Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  While these movements of the Renaissance and Reformation and the economic turmoil were changing the face of Europe, what was the political background like? What was the map of Europe like in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? It was, of course, a changing map during these 200 years. Let us then look at the map as it was early in the sixteenth century.

  In the south-east the Turks hold Constantinople and their empire advances into Hungary. In the south-west corner the Muslim Saracens, descendants of the Arab conquerors, have been driven away from Granada, and Spain has emerged as a Christian Power under the joint rule of Ferdinand and Isabella. The long centuries of conflict between Christian and Muslim in Spain have made the Spaniard cling to his Catholic religion passionately and with bigotry. It is in Spain that the terrible Inquisition is established. Under the glamour of the discovery of America and the wealth that this is bringing her, Spain is beginning to play a leading part in European politics.

  Look at the map again. We recognize England and France, much as they are now. In the centre of the map is the Empire, divided up into many German States, each of which was more or less independent. It is a curious collection of little States under princes, dukes, bishops, electors and such-like persons. There are also many towns with special privileges, and the northern commercial towns have joined up and formed a confederation. Then there is the republic of Switzerland, in fact free, but not yet formally recognized to be so; the republic of Venice, and also other city-republics in northern Italy; the territory belonging to the Popes, round about Rome, called the Papal States; and the kingdom of Naples and Sicily to the south of them. To the east there is Poland between the Empire and Russia, and the kingdom of Hungary, with the Ottoman Turks casting their shadow on it. Farther to the east is Russia, newly developing into a strong State, after it had got rid of the Mongols of the Golden Horde. And to the north and west there are some other countries.

  Such was Europe early in the sixteenth century. In 1520 Charles V became Emperor. He was a Hapsburg and, as we have seen, he managed to inherit the kingdoms of Spain, and of Naples and Sicily, and the Netherlands. It is strange how whole countries and peoples changed masters in Europe because of certain royal marriages. Millions of people and great countries were just inherited. Sometimes they were given as dowries. The island of Bombay thus came to an English king, Charles II, as the dowry of his wife Catharine of Braganza (in Portugal). By careful marriage, therefore, the Hapsburgs gathered together an empire, and Charles V became head of this. He was a very ordinary man, chiefly noted for eating enormously, but for the moment his great dominions made him seem a colossus in Europe.

  In the same year that Charles became Emperor, Suleiman became head of the Ottoman Empire. During his reign this empire spread in all directions, and especially in eastern Europe. The Turks came right up to the gates of Vienna, but just missed capturing this beautiful old city. But they terrified the Hapsburg Emperor, and he thought it expedient to buy off Suleiman by paying him tribute. Imagine the great Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire paying tribute to the Sultan of Turkey. Suleiman is known as Suleiman the Magnificent. He took the title of emperor himself, as he considered himself the representative of the Eastern Byzantine Caesars.

  There was a great deal of building activity in Constantinople at the time of Suleiman and many beautiful mosques were made. The artistic Renaissance in Italy seems to have had its counterpart in the East also. Not only in Constantinople was there artistic activity, but in Persia and in Khorasan in Central Asia beautiful paintings were being made.

  In India we have seen Babar, the Moghal, come down from the north-west and establish a new dynasty. This was in 1526, when Charles V was Emperor in Europe and Suleiman was ruling in Constantinople. We shall have a great deal to say of Babar and his brilliant descendants. It is interesting to note here, however, that Babar was himself a Renaissance type of prince, though a better one than the European type of the period. He was an adventurer, but a gallant knight, with a passion for literature and art. In the Italy of that period there were also princes who were adventurers and lovers of literature and art, and their petty Courts had a superficial brilliance. The Medici family of Florence and the Borgias were famous then. But these Italian princes, and most others in Europe at the time, were true followers of Machiavelli, unscrupulous, intriguing, and despotic, using the poison cup and the dagger of the assassin for their opponents. It is hardly fair to compare the knightly Babar with this crowd, just as it would be out of place to compare their petty Courts with the Court of the Moghal emperors at Delhi or Agra—Akbar and Shah Jahan and others. It is said that these Moghal Courts were magnificent, and were perhaps the richest and most splendid that have ever existed.

  We have drifted, almost unawares, to India from Europe. But I wanted you to realize what was happening in India and elsewhere during the days of the European Renaissance. There was artistic activity then in Turkey and Persia and Central Asia and India. In China these were the peaceful and prosperous days of the Mings, when a high level of artistic production was reached. But all this art of the Renaissance period, except perhaps in China, was more or less courtly art. It was not an art of the people. In Italy, after the great artists, some of whose names I have mentioned, passed away, the later Renaissance art became trivial and unimportant.

