ABSTRACT
Nearly everywhere kings and their immediate dependants were as firmly in control of eentral governments in 1700 as in 1600. But in two of the great states of the west, the power of hereditary monarehs had been resisted with so me sueeess. By an oddly appropriate combination of design and aeeident, William of Orange, who had brought the Netherlands i closer than ever before to dynastie rule, arrived in 1689 on the throne from whieh English politiealleaders had, for the seeond time in half a eentury, in effeet deposed their king. Throughout their internal confliets, the affairs of the two eountries had been interwoven by rivalri es, alliances, and similarities of theory and practice. Each had been bitterly divided between eentralizing and deeentralizing forees, betwecn riyal economie interests, between versions of Protestant Christianity that served to rouse emotion and belligerence. Eaeh had a single great city so rich that governments eould not easily res ist its political demands. After repeated eommereial and military struggles against eaeh other, they now seemed firmly united in the exhausting wars against France. They were agreed in offering a limited tolcration in religion and in political ideas, eombined with intense suspicion of their Catholic minorities. They were agreed too in accepting as a permanent part of their governing machinery a central representative body . A large share of power was held, in Holland and England more than in the eountries joined to them, by men whose wealth came from the aecumulation and use of eapital rather than simply from land. If the two stories are set sidc by sidc they may throw some light on each other.
