Topic 7: First half of the 17th century: national narratives

Question 1

France and the Low Countries 1600s

Answer 1

• After 1585, the southern netherlands returned to spanish control and in the next decades, experienced post-tridentine catholic confessionalisation.
• In the united provinces, a de facto religious pluralism emerged.
• In France, the situation of the huguenots grew gradually worse during the seventeenth century, until finally louis xiv revoked the edict of nantes in 1685.
• Theological controversy concerning grace and predestination remained alive among protestants and catholics in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in dutch arminianism and french jansenism.

Question 2

The Thirty Years’ War: Religion and Politics

Answer 2

• The complex political and religious tensions of the holy roman empire were the matrix for the origin of the thirty years’ war.
• The political and military complexities of the thirty years’ war fall into four distinct phases before the peace of westphalia in 1648. (1) Bohemian phase (1618-1615) Catholicism under Ferdinand (2) Danish Phase (1625-1519) Catholicism high - edict of restitution. (3) Swedish Phase (1630-1635) Protestant success under Adolphus. (4) French Phase (1635-1648) Massive destruction Brought to an end by (5) Peace of Westphalia 1648.
• Significance of Thirty Years War: 1. Political over religious. 2. Unprecedented scale and horror. 3. Disrupted confessionalisation. 4. HRE ceased to be major political entity. 5. France became most powerful state in Europe.

Question 3

Revolution and Restoration in England

Answer 3

• Reign of James I (1603– 1625) and the first part of the reign of Charles I bad for puritans - he married a French princess, no parliament, arminians
• Charles I’s actions, combined with puritan resentments, helped trigger the early english revolution and the first of two civil wars. - Prayer book sparked Scottiush rebellion.
• The 1640s and 1650s in england saw two civil wars, a shortlived republic, and the protectorate of oliver cromwell.
• Unrest, plus the collapse of censorship and traditional institutions, and Cromwell’s policies of toleration permitted unprecedented proliferation of religiously and politically radical groups in the 1640s–50s. - quakers, ranters, baptists
• Restoration 1660 brought back monarchy and the English church.