  So Europe in the sixteenth century was divided up between Catholic and Protestant princes. Princes counted then, not their people. Italy, Austria, France, and Spain were Catholic; Germany half Catholic and half Protestant; England Protestant simply because her King chose to be so. And because England was Protestant, this was enough reason for Ireland, whom England tried to conquer and oppress, to remain Catholic. But it is not quite correct to say that the religion of the people did not matter. It did matter in the end, and many a war and revolution took place because of it. It is difficult to separate the religious aspect from the political and the economic. I think I have told you already that the Protestant revolt against Rome took place especially where the new trading class was becoming strong. We can thus see that there was a connection between religion and trade. Again, many of the princes were afraid of the religious reformation because they thought that under cover of it there might be civil revolution and their authority might be overthrown. If a man was prepared to challenge the religious authority of the Pope, why, then he might also challenge the political authority of the king or prince. This was dangerous doctrine for the kings. They still clung to the divine right of their kind to rule. Even the Protestant princes were not prepared to give this up.

  And yet, in spite of the Reformation, kings were all-powerful in Europe. At no previous period were they so autocratic. Previously the great feudal nobles checked them, and often challenged their authority. The merchants and bourgeoisie did not like these nobles; neither did the king. So with the help of the merchant class, as well as the peasantry, the king crushed the nobles, and became all-powerful. The bourgeoisie, although they had grown in power and importance, were not strong enough yet to check the king. But soon the middle classes began to object to many things that the king did. In particular, they objected to repeated and heavy taxation, and to interference in religion. The king did not like this at all. He was annoyed at their presumption in objecting to anything that he did. So he put them in gaol and punished them otherwise. There was arbitrary imprisonment, just as there is today in India because we refuse to submit to the British Government. The king also interfered with trade. All this made matters worse and resistance to the king grew. This fight of the bourgeoisie for power against the autocracy of the kings lasted many hundred years, till recent times, and many a king’s head had to fall before the idea of the divine right of kings was finally buried, and kings were put in their proper places. In some countries the victory was won early, in others later. We shall follow the fortunes of the fight in subsequent letters.

  But in the sixteenth century the king was boss almost everywhere in Europe—almost, but not quite. You will remember that
in Switzerland the poor peasants of the mountains had dared to defy the great Hapsburg monarch and had won their freedom. So, in the European sea of absolutism and autocracy, the little peasant republic of Switzerland stood out as an island where kings had no place.

  Soon matters came to a head in another place—the Netherlands— and the fight for popular and religious liberty was fought out and won. It is a little country, but it was a great fight against the greatest Power in Europe then—Spain. Thus the Netherlands gave a lead to Europe. Then came a struggle for popular freedom in England which cost a king his head and gave the victory to the Parliament of the day. The Netherlands and England thus took the lead in these struggles of the bourgeoisie against autocracy. And because the bourgeoisie won in these countries, it was able to take advantage of the new conditions and forge ahead of other countries. Both built powerful navies later; both developed trade with distant countries; and both laid the foundations of empire in Asia.

  We have not said much about England so far in these letters. There was little to say, as England was not a very important country in Europe. But a change takes place now and, as we shall see, England rapidly forges ahead. We have referred to the Magna Carta and the early beginnings of Parliament, and to the peasant troubles and civil wars between different dynasties. During these wars murder and assassination by the kings were common enough. Large numbers of the feudal nobles died in the battles, and thus their class lost its strength. A new dynasty—the Tudors—came to the throne, and they played the autocrat well enough. Henry VIII was a Tudor. So was his daughter, Elizabeth.

  After the Emperor Charles V, the Empire split up. Spain and the Netherlands went to his son Philip II. Spain at the time towered over Europe as the most powerful monarchy. You will remember that it possessed Peru and Mexico, and gold poured from the Americas. But, in spite of Columbus and Cortés and Pizarro, Spain could not take advantage of the new conditions. It was not interested in trade. All that it cared for was religion of the most bigoted and cruel kind. All over the country the Inquisition flourished and the most horrible tortures were inflicted on so-called heretics. From time to time great public festivals were arranged when batches of these “heretics”, men and women, were burned alive on huge pyres in the presence of the king and royal family and ambassadors and thousands of people. Autos-da-fé, acts of faith, these public burnings were called. Terrible and monstrous all this seems. The whole history of Europe of this period is so full of violence and horrible and barbarous cruelty and religious bigotry as to be almost unbelievable.

  The Empire of Spain did not last long. The gallant fight of little Holland shook it up thoroughly. A little later, in 1588, an attempt to conquer England failed miserably, and the “Invincible Armada” which carried the Spanish troops never even reached England. It was wrecked on the high seas. This is not surprising, as the man in command of the Armada knew nothing about ships or the sea. Indeed, he went to King Philip II and “humbly requested His Majesty to relieve him from the post, for, he said, he knew nothing of sea strategy and, moreover, was a bad sailor. But the King answered that the fleet would be led by the Lord Himself!”

  So gradually the Empire of Spain faded away. In the days of Charles V it was said that the sun never set on his empire, a saying which is often repeated about another proud and overbearing empire today.

