For years the struggle went on with varying military phases, but with the inevitable result of reducing poverty-stricken, idle Spain to absolute penury. Every device to raise more money was tried, and all in vain. Crushing taxes upon production, debasement of the coinage, confiscation, repudiation and robbery, were but weak resources to maintain a great foreign war by a bankrupt State; and unless Olivares confessed failure more money must be had. The Cortes of Castile was powerless to check the national waste, but the Cortes of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, were still vigorous, and resisted all attempts to extort money except by their votes, grudgingly given only after much haggling. Olivares had understood as clearly as Ferdinand and Isabel had done, that for the King of Spain to be powerful enough to cope with France he must control the whole resources of Spain. The bond of religious exaltation had dissolved, and could not be restored; but the unification on political lines might be effected by weakening the separate autonomous institutions of the outlying States. This was the plan of Olivares; doubtless a wise one if pursued patiently and cautiously in times of peace and in an era of interior reforms. But Olivares, like Ferdinand the Catholic before him, needed national unity in a hurry, in order to obtain resources to fight France, not for the purpose of making Spain a homogeneous peaceful nation,[225] and his reckless attempts to obtain money for his war with France by over-riding the autonomous privileges of Catalonia and Portugal, and extorting taxation without parliamentary sanction, precipitated the ruin that had long threatened. In June 1640 Barcelona flamed out in revolt against Castile, and soon all Catalonia, and part of Aragon and Valencia, had repudiated the dominion of Philip, and had made common cause with France. Six months later, in December 1640, Portugal for similar reasons proclaimed the Duke of Braganza king, and cast off for ever the yoke of Spain. Philip, plunged in his pleasures, as we have seen, was kept in the dark. The Catalan insurgents were for him merely a band of rioters, as Olivares assured him, who would soon be suppressed; and when Portugal proclaimed its freedom the minister had the effrontery to rush into Philip’s chamber with an appearance of joy, and congratulated him upon gaining a new dukedom and a vast estate. ‘How?’ asked the King. ‘Sire,’ replied Olivares, ‘the Duke of Braganza has gone mad and revolted against your Majesty. All his belongings are now forfeit and are yours.’ But Philip knew better, and for once lost his marble serenity. Blow after blow fell upon him. Starving subjects, a crippled trade, an empty treasury, and his richest realms in revolt: these were the results of his twenty years rule, and all he had to show was the hollow glory of battles gained far away in quarrels not his own.