Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

CHARACTER OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The Wars of the Roses are, in certain respects, peculiar. They extended over a long period, but did not include more than three years of actual fighting. The battles were fierce, and the combatants unsparing in the treatment of their foes. Yet the population of the country did not diminish. Business and the administration of justice went on as usual. Trade began to be held in high esteem, and traders to amass wealth. The number of journeymen and day-laborers increased, and there was a disposition to break through the guild laws.

EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WARS.—The most striking result of the civil wars was the strengthening of the power of the king. Not more than thirty of the old nobles survived. Laws were made forbidding the nobles to keep armed "retainers;" and against "maintenance," or the custom of nobles to promise to support, in their quarrels or law-cases, men who adhered to them. The court of the Star Chamber was set up to prevent these abuses. It was turned into an instrument of tyranny in the hands of the kings. Henry VII. extorted from the rich, "benevolences," or gifts solicited by the king, which the law authorized him to collect as a tax. He contrived to get money in such ways, and thus to carry forward the government without Parliament, which met only once during the last thirteen years of his reign. Royal power, in relation to the nobles, was further exalted by the introduction of cannon into warfare, which only the king possessed. Two pretenders to the throne, Lambert Simnel (1487), and Perkin Warbeck (1492), were raised up; but the efforts made to dethrone Henry proved abortive. He kept watch over his enemies at home and abroad, and punished all resistance to his authority. Circumstances enabled the founder of the Tudor line to exalt the power of the king over the heads of both the nobles and the commons.

III. SPAIN.

FERDINAND OF ARAGON (1479-15l6).—The union of Aragon and Castile, by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1504), was nominal, as each sovereign reigned independently in his own dominion. But both sovereigns were bent on the same end,—that of subjecting the powerful grandees and feudal lords to their authority. In this policy they found efficient helpers in the shrewd and loyal counselor Mendoza, Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo, and in Ximenes, who combined the qualities of a prelate of strict orthodoxy with those of a profound and energetic statesman. To bring both nobles and clergy into subservience to the crown, was their great aim; and for this end the sagacious Ferdinand procured from the Pope the privilege of filling the bishoprics and the grand masterships of the military orders. He deprived the nobles of their judicial functions, which he committed to impartial and severe tribunals of his own creation. He re-organized and strengthened the Holy Hermanadad, or militia of the cities, and thus had at his service against the grandees a standing military force. He used the nobles and the cities to keep one another in check. Over both stood the Inquisition,—a tribunal established against the Moors and the Jews who had made an outward profession of Christianity, but which under Torquemada, who had been confessor of the queen, became a terror to all Spain. The king had the power to name the Grand Inquisitor and all the judges; and he thus acquired in this institution not only a fearful weapon against heretics of every description, but also a political instrument for the subjugation of the nobles and the clergy. By this alliance of the throne and the altar, the despotic power of Ferdinand had the firmest prop.

CONQUEST OF GRANADA.—After a ten-years' bloody war, the Moorish kingdom of Granada was conquered. The capital, with the famous castle of Alhambra, was captured (1492). The dethroned Moorish king, Boabdil, robbed of his possessions, sailed to Africa, where he fell in battle. By the terms of their surrender, the Moors were to have the free exercise of their religion. But the promise was not kept. Choice was given to the Moslems to become Christians, or to emigrate. Many left to wage war elsewhere against their Spanish persecutors, either as corsairs in Africa, or as bands of robbers in Sierra Nevada. The professed converts were goaded by cruel treatment into repeated insurrections. It was a fierce war of races and religions. The frightful sufferings of the Moors, under the pressure of this double fanaticism, form a long and gloomy chapter of Spanish history. The dismal tale continues until the cruel expulsion from the kingdom of nearly a million of this unhappy people by Philip III., in 1609.

FERDINAND, REGENT OF CASTILE.—Most of the children of Ferdinand and Isabella died young. Their daughter Joanna married Philip of Burgundy, son of Maximilian and Mary; but he died in 1506, at the age of twenty-eight. They had been recognized as the rulers of Castile. But the mind of Joanna, who had always been eccentric, became disordered, so that the government devolved on Ferdinand, her father. He placed her in the castle at Tordesillas, where the remainder of her life, which continued forty-seven years longer, was spent. Ferdinand was, in form, constituted by the Cortes (1510), regent of the kingdom in the name of his daughter, and as guardian of her son (Charles). Ferdinand administered the government with wisdom and moderation. As there were no children by his second marriage with Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII. of France, the succession of Joanna's son remained secure. Ferdinand availed himself of the disturbances in France to annex to Castile the portion of Navarre lying on the south of the Pyrenees.

IV. GERMANY AND THE EMPIRE.

FREDERICK III. (1440-1493).—While England, France, and Spain were organizing monarchy, Italy and Germany kept up the anarchical condition of the Middle Ages. Hence these countries, first Italy and then Germany, became enticing fields of conquest for other nations. Frederick III. was the last emperor crowned at Rome (1452), and only one other emperor after him was crowned by the Pope. Frederick reigned longer than any other German king before or after him. He lacked energy, neglected the empire, and busied himself in enlarging his Austrian domains, which he erected into an archduchy (1453). When he sought to interfere with the German princes, they set him at defiance. He did little more than remain an indolent spectator of the conflict in which the Swiss overthrew Charles the Bold. The great danger to Europe was now from the Turks. Christendom was defended by the Poles and the Hungarians. Frederick left the Hungarians, under the gallant John Hunyady, without his help, to drive them, in 1456, from Belgrade. He tried to obtain the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns; but Podiebrad, a Utraquist nobleman, was made king of Bohemia, and Matthias Corvinus succeeded Hunyady, his father, on the throne of Hungary. By the death of Albert, the brother of Frederick, to whom the emperor had been compelled to give up Vienna, he became master of all the Austrian lands except Tyrol. He was bent on getting the Hungarian crown; but Vienna was taken by Matthias, in 1485, and the emperor had to fly for his life. A great confederation, composed of princes, nobles, and cities, was made in Swabia, for repressing private war, and did much good in South Germany. The western part of Prussia was taken from the Teutonic Knights by the Peace of Thorn, in 1466, and annexed to Poland by Casimir IV.

Maximilian I. (1493-15l9).—Maximilian I. was a restless prince, eager for adventure. Although not crowned, he was authorized by Pope Julius II. to style himself "Emperor Elect." In his reign, efforts, only in part successful, were made to secure peace and order in Germany. At the Diet of Worms in 1495, a perpetual public peace, or prohibition of private feuds, was proclaimed; and a court called the Imperial Chamber, the judges of which, except the president, were appointed by the states, was constituted to adjust controversies among them. The benefits of this arrangement were partly defeated by the Aulic Council, an Austrian tribunal established by Maximilian for his own domains, but which interfered in matters properly belonging to the Chamber. Germany was also divided into circles, or districts, for governmental purposes. In 1499 Maximilian endeavored, without success, to coerce the Swiss League into submission to the Imperial Chamber, and to punish it for helping the French in their Italian invasion. Although he was brave, cultured, and eloquent, he lacked perseverance, and not a few of his numerous projects failed. The most fortunate event in his life, as regards the aggrandizement of his house, was his marriage to Mary of Burgundy (1477). His grandson Ferdinand married the sister of Louis II., the last king of Bohemia of the Polish line, who was also king of Hungary; and by the election of Ferdinand to be his successor (1526), both these countries were added to the vast possessions of the Austrian family. To Maximilian's doings in Italy, we shall soon refer.

GERMAN CITIES.—From the middle of the thirteenth century there was a rapid growth of German cities, and an advance of the trading-classes. The cities gained a large measure of self-government, and were prosperous little republics. They were centers of commerce and wealth, and often exercised power much beyond their own precincts, which were well defended by ditches, walls, and towers. The old Gothic town-halls in Aix, Nuremburg, Cologne, etc., are monuments of municipal thrift and dignity. Their churches and convents grew rich, and schools with numerous pupils were connected with them. Dwellings became more comfortable and attractive. All branches of art and manufacture flourished. The city nobles and the guilds had their banquets. In the church festivals all the people took part. The German cities, such as Mayence, Worms, Strasburg, Lübeck, Augsburg, excited the admiration even of Italian visitors.