This illustrated collection of specially-commissioned essays by a team of leading scholars addresses the theme of sovereignty and the sources and variety of political power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. A notable feature is the attention given to visual material, which previous scholars have been slow to exploit and which is reflected in the large number of distinctive and unusual illustrations. The book's diverse themes were all illuminated by the writings of Professor Ragnhild Hatton (1913-95) to whose memory this collection is dedicated.