down the power of his nobles and make himself master over the whole
nation. In this way a strong central power grew up in France. After
the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1477, no noble
dared to question the leadership of the king of France. The same thing
was true in England after the battle of Bosworth in 1485, which
resulted in the death of King Richard III and the setting of the Tudor
family on the throne.

Spain and Other Kingdoms

Spain had been divided into four little kingdoms: Leon, Castile,
Aragon, and Granada, the latter ruled by the Moors. The nation
marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile and Leon joined
the three Christian kingdoms into one, and after 1492, when the Moors
were defeated and Granada annexed to the realm of Ferdinand and
Isabella, Spain became one kingdom. About this time, also, there had
grown up a strong kingdom of Hungary, a kingdom of Portugal, a kingdom
of Poland, and one of Denmark. Norway was ruled by the Danes, but
Sweden was a separate kingdom. In Russia, Czar Ivan the Terrible
(1533-84) had built up a strong power which was still further
strengthened by Czar Peter the Great (1690-1725).

The Holy Roman Empire

The rest of the continent of Europe, with the exception of the Turkish
Empire, formed what was called the Holy Roman Empire, a rule which had
been founded by Charlemagne (A.D. 800), the great Frankish monarch,
who had been crowned in Rome by the pope as ruler of the western
world. (The name "Holy Roman Empire" was not used by Charlemagne. We
first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon emperor, who was crowned in
962.)

[Map: The Empire of Charlemagne]

This Holy Roman Empire included all of what is now Germany (except the
eastern third of Prussia), all of what is now Bohemia, Austria (but
not Hungary), and all of Italy except the part south of Naples. There
were times when part of France and all of the low countries (now
Belgium and Holland) also belonged to the Empire. (The mountaineers of
Switzerland won their independence from the Empire in the fourteenth
century, and formed a little republic.) See map "Europe in 1540."

[Map: Europe in 1540]

In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not necessarily
succeed his father as ruler. There were seven (afterwards nine)
"electors" who, at the death of the ruling monarch, met to elect his
successor. Three of these electors were archbishops, one was king of
Bohemia, and the othe