While Queen Elizabeth I’s efforts to establish religious toleration within her country were largely quite successful, it was of course impossible for her to ensure the agreement of every English citizen. Elizabeth I’s Act of Supremacy angered and distressed not just some English Catholics but also Catholics across Western Europe, including those in Spain and Scotland, who felt that the Queen was polluting the Catholic faith through her Anglican Church. Throughout her long reign, the Queen faced numerous assassination attempts made on her life by Catholic assassins (who were either Catholic themselves or hired by internal/external Catholic forces). Spanish Catholics even attempted to murder Elizabeth I and replace her with her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth I also faced opposition from other, less prominent, and less numerous religious groups. The Puritans – aka Presbyterians – were loyal to the essential concept of Anglicanism but they objected to some of the Catholic rituals that the national faith had retained. Elizabeth I acted shrewdly so as not to alienate the Puritans; she allowed them to form their own separate worshiping societies so long as they agreed not to challenge her position of ultimate power. The Congregationalists posed a bit more difficulty. These individuals were former Puritans who had left that group due to their more radical ideas and they refused to acknowledge Elizabeth I’s control over the Anglican Church or over England itself. Faced with such a seemingly anarchist threat, Elizabeth I and Parliament passed the Conventicle Act in 1593, which informed all Congregationalists that they must return to the Anglican Church on the penalty of exile or execution.

After King Charles II died in 1685, his brother James II became the new King of England. Immediately, Parliament was put on the defensive both because of James’s public support for English Catholics and his own recent public conversion to Catholicism. When Parliament refused to repeal the discriminatory Test Act, James dissolved the legislative body and appointed his own Catholic officials instead. The situation took another dire turn when James issued the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence, repealing the Test Act and allowing religious toleration, which was followed by the imprisonment of several oppositional Anglican clergy. It seemed that Parliament’s worst fears about their King and Catholics were coming true. The final straw came on June 20th, 1688, when James’s wife (who was also Catholic) gave birth to a baby boy. This sent Parliament into panic-mode – there was now a Catholic male heir to the English throne, who seemed poised to create a Catholic ruling dynasty in England. The frightened Parliament decided it had only one option to maintain its Anglican hold on the country: James would have to be removed from power and replaced with a Protestant ruler. In a bold and unprecedented move, Parliament wrote to William III of Orange, the current leader of the United Province of the Netherlands and a devout Protestant, and invited him to assemble his army, invade England, and evict James from the throne! This event, which succeeded, came to be known as the Glorious Revolution.

England’s Glorious Revolution unfolded in 1688, as William III of Orange and his army swept into the country. Compared to many other historic revolutions, this one was quite unique – overall, it proceeded quite calmly. The great majority of English citizens welcomed their new Parliament-chosen ruler. Consequently, William’s army didn’t face any opposition and was able to take over the country without engaging in a single instance of combat. The former King James II was allowed to escape the country unharmed and in 1689, Parliament formally appointed William III and his wife, Mary II, as King and Queen of England. As part of Parliament’s endorsement, a Bill of Rights was passed, which limited the new monarch’s powers. Under this Bill, William and Mary were treated as ordinary citizens under the law, Parliament couldn’t be dissolved for more than three years, Parliament was granted a say in choosing the nation’s next rulers, and any Catholic was permanently banned from occupying the English throne. In 1689, with William’s support, Parliament furthered this policy by passing the Toleration Act. While its name may sound otherwise, the Toleration Act actually restricted English Catholics even further. Under this Act, they were not allowed to worship freely and had no political rights in the new regime.

Just as King Louis XIV of France was determined to establish supremacy and security along France’s borders, he was equally as determined to control every inch of French political, social, and economic life. In his eyes, absolute control would bring him absolute power. In keeping with this mindset, Louis decided that the best way to keep order over his subjects was to embark on a campaign of religious conformity; by eradicating religious dissent, he believed he would partially rid his nation of any political dissent as well. To that end, Louis implemented many repressive religious policies and also banned outright several religious orders, such as the popular Jansenists. While many of these methods stirred up opposition amongst isolated patches of the French population, they didn’t provoke widespread popular discontent. But Louis made a terrible miscalculation in 1685 which entirely changed the status quo. In 1685, he revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had permitted French Catholics (known as Huguenots) to worship freely, and began to crack down on Huguenots in particular. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes outraged many French citizens, even those individuals who were not Huguenots but who nevertheless had regarded the historic Edict as a valuable peacekeeping tool that had prevented religious warfare in the country for many decades. Fearing for their liberties and personal safety, Huguenots left France in droves, which caused the economy to suffer greatly. Opposition to the revocation also arose outside France as well, as Protestants all across Europe began to consider Louis a dangerous threat to religious toleration and coexistence. Essentially, the revocation put a target on King Louis XIV’s back, one that was visible from both within and without his country’s borders.

After the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century, Mongol rulers (known as the Golden Horde and then the Great Horde) reigned over Muscovy for two centuries. In 1480, the Russian Prince Ivan III defeated the remaining forces of the Great Horde and ended the rule of the Mongols over Muscovy, thus establishing the independent Russian state.

Peter the Great was a great modernizing force in Russian society. He implemented many reforms in an attempt to make Russia more westernized. He also centralized authority under his Tsarist regime and extended freedoms and civil liberties to women. Notable he made dramatic improvements to the Russian navy and even constructed the city of St. Petersburg so that Russia might have an important port city in the Baltic. He was not, however, committed to making Russia a constitutional monarchy. Rather he preserved and strengthened the institutions of his own autocratic rule.

James II ascended to the English throne in 1685 and ruled for three years before he was peacefully deposed in the so-called Glorious Revolution. James II was not a very palatable choice for monarch, from parliament’s perspective, due to the fact that he was an absolutist and a Catholic. The English Parliament, fresh from their victory in the English Civil War, refused to accept James II’s reign and invited William of Orange (the ruler of the Netherlands) to ascend the throne. William, and his wife Mary, became King and Queen of England in exchange for passing the English Bill of Rights, which, among other things, guaranteed the supremacy of Parliament.

Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan and a military leader of the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War. Following victory in the civil war, Cromwell became Lord Protector (de facto dictator) of Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell’s reign was quite unpopular as he instituted a number of puritanical policies (like the prohibition of alcohol and gambling), which were not welcomed by the English public. Cromwell’s reign is also marked by a series of atrocities committed against the native population of Ireland.

Peter the Great was a Russian Tsar from 1682 until 1725. He is one of the most celebrated rulers in Russian history. His achievements included vast territorial expansion and the establishment of the port city of St. Petersburg. He was also determined to modernize and westernize Russian society and spent a great deal of time traveling Western Europe and studying European society. One of his more famous laws required Russian men to shave their beards so that they would more closely resemble their European counterparts. Peter the Great is widely credited with integrating Russia more closely into the fabric of European society.

Coined by the incident in 1618 Prague that sparked the Thirty Years War, defenestration is the act of throwing someone out of a window. The Catholic ruling power of Bohemia allowed religious freedom to its largely Protestant inhabitants after the 1609 issuing of the Letter of Majesty. After his ascension to the throne of Bohemia in 1617, Ferdinand II ordered the cancelation of Protestant churches under construction. Catholic representatives of the crown met with local Protestant estate owners at a local meeting hall in Prague, to deliver them with the King's order. When the Protestant demanded an immediate reply of the Catholics' superiors, they denied. The irate Protestants then threw them out of the three story window.