IT IS AS IT IS

A review of Ian Mortimer’s The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (2008)

(Rating 5 of 5)

The Perfect King is a very enjoyable to book to read, Mortimer seems to understand the importance of keeping the story part of history. In the telling of the life Edward III, Mortimer can be both funny and serious at the same time as any good history professor who has to lecture in front of students. His subject is a fascinating one, King Edward III came to throne after his father’s violent overthrow and for the first few years of his reign was under the thumb of the man who brought down his father, Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March. Edward would survive to dispose of Mortimer, and become one of the most successful kings in English history. He was a warrior prince who would humble France like none before him. His son, Prince Edward, would succeed in capturing France's King John II and bring to England a prisoner. One of the main themes of the book is how the King’s legacy would change through the ages. Although he was considered one of the greatest monarchs for five hundred years after his death, in the nineteenth century historians took a much more critical view emphasizing his faults and failings while ignoring his good traits and record of success. Mortimer tries to tell Edward’s story to be understood in the context of Edward’s own era.


(King Edward III the great warrior king)


(Mortimer pays for usurping the throne)

Probably the intriguing argument—if not the most famous—that Mortimer tries to advance in this book is the theory that Edward II did not die in Berkeley Castle but lived on into 1341. In the past I had never really questioned Edward II’s death not even the brutality of it. The hot poker story I had heard criticized on the grounds of it being too gruesome, but I always thought that a silly argument for it was brutal time period where people disemboweled as a form of execution. In such context the hot poker story seemed very probable to me. I still think he died at Berkeley, but this book did make me pause. The part that got me the most was the whole ‘William the Welshman’ royal pretender who is not only spared from any punishment but is also entertained at royal expense and gets to the meet the family! Maybe Edward II’s body should be exhumed to determine what age he was at before he died.


(Edward II, was he or was he not murdered)

Edward III is most famous for his war with France and his reputation is as a great warrior king. Mortimer shows in this story that Edward was an excellent and imaginative tactician who not only waged war but change the very way it was fought in the Western World. He would win victory after victory nearly reclaiming all the lands lost by his great-great-grandfather, King John.

“Until now gunpowder had only been used in sieges, with the sole exception of Mortimer’s use of ‘crakkis of war’ on the Stanhope campaign. Those had been dangerous exploding buckets by comparison with Edward’s refined guns. As well as small cannon with calibres of roughly four inches (the shot were still stone) he brought his newly developed ‘ribalds’—series of bound gun barrels designed to shoot metal bolts, like crossbow bolts. And Edward had not only developed them, he had thought of how to use them too.” (p.238)

Where Edward III does not get a lot of credit is in his abilities as a lawmaker. While his grandfather, King Edward I, had the first ‘Model Parliament’, it was actually King Edward III whose parliaments were ‘model’. It was under Edward III that the two chambers of House of Lords and House of Commons formed. It was also during Edward’s reign that the Commons had actually begun to have a real role in the making of law that was respected and consistent. Edward III had a strong relationship with the Parliament.

“Edward was a man who listened to his representatives, and held a dialogue with them, even if he did not or could not agree to their demands. Although it is the mass of legislation passed by his grandfather, Edward I, that caught the attention of early legal historians, prompting them to call that king ‘the English Justinian’ (referring to the great Byzantine Emperor who codified the Roman Law), Edward III was no less of a legislator. But his methods were different: he was a lawmaker not a lawgiver. He made laws responding to parliamentary demands. Sometimes these demands allowed him to promote his own agenda for legislation; at other times the measures were all but forced upon him as a result of his need to maintain a high level of taxation. Sometimes even he had his own wishes presented to him in the form of a petition from a magnate. But the parliaments of Edward III are remarkable for the breadth and depth of the parliamentary dialogue between king and people. So great was Edward’s contribution that one modern scholar has assigned him the title of ‘Second English Justinian’, putting him on a footing equal to that of Edward I, the codifier of the English Common Law.” (p.308)

One of King Edward III lasting achievements was the creation of the Order of the Garter. An association of twenty-six knights including the King and the Prince of Wales that continues to exist to this day.


(Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince. He was the man who would have been king and one of the first Knights of the Garter.)

