King Charles IV (The Fair) gave this "very small pocket prayerbook"--widely regarded as Jean Pucelle's masterpiece-- to his wife, Jeanne d'Evreux, who in turn bequeathed it to Charles V in 1371. The French royal family had encouraged a...
King Charles IV (The Fair) gave this ""very small pocket prayerbook""--widely regarded as Jean Pucelle's masterpiece-- to his wife, Jeanne d'Evreux, who in turn bequeathed it to Charles V in 1371. The French royal family had...
Added shortly after Charles V's death, since it pictures coronation of his young son, in Reims, Sept. 16, 1380, this illumination presents the moment when king has ascended tribune and is being acclaimed by 12 peers. Two groups, lay and...
. After a solemn coronation, ending with ritual unction, the King, followed by 12 peers, mounted a tribune, especially erected inside the cathedral, and took his seat on the throne. He then received the kiss of his peers, beginning with Archbishop...
Siege of Vienna, 1683
Threat of Europe by Turkish expansion ended with the raising of the second Siege of Vienna in 1683, seen here in somewhat idealized form in a painting by Frans Geffels. Behind its ring of bastions Vienna resists a...
Ottoman Conquests
Conquest was a necessity for Ottoman sultans, to keep their originally nomadic subjects supplied with loot and land. When directed against the West this had the added merit of being a Holy War. In 1526 an army of Janissaries...
Trial and Execution of Charles I
No precedent for trial and execution of a king by his own subjects, this even horrified courts of Europe. After his defeat in first Civil War, Charles surrendered to Scots, who handed him over to Pariament. early...
Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Rupert, son of Frederick of Bohemia and Charles I's nephew, had learnt cavalry tactics and the more brutal methods of continental warfare in the 30 Years War. He became the king's General of Horse and fought at...
. A League satire on Henri III shows him as the Devil gloating over the murder of the Uuc and Cardinal de Guise at Blois 1588. Behind him is the characteristic procession of penitents. Next year the king was in his turn to be murdered by the...
30 Years War
A detail from painting by Philips Wouwerman; he spares us horrors which Callot records with such terrible realism, but he does convey some sense of the frenzy of a conflict that had degenerated into a weary and hopeless slaughter. ...
Hopes of reconciliation had risen when Council of Trent, shown here, was first convened in 1545. But Protestant point of view was given no hearing, and when it ended in 1563, two sides further apart than ever.
When in 1583 Michael Eytzinger first used the image of the lion to portray the Netherlands (most of the 17 provinces used a lion in their armorial bearings) they were still officially considered as one political group although the revolt was in...
Victory at Lepanto, 1571
The victory at Lepanto, 1571, was the most spectacular Christian success in the long struggle with the Turks for supremacy at sea. In this schematic drawing each fleet is shown led by its flagship--Christians on the left...
The Twelve Years' Truce/Count-Duke of Olivares
Count-Duke of Olivares, favorite and first minister of Ph IV, virtually ruled Spain for 22 years. He was a better statesman than Lerma, but he involved the country in fruitless struggles abroad, in...
12 Years' Truce signed with the United Province in 1609 came to an end in 1621. War began again, this time as part of the larger European struggle. Ambrosio de Spinola, a rich Genoese who had risen to fame in 1604 with capture of Ostend, laid...
Farther north explored early in an attempt to discover a north-west passage to Far East. Europe received an accurate knowledge of the bleak land and its Eskimo inhabitants. This coloured drawing, after John White, was made about 1610, and...
French colonists made several attempts to settle in North America before establishing themselves securely in Canada. Jean Ribaut landed in Florida in 1562 and erected a column, brought from France for purpose. Colony failed, and abandoned after a...
