of the state had passed into the hands of a turbulent aristocracy, ever at variance among themselves, and uniting only to abase the crown, and oppress the people (752-952).

2. Under the third (Capetian) race, the crown acquired more weight, and many of the sovereigns exerted a proper spirit in restraining the power, and punishing the lawless outrages of the nobles. It was to balance the weight of the aristocracy that Philip the Fair introduced the third estate to the national assemblies (1302), which for above four centuries had consisted only of the nobles and clergy. The chief power of the state began now to shift to the scale of the monarch. The national assembly interfered rather to ratify than decree; and in the fifteenth century the right of legislation was understood to reside wholly in the crown. The right of taxation seemed to follow, of course; and the assemblies, or states-general, were now rarely convened, and from the reign of Louis XIII. entirely laid aside.

3. But another power gradually arose in the state, which in some measure supplied their function in limiting the royal prerogative. The parliaments were originally nothing more than the chief courts of justice in the territory where they were established. The parliament of Paris had naturally a higher respect and dignity than those of the provinces, and, acquiring a right of appeal from their decrees, was considered as the paramount jurisdiction, and the depository of the laws of the kingdom. The sovereigns of France, on first assuming the powers of legislation and taxation, produced their edicts to be registered in that court, and frequently consulted with its members on momentous affairs of state, as in questions of peace, war, or alliance. Thus the nation began to regard the parliament of Paris as a body which shared the powers of government with the monarch: and, in the latter reigns, the parliament availed itself of that general opinion, and made a bold stand in opposing any arbitrary stretches of the king's authority, by refusing to verify and register his edicts.

4. But as this power of the parliament was in reality an usurpation, it was constantly a subject of dispute. The members of this court were in no sense the representatives of the people, or vested with any portion of the constitutional authority of the national assemblies. They were in the king's nomination, removable by him at pleasure, and even subject to entire annihilation as a body at his command. Nay, without so violent a remedy, the sovereign could at any time frustrate their opposition to his will, by appearing personally in the hall of parliament, and commanding his edict to be registered.

5. Yet even a power thus easily defeasible had its advantages to the state, and operated as a very considerable restraint on the royal authority. Considering itself as the guardian of the public liberty, it remonstrated against all arbitrary encroachments of the crown; and, by giving alarm to the nation, furnished an opposition sufficiently powerful to obtain its ends The provincial

parliaments, although they likewise registered the royal edicts, never assumed any similar authority. They were no more than the chief courts of civil judicature.

6. The king of France was therefore to be considered as an absolute monarch, but whose authority was in some degree limited by the consuetudinary regulations of the state, and could not easily become entirely despotic and tyrannical. The crown was hereditary, but could not descend to a female, nor to a natural son. The royal revenue was partly fixed, and partly arbitrary. The former comprehended the royal domains, the duties on wines and salt, the land-tax, capitation-tax, and gift of the clergy; the latter from all other taxes which the monarch thought fit to impose, and from the sale of offices. Most of these duties were leased out to the farmers-general.

7. The Gallican church, though Catholic, and acknowledging the spiritual authority of the pope, had greatly abridged his ancient prerogatives within the kingdom. The assembly of the church, in 1682, declared, that no temporal sovereign could be deposed by the pope, or subjects absolved from their allegiance: it decreed the subjection of the pope to the councils of the church, and denied his infallibility when in opposition to the canons of those councils. The pope had no power to levy money in France without the royal license. In short, the ecclesiastical authority was in all respects subordinate to the civil.

SECTION XXXII.

SWEDEN AND RUSSIA-CHARLES XII. AND PETER THE GREAT.

1. Two most illustrious characters adorned the north of Europe in the latter part of the age of Louis XIV.-Charles XII. of Sweden, and Peter the Great of Muscovy. [To understand the relative position of these kingdoms at this period, it will be necessary to take a review of their previous history.

