King Louis XIV Of France: What Makes An Absolute Ruler?

What Makes an Absolute Ruler? An absolute monarch is a king or queen who has unlimited power who seeks to control all aspects of society. In the seventeenth century, people wanted to have a ruler that could be trusted and could lead the people well. To be an absolute ruler one must be able to control and obtain power. Louis XIV of France came into power as a young boy he was capable of ruling over a big population which helped him be an absolute ruler. Charles I of England came into power while the country was in financial ruins, in order to stable it he used his absolute rule, unfortunately it didn’t work out as well as he wanted it to. Peter the Great wanted to make the technology of Russia better so his plan was to westernize Russia.
The only way Czar Peter could westernize Russia was if he was an absolute ruler that had his power legitimized.
Louis XIV, Charles I, and Peter the Great legitimized their power by; limiting religious freedom, building architecture to make their reputation, and by reducing others. Louis XIV and Peter the Great take control of the church by limiting religious freedom to enhance their power. King Louis used something called the divine right of kings to help him obtain the church. The divine right was the idea that God created the monarchy and that the monarch acted as God's representative on earth. An absolute monarch answered only to God, not to his or her subjects. You could not lose the divine right so King Louis used it as a justification to his actions, which is why people did not question him. The government tried to pass something called the Edict of Nantes which was a law saying that
Protestants could stay in England; King Louis overturned this edict because he wanted everyone to be catholic and by limiting the religious freedom it showed his power. Peter the Great on the other hand encouraged his people to stay away from the “heretics” which were the Protestants and Catholic because he wanted Russia to be Eastern Orthodox. Even though Peter the Great wanted the people to stay away from Protestants and Catholics he still allowed them to come into Russia as long as they were Christian, and he got to chose who came in. Peter the Great says; “He shall gladly allow every Christian to care for his own salvation at his own risk.” (Decree on the Invitation of Foreigners, Peter the Great). Even though Czar Peter is being a little flexible with his religious freedom policies he is still showing that he is in control by being able to pick and chose who can come in and who can’t. Since Czar Peter and King Louis limited religious freedom it helped them show that they were in charge and that they were the ones with power. Louis XIV and Charles I reduced the power of people who worked under them in order to take charge and gain power.
When King Louis came into power, he sought to weaken the power of the nobles because he knew that if they became strong, they could overthrow him. To weaken the nobles’ power he started excluding them from his councils. By doing this he gave more power to agents that worked for the government called intendants, these intendants collected taxes and administered justice. Louis XIV also acted tough on his nobles and he scrutinized every action they did so that he could make sure they weren’t plotting against him, the Duke of Saint Simon said; “He marked well all absentees from the court, found out the reason of their absence, and never lost an opportunity of acting toward them” (De Rouvroy, Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and the Regency). King Louis knew what the nobles were capable of doing so when he noticed one was absent he immediately became suspicious. Not only did he forbid the nobles from attending his council but he also made them his own personal helpers, he had them help him dress and become his admirers. Charles I was a very financially troubled ruler, he ruled during the time of a couple wars which left England with huge debts that had to be paid. Therefore King Charles had to ask Parliament for the money, this however did not work out well because whenever Parliament refused to give him money he would dissolve parliament and ban them from
meeting together. But soon enough he needed money again so he was forced to call Parliament again so that they could grant him money, but they were smart and they refused to give him any money until he signed a petition called the Petition of Right. The Petition of Rights basically stated that the law was higher than the king. Even though he signed it King Charles ignored the petition and since he wanted his power back he dissolved Parliament once and for all and he refused to call it back into session. Though is attempt to completely dissolve Parliament wasn’t successful it made him seem that he was in charge and that he could change the law that was supposedly higher than him. Peter the Great and Louis XIV built great architecture that legitimized their power and showed their absolute rule. Peter the Great was ecstatic about westernizing Russia; the only problem was that he had no way of sailing people out to travel to the West to learn. Since there was no warm port in Russia, Czar Peter fought for a part of the Baltic Coast so that he could use it as a warm port for Russia. This part of the coast was a very swampy and unhealthy. Peter the Great wanted to establish this port into a great city in which he called St. Petersburg. The reason Czar Peter wanted to do this was because he wanted to create a busy port under his rules which showed his absolute power. If Czar Peter was known for building a great city he would have a good reputation. Building St. Petersburg was not an easy task, every year he forced thousands of people to go work in the city, 25,000 to 100,000 people died because of the bad conditions and the communicable diseases. Building this city through the sacrifice of many people’s lives was not something that made the Czar guilty, he got what he wanted through his power, and even today the city stands as a symbol of his power. Louis XIV was a big patronage of the arts; he used the arts for glorification of the king, and to promote the king’s values. King Louis built an enormous palace called the palace of Versailles. This palace was so big and extravagant that there wasn’t enough water to run all the fountains that the servants had to run in front of the king to turn them on as he walked past them. The reason that King Louis built a palace so grand was because he believed that a person’s reputation determines where they stand in society. He says this statement advising people about picking ministers: “It is undoubtedly right to consider their general reputation and established place in society” (Louis XIV, Use of Ministers). He means that a person’s reputation is important, so if you have a good one then you will go far. King Louis made himself a good reputation by building Versailles, but not only did it help his reputation it showed that he was rich which made him look powerful to the people. Although the architecture and things that both King Louis and Czar Peter built were magnificent it left bankruptcy for both of them because they took huge amounts of money to build. But for the meantime it showed the great lengths that these rulers went to so that they could show the magnitude of their power and wealth. These three absolute rulers use many different techniques to show their power and confirm the fact that they were absolute rulers. These techniques included; building their names through architecture, controlling the religion in their state, and minimizing other people’s powers for their own gain. Though the reign of each individual ruler may have not worked out in the end, they all lived and ruled as absolute rulers and their power was legitimized through the many different things that they did.