation. In 1779, he proposed gradual voluntary training and resettlement to the Virginia legislature, and 3 years later drafted legislation allowing owners to free their own slaves. Jefferson shared the common belief of his day that blacks were mentally and physically inferior, but argued they nonetheless had innate human rights. He created controversy by calling slavery a moral evil for which the nation would ultimately have to account to God. He therefore supported colonization plans that would transport freed slaves to another country, such as Liberia or Sierra Leone, though he recognized the impracticability of such proposals.
Jefferson's thinking from emancipation before 1783 drastically changed toward public passivity and procrastination on policy issues related to slavery. During his presidency Jefferson was for the most part publicly silent on the issue of slavery and emancipation, as the Congressional debate over slavery and its extension caused a dangerous north-south rift among the states.
Jefferson was a farmer, obsessed with new crops, soil conditions, garden designs, and scientific agricultural techniques. Jefferson believed that knowledge of science reinforced and extended freedom. His main cash crop was tobacco, but its price was usually low and it was rarely profitable. He tried to achieve self-sufficiency with wheat, vegetables, flax, corn, hogs, sheep, poultry, and cattle to supply his family, slaves, and employees, but he had cash flow problems and was always in debt.
Jefferson had a lifelong interest in linguistics, could speak, read and write in a number of languages, including French, Greek, Italian, German and Spanish. He collected and understood a number of American Indian vocabularies and instructed Lewis and Clark to record and collect various Indian languages during their Expedition. After his presidency, he packed 50 Native American vocabulary lists in a chest and transported them on a river boat along with the rest of his possessions. Somewhere along the journey, a thief stole the heavy chest, thinking it was full of valuables, but its contents were dumped into the River when the thief discovered it was only filled with papers. Subsequently, 30 years of collecting were lost, with only a few fragments rescued from the muddy banks of the river.
Jefferson's reputation declined after his death. Conservatives felt his democratic philosophy had led to that era's populist movement, while Progressives sought a more activist federal government than Jefferson's philosophy allowed.
In 1828, 37 years after its founding, the Democratic-Republican Party was split into 2 factions: the National Republicans which then became the Republican Party of Lincoln; and the Old Republicans which became the modern Democratic Party.
In the 1930s, a hundred years after Jefferson died, he was held in higher esteem. Democrats celebrated his struggles for "the common man" and reclaimed him as their party's founder.
Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an influential interpreter and promoter of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, and The New York Post newspaper. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the main author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration. He took the lead in the funding of the states' debts by the Federal government, as well as the establishment of a national bank, a system of tariffs, and friendly trade relations with Britain.
His vision included a strong central government led by a vigorous executive branch, a strong commercial economy, with a national bank and support for manufacturing, plus a strong military. Thomas Jefferson was his leading opponent, arguing for agrarianism and smaller government.
Alexander Hamilton was born and spent part of his childhood in the British West Indies. He was born out of wedlock and orphaned as a child to a prosperous merchant. As a precocious young teenager he was sent to New York to pursue his education. The Church of England denied membership and education in the church school to Alexander because his parents were not legally married. They received individual tutoring and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress. Alexander supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books.
In 1772, when he was 15 years old he arrived by ship in Boston, and proceeded from there to New York City, where he took lodgings with the brother of a trader who assisted Hamilton in selling cargo that was to pay for his education and support. In 1773, in preparation for college work, Hamilton began to fill gaps in his education at a preparatory school. Hamilton was an avid reader and later developed an interest in writing.
He wrote a letter to his father that was a detailed account of a hurricane which left devastation. The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education. Hamilton entered King's College in New York City in 1773 as a private student, and was forced to discontinue his studies before graduating when the college closed its doors during British occupation of the city. When the war ended, after some months of self study Hamilton passed the bar exam.
Church of England clergyman published a series of pamphlets promoting the Loyalist cause in 1774, to which Hamilton responded anonymously with his first political writings. Hamilton was a supporter of the Revolutionary cause at this pre-war stage, although he did not approve of mob reprisals against Loyalists. In 1775, Hamilton won credit for saving his college president Myles Cooper, a Loyalist, from an angry mob by speaking to the crowd long enough for Cooper to escape.
