I85PREP
⌘ K
CLEP Western Civilization II study materials
CLEP Western Civilization II study resources

CLEP Western Civilization II: Absolutism and Constitutionalism, c. 1648–1715

CLEP Western Civilization II · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Absolutism and Constitutionalism, c. 1648–1715

This domain tests how European states organized power between the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the death of Louis XIV (1715): absolutist theory and practice, the fiscal-military state, and England's constitutional alternative.

Absolutism as practice, not total power

  • Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) ruled through Versailles, ministers such as Colbert, and intendants in the provinces. His authority rested on divine right, patronage, and a standing army.
  • Absolutist claims did not abolish corporate privilege. Nobles, clergy, guilds, and provincial estates kept rights; rulers bargained and coerced rather than commanding everything.
  • Mercantilism treated trade as a zero-sum contest, promoting manufactures and colonies to secure bullion and taxable wealth.
  • The revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) withdrew Huguenot legal protection and pushed skilled migrants abroad, displaying confessional absolutism at economic cost.
  • Austria and Prussia built armies and tax offices. Frederick William, the Great Elector (r. 1640–1688), used the Junkers and a war commissariat to sustain a standing army with limited representative consent.

The English constitutional path

  • The execution of Charles I (1649), Cromwell's Commonwealth, and the Restoration (1660) left sovereignty disputed between crown and Parliament.
  • The Glorious Revolution (1688–1689) replaced James II with William III and Mary II. The Bill of Rights (1689) barred suspending laws and taxing without Parliament; the Act of Settlement (1701) secured a Protestant succession.
  • Locke's Two Treatises (1689) grounded government in consent and property, but the settlement was oligarchic: landed and commercial elites controlled a narrow franchise.

Worked example

Question: Why did England move toward constitutional monarchy while France strengthened absolutism after 1660? Reasoning: the English crown lacked a permanent tax base and depended on parliamentary supply, so war finance gave Parliament leverage. France had a larger standing army, direct taxes such as the taille, and royal officials who bypassed estates. The 1688–1689 settlement institutionalized Parliament's leverage; France's system was fragile because privilege and tax exemptions limited royal revenue.

Traps that cost marks

  • Do not equate absolutism with modern totalitarianism; local elites cooperated.
  • Westphalia (1648) confirmed princely sovereignty in the Empire but did not invent the state system from nothing.
  • Keep the Bill of Rights (1689), Toleration Act (1689), and Act of Settlement (1701) distinct.