The eighteenth

century

Made by : Carpen Diana

Minea Claudia
Pascu Cristina
Popa Stefania
Tudor Ema
Teacher : Marian Ichim

 Content

The political world

: Politics and finance Tudor Ema

: Wilkes and liberty Pascu Cristina

:Radicalism and the loss of the American colonies
Pascu Cristina
: Ireland Pascu Cristina
: Scotland Tudor Ema

Life in town and country

: Town Life Popa Stefania

: The rich Carpen Diana
: The countryside Carpen Diana
: Family life Popa Stefania

The years of revolution

: Minea Claudia

The political world

-Politics and finance-

In the 18th century Britain was

free from the revolutionary
atmosphere that prevailed in the 17th
century. The country became more
and more wealthy through trade; the
middle-class and landowners lived in
a mood of complacency. The power of
the king continued to decline. For the
first time the king's ministers became
real policy-makers. In 1707 the Act of
Union formally united England and
Scotland. In 1714, when Queen Anne,
the last of the Stuarts died,
Parliament chose the Germanspeaking elector of Hanover who was

Robert Walpole

The most outstanding political leader of this time was Sir

Robert Walpole (1676-1745), the first 'Prime Minister', who developed the idea of
the Cabinet( i.e. a group of ministers who took the actual control of
administration from the Crown). In Parliament a two-party system began to
evolve. Those who chiefly represented the financial and mercantile interests of
the cities and towns, and the progressive element in the aristocracy opposed to
any interference in politics by the monarchy, were called Whigs. Those who were
strongly attached to tradition and the monarchy were called Tories. The Tories
were supported by the gentry, the landed aristocracy, and the Anglican Church.
Walpole had skillful political influence over a wide range of domestic and
foreign policy matters. He was chiefly interested in domestic affairs and was able
to improve royal finances and the national economy. He reduced the national
debt and lowered the land tax, which had slowed investment in agriculture. He
secured passage of a Molasses Act in 1733 to force British colonists to buy
molasses from British planters and ensure British control of the lucrative sugar
trade. Walpole kept Britain out of war during most of his administration. A
growing sentiment in Parliament for British involvement in European conflicts
forced Walpole to resign in 1742.

Walpole so firmly established the Whigs that the two-party

system all but disappeared from British politics for half a
century. He created a patronage system, which he used to
reward his supporters with positions in an expanding and
increasingly wealthy government. Opposition to patronage
eventually grew within the Whig Party among those who
believed that ministers had acquired too much power and
that politics had grown corrupt.
In 1745 a Jacobite rebellion posed a serious threat to Whig
rule. Led by Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of James II,
the rebellion broke out in Scotland. The rebels captured
Edinburgh and successfully invaded the north of England. The
rebellion crumbled after William Augustus, who was the duke
of Cumberland and a son of George II, defeated the Jacobites
at Culloden Moor in Scotland in 1746.
The most important of Walpole's political enemies was

In 1733 France made an alliance with Spain .Chatham feared that this
alliance would give France a trade advantage over Britain the through
freer trade possibilities with the Spanish Empire in South America and
the Far East. England had been trying unsuccessfully to develop trade
with the Spanish Empire since the days of Drake.
War with France broke out in 1756. Britain had already been involved in
a war against France , from 1743 to 1748, concerning control of the
Austrian Empire. However , this time Chatham left Britain's ally, Prussia,
to do most of the fighting in Europe. He directed British effort at
destroying French trade. The navy stopped French ships reaching or
leaving French ports.In spite of this,the war against France's trade went
on all over the world. This gave the British control of the important
fish,fur and wood trades. In defeating France, Britain eventually went on
to control most of India by conquest or treaty with the princes. Many
Britons started to go to India to make their fortune.
But a new king,George III,came to the throne in1760. He did not
wish Chatharn to continue an expensive war. In 1763 GeorgeIII made
peace with France. Britain did this without informing Prussia, which was

