Universal Monarchy

The concept of a European Universal Monarchy was a central part of English, and later British, foreign policy during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was a feared that a strong European monarchy such as France or Spain would create a single united European Crown, which would severely threaten British independence.

They feared that initially the Spanish and later the French would create a European superstate which would dominate continental Europe and ultimately invade and conquer the British Isles.

Emergence

It was a theory that first emerged during the reign of Elizabeth I, in the wake of the reformation by which England had largely converted to protestantism. It came at a time when the medeival world of diplomacy was giving way to the modern European State System.

Spanish dominance had reached a peak under Charles I who ruled an Empire which included Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Naples, Bohemia, Austria, Lorraine, Luxemburg and the Low Countries. [Simms p.11] On top of this Spain controlled vast posessions in Asia and the Americas, and enormous military resources making it arguablly the first modern superpower.

The English perceived the Spanish tradition to be rooted in Roman Catholicism and royal absolutism rather than the traditional rights of Englishmen, which they belived would be imposed on England by a dominate Spain. To avoid this the English took part in a number of alliances designed to frustrate this goal. It was a key notion of English strategic thinking that involvement in Europe was closely tied to the nation's destiny and security. [Simms p.10]

While the English generally favoured protestant states, the conflict was not entirely religous. The English were prepared to make alliances with Catholic or Islamic states as long as they opposed the dominant continental power. This took the form of alliances with nations like Portugal or the Ottoman Empire, as much as with Sweden or the Dutch.

Central to the security of England was the Dutch Republic, which was described as an "Outwork" of the English defences. [Simms p.22] The Dutch were both Protestant and commercial, and fought a long-running battle for independence against their rulers, the Spanish.

English response

The English initially tried to intervene on the continent such as lending support to the French protestant Hugenots, but a series of defeats such as that at Cadiz in 1625, displayed the limits of deploying English forces on the continent. As a consequence, the Republican government of Oliver Cromwell established the Western Design, intended to create an English-speaking Empire in the New World. The English were impressed by the large wealth acquired by the Spanish from their Empire in South America, which had allowed them to dominate the European state system.

The English responded by capturing Jamaica in 1652 and pouring more resources into the establishment of British colonies on mainland North America which eventually became the thirteen colonies which formed the United States in 1783. It was envisioned that these new colonies would would provide England with added manpower and resources with which to combat the rival European Kings in Europe during times of war.

Fearing that the Celtic nations of Ireland and Scotland might be used as the staging post for a takeover of England, a number of policies were pushed through to tie the countries closer together culiminating in the Act of Union which created a united Great Britain in 1707.

Seventeenth Century

Until the early 1600s, Europe had been dominated by Spain through its membership of the Habsburg family which held several European crowns, including Austria. Spain played a major part in battling the independent Protestant German states in the Thirty Years War as well as opposing the Dutch Republic and the Swedish under Gustavus I.

Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 Spanish power within Europe began to decline. This culminated in 1700 when the Spanish King died without an heir. The British supported an Austrian candidate to the throne, while the French wanted it to be a Frenchmen. The War of the Spanish Sucsession was fought, with eventual acceptance of the French candidate.

Eighteenth Century

by which the two states co-operated and made war together.

Britain tried to counter this by making a number of alliances in Europe with Austria and with rising states such as Prussia and Russia. No one country was able to establish domination over the European continent. The British became involved in these conflicts hoping to maintain the balance of power, in which they were generally sucsesfull. The constant shifting of alliances became known as the stately quadrille.

The policy gradually declined in the later eighteenth century, as the dominance of France was eroded, and Britain became more confident and powerful, particularly after the Seven Years War resulted in a series of major victories over the Spanish-French alliance. It established, instead, a dominance of the Anglosphere (at the time consisting mostly of Britain and its American colonies).

The prospect of the Universal Monarchy were lessened by the French Revolution which overthrew and executed the Bourbon monarch, and saw France at war with most of the major European states.

Napoleonic era

Napoleon came close to creating something akin to a Universal Monarchy with his continental system and Napoleonic Code, but he failed to conquer all of Europe, or fully subjegate Britain and Russia. Napoleon despatched an expedition to Portugal in 1808 to counter continued Portuguese trade with the British. The French hoped to isolate the British, but instead became embroiled in the Peninsular War which turned into a quagmire which eventually led to the fall of Napoleon.

The Napoleonic Wars would be the last war between Britain and France, and the prospect of a Universal Monarch significantly declained due in part to the rise of nationalism across Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth century. As Britian grew increasingly into a global power (establishing the British Empire with territories on all seven continents) the potential threat of being merged into a European superstate declined.

References

Bibliography

* Blanning, Tim. The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815. Penguin Books (2008)
* Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire. Penguin Books (2008).
* Thomas, Hugh. Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire 1490-1522. Phoenix (2004)