306 Chapter 16Using knowledge acquired firsthand in the ship-
yards of Holland and England, Peter supervised the
building of a navy that could control the Baltic. The
streltsy,or palace guard that formed the core of the
Russian army and had long been a fruitful source of
plots against the tsars, was destroyed and replaced by
an army organized on the French model. Peter,
however, raised his troops through conscription for
life, a method suggested by Louvois that could not be
implemented in the less autocratic atmosphere of
France. The new forces served him well. In the Great
Northern War (1700–20), he broke the power of Swe-
den and established Russian control over Estonia, Kare-
lia, and Livonia. To consolidate his gains and to provide
Russia with an all-weather port, he built the modern
city of St. Petersburg near the mouth of the Neva River
and made it his capital.
Internally, Peter established a series of colleges or
boards to supervise the work of thirteen new govern-
mental departments and divided the country into fifty
provinces, each with its own governor appointed by
himself. He created a table of ranks for civilian officials
and opened state service for the first time to men of
middle-class origin. To compensate the hereditary no-
bility for its loss of state positions, Peter abandoned the
distinction between pomest’eand hereditary lands, and
he introduced primogeniture. In some cases he resorted
to large-scale distributions of land and serfs. The condi-
tion of the latter predictably worsened, and peasant re-
bellions were put down with memorable savagery.
The Emergence of England as a World Power
The system created by Peter the Great was more auto-
cratic than its Western models—and more permanent.
It lasted without major modifications into the nine-
teenth century. The situation in England was very dif-
ferent. Though Charles II reclaimed his father’s throne
in 1660, the fundamental issue of sovereignty had not
been resolved. Like his predecessors, Charles was reluc-
tant to call Parliament into session, and the taxpaying
gentry were as unwilling as ever to provide adequate
support for the crown. Shrewd, affable, and personally
popular, the new king avoided open confrontations
with his subjects, but his freedom of action was limited
by poverty. For a time he even accepted a pension from
Louis XIV, who hoped for English support against the
Dutch. For this reason, England did not for some time
develop the administrative structures that were being
adopted on the continent.Only in the creation of a modern navy could the
English keep pace. Before 1660 England, like other
countries, had possessed a handful of fighting ships that
were supplemented in time of war by contracting with
private owners who provided both ships and crews for
the duration. No permanent officer corps existed, and
fleets were typically commanded by men who owed
their positions to civilian rank or to military experience
on land. Administration was minimal, often temporary,
and usually corrupt. The success of 1588 and the re-
markable performance of the Commonwealth navies
showed that such fleets could do well if they were
properly motivated. But the system as a whole was
analagous to military contracting on land: It was at best
inefficient and at worst uncontrollable.
Both Charles II and his brother James, duke of York
(1633–1701) were deeply interested in naval affairs,
and their unswerving support of secretary of the Admi-
ralty Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) enabled him to intro-
duce reforms that, in effect, created the English navy.
Pepys, who is probably best known today for his fa-
mous diary, created a permanent corps of naval officers
who attained their rank by the passage of formal exami-
nations. To ensure their availability when needed, they
were kept on half-pay when not at sea. Provisioning
and repair facilities were improved, and the number of
royal ships increased under the command of a reformed
Admiralty. By the end of the century, even tactics had
been changed to permit better control of battle fleets.
But a reformed fleet was in itself no guarantor of
world-power status. Colbert had introduced similar
measures in France, only to have his plans abandoned
during the fiscal crisis of the 1690s. Great ships, like
great armies, need a consistent supply of money. Ironi-
cally, England achieved this only by overthrowing the
men who had made the naval reforms possible. When
Charles II died in 1685, his brother ascended the
throne as James II. A convert to Roman Catholicism,
James instituted policies that alienated virtually every
segment of the English elite, and in the fall of 1688 he
was deposed in favor of his daughter Mary and her
husband, William of Orange. As stadtholder of the
Netherlands and king of England, William III brought
the island nation into the Grand Alliance against Louis
XIV. The Glorious Revolution changed the basis of
English politics. By overthrowing one king and effec-
tively appointing another, Parliament and those it rep-
resented had at last resolved the issue of sovereignty.
Parliament and not the king would rule England. Un-
der William and again under his sister-in-law Anne