Hamilton took an early role as the American Revolutionary War began. In 1777, he became a senior aide to General Washington in running the new Continental Army. After the war, Hamilton was elected as a representative to the Congress of the Confederation from New York. In 1782 Hamilton was licensed to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He resigned to practice law, and founded the Bank of New York.
Hamilton was a leader in seeking to replace the weak national government, in 1786, which spurred Congress to call a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He helped achieve ratification by writing 51 of the 85 installments which to this day remain the single most important reference for Constitutional interpretation.
Hamilton led the Treasury Department as a trusted member of President Washington's first Cabinet. He was a nationalist who emphasized strong central government and successfully argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, assume states' debts, and create the government-backed Bank of the United States.
These programs were funded primarily by a tariff on imports, and later also by a controversial tax on whiskey. To overcome localism, Hamilton mobilized a nationwide network of friends of the government, especially bankers and businessmen, which became the Federalist Party.
In 1795, he returned to the practice of law in New York. In 1799, under President Adams, Hamilton called for mobilization against France and became Commanding General of a newly reconstituted U.S. Army, which he modernized and readied for war. Hamilton's army did not see combat and Hamilton was outraged by Adams' diplomatic avoidance of combat with France. His opposition to Adams' re-election helped cause the Federalist party defeat in 1800.
Hamilton continued his legal and business activities in New York City, and was active in ending the legality of the international slave trade. Vice President Burr ran for governor of New York State in 1804, and Hamilton crusaded against him as unworthy. Taking offense, Burr challenged him to a duel in which Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the next day.
Hamilton was invited to become an aide to some generals but declined these invitations, believing his best chance for improving his station in life was glory on the battlefield. Hamilton eventually received an invitation he felt he could not refuse: to serve as Washington's aide, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Hamilton served for 4 years as Washington's chief staff aide. He handled letters to Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals in the Continental Army. He drafted many of Washington's orders and letters at the latter's direction. He eventually issued orders from Washington over his own signature. Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiation with senior army officers as Washington's emissary. In 1782, when the war ended, Hamilton was appointed to the Congress of the Confederation as a New York representative. Before his appointment to Congress in 1782, Hamilton was already sharing his criticisms of Congress. He expressed these criticisms in his letter:
"The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress…the confederation itself is defective and requires to be altered; it is neither fit for war, nor peace."
While on Washington's staff, Hamilton had become frustrated with the decentralized nature of the wartime Continental Congress, particularly its dependence upon the states for voluntary financial support. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to collect taxes or to demand money from the states. This lack of a stable source of funding had made it difficult for the Continental Army both to obtain its necessary provisions and to pay its soldiers.
During the war, and for some time after, Congress obtained what funds it could from subsidies from the King of France, from aid requested from the several states which were often unable or unwilling to contribute, and from European loans.
An amendment to the Articles had been proposed in 1781, to give Congress the power to collect a 5% duty on all imports, but this required ratification by all states. Securing its passage as law proved impossible after it was rejected by Rhode Island in 1782. Hamilton influenced Congress to send a delegation to persuade Rhode Island to change its mind. Their report recommending the delegation argued the national government needed not just some level of financial autonomy, but also the ability to make laws that superseded those of the individual states. Hamilton transmitted a letter arguing that Congress already had the power to tax, since it had the power to fix the sums due from the several states. Virginia's over ruling of its own ratification ended the Rhode Island negotiations.
While Hamilton was in Congress, discontented soldiers began to pose a danger to the young United States. Most of the army had not been paid in 8 months. The government under the Articles of Confederation, had no power to tax to either raise revenue or pay its soldiers. In 1782 after several months without pay, a group of officers organized to send a delegation to lobby Congress. Congress rejected their proposal. Congress ordered the Army officially disbanded in 1783.
Soon a different group of disgruntled soldiers sent Congress a petition demanding their back pay. The mob arrived in Philadelphia, and the soldiers proceeded to harangue Congress for their pay.
Frustrated with the weakness of the central government, Hamilton while in Princeton drafted a call to revise the Articles of Confederation. This resolution contained many features of the future U.S. Constitution, including a strong federal government with the ability to collect taxes and raise an army. It also included the separation of powers into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches.
