Book: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12

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%THE GREAT EVENTS%


BY

Famous Historians


A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN
THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS


%NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL%


ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS
BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES, ARRANGED
CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES. BIBLIOGRAPHIES. CHRONOLOGIES. AND
COURSES OF READING


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.


ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists VOLUME XII_


%The National Alumni% 1905




%CONTENTS%

VOLUME XII


_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_
CHARLES F. HORNE

_Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy (A.D. 1661)_
JAMES COTTER MORISON

_New York Taken by the English (A.D. 1664)_
JOHN R. BRODHEAD

_Great Plague in London (A.D. 1665)_
DANIEL DEFOE

_Great Fire in London (A.D. 1666)_
JOHN EVELYN

_Discovery of Gravitation (A.D. 1666)_
SIR DAVID BREWSTER

_Morgan, the Buccaneer, Sacks Panama (A.D. 1671)_
JOHANN W. VON ARCHENHOLZ

_Struggle of the Dutch against France and England (A.D. 1672)_
C.M. DAVIES.

_Discovery of the Mississippi
La Salle Names Louisiana (A.D. 1673-1682)_
FRANÇOIS XAVIER GARNEAU

_King Philip's War (A.D. 1675)_
RICHARD HILDRETH

_Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector
His Victory at Fehrbellin (A.D. 1675)_
THOMAS CARLYLE

_William Penn Receives the Grant of Pennsylvania
Founding of Philadelphia (A.D. 1681)_
GEORGE E. ELLIS

_Last Turkish Invasion of Europe Sobieski Saves Vienna (A.D. 1683)_
SUTHERLAND MENZIES

_Monmouth's Rebellion (A.D. 1685)_
GILBERT BURNET

_Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (A.D. 1685)_
BON LOUIS HENRI MARTIN

_The English Revolution
Flight of James II (A.D. 1688)_
GILBERT BURNET
H.D. TRAILL

_Peter the Great Modernizes Russia
Suppression of the Streltsi (A.D. 1689)_
ALFRED RAMBAUD

_Tyranny of Andros in New England
The Bloodless Revolution (A.D. 1689)_
CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT

_Massacre of Lachine (A.D. 1689)_
FRANÇOIS XAVIER GARNEAU

_Siege of Londonderry and Battle of the Boyne (A.D. 1689-1690)_
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT

_Salem Witchcraft Trials (A.D. 1692)_
RICHARD HILDRETH

_Establishment of the Bank of England (A.D. 1694)_
JOHN FRANCIS

_Colonization of Louisiana (A.D. 1699)_
CHARLES E.T. GAYARRÉ

_Prussia Proclaimed a Kingdom (A.D. 1701)_
LEOPOLD VON RANKE

_Founding of St. Petersburg (A.D. 1703)_
K. WALISZEWSKI

_Battle of Blenheim (A.D. 1704)
Curbing of Louis XIV_,
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

_Union of England and Scotland (A.D. 1707)_
JOHN HILL BURTON

_Downfall of Charles XII at Poltava (A.D. 1709)
Triumph of Russia_
K. WALISZEWSKI

_Capture of Port Royal (A.D. 1710)
France Surrenders Nova Scotia to England_
DUNCAN CAMPBELL

_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1661-1715)_
JOHN RUDD



ILLUSTRATIONS


VOLUME XII

_Surrender of Marshal Tallard at the Battle of Blenheim_, Painting by R.
Caton Woodville.

_The Duke of Monmouth humiliates himself before King James II_, Painting by
J. Pettie, A.R.A.

_Charles XII carried on a litter during the Battle of Poltava_, Painting by
W. Hauschild.



%AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE%

Tracing Briefly The Causes, Connections, And Consequencies Of

%THE GREAT EVENTS%

(Age Of Louis XIV)

CHARLES F. HORNE


It is related that in 1661, on the day following the death of the great
Cardinal Mazarin, the various officials of the State approached their young
King, Louis XIV. "To whom shall we go now for orders, Your Majesty?" "To
me," answered Louis, and from that date until his death in 1715 they had
no other master. Whether we accept the tale as literal fact or only as the
vivid French way of visualizing a truth, we find here the central point
of over fifty years of European history. The two celebrated cardinals,
Richelieu and Mazarin, had, by their strength and wisdom, made France by
far the most powerful state in Europe. Moreover, they had so reduced the
authority of the French nobility, the clergy, and the courts of law as to
have become practically absolute and untrammelled in their control of the
entire government. Now, all this enormous power, both at home and abroad,
over France and over Europe, was assumed by a young man of twenty-three. "I
am the state," said Louis at a later period of his career. He might almost
have said, "I am Europe," looking as he did only to the Europe that
dominated, and took pleasure in itself, and made life one continued
glittering revel of splendor. Independent Europe, that claimed the right of
thinking for itself, the suffering Europe of the peasants, who starved and
shed their blood in helpless agony--these were against Louis almost from
the beginning, and ever increasingly against him.