“It was at this point that Edward founded—or, to be exact—completed the foundation of the Order of the Garter. On St. George’s Day 1349, at the very height of the most horrific disease the kingdom had ever seen, Edward held a great tournament at Windsor during which he formally instituted his Order of twenty-six men who would joust and pray together once a year, and conduct themselves everywhere like proud Arthurian knights.” (p.263)

(King John II of France, captured by the Black Prince)

Edward tried in every way to be a good king although he was from perfect. Nevertheless, he was an amazing king. It is unfortunate that he outlived his glory, his sanity, and his own heir apparent.

{Video was posted by B29Productions on YouTube}

PRIMARY CONFLICT

A review of Fred Anderson's Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in North America (2000)

(Rating 5 of 5)

As I explained in my last few posts, a short while ago, I decided to do a straight reading up on the history of my country. Not by a series of biographies or of any particular event; but a simple march through the ages exploring all the eras of the United States of America. The biggest challenge is to find books that try their best to explore from multiple perspectives in order to avoid just one narrow view, without at the same time surrendering a general narrative that is both readable and enjoyable. After finishing Jill Lepore’s book on King Phillip’s War, I decided to move on to Fred Anderson’s book covering what we in America call the French and Indian War. The book looks at the major actors in the British and French Empires, and the Iroquois Confederacy and how this conflict changed them from top to bottom.

Like many wars, especially European Wars in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the conflict covered in this work is known by two names. Anglo-American colonials tended to name their wars after their kings and queens. The colonists had named the War of Austrian Succession,'King George's War', and created a problem because King George II was still on the throne. They needed a new name for the conflict that Europe would call the Seven-Years' War. The name the Anglo-American colonists came up with was: 'the French and Indian War'.



(Royal Rivals: The King of Great Britain vs. the King of France)

Fred Anderson’s reason for producing this book is that the place we historians assign the French and Indian War in the historical narrative, he argues, is as the simple prologue of the American Revolutionary War. With this book, Anderson brings the America's most forgotten and—arguably—most important war, to the forefront to be study on its own terms and not as the inevitable beginning of a different conflict. Prior to this war, the two great colonial powers in North America were the British and French Empires. These empires were populated by colonists who were strongly identified with their imperial connections and a powerful Native American Nation in the Iroquois Confederacy that was able to provide a buffer and power broker between the two powers. After this conflict the French would be vanquished and the British would be left with an empire that was most ungovernable and the Iroquois would be set on the beginning of their fall from power.


(North America before the war)

When I was in college, I, who had always been a history buff, felt I had strong understanding of World War II. Then in my Western Civilization II class with Parker Albee, we spent some time going over World War I. I remember thinking—as if a light had gone off in my head—'I understand why World War II happened better now.' Prior, all I had known of World War I had been some of its aftermath that helped lead to World War II, but nothing in real strong detail. I now view World War I and World War II almost as the different chapters in the same historic event. Having read this book I feel the same way about my understanding of the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, as I did with my earlier reevaluations on World War I and World War II. I realize that this may sound the opposite of Anderson’s intentions; however, I want to stress that reading this book you understand the French and Indian War as its own event but it still increases your understanding of the American Revolution.

One of the biggest things that stood out in my mind while reading this book was how some of the politics that led to the American Revolution against Britain during the late 1760s and 1770s were foreshadowed by the early events of the French and Indian War. The Earl of Loudoun, who was the commander in chief of the British armies in America, made several attempts to command the colonial governors and legislatures as if they were his colonels. His actions and the massive attempts to resist them by the colonial Anglo-Americans strongly resembled what was to come a decade later. Fortunately for the British cause in this war, William Pitt, who was a strong believer in the colonial subjects British rights, relived Loudoun of his command and set the colonial relations to rights.


(The Earl of Loudoun, a commander who left a lot to be desired.)


(William Pitt, the Great Commoner)

“By mid-December 1757, Pitt knew that if the American assemblies were to be transformed from centers of resistance into sources of men and money, he would have to reverse entirely the course of colonial policy. Instead of treating the colonies like subordinate jurisdictions and requiring them to finance the war effort by forced contributions to a common fund, Pitt resolved to treat them like allies, offering subsidies to encourage their assemblies to aid in the conquest of New France. Rather than continuing to demand that civil authority, in the persons of colonial governors and legislatures, submit to military power in the person of His Majesty's commander in chief, Pitt resolved to withhold from Loudoun's successor direct authority over the provinces. In the future, as always in the past, the governors would receive their instructions directly from the secretary of state for the Southern Department. By this new grant (or more properly, restoration) of autonomy to the provinces, by offering inducements to cooperation rather than by seeking to compel union among them, Pitt hoped to create a patriotic enthusiasm that had not been much in evidence since 1756.”p.214

In this book Anderson masterfully moves his readers from one military theater on the frontiers North America to another on continental Europe, he also cross-cuts from one political scene to another. While reading this book, the reader will go from the court of King George II to the assemblies of the American colonies, to military headquarters of Fredrick the Great, to the Massachusetts colonial militia. Yet it never becomes confusing making the reader feel out of place, Anderson's narrative flows smoothly from one event and theater to another without missing a beat.

