House of Austria

House of Austria
Origin	Austria, Holy Roman Empire
Ruling in	Hispanic Monarchy
Parent house	House of Habsburg
Titles	King of Spain; Holy Roman Emperor; Duke of Burgundy; King of Portugal;
Founder	Charles I of Spain
Last ruler	Charles II of Spain
Dissolution	1 November 1700
Deposition	War of the Spanish Succession

Hispanic Monarchy
Hispanic Monarchy
1516–1700
	Royal standard Coat of arms of the King between 1580 and 1668
Capital	Madrid (1561–1601); Valladolid (1601–1606); Madrid (from 1606); 40°25′N 3°42′W / 40.417°N 3.700°W
Religion	Catholicism
Government	Composite monarchy
King
• 1516–1556	Charles I
• 1556–1598	Philip II
• 1598–1621	Philip III
• 1621–1665	Philip IV
• 1665–1700	Charles II
Historical era	Early Modern Period
• Self-proclamation of Charles I	14 March 1516
• Death of Charles II	1 November 1700
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Catholic Monarchs
Bourbon Reforms

House of Austria is the name by which the Habsburg dynasty that reigned in the Hispanic Monarchy in the 16th and 17th centuries is known in Spain; from the proclamation as King of Charles I in 1516 until the death without direct succession of Charles II, which provoked the War of the Spanish Succession.

Throughout that period Spain was the greatest world power. During the so-called Major Austrias —Charles I and Philip II—, it reached the apogee of its influence and power. The territorial inheritance of Charles I, coming from the Habsburgs —the Netherlands and the County of Burgundy in 1506— and from the Trastámaras —the Crowns of Aragon and Castile in 1516—, together with the conquest of America, formed the basis of what is known as the Spanish Empire.

However, the reigns of the so-called Minor Austrias —Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II—, coinciding with the best of the Golden Age of the arts and letters, meant the «Spanish decline»: the loss of European hegemony and a deep economic and social crisis.

History

The beginnings of the empire (1516–1521)

Spain, both in its territorial configuration and in the definition of its state entity, did not come to present an aspect similar to the present one until the death of Charles II. With it came the extinction of the Habsburgs of Madrid, the accession of Philip V and the inauguration of the Bourbon Dynasty and its reforms. The political area referred to —above all in its external perception— as Spain was, in fact, the union in the person of the King of very diverse political entities that had emerged from the Middle Ages. The significance of the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469, and the personalities of these monarchs, had much to do with it, although so did chance, which frustrated some of their projects and made others triumph. It had not been the only option considered; a union of Castile with Portugal had been equally possible, either without Aragon (had her niece Joanna la Beltraneja triumphed in the War of the Castilian Succession) or with it (had their grandson Prince Miguel da Paz survived).

In 1504, Queen Isabella died, and although Ferdinand tried to maintain his position over Castile after her death, the Cortes of Castile chose to crown Isabella's daughter, Joanna, as Queen^{[citation needed]}. Her husband, Philip of Habsburg, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, simultaneously became King-consort Philip I of Castile. Shortly afterwards Joanna began to fall into madness. In 1506, Philip assumed the regency, but died a little later that same year under circumstances that some sources consider compatible with a poisoning ordered by his father-in-law[1]. As her eldest son, Charles, was only six years old, the Cortes, reluctantly^{[citation needed]}, allowed Ferdinand, Joanna's father, to govern the country as the Regent of Joanna and Charles.

Spain was now united under a single ruler, Ferdinand II of Aragon. As sole monarch, Ferdinand adopted a more aggressive policy than the one he had as Isabella's husband, extending Spain's sphere of influence to Italy and strengthening it against France. As ruler of Aragon, Ferdinand was involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy; these conflicts became the center of Ferdinand's foreign policy as King. Ferdinand's first use of Spanish forces came in the War of the League of Cambrai against Venice, where Spanish soldiers distinguished themselves on the battlefield alongside their French allies at the Battle of Agnadello (1509). Only a year later, Ferdinand joined the Catholic League against France, seeing an opportunity to take Naples and Navarre —to which he held a dynastic claim—. In 1516 France accepted a truce that left Milan under French control and recognized Spanish hegemony in Naples and southern Navarre. Ferdinand's marriage to Germaine of Foix, had the son of both survived, would have broken the political unity of Castile and Aragon, but their son John died at an early age.

Ferdinand's death led to the accession to the throne of the young Charles as Charles I of Castile and Aragon. His Spanish inheritance included all the Spanish possessions in the New World and around the Mediterranean. After the death of his Habsburg father in 1506, Charles had inherited the territory called Flanders or the Netherlands (where he had been born and raised) and the Franche-Comté. In 1519, with the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian I, Charles inherited the Habsburg territories of Germany, and was duly elected that same year as Emperor under the name of Charles V. His mother remained the titular Queen of Castile until her death in 1555, but because of her health, Charles (with the title of king there as well) exercised all power without hesitation, which produced the uprising known as the War of the Communities. Once the uprising had been suppressed in 1521, as had the simultaneous one of the Germanías of Valencia, the Emperor and King Charles was the most powerful man in Christendom.

The accumulation of so much power in one man and one dynasty greatly worried the King of France, Francis I, who found himself surrounded by Habsburg territories. In 1521, Francis invaded the Spanish possessions in Italy and inaugurated a second round of the Franco-Spanish conflict. The Italian Wars were a disaster for France, which suffered defeats both in the so-called Four Years' War (1521–1526) —Biccoca (1522) and Pavia (1525, where Francis was captured)— and in the War of the League of Cognac (1527–1530) —Landriano (1529)— before Francis gave in and abandoned Milan, once again to the benefit of Spain.

