Throughout this world's great history there have been many great rulers. Some of these great rulers to note would be Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Peter the Great of Russia. These monarchs can be compared in various areas including domestic policies, foreign policies, their religion and how it affected their policies, any wars they were involved in, and their achievements that left lasting impressions in the European continent.
             Each of these rulers had unique domestic policies. One of Philip's problems was that he took a very long time to actually do anything. However, because of this, many of his long-term policies were able to work. For example, he wanted to "Castilise" Spain. To do this, he filled many of the top positions with Castilians. Although he had a cabinet of advisors, he still considered himself an absolute monarch. One major issue during his control was the extremely deficit in the national budget. In fact, he went bankrupt three times. Louis revoked of Edict of Nantes that protected the Huguenots. Louis strengthened the central government's control over regions of France, incorporating the claimed lands into his territory. This caused hardship to many people who suffered starvation; which led them to fleeing their homeland. Catherine allowed a little bit of religious tolerance and banned torture. She tried to have better laws, and appointed a special legislative committee, but it fell through. No new unified code was ever made. She tried to improve education and have a stronger local government. She freed the nobles from taxes and state service. The nobles also had absolute control of their serfs.
             During the reign of Peter, he was able to "construct the Russian navy from scratch." Also, during the Great Northern War, he was able to modernize the army of "backwards" Russia. He tried to westernize all of Russ...