The progress of society, and the course of political events in the north-eastern countries of Europe (Denmark, Sweden, and Norway), resembled in several points those of our own country. The feudal system was introduced there in the twelfth century, and followed, as in England, by contentions between the sovereigns and the barons, and by concessions from the former in the style of Magna Charta. In the thirteenth century, the population in the towns obtained charters of incorporation and exemption from the control of the barons, in whom was vested almost the whole property of the land. National councils or parliaments were held yearly, to which deputies from the towns were sent; and laws were enacted for general observance; and that no war, taxation, or laws, could be made without consent of parliament.

The nobles and clergy were generally exempt from taxes. The most important event in Scandinavian history, during the middle ages, was the conjunct submission of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, to the sovereignty of Margaret (called the Semiramis of the North), by the compact or union of Calmar in 1397. This princess was the daughter of Waldemar IV., the last king of Denmark of the ancient reigning family, and widow of Haco VIII., king of Norway. She was first elected queen of Denmark, and then of Norway, after the death of her son Olaf by Haco, who died without issue in 1387. The Swedes, dissatisfied with their king, Albert of Mecklenburg, likewise bestowed their crown on her, who made him her prisoner. Being desirous of uniting the three kingdoms into one, she assembled their respective estates at Calmar, who agreed to a perpetual and irrevocable union, and settled the crown on Margaret's grand-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, each kingdom being allowed to retain its own constitution, its senate, and national legislation, and to be governed conformably to its own laws Eric's predilection for the Danes, to whom a preference was given in the distribution of places of trust, naturally fostered animosity and hatred, which led to the deposition of Eric, after a turbulent reign (1412–39); when his nephew, Christopher of Bavaria, was elected king of the union. This latter prince having died without issue, the Swedes took the opportunity to break the union, and choose a king of their own, Charles Knutson Bonde, known as Charles VIII. The Danes followed the example, and elected Christiern I. of Oldenburg, descended by the female side from the race of their ancient kings, who, on the death of Christopher in 1448, renewed the union with Norway. He also governed Sweden from 1437, when Charles VIII. was expelled by his subjects, till 1464, when he was recalled. Violent insurrections frequently occurred, arising out of national antipathy, or stirred up by the discontented, until at last the tyranny of Christiern II. (the Wicked) drove the Swedes into revolt, under the leadership of Gustavus Vasa (descended from the ancient kings), whom they elected king (1523), which finally dissolved the union of Calmar.]

2. [Gustavus Vasa was not merely the liberator, but the restorer of his country. Within two years he subverted the power of the Romish bishops, who had been its constant disturbers, and introduced Lutheranism, rather by his policy than by authority. Everything under him assumed a new aspect-the government, the religion, the finances, the commerce, the agriculture, the sciences, and the morals of the Swedes. Instead of the assemblies of the nobles, which were destructive of the national liberty, he substituted Diets composed of the four orders in the state-the nobles, the clergy, the town deputies, and the peasants (1527). By this means he acquired a new influence, of which he took advantage to humble the power of the church and the nobles, which had long been a source of oppression to Sweden. In 1531

Lutheranism was finally established, and the church lands annexed to the crown, which greatly contributed to exalt the royal authority. Gustavus made commercial treaties with England and Holland, and invited foreign artisans and manufacturers to settle in Sweden. His reign was long and prosperous; and he secured the hereditary succession of the crown to his male descendants, by an act known by the name of the Hereditary Union (1540). He died at the age of seventy (1560).

