Economic Strain: 1400-1500 and 1550-1700

¶ … Economic Strain: 1400-1500 and 1550-1700

One of the most common responses to economic difficulties during the period of world history from 1400 to 1550 was that of exploration. By finding new routes to the Indies, rulers hoped to find new goods and also new markets for their own native products. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, for example, had just embarked upon a brutal quest to unify the formerly diverse land under a unified Catholic monarchy when they commissioned Columbus to claim new routes and treasures in their name. Columbus brought back both gold and enslaved natives from now what is known to be the Bahamas. The colonization of the New World was often brutal for whites and natives alike, and intensified the war for trade routes and territories between the European powers. Ferdinand and Isabella reigned as Catholic monarchs jointly from the union of Castile and Aragon in 1484 to Ferdinand's death in 1515 and solidified the dominance of their kingdom as a ruling nation in Continental Europe (The Catholic Monarchs, History World, 2009).

Some of the problems Ferdinand and Isabella encountered were not of their own making, such as the ethnic and religious composition in Spain, although their 'solution' was enforced religious persecution and state-sponsored Catholicism as well as colonization of the greater world. However, in the case of a later modern period, that of 1550 and 1700, Charles II of England was to demonstrate that Protestant monarchs could be just as unscrupulous when bent upon enriching themselves and their state coffers. Charles came to the throne as a Protestant after decades of sectarian war in England. However, the financially-strapped nation could not support Charles' lavish lifestyle, and the more vigorously powerful Parliament would not give Charles the allowance he desired. Thus "Charles, unable to secure money from an increasingly hostile Parliament, signed a series of secret agreements with Louis XIV, by which he received large French subsidies in return for a pro-French policy, although he feigned sympathy with the anti-French movement at home" ("Charles II," Infoplease, 2009). But despite the spendthrift nature of Charles, he was wildly popular amongst the English populace: In 1681 the king dissolved Parliament to block the Exclusion Act, which would have prohibited him from allowing his Catholic brother James II to succeed him as heir. "Thenceforth Charles ruled as an absolute monarch, without a Parliament" ("Charles II," Infoplease, 2009).