1 Merry Lo
HI 210
Absolute Monarchy in France and England
When historians studied absolute monarchy in seventeenth century Europe, almost all
agreed that Louis XIV exemplified this political theory. In France, the Sun King displayed his
supreme power in the splendid Versailles palace. As his father, Louis XIII, was determined to
use force to “reestablish royal authority [and] to conserve the authority” (Russell, 206), Louis
shared the same mind-set on how to rule his kingdom and his subjects. Cardinal Mazarin urged
Louis to establish dominance of being “the master, that one must expect favors only from [him],
and especially that [he] distribute them only to those who merit them by their services, by their
ability, and by their attachment to [him] alone” (Russell, 335). And he did. On March 9, 1661,
the day after Mazarin’s death, the 23-year-old Louis declared “L état, C'est moi” and began one
of the longest reigns in European history.
On the contrary, despite early Stuart monarch Charles I’s similar belief in the divine
rights of kings, historians seemed to have a conflicting opinion on absolutism in England. As
they struggled to give this theory a definite meaning, historians were constantly insisting on
marking the differences between an absolute king and a limited king. In 1652, an anonymous
defense of a subsequent Commonwealth regime defined an absolute monarch as “one who hath
no law but his own will” (Burgess, 22). Samuel Rutherford, Scottish Presbyterian theologian and
author, also commented in a comparable manner. He described that “an absolute prince” was one
with “prerogative above Parliament and Laws” (Burgess, 21). As Charles I was highly convinced
by the concept of royal authority, he could be a representative of absolutism as well. However, it
is important to recognize that in reality he was in fact just a limited king. In his famous response
to the XIX Propositions, Charles I himself acknowledged that English king was a “kind of
regulated monarchy” (Burgess, 22) due to the established parliamentary laws. Welsh Judge and
Royalist David Jenkins also emphasized the predominance of the Parliament’s power, as he
stated, “we hold only what the Law holds. The King’s prerogative and the subjects’ liberty are
determined, and bounded, and admeasured by the written Law what they are; wee doe no hold
the King to have any more power, neither doth this Majestie claime any other but what the Law
gives him” (Burgess, 23).
2 Although Charles I was not accepted by many historians as a true absolute monarch, his
various decisions made during his reign were opposed by his subjects, who saw him as a dubious
tyranny at the time. By contrasting Louis XIV’s and Charles I’s political and religious strategies,
historians can analyze the similarities and differences of two sovereigns. In addition, they can
better examine the strengths and weaknesses of absolute monarchy.
As Louis began to rule, the French monarch strived for three things in his kingdom:
uniformity, order, and obedience. During the Fronde between 1648 and 1653, Louis witnessed
the rebellion of aristocratic leaders. He believed that unlike monarchs and princes, “in whom a
brilliant birth and a proper upbringing usually produce only noble and magnanimous sentiments”
(Russell, 336), aristocrats were not honorable, as “it is interest alone, whether private or the
estate, that guides their conduct” (Russell, 337). Louis’s distrust of aristocratic government
inspired him to take absolute control of territorial powers.
Knowing the need for drastic reform to the regime of France, Louis was intensely
involved with internal affairs and finance of his kingdom. He began by establishing the Conseil
d’ En-Haut exclusively with reliable officials, such as Michel Le Tellier and Hugues de Lionne.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Minister of Finances of France, particularly was an esteemed member
who assisted Louis each step of the process. In order to improve the economy and increase
material prosperity, Colbert eagerly promoted mercantilism in France. In his Memorandum on
Trade in 1664, Colbert explained the benefits of this economic doctrine. As the kingdom reestablished manufactures to encourage local industries and to eliminate imports from foreign
countries, France would not only become self-sufficient, but also other nations would have to
pay for the commodities they desired. Just as Colbert said, “aside from the advantages that the
entry of greater quantity of cash into the kingdom will produce, it is certain that, thanks to the
manufactures, a million people who now languish in idleness will be able to earn a living [in
navigating and in seaports]” (263).
With Colbert and his policy that flourished the economy, Louis must take hold of the
pays d’états to solidify his absolute authority. These estate provincials were the key to Louis’s
power, as he could impose taxes of his choice and use their bureaucracies to aid in local
governments. One notable attribute of Louis that essentially contributed to his success for control
was his treatment of the pays d’états. Despite many of these estates, such as Franche-Comté and
Alsace, were in the state of deterioration, Louis did not plan to utterly destroy them; he “sought
3 to control and utilize these institutions” (Russell, 337). The French monarch maintained a
balance between dominance and leniency. When dealing with the pays d’états, Louis aimed to
“ask them for precisely what [he] intended to obtain, to promise little, to keep [his] promises
faithfully, hardly ever to accept conditions, but to surpass their expectations when they appealed
to [his] justice and to [his] kindness” (Russell, 337).
Nonetheless, at times Louis and Colbert were forced to resort to bribery and threats when
they came across troublesome estates and defiant deputies. As a clever sovereign, Louis took full
advantage of the use of patronage. The monarch’s reward, or rather the bribe, for noblemen and
deputies ensured him the loyalty of his subjects and their conformity to his will. In 1663, 60,000
livres were available specifically for “the deputies who served the best in the assembly” (Russell,
341). Similarly, Louis used his divine rights of kings and expected the clergy and synods to
contribute to the crown as well. He rationalized and said, “kings are absolute lords and naturally
have free and full disposition of all the goods possessed by clergymen as well as by laymen”
(Russell, 359). During his long reign, Louis receive 223,909,468 livres (Russell, 359), which was
considerable a huge amount of money, from the church.
However, not all of Louis’s subjects cooperated. When some resistant officials refused to
vote or pay Louis’ desired amount of money, the monarch would assert his power with
authoritative measures. In Provence, for instance, Louis threatened to disassemble the estate,
dismissed the deputies, increased the salt tax, ordered troops to the estate, and established
election in the district. In fact, in 1666 to completely secure his territorial control the royal ruler
removed newly elected local officials of Aix-en-Provence, because they were less friendly to the
sovereignty; these rejected officers were then replaced by those who were more flexible and
servile to the king. Louis’s rigorous demands and willingness to reward those who served him
well and to punish those who tried to protest against him frightened his subjects. In a brief report
of the king’s finance, Colbert stressed Louis’s supremacy over his subjects, as he wrote, “when
the king gives the estates of provinces permission to assemble, his majesty decides what he
wants to ask for, he has instructions prepared, which are sent to his commissioners, and the
estates of provinces always accord what it please his majesty to ask of them” (Russell, 350). The
French monarch had obtained uniformity, order, and obedience in his kingdom.
As opposed to Louis’s glorious reign, many historians condemned Charles’s regime as a
failure. Charles, like his father James I, indulged himself in the idea of the inherited power from
4 God. He thought his first responsibility “was to do according to God’s dictates, as his reason and
conscience discern them, rather than act ‘politically’”(Sharpe, 649). When James gave his son an
advice written in the royal gift, the Basilikon Doron, he wrote, “the king’s tongue should be the
messenger of the mind” (Sharpe, 649). Yet Charles’s tongue was precisely the reason for
troubles in his political career. Unlike Louis XIV, the English monarch’s arrogance and
impudence had put him in constant power struggle with Parliament. Instead of establishing an
efficient and mutual relationship with Parliament, as Louis did with the pays d’états, Charles
stubbornly chose dispute over solving the complex issues caused by various wars that England
was engaging in. While Charles demanded royal revenue, Parliament seeked to restraint his
prerogative. For four times, the king had dissolved Parliament when he failed to get what he
wanted.
The main problem this unpopular monarch faced was a large deficit for the kingdom
caused by his predecessors, Elizabeth I and James I. In 1627, Charles’s ill-judged choice to
accommodate Buckingham’s foolishness had only dragged his kingdom deeper into the chaotic
Huguenots Wars. While Louis collected his tax from his subjects through legitimate channels,
Charles heavily exploited the divine rights of kings, which frankly were not regarded as true by
Parliament. To justify his selfishness, the king claimed that he, as an absolute monarch, was “not
bound to give account of [his] action, but to God alone” (Rushworth). To seek for funds that he
desperately needed for war, Charles imposed a forced loan without the consent of Parliament.
Not only was this act illegal, but also at the same time the sovereign intensified the tension of his
sabotaged relationship with Parliament. Charles’s faulty decision did not grant him any victory,
because his irresponsibility had forced The House of Commons to impose more restrictions on
the king through the Petition of Right in 1628.
While Charles’s bad choices put him at war with most of his subjects and legislative
councils in the country, France started to fall into its downward spiral when Louis announced the
fatal Revocation of Edict of Nantes in October 1685. In 1630, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu
started the pathway of Catholic reformation, but the Sun King decided to take a step further. Just
as he demonstrated his absolute power over his territories, Louis firmly believed in practicing
“One King, One Law, One Faith.” The Huguenot policy of the Grand Monarch was praised and
encouraged by Pope Innocent XI as an “indefatigable application to the conversion of heretics”
(O’Brien, 30).
5 However, by insisting religious uniformity as a royal ambition, Louis’s adamant policy
caused damages rather than advantages in France. He gradually withdrew his Huguenot subjects’
political rights and freedom of worship. As he excluded Huguenots’ from all public employment
and their children’s education, Louis had driven a large population of these Protestants away.
Out of one million at least 250,000 or 300,000 left France (O’Brien, 31). While the French
monarch might not have intended, his decision had ultimately weakened his country’s economic
position and powerful status. Little did Louis know that the Huguenots he turned away were in
fact invaluable resources. As French author M. Weiss described, these refugees included “skillful
vine-dressers of Berri, gardeners of the same province who brought their art to a degree of
perfection, Protestants who devoted themselves to manufactures and trade, the finest woolen
[manufacturers], who [all] displayed an activity, an intelligence, and at the same time an integrity
which perhaps has never been surpassed in any country” (O’Brien, 46). Along with their
commercial and industrial skills, these refugees later scattered and settled at England, Ireland,
Holland, and Prussia. In their new havens, these shunned Protestants taught their unique
embroidered skills and manufactures to those who took them in. What France lost other gained.
As Louis chose to be the absolute power over governance and religion in his kingdom, sadly he
was also giving his enemies the opportunity to “flourish to an unexpected degree, a state of
advancement as to equal, sometimes even surpass, the productions of [France] where it had so
long been cultivated” (O’Brien, 31).
As Louis impaired his country by fiercely turning away his Huguenots subjects, Charles,
on the other hand, was criticized for his failure to support Protestant population at war and at
home. In 1614 when the Spanish Match between Charles and Infanta Maria Anne of Spain as a
mean to achieve peace failed, the tension between Catholics and Protestants was once again
heightened. Charles’s incompetence to advocate the Protestants in the Thirty Years’ War had
already created distrusts in his subjects. But the English population became increasingly bitter
and doubtful towards their monarch, especially after they learnt his marriage with a Roman
Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France. Again, Charles’s poor judgment of allying with William
Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his extreme reform once again angered the country. At last,
his attempt to force upon Scotland his religious polices resulted in nothing but rebellion and later
revolution towards him.
6 When a monarch was obsessed with absolutism but did not rule with good strategies, he
was determined to fall. Charles I deceived himself by the belief of absolute prerogative, and his
ambition for power had clouded his judgment. His continuous irresponsibility and foolishness
only brought resentment and rage from his subjects and enemies, which resulted in his own
execution. But even with a successful absolute monarch, like Louis XIV, one bad choice could
take away the kingdom’s glory. Despite his 72 years and 110 days of reign, Louis still brought
France to a state of bankruptcy.
Bibliography
Burgess, Glee. Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996. Print.
Catholic Layman. “Results of Intolerance: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes” The Catholic
Layman Vol. 3. 29 (1854): 46-48. Print
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, “Memorandum on Trade, 1664) Lettres, Instructions et Memories de
Colbert Vol. 2 (1863): 263, 268-71
Major, J. Russell. From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, &
Estates. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994. Print.
O’Brien, Louis. “The Huguenot Policy of Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI” The Catholic
Historical Review Vol. 17. 1 (1931): 29-42. Print.
Rushworth. “The King’s Declaration Showing the Causes of the Late Dissolution” Sut. of Engl.
Vol. 12. 78 (1628). Online.
Sharpe, Kevin. “Private Conscience and Public Duty in the Writings of Charles I” The Historical
Journal Vol. 40. 3 (1997): 643-665. Print.
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