Twilight of Princes

“Kings are absolute lords and have full authority over the people”, wrote Louis XIV…. His opinion was shared by Peter the Great and Frederick the Great, different though their concepts of autocracy were. Catherine the Great, who continued Peter’s work in modernizing and westernizing Russia, insisted…that while all men were equal before the law, the sovereign was absolute: “The extent of the empire necessitates absolute power in the ruler. Any other form of government would bring it down in ruins.”

But although they strode across the years with such vitality, setting their mark for good and ill upon the history of their times, those absolute monarchs provide but one fitting title for their era – Twilight of Princes. For the Age of Absolutism was also the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Scientific Revolution – an age in which Newton’s discoveries were more important than the conquests of Frederick the Great, and Diderot’s Encyclopédie was more influential than the triumphs of Louis XIV.

– Christopher Hibbert, editor
(from the introduction)

1601: A Play for All Seasons – Ivor Brown

William Shakespeare’s reworking of a familiar folk legend gives the stage its most famous tragedy

1609: Revolt of the Netherlands – Charles Wilson

After eighty years of determined resistance, the Dutch win their independence from Europe’s mightiest monarch, Philip II of Spain

1620: The Pilgrims at Plymouth – Oliver Levy

An intrepid band of expatriate Englishmen establishes a new atmosphere of religious diversity in the New World

1631: The Rape of Magdeburg – Maurice Ashley

The Protestant citizens of Magdeburg defy their Catholic emperor and spark a religious war that engulfs the continent

1649: “A Cruel Necessity” – Christopher Hibbert

Decades of bitter dissension between Parliament’s Puritan radicals and England’s fumbling monarch culminate in the execution of Charles I

1661: “L’état, c’est moi” – Philippe Erlanger

Declaring that he is the state, Cardinal Mazarin’s astonishing pupil, Louis XIV, guides the French nation through its golden age

1666: Cambridge’s Young Genius – Colin Ronan

One of Trinity College’s least promising graduates, Isaac Newton, lays the foundation for modern physics

1683: Vienna Under Siege – V.J. Parry

Kara Mustafa leads the “invincible” armies of the Ottoman Sultan in a final – and nearly successful – assault on Vienna

1698: A Window on the West – Constantine de Grunwald

Traveling incognito through Europe, Peter the Great learns technological skills that enable him to Westernize his empire

1713: Twilight of the Sun King – Jacques Madaule

The Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt curb the Sun King’s territorial ambitions and restore peace to Europe

1720: The South Sea Bubble – John Carswell

The spectacular collapse of the South Sea Company ruins thousands of stock speculators and topples the English government

1751: An Encyclopedia for the Enlightenment – Richard Friedenthal

Hounded by government censors and condemned by the Church, Denis Diderot edits his thirty-five volume encyclopedia

1755: Disaster Strikes Lisbon – Suzanne Chantal

When a series of tremors shatter Lisbon, mystics insist that the disaster is Divine Retribution for Portugal’s sins

1770: “Terra Incognita” – Roderick Cameron

Certain that an undiscovered continent lies somewhere in the South Pacific, James Cook sets out in search of the “Great South Land”

1776: The Declaration of Independence – Arnold Whitridge

Thomas Jefferson drafts the American colonies’ proclamation of independence to justify rebellion and win French support

1789: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” – Jacques Godechot

The French monarchy is doomed when troops garrisoning the Bastille refuse to open fire upon a mob of armed citizens