-Wilkes and liberty-

King George III

John Wilkes

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 29 January 1820) was King of Great
Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on
1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland until his death. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of BrunswickLneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on
12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his
two Hanoverian predecessors he was born in Britain, spoke English as his first language,
and never visited Hanover.
He wanted to take a more active part in governing Britain , and in particular he wished to
be free to choose his own ministers. As long as he worked with the small number of
aristocrats from which the king's ministers were chosen, and who controlled Parliament, it
did not seem as if he would have much difficulty. Parliament still represented only a very
small number of people. In the eighteenth century only house owners with a certain
income had the right to vote . This was based on ownership of land worth forty shillings a
year in the counties, but the amount varied from town to town. As a result ,while 'the midcentury population of Britain was almost eight million, there were fewer than 250,000
voters, 160,000 of them in the counties and 85,000 in the towns or "boroughs" . Only 55
of the 200 boroughs had more than 500 voters. This meant that bargains could be made
between the two most powerful groups of people in each "constituency", allowing the
chosen representative of each group to be returned to Parliament. Politics was a matter
only for a small number of the gentry who had close connections with this political
aristocracy. No one could describe Parliament in those days as democratic. However ,
there was one MP, John Wilkes, who saw things differently.

Wilkes was a Whig, and did not like the new government of George
III. Unlike almost every other MP, Wilkes also believed that politics
should be open to free discussion by everyone . Free speech , he
believed, was the basic right of every individual. When George III
made peace with France in 1763 with out telling his ally Frederick
of Prussia, Wilkes printed a strong attack on the government in his
own newspaper, The North Briton. The king and his ministers
were extremely angry. They were unwilling to accept free speech
of this kind . Wilkes was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of
London and all his private papers were taken from his home .
Wilkes fought back when he was tried in court. The government
claimed it had arrested Wilkes "of state necessity". The judge
turned down this argument with the famous judgement that
"public policy is not an argument in a court of law". Wilkes won his
case and was released. His victory established principles of the
greatest importance: that the freedom of the individual is more
important than the interests of the state, and that no one could be

-Radicalism and the loss of the

American colonies-

In 1764 there was a serious quarrel over taxation between the British government
and its colonies in America. It was a perfect example of the kind of freedom for
which Wilkes had been fighting. The British government continued to think of the
colonists as British subjects. In 1700 there had been only 200,000 colonists, but
by 1770 there were 2.5 million. Such large numbers needed to be dealt with
carefully. Some American colonists decided that it was not lawful for the British to
tax them without their agreement. Political opinion in Britain was divided. Some
felt that the tax was fair because the money would be used to pay for the defense
of the American colonies against French attack. But several important politicians,
including Wilkes and Chatham, agreed with the colonists that there should be no
taxation without representation".
In 1773 a group of colonists at the port of Boston threw a shipload of tea into the
sea rather than pay tax on it. The event became known as "the Boston Teapartv".
The British government answered by closing the port. But the colonists then
decided to prevent British goods from entering America until the port was opened
again . This was rebellion, and the government decided to defeat it by force . The
American War of Independence had begun and lasted from 1775 until 1783.

The American Revolutionary War was the culmination of the civil and political
American Revolution resulting from the American Enlightenment. Creating selfgoverning provinces, they circumvented the British ruling apparatus in each
colony by 1774. Armed conflict between British regulars and colonial
militiamen broke out at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775.
After petitions to the Crown for intervention with Parliament were ignored, the
rebel leaders were declared traitors by the Crown and a year of fighting
ensued. The colonies declared their independence in July 1776, listing
grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of
the populace. Among George's other offences, the Declaration charged, "He
has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The gilded
equestrian statue of George III in New York was pulled down. The British
captured the city in 1776, but lost Boston, and the grand strategic plan of
invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of
the British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga.
As late as the Siege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their
eventual victory, as British troops inflicted heavy defeats on the Continental
forces at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Guilford Court House. In late

