SPAIN 



603 



the English and French possessions, the whole of 

 South America after 1580, the Philippine and other 

 islands in the East, and possessions in Africa formed 

 the first empire on which it could be said that the 

 sun never set. Philip had inherited the difficulties 

 and complications of his father's policy without his 

 father's ability. Dull, tenacious, yet irresolute, 

 the type of a conscientious bigot, ne lived ruth- 

 lessly up to his own ideal. He acted as the cham- 

 pion of orthodoxy in Europe ; wherever the faith 

 was in danger there would he protect it. He 

 eacrificed everything to this. And he ruled alone, 

 with no assistant body of councillors, with secre- 

 taries only. Well served he was by generals, 

 ambassadors, admirals, by great men in all depart- 

 ments ; he had the finest fleets and armies of his 

 age ; he never swerved from his purpose ; he did 

 not, like his father, retire when baffled, but died 

 working in his life's cause to the end. His return 

 to Spain in 1559 was marked by his presence at 

 the autos de fe at Valladolid and Seville. He 

 failed in his attempts on Tunis and Algiers, but 

 raised the siege of Malta in 1565 ; he put down the 

 rebellion of the Moriscos in 1568-71, and Don John 

 of Austria gained for him in 1571 the great sea-fight 

 of Lepanto, which stayed the advance of the Turks 

 in the Mediterranean. The action of Philip in 

 introducing the Inquisition (q.v.), popular among 

 the lower classes in Spain, but abhorred elsewhere, 

 the license of the Spanish soldiery, and the stern 

 rule of Alba produced a revolt in Glanders in 1559, 

 which led to the formation of the United Provinces 

 in 1609 (see HOLLAND). The abilities of the 

 regents and generals, especially of the Duke of 

 Parma, who took Antwerp in 1585, gave for a 

 time hope of reconquest ; but the loss of the 

 Armada (1588), and the diversion of Parma's 

 forces against France (1590-92), made the contest 

 hopeless. Henceforth Philip's power evidently 

 declined. A quarrel with his secretary, Antonio 

 Perez, led to an outbreak in Aragon and the 

 restriction of its liberties in 1592. His communi- 

 cations and commerce with the colonies and with 

 Flanders were continually threatened by Dutch 

 and English corsairs. Philip had introduced the 

 practice of raising money in Spain without consent 

 of the Cortes, which was no longer regularly sum- 

 moned. From ignorance of the true principles 

 of political economy the very wealth of Spain 

 hastened her decline. The false colonial policy of 

 the time, with its restrictions and monopolies, 

 gave all the profit of the commerce to contraband 

 trade ; the supply of only the precious metals 

 made gold and silver cheaper in Spain than else- 

 where and all other commodities dearer. Her 

 rising industries died away. The bullion left her 

 to purchase from foreigners things which she no 

 longer produced and for which she had nothing 

 else to give. Districts cultivated by the Moors 

 became desert, population declined, and both the 

 forces and resources of Spain by sea and land 

 diminished yearly. Philip II. died September 13, 

 1598, in the palace of the Eseorial. 



Philip II. had reigned alone ; with his son Philip 

 III. began the reign of favourites, which continued 

 with slight intermissions through both Austrian and 

 Bourlxm dynasties to the Revolution. The Duke 

 of Lerma was the real sovereign. The ability of 

 Spinola, who recovered Ostend in 1604, and of the 

 captains trained in the school of Flanders upheld 

 the prestige of the Spanish arms for a while ; but 

 her power was declining. The expulsion of the 

 Moriscos, an agricultural population, in 1609 

 weakened her still more. In 1618 Lerma fell from 

 power, but no improvement took place. Philip IV. 

