A Political and Social History of Modern Europe | Page 9

VII was thereby freed in large measure from dependence on
Parliament for grants of money, and the power of Parliament naturally
declined. In fact, Parliament met only five times during his whole reign
and only once during the last twelve years, and in all its actions was
quite subservient to the royal desires.
[Sidenote: Foreign relations of England under Henry VII]
Henry VII refrained in general from foreign war, but sought by other
means to promote the international welfare of his country. He
negotiated several treaties by which English traders might buy and sell
goods in other countries. One of the most famous of these commercial
treaties was the Intercursus Magnus concluded in 1496 with the duke
of Burgundy, admitting English goods into the Netherlands. He
likewise encouraged English companies of merchants to engage in
foreign trade and commissioned the explorations of John Cabot in the
New World. Henry increased the prestige of his house by politic
marital alliances. He arranged a marriage between the heir to his throne,
Arthur, and Catherine, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the
Spanish sovereigns. Arthur died a few months after his wedding, but it
was arranged that Catherine should remain in England as the bride of
the king's second son, who subsequently became Henry VIII. The
king's daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland,
thereby paving the way much later for the union of the crowns of
England and Scotland.
England in the year 1500 was a real national monarchy, and the power
of the king appeared to be distinctly in the ascendant. Parliament was
fast becoming a purely formal and perfunctory body.
FRANCE

[Sidenote: The French Monarchy]
By the year 1500 the French monarchy was largely consolidated
territorially and politically. It had been a slow and painful process, for
long ago in 987, when Hugh Capet came to the throne, the France of
his day was hardly more than the neighborhood of Paris, and it had
taken five full centuries to unite the petty feudal divisions of the
country into the great centralized state which we call France. The
Hundred Years' War had finally freed the western duchies and counties
from English control. Just before the opening of the sixteenth century
the wily and tactful Louis XI (1461-1483) had rounded out French
territories: on the east he had occupied the powerful duchy of Burgundy;
on the west and on the southeast he had possessed himself of most of
the great inheritance of the Angevin branch of his own family,
including Anjou, and Provence east of the Rhone; and on the south the
French frontier had been carried to the Pyrenees. Finally, Louis's son,
Charles VIII (1483-1498), by marrying the heiress of Brittany, had
absorbed that western duchy into France.
[Sidenote: Steady Growth of Royal Power in France]
Meanwhile, centralized political institutions had been taking slow but
tenacious root in the country. Of course, many local institutions and
customs survived in the various states which had been gradually added
to France, but the king was now recognized from Flanders to Spain and
from the Rhone to the Ocean as the source of law, justice, and order.
There was a uniform royal coinage and a standing army under the
king's command. The monarchs had struggled valiantly against the
disruptive tendencies of feudalism; they had been aided by the
commoners or middle class; and the proof of their success was their
comparative freedom from political checks. The Estates-General, to
which French commoners had been admitted in 1302, resembled in
certain externals the English Parliament,--for example, in comprising
representatives of the clergy, nobles, and commons,--but it had never
had final say in levying taxes or in authorizing expenditures or in trying
royal officers. And unlike England, there was in France no live
tradition of popular participation in government and no written

guarantee of personal liberty.
[Sidenote: Foreign Relations of the French Kings about 1500]
Consolidated at home in territory and in government, Frenchmen began
about the year 1500 to be attracted to questions of external policy. By
attempting to enforce an inherited claim to the crown of Naples,
Charles VIII in 1494 started that career of foreign war and
aggrandizement which was to mark the history of France throughout
following centuries. His efforts in Italy were far from successful, but
his heir, Louis XII (1498-1515), continued to lay claim to Naples and
to the duchy of Milan as well. In 1504 Louis was obliged to resign
Naples to King Ferdinand of Aragon, in whose family it remained for
two centuries, but about Milan continued a conflict, with varying
fortunes, ultimately merging into the general struggle between Francis I
(1515- 1547) and the Emperor Charles V.
France in the year 1500 was a real national monarchy, with the
beginnings of a national literature and with a