Editing History of Spain (section)

====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]]]]