PROBLEMS AND SOURCES

The central problems of the period 1643–50 are the final contraction of Spanish power, which was dealt a fatal blow by the revolutionary wave of 1640; the exclusion of England from European politics during the revolutionary years 1640–2; the dominance of conflict-ridden France over her Swedish and German allies; and Sweden's halfhearted attempts to decide the war on the battlefield, or at least to gain an advantageous position for diplomatic negotiations which would lead automatically to peace by compromise.

Besides the works about Spain that have already been mentioned (particularly those by Elliott) others calling for notice are the balanced survey by Juan Reglá, Introducción a la historia de España, and his article in the New Cambridge Modern History. Spain has also been the subject of work by V. Palacio, José Maria Jover, and M. Fraga Iribarne.

The basic recent work on England and her seventeenth-century revolution is by Christopher Hill. J. R. Jones has studied the position of England in Europe in the seventeenth century, particularly with reference to her relations with the United Netherlands. The same theme also attracted G. R. Boxer in his monograph of 1965.

In his studies B. F. Porshnev has argued that France under Mazarin was prompted by its struggle against revolutionary England and by its own internal crisis to a readier acceptance of the Peace of Westphalia which was not to the advantage of France's allies. I have analysed this point on the basis of Piccolomini's papers.