Hamilton resigned from Congress and in 1782 passed the bar and set up practice in Albany after 6 months of self-directed education. In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, one of the oldest still-existing banks in America.
Long dissatisfied with the weak Articles of Confederation, he played a major leadership role by drafting its resolution and in doing so brought his longtime desire to have a more powerful, more financially independent federal government one step closer to reality.
Hamilton proposed to have an elected President and elected Senators who would serve for life, contingent upon "good behavior" and subject to removal for corruption or abuse. This idea contributed later to the hostile view of Hamilton as a monarchist sympathizer.
President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. He left office in 1795. Much of the structure of the government of the United States was worked out in those 5 years, beginning with the structure and function of the cabinet itself. Washington requested Hamilton's advice and assistance on matters like the Establishment of a Mint, Report on Manufactures, and the Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit.
Hamilton was requested by President Madison to make a report on suggestions to improve the public credit. Hamilton believed that fixing the public credit would win their objective of independence. Although they agreed on additional taxes such as distilleries and duties on imported liquors and land taxes, Madison feared that the securities from the government debt would fall in foreign hands.
In the report, Hamilton felt that the securities should be paid at full value to their legitimate owners, including those who took the financial risk of buying government bonds that most experts thought would never be redeemed. He argued that liberty and property security were inseparable and that the government should honor the contracts, as they formed the basis of public and private morality. To Hamilton, the proper handling of the government debt would also allow America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also be a stimulant to the economy.
Hamilton divided the debt into national and state, and further divided the national debt into foreign and domestic debt. While there was agreement on how to handle the foreign debt especially with France, there was not with regards to the national debt held by domestic creditors. During the Revolutionary War, affluent citizens had invested in bonds, and war veterans had been paid with promissory notes and IOUs that plummeted in price during the Confederation. The war veterans sold the securities to speculators for as little as fifteen to twenty cents on the dollar.
Hamilton felt the money from the bonds should not go to the soldiers, but it should go to the speculators that had bought the bonds from the soldiers who had shown little faith in the country's future. The process of attempting to track down the original bond holders along with the government showing discrimination among the classes of holders if the war veterans were to be compensated also weighed in as factors for Hamilton. As for the state debts, Hamilton suggested to consolidate it with the national debt and label it as federal debt, for the sake of efficiency on a national scale.
The last portion of the report dealt with eliminating the debt by utilizing a sinking fund that would retire 5% of the debt annually until it was paid off. Due to the bonds being traded well below their face value, the purchases would benefit the government as the securities rose in price.
When the report was submitted to the House of Representatives, detractors soon began to speak against it. The notion of programs that resembled British practice were wicked along with the power of balance being shifted away from the Representatives to the executive branch were some of the prejudices that resided within the House. It was suspected that several congressmen were involved in government securities, saw Congress in an unholy league with New York speculators. There were allegations of speculators attempting to swindle those who had not yet heard about Hamilton's report.
Madison eventually spoke against it by 1790. Although he was not against current holders of government debt to profit, he wanted the windfall to go to the original holders. Madison did not feel that the original holders had lost faith in the government, but sold their securities out of desperation.
The fight for the national government to assume state debt was a longer issue, and lasted over 4 months. Some of the other issues involving Hamilton were bypassing the rising issue of slavery in Congress after Quakers petitioned for its abolition.
Although Hamilton had been forming ideas of a national bank as early as 1779, he gathered ideas in various ways over the past 11 years. These included theories from Adam Smith, extensive studies on the Bank of England, the blunders of the Bank of North America and his experience in establishing the Bank of New York.
Hamilton suggested that Congress should charter the National Bank with a capitalization of $10 million, one-fifth of which would be handled by the Government. Since the Government did not have the money, it would borrow the money from the bank itself, and repay the loan in 10 even annual installments. The rest was to be available to individual investors. The bank was to be governed by a 25 member board of directors that was to represent a large majority of the private shareholders.
