The reign of Olivarez came to an end after twenty years or so of
maladministration, but Spain’s territorial losses went on under
his nephew and successor, Luis de Haro. All through the history of
these times there was always an undercurrent of war between France
and Spain, now one nation and then the other being victorious.
Hitherto the prestige of the Spanish soldiery had been sufficient to
hold the French in check; but Turenne took from them Roussillon, in
1642, and at the battle of Rocroi, the next year, the great Condé
administered a crushing defeat, so that their century–long reputation
for invincibility was shattered. Condé again defeated the famous
Spanish infantry at the battle of Lens, in 1648, and that same year
a final peace was concluded with the Netherlands. On the sea Spanish
ships were again defeated by the renowned Van Tromp, the same Dutch
admiral who sailed with a broom at his mast head in token that he had
swept the seas clean of his country’s enemies. Until this period the
transatlantic possessions of Spain had been kept intact, though many
coast cities and towns had been bombarded, and fleets of treasure
galleons destroyed; but in 1665 one of Cromwell’s admirals took the
island of Jamaica, and this was the beginning of such losses by Spain.
All these defeats, with but few redeeming victories, reduced Spain from
the once proud position she had held as dictator in European affairs
to become subordinate to France, her ancient enemy. By the Peace of
Westphalia, in 1648, Spain had suffered indirect defeat, as thereby the
Protestants had secured religious toleration, against which Charles
I and the three Philips had fought for more than a century. By this
peace, also, France and Spain were left the only combatants on the
field of European warfare, but in 1659 they came to terms by the Treaty
of the Pyrenees; France gave back to Spain her territory of Catalonia,
and Spain ceded to France Artois and Roussillon. Further, a promising
guaranty of the stability of this present peace was the marriage the
following year of the Infanta Maria Teresa, Philip’s eldest daughter
by his first wife, to the great king, Louis XIV of France. Six years
later, after a protracted struggle, the decisive battle of Villaviciosa
lost Portugal finally to Spain, at the news of which the king was so
affected that he swooned away, his death occurring shortly afterward,
September 17, 1665.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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