The Boston Teaparty

-Ireland-

James II's defeat by William of Orange in 1690 had severe and long-term
effects on the Irish people. Over the next half century the Protestant
parliament in Dublin passed laws to prevent the Catholics from taking any
part in national life. Catholics could not become members of the Dublin
parliament, and could not vote in parliamentary elections. No Catholic could
become a lawyer, go to university, join the navy or accept any public post.
Catholics were not even allowed to own a horse worth more than 5. It was
impossible for
Catholics to have their children educated according to their religion, because
Catholic schools were
forbidden. Although there were still far more Catholics than Protestants, they
had now become
second-class citizens in their own land. By the I770s, however, life had
become easier and some of the worst laws against Catholics were removed.
But not everyone wanted to give the Catholics more freedom. In Ulster, the
northern part of Ireland, Protestants formed the first "Orange Lodges",
societies which were against any freedom for the Catholics. In order to
increase British control Ireland was united with Britain in 1801, and the
Dublin parliament closed. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
lasted for 120 years. Politicians
had promised Irish leaders that when Ireland became part of Brita in the

- Scotland -

Scotland also suffered from the efforts of the Stuarts to win

back the throne. The first "Jacobite" revolt to win the crown
for James II' s son, in 1715, had been unsuccessful. The
Stuarts tried again in 1745, when James II's grandson, Prince
Charles Edward Stuart, better known as "Bonny Prince
Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir
Charlie" , landed on the west coast of Scotland.
Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart (31
December 1720 31 January 1788)
commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie
or The Young Pretender was the second
Jacobite pretender to the thrones of
England, Scotland, and Ireland. This claim
was as the eldest son of James Francis
Edward Stuart, himself the son of King
James VII and II. Charles is perhaps best
known as the instigator of the unsuccessful
Jacobite uprising of 1745, in which he led

The Jacobite cause was still supported by many Highland clans, both
Catholic and Protestant. Charles hoped for a warm welcome from
these clans to start an insurgency by Jacobites throughout Britain,
and the Highland clans indeed provided him with a warm welcome.
Charles raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan and gathered a
force large enough to enable him to march on Edinburgh. The city,
under the control of the Lord Provost Archibald Stewart, quickly
surrendered. On 21 September 1745, he defeated the only
government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans. The
government army was led by General Sir John Cope, and their
disastrous defence against the Jacobites is immortalised in the song
Johnnie Cope. By November, Charles was marching south at the head
of approximately 6,000 men. The Jacobites were pursued by King
George II's son, the Duke of Cumberland, who caught up with them
at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746.

Battle of Culloden between the Jacobites and

the 'Redcoats'


Ignoring the advice of his best commander, Lord George Murray, Charles chose to
fight on flat, open, marshy ground where his forces would be exposed to superior
government firepower. Charles commanded his army from a position behind his
lines, where he could not see what was happening. Hoping Cumberland's army
would attack first, he had his men stand exposed to Hanoverian artillery. Seeing the
error in this, he quickly ordered an attack, but the messenger was killed before the
order could be delivered. The Jacobite attack, charging into the teeth of musket fire
and grapeshot fired from the cannons, was uncoordinated and met with little
success.
The Jacobites broke through the bayonets of the redcoats in one place, but they
were shot down by a second line of soldiers, and the survivors fled. Cumberland's
troops committed numerous atrocities as they hunted for the defeated Jacobite
soldiers, earning him the title "the Butcher" from the Highlanders. Murray managed
to lead a group of Jacobites to Ruthven, intending to continue the fight. However
Charles, believing himself betrayed, had decided to abandon the Jacobite cause.
James, the Chevalier de Johnstone, acted as Murray's Aide de Camp during the
campaign and, for a brief spell, the Young Pretender's. He gives a first-hand account
of these events in his "Memoir of the Rebellion 17451746".

Life in town and country

- Town life -

In 1700 England and Wales had a population of about 5.5 million. This
had increased very little by 1750, but then grew quickly to about 8.8 million
by the end of the century.
In 1700 England was still a land of small villages. In the northern areas of
England, in Lancashire and West Yorkshire, and in the West Midlands, the
large cities of the future were only just beginning to grow.
All the towns smelled bad. There were no drains. Streets were used as
lavatories and the dirt was seldom removed. The streets were muddy and
narrow, some only two metres wide. Around London and other larger towns
a few vegetable growers took the dirt from the streets to put on their fields.
During the eighteenth century, efforts were made to make towns
healthier. Streets were built wider, so that carriages drawn by horses could
pass each other. From 1734, London had a street lighting system. After
1760 many towns asked Parliament to allow them to tax their citizens in
order to provide social services, such as street cleaning and lighting.