  86

  The Netherlands Fight for Freedom

  August 27, 1932

  I told you in my last letter how kings became supreme, almost all over Europe, in the sixteenth century. In England there were the Tudors, in Spain and Austria the Hapsburgs. In Russia and in great parts of Germany and Italy there were autocratic monarchs. France was perhaps typical of this kind of king ruling through a personal monarchy, the whole kingdom being considered almost the personal property of the king. A very able minister, the Cardinal Richelieu, helped in strengthening France and her monarchy. France has always thought that her strength and security lay in the weakness of Germany. So Richelieu, who was a great Catholic priest, and who crushed Protestants mercilessly in France, actually encouraged Protestants in Germany. This was intended to encourage mutual conflict and disorder in Germany, and thus to weaken her. This policy met with great success. There was, as we shall see, civil war of the worst kind in Germany, which ruined her.

  In France also there was civil war in the middle of the seventeenth century—the war of the Fronde it is called. But the King crushed both the nobles and the merchants. The nobles had no real power left, but to keep them on his side the King allowed them innumerable privileges. They paid practically no tax. Both the nobility and clergy were exempt from taxation. The whole burden of taxation fell on the common people, and particularly the peasantry. With the money extorted from these poor miserable wretches, great and magnificent palaces arose and a splendid Court surrounded the King. Do you remember visiting Versailles, near Paris? Those great palaces there, that we go to see now, grew up in the seventeenth century out of the blood of the French peasantry. Versailles was the symbol of absolute and irresponsible monarchy; and it is not surprising that Versailles became the forerunner of the French Revolution, which put an end to all monarchy. But the revolution was still far off in those days. The King was Louis XIV—the Grand Monarque he was called, the Roi-Soleil, the sun round whom revolved the planets of his Court. For the enormous period of seventy-two years he reigned, from 1643 to 1715, and for his chief minister he had another great Cardinal, Mazarin. There was a great deal of luxury on the top, and royal patronage of literature and science and art, but under a thin covering of splendour there was misery and suffering. It was a world of beautiful wigs and lace cuffs and fine clothing covering a body that was seldom washed and was full of dirt and filth.

  We are all of us influenced a great deal by pomp and pageantry, and it is not surprising that Louis XIV influenced Europe greatly during his long reign. He was the model king and others tried to copy him. But this Grand Monarque, what was he? “Strip your Louis Quatorze of his king-gear,” says a well-known English writer, Carlyle, “and there is left nothing but a poor forked radish with a head fantastically carved.” It is a hard description, probably applicable to most people, kings and commoners.

  Louis Quatorze carries us to 1715, the beginning of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, much had happened in the other countries of Europe, and some of these events deserve notice from us.

  I have told you already of the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain. The story of their gallant fight is worthy of closer study. An American named J.L. Motley has written a famous account of this struggle for freedom, and he has made it an absorbing and fascinating tale. I hardly know of a novel that is more gripping than this moving account of what took place 350 years ago in this little corner of Europe. The book is called The Rise of the Dutch Republic, and I read it in prison.

  The Netherlands include both Holland and Belgium. Their very name tells us that they are low lands. Holland comes from hollow-land. Great parts of them are actually below sea-level, and enormous dykes and walls have to protect them from the North Sea. Such a country, where one has to fight the sea continually, breeds hardy seafaring folk, and people who cross the seas frequently take to trade. So the people of the Netherlands became traders. They produced woollen and other goods, and the spices of the East also went to them. Rich and busy cities arose— Bruges and Ghent and, especially, Antwerp. As the trade with the East developed, these cities grew in wealth, and Antwerp became in the sixteenth century the commercial capital of Europe. In its house of exchange it is said that 5000 merchants gathered daily to do business with each other; in its harbour there were as many as 2500 vessels at one time. Nearly 500 vessels came to it and went from it every day. These merchant classes controlled the city governments.

  This was just the kind of trading community that would be attracted by the new religious ideas of the Reformation. Protestantism spread there, especially in the north. The chances of inheritance made the Hapsburg Charles V, and after hi
m his son Philip II, rulers of the Netherlands. Neither of them could tolerate any kind of freedom— political or religious. Philip tried to crush the privileges of the cities as well as the new religion. He sent as governor-general the Duke of Alva, who has become famous for his oppression and tyranny. The Inquisition was established, and a “Blood-Council” which sent thousands to the stake or the scaffold.

  It is a long story, and I cannot tell it here. As the tyranny of Spain increased, the strength of the people to combat it increased also. A great and wise leader rose amongst them—Prince William of Orange, known as William the Silent—who was more than a match for the Duke of Alva. The Inquisition actually condemned in one sentence in 1568 all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics, with a few named exceptions. This was an amazing sentence unique in history—three or four lines condemning 3,000,000 of people!

  At first the fight seemed to be between the Netherland nobles and the King of Spain. It was almost like the struggles between king and nobles in other countries. Alva tried to crush them, and many a great noble had to mount the scaffold at Brussels. One of the popular and famous nobles who was executed was Count Egmont. Later, Alva, hard up for money, tried new and heavy taxation. This touched the pockets of the merchant classes, and they rebelled. Added to this was the struggle between Catholic and Protestant.