An emperor and a king (1521–1556)

Charles's victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 surprised many Italians and Germans and raised concerns that Charles would strive to gain still more power. Pope Clement VII switched sides and joined France and major Italian states against the Habsburg Emperor in the War of the League of Cognac. In 1527, owing to Charles's inability to pay his armies in Northern Italy sufficiently, they mutinied and sacked Rome for plunder, forcing Clement, and successive popes, to be considerably more prudent in their dealings with the secular authorities: in 1533, Clement's refusal to annul the marriage of Henry VIII of England to Catherine of Aragon (Charles's aunt) was a direct consequence of his desire not to offend the Emperor and perhaps have his capital sacked a second time. The Peace of Barcelona, signed between Charles and the Pope in 1529, established a more cordial relationship between the two leaders. In fact, the Pope named Spain as the protector of the Catholic cause and recognized Charles as King of Lombardy in exchange for Spanish intervention in overthrowing the rebel Florentine Republic.

In 1543, Francis I, King of France, announced his unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, occupying the city of Nice, controlled by Spain, in cooperation with the Turkish forces. Henry VIII of England, who bore a greater grudge against France than the one he held against the Emperor for standing in the way of his divorce, joined Charles in his invasion of France. Although the Spanish army was completely defeated at the Battle of Ceresole, in Savoy, Henry fared better, and France was forced to accept the terms. The Austrians, led by Charles's younger brother, Ferdinand, continued fighting the Ottomans in the East. With France defeated, Charles was able to deal with an older problem: the Schmalkaldic League.

The Protestant Reformation had begun in Germany in 1517. Charles, through his position as Holy Roman Emperor, his strategic patrimonial possessions located along the German borders, and his close relationship with his Habsburg relatives in Austria, had a great interest in maintaining the stability of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Peasants' War had broken out in the Empire in 1524 and devastated the country until it was completely suppressed in 1526. Charles, even being so far from Germany, was committed to maintaining order. Since the Peasants' War, the Protestants had organized themselves into a defensive league to protect themselves from Emperor Charles. Under the protection of the Schmalkaldic League, the Protestant states had committed a great number of atrocities in the eyes of the Catholic Church —the confiscation of some ecclesiastical territories, among other things— and had defied the authority of the Emperor.

Perhaps to a large extent from the strategic perspective of the Spanish King, the League had allied itself with the French, and his efforts in Germany to weaken the League had been rebuffed. Francis's defeat in 1544 led to the annulment of the alliance with the Protestants, and Charles seized the opportunity. He first tried the path of negotiation at the Diet of Worms of 1521 and the Council of Trent of 1545, but the Protestant leadership and the feeling of betrayal created by the position taken by the Catholics at the council led the former to war, led by the elector Maurice of Saxony. In response, Charles invaded Germany at the head of an army composed of Spanish and Flemish troops, hoping to restore imperial authority. The Emperor personally inflicted a severe military defeat on the Protestants at the historic Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, but it did not come to have decisive consequences, since in 1555 Charles had to sign with the Protestant states the Peace of Augsburg, which restored stability in Germany through the principle cuius regio, eius religio; that is, the recognition in practice of religious freedom for the Protestant German princes of the north. Charles's involvement in Germany would establish a role for Spain as protector of the Catholic-Habsburg cause in the Holy Roman Empire; the precedent set then would lead seven decades later to participation in the Thirty Years' War, which would finally end Spain's status as one of the leading powers of Europe.

In 1526, Charles married the Infanta Isabella, sister of John III of Portugal. In 1556, Charles abdicated his possessions, passing his Spanish Empire to his only surviving son, Philip II of Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire to his brother, Ferdinand. Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste (Extremadura, Spain), where he is thought to have had a nervous breakdown^{[citation needed]}, and died in 1558.

From St. Quentin to Lepanto (1556–1571)

Europe was not yet at peace, since the aggressive Henry II of France came to the throne in 1547 and immediately renewed armed conflict. Charles's successor, Philip II, managed to crush the French army at the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy in 1557 and to defeat Henry again at the Battle of Gravelines the following year. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559, definitively recognized Spain's claims in Italy. In the celebrations following the treaty, Henry died from a stray splinter of a lance. During the next thirty years France was ravaged by civil wars and internal disorders (see French Wars of Religion) and was unable to compete effectively with Spain and the Habsburgs in the struggle for European power. Freed from any serious French opposition, Spain witnessed the apogee of its power and territorial expansion in the period 1559–1643.

According to a widespread view, which was sometimes expressed by the Castilian deputies in the Cortes, Charles and his successors, instead of concentrating their efforts on Castile, the heart of their Empire, attempting a unification of the Spanish territories from a centralist perspective, considered it only as another part of their empire. In that the authoritarian monarchy of the Habsburgs differed from the absolutist or precociously nationalist orientation of other European powers (France, England or the Netherlands), its modern condition (the nation-state), or rather its condition as a continuation of medieval ideals and entities with a universal vocation (papacy and empire), being debated by historiography. Achieving the political objectives of the dynasty —which above all meant weakening the power of France, maintaining Catholic Habsburg hegemony in Germany, and containing the Ottoman Empire— was more important to the Habsburg rulers than the protection of Spain. This emphasis, which was made explicit in the phrase attributed to Philip II: I would rather lose my States and a hundred lives than have to reign over heretics, would contribute decisively to the decline of Spanish imperial power.

