Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/327

The Age of Political Experiments 307 and then with the increase of foreign trade and home industry, of the growing trading and moneyed class, to the exaction and interference of the crown. There is no universal victory of either side ; here it is the King who gets the upper hand, while there it is the man of private property who beats the King. In one case we find a King becoming the sun and centre of his national world, while just over his borders a sturdy mercantile class maintains a republic. So wide a range of THE COURT AT VERSAILLES {From the print after Watteati in the British Museum) variation shows how entirely experimental, what local accidents, were all the various governments of this period. A very common figure in these national dramas is the King's minister, often in the still Catholic countries a prelate, who stands behind the King, serves him and dominates him by his indispensable services. Here in the limits set to us it is impossible to tell these various national dramas in detail. The trading folk of Holland went Protest- ant and republican, and cast off the rule of Philip II of Spain, the son of the Emperor Charles V. In England Henry VIII and his minister