Editing History of Spain (section)

===Spanish Kingdoms under the 'Great' Habsburgs (16th century)===
====Charles I, Holy Emperor====
[[File:Emperor charles v.png|thumb|[[Charles I of Spain]] (better known in the English-speaking world as the [[Holy Roman Emperor]] Charles V) was the most powerful European monarch of his day.<ref name="Patrick2007">{{cite book|first=James|last=Patrick|title=Renaissance and Reformation|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=i6ZJlLHLPY8C|page=207}}|access-date=19 August 2013|year=2007|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0-7614-7651-1|page=207}}</ref>]]
Spain's world empire reached its greatest territorial extent in the late 18th century but it was under the [[Habsburg]] dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries it reached the peak of its power and declined. The [[Iberian Union]] with Portugal meant that the monarch of Castile was also the monarch of Portugal, but they were ruled as separate entities both on the peninsula and in Spanish America and Brazil. In 1640, the [[House of Braganza]] revolted against Spanish rule and reasserted Portugal's independence.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lockhart|first=James|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1048770408|title=Early Latin America : a history of colonial Spanish America and Brazil|date=30 September 1983|isbn=978-0-521-29929-9|oclc=1048770408|page=250|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

When Spain's first Habsburg ruler [[Charles I of Spain|Charles I]] became king of Spain in 1516 (with his mother and co-monarch Queen Juana I effectively powerless and kept imprisoned till her death in 1555), Spain became central to the dynastic struggles of Europe. Charles also became [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor]] and because of his widely scattered domains was not often in Spain.

In 1556 Charles abdicated, giving his Spanish empire to his only surviving son, [[Philip II of Spain]], and the Holy Roman Empire to his brother, Ferdinand. Philip treated Castile as the foundation of his empire, but the population of Castile (about a third of France's) was never large enough to provide the soldiers needed. His marriage to [[Mary I of England|Mary Tudor]] allied England with Spain.

====Philip II and the wars of religion====
[[File:Asedio de San Quintín.jpg|thumb|[[Battle of St. Quentin (1557)|Battle of St. Quentin]]]]

In the 1560s, plans to consolidate control of the Netherlands led to unrest, which gradually led to the [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] leadership of the revolt and the [[Eighty Years' War]]. The Dutch armies waged a war of [[maneuver warfare|maneuver]] and [[siege]], successfully avoiding [[pitched battle]]. This conflict consumed much Spanish expenditure during the later 16th century. Other extremely expensive failures included an attempt to invade Protestant England in 1588 that produced the worst military disaster in Spanish history when the [[Spanish Armada]]—costing 10&nbsp;million ducats—was scattered by a storm.

Economic and administrative problems multiplied in [[Castile (historical region)|Castile]], and the weakness of the native economy became evident in the following century. Rising [[price revolution|inflation]], financially draining wars in Europe, the ongoing aftermath of the [[Expulsion of Jews from Spain|expulsion of the Jews]] and Moors from Spain, and Spain's growing dependency on the silver imports, combined to cause several bankruptcies that caused economic crisis in the country, especially in heavily burdened Castile. The [[Great Plague of Seville|great plague]] of 1596–1602 killed 600,000 to 700,000, or about 10% of the population. Altogether more than 1,250,000 deaths resulted from the extreme incidence of plague in 17th-century Spain.{{sfn|Payne|1973a|loc=[http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne15.htm Chapter 15 The Seventeenth-Century Decline]}} Economically, the plague destroyed the labor force as well as creating a psychological blow.{{sfn|Elliott|2002|p=298}}

[[File:Europe map 1648.PNG|thumb|A map of Europe in 1648, after the [[Peace of Westphalia]]]]