However rational and limited these aims and plans seemed in Spain, in the rest of Europe they appeared to show only too clearly the limitless ambitions of the house of Austria. The now habitual talk in Spanish court and military circles of restoring Spain’s greatness did not help to persuade Europe otherwise. Spinola’s and Wallenstein’s victories in the mid-1620s convinced the Spanish Council of State that victory against the Dutch was possible and blinded them to the danger of raising up new and more powerful enemies. Thus, they let the last chances of a favourable peace slip away. Yet, despite enormous sums sent annually from Castile to Flanders, the Spanish armies could not break Dutch resistance. They could not even supply their own provisions and ammunition without the covert help of Dutch merchants, who, in their turn, argued that this trade with the mortal enemy brought in the money needed to pay for the troops fighting this enemy. From 1630, when Sweden and France actively intervened in the war, Spain rapidly lost the initiative. The war was fought on a global scale, in central Europe and from the Philippines to Brazil. Spanish armies could still win tactical victories in Italy and Germany, but the number and seriousness of Spanish reverses, especially at sea, were now steadily mounting. The government of Olivares
Olivares was undoubtedly the most able politician directing the Spanish government since Cardinal Granvelle. The Catholic Monarchs, the emperor, and Philip II had kept the high nobility, to a greater or lesser degree, out of the central government. Lerma had reversed this policy, and Olivares could not go back on this position, although he bitterly lamented the incompetence of his fellow aristocrats and sharply reduced the overgenerous flow of royal patronage to them. He could—and did—develop a system of committees (juntas) of experts within the councils, which took over a great deal of government business and made its administration more efficient.
In 1623 and 1624 Olivares presented to the king and Council of State a number of memorandums that were nothing less than plans for a far-reaching reform of government and society on the lines advocated by the arbitristas. Like them, Olivares saw the need to change mental attitudes; in particular, he recognized the need for restraints on the aristocratic love of splendour and display, the need to appreciate the dignity of work and productive economic activity, and the need to end the economically harmful and morally indefensible mania for limpieza de sangre (Olivares himself, through his grandmother, was of converso ancestry). On the more immediately practical level, Olivares’s memorandums were concerned principally with finance, for, with an annual expenditure of eight million ducats, there was a deficit of four million. The count-duke proposed the abolition of some of the most harmful taxes, the millones and the alcabala, and their substitution by simpler and more-equitable taxes. Finally, he argued that Castile should not be expected to continue to bear nearly the entire cost of the war. Like Granvelle, Olivares recognized that the king’s non-Castilian dominions could be expected to share in the burdens of empire only if they could also enjoy its advantages—the honours, commands, and control over policy that had been all but completely reserved to the Castilians.
None of these plans was put into practice. The Spaniards were unwilling to change their mode of life and their ingrained beliefs at the behest of a royal favourite. Olivares did manage to arrange loans with a consortium of Portuguese Marrano (Christianized Jews) businessmen, but he was bitterly attacked for this action. The court itself gaily abandoned a short-lived austerity in the celebrations that followed the arrival of the prince of Wales in his romantic but abortive quest for a Spanish bride (1623). The financial reforms foundered on the opposition of vested interests to taxation by the Cortes and on the opposition of the whole Castilian ruling class to the plan for the decentralization of the empire. Just as had happened to Granvelle’s proposals, there was not even any serious discussion of Olivares’s plan. In the 1560s the result of this failure had left Philip II with no alternative but Alba’s policy of repression, which caused the revolt of the Netherlands; in the 1620s it left Olivares with no alternative but his Union of Arms, which caused the revolts of Catalonia and Portugal. The Union of Arms was a scheme for the creation of a reserve army of 140,000 men that was to be paid for by the dominions of the Spanish empire in proportion to their estimated resources. But the non-Castilian dominions disliked this proposal because it infringed on their liberties. They also distrusted Castilian intentions—and with good reason, for in 1625 Olivares had advised the king in a secret memorandum to “secretly plan and work to reduce these kingdoms of which Spain is composed to the style and laws of Castile.” The revolt of Catalonia
Apart from Portugal, Catalonia was the state with the greatest degree of autonomy. Its medieval form of government had not been changed since Ferdinand the Catholic had settled it in 1486. Its countryside, especially on the French border, was infested with smugglers and bandits and riven by local feuds. Its taxes were administered by the Diputació, a self-perpetuating and corrupt committee of the Catalan Corts that functioned during the long intervals between the meetings of that body. The viceroys, hemmed in on all sides by local privileges and without control over the finances of the province, were virtually powerless. In 1626 Philip IV summoned the Cortes of the realms of the Crown of Aragon. Aragon and Valencia reluctantly voted some money but refused conscription of troops. Catalonia refused everything. Nevertheless, Olivares published the royal decree for the Union of Arms. Subsequently relations between Madrid and Catalonia deteriorated rapidly.
As the costs of warfare mounted, the government resumed the inflationary minting of vellón coinage and had to declare yet another moratorium on its debts, in 1627. In 1628 the vellón coins were withdrawn, causing a collapse of prices and a recession. In the 1630s new taxes were instituted in Castile along with outright confiscations from private individuals, both of income from government annuities and of American silver imported in commercial transactions. Not surprisingly, Madrid was becoming obsessed with what it considered to be the injustice of Catalonia’s immunity from taxation. In 1639 Olivares opened a campaign against southern France from Catalonia. It had no rational strategic objective except to pitchfork Catalonia into the war. If the Catalans had to defend their country, Olivares argued, they would have to support the army.
Olivares’s logic was lost on the Catalans. The peasants, urged on by their clergy, refused to support the troops. During the winter the soldiers were quartered in the countryside. Soon there were clashes with the population, then riots and open rebellion. Too late, Olivares attempted to draw back and appease the Catalans. On June 7 the mob murdered the viceroy in Barcelona. The higher nobility and the urban aristocracies were still anxious for an accommodation, but the countryside was now completely out of control. The Diputació, which was the only remaining legal authority, was led by a strong-minded cleric named Pau Claris, canon of Urgel, located west of Barcelona, who was unwilling to make concessions. In the autumn of 1640 Olivares scraped together the last available troops and sent them against the Catalan rebels. Claris countered by transferring Catalan allegiance to the king of France, “as in the time of Charlemagne” (January 1641). French troops now entered Catalonia, and only after French forces withdrew with the renewed outbreak of the French civil wars (the Fronde) were the Castilians able to reconquer Catalonia (1652). The Catalan upper classes were relieved, for they had found the French even less congenial masters than the Castilians. Not repeating its previous mistakes, Madrid fully restored the liberties and privileges of Catalonia. The revolt of Portugal