The Peace of Westphalia coincides with the beginning of great changes throughout Europe. The leading position on the Continent, which Germany had preserved from the treaty of Verdun until the accession of Charles V.--nearly 700 years--was lost beyond recovery: it had passed into the hands of France, where Louis XIV. was just commencing his long and brilliant reign. Spain, after a hundred years of supremacy, was in a rapid decline; the new Republic of Holland was mistress of the seas, and Sweden was the great power of Northern Europe. In England, Charles I. had lost his throne, and Cromwell was at work, laying the foundation of a broader and firmer power than either the Tudors or the Stuarts had ever built. Poland was still a large and strong kingdom, and Russia was only beginning to attract the notice of other nations. The Italian Republics had seen their best days: even the power of Venice was slowly crumbling to pieces. The coast of America, from Maine to Virginia, was dotted with little English, Dutch and Swedish settlements, only a few of which had safely passed through their first struggle for existence. [Sidenote: 1657. ELECTION OF LEOPOLD I.] The history of Germany, during the remainder of the seventeenth century, furnishes few events upon which the intelligent and patriotic German of to-day can look back with any satisfaction. Austria was the principal power, through her territory and population, as well as the Imperial dignity, which was thenceforth accorded to her as a matter of habit. The provision of religious liberty had not been extended to her people, who were now forcibly made Catholic; the former legislative assemblies, even the privileges of the nobles, had been suppressed, and the rule of the Hapsburgs was as absolute a despotism as that of Louis XIV. When Ferdinand III. died, in 1657, the "Great Monarch," as the French call him, made an attempt to be elected his successor: he purchased the votes of the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, and might have carried the day but for the determined resistance of the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony. Even had he been successful, it is doubtful whether his influence over the most of the German Princes would have been greater than it was in reality.