Both Louis XIV and Charles I attempted to create an absolute monarchy Absolute Monarchy is a type of monarchy in which the monarch attempts to make royal power dominant over regional authorities such as aristocracies. Monarchs that abided by this theory typically also subscribed to the theory of the Divine Right of Kings. The Divine Right stated that kings were not subject to earthly authority and only God could judge kings since God had picked the kings, which in effect allowed the kings to do what they wished during their reign. Although both subscribed to the theory of Divine Right, as well as attempt to bring religious unity, and both loved art and architecture, Louis XIV successfully managed to centralize his government while Charles I failed to centralize his government due to the fact that he failed to give his nobles a sense of power. Also Louis listened to his people, though specifically his nobles, while Charles disregarded his nobles and did not care about them. This is how Louis succeeded in creating a central monarchy – he managed to give his nobles a sense that they had power through the multiple committees he created as well as listening to his nobles’ complaints and because Charles had done the opposite he failed in creating an absolute monarchy.

        Both kings attempted to bring religious unity to their respective countries. Document 5 was written by Louis XIV himself to his heirs. Louis could have been biased for himself. A lot of people thought that they were doing the right thing which ultimately brings about their downfall. While Louis was extremely successful in converting the country to Catholicism, the repeal of the Edict of Nantes was the pebble that brought down the wall and brought down Louis after his many wars and subsequent failures. According to him, he extremely respected religion. Particularly, he respected the impact religion had on political power. Because of this Louis repealed the Edict of Nantes and changed the state religion to Catholicism and demanded that everyone convert to Catholicism to promote religious unity so that Louis could create promote policies without having to worry about if those policies would offend one sect of Christianity while it did not offend others. Louis was very successful in doing this. Unfortunately, Charles I failed at the same task. Charles I happened to be king of Scotland as well as England. The Scottish did not like being told what to do by what they considered a foreigner. Furthermore, both the English and the Scottish refused to follow Charles. Even though Charles tried to convert countries to Anglicanism, he was viewed as a Catholic sympathizer because he made peace with both Spain and France, both of which were officially Catholic countries. Because he made peace with Spain and France, Charles was viewed as a hypocrite and people of both countries feared that Charles would demand the conversion to Catholicism.

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        Another similarity between the two governments was that both rulers accepted and promoted the Divine Right of Kings. Charles I, a king, would obviously not want to lose his power so he accepted and promoted the Divine Right which allowed him and other kings to do what they wanted because according to this, only God could judge kings. Document 10 says exactly that. This was the basis upon which Charles attempted to consolidate power for himself, though he ultimately failed. Louis XIV also promoted the Divine Right. Like Charles, he did not want to get dethroned; however, he also wanted ...

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