One would think that peace might now reign