At first the young monarch found life very bright around him. His courtiers
called him "the rising sun," and his ambition was to justify the title, to
be what with his enormous wealth and authority was scarcely difficult, the
Grand Monarch. He rushed into causeless war and snatched provinces from
his feeble neighbors, exhausted Germany and decaying Spain. He built huge
fortresses along his frontiers, and military roads from end to end of his
domains. His court was one continuous round of splendid entertainments. He
encouraged literature, or at least pensioned authors and had them clustered
around him in what Frenchmen call the Augustan Age of their development.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Louis XIV Establishes Absolute Monarchy_, page 1.]

The little German princes of the Rhine, each of them practically
independent ruler of a tiny state, could not of course compete with Louis
or defy him. Nor for a time did they attempt it. His splendor dazzled them.
They were content to imitate, and each little prince became a patron of
literature, or giver of entertainments, or builder of huge fortresses
absurdly disproportioned to his territory and his revenues. Germany, it has
been aptly said, became a mere tail to the French kite, its leaders feebly
draggling after where Louis soared. Never had the common people of Europe
or even the nobility had less voice in their own affairs. It was an age of
absolute kingly power, an age of despotism.

England, which under Cromwell had bid fair to take a foremost place in
Europe, sank under Charles II into unimportance. Its people wearied with
tumult, desired peace more than aught else; its King, experienced in
adversity, and long a homeless wanderer in France and Holland, seemed to
have but one firm principle in life. Whatever happened he did not intend,
as he himself phrased it, to go on his "travels" again. He dreaded and
hated the English Parliament as all the Stuarts had; and, like his father,
he avoided calling it together. To obtain money without its aid, he
accepted a pension from the French King. Thus England also became a
servitor of Louis. Its policy, so far as Charles could mould it, was
France's policy. If we look for events in the English history of the
time we must find them in internal incidents, the terrible plague that
devastated London in 1665,[1] the fire of the following year, that checked
the plague but almost swept the city out of existence.[2] We must note the
founding of the Royal Society in 1660 for the advancement of science, or
look to Newton, its most celebrated member, beginning to puzzle out his
theory of gravitation in his Woolsthorpe garden.[3]

[Footnote 1: See _Great Plague in London_, page 29.]

[Footnote 2: See _Great Fire in London_, page 45.]

[Footnote 3: See _Discovery of Gravitation_, page 51.]


CONTINENTAL WARS

Louis's first real opponent he found in sturdy Holland. Her fleets and
those of England had learned to fight each other in Cromwell's time, and
they continued to struggle for the mastery of the seas. There were many
desperate naval battles. In 1664 an English fleet crossed the ocean to
seize the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and it became New York.[4] In 1667
a Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and burned the shipping, almost reaching
London itself.

[Footnote 4: See _New York Taken by the English_, page 19.]

Yet full as her hands might seem with strife like this, Holland did not
hesitate to stand forth against the aggression of Louis's "rising sun."
When in his first burst of kingship, he seized the Spanish provinces of the
Netherlands and so extended his authority to the border of Holland, its
people, frightened at his advance, made peace with England and joined an
alliance against him. Louis drew back; and the Dutch authorized a medal
which depicted Holland checking the rising sun. Louis never forgave them,
and in 1672, having secured German neutrality and an English alliance, he
suddenly attacked Holland with all his forces.[5]

[Footnote 5: See _Struggle of the Dutch against France and England_, page
86.]

For a moment the little republic seemed helpless. Her navy indeed withstood
ably the combined assaults of the French and English ships, but the French
armies overran almost her entire territory. It was then that her people
talked of entering their ships and sailing away together, transporting
their nation bodily to some colony beyond Louis's reach. It was then that
Amsterdam set the example which other districts heroically followed, of
opening her dykes and letting the ocean flood the land to drive out the
French. The leaders of the republic were murdered in a factional strife,
and the young Prince William III of Orange, descended from that William
the Silent who had led the Dutch against Philip II, was made practically
dictator of the land. This young Prince William, afterward King William III
of England, was the antagonist who sprang up against Louis, and in the end
united all Europe against him and annihilated his power.

