Excerpts from “A Brief History of the Red Lion”
Chapter 2 - The World of the Mid-17th Century
It is worthwhile reminding ourselves of how the world was when Charles Simmonds arrived in Madrid, probably in 1648. The first thing to note is that many of the major powers of more recent times were already well established: England, Denmark, Russia, China, Japan, and of course Spain. Some other nations that were powers then are remnants, if that, today - like Bavaria, the Ottoman Sultanate, or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
England, from which Charles Simmonds fled, was the sole power in the British Isles. The Scots and Irish had been overcome the century prior. The English also retained their Norman possessions, a consequence of the situation in France (as I will describe in a moment). Across the sea that had established colonies in New England, Newfoundland, and along the St Lawrence. They also maintained some isolated outposts in the Caribbean and down the coast of Africa. They were only second to Spain when it came to colonisation and exploration, but largely did not seek to challenge the latter. The Civil War was a low point, but already there were well positioned to fulfill their destiny as the shipyard of the world.
Denmark had survived the breaking of the Kalmar Union, and in the sixteenth century had forcibly re-integrated Sweden. They also dominated northern Germany, becoming the prime continental Protestant Power. The end of the Wars of Religion around this time see them became suzerains of Brandenburg. With their southern flank secured by diplomacy they began to be drawn into the affairs of the eastern Baltic.
If northern Germany was under Danish sway, southern Germany had become the dominion of Catholic Bavaria. Bavaria was arguably more powerful than the Austrian Hapsburgs during this time, for though their realm was geographically smaller the Empire was a far more vital place that the plains of Hungary that were the basis of Austrian power. Austria, largely shut out of Germany (though they retained an honorary Emperorship) had focused on the Balkans, engaging in a number of bloody wars with the Ottomans.
The Ottomans had been the terror of the world two centuries prior when they took Constantinople. They advance into Europe had been checked a hundred years prior however. The Mamluks of Egypt had also managed to stop them advancing from the Levant into Palestine. The Mamluks themselves faced the Ottomans in the north and the Ethiopians in the south. It is now plain though that by the 1650s both nations were already suffering from what proved to be a terminal decline.
Russia in the mid-seventeenth century was emerging from its own period of civil war, a turbulent period known as the Time of Troubles. They had fought off several invasions from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and had began to expand eastward, crossing the Urals at around the turn of the century. Despite an impressive military power though they remained comparatively backward compared to the rest of the Christian world.
In the East China and Japan were both inward nations, yet to peek out of their shells. The Chinese had the greatest knowledge of Europeans through the Portuguese - now Spanish - enclaves established by treaty in the south.
India was dominated by two native powers - Delhi in the north and Vijayanagar to the south. By this time however Europeans - chiefly Portuguese and Spanish - had begun their penetration of the coast. Persia and Mesopotamia was a confused mess of states following the collapse of the Timurids in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
And Spain? Spain was already the world’s largest power. Castile had completed the union with Aragon by 1500, and by 1650 had almost entirely swallowed up the Italian peninsula and the Maghrib area of northern Africa. The Portuguese and Spanish crowns were joined in personal union at the start of the seventeenth century, and by the mid-century Spain’s attentions were largely absorbed with the full integration of the Portuguese realms into the Spanish one.
Even before this Spain had a large colonial Empire, down the coast of Africa, in India, in the East Indies, and even in Australia. To the West they had conquered the old native Empires of central America and the Andes, and had started to colonise up the Mississippi river to the north, and La Plata to the south. The Portuguese crown brought with it Brazil, more islands in the Caribbean, and more land scattered about the rest of the globe.
Finally Spain was, by now, the effective ruler of much of France. This process had begun more than two hundred years earlier, when Aragon and England fought a war, in which Castile fought on the Aragonese side. As thanks for their efforts, when the peace came, Castile was awarded Gascony. In due course this lead to several defensive wars with France who tried to gain control of what they regarded as their territory - but each time the French lost more territory in turn. It is said that the Spanish conquered France by accident, and there is some truth to this. By the 1650s all of France south of the Loire, save Savoy, was administered by Spain. France had also lost her nascent colonial holdings in the Caribbean. By the 1650s however they had began afresh in the Hudson Bay.