Editing History of Spain (section)

===Decline under the 'Minor' Habsburgs (17th century)===
{{See also|Decline of Spain}}
Spain's severe financial difficulties began in the middle 16th century, and continued for the remainder of Habsburg rule. Despite the successes of Spanish armies, the period was marked by monetary inflation, [[mercantilism]], and a variety of government monopolies and interventions. Spanish kings were forced to declare [[sovereign default]]s nine times between 1557 and 1666.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Fernández-Renau Atienza|first1=Daniel|last2=Howden|first2=David|title=Three Centuries of Boom-Bust in Spain|publisher=Mises Institute|date=21 January 2016|url=https://mises.org/library/three-centuries-boom-bust-spain}}</ref>

Philip II died in 1598, and was succeeded by his son [[Philip III of Spain|Philip III]]. In his reign (1598–1621) a ten-year truce with the Dutch was overshadowed in 1618 by Spain's involvement in the European-wide [[Thirty Years' War]]. Philip III was succeeded in 1621 by his son [[Philip IV of Spain]] (reigned 1621–65). Much of the policy was conducted by the [[Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares|Count-Duke of Olivares]], the inept prime minister from 1621 to 1643. He over-exerted Spain in foreign affairs and unsuccessfully attempted domestic reform. His policy of committing Spain to recapture Holland led to a renewal of the Eighty Years' War while Spain was also embroiled in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). His attempts to centralise power and increase wartime taxation led to revolts in Catalonia and in Portugal, which brought about his downfall.<ref name="Elliott1989">{{cite book|first=J. H.|last=Elliott|title=The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=xsGfUv6l2PEC|page=601}}|date=1989|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-04499-7|page=601}}</ref>

During the Thirty Years' War, in which various Protestant forces battled Imperial armies, France provided subsidies to Habsburg enemies, especially Sweden. Sweden lost and France's First Minister, [[Cardinal Richelieu]], in 1635 declared war on Spain. The open [[Franco-Spanish War (1635–59)|war]] with Spain started with a victory for the French at [[Battle of Les Avins|Les Avins]] in 1635. The following year Spanish forces based in the Southern Netherlands hit back with devastating lightning campaigns in northern France that left the economy of the region in tatters. After 1636, however, Olivares, fearful of provoking another bankruptcy, stopped the advance. In 1640, both [[Portuguese Restoration War|Portugal]] and [[Reapers' War|Catalonia]] rebelled. Portugal was lost for good; in northern Italy and most of Catalonia, French forces were expelled and Catalonia's independence was suppressed. In 1643, the French defeated one of Spain's best armies at [[Rocroi]], northern France.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Friedrich|first=Carl J.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/463189393|title=The age of the baroque : 1610–1660|date=1962|publisher=Harper & Row|oclc=463189393|pages=222–225}}</ref>

{{Main|Spain in the 17th century}}
[[File:Traite-Pyrenees.jpg|thumb|right|Louis XIV of France and Philip IV of Spain at the [[Meeting on the Isle of Pheasants]] in June 1660, part of the process to put an end to the [[Franco-Spanish War (1635–59)]].]]
The Spanish "Golden Age" politically ends no later than 1659, with the [[Treaty of the Pyrenees]], ratified between France and [[Habsburg Spain]].

During the long regency for [[Charles II of Spain|Charles II]], the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, favouritism milked Spain's treasury, and Spain's government operated principally as a dispenser of patronage. Plague, famine, floods, drought, and renewed war with France wasted the country. The Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) had ended fifty years of warfare with France, whose king, [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]], found the temptation to exploit a weakened Spain too great. Louis instigated the [[War of Devolution]] (1667–68) to acquire the [[Spanish Netherlands]].

By the 17th century, the Catholic Church and Spain had a close bond, attesting to the fact that Spain was virtually free of Protestantism during the 16th century. In 1620, there were 100,000 Spaniards in the clergy; by 1660 the number had grown to about 200,000, and the Church owned 20% of all the land in Spain. The Spanish bureaucracy in this period was highly centralized, and totally reliant on the king for its efficient functioning. Under Charles II, the councils became the sinecures of wealthy aristocrats despite attempts at reform. Political commentators in Spain, known as [[arbitrista]]s, proposed a number of measures to reverse the decline of the Spanish economy, with limited success. In rural areas, heavy taxation of peasants reduced agricultural output as peasants migrated to the cities. The influx of [[silver from the Americas]] has been cited as the cause of inflation, although only the ''[[quinto real]]'' (royal fifth) actually went to Spain. A prominent internal factor was the Spanish economy's dependence on the export of luxurious [[Merino wool]], which had its markets in northern Europe reduced by war and growing competition from cheaper textiles.