Seeing the wonderful resistance that little Holland made against her
apparently overwhelming antagonists, the rest of Germany took heart; allies
came to the Dutch. Brandenburg and Austria and Spain forced Louis to fall
back upon his own frontier, though with much resolute battling by his great
general, Turenne.

Next to young William, Louis found his most persistent opponent in
Frederick William, the "Great Elector" of Brandenburg and Prussia,
undoubtedly the ablest German sovereign of the age, and the founder of
Prussia's modern importance. He had succeeded to his hereditary domains in
1640, when they lay utterly waste and exhausted in the Thirty Years' War;
and he reigned until 1688, nearly half a century, during which he was ever
and vigorously the champion of Germany against all outside enemies. He
alone, in the feeble Germany of the day, resisted French influence, French
manners, and French aggression.

In this first general war of the Germans and their allies against Louis,
Frederick William proved the only one of their leaders seriously to be
feared. Louis made an alliance with Sweden and persuaded the Swedes to
overrun Brandenburg during its ruler's absence with his forces on the
Rhine. But so firmly had the Great Elector established himself at home, so
was he loved, that the very peasantry rose to his assistance. "We are only
peasants," said their banners, "but we can die for our lord." Pitiful cry!
Pitiful proof of how unused the commons were to even a little kindness, how
eagerly responsive! Frederick William came riding like a whirlwind from the
Rhine, his army straggling along behind in a vain effort to keep up. He
hurled himself with his foremost troops upon the Swedes, and won the
celebrated battle of Fehrbellin. He swept his astonished foes back into
their northern peninsula. Brandenburg became the chief power of northern
Germany.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Growth of Prussia under the Great Elector: His Victory at
Fehrbellin_, page 138.]

In 1679 the Peace of Ryswick ended the general war, and left Holland
unconquered, but with the French frontier extended to the Rhine, and Louis
at the height of his power, the acknowledged head of European affairs.
Austria was under the rule of Leopold I, Emperor of Germany from 1657 to
1705, whose pride and incompetence wholly prevented him from being what
his position as chief of the Hapsburgs would naturally have made him, the
leader of the opposition, the centre around whom all Europe could rally to
withstand Louis's territorial greed. Leopold hated Louis, but he hated also
the rising Protestant "Brandenburger," he hated the "merchant" Dutch,
hated everybody in short who dared intrude upon the ancient order of his
superiority, who refused to recognize his impotent authority. So he would
gladly have seen Louis crush every opponent except himself, would have
found it a pleasant vengeance indeed to see all these upstart powers
destroying one another.

Moreover, Austria was again engaged in desperate strife with the Turks.
These were in the last burst of their effort at European conquest. No
longer content with Hungary, twice in Leopold's reign did they advance to
attack Vienna. Twice were they repulsed by Hungarian and Austrian valor.
The final siege was in 1683. A vast horde estimated as high as two hundred
thousand men marched against the devoted city. Leopold and most of the
aristocracy fled, in despair of its defence. Only the common people who
could not flee, remained, and with the resolution of despair beat off the
repeated assaults of the Mahometans.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Last Turkish Invasion of Europe: Sobieski Saves Vienna_,
page 164.]

They were saved by John Sobieski, a king who had raised Poland to one of
her rare outflashing periods of splendor. With his small but gallant Polish
army he came to the rescue of Christendom, charged furiously upon the huge
Turkish horde, and swept it from the field in utter flight. The tide of
Turkish power receded forever; that was its last great wave which broke
before the walls of Vienna. All Hungary was regained, mainly through the
efforts of Austria's greatest general, Prince Eugene of Savoy. The centre
of the centuries of strife shifted back where it had been in Hunyady's
time, from Vienna to the mighty frontier fortress of Belgrad, which was
taken and retaken by opposing forces.