 (1621-6.5) possessed some taste for literature and 

 art, but was as incapable of governing as his 

 father. In the Thirty Years' War Spain fought 



j on the side of the emperor, and her soldiers greatly 

 contributed to his success, but she had no share in 

 the profit. The government was in the hands of 

 the Conde-Duke of Olivares, whose ambitious pro- 

 jects and wasteful expenditure introduced corrup- 

 tion everywhere. All offices became venal. The 

 rights of the more independent kingdoms of 

 Spain were violated, bringing about the revolt of 

 Catalonia; the navy was almost destroyed by 

 the Dutch at Dunkirk in 1639; Rousillon was 

 lost in 1642; with the battle of Rocroy (1643) 

 departed the renown of the Spanish infantry, and 

 the military supremacy henceforward belonged to 

 France ; Naples and Catalonia rose in revolt in 

 1648. In 1655 Jamaica was taken by the English. 

 The marriage of the Infanta Maria Teresa to 

 Louis XIV. and the peace of the Pyrenees (1659) 

 assured to that monarch the supremacy in Spain 

 which had formerly been exercised by Philip II. 

 in France. After an inglorious struggle Portu- 

 gal and all her colonies were lost in 1640. The 

 reign of the childless Charles II. (1665-1700) closed 

 the Austrian dynasty, a period of degradation sur- 

 passed only by that of the Bourbon Charles IV. a 

 century later. Spain was considered as a prey to 

 whichever of the great powers of Europe could lay 

 hands on her. A brief war against France in 

 alliance with Holland lost Franche Comte. Spain 

 shared in the great wars of Louis XIV., but who- 

 ever else won she was always a sufferer ; and the 

 lack of a navy left her commerce and her richest 

 colonies at the mercy of the buccaneers. A first 

 treaty of partition of her dominions was made in 

 1698, followed by a second in 1700, after the death 

 of the rightful heir, Leopold of Bavaria, in 1699. 

 Contrary to his father's provisions, Charles left the 

 throne to the grandson of Louis XIV. This did 

 not avert the War of Succession (q.v. ) and the 

 losses which it occasioned. At the T>eginning of 

 the 17th century the Spanish armies were the first 

 in the world, her navy was the largest ; at its close 

 the latter was annihilated, her army was unable 

 without assistance from Louis XlV. to establish 

 the sovereign of her choice ; population had declined 

 from 8 to less than 6 millions, the revenue from 280 

 to 30 millions ; not a single soldier of talent, not a 

 statesman, remained to recall the glories of the age 

 of Charles V. and Philip II. ; the whole country 

 grovelled in discontent at the foot of unworthy 

 favourites raised to power by court intrigues, and 

 dependent on a foreign prince. 



The first of the Bourbon kings of Spain, Philip 

 V. (q.v.), was proclaimed in Madrid, May 1700. 

 He was accepted by the Cortes of Castile, but not 

 by Aragon or Catalonia. His rival, the Archduke 

 Charles, was supported by all the enemies of Louis 

 XIV. The theatre of the War of Succession 

 included Flanders, Germany, and Italy, as well as 

 France and Spain and their colonies, la Flanders 

 and Germany the English under Marlborougb were 

 victorious, but in Spain they fought with less 

 success. Gibraltar was taken by Sir George Rooke 

 in 1704, Valencia and Barcelona were occupied by 

 Peterborough in 1705, and Philip was twice driven 

 from Madrid. But with the aid of Berwick be 

 won the battle of Almansa (1707), and Vend6me 

 defeated Stanhope at Brihuega and Villaviciosa in 

 1710. The exhaustion of France, and the eleva- 

 tion of the archduke to the empire, led to the 

 treaty of Utrecht in 1712. Catalonia submitted 

 in 1714, and Spain was forced to adhere to the 

 treaty, losing all her Italian possessions, Sardinia, 

 Minorca, Gibraltar, and Flanders. 



Philip V.'s first care was to alter the law of 

 Spanish regal succession in accordance with the 

 Salic law of France, a change productive of serious 

 consequences later. Though during the war Philip 

 had shown much spirit, a constitutional melancholy 