The Spanish Empire had grown substantially since the days of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Aztec and Inca empires were conquered during Charles's reign, from 1519 to 1521 and from 1540 to 1558, respectively. Spanish settlements were established in the New World: Florida was colonized in the 1560s, Buenos Aires was settled in 1536 and New Granada (present-day Colombia) was colonized in the 1530s. Manila, in the Philippines, was settled in 1572. The overseas Spanish Empire became the source of Spanish wealth and power in Europe, but it also contributed to inflation. Instead of boosting the Spanish economy, American silver made Spain dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods. The economic and social transformations that steered Northwestern Europe in the transition from feudalism to capitalism did not have the same pace in Spain —nor in Central and Southern Europe—.

After Spain's victory over France in 1559 and the beginning of France's religious wars, Philip's ambitions grew. The Ottoman Empire had long threatened the borders of the Habsburg dominions in Austria and Northwest Africa, and in response Ferdinand and Isabella had sent expeditions to North Africa, capturing Melilla in 1497 and Oran in 1509. Charles preferred to fight the Ottomans through a considerably more maritime strategy, hampering Ottoman landings in the Venetian territories in the Eastern Mediterranean. Only in response to the harassment of the Spanish Mediterranean coasts did Charles personally lead attacks against the settlements in North Africa, such as in the Tunis Expedition in 1535 and the Algiers Expedition in 1541. In 1565, the Spanish defeated an Ottoman landing on the strategically vital island of Malta, defended by the Knights of Saint John. The death of Suleiman the Magnificent the following year and his succession by the less capable Selim II emboldened Philip, who decided to carry the war to the Ottoman lands. In 1571, a combined naval expedition (with Genoa, Venice and the Papacy) led by Charles's illegitimate son, John of Austria, annihilated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, one of the most celebrated in naval history. The Christian success, without compromising Ottoman naval hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean, did manage to relieve the pressure on the Western one, the status quo being maintained during the following centuries.

The agitated king (1571–1598)

The time of rejoicing in Madrid was short-lived. In 1566, riots led by Calvinists in the Spanish Netherlands (roughly equivalent to the present-day Netherlands and Belgium, inherited by Philip from Charles and his Burgundian ancestors) led the Duke of Alba to lead a military expedition to restore order with energetic repression. In 1568, William of Orange headed an armed uprising against Alba, while at the same time beginning the anti-Spanish propaganda war known as the "Black Legend". It was the beginning of the Eighty Years' War which, over time, divided the territory between a mostly Protestant north that obtained independence (the United Provinces headed by Holland), and a Catholic south that remained under Spanish control (present-day Belgium).

Since the Late Middle Ages there had been a strong economic connection between Flanders and the wool interests of the Castilian aristocracy and merchants, particularly with the vital port of Antwerp, which had intensified with the colonial exploitation of America. In 1572, a band of Dutch rebel privateers known as the watergeuzen ("Sea Beggars") took several Dutch coastal towns, cutting off the outlet to the Sea of Antwerp and the northern territories, in support of William.

For Spain, the war was a veritable disaster. In 1574, the Spanish army under the command of Luis de Requesens was repulsed at the Siege of Leiden after the Dutch destroyed the dikes that held back the North Sea, flooding the territory and preventing military maneuvers. In 1576, in view of the impossibility of sustaining the costs of his 80,000-man army of occupation in the Netherlands and those of the enormous fleet victorious at Lepanto, Philip had to accept bankruptcy. The army in the Netherlands mutinied not long afterwards, sacking Antwerp and the South of the Netherlands, prompting several cities of the previously peaceful Southern provinces to join the rebellion. The Spanish chose the path of negotiation and pacified most of the Southern provinces again with the Union of Arras in 1579.

The agreement of Arras required all Spanish troops to leave these lands. In 1580, this circumstance gave King Philip the opportunity to consolidate his hegemonic position in Europe, when the last male member of the Portuguese royal family, Cardinal Henry of Portugal, died. Philip claimed his succession rights to the Portuguese throne and in June sent an army to Lisbon under the command of the Duke of Alba to secure them. The Castilian and Portuguese overseas territories placed in Philip's hands almost the whole of the explored New World along with a vast commercial empire in Africa and Asia.

Keeping Portugal under control required a large occupation force, and Spain was still recovering from the bankruptcy of 1576. In 1584 William of Orange was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic. The death of the popular leader of the Dutch resistance (on whose head Philip II had placed a price) was expected to bring the end of the war, but it did not. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I of England supported the Protestant cause in the Netherlands and France, and Sir Francis Drake harassed Spanish commercial interests in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, together with a particularly aggressive attack on the port of Cádiz. In 1588, hoping to put an end to Elizabeth's meddling, Philip sent the Invincible Armada to attack England. Of the 130 ships sent on the mission, only half returned to Spain without incident, and some 20,000 men perished. Some were victims of the English ships, but most were victims of the harsh weather encountered during their return voyage. The disastrous result, the consequence of a combination of unfavorable weather and of the luck and effectiveness of the English fleet of Lord Howard of Effingham, prompted a complete overhaul and repair of the Spanish navy's ships, weapons and tactics. The English attacks were answered, and thanks to a failed English counterattack (the English Armada) Spanish naval power quickly regained the preeminent position it maintained for another half century. Spain also provided aid to a very harsh Irish war that drained England of resources and in which English coastal towns were also raided. Nevertheless, the House of Austria now once again had an enemy with which to compete, forcing Spain to maintain an even stronger and more expensive navy, in addition to the enormous expenses of the armies in its many scattered territories.

Spain had become involved in France's religious war after the death of Henry II. In 1589, Henry III, the last of the Valois line, died at the walls of Paris. His successor, Henry IV of Navarre, the first Bourbon King of France, was a man of great ability, who won key victories against the Catholic League at Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590). Determined to prevent Henry from becoming King of France, the Spanish divided their army in the Netherlands and invaded France in 1590.

