Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/318

 3 o6 THE BOURBON AGE to consolidating the power of the Crown at the expense of the nobles, and to domestic reforms. Sweden played and was still to play a dramatic part in European politics, though her resources would never have Russia's enabled her to secure a lasting position as a first- part, class power. But one first-class power was in the making in Brandenburg, and another in Russia. Hitherto Russia had stood outside the area of civilised Europe. Until the end of the fifteenth century she had been under the sway of the Mongols. She was cut off from maritime communication with the west, which by land she could only reach through Poland. When English sailors during the sixteenth century found their way from the White Sea to the Court of Ivan the Terrible, people in England talked of the ' discovery of 'Muscovy.' She had failed even to reach the Baltic, while the provinces on Peter the the sea board were secured in spite of her efforts Great, 1682- by Poland and Sweden. Russian civilisation was 1725. rudimentary. But in 1682 there succeeded to the Russian throne the boy Peter, who seven years later freed him- self from all control, and set about the creation of the Russian empire. Peter was a savage, but he was also a genius. He resolved to organise Russia into a state on the western model, and to turn a barbarian nation into a civilised power. Russia was ignorant of western methods, and Peter resolved to learn them in person. He came to Holland and to England to acquire a practical knowledge of ship-building as a workman in the Dutch and English yards. He returned home and made himself complete master of the government by the help of troops formed on western models under the command of Scottish adventurers of a type common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the poverty and the turmoils of their native land sent Scots abroad in large numbers to seek their fortunes, chiefly by the sword as mercenaries. By his Imperial will he abolished the customs of centuries, and forced his people to adopt those which prevailed among the civilised nations of the west. By the strong hand he imposed his own authority and supremacy on the Church, and made the Crown as completely