I highly recommend this work to anyone it is really exceptional book. Fred Anderson takes a highly difficult and at times confusing subject and lays it out rather neatly making it easy for his readers to understand this war that had so much impact on the modern world.

{Video from the PBS documentary The War that Made America.}

FROM EMPEROR TO EXILE

A review of Robert Asprey’s The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (2001)

(Rating 4 of 5)

Asprey's second book on Napoleon Bonaparte picks up right were the first one had left off, Napoleon now Emperor of the French, was engaging in a series of wars and struggles known as the Napoleonic Wars. Europe was determined to destroy this usurper to power and he was determined to beat them back and gobble up their kingdoms as well.






(Emperor Napoleon I)

“Neither was Napoleon that father of the wars that accompanied the process, as his detractors would have us believe. Almost constant warfare between was the legacy of the revolutionary chaos, a series of wars invoked by European and English rulers determined to topple this dangerous interloper and restore Bourbon feudalistic rule to France” p.xxii

(Emperor Napoleon on this throne)

In this war, Napoleon had the greatest victory of his career, the Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors; Napoleon would defeat the forces of Austria and Russia at the same time. William Pitt the Younger is said to have collapsed dead at the news. This battle marked the official end of the Holy Roman Empire, as its last Emperor Francis II, dissolved it in favor of the Austrian Empire and proclaimed himself Emperor Francis I. Austerlitz had made Napoleon the master of continental Europe. Although he would still have adventures by conquering Prussia and fighting in Poland, he was clearly the man in charge. He would use his new position to create the Continental System that would force the great Empire of the Sea, Great Britain, into an impossible position. He would create puppet states and place his own brothers and in-laws on to those thrones.


(the last Holy Roman Emperor, first Austrian Emperor)

 

“Napoleon’s gentle if contemptuous treatment of Czar Alexander is curious, as if regarding the Russians as visitors from another planet. He disparaged Russian arms, having noted even before Austerlitz that the cavalry although splendidly turned out had not yet learned to use savers effectively. ‘The Russian troops are brave,’ he commented after Austerlitz, ‘their generals are inexperienced, their soldiers ignorant and sluggish which in truth makes their armies to be little feared.’ He regarded Alexander as an ambitious but inexperienced and impetuous young man surrounded and controlled by firebrand courtiers such as Prince Dolgoruky who were in English pay. Alexander’s participation in the Third Coalition was a temporary aberration, an unwise intrusion in European affairs. ‘Russia is the sole power in Europe able to make war of fantasy,’ he wrote. ‘After a battle lost or won, the Russians vanish; France, Austria, Prussia, to the contrary, must live a long time with the results of war.” p. 2

However, enforcing the Continental System would prove costly for the Emperor of the French. He would invade Portugal through Spain in order to enforce it. When the Spanish royal family began to give Napoleon a hard time, he would depose the King of Spain, Charles IV, in favor of his own older brother Joseph. Once more, a Bonaparte would take a throne of a Bourbon king. Spain however would never be fully conquered and Napoleon would have to invest to many troops fighting the Spanish guerrilla* forces.


(King Charles IV of Spain)


(Napoleon's older brother Joseph Bonaparte now King of Spain)

“A final weakness stemmed from Napoleon himself. His diplomacy was atrocious. The exclusion of either King Charles or Prince Ferdinand from rule was doomed from the beginning, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Spanish character would have realized. The center of power envisaged by Napoleon did not exist. The grandees who had propped up the throne were despised as the French. Military occupation had turned into a war of pacification that neither Napoleon nor his generals how to fight. It was a fast-moving series of small wars in a big country, not a war of corps or divisions. Early successes, a few hundred insurgents shot here, a few thousand there, villages burned, arms collected, private properties and fortunes sequestered, officials and priests forced to swear allegiance to the new crown, cities and towns required to pay enormous ‘contributions’—all these were ingredients for a massive civil explosion.” p.113

For want of an heir, Napoleon was forced to divorce Josephine and remarried this time to Marie Louise of Austria, ironically the niece of the infamous Queen Marie Antoinette. The new Empress would give birth to the Baby Napoleon, known as the King of Rome.