«God is Spanish» (1596–1626)

Facing wars against England, France and the Netherlands, each directed by extraordinarily capable leaders, the already exhausted Spain was overwhelmed. Struggling continually against the piracy that hampered its maritime traffic in the Atlantic, although it did not interrupt its vital shipments of gold from the New World (only one of the convoys was captured, that of 1628, by the Dutchman Piet Hein), the Royal Treasury was forced to admit bankruptcy again in 1596. The Spanish tried to free themselves from several of the conflicts in which they were involved, first signing the Peace of Vervins with France in 1598, recognizing Henry IV (a convert to Catholicism since 1593) as King of France and restoring many of the stipulations of the earlier Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. A treaty with England was agreed in 1604, after the accession of the more tractable Stuart King James I.

Peace with England and France meant that Spain could concentrate its energies on restoring its rule over the Dutch provinces. The Dutch, led by Maurice of Nassau, the son of William of Orange and perhaps the best strategist of his time, had succeeded in taking several border cities since 1590, including the fortress of Breda. After the peace with England, the new Spanish commander Ambrosio Spinola pressed the Dutch hard. Spinola, a general of ability similar to Maurice's, was unable to conquer the Netherlands, among other things because of the repetition of a new bankruptcy in 1607. In an exercise of realism suited to the temperament of King Philip III and his favorite the Duke of Lerma, the Twelve Years' Truce was signed in 1609 between Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, a period known as the Pax Hispanica.

Spain did not gain great advantages from the truce; its finances remained in disorder and the colonial empire continued to suffer increasingly humiliating attacks, above all to the benefit of Holland. In the Netherlands, the rule of Philip II's daughter, Isabella Clara Eugenia, and her husband, Archduke Albert, restored stability in the Southern Netherlands and dampened anti-Spanish sentiment in the area. Philip II's successor, Philip III, was a man of limited ability not interested in politics, who preferred to allow others to take care of the details. His valido, Lerma, attentive above all to what concerned his own particular interests, managed to turn the Spanish account books around and make himself one of the richest men in Europe, with a fortune of some 44 million thalers. Lerma's personal success brought him enemies and well-founded allegations of corruption, which led his trusted man, Rodrigo Calderón, to the scaffold. In 1618 he was replaced by his son the Duke of Uceda, in what can be considered a transition, since he reached power supported by the noble faction rival to his own father. It was not until 1621, with the arrival of the new king, Philip IV, that the Sandovals were replaced in the post of highest confidence by the Zúñigas (first Baltasar de Zúñiga and then the Count-Duke of Olivares). Whereas Philip III's favorites had lost interest in the affairs of Austria, their dynastic ally, Zúñiga was a veteran ambassador to Vienna and believed that the key to containing the resurgent French and eliminating the Dutch was a closer alliance with the Habsburgs.

In 1618, after the Defenestrations of Prague, Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, embarked on a campaign against the Protestant Union and Bohemia. The new king and his favorites were considerably more active than Philip III, but even during the latter's last years, Zúñiga, who already enjoyed a high position at court, had secured support for the Austrian Habsburgs in the war, and Ambrosio Spinola, the rising star of the Spanish army, was sent as head of the Army of Flanders to intervene, invading the Palatinate. Thus Spain entered the Thirty Years' War. On Zúñiga's death in 1622, he was replaced by his nephew Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, Count-Duke of Olivares, a capable man who believed that the center of all of Spain's tragedies lay in Holland. After certain initial setbacks, the Bohemians were defeated at the Battle of White Mountain in 1621, and again at Stadtlohn in 1623. While the twelve years' truce was in force, Spain was at peace with the Protestant Netherlands, but the truce, which expired in 1621, was not renewed, adding another front of conflict. Spinola took the fortress of Breda in 1625. The intervention of the Danish King Christian IV in the war increased concerns (Christian was one of the few monarchs in Europe who had no problems with his finances), but the victory of the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein over the Danes at Dessau and again at Lutter, both in 1626, eliminated the threat. There was hope in Madrid that the Netherlands could finally be reincorporated into the Empire, and after the defeat of Denmark the Protestants in Germany seemed subdued. France found itself embroiled again in its own instabilities (the famous Siege of La Rochelle began in 1627), and Spain's preeminence seemed irrefutable. The Count-Duke of Olivares stridently declared "God is Spanish and fights for our nation these days" (Brown and Elliott, 1980, p. 190), and many of Spain's adversaries would have reluctantly agreed.

The road to Rocroi (1626–1643)

Olivares was a man unfortunately out of his time; he realized that Spain needed to reform, and to reform it needed peace. The destruction of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was added to his list of necessities because behind every anti-Habsburg coalition there was Dutch money: Dutch bankers backed the East India merchants of Seville, and everywhere in the world Dutch entrepreneurs and colonists undermined Spanish and Portuguese hegemony. Spinola and the Spanish army concentrated on the Netherlands, and the war seemed to be going in Spain's favor.

In 1627, the Castilian economy collapsed. The Spanish had been devaluing their currency to pay for the war, and prices exploded in Spain in the same way they had in previous years in Austria. Until 1631, parts of Castile operated on a barter economy as a result of the monetary crisis, and the government was unable to collect any significant taxes from the peasantry, depending instead on its colonies (the Fleet of the Indies). The Spanish armies in Germany were reorganized to "pay for themselves" on the land. Olivares, who had supported certain tax measures in Spain pending the conclusion of the war, was also blamed for an embarrassing and fruitless war in Italy (see War of the Mantuan Succession). The Dutch, who during the Twelve Years' Truce had made their navy a priority, devastated Spanish and especially Portuguese maritime trade, on which Spain was completely dependent after the economic collapse. The Spanish, with their resources spread thin, were increasingly unable to cope with the rapidly growing naval threats.

