History of the British Isles was the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901 which signified the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign saw Britain reach the zenith of its economic and political power, with the introduction of
Germany in the early modern period occurred in 1795–1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era. "Mediatisation" was the process of annexing the lands of one sovereign monarchy to another, often leaving the annexed some rights. "Secularisation" was the redistribution to secular states of the secular lands held by an ecclesiastical ruler such as a bishop or an abbot. The Empire was formally dissolved on 6 August 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon (see Treaty of Pressburg).