LATER EFFORTS OF LOUIS XIV

The earlier career of Louis XIV seems to have been mainly influenced by his
passion for personal renown; but he had always been a serious Catholic, and
in his later life his interest in religion became a most important factor
in his world. The Protestants of France had for wellnigh a century held
their faith unmolested, safeguarded by that Edict of Nantes, which had been
granted by Henry IV, a Catholic at least in name, and confirmed by Cardinal
Richelieu, a Catholic by profession. Persuasive measures had indeed been
frequently employed to win the deserters back to the ancient Church; but
now under Louis's direction, a harsher course was attempted. The celebrated
"dragonades" quartered a wild and licentious soldiery in Protestant
localities, in the homes of Protestant house-owners, with special orders to
make themselves offensive to their hosts. Under this grim discouragement
Protestantism seemed dying out of France, and at last, in 1685, Louis,
encouraged by success, took the final step and revoked the Edict of Nantes,
commanding all his subjects to accept Catholicism, while at the same time
forbidding any to leave the country. Huguenots who attempted flight were
seized; many were slain. Externally at least, the reformed religion
disappeared from France.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_, page 180.]

Of course, despite the edict restraining them, many Huguenots, the most
earnest and vigorous of the sect, did escape by flight; and some hundred
thousands of France's ablest citizens were thus lost to her forever. Large
numbers found a welcome in neighboring Holland; the Great Elector stood
forward and gave homes to a wandering host of the exiles. England received
colonies of them; and even distant America was benefited by the numbers who
sought her freer shores. No enemy to France in all the world but received a
welcome accession to its strength against her.

In the same year that Protestant Europe was thus assailed and terrified by
the reviving spectre of religious persecution, Charles II of England died
and his brother James II succeeded him. Charles may have been Catholic at
heart, but in name at least he had retained the English religion. James
was openly Catholic. A hasty rebellion raised against him by his nephew,
Monmouth, fell to pieces;[1] and James, having executed Monmouth and
approved a cruel persecution of his followers, began to take serious steps
toward forcing the whole land back to the ancient faith.

[Footnote 1: See _Monmouth's Rebellion_, page 172.]

So here was kingly absolutism coming to the aid of the old religious
intolerance. The English people, however, had already killed one king in
defence of their liberties; and their resolute opposition to James began to
suggest that they might kill another. Many of the leading nobles appealed
secretly to William of Orange for help. William was, as we have said, the
centre of opposition to Louis, and that began to mean to Catholicism as
well. Also, William had married a daughter of King James and had thus some
claim to interfere in the family domains. And, most important of all, as
chief ruler of Holland, William had an army at command. With a portion of
that army he set sail late in 1688 and landed in England. Englishmen of all
ranks flocked to join him. King James fled to France, and a Parliament,
hastily assembled in 1689, declared him no longer king and placed William
and his wife Mary on the throne as joint rulers.[2] Thus William had two
countries instead of one to aid him in his life-long effort against Louis.

[Footnote 2: See _The English Revolution: Flight of James II_, page 200.]

Louis, indeed, accepted the accession of his enemy as a threat of war and,
taking up the cause of the fugitive James, despatched him with French
troops to Ireland, where his Catholic faith made the mass of the people his
devoted adherents. There were, however, Protestant Irish as well, and these
defied James and held his troops at bay in the siege of Londonderry, while
King William hurried over to Ireland with an army. Father-in-law and
son-in-law met in the battle of the Boyne, and James was defeated in war
as he had been in diplomacy. He fled back to France, leaving his Catholic
adherents to withstand William as best they might. Limerick, the Catholic
stronghold, was twice besieged and only yielded when full religious freedom
had been guaranteed. Irishmen to this day call it with bitterness "the city
of the violated treaty."[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Siege of Londonderry and the Battle of the Boyne_, page
258.]

Meanwhile the strife between Louis and William had spread into another
general European war. William had difficulties to encounter in his new
kingdom. Its people cared little for his Continental aims and gave him
little loyalty of service. In fact, peculation among public officials was
so widespread that, despite large expenditures of money, England had only
a most feeble, inefficient army in the field, and William was in black
disgust against his new subjects. It was partly to aid the Government in
its financial straits that the Bank of England was formed in 1694.[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Establishment of the Bank of England_, page 286.]

Yet Louis's troubles were greater and of deeper root. Catholic Austria and
even the Pope himself, unable to submit to the arrogance of the "Grand
Monarch," took part against him in this war. It can therefore no longer be
regarded as a religious struggle. It marks the turning-point in Louis's
fortunes. His boundless extravagance had exhausted France at last. Both in
wealth and population she began to feel the drain. The French generals won
repeated victories, yet they had to give slowly back before their more
numerous foes; and in 1697 Louis purchased peace by making concessions of
territory as well as courtesy.

