Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon's observation on the Scottish reaction to the regal union of the early seventeenth century was made by a man who tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Charles II that the provincialization of Scotland was exactly what was required to ensure that that kingdom never again acted as a catalyst to rebellion throughout Britain. More than most, Clarendon understood that British kingship made complex demands on a monarch over and above those of a mere king of England, but Charles I was not the only king to run into difficulties in interpreting his role as a multiple monarch. Multiple monarchy, and the absentee kingship which invariably attended it, was experienced by many European states and their monarchs during the course of the seventeenth century. It undid Sigismund Vasa who found it impossible to rule Poland and Sweden and was deposed as king of the latter in 1599; it cost Philip IV of Spain his Portuguese throne in 1640; and it shook the Austrian Hapsburgs' rule in Bohemia in 1618 and in Hungary in 1705. However, no one in 1603 imagined multiple monarchy would be so self-destructive, and instead James VI's accession to the English throne was seen to herald a new golden age for Protestant Britain.