In 1630, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, one of the most capable commanders of the time, landed in Germany and relieved the port of Stralsund, which was the last stronghold on the continent controlled by German forces opposed to the Emperor. Gustavus then marched south, winning notable victories at Breitenfeld and Lützen, attracting more support for the Protestant cause as he advanced. The situation for the Catholics improved with the death of Gustavus at Lützen in 1632 and an impressive victory of the imperial forces under the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand and Ferdinand II of Hungary at the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634. From a position of strength, the Emperor approached the war-weary German states with a peace in 1635; many accepted, including the two most powerful, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Cardinal Richelieu had been a strong supporter of the Dutch and the Protestants since the beginning of the war, sending funds and materiel in an attempt to halt the strength of the Habsburgs in Europe. Richelieu decided that the recently signed Peace of Prague was contrary to French interests and declared war on the Holy Roman Emperor and Spain a few months after the peace had been signed. The more experienced Spanish forces scored initial successes; Olivares ordered a lightning campaign in Northern France from the Spanish Netherlands, hoping to shatter the resolve of the ministers of King Louis XIII and topple Richelieu before the war exhausted Spanish finances and before France's military resources could be fully deployed. In the "année de Corbie", 1636, the Spanish forces advanced south as far as Amiens and Corbie, threatening Paris and ending the war in its vicinity.

After 1636, however, Olivares, fearful of provoking another disastrous bankruptcy, halted the advance. The Spanish army would never penetrate again. Thus, the French gained time to mobilize properly. At the Battle of the Downs in 1639 a Spanish fleet was destroyed by the Dutch navy, and the Spanish found themselves unable to reinforce and supply their forces in the Netherlands adequately. The Spanish Army of Flanders, which represented the best of the Spanish soldiers and leaders, faced a French invasion led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé in the Spanish Netherlands at Rocroi in 1643. The Spanish, led by Francisco de Melo, were devastated, with most of the Spanish infantry massacred or captured by the French cavalry. The good reputation of the Army of Flanders was broken at Rocroi, and with it, the splendor of Spain.

The end of the House of Austria (1643–1700)

Family tree of the House of Austria and its relationship with the Bourbons.

Supported by the French, the Catalans, Neapolitans and Portuguese rose in revolt against the Spanish monarch in the 1640s. With the Spanish Netherlands effectively lost after the Battle of Lens in 1648, the Spanish made peace with the Dutch and recognized the independence of the United Provinces in the Peace of Westphalia, which ended both the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War.

The war with France continued for eleven more years. Although France suffered a civil war in 1648–1652 (see Wars of the Fronde), the Spanish economy was so exhausted that they were unable to take advantage of French instability. Naples was retaken in 1648 and Catalonia in 1652, but the war effectively came to its end at the Battle of the Dunes, where the French army under the Viscount of Turenne defeated the remnants of the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Spain accepted the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, in which it ceded to France Roussillon, Conflent, Vallespir and part of Cerdanya, Foix, Artois, part of Lorraine and other European strongholds.

Portugal had rebelled in 1640 under the leadership of John IV, pretender to the throne of the Braganza dynasty, in what is known as the Restoration War. It received widespread support from the Portuguese, and the Spanish – who had to deal with rebellions elsewhere and with the war against France – were unable to respond. The Spanish and Portuguese lived in a state of de facto peace from 1644 to 1657. When John IV died in 1657, the Spanish tried to wrest Portugal from his son Afonso VI, but were defeated at Ameixial (1663) and Montes Claros (1665), leading to Spain's recognition of Portuguese independence in 1668.

Philip IV, who had seen during the course of his life the devastation of Spain's empire, slowly fell into depression after having to dismiss his favorite courtier, Olivares, in 1643. He was saddened still further after the death of his son Balthasar Charles in 1646 at the early age of seventeen. Philip became increasingly mystical toward the end of his life, and ultimately tried to repair some of the damage he had done to his country. He died in 1665 before anything could be changed, hoping that his son might somehow be more fortunate. Charles, his only surviving son, was severely deformed and mentally impaired, and remained under the influence of his mother throughout his life. Struggling against his deformities, the expectations and the mockery of his family and the court, Charles led a wretched existence, which earned him the nickname "the Bewitched".

Charles and his regency were incompetent in dealing with the War of Devolution that Louis XIV of France waged against the Spanish Netherlands in 1667–1668, losing considerable prestige and territory, including the cities of Lille and Charleroi. In the Nine Years' War Louis again invaded the Spanish Netherlands. The French forces led by the Duke of Luxembourg defeated the Spanish at Fleurus (1690), and subsequently defeated the Dutch forces under William III, who were fighting on Spain's side. The war ended with most of the Spanish Netherlands under French occupation, including the important cities of Ghent and Luxembourg. The war showed the world how vulnerable and backward the Spanish defenses and bureaucracy were, although the ineffective Spanish government took no action to improve them.

The last decades of the 17th century saw complete decline and stagnation in Spain; while the rest of Europe went through exciting changes in government and society —the Glorious Revolution in England and the reign of the "Sun King" Louis XIV in France— Spain continued adrift and closed in on itself. The Spanish bureaucracy that had been forged around the charismatic, hardworking and intelligent Charles I and Philip II demanded a strong monarch; the weakness of Philip III and IV led to the decline of Spain. As his final wishes, the childless King of Spain wished that the throne pass to the Bourbon prince Philip of Anjou, instead of to a member of the family that had tormented him throughout his life. Charles II died in 1700, ending the line of the House of Austria on the throne of Spain exactly two centuries after Charles I was born.

