SPAIN. 543 



Agreeably to this determination, he resigned Spain and the Nether- 

 lands, with great formality, in the presence of his principal nobility, 

 to his son, Philip II ; but could not prevail on the princes of Ger- 

 many to elect him emperor, which dignity they conferred on Ferdi- 

 nand, the brother of Charles, thereby dividing the dangerous power 

 of the house of Austria into two branches ; Spain, with all its posses- 

 sions in Africa and the New World, the Netherlands, and some 

 Italian states, remained with the elder branch ; whilst the empire, 

 Hungary, and Bohemia, fell to the lot of the younger, which they 

 still possess. 



Philip II inherited all his father's vices, with few of his good quali- 

 ties. He was austere, haughty, immoderately ambitious, and, through 

 his whole life, a cruel bigot in the cause of popery. His marriage 

 with queen Mary of England, an unfeeling bigot like himself, his 

 unsuccessful addresses to her sister Elizabeth, his resentment and 

 fruitless wars with that princess, his tyranny and persecutions in the 

 Low Countries, the revolt and loss of the United Provinces, with 

 other particulars of his reigin, have been already mentioned in the 

 history of those countries. 



In Portugal he was more successful. That kingdom, after being 

 governed by a race of wise and brave princes, fell to Sebastian, about 

 the year 1557. Sebastian lost his life and a fine army, in a head- 

 strong, unjust, and ill-concerted expedition against the Moors, in 

 Africa; and in the year 1580, Philip united Portugal to his own 

 dominions, though the Braganza family, of Portugal, asserted a prior 

 right. By this acquisition, Spain became possessed of the Portu- 

 guese settlements in India, some of which she still holds. 



The descendants of Philip proved to be very weak princes ; but 

 Philip and his father had so totally ruined the ancient liberties of 

 Spain, that they reigned almost unmolested in their own dominions. 

 Their viceroys, however, were at once so ts rannical and insolent over 

 the Portuguese, that, in the reign of Philip IV, in the year 1640, the 

 nobility of that nation, by a well conducted conspiracy, expelled their 

 tyrants, and placed the duke of Braganza, by the title of John IV, 

 upon their throne ; and ever since, Portugal has been a distinct king- 

 dom from Spain 



The kings of Spain, of the Austrian line, failing in the person of 

 Charles II, who left no issue, Philip duke of Anjou, second son to 

 the dauphin of France, and grandson to Lewis XIV, mounted that 

 throne, in virtue of his predecessor's will, by the name of Philip V, 

 anno 1701. After a long and bloody struggle with the German 

 branch of the house of Austria, supported by England, he was con- 

 firmed in his dignity, at the conclusion of the war, by the shameful 

 peace of Utrecht, in 1713. And thus Lewis XIV, through a mas- 

 terly train of politics (for, in his wars to support his grandson, as we 

 have already observed, he was almost ruined) accomplished his 

 favourite project of transferring the kingdom of Spain, with all its 

 rich possessions in America and the Indies, from the house of Aus- 

 tria, to that of his own family of Bourbon. In 1734, Philip invaded 

 Naples, and got that kingdom for his son Don Carlos, the Sicilians 



vain attempt of bringing- mankind to a precise uniformity of sentiment concerning 

 the intricate and mysterious doctrines of religion. And here, after two year's 

 retirement, he was seized with a fever which carried him off, in the 59lh year of 

 his age. 



