The 17th and 18th centuries
As human beings develops from lowest states to high states and forms, the issues of politics and struggles against the daily challenges can be traced back to these centuries different from the early man of the middle ages. However, this presupposition does not mean that they arose by themselves at this time, but through improvement. In terms of politics, both France and Britain were organized under monarch governments. The Monarchy in France had experienced wars in the centuries before the 16th and 17th centuries.
The politics and the idea of government took shape in the form of absolute monarchy, a position emanating from the state that God ordained Kings to rule over his people. Thus, the Kings were only answerable to God hence their authority was absolute. In France therefore, King Louis XIV was the best example of such absolutism obviously emanating from Cardinal Richelieu who targeted greatly to humble the pride of men. Richelieu succeeded in keeping the central royal authority alive by suppressing the noble conspiracies at a time when King Louis III was still a young boy from 1610 to 1643.
Richelieu in his mission to strengthen the central government through financing, failed because the intendants came into conflict with provincial governors thus they were unpopular and at the same time there were corrupt practices. Thus even the taille doubled, meant to support the Thirty Years War of Hapsburgs, and increased expenditures against the revenues hence French debt sprawled upward. The provincial animosity between the central and provincial administrations continued even after the death of Richelieu, the reign of King Louis XIV and later his son Louis XIII who was only four years old. The wife of the dead King Anne of Austria allowed Cardinal Mazarin naturalized French from Italy who was the trained successor to Richelieu after his death in 1642 to replace Richelieu (Spielvogel, Pp 502).
Mazarin continued with the old policies of Richelieu thus the masses were in conflict with the government and due to the fact that Mazarin was an Italian. This led to the revolt known as the Frondes, the first in 1648 to 1649 and the second in 1650 and was ended by 1652 due to infighting. It is after this that French thought in the way of crown after the death of Mazarin in 1661 that Louis XIV took supreme power. The King controlled the central government while the Parlement made up of provincial governors and noble men had conflicting roles in the note of supremacy.
In Europe on the other hand, the 17th century saw the conflict between the King and the parliament grounded by religious controversy. King James ascension to power after the death of Queen Elizabeth of Tudor Dynasty, thus leaving power to the Stuart Line of rulers her cousins, saw him rise to be King James I in 1602- 1625 in England. The belief that the King was ordained by God and was responsible to God saw the conflict between the King and the parliament just like in France. The balance of polity was broken and the rise of parliament as a constitutional monarchy for long years to come was rife.
The demands for monies to fund the costs of government by King James were denied by the Parliament which already was against his view about Kings, as being only answerable to God. The conflict between the two powers much aggravated by the conflict between the Puritans and the Anglican made things worse as King James was an Anglican thus he supported them. This sidelining of the Puritans was a great recipe for Revolution as the gentry became part of the Puritans and now during the reign of King Charles I (1625-1649) the son to James. The parliament passed the Petition Right (1628), which required the King to sign it acknowledging power to the parliament. Charles broke the promise on this initial acceptance and found it hard to work with the parliament. In the course of events he pursued personal rule by collecting ship tax and seacoast towns and coast defense levies at the same time not involving the parliament from 1629 to 1640. This money was used for other purposes rather than defense and thus middle class merchants refuted this idea noting that the King had not sort their consent (Spielvogel, Pp 470).
18th century, enlightenment was the name of this age. Immanuel Kant popularized the use of own intelligence and reason, hope, progress and natural law characterized the century. Fontanelle (1657- 1757) secretary of the French Royal academy of Science (1691-1791) was the man who linked the scientific revolution to all people in this century by witful articulation of all scientific works in his book Plurality of Worlds thus popularized all the works that they became available to people of his upper class and others though himself was never a scientists. This popularization led to development of new skepticism against religion though the original scientist had done these works in the adoration of God. The religious beliefs were never taken seriously and secularization set in, materialism at its tail. People like Bayle believed that religious toleration was actually beneficial to the state rather forcing the following of only one religion which culminated to hypocrites.
