In this week of the course, you will be studying the history of the seventeenth century
and focusing on the political evolutions of England and France at that time.
If you successfully completed HIS 101, you will remember that as early as the fifteenth
century and the end of the Hundred Years' War, England and France appeared to be
going in different directions with regard to their internal political structures (Parliament
becoming more powerful in England; the King of France becoming more powerful in
France).  This crystalized in the seventeenth century with the development of a
powerful absolutism in France as opposed to a constitutional system in England.  This
set the stage for over two centuries of rivalry between the conservative and liberal
forces throughout the Western world.  Liberals consistently championed the English
constitutional system as a model, while conservatives favored the example of the
French monarchy.

In England, events of the century prove dramatic for the kings.  For the first time in
history, a king was put on trial by Parliament and executed for treason in 1649, clearly
an assertion of the power of the representative body at the expense of the king. 
English kings, however, did not learn their lesson, and it took the Glorious Revolution
of 1688-1689 before the lesson sank in.  In 1688 Parliament actually dethroned the
king of England and installed a new king--in this case it was a pair of monarchs, King
William and Queen Mary--to rule England in accord with a document drawn up by
Parliament, and that document was the English Bill of Rights.  Kings no longer had
absolute power in England but had to share power in a constitutional arrangement with
Parliament.

In France, the seventeenth century was above all the century of Louis the Fourteenth,
the Sun King, who ruled France from 1643 until his death in 1715, one of the longest
reigns in European history.  Louis the XIV is usually considered to have been the
epitome of European absolutism, consolidating all power in his hands, creating a
centralized bureaucracy that reported directly to the king and embarking upon an
aggressive foreign policy program to expand France's borders and increase French
power.  Of course, it ended badly for France, losing the War of the Spanish
Succession.  Thus, despite all the glories that Louis had been able to achieve for
France, by the time of his death in 1715 he had long outlived his usefulness and most
Frenchmen were glad to see him finally dead.  What did survive his reign was French
cultural dominance in matters intellectual, artistic and cultural.