Hamilton's bank model had many similarities to that of the Bank of England, except Hamilton wanted to exclude the Government from being involved in public debt, but provide a large, firm, and elastic money supply for the functioning of normal businesses and usual economic development. For tax revenue to ignite the bank, it was the same as he had previously proposed. Increases on imported spirits: rum, liquor, and whiskey.
The bill passed through the Senate practically without a problem, but objections of the proposal increased by the time it reached the House of Representatives. It was generally held by critics that Hamilton was serving the interests of the Northeast by means of the bank, and those of the agrarian lifestyle would not benefit from it.
Madison warned the Pennsylvania congress members that he would attack the bill as unconstitutional in the House, and followed up on his threat. Madison argued his case of where the power of a bank could be established within the Constitution, but he failed to sway members of the House, and his authority on the constitution was questioned by a few members. The bill eventually passed in an overwhelming fashion 39 to 20, in 1791. Washington hesitated to sign the bill at first but eventually sign the bill into law.
In 1791, Hamilton submitted the Report on the Establishment of a Mint to the House of Representatives. Because the most circulated coins in the United States at the time were Spanish currency, Hamilton proposed that minting a United States dollar weighing almost as much as the Spanish peso would be the simplest way to introduce a national currency. Hamilton differed from European monetary policymakers in his desire to overprice gold relative to silver, on the grounds that the United States would always receive an influx of silver from the West Indies. Despite his own preference for a mono-metallic gold standard, he ultimately issued a bimetallic currency at a fixed 15:1 ratio of silver to gold.
Hamilton proposed that the U.S. dollar should have fractional coins using decimals, rather than eighths like the Spanish coinage. He also desired the minting of small value coins, such as silver ten-cent and copper cent and half-cent pieces, for reducing the cost of living for the poor. One of his main objectives was for the general public to become accustomed to handling money on a frequent basis. By 1792, Hamilton's principles were adopted by Congress, resulting in the Coinage Act of 1792, and the creation of the United States Mint. There was to be a ten-dollar Gold Eagle coin, a silver dollar, and fractional money ranging from one-half to fifty cents. The coining of silver and gold was issued by 1795.
Smuggling off American coasts was an issue before the Revolutionary War, and after the Revolution it was more problematic. Along with smuggling, lack of shipping control, pirating, and a revenue unbalance were also major problems. In response, Hamilton proposed to Congress to enact a naval police force called in order to patrol the waters and assist the custom collectors with confiscating contraband. This idea was also proposed to assist in tariff controlling, boosting the American economy, and promote the merchant marine.
Hamilton wanted the first ten cutters in different areas in the United States, from New England to Georgia. Each of those cutters was to be armed with 10 muskets and bayonets, 20 pistols, 2 chisels, 1 broad-ax and 2 lanterns. The fabric of the sails was to be domestically manufactured and provisions were made for the employees' food supply and etiquette when boarding ships. Congress established the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790, which is viewed as the birth of the United States Coast Guard.
One of the principal sources of revenue Hamilton prevailed upon Congress to approve was an excise tax on whiskey. In his first Tariff Bill in 1790, Hamilton proposed to raise the 3 million dollars needed to pay for government operating expenses and interest on domestic and foreign debts by means of an increase on duties on imported wines, distilled spirits, tea, coffee, and domestic spirits. It failed.
In response of diversifying revenues, as three-fourths of revenue gathered was from commerce with Great Britain, Hamilton attempted once again during his Report on Public Credit when presenting it in 1790 to implement an excise tax both imported and domestic spirits. The taxation rate was graduated in proportion to the whiskey proof, and Hamilton intended to equalize the tax burden on imported spirits with imported and domestic liquor. In lieu of the excise on production, citizens could pay 60 cents by the gallon of dispensing capacity, along with an exemption on small stills used exclusively for domestic consumption. He realized the loathing that the tax would receive in rural areas, but thought of the taxing of spirits more reasonable than land taxes.
Opposition initially came from Pennsylvania's House of Representatives protesting the tax. It was noted that it was not possible to enforce excise taxes in the western regions of the state. Hamilton was aware of the potential difficulties and proposed inspectors the ability to search buildings that distillers were designated to store their spirits, and would be able to search suspected illegal storage facilities to confiscate contraband with a warrant.