The once proud Spanish army was falling far behind its foes. It did badly at [[Bergen op Zoom]] in 1622.  The Dutch won very easily at [['s-Hertogenbosch]] and [[Wesel]] in 1629. In 1632 the Dutch captured the strategic fortress town of [[Maastricht]], repulsing three relief armies and dooming the Spanish to defeat.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kamen|first=Henry|title=The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?|date=1978|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/past/81.1.24|journal=Past and Present|issue=81|pages=24–50|doi=10.1093/past/81.1.24|issn=0031-2746}}</ref>

While Spain built a rich American Empire that exported a silver treasure fleet every year, it was unable to focus its financial, military, and diplomatic power on building up its Spanish base. The Crown's dedication to destroying Protestantism through almost constant warfare created a cultural ethos among Spanish leaders that undermined the opportunity for economic modernization or industrialization. When Philip II died in 1598, his treasury spent most of its income on funding the huge deficit, which continued to grow. In peninsular Spain, the productive forces were undermined by steady inflation, heavy taxation, immigration of ambitious youth to the colonies, and by depopulation. Industry went into reverse – Seville in 1621 operated 400 looms, where it had 16,000 a century before. Religiosity led by saints and mystics, missionaries and crusaders, theologians and friars dominated Spanish culture, with the psychology of a reward in the next world. Palmer and Colton argue:
: the generations of crusading against infidels, even, heathens and heretics had produced an exceptionally large number of minor aristocrats, chevaliers, dons, and hidalgos, who as a class were contemptuous of work and who were numerous enough and close enough to the common people to impress their haughty indifference upon the country as a whole.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Palmer|first=Robert Roswell|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=oBpHvgEACAAJ|page=127}}|page=127|title=A History of the Modern World|date=1950|publisher=Knopf}}</ref> Elliott cites the achievements of Castille in many areas, especially high culture. He finds:{{sfn|Elliott|2002|p=404}}
:A certain paradox in the fact that the achievement of the two most outstanding creative artists of Castile – Cervantes and Velázquez – was shot through with a deep sense of disillusionment and failure; but the paradox was itself a faithful reflection of the paradox of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Castile. For here was a country which had climbed to the heights and sunk to the depths; which had achieved everything and lost everything; which had conquered the world only to be vanquished itself. The Spanish achievement of the sixteenth century was essentially the work of Castile, but so also was the Spanish disaster of the seventeenth; and it was [[José Ortega y Gasset|Ortega y Gasset]]  who expressed the paradox most clearly when he wrote what may serve as an epitaph on the Spain of the House of Austria: ‘Castile has made Spain, and Castile has destroyed it.’

The Habsburg dynasty became extinct in Spain with Charles II's death in 1700, and the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] ensued in which the other European powers tried to assume control of the Spanish monarchy. King [[Louis XIV of France]] eventually lost the [[War of the Spanish Succession]]. The victors were Britain, the Dutch Republic and Austria. They allowed the crown of Spain to pass to the [[Bourbon dynasty]], provided that Spain and France never merged.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lesaffer|first1=Randall|title=The peace of Utrecht and the balance of power|url=https://blog.oup.com/2014/11/utrecht-peace-treaty-balance-power-europe/|website=OUP Blog|access-date=5 July 2018|date=2014-11-10}}</ref>

After the [[War of the Spanish Succession]], the assimilation of the [[Crown of Aragon]] by the [[Crown of Castile|Castilian Crown]], through the [[Nueva Planta decrees|Nueva Planta Decrees]], was the first step in the creation of the Spanish [[nation state]]. And like other European nation-states in formation,<ref>{{cite journal|year=1978|last=Connor|first=Walker|doi=10.1080/01419870.1978.9993240|journal=Ethnic and Racial Studies|issue=4|pages=377–400|title=A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a...|volume=1}}</ref> it was not on a uniform [[Ethnic group|ethnic]] basis, but by imposing the political and cultural characteristics of the dominant ethnic group, in this case the Castilian, on those of the other ethnic groups, so they become [[national minorities]] to be assimilated.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sobrequés i Callicó|first=Jaume|year=2021|publisher=Departament de Justícia de la Generalitat de Catalunya|isbn=978-84-18601-20-0|language=Catalan|title=Repressió borbònica i resistència identitària a la Catalunya del segle XVIII}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=2006|title=L'Espill, nº 24|url=https://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/34591|language=ca|first=Antoni|last=Simon|pages=45–46|journal=L'Espill|issue=24|publisher=Universitat de València}}</ref> Nationalist policies, sometimes very aggressive,<ref>{{cite book|first=Ferrer Gironès|publisher=Edicions 62|isbn=978-8429723632|language=Catalan|last=Francesc|page=320|title=La persecució política de la llengua catalana|year=1985}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Benet|year=1995|publisher=Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat|isbn=84-7826-620-8|language=Catalan|last=Josep|author-link=Josep Benet i Morell|title=L'intent franquista de genocidi cultural contra Catalunya}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Lluís|publisher=Base|isbn=978-8418434983|language=Catalan|last=García Sevilla|page=300|title=Recopilació d'accions genocides contra la nació catalana|year=2022}}</ref><ref name=":03">{{cite book|first=Llaudó Avila|year=2021|edition=7th|publisher=Parcir|isbn=978-8418849107|place=Manresa|last=Eduard|title=Racisme i supremacisme polítics a l'Espanya contemporània}}</ref> and still in force,<ref>{{cite web|publisher=Plataforma per la llengua|title=Novetats legislatives en matèria lingüística aprovades el 2018 que afecten els territoris de parla catalana|url=https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/novetats_legislatives_en_materia_linguistic02_1571310685.pdf|date=June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=July 2021|title=Novetats legislatives en matèria lingüística aprovades el 2019 que afecten els territoris de parla catalana|url=https://plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/arxius/ambits-treball/Drets%20Ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstics/Novetats_legislatives_en_mat%C3%A8ria_ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstic-2019-ok.pdf|publisher=Plataforma per la llengua}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=December 2019|publisher=Plataforma per la llengua|title=Comportament lingüístic davant dels cossos policials espanyols|url=https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/media/upload/pdf/linguisticcossospolicials_1576579756.pdf}}</ref> have been and are the seeds of repeated territorial conflicts within the state.