Weak, vacillating, swayed by his wife and his favourites, Philip III was yet morose and melancholy, and eventually turned upon Lerma, forcing him to retire to his country seat, but not until after the Church had made him a cardinal. The eldest son of Philip III succeeded him at his death, in 1521, which is said to have been hastened by the punctilious etiquette of his court, caused by delay in removing him from a fire, near which he had been seated by one of the attendants. As Philip IV, the new heir to the throne dabbled in disastrous wars to even a greater extent than his father, and he could not prevent being drawn into the vortex of that terrible Thirty Years’ War (1618–’48) between the Catholics and Protestants of Europe. It was a legacy, indeed, from his great–grandfather, Charles, who had been compelled to a truce with the Lutherans, when he would fain have exterminated them, eighty years before. This, the fourth Philip of the Spanish line, although called “Philip the Great,” must needs have a royal favourite in one Gasparo de Guzman, Duke of Olivarez, for whose misfortunes he served as a scapegoat. Olivarez began well, by executing a former sub–favourite, Calderon, and prosecuting Lerma for his fraudulent practices—a proceeding which has an aspect of grim humour, in view of his own subsequent venality and official corruption. He sent Spinola to war again with the Netherlands, that grave of so many Spanish soldiers; but the Dutch were now too strong for the mother of tyrants, and not many years after, in 1628, captured the Spanish treasure fleet, and in 1639 almost annihilated the Spanish navy at Dunkirk. He was scarcely more fortunate in Italy; he even ventured to match himself against that past–master of diplomacy and intrigue, Cardinal Richelieu, with a result that might have been expected. His tyranny and oppressive exactions raised a revolt in Catalonia, which lasted thirteen years; and it was about this time that Portugal threw off the coils which Philip II had wound around her and regained an independence which she has ever since retained.