Hamilton cautioned against expedited judicial means, and favored a jury trial with potential offenders. Locals began to shun or threaten inspectors, as they felt the inspection methods were intrusive. Inspectors were also tarred and feathered, blindfolded, and whipped. Hamilton had attempted to appease the opposition with lowered tax rates, but it did not suffice.
Strong opposition to the whiskey tax by cottage producers in remote, rural regions erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. In Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, whiskey was the basic export product and was fundamental to the local economy. In response to the rebellion, believing compliance with the laws was vital to the establishment of federal authority, Hamilton accompanied to the rebellion's site President Washington, and more federal troops than were ever assembled in one place during the Revolution. This overwhelming display of force intimidated the leaders of the insurrection, ending the rebellion virtually without bloodshed.
Hamilton's next report was his Report on Manufactures requested by Congress for manufacturing that would expand the United States' independence. In the report, Hamilton quoted from Wealth of Nations. Hamilton refuted Smith's ideas of government noninterference, as it would have been detrimental for trade with other countries. Hamilton thought of the United States being a primarily agrarian country would be at a disadvantage in dealing with Europe. In response to the agrarian detractors, Hamilton stated that the agriculturists' interest would be advanced by manufactures, and that agriculture was just as productive as manufacturing.
Among the ways that the government could assist in manufacturing, Hamilton mentioned levying protective duties on imported foreign goods that were also manufactured in the United States, to withdraw duties levied on raw materials needed for domestic manufacturing, and encouraging immigration for people to better themselves in similar employment opportunities. Congress shelved the report without much debate.
Hamilton's vision was challenged by Jefferson and Madison, who formed a rival party, the Jeffersonian Republican party. They favored strong state governments based in rural America and protected by state militias as opposed to a strong national government supported by a national army and navy. They denounced Hamilton as insufficiently devoted to republicanism, too friendly toward corrupt Britain and toward monarchy in general, and too oriented toward cities, business and banking.
Hamilton assembled a nationwide coalition to garner support for the Administration, including the expansive financial programs Hamilton had made Administration policy and especially the president's policy of neutrality in the European war between Britain and France. Hamilton's public relations campaign attacked the French minister who tried to appeal to voters directly, which Federalists denounced as foreign interference in American affairs.
If Hamilton's administrative republic was to succeed, Americans had to see themselves as nation citizens, and experience an administration that proved firm and demonstrated the concepts found within the United States Constitution. The Federalists did impose some internal direct taxes but they departed from the most implications of the Hamilton administrative republic as risky.
The Jeffersonian Republicans opposed banks and cities, and favored France. They built their own national coalition to oppose the Federalists. Both sides gained the support of local political factions, and each side developed its own partisan newspapers. All of their newspapers were characterized by intense personal attacks, major exaggerations, and invented claims. In 1801, Hamilton established a daily newspaper that is still published, the New York Evening Post. The quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson is the best known and historically the most important in American political history.
When France and Britain went to war in early 1793, all 4 members of the Cabinet were consulted on what to do. They and Washington unanimously agreed to remain neutral. However, in 1794 policy toward Britain became a major point of contention between the 2 parties. Hamilton and the Federalists wished for more trade with Britain, the new nation's largest trading partner. The Republicans saw Britain as the main threat to republicanism and proposed instead a trade war. To avoid war, Washington commanded Hamilton to write a Treaty to resolve issues remaining from the Revolution, avert war, and make possible 10 years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain. The Treaty passed the Senate in 1795 by exactly the required two-thirds majority.
Hamilton tendered his resignation from office in 1794, giving Washington 2 months' notice, in the wake of his wife's miscarriage while he was absent during his armed repression of the Whiskey Rebellion. Before leaving his post Hamilton submitted a Report to Congress to curb the debt problem. Hamilton grew dissatisfied with what he viewed as a lack of a comprehensive plan to fix the public debt. He wished to have new taxes passed with older ones made permanent and stated that any surplus from the excise tax on liquor would be pledged to lower public debt. His proposals were included into a bill by Congress within slightly over a month after his departure as treasury secretary. Some months later Hamilton resumed his law practice in New York to remain closer to his family.