Spanish society and the Inquisition

File:Francisco rizi-auto de fe.jpg

Auto-da-fé held in the Plaza Mayor in 1680 in the presence of Charles II. Oil painting by Francisco Rizi kept in the Museo del Prado.

The Spanish Inquisition was formally founded during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, continued by their Habsburg successors, and did not end until the 19th century. Under Charles I the inquisition became a formal ministry of the Spanish government that acquired a control of its own as the 16th century progressed. Charles also approved the Statutes of purity of blood, a law that barred access to many institutions and public offices to those who were not pure Old Christians, without Jewish blood. Although torture was common in Europe, the way it was practiced in the Inquisition fostered corruption and denunciation, and it became a contributing factor in the Spanish decline. It became a method for enemies, jealous friends and even quarrelsome relations to usurp influence and property. An accusation, even if largely unfounded, led to a long and agonizing process that could last years before reaching a verdict, and in the meantime the reputation and esteem of the accused were destroyed. The infamous auto-da-fé was a social spectacle, in which the penitents were publicly humiliated (the Dantesque spectacle of the burning of the "relaxed" at the stake was carried out in "braseros", secluded places).

If Charles continued the practice of the Inquisition, Philip II expanded it, and made religious orthodoxy a goal of public policy. In 1559, three years after Philip came to power, students in Spain were forbidden to travel abroad, the leaders of the Inquisition were placed in charge of censorship, and the importation of books was prevented. Philip vigorously tried to eliminate Protestantism in Spain, taking part in countless campaigns to eliminate Lutheran and Calvinist literature from the country, hoping to avoid the chaos occurring in France.

The church in Spain had been purged of many of its administrative excesses in the 15th century by Cardinal Cisneros, and the Inquisition served to weed out many of the more radical reformers who tried to change the theology of the church in the way the Protestant reformers wanted. Instead, Spain, just emerged from the Reconquista, became the driving force of the Counter-Reformation. Two unique strands of Counter-Reformation thought developed in Spain in the persons of Saint Teresa of Jesus, from Ávila, and the Basque Ignatius of Loyola. Teresa advocated strict monasticism and a restoration of older traditions of penance. She experienced a mystical ecstasy that proved profoundly influential on Spanish culture and art. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, had a worldwide influence through his emphasis on spiritual and mental excellence and contributed to a resurgence of learning in Europe. In 1625, at a high point of Spanish prestige and power, the Count-Duke of Olivares established the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid to train Spanish nobles in the humanities and the military arts.

The Moriscos of southern Spain had been forcibly converted to Christianity in 1502, but under the rule of Charles I they were able to obtain a degree of tolerance from their Christian rulers. They were allowed to practice their former customs, dress and language; and religious laws were laxly enforced. However, in 1568, under Philip II, the Moriscos rebelled (see Rebellion of the Alpujarras) after the old laws were imposed again. The revolt could only be suppressed by Italian troops under Don Juan of Austria, and even then the Moriscos withdrew to the mountainous areas and were not defeated until 1570. The revolt was followed by an enormous resettlement program in which 12,000 Christian peasants replaced the Moriscos. In 1609, advised by the Duke of Lerma, Philip III expelled the 300,000 Moriscos from Spain.

The Enlightenment mainly criticized the Spanish for their excessive religious zeal and their "laziness". Among members of the aristocracy, who enjoyed more security in their positions of power (unlike their counterparts in France and England, who were increasingly competitive), the argument of "Spanish laziness" could apply. The expulsion of the Morisco and Jewish workers certainly did little to help the Spanish economy and society, which depended on their labor and skill much more than the Christians believed.

The Spanish bureaucracy

The Spanish received an enormous influx of gold as plunder from the colonies in the New World when these were conquered, much of which Charles used to carry on his wars in Europe. It was not until the 1540s that large silver deposits were found at Potosí and Guanajuato and a stable source of income was obtained. The Spanish left mining to private initiative but established a tax known as the "quinto real" (royal fifth) through which one fifth of the metal was collected by the government. The Spanish were quite successful in enforcing the tax throughout their vast empire in the New World; all bullion had to pass through the Casa de Contratación of Seville, under the direction of the Council of the Indies. The supply of mercury from Almadén, vital for extracting silver from the ore, was controlled by the state and contributed to the rigor of Spanish tax policy.

Although the initial conquests in the Americas provided marked surges in gold imports from the colonies, it was not until the 1550s that they became a regular and vital source of Spain's revenues. Inflation —both in Spain and in the rest of Europe— was mainly caused by debt; Charles had carried out most of his wars on credit, and in 1557, a year after he abdicated, Spain was forced into its first bankruptcy.

A Spanish galleon, the symbol of Spain's maritime empire.

Facing the growing threat of piracy, in 1564 the Spanish adopted a convoy system far ahead of its time, with the treasure fleets departing from the Americas in April and August. The policy proved efficient, and was quite successful. Only two convoys were captured; one in 1628, which was captured by the Dutch, and another in 1656, captured by the English, but by then the convoys were a shadow of what they had been at their peak at the end of the previous century. Nevertheless, even without being completely captured, they were frequently attacked, which inevitably took its toll. Not all the maritime trade of the dispersed empire could be protected by large convoys, giving Dutch, English and French privateers and pirates the opportunity to ravage trade between the American and Spanish coasts and to raid isolated settlements. This became particularly savage from the 1650s onward, with both sides falling to extraordinary levels of barbarity, even by the standards of the time. Spain also had to deal with Barbary piracy in the Mediterranean and with piracy from the East and Dutch piracy in the waters around the Philippines.