London in the 18th century

Many towns in England

were improved in the later
18th century when bodies
of men called Paving or
Improvement
Commissioners were
formed by Acts of
Parliament. They had
powers to pave and clean
the streets and sometimes
to light them with oil lamps
and candles. Some also
arranged collections of
rubbish. Soon London and
the other towns were so
clean and tidy that they

There were four main classes of people in 18th century

towns:
- the wealthy merchants

- the ordinary merchants and traders

- the skilled craftsmen
- the large number of workers who had
no skill and who could not be sure of
finding work from one day to another.

- The rich-

England in the 18th century was like two different worlds, depending on whether
you were rich or poor. Yet, social conditions were probably better than in any
other country in Europe. British aristocrats had less power over the poor than
European aristocrats had. In 1760 an English lord was actually hanged for killing
his servant. There were few places in Europe where that would have happened. To
foreigners, used to the absolute power of the king and his nobles, English law
seemed an example of perfect justice, even if it was not really so.

The Upper Classes

The wealthy upper classes had a privileged, grand life. As England became
more powerful and wealthy due to the Industrial Revolution, the rich people became
richer and the poor even poorer.
Many wealthy people lived in large mansions on huge estates. Life was filled with
fancy social events, such us dinner parties, operas and the theatre. The men went
hunting and riding, and carried out "improvements" to their estates such as
rebuilding houses in the classical style, arranging natural-looking gardens and parks
to create a carefully made "view of nature" from the windows of the house. Some of
the gentry became interested in collecting trees or plants from abroad.

The conditions of women were difficult. They did not have many rights
and were financially dependent on their husbands or families. An
average wife spent some 15 years either in a state of pregnancy or in
nursing a child for the first year of its life. They were only allowed to
amuse themselves. As one lord wrote: "Women are only children of
larger growth... A man of sense only plays with them... he neither tells
them about, nor trusts them with serious matters. Children were well
educated and often had their own tutors who taught them how to read,
write, do arithmetic and play musical instruments.

What the Upper Class Thought

The rich often treated the poor with disdain. Many had no sympathy or
understanding for the poor and blamed them for their own situation.
Many wealthy people had never worked in their lives. Their money was
inherited, so they had very little knowledge of how harsh life could be.
They had never suffered from lack of food, shelter or clothing. They
never had to empty their own chamber pot, or cook their own food, or
do their own washing. That was left to the poor, working-class people.

- The poor-

For the poor, life in the 18th century England was extremely difficult.

The Lower Classes

For those with jobs, life was bearable because they could usually afford food,
clothing and shelter. For people out of work, life was a never-ending struggle to find
food, somewhere to sleep and ways to keep warm during the freezing English
winters. Life was even worse for those with a family to look after.
Many people moved to the cities to find work. Towns and cities became more
and more crowded and jobs were hard to find. Food was expensive and people
were always hungry. It was difficult to stay clean, so deadly diseases spread quickly
and easily.
The government didn't care about the poor. There was no help for people who
were poor, old, sick, disabled or out of work. Every one had to look after
themselves.
In the early 18th century England suffered from gin drinking. It was cheap
and it was sold everywhere as you did not need a license to sell it. Many people
ruined their health by drinking gin. Yet for many poor people drinking gin was their
only comfort. The situation improved after 1751 when a tax was imposed on gin.