3. The union act was renewed at the Diet of Nordkoping, when Sigismond, Vasa's grandson, was deposed, and the crown given to his uncle, Charles IX. (1604), and the succession extended to females. Gustavus Adolphus, the son of Charles, and grandson of Vasa, raised the glory of his country (1611-32). The virtues and energies of this prince, the sagacity of his views, the admirable order which he introduced into every branch of the administration, endeared him to his subjects; while his military exploits, and his superiority in the art of war, fixed upon him the admiration of all Europe. He brought the wars which he had to sustain with Denmark, Russia, and Poland, to a most triumphant conclusion. Gustavus, in alliance with France, next joined the Protestant league against the ambition of the house of Austria, and in 1630 carried an army of 15,000 veteran soldiers into Germany, and in the space of two years and a-half overran two-thirds of the empire. He defeated the celebrated Tilly at the famous battle of Leipsic (1631), and extended his conquests from the shores of the Baltic to the Rhine and the Danube. This great prince, who had made war a new science, and accustomed his army to order, and a system of tactics never before known, perished in the battle of Lutzen (1632), which the Swedes gained by the skilful dispositions he had formed. The war was continued under the minority of Queen Christina, his daughter and heir; and at the general peace of Westphalia in 1648, Sweden obtained an extension of territory which made her the dominant power of the North. Christina's successor, her cousin, Charles Gustavus X., sustained the military reputation of the nation in his wars with the Danes and Poles, and employed himself in repressing the power of the nobles, which his early death (1660) left to be afterwards completed by his son, then an infant. Charles XI. was a warrior, like all his ancestors, and more despotic than any of them. He reclaimed all the crown lands allienated since 1609: he deprived the senate of its legislative powers, and reduced it to a consulting body; and the burgher and peasant houses in the diet conferred on him the power of altering the constitution at his pleasure, to enable him to humble the nobles. This arbitrary prince encouraged trade and manufactures; and on his death, at the early age of forty-two (1697), he left his army and fleet in the best condition, with a treasury in good order, and managed by able ministers. He was succeeded by his son, Charles XII., then fifteen years old.]

4. Russia is said to have received the light of Christianity in the tenth century, but its history is utterly unknown till the middle of the fifteenth. At that period, Ivan (Vasilovich the Great) redeemed the empire from its subjection to the Tartar Khans of Kipzack (called also the Grand Horde), and extended its limits. He married Sophia, neice of the last emperor of Constantinople: hence the claim to the Greek empire, the adoption of the title of Czar (Cæsar), and the double eagle as the imperial arms. He suppressed the residence of Tartar envoys at his court, and refused to pay the tribute which had been exacted for centuries. He preserved internal peace by severe despotism, and secured his frontiers by successful warfare (1462— 1505).] His immediate successors maintained a considerable splendour as sovereigns; but their dominions were uncultivated, and their subjects barbarians. [On the death of Feodor Ivanovich in 1598, the reigning family of the ancient sovereigns of Russia, the descendants of Ruric the Norman, became extinct, after having governed Russia seven hundred and six years, under fifty-two sovereigns. After this, Russia presented a shocking spectacle of confusion and carnage, until, in 1613, Michael Romanoff, son of the archbishop of Rostow, and descended by females from the house of Ruric, was elected Czar. Under this new dynasty, the government became consolidated; and Russia rapidly advanced in civilization, and began to participate in the general policy of Europe.] Alexis, the son of Michael, and father of Peter the Great, was the first who published a code of laws (1649). It was not till the end of the sixteenth century that Siberia was added to the empire, which till then was bounded by the limits of Europe.

5. Peter, the youngest son of the emperor Alexis, became master of the empire in 1689, by setting aside a weak elder brother (Ivan), and banishing a factious sister (Sophia), who had seized the government. Utterly uneducated, his youth had been spent in debauchery; but his new situation immediately displayed his talents, and gave birth to the wisest plans for the improvement of a barbarous people. The army and navy demanded his first attention. He began by breaking the turbulent militia of the Strelitzes, and by degrees formed a regular army of 12,000 men, on the strictest model of discipline. He employed some Dutchmen to build a small fleet, and made the first experiment of his arms in taking Azof from the Turks (1696).

6. Having gained the little instruction he possessed from foreigners, Peter resolved to travel in search of knowledge. Appointing his tutor, Le Fort, an able Genevese, his ambassador, he travelled as a private person in his suite through Germany to Holland, and studied the art of ship-building, by working in the docks with his own hands. Thence he passed to England, and in a similar manner acquired the knowledge of every art fitted for the improvement of his kingdom. The relative sciences