(the new wife and son, Empress Marie Louise and the King of Rome)


(King of Rome as a young man)

Nothing however would be as equally disastrous as Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Seeking to punish Tsar Alexander I for his backing out of the Continental System, Napoleon invaded the Russian Empire. The French Emperor would have victory after victory, but as Russia withdrew, the Russians burnt their own cities and farms. As the winter came the French had no resources and they had to retreat with very heavy losses. Seeing Napoleon as weak, the rest of Europe joined in to help destroy him. The French were eventual overwhelmed and were forced to surrender. Napoleon would be exiled to Elba, and King Louis XVIII was put on the throne that his brother had lost.


(Tsar Alexander I of Russia)


(King Louis XVIII brother of the murdered King returns to the family throne.)

Napoleon was restless in Elba and plotted his way back to the throne of France. King Louis XVIII had made quite a mess of things, just like his brother, and Napoleon would land in France to claim what he felt was rightfully his.

“It was surely one of the boldest acts in history, Napoleon landed on the southern coast of France with 1,000 soldiers, two cannons and some very fiery words set forth in three proclamations, one to the French people, one to the French army, and one to the Old Guard.” p.375

Napoleon's new reign would last one hundred days. This brief reign would cause immediate war. Napoleon would fight his last battle at Waterloo, where he lost to allied forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington.


(The Duke of Wellington, the man who finshed Napoleon)



This time Napoleon would be exiled to St. Helena where he would remain in a gilded cage until his death. Napoleon's legacy is a mixed one, Asprey's work on him stands out because he does not give in to either side, the British paint him as a monster and the French a saint. He was both and neither, Asprey presents Napoleon as an incredible human being and that is it. He is a man who was the winner of a thousand battles who was ultimately brought down in the end. He took on the entire world and lost but he is remembered for taking it on.

*These were of course the original guerrilla forces.

{Video is taken from the 2002 TV movie Napoleon}

FROM SOILDER TO EMPEROR

A review of Robert Asprey’s The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte (2000)

(Rating 4 of 5)

Robert Asprey’s book traces the journey of a small boy from Corsica, on a journey from solider to emperor. He would turn the entire world on its ear; nothing would ever be the same again because Napoleon existed. He would knock kings off their ancient thrones and put his own relatives upon them. He would win battles against formidable odds; he would make incredible discoveries from his time in Egypt that would change the way we look at ancient history. He was a man who fought in the army of the Republic but would give himself a crown. There are more books written about this man then any other. Yet, he loses in the end. However, this book is not about his defeats but about how he rises to become the most powerful man in world who is sitting in the center of the stage.

Napoleon starts his life in Corsica, one year after France annexed it, during the reign of King Louis XV. Asprey covers a great deal of his early years growing up in Corsica under the watchful eye of his mother, Letizia Ramolino, then being sent to school in mainland France. He was able to get into French school because his father, Carlo Bonaparte, was the Corsican representative to the court of King Louis XVI. School is difficult for him; he always teased and made to feel like an outsider because of his accented French. Nevertheless, he did well at French military school and was commissioned in the French Army.


(King Louis XV who conquered Corsica)


(Napoleon's mother)

(Napoleon's father)


(King Louis XVI)

During a leave of absence from the French Army, Napoleon would try to join the Corsican Nationalist Movement led by Pasquale Paoli. He would join them, even leading troops against the French, but he was never fully accepted. Napoleon would get away with this behavior because this was all happen as French Revolution was going down. He would find himself with a strong ally in the younger brother of the most feared Maximilien Robespierre, Augustine. Napoleon would earn his respect by his performance at the siege of Toulon. Napoleon’s actions were not one of military genius, just competence. Nevertheless, it made Napoleon a general in the French Army.


