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
Cobden–Chevalier Treaty that with such an alliance in being it did not matter what other European states thought. Rouher presented the Emperor with his commercial plan with sixty pages of favourable arguments, which the Emperor approved. The Emperor announced the treaty in a letter published on 15 January 1860 and it caused fury among the protectionist interests. Princeton University economist Gene Grossman described the treaty as the "first modern trade agreement." On 23 January 1860 at the Foreign Office the plenipotentiaries of both nations signed and sealed the treaty. Lord Cowley, the British Ambassador to France, and Cobden signed on behalf of