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Spain Spain in Decline
The seventeenth century was a period of unremitting
political, military, economic, and social decline. Neither
Philip
III (r. 1598-1621) nor Philip IV (r. 1621-65) was
competent to
give the kind of clear direction that Philip II had
provided.
Responsibility passed to aristocratic advisers. Gaspar de
Guzman,
count-duke of Olivares, attempted and failed to establish
the
centralized administration that his famous contemporary,
Cardinal
Richelieu, had introduced in France. In reaction to
Guzman's
bureaucratic absolutism, Catalonia revolted and was
virtually
annexed by France. Portugal, with English aid, reasserted
its
independence in 1640, and an attempt was made to separate
Andalusia from Spain. In 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia,
Spain
assented to the emperor's accommodation with the German
Protestants, and in 1654 it recognized the independence of
the
northern Netherlands.
During the long regency for Charles II (1665-1700), the
last
of the Spanish Habsburgs, validos milked Spain's
treasury,
and Spain's government operated principally as a dispenser
of
patronage. Plague, famine, floods, drought, and renewed
war with
France wasted the country. The Peace of the Pyrenees
(1659) ended
fifty years of warfare with France, whose king, Louis XIV,
found
the temptation to exploit weakened Spain too great. As
part of
the peace settlement, the Spanish infanta Maria Teresa,
had
become the wife of Louis XIV. Using Spain's failure to pay
her
dowry as a pretext, Louis instigated the War of Devolution
(1667-
68) to acquire the Spanish Netherlands in lieu of the
dowery.
Most of the European powers were ultimately involved in
the wars
that Louis fought in the Netherlands.
Data as of December 1988
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