Chapter 8 : Royal Power and Conflict During the 1500s and 1600s, European monarchies created powerful central governments. Wars over religion and power engulfed many European countries, including Holland, Spain, France, and Sweden. In England the Tudor monarchies brought England peace and stability, increasing royal power but allowing Parliament a share in the government. England was building an overseas empire based on trade. The monarchs of Europe based their reach for expanded royal power on the theory of absolute monarchy, which held that kings and queens ruled as representatives of God and were responsible to God alone, not to parliaments and citizens. In Russia, rulers like Peter the Great were enhancing the country's military power and increasing contacts with western Europe. Internally, however, they were increasing the gap between the upper and lower classes.