The enlightenment movement was dominant in Paris, France taking the center, affecting individuals every where through out Europe. The movement was strengthened from one country to another thus was like a family circle and calling for freedom, but the following French are worth the mention, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot. The enlightenment age was cosmopolitan as these great men attacked the traditions of religion and argued by better view of things like toleration, deism, condemnation of slavery and the praise of reason to liberate human beings.
This movement had some impact on the political thought of Europe where the idea of natural laws was linked to natural rights, like to be equal before the law, freedom of religious worship, freedom of speech and press and the right to own property and search for happiness. Thus the philosophes saw that the rulers who followed such interest were best in shaping the society and lead the masses to change the society to make it a better place through reasoning. This led to the rise of enlightened absolutism rulers like Catherine of Russia, Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph of Austria (Spielvogel, Pp 539).
The Economic order
The enlightenment saw the change of commercial activities and economic powers as the Dutch and Spain declined leaving England and France with gained new strength. This led to the change from Mediterranean seaboard to the Atlantic waterways. France retained its monarchy despite influence from enlightenment and Louis XIV had left large territories, a huge national debt and an unhappy populace thus trade and commerce continued but it pulled back from international travel scenes due to ruling by immoral, drunk and non committed leaders before Louis XVI had become of age to take over from his grandfathers steps. However, even him he was not experienced in the functions of French government thus French continued to wallow in national debt, crises and great despair and discontent to the French people.
On the other hand the Great Britain was prevented by the Glorious revolution to slip into absolutism. The parliament and the King were at peace and power was bestowed on the parliament with the Kings ministers advising the parliament and in turn being influenced by it. The parliament was made up of House of Lords and House of Commons whose deputies gained support through patronage ad corruption .In 1714 the rise of the Hanoverians dynasty of the King Georges I, II, III, led to the start of the modern government since they never spoke English. Thus the first Prime Minister Robert Walpole served from 1721 to 1742 pursuing a foreign peaceful policy. However, new forces were interested in trade and world wide empire creating the imperialistic forces that found a voice in Prime minister William Pitt Elder in 1757 acquiring Canada and India in the Seven Years war which France lost some of its empires (Spielvogel, Pp 540).
The Social order
The family was the unit of societys organization with an interest with patriarchal arrangement. The traditional middle Ages concern for class only allowed marriage between the noble classes within the interests of the governments of the states. Although works of reform spearheaded by enlightenment was attacking the old order, it did not break easily. By the end of the 18th century the old order began crumbling. The peasants were the largest class forming 85 of the population. The landed class dominated over the free and serf peasants. All over Europe they were treated differently and in Germany they were required to perform labor services, pay taxes and seek permission for marriage and East Europe the conditions were those close to slavery especially in Russia. The peasants lived in villages which were the center of their social lives where they went to church and the central government collected taxes. Usually they were owned by rich aristocrats who controlled the villages.
The nobility on the other hand formed 2 to 3 of the population gaining nobility by birth thus exempted from harsh treatment or punishment. They dominated the government army, councils and they were educated. The possession of land and money made one a noble, and they ate meat fish and cheese in comparison to dark bread, rye, vegetables and potatoes from America. They engaged in trade, glass making, metallurgy and mining. Buildings in England were structured in special elegant and beautiful way that allowed privacy at the same time guests activities all influenced by the Georgian style. Later the fashion came of clearing the peasants away to make space for parks and storey houses for the household and show of class. Again there was the educational tour that English males went to learn and visit abroad tourist attraction and learning sites (Spielvogel, Pp 562).
In comparison, I think Britain was more successful than since after the restoration of Constitutional monarchy, after the Glorious revolution, saw the stability of Britain thus allowing world exploration, trade and commerce when the French were still reeling from bad governance and thus slowed progress. This again is supported by the fact New Scientific methods and reasoning were taken as pride of the Englishman and each wanted to identify with Newtonian genialness thus this propelled Britain to agricultural revolution and later industrial revolution.
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