Hamilton's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795 did not remove him from public life. With the resumption of his law practice, he remained close to Washington as an adviser and friend. Adam became president and Jefferson became Vice President. Adams resented Hamilton's influence with Washington and considered him overambitious and scandalous in his private life. Hamilton compared Adams unfavorably with Washington and thought him too emotionally unstable to be President.
In 1797 Hamilton became the first major American politician publicly involved in a sex scandal. Six years earlier, 34-year-old Hamilton started an affair with a 23-year-old Maria. According to Hamilton's recount, Maria approached him at his house in Philadelphia, claiming that her husband, James Reynolds, had abandoned her and she wished to return to her relatives in New York but lacked the means.
Hamilton retrieved her address and delivered her $30 personally at her boarding house where she led him into her bedroom and "some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable". The 2 began an intermittent illicit affair that lasted a year.
Over the course of that year, while the affair took place, James Reynolds was well aware of his wife's unfaithfulness. He continually supported their relationship to regularly gain blackmail money from Hamilton. The common practice in the day was for the wronged husband to seek retribution in a pistol duel, but Reynolds, realizing how much Hamilton had to lose if his activity came into public view, insisted on monetary compensation instead.
Reynolds invited Hamilton to renew his visits to his wife "as a friend" only to extort forced "loans" after each visit that the most likely colluding Maria solicited with her letters. Hamilton at this point was aware of both Reynoldses being involved in the blackmail and ended the affair.
In 1792 James Reynolds and his accomplice were arrested for counterfeiting and speculating in veteran back wages. The accomplice was released on bail and relayed information that Reynolds had evidence that would incriminate Hamilton. Hamilton decided the best thing he could do was to confess his affair with Maria and produced as evidence the letters by both Reynoldses, proving that his payments to James Reynolds related to blackmail over his adultery, and not to treasury misconduct. He published a 100-page booklet in order to preserve his public reputation, and discussed the affair in exquisite detail. His wife Elizabeth eventually forgave him.
Hamilton served as inspector general of the United States Army from 1798, to 1800. Hamilton was the de facto head of the army, to Adams's considerable displeasure. If full-scale war broke out with France, Hamilton argued that the army should conquer the North American colonies of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States. Hamilton was prepared to march his army through the Southern United States.
To fund this army, Hamilton directed Congress to pass a direct tax to fund the war. Hamilton wanted to tax houses instead of land. The eventual program included a Stamp Act like that of the British before the Revolution and other taxes on land, houses, and slaves, calculated at different rates in different states, and requiring difficult and intricate assessment of houses.
In the 1800 election, Hamilton worked to defeat not only the rival Democratic-Republican candidates, but also his party's own nominee, John Adams. In 1799, the Alien and Sedition Acts had left one Democratic-Republican newspaper functioning in New York City. When the last, the New Daily Advertiser, reprinted an article saying that Hamilton had attempted to purchase the Philadelphia Aurora and close it down, Hamilton had the publisher prosecuted for seditious libel, and the prosecution compelled the owner to close the paper.
The voting was very close. With Jefferson and Burr tied, the United States House of Representatives had to choose between the 2 men. Several Federalists who opposed Jefferson supported Burr, and for the first 35 ballots, Jefferson was denied a majority. Hamilton threw his weight behind Jefferson. Even though Hamilton did not like Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he viewed Jefferson as the lesser of two evils. Hamilton spoke of Jefferson as being "by far not so a dangerous man", and that Burr was a "mischievous enemy" to the principle measure of the past administration. Burr, sensing an attack on his honor, and recovering from his defeat, demanded a duel. The concept of honor was fundamental to Hamilton's vision of himself and of the nation.
The duel took place relatively close to the location of the duel that had ended the life of Hamilton's eldest son, Philip, 3 years earlier. Vice President Burr shot Hamilton, delivering what proved to be a fatal wound. Hamilton's shot broke a tree branch directly above Burr's head.
The paralyzed Hamilton, knew himself to be mortally wounded. After final visits from his family and friends and considerable suffering, Hamilton died. He was only 47 years old and was the visionary architect of the modern liberal capitalist economy and of a dynamic federal government headed by an energetic executive.
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