The expansion of the Spanish Empire in the New World was carried out from Seville, without close direction from the leaders in Madrid. Charles I and Philip II were mainly occupied with their duties in Europe, and thus control of the Americas was carried out by viceroys and colonial administrators who operated with effective autonomy. The Habsburg kings regarded their colonies as feudal societies rather than integral parts of Spain. The Habsburgs, a family that had traditionally ruled over diverse non-contiguous domains and had been forced to delegate autonomy to local administrators, duplicated these feudal policies in Spain, particularly in the Basque Country and Aragon.

This meant that taxes, infrastructure improvements and internal trade policies were defined independently by each region, leading to many internal customs barriers and tolls, and contradictory policies even within the Habsburg domains. Charles I and Philip II were able to dominate the different courts through their impressive political energy, but Philip III and IV let it decline, and Charles II was completely unable to control them. Spain's own development was hampered by the fact that Charles I and Philip II spent most of their time abroad; during most of the 16th century, Spain was administered from Brussels and Antwerp, and it was only during the War of Flanders that Philip returned to Spain, where he spent most of his time in retirement in the monastic palace of El Escorial. The uneven empire, held together by a determined king who kept the bloated bureaucracy together, unraveled when a weak ruler came to the throne.

There were attempts to reform the antiquated Spanish bureaucracy. Charles, on becoming king, clashed with his nobles during the War of the Communities of Castile when he tried to fill government positions with effective Dutch and Flemish officials. Philip II met significant resistance when he tried to impose his authority over the Netherlands, contributing to the rebellion in that country. The Count-Duke of Olivares, chief minister of Philip IV, always considered it essential for Spain's survival that the bureaucracy be centralized; Olivares even supported the complete union of Portugal with Spain, although he never had the opportunity to make his ideas a reality. Without the firm hand and diligence of Charles I and Philip II, the bureaucracy became increasingly bloated and corrupt until, by the dismissal of Olivares in 1643, it had become obsolete.

The Spanish economy

Like most of Europe, Spain had suffered famine and plague during the 14th and 15th centuries. By the year 1500, Europe was beginning to emerge from these demographic disasters, and populations began to grow —Seville, which was home to 60,000 people in 1500, grew rapidly to 150,000 by the end of the century. There was a substantial movement toward the cities of Spain to take advantage of the new opportunities as shipbuilders and merchants serving the impressive and growing Spanish Empire.

Inflation in Spain, as a result of state debt and the importation of silver and gold from the New World, caused hardship for the peasantry. The average cost of goods increased fivefold in the 16th century in Spain, led by wool and grain. Although reasonable when compared with the 20th century, prices in the 15th century had changed very little, and the European economy was shaken by the so-called price revolution. Spain, together with England, was the only European producer of wool, and initially benefited from the rapid growth. However, as in England, a disentailment movement began there in Spain that stifled the growth of food production and depopulated entire villages whose residents were forced to move to the cities. But unlike England, high inflation, the burden of the Habsburg wars and the exaggerated customs duties that divided the country and restricted trade with the Americas stifled the growth of industry that could have provided an alternative source of income in the villages.

Sheep farming was practiced extensively in Castile, and grew rapidly with the rise in wool prices supported by the king. Merino sheep were moved annually each winter from the mountains of the north to the warmer south, ignoring the state-mandated trails that were intended to prevent the sheep from trampling the farmland. Complaints lodged against the shepherds' guild, the Mesta, were ignored by Philip II, who made good business out of wool revenues. Eventually, Castile became barren, and Spain was completely dependent on imported food which, given the cost of transport and the risk of piracy, was much more expensive in Spain than anywhere else. As a result, the population of Spain grew much more slowly than that of France; by the time of Louis XIV, France had a population larger than that of Spain and England combined.

Credit emerged as a widespread Spanish business tool in the 16th century. The city of Antwerp, in the Spanish Netherlands, was at the heart of European trade and its bankers financed most of the credit for the wars of Charles V and Philip II. The use of "notes of exchange" became common as the Antwerp banks became increasingly powerful and led to widespread speculation that helped exaggerate price changes. Although these trends laid the foundations for the development of capitalism in Spain and Europe as a whole, the total lack of regulation and the prevailing corruption meant that small landowners often lost everything with a single stroke of bad luck. Estates in Spain became progressively larger and the economy became less and less competitive, particularly during the reigns of Philip III and IV, when repeated speculative crises shook Spain.

The Catholic Church had always been important to the Spanish economy, and particularly in the reigns of Philip III and IV, who had fits of intense personal piety and religious philanthropy, large areas of the country were donated to the Church. The last Habsburgs did nothing to promote the redistribution of land, and by the end of the reign of Charles II, most of Castile was in the hands of a select few landowners, the largest of which was by far the Church.

Spanish art and culture

The Spanish Golden Age was a flourishing period for the arts and literature in Spain, spanning approximately from 1492 to 1650. In this era there emerged figures of the stature of El Greco and Velázquez in painting, or Garcilaso de la Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, Luis de Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca as far as letters are concerned. In America the poet Juana Inés de la Cruz stands out, the last representative of Golden Age literature in Spanish.

The most important architectural monument of the era is the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, ordered to be built in the reign of Philip II as a symbol of the universal Catholic monarchy, which, with its Renaissance yet austere style owing to the design of Juan de Herrera, sought to represent the summit of the Spanish Empire in its period of greatest splendor.

The most outstanding painters of the Golden Age may be El Greco and Velázquez. The former, active at the end of the 16th century, is recognized for his religious depictions. The latter is considered the most important of Spanish artists in the field of painting for his precise and realistic portraits of the contemporary court of Philip IV. In addition to these two capital figures, a large group of painters seconded them with similar merits: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Zurbarán or José de Ribera are among the first-rank painters produced by this era.