- The countryside -

The majority of people still lived in the countryside and their

main occupations were agriculture and rural crafts.
Most farming at the beginning of the century was still done as
it had been for centuries. Each village stood in the middle of
three or four large fields, and the villagers together decided
what to grow, although individuals continued to work on their
own small strips of land.
Most farmers were smallholders renting up to 8 hectares of
land. Freeholders owned their land and were socially superior
to smallholders. At the bottom of the social structure were the
landless labourers who worked on large farms, especially in
summer; in winter they were often out of work. At the top of
the social hierarchy were the nobility, who held the highest
offices and accumulated the greatest wealth, and the gentry,
who included the major landowners in a county but were not
necessarily of noble birth. The chief landowner in a village

The cultural life of Edinburgh was in total contrast with life in the Scottish Highlands.
Because the kilt and the tartan were forbidden, everyone born since 1746 had grown
up wearing Lowland (English) clothes. The old way of colouring and making tartan
patterns from local plants had long been forgotten. By the time the law forbidding
the kilt and tartan was abolished in 1782, it was too late. Highland dress and tartans
became fancy dress, to be worn by Scottish soldiers and by lovers of the past, but
not by the real Highlanders. Very few of the tartans that were worn after 1782 would
have been recognised as "clan" tartans by the men who had fought at Culloden.

The real disaster in the Highlands, however, was economic.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the clan chiefs began to
realise that money could be made from sheep for the wool
trade. They began to push the people off the clan lands and to
replace them with sheep, a process known as the clearances.
The chiefs treated the clan lands as their personal property,
and the law supported the enclosure off common land in
England. Between 1790 and 1850 hundreds of thousands of
Highlanders lost their old way of life so that their chiefs could
make a profit from the land.

- Family Life -

In the eighteenth century families began to express affection

more openly than before. In addition it seems that for the first
time children were no longer thought of as small adults, but as
a distinct group of people with special needs. However, girls
continued to be victims of the parent's desire to make them
match the popular idea of feminine beauty of slim bodies, tight
waists and a pale appearance.

English school, 18th century

Portrait of a young girl

Parents still often decided on a suitable marriage for their children, but they increasingly
sought their children's opinion. However, sons and daughters often had to marry against
their wishes. But love and companionship were slowly becoming accepted reasons for
marriage.
The increase in affection was partly because people could now expect a reasonably long life.
In the 17th century middle-class and wealthier families were served by servants, who
listened their conversation as they ate. They lived in rooms that led one to another. But in
the 18th century, families began to eat alone, preferring to serve themselves than to have
servants listening to everything they had to say. They also rebuilt the insides of their homes,
putting in corridors, so that every person in the family had their own private bedroom.
Britain was ahead of the rest of Europe in this individualism. Almost certainly this was the
result of the political as well as economic strength of the middle class, and the way in which
the middle class mixed so easily with the gentry and aristocracy. Individualism was important
to trade and industrial success.
Such individualism could not exist for the poorer classes. Where women and children could
find work making cloth, a worker family might double its income, and do quite well. But a
poor family in which only the father could find work lived on the edge of starvation. Children
of the poor had always worked as soon as they could walk.
Horrified by the suffering of children, two men campaigned for almost thirty years to
persuade Parliament to pass a Regulating Act in 1788 to reduce the cruelty involved.

The years of revolution

- Industrial Revolution

The era known as the Industrial Revolution(1750-1840) was a

period in which fundamental changes occurred in agriculture,
textile and metal manufacture, transportation, economic
policies and the social structure .
This process began in England in the 18th century and from
there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier
by French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first
popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee
(185283) to describe Englands economic development from
1760 to 1840. Since Toynbees time the term has been more
broadly applied.
The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were
technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological
changes included the following:
(1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel,
(2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and

(4) a new organization of work known as the factory

system, which entailed increased division of labour and
specialization of function,
(5) important developments in transportation and
communication, including the steam locomotive,
steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio,
(6) the increasing application of science to industry.
These technological changes made possible a
tremendously increased use of natural resources and
the mass production of manufactured goods.

There were also many new developments in nonindustrial

spheres, including the following:
(1) agricultural improvements that made possible the
provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population,
(2) economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of
wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of
rising industrial production, and increased international trade,
(3) political changes reflecting the shift in economic power,
as well as new state policies corresponding to the needs of an
industrialized society,
(4) sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities,
the development of working-class movements, and the
emergence of new patterns of authority,
(5) cultural transformations of a broad order.
The worker acquired new and distinctive skills, and his

While industrialization brought about an increased volume and

variety of manufactured goods and an improved standard of
living for some, it also resulted in often grim employment and
living conditions for the poor and working classes.

