European balance of power Austria which continued to rule as Holy Roman Emperor. Hapsburg Austria did directly control some states outside of the Holy Roman Empire. It was France who took the status of dominant continental power from the Habsburgs thanks to the Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of the Pyrenees. In the 16th and 17th centuries, English foreign policy strove to prevent a creation of a single universal monarchy in Europe, which many believed France or Spain might attempt to create. To maintain the balance of power, the English made alliances with other states—including Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and the Netherlands—to counter
Tariff real breakthrough in continental Europe with the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty signed by Napoleon III. The agreement was considered in France as a coup d'état, since the parliament was opposed to it, and the agreement was established by means of secret negotiations between Napoleon Ill's envoy Michel Chevalier (a follower of Saint-Simon) and Britain's Richard Cobden. That agreement was the first of a series which Britain would establish with several European countries, known as the "Cobden agreements": the Franco-Belgian treaty was signed in 1861 and between 1861 and 1866 almost all European countries joined the Cobden treaty. Only a few countries on