This peace proved little more than a truce. For almost half a century the
European sovereigns had been waiting for Charles II of Spain to die. He
was the last of his race, last of the Spanish Hapsburgs descended from
the Emperor Charles V, and so infirm and feeble was he that it seemed the
flickering candle of his life must puff out with each passing wind. Who
should succeed him? In Mazarin's time, that crafty minister had schemed
that the prize should go to France, and had wedded young Louis XIV to a
Spanish princess. The Austrian Hapsburgs of course wanted the place for
themselves, though to establish a common ancestry with their Spanish kin
they must turn back over a century and a half to Ferdinand and Isabella.

But strong men grew old and died, while the invalid Charles II still clung
to his tottering throne. Louis ceased hoping to occupy it himself and
claimed it for his son, then for his grandson, Philip. Not until 1700,
after a reign of nearly forty years, did Charles give up the worthless game
and expire. He declared Philip his heir, and the aged Louis sent the youth
to Spain with an eager boast, "Go; there are no longer any Pyrenees." That
is, France and Spain were to be one, a mighty Bourbon empire.

That was just what Europe, experienced in Louis's unscrupulous aggression,
dared not allow. So another general alliance was formed, with William of
Holland and England at its head, to drive Philip from his new throne in
favor of a Hapsburg. William died before the war was well under way, but
the British people understood his purposes now and upheld them. Once more
they felt themselves the champions of Protestantism in Europe. Anne, the
second daughter of the deposed King James, was chosen as queen; and under
her the two realms of England and Scotland were finally joined in one by
the Act of Union (1707), with but a single Parliament.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Union of England and Scotland_, page 341.]

Meanwhile Marlborough was sent to the Rhine with a strong British army.
Prince Eugene paused in fighting the Turks and joined him with Austrian and
German troops. Together they defeated the French in the celebrated battle
of Blenheim (1704),[2] and followed it in later years with Oudenarde and
Malplaquet. Louis was beaten. France was exhausted. The Grand Monarch
pleaded for peace on almost any terms.

[Footnote 2: See _Battle of Blenheim: Curbing of Louis XIV_, page 327.]

Yet his grandson remained on the Spanish throne. For one reason, the
Spaniards themselves upheld him and fought for him. For another, the
allies' Austrian candidate became Emperor of Germany, and to make him ruler
of Spain as well would only have been to consolidate the Hapsburg power
instead of that of the Bourbons. Made dubious by this balance between
evils, Europe abandoned the war. So there were two Bourbon kingdoms after
all--but both too exhausted to be dangerous.

Louis had indeed outlived his fame. He had roused the opposition of all his
neighbors, and ruined France in the effort to extend her greatness. The
praises and flattery of his earlier years reached him now only from the
lips of a few determined courtiers. His people hated him, and in 1715
celebrated his death as a release. Frenchmen high and low had begun the
career which ended in their terrific Revolution. Lying on his dreary
death-bed, the Grand Monarch apologized that he should "take so long in
dying." Perhaps he, also, felt that he delayed the coming of the new age.
What his career had done was to spread over all Europe a new culture and
refinement, to rouse a new splendor and recklessness among the upper
classes, and to widen almost irretrievably the gap between rich and poor,
between kings and commons. In the very years that parliamentary government
was becoming supreme in England, absolutism established itself upon the
Continent.


CHANGES IN NORTHERN EUROPE

Toward the close of this age the balance of power in Northern Europe
shifted quite as markedly as it had farther south. Three of the German
electoral princes became kings. The Elector of Saxony was chosen King of
Poland, thereby adding greatly to his power. George, Elector of Hanover,
became King of England on the death of Queen Anne. And the Elector of
Brandenburg, son of the Great Elector, when the war of 1701 against France
and Spain broke out, only lent his aid to the European coalition on
condition that the German Emperor should authorize him also to assume the
title of king, not of Brandenburg but of his other and smaller domain of
Prussia, which lay outside the empire. Most of the European sovereigns
smiled at this empty change of title without a change of dominions; but
Brandenburg or Prussia was thus made more united, more consolidated, and
it soon rose to be the leader of Northern Germany. A new family, the
Hohenzollerns, contested European supremacy with the Hapsburgs and the
Bourbons.[1]

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