Political change: the new monarchies

Detail

Who the 'new monarchs' were

• In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries kings in western Europe made themselves much stronger. They built up military power (armies) and financial power (money). Historians call them the 'new monarchs'.
• The four names to remember:
• Louis XI — France
• Maximilian — Austria
• Henry VII — England

• Isabelle and Ferdinand — Spain (a ruling pair)

• They are called absolutist rulers. Absolutism means the king holds all the power and does not share it.

• Three tools made this possible:
• a standing army — soldiers kept ready all the time, paid by the king, not borrowed from lords
• a permanent bureaucracy — a fixed set of officials who run the state every day

• national taxation — taxes collected across the whole country by the king's own men

• Spain and Portugal used this new strength to start overseas expansion — sending ships and taking lands far away.

• NCERT chapter dates for the phase: France 1461–1559, Spain 1474–1556, England 1485–1547.
• Louis XI ruled 1461–1483 and belonged to the House of Valois; his job was to unify France after the Hundred Years' War. [2]
• How Louis XI did it — a useful model of the whole 'new monarchy' method: [2]
• He took back control of Boulonnais, Picardy and Burgundy, and gained Franche-Comté and Artois; he also annexed Anjou and inherited Maine and Provence. [2]
• He cut the pensions of nobles so they lost money and influence, and backed towns that were under lords. [2]
• He picked advisers from the lower nobility and middle class, not the great lords. [2]
• He raised taxes and got the right to appoint bishops through a new concordat (a written deal with the Pope). [2]
• He pushed trade, mining, the silk industry, printing and trade fairs — money for the crown. [2]
• He treated war as risky and preferred diplomacy (talks and deals) to grow the royal lands. [2]

Why the kings could win — guns beat knights

• This victory rested on something older: the dissolution of feudal lordship in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The lord's grip on land and men was already loosening.
• Earlier, a king fought using feudal levies — soldiers each lord brought along as a service duty. The king depended on the lords.
• The new kings replaced that with professional infantry (full-time foot soldiers) armed with guns, plus siege artillery (big cannon to break castle walls).
• Result: the castle stopped being safe and the armoured knight stopped being the main weapon. Aristocratic resistance crumbled.
• Point to remember: money and gunpowder, not blood and birth, now decided who won.

Resistance — the fight was about tax

• Whenever people resisted, the issue was usually taxation — the king's new demand for money.
• England: rebellions were put down in 1497, 1536, 1547, 1549 and 1553.
• France: Louis XI had a long struggle with the dukes and princes.
• France's sixteenth-century 'religious' wars were not only about religion. They were partly a fight between royal privilege (the king's special powers) and regional liberties (the old rights of provinces to run their own affairs).

The nobility changes sides

• The nobles first fought the king. Then they joined him. They became loyalists.
• This is why 'royal absolutism has been called a modified form of feudalism' — a changed form of feudalism, not a clean break.
• The same lords still ran politics.

• But now they did it from permanent administrative posts under the king, not from their own castles.

• The king sat at the centre of a courtier society (nobles living around the royal court) and a patron–client network:

• A patron is a powerful person who gives jobs and favours. A client is the person who receives them and stays loyal in return.

• Patronage could be bought. Office and favour had a price.

• This opened the door to merchants and bankers. They lent money to pay soldiers' wages and entered the state system.

• So the state now contained non-feudal elements — men of money, not men of land. That is the key change.

Two roads: France and England

France — the Estates-General fades

• The Estates-General was France's assembly. It had three houses, one for each of the three estates (clergy, nobility, and the rest of the people).
• It met in 1614 under Louis XIII and was not summoned again till 1789.
• The 1614 meeting happened during the minority of Louis XIII (he was still a child) and exposed the body's core weakness — the three orders could not agree. The Third Estate refused to agree to end the sale of offices unless the nobles gave up some privileges. The meeting ended with no action. [3]
• The gap was about 174–175 years; it was recalled only when the treasury was empty and Louis XVI had no choice, meeting at Versailles on 5 May 1789. [3]
• Lesson: an assembly that cannot agree inside itself gives the king a free hand.

England — the Great Council becomes Parliament

• England had an Anglo-Saxon Great Council (a body of leading men, from before the Norman conquest). Kings had to consult it before taxing.
• It grew into Parliament, with two houses:
• House of Lords — the lords and the clergy

• House of Commons — representatives of towns and rural areas

• Charles I ruled without Parliament from 1629 to 1640. He recalled it only because he needed money.

• He was defeated and executed.
• The republic that followed was short-lived. Monarchy came back, but on one condition: Parliament must meet regularly.
• Because of these two different roads, today France is a republic and England has a monarchy — a monarchy limited by Parliament.

Prelims Hooks

• The four 'new monarchs' named in NCERT: Louis XI (France), Maximilian (Austria), Henry VII (England), Isabelle and Ferdinand (Spain).
• Three pillars of the new monarchy: standing army, permanent bureaucracy, national taxation.
• NCERT phase dates: France 1461–1559; Spain 1474–1556; England 1485–1547.
• Louis XI reigned 1461–1483, House of Valois. [2]
• English anti-tax rebellions crushed in 1497, 1536, 1547, 1549, 1553.
• The Estates-General met in 1614 under Louis XIII, then not again till 1789; the 1614 session ended without any decision. [3]
• The Estates-General reconvened at Versailles on 5 May 1789. [3]
• Charles I ruled without Parliament 1629–40; recalled it for money; was defeated and executed.
• Royal absolutism has been called a 'modified form of feudalism'.
• The technology that broke noble power: guns and siege artillery in the hands of professional infantry.
• Louis XI gained the right to appoint bishops through a concordat with the Pope. [2]

Mains Points

• The new monarchy was continuity, not rupture. The same aristocratic families kept power, but converted it from independent feudal lordship into permanent office under the crown. This supports the view that royal absolutism was a 'modified form of feudalism' — useful for any question asking whether feudalism 'declined' or simply changed shape.
• Military technology drove political centralisation. Guns and siege artillery made the castle useless and the knight obsolete; both needed cash, and cash needed national taxation and a bureaucracy. So the state grew because war got expensive. Compare with Indian state formation under Sher Shah and the Mughals (standing army, cash revenue, paid officials).
• Money-men entered the state. Merchants and bankers financed soldiers' wages and bought patronage, inserting a non-feudal element into the polity. This is the bridge between feudal society and the later commercial/capitalist order — link to the three orders breaking down and the rise of towns.
• Institutions decide long-run outcomes. France's Estates-General was divided by estate and collapsed into disuse after 1614; England's Great Council evolved into a Parliament with a fixed grip on taxation and survived a civil war. The divergence explains today's French republic and English constitutional monarchy — a strong comparative paragraph for any GS-I question on the roots of modern political systems.