El Greco, trained in his native Crete and later in Italy, where he admired and learned the art of Michelangelo, arrived in Spain to cultivate a peculiar mannerism related to the ascetic and mystical spirit of the Spanish reality of the reign of Philip II and to the prose and verse of these currents in their literary aspect, in Fray Luis de León, Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross.

As for Velázquez, besides his court painting, his works on religious themes are appreciated, such as The Christ, those of the mythological genre, such as The Forge of Vulcan or The Triumph of Bacchus, and some have even wished to see in him a precursor of impressionism in the treatment of light and the loose brushwork reflected in his small paintings of the Villa Medici. But without doubt his masterpieces are Las Hilanderas, painted toward the end of his career, and above all Las Meninas, a painting that has produced long reflections, such as the one lavished on it by José Ortega y Gasset.

The splendor of Castilian letters began with the theoretical work of the humanist Antonio de Nebrija, who in 1492 published the first Castilian Grammar. From 1528 and with the poetic work of Garcilaso de la Vega, lyric poetry underwent an important change of course, adopting the Italian meter of the authors of the Renaissance and thus fully establishing what was to be the literature of the Spanish Golden Age, completely immersed in the themes and manners of the literary renaissance.

An anonymous realist work inaugurated the genre that was later called the picaresque novel: Lazarillo de Tormes. Its attention to social marginality and its implicit criticism of religious institutions and social hypocrisy gave rise to a series of continuing novels, among which the Guzmán de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán stands out. The genre was later widely imitated in France and Germany in works such as Gil Blas by Lesage or Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe.

At the beginning of the 17th century Cervantes wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha, the most universal work of Spanish literature of all time. Conceived as a criticism in the form of parody of the most fabulous aspects of the books of chivalry, the work that has been considered the starting point of the modern novel reflects the depressed reality of the Spanish countryside and manages to bring together all the narrative genres of the Renaissance to give them new form with an ironic and distanced perspective, not lacking, however, a deep knowledge of the essential humanity of the characters.

Also very important is the creation of the Comedia Nueva by a group of playwrights headed by Lope de Vega. His ability to connect with the public while at the same time creating the foundations for an integral development of Spanish theater earned him the epithet of the «Phoenix of Wits». Tragedies such as The Knight of Olmedo or comedies such as La dama boba cement his status as a classic figure of Hispanic theater. He had a worthy successor in the more cerebral and baroque Calderón de la Barca, who dominated the stage from Lope's death until past the middle of the 17th century. Life Is a Dream is considered the masterpiece of Spanish theater for its philosophical implications.

With regard to Baroque poetry, two figures, long considered opposites but today united in the aesthetics of the concept, dominated the lyrical hierarchy: the difficult and brilliant, but of unfading beauty, Luis de Góngora and the witty, biting and great creator of language Francisco de Quevedo. Juana Inés de la Cruz is the last great writer of the Golden Age. She died in New Spain in 1695. Glimpses of a vindication of the feminine condition and a culteranist language of great conceptual depth vouch for her poetic quality.

References

In Spanish

Black, Jeremy (2003). Atlas ilustrado de la guerra: Del Renacimiento a la Revolución, 1492-1792. Ediciones Akal. ISBN 84-460-0979-X
Braudel, Fernand (1953). El Mediterráneo y el mundo mediterráneo en la época de Felipe II. Fondo de Cultura Económica. ISBN 84-375-0095-8
Brown, J. and Elliott, J. H. (1981). Un palacio para el rey. El Buen Retiro y la corte de Felipe IV. Revista de Occidente: Alianza Editorial. ISBN 84-292-5111-1
Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio (1989). El siglo de Oro (siglo XVI). Editorial Planeta.
Edwards, John (2001). La España de los Reyes Católicos: 1474-1520. Editorial Crítica. ISBN 84-8432-266-1
Kamen, Henry (1997). Felipe de España. Siglo XXI de España Editores. ISBN 84-323-0962-1
Kamen, Henry (2003). Imperio: la forja de España como potencia mundial. Editorial Aguilar. ISBN 84-663-1277-3
Kamen, Henry (1984). Una sociedad conflictiva: España, 1469-1714. Alianza Editorial. ISBN 84-206-0064-4
Parker, Geoffrey (1988). La Guerra de los Treinta Años. Editorial Crítica. ISBN 84-7774-238-3
Parker, Geoffrey (2000). El ejército de Flandes y el Camino Español (1567-1659). Alianza Editorial. ISBN 84-206-2933-2
Parker, Geoffrey (1997). Felipe II. Alianza Editorial. ISBN 84-206-6365-4
Stradling, R. A. (1989). Felipe IV y el gobierno de España, 1621-1665. Ediciones Cátedra. ISBN 84-376-0823-6
Various authors (2000). Historia de la literatura española. Editorial Ariel.

In English

Armstrong, Edward (1902). The emperor Charles V. New York: The Macmillan Company
Brown, Jonathan (1998). Painting in Spain: 1500-1700. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06472-1
Harman, Alec (1969). Late Renaissance and Baroque music. New York: Schocken Books.
Parker, Geoffrey (1977). The Dutch revolt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1136-X
Parker, Geoffrey (1997). The general crisis of the seventeenth century. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16518-0
Wright, Esmond, ed. (1984). History of the World, Part II: The last five hundred years (3rd ed.). New York: Hamlyn Publishing. ISBN 0-517-43644-2.
Gallardo, Alexander (2002), Spanish Economics in the 16th Century; Theory, Policy, and Preactice, ed. Lincoln, NE:Writiers Club Press,2002. ISBN 0-595-26036-5.

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