(Pasquale Paoli)


(Young Napoleon)

“Napoleon had never attempted to hide his preference for Jacobin rule insofar as it promised an end to tyranny and the establishment of an egalitarian republic. Nevertheless, he did not like certain aspects of the formative period: he loathed the mob attacks on the Tuileries, and he approved neither of the execution of King Louis XVI nor of the hideous excesses of the Terror. Yet, what were the alternatives? Certainly not a monarchy and rule by feudal lords. Certainly not rule by assembly, a mumbo-jumbo of screeching lawyers who could scarcely agree on the time of day, a disastrous regime that threatened to plunge the country into anarchy and open its borders to foreign invasion. No one could deny that Robespierre’s quasi-dictatorship, despite or perhaps because of its excesses, had brought a semblance of order to a torn country.” p.102

(Death of Louis XVI)


(Maximilien Robespierre, quasi-dictator of France)


(Augustine Robespierre, Maximilien's younger brother)

After the fall of Robespierre, Napoleon was almost imprisoned but a reactionary mob trying to bring down the Republic allowed him to demonstrate his abilities by putting it down. The Directory, the new power in France, knew it now had a champion and sent him to campaign in Italy, shortly after his marriage to Josephine, and from there, he would begin to earn incredible fame as a military commander.


(General Bonaparte)


(Josephine, Napoleon's wife)

“The offensive began auspiciously by pushing Archduke Charles behind the Tagliamento. ‘The enemy appears very uneasy,’ Napoleon wrote Massena on 13 March, ‘and once more finds himself caught with his pants down after executing his adopted plan. Everything presages our great success.’ Two days later he qualified this ebullience in a long operations order to Joubert which warned that under certain circumstances he might find himself beaten and ‘even obliged to take refuge in Mantua.’ Should this happen he was to play for as much time as possible to allow the main army to extricate itself. Napoleon’s major worry at this point centered on the Austrian right flank and was considerably eased when he learned the Massena had sent that column flying with a haul of 800 prisoners including its commander, the disreputable General Lusignon.” p.211

 After his incredible success in Italy, Napoleon finally meets Talleyrand* and the Directory sends him to Egypt to undermine British trade routes to India. While he has initial success and made incredible discoveries, most famously the Rosetta Stone, Admiral Nelson’s victory at sea, put Napoleon’s army in a terrible position. With the wars in Europe going badly, the Directory recalled Napoleon.


(Talleyrand)


(Napoleon in Egypt)

“Napoleon chose to fight the big battle with tactics similar to those employed at Chabrakhyt (which must have seemed an eternity ago to his exhausted troops). This time there would be no fleet action owing to an adverse wind. Division deployed in echelons of mutually protective battalion squares, the artillery filling the intervals, the tirailleurs carefully placed. Moving up toward Embabeh, moving toward Mourad’s horsemen, he deployed Bon on the left, Vial on the right and Dugua in reserve on Vial’s flank (where Napoleon stationed himself). Reynier and Desaix’s divisions deployed ahead and to the right of the assault divisions deployed ahead and to the right of the assault divisons to block what Napoleon believed was Mourad’s natural line of retreat. This move caused the Mameluke commander to open the action be sending a corps to attack Reynier and Desaix.” p.267

(Napoleon in Egypt)

 When Napoleon he pulled the original coup d'état on the Directory and establish the consulate with Napoleon as the First Cousul**. From this point on Napoleon rules France as a monarch in all but name. This led to a great many positive developments, first needed bureaucratic reform in the administration of government, banking, and civil law. Military victories on land in the War of the Second Coalition, although the sea still eluded them. This period also had a great deal of set backs, a rebellion in Haiti convinced Napoleon to give up France’s empire in North America by selling the Louisiana territory to the United States under President Jefferson.

“The Bonaparte brothers, Sieyes and the coterie of generals were severally upset, and with good reason. The coup stood at a crossroad. It was one thing to disband the generally scorned Directory, but it was a far more serious matter to challenge the freedom of the elected legislature. But if that body were not quickly brought to heel the conspirators would undoubtedly end on the guillotine. No realized this more than Sieyes who had a carriage and six horses standing by for a quick escape. Ironically it was he who at this critical moment kept his cool and advised Napoleon to send in the grenadiers.” p.338

(coup d'état)

In 1804, tired of plots against him Napoleon, decided to take the crown, mimicking Roman history he takes the title emperor. In December of that year, Napoleon has his grand coronation.


