The revolt of Catalonia gave the Portuguese their opportunity. The lower classes and the clergy had always hated the Castilians, and the Portuguese aristocracy and the commercial classes—previously content with the patronage and the economic opportunities that the union with Spain had provided—had become dissatisfied during the preceding 20 years. They resented the introduction of Castilians into their government (1634), the ineffectiveness of Spanish naval support in the defense of Brazil against the Dutch, and the growing reaction of the Spanish colonies against Portuguese economic penetration during this period of contracting economic activity. Rather than allow themselves to be sent to fight the Catalan rebels, the Portuguese nobility seized power in Lisbon and proclaimed the duque de Bragança as King John IV of Portugal (December 1640). Madrid, with an aristocratic conspiracy in Andalusia on its hands (1641), no longer had the means to react. The last years of Philip IV
The disasters on Spain’s periphery were matched by continued mismanagement of Spanish finances at the centre. Once more the government tampered with the vellón coinage and then reversed course into a sudden and catastrophic deflation (1641–42). In January 1643 the Castilian grandees were finally able to force Philip IV to dismiss Olivares. The king now decided to run his own government. He dissolved the juntas, and the councils resumed their authority. Soon control of the government slipped into the hands of Olivares’s nephew, Luis Méndez de Haro, a clever but colourless politician with neither his uncle’s imperial vision nor his panache.
The defeats continued. In 1643 the French king’s cousin, Louis II de Bourbon (the Great Condé), broke the Spanish tercios and their reputation for invincibility at the Battle of Rocroi in northeastern France. Popular revolutions broke out in Naples and Palermo (Sicily) in 1647, and soon both cities were controlled by revolutionary governments. The excessive taxation, imposed for Spain’s war effort, had precipitated the rebellion, at least in Naples. The Spanish monarchy, wrote the Venetian ambassador to Madrid at the time,
resembled that great colossus that during an earthquake had collapsed in a few moments while everyone hurried along to enrich himself with the fragments.
In fact, Spain survived and even managed to hold on to much of its empire. The revolts of Naples and Sicily, directed as much against the local nobility as against Spain, were suppressed in 1648. When the emperor conceded French claims to Alsace and the Rhine bridgeheads, the “Spanish Road” to the Netherlands was irrevocably cut, and the close alliance between the Spanish and the Austrian branches of the house of Habsburg came to an end. With Portugal in revolt and Brazil no longer an issue between the Dutch and the Spaniards, Philip IV drew the only possible conclusion from this situation and rapidly came to terms with the United Provinces, recognizing their full independence and agreeing to stop overseas trade on the Schelde, a river emptying into the North Sea west of Antwerp (Treaty of Münster, January 1648). But Philip IV had not changed his basic policy. He wanted to have his hands free for a final effort against France, even after Catalonia had surrendered. Once again the temporary weakness of France during the Fronde confirmed the Spanish court in its disastrous military policy. Haro passed up the chance of concluding a very favourable peace in 1656.
The war dragged on, with England joining France, capturing Jamaica, and contributing to the Spanish defeat in the Battle of the Dunes on the northern coast of France (1658). The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) cost Spain Artois (now northernmost France), Roussillon, and part of Cerdagne. More important than these relatively minor territorial losses was the realization throughout Europe that Spain’s pretensions to hegemony had definitely and irremediably failed. The Spaniards themselves were slow to admit it. Philip IV had made concessions to France in order, once again, to have his hands free against the last unforgiven enemy, Portugal. There was no longer any rational basis for his hopes of success. All schemes for financial and tax reforms were still being blocked by vested interests, and the government again had declared bankruptcies in 1647 and 1653. Once more the Council of Finance issued a debased coinage to pay for the Portuguese campaign. But the Portuguese routed the last Spanish armies at Ameixial (1663) and at Villaviciosa on the northern coast of Spain (1665). Spain finally formally recognized Portugal’s independence in 1668. Charles II
For 10 years Philip IV’s widow, Maria Anna of Austria, acted as regent for Charles II (1665–1700). She allowed her government to be dominated by her confessor, the Austrian Jesuit Johann Eberhard (Juan Everardo) Nithard. It was weakness, rather than strength, that prompted this government not to summon the Cortes any more. But this policy paved the way for the introduction of effective royal absolutism in the 18th century. In 1669 Nithard was overthrown by Juan José de Austria, an illegitimate son of Philip IV, but the regent still managed to keep him out of the central government. In 1677 Juan José led an army against Madrid and made himself Charles II’s principal minister. This first pronunciamiento, or military coup, inaugurated a tradition that was to bear bitter fruit in the political life of Spain and Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Juan José himself planned some promising reforms but died in 1679. Thereafter, the high nobility dominated the government as effectively as it had in the days of Philip III, playing court intrigues, first with the regent and later with the two successive wives of the incapable Charles II. The majority of these aristocrats were self-seeking and incompetent. Some, however—notably Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo y Portugal, the conde de Oropesa—had considerable ability. They finally restored the coinage in 1680, though not before they had caused another catastrophic deflation. They established a committee for commerce that pursued orthodox mercantilist policies, encouraging trade and industry. They even took the unprecedented step of investigating the Inquisition and recommending a right of appeal to the secular courts.
Even though the woolen industry of Segovia and some other towns expanded and the imports of American silver, now routed through Cadiz rather than Sevilla, recovered at least in some years to about their former levels, a broadly based economic recovery still lay in the future. Until the mid-1680s the Castilian economy declined at such a rate that the French ambassador claimed to see an appalling deterioration between his two visits, in 1668–69 and in 1671–73. In the 1690s the Venetian ambassador characterized the reign of Charles II as “an uninterrupted series of calamities.” The population of Castile declined from about 6.5 million at the end of the 16th century to under 5 million about 1680. Figures for the whole of Spain followed a similar pattern, declining from 8.5 million to about 6.6 million. The reasons for this decline were not so much emigration to the overseas colonies, which averaged 4,000–5,000 per year in the 17th century, as military casualties from all causes, which averaged the frightening figure of 10,000–12,000 a year. More devastating still were the recurrent plagues and, perhaps, the sheer misery of the rural population, who lived on estates that their noble and ecclesiastical owners could not be bothered to manage with even a minimum of efficiency. The shortage of labour, especially skilled labour, and high wages attracted many foreign workers, perhaps as many as 70,000 Frenchmen. Nevertheless, Castilian industries continued to decline. The nadir was reached in the decade 1677–86 with crop failures, earthquakes, an epidemic that sharply reversed a slight upward trend in population dating from about 1650, and, on top of these natural disasters, the government’s deflation of the coinage. The French wars