More and more factories were built

- Revolution in France and the Napoleonic wars -

The French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars began in 1792, just three years
after the beginning of the French Revolution. Quickly becoming a global
conflict, the French Revolutionary Wars saw France battling coalitions of
European allies. This approach continued with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
and the start of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Though France dominated
militarily on land during the early years of the conflict, it quickly lost
supremacy of the seas to the Royal Navy. Weakened by failed campaigns in
Spain and Russia, France was eventually overcome in 1814 and 1815.
The French Revolution was the result of famine, a major fiscal crisis, and
unfair taxation in France. Unable to reform the nation's finances, Louis XVI
called the Estates-General to meet in 1789, hoping it would approve
additional taxes. Gathering at Versailles, the Third Estate (the commons)
declared itself the National Assembly and on June 20 announced it would not
disband until France had a new constitution. With anti-monarchy sentiment
running high, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a royal prison, on July
14.

The Napoleonic Wars (18031815) were a series of wars declared against

Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions. As a continuation of the wars
sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies
and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly owing to the application of
modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly as Napoleon's armies
conquered much of Europe but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion
of Russia in 1812. Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat
resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France and the creation of
the Concert of Europe.
Unlike its many coalition partners, Britain remained at war throughout the period
of the Napoleonic Wars. Protected by naval supremacy (in the words of Admiral
Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come.
I say only they will not come by sea"), the United Kingdom maintained lowintensity land warfare on a global scale for over a decade. The British government
paid out large sums of money to other European states, so that they could remain
at war with France. These payments are colloquially known as the Golden Cavalry
of St George. The British Army provided long-term support to the Spanish
rebellion in the Peninsular War of 18081814, assisted by Spanish guerrilla ('little
war') tactics. Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley campaigned
successfully against the French armies, eventually driving them from Spain and
invading southern France.

- Battle of Trafalgar -

In one of the most decisive naval battles in history, a British fleet under
Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet at the
Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain.
At sea, Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy consistently thwarted Napoleon
Bonaparte, who led France to preeminence on the European mainland.
Nelson's last and greatest victory against the French was the Battle of
Trafalgar, which began after Nelson caught sight of a Franco-Spanish
force of 33 ships. Preparing to engage the enemy force on October 21,
Nelson divided his 27 ships into two divisions and signaled a famous
message from the flagship Victory: "England expects that every man will
do his duty."
Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar ensured that Napoleon would never
invade Britain. Nelson, hailed as the savior of his nation, was given a
magnificent funeral in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. A column was
erected to his memory in the newly named Trafalgar Square, and
numerous streets were renamed in his honor.

- Battle of Waterloo -

The Battle of Waterloo was a major and the last military engagement of the
Napoleonic Wars. It was fought between Napoleons army and the Seventh Coalition
forces, led by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blcher, on June 18, 1815,
near the Belgian town of Waterloo. The outcome of this fiercely-fought military
encounter was a fatal blow inflicted by British forces on Napoleon, marking the end
of his Hundred Days Campaign and his ambition to perpetuate himself as an emperor
of a European dominant empire. One of the consequence of the Battle of Waterloo
was the emergence of Great Britain as the worlds hegemonic power. Having been
defeated, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, in the middle
of the Atlantic, where he spent the rest of his days until he died in 1821.
Concluding in June 1815, the Congress of Vienna outlined new borders for states in
Europe and established an effective balance of power system that largely maintained
peace in Europe for the remainder of the century. The Napoleonic Wars were
officially ended by the Treaty of Paris which was signed on November 20, 1815. With
Napoleon's defeat, twenty-three years of near-continuous warfare came to an end
and Louis XVIII was placed on the French throne. The conflict also sparked wide
scale legal and social change, marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as
inspired nationalist feelings in Germany and Italy. With the French defeat, Britain
became the world's dominant power, a position it held for the next century.