France and England are often seen as monarchies standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of seventeenth-century European political culture. On the one hand the Bourbon monarchy took the high road to absolutism, while on the other the Stuarts never quite recovered from the diminution of their royal authority following the regicide of Charles I in 1649. However, both monarchies shared a common medieval heritage of sacral kingship, and their histories remained deeply entangled throughout the century. This study focuses on the interaction between ideas of monarchy and images of power in the two countries between the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the Glorious Revolution. It demonstrates that even in periods when politics were seemingly secularized, as in France at the end of the Wars of Religion, and in latter seventeenth- century England, the appeal to religious images and values still lent legitimacy to royal authority by emphasizing the sacral aura or providential role which church and religion conferred on monarchs.
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Anglo-Gallican Moment: The French and English Monarchies from the Death of Mary Queen of Scots to James I’s Remonstrance for the Right of Kings
- Introduction
- The French Monarchy in Crisis 1587–1593
- The Resacralization of Kingship in France 1594–1610
- The Early Stuart Monarchy and the Legacy of the Late Elizabethan Age
- The Advent of the Divine Right of Kings: The Reign of James VI and I
- The Oath of Allegiance Controversy and its Repercussions in England and France
- Concluding Remarks
Chapter 2. Kingship Transformed – Kingship Destroyed? The French and English Monarchies in the 1630s and 1640s
- Introduction
- The Personal Rule of Charles I and the New Culture of Power
- Religion and Politics in France During the Ascendancy of Cardinal Richelieu in the 1630s
- Civil War and Regicide in England
- The French Monarchy Between the Death of Louis XIII and the Coronation of Louis XIV 1643–1654
- Concluding Remarks
Chapter 3. In the Shadow of Versailles: Stuart Kingship and the French Monarchy 1678–1688
- Introduction
- The Changing Nature of the French Monarchy in the 1680s and After
- The Conflict between Crown and Church in France and its Repercussions in England in the 1680s
- Charles II and the Nature of Sacral Kingship
- The Reign of James II
- Concluding Remarks
Outlook and Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Ronald G. Asch holds the Chair of Early Modern History at the University of Freiburg in Germany. He graduated from Tübingen University and previously taught in Münster and Osnabrück. He is an expert on sixteenth and seventeenth-century British and European history and has published monographs on the Thirty Years War and the history of the European nobilities in the early modern period as well as on the court of Charles I. His latest publication is Die Stuarts: Geschichte einer Dynastie (Munich, 2011). He is a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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