(Napoleon is Emperor, Napoleon put his mother in the picture even though she was not there)

“Napoleon’s sudden elevation to imperial status had brought mixed reactions at home and abroad. European rulers in general, including the English king, cautiously welcomed the move as indicating an end to the dangers of revolution—Napoleon, so to speak, had joined the ‘family,’ albeit as an uncouth parvenu. A good many statesmen were not so optimistic, looking on the event a consolidation of his power, a basis on which to build further mischief. Liberals everywhere were dismayed and saddened. Upon learning of the news the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who had just dedicated a new symphony to his hero, furiously tore up the dedication, retitled the work ‘Eroica’ and dedicated it to ‘the memory of a great man.’” p.489

 This book by Asprey is extremely well done; in addition to the historical information, Asprey also discusses Napoleon’s personnel life, his marriage, and relationship with his political brothers and his mother. Asprey’s work also has a smooth narrative that is easy for the reader to follow.

*His full name was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.

**In a clear allusion to the Roman Republic that was governed by two consuls, and the Triumvirates that preceded the personnel rule of Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus.

{Video is taken from the 2002 TV movie Napoleon}

THE SUN KING

A review of John B. Wolf’s Louis XIV (1968)

(Rating 4 of 5)

Born in the last years of his father reign, Prince Louis was considered special right from birth. The new Dauphin—heir to the French throne—was dubbed a miracle child. His birth denied his uncle Gaston de France, the Duke of Orleans, of throne to which he had been standing as heir presumptive for almost thirty years. Two years after he was born a younger brother, Philippe, the Duke of Anjou, joined him. In 1643, his father had died and Louis, who was only four, was now the King of France. John Wolf brilliantly lays out the life and reign—which are practically the same—in a decent narrative.


(The miracle child who becomes king)


(The man who would have been king if not for a miracle child, Gaston de France, Duke of Orleans)

During the few decades before he was born, France was under the rule of his father King Louis XIII. The most important member of King Louis XIII’s council was his ‘prime minister’ Cardinal Richelieu who helped the King create a powerful and centralized state. This would be a great asset to France’s next monarch.


(King Louis XIII, father and predecessor)


(Cardinal Richelieu)

“There is a famous story, probably untrue, that the child, returning from the ceremony to his father’s bedside where the king asked him his name, replied, ‘Louis XIV’. ‘Not yet, not yet!’ replied the sad king. The memoirists repeat this story so faithfully that it must have had a wide circulation, but it is improbable that either Louis or his father ever referred to themselves with a numeral; perhaps the story is one of those that should have happened even if it did not.” p.11

When King Louis XIV came to throne as a child, his mother Queen Anne would take charge as the Queen Regent. The Queen and her new boyfriend, the Cardinal Mazarin, would govern the Kingdom and raise the King. During the regency, they would fight off rebellions, arrange alliances, and prepare the King to govern the nation as an adult.


(Queen Anne, the Queen Regent and mother)


(Cardinal Mazarin)

King Louis XIV would have longest reign of any monarch. At the time he takes power, Wolf’s narrative starts to become a little choppy. He stops telling the story chronologically and starts telling it categorically. Louis, as the King, would become a great patron of the arts. The King would protect and support writers, painters, and performers. Louis was so found of ballet that he would participate himself in the first half of his reign. Louis would also be a believer in the ‘divine right of kings’ that is kings were put on Earth by God and were accountable only to Him. If a King acted evil then God would send to him to Hell when he died, so if he wanted to go to Heaven he would have to be a just king.


(King Louis XIV as a young man)

“In his Memoirs Louis explains that he carefully picked his trusted ministers for their merit and probable usefulness. His critics chide him for claiming for his choices on the ground that all the men were in his entourage when Mazarin died. We have already noted that this quite misses the point. Even though Mazarin might have indicated the men who could best serve the state, Louis had to make the decision to employ them. There were many men in his entourage who would have been willing, indeed eager, to become his advisers and his tools; a man of lesser capacity would have thought twice before taking strong men as confidants. Louis’s great merit was exactly in this: he chose men senior to himself in experience as well as age, men with an expert knowledge of the problems of the kingdom rather than ‘yes men’ who might have flattered him by their submission. This young men who informed the world that he intended to govern his kingdom was no vain ‘know-it-all’ who wished to be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants.” p.147

Louis XIV would involve his nation in a war with the Netherlands. The Franco-Dutch War had many positive and negative effects for the King and his country. France would gain a good deal of territory however he would himself with a new rival the young William III, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. Ultimately, William would take advantage of the political situation in Europe to ‘invade’ England and seize the throne away from King Louis's Catholic cousin, King James II*, and place himself on it.


(King Louis XIV as an active king)

Wolf also tells how the King revoked the Edit of Nantes. The King’s grandfather, King Henry IV, created the Edit in order to aid and protect protestant Christians from persecution. King Louis XIV decided that France was to be a Catholic nation again and his subjects would either convert or get out.



King Louis XIV would marry a Spanish princess, named Marie Theresa. The new Queen of France was said to be woman of great beauty but also extreme stupidity. The King and the Queen would have many children together but only one would live to adulthood, Louis, the Dauphin of France. Unfortunately, the son seemed to inherit all of his mother’s bad traits including lack of intelligence. It seems that consistent inbreeding may have been the cause. The French, Spanish, and Austrian royal families marrying to many times my have caused this, the Queen’s brother King Charles II of Spain was deformed and mentally unwell. Further evidence is the King’s illegitimate sons were all healthy and strong.


(Queen Maria Teresa, wife of the king, and their son the Dauphin)

When his son became a man, King Louis would betroth him to a German** princess, named Marie Anna. This seemed to have worked for sons of the Dauphin seemed to process none of his negative traits. Indeed, the oldest, Prince Louis, the Duke of Burgundy, seemed to have a lot of potential. He was then married to an Italian*** princess, named Maria Adelaide, who would have sons with him. This gave King Louis a good deal of security for the future of his throne. Unfortunately, in 1683 he lost his Queen, to which he marked that death was the only way his wife had ever displeased him.


(Royal succession secure, The King (center) The Dauphin (behind the King), the Duke of Burgundy (right), the pregnant Duchess of Burgundy (left), and the Duke and Duchess's first born son.)

Since the King had so many heirs, he decided he could spare one. After the death of his brother-in-law, King Charles II of Spain, in 1700, he decided make a play, to gain that throne for his royal house. Realizing Europe would never allow a unification of Spain and France under one monarch, instead of pressing the claims of the Dauphin of France for the Spanish throne, King Louis had him renounce them in favor of the Dauphin’s second son, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Anjou. This would then involve France in the war of Spanish Succession. This would be costly for France but it would successfully but a Bourbon prince upon the throne of Spain. The descendants of King Phillip V of Spain rule Spain to this day.


(King Charles II of Spain, proof of what damage incest over generations can cause)


(King Phillip V of Spain, King Louis XIV's grandson)


(King Phillip V's descendant and current King of Spain, Juan Carols I)

“French historians favorable to the king assert that it was quite unnecessary for Louis to assure Europe that the crowns of France and Spain would not be worn by the same man. Just as the Grand Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy resigned their rights to the throne of Spain when Phillip mounted it, so would future princes ‘adjust’ the will of God so that the burden would not be too great for one man. It is all well and good to argue this way, but such talk does not change the fact that this proclamation was a bold, brash, arrogant challenge to the Europe that had written the partition treaties, and particularly to William of Orange and the men who had placed him on the English throne. It not only defied their policies but also boldly asserted that God, not Europe, would decide the fate of the Bourbon succession in both Spain and France.” p.511

(The later years of King Louis XIV)

After six decades of successful rule, King Louis XIV would run into one last crisis. The crisis of who would replace the King when he died. In 1711, Louis, the Dauphin of France, who had stood as the heir apparent for almost fifty years, died. In some ways, this was not too tragic. The Dauphin had always been some thing short of an idiot, he would not have a good ruler, and this would allow his young dashing son the Duke of Burgundy, now the new Dauphin of France could advance to the throne earlier. However in 1712, the Dauphine caught the measles, and the new Dauphin stayed by her bedside but she died and he got the disease. He died shortly there after, but not before, he had accidentally infected his two sons. The now five-year-old new Dauphin fought his life for three weeks before dying. His younger brother, now the fourth dauphin in four years, was the heir. After the surveying child, was the King of Spain, for the French throne.


(King Louis XV as a child, great-grandson and successor)


(King Louis XV as an adult)

Fortunately, for all involved, that child lived, and he would follow his great-grandfather on to the throne of France as King Louis XV. In this work, John B. Wolf describes in great detail the challenges and triumphs that the King of France, known as Louis XIV, was able to achieve in the longest reign on record.

*Who also happens to be William’s father-in-law.

**Although formally the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was more like a group of little countries as opposed to one big county. This meant there were many royals for the other families of Europe to marry, regardless of religion. This is primarily the reason so many royal families from Britain to Russia would be more German then of their native countries.

***Italy like Germany was a bunch of little countries at the time and provided for a good deal of potential marriages for the great powers.

{Video is from a documentary about the The Palace of Versailles, where King Louis XIV lived.}