Frederick II had inherited a style of absolute government that owed much to the peculiar circumstances of Brandenburg-Prussia as it emerged from the Thirty Years’ War. Lacking natural frontiers and war-ravaged when Frederick William inherited the electorate in 1640, Brandenburg had little more than the prestige of the ancient house of Hohenzollern. The diplomacy of Jules Cardinal Mazarin contributed to the acquisition (1648) of East Pomerania, Magdeburg, and Minden, and war between Sweden and Poland brought sovereignty over East Prussia, formerly held as a fief from Poland. A deal with the Junkers at the Recess of 1653, which secured a regular subsidy in return for a guarantee of their social rights, was the foundation of an increasingly absolute rule. He overcame by force the resistance of the diet of Prussia in 1660: as he became more secure economically, militarily, and bureaucratically, he depended less on his diets. So was established the Prussian modeclass="underline" an aristocracy of service and a bureaucracy harnessed to military needs. The Great Elector’s son became King Frederick I of Prussia when he pledged support to the emperor’s cause (1701). His son, Frederick William (1713–40), completed the centralization of authority and created an army sustained by careful stewardship of the economy. Personally directing a larger army in wars of aggression and survival, Frederick the Great (1740–86) came close to ruining his state; its survival testifies to the success of his father. Of course Frederick left his own impress on government. He should not be judged by his essays in enlightened philosophy or even by new mechanisms of government, but by the spirit he inspired. He lived out his precept that the sovereign should be the first servant of the state. All was ordered so as to eliminate obstacles to the executive will. Much was achieved: the restoration of Prussia and the establishment of an industrial base, in particular the exploitation of the new Silesian resources. Legal rights and freedom of thought were secure so long as they did not conflict with the interest of the state. A monument to his reign, completed five years after his death in 1786, was the Allgemeine Landrecht, the greatest codification of German law. Perhaps his greatest civil achievement was the stability that made such a striking contrast with the turbulence in Habsburg lands under Joseph II. Variations on the absolutist theme Sweden
In Sweden the Konungaförsäkran (“King’s Assurance”), which was imposed at the accession of the young Gustav II Adolf in 1611 and which formally made him dependent for all important decisions on the Råd (council) and Riksdag (diet), was no hindrance to him and his chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, in executing a bold foreign policy and important domestic reforms. Queen Christina, a minor until 1644, experienced a constitutional crisis (1650) in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, from which Sweden had gained German lands, notably West Pomerania and Bremen. She extricated herself with finesse, then abdicated (1654). Charles X sought a military solution to the threat of encirclement by invading Poland and, more successfully, Denmark, but he left the kingdom to his four-year-old son (1660) with problems of political authority unresolved. When he came of age, Charles XI won respect for his courage in war and established an absolutism beyond doubt or precedent by persuading the Riksdag to accept an extreme definition of his powers (1680). Then he carried out the drastic recovery of alienated royal lands. With novel powers went military strength based on a corps of farmer-soldiers from the recovered land. Tempting authority awaited Charles XII (1697–1718), but there was also a menacing coalition. Perhaps decline was inevitable, for Sweden’s greatness had been a tour de force, but Charles XII’s onslaughts on Poland and Russia risked the state as well as the army which he commanded so brilliantly. Even after the Russian victory at Poltava (1709) and Charles’s exile in Turkey, Sweden’s resistance testified to the soundness of government. When Charles died fighting in Norway, Sweden had lost its place in Germany and a third of its adult population. An aristocratic reaction led to a period of limited monarchy. Decisions were made by committees of the Riksdag, influenced by party struggle, like that of the Hats and Caps at mid-century. Gustav III carried out a coup in 1774 that restored greater power to the sovereign, but there was no break in two great traditions: conscientious sovereign and responsible nobility. Denmark
Denmark also had turned in the absolutist direction. Enforced withdrawal from the Thirty Years’ War (in 1629) may not have been a disaster for Denmark, but the loss of the Scanian provinces to Sweden (1658) was—loss of control of the Sound was a standing temptation to go to war again. Events in Denmark exemplify on a small scale what was happening throughout Europe when princes built from war’s wreckage, exploiting the yearning for direction and benefiting from the decay of a society that no longer provided good order. The smaller the country, the stronger the ruler’s prospect of asserting his will. As if responding to Hobbes’s formula for absolute monarchy, the estates declared King Frederick III supreme head on earth, elevated above all human laws (1661). Reforms followed under the statesmen Hannibal Sehested and Peter Schumacker: a new code of law was promulgated; mercantilist measures fostered trade; and Copenhagen flourished. Danes accepted with docility the autocratic rule of the house of Oldenburg, but the peasantry suffered from the spread of a German style of landownership. Frederick IV cared much about their souls, and his son Christian VI provided for their schooling, but a decree of 1733 tied peasants to their estates from the age of 14 to 36. Frederick V was fortunate to have capable ministers, notably Andreas Bernstorff, who was mainly responsible for the acquisition of long-disputed Schleswig and Holstein. His son Christian VII ruled until 1808; yet his reign is best known for his confinement under Johan Struensee and for the latter’s liberal reforms. In the two years before his downfall in 1772, more than 1,000 laws were passed, including measures that have left their mark on Danish society to this day. The episode showed the perils as well as benefits of enlightened absolutism when a king or his subject acquired the power to do as he pleased. Spain
The Iberian Peninsula provides further illustration of the absolutist theme. Historians do not agree about the nature or precise extent of Spain’s decline, but there is agreement that it did occur, that it was most pronounced at mid-century, and that its causes may be traced not only to the reign of Philip II (1556–98), the overextended champion of Roman Catholic and Spanish hegemony, but also to the social and political structure of the Spanish states of Castile, Aragon, Portugal, Milan, Naples, the Netherlands, and Franche-Comté. The constitutions of these states reflected the personal nature of the original union of crowns (1479) and of subsequent acquisitions. Castile received the largest share of the prosperity that came with silver bullion from the New World but suffered the worst consequences when Mexico and Peru became self-sufficient. Bullion imports fell sharply; trade with the rest of Europe was severely imbalanced; and the weight of taxation fell largely on Castile. The effort of Philip IV’s chief minister, the count de Olivares, to ensure greater equality of contribution through the union of arms was one factor in the revolts of Catalonia and Portugal (1640). In 1659 Spain had to cede Roussillon, Cerdagne, and Artois to France; and in 1667–68 the Flemish forts could put up no fight against the invading French. Despite a partial recovery in the 1680s under the intelligent direction of the duke de Medinaceli and Manuel Oropesa, Spain was the object of humiliating partition treaties. In 1700 Charles II had bequeathed the entire inheritance to Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV’s grandson. A foundation for recovery was laid early in the reign of Philip V, when outlying provinces lost their privileges and acquired a tax system based on ability to pay and a French-style intendente to enforce it. The pace of reform accelerated with the accession of Charles III in 1759. He was no radical, but he backed ministers who were, such as the count de Floridablanca and the count de Campomanes. A national bank, agricultural improvements, and new roads, factories, and hospitals witnessed to the efforts of this benevolent autocrat to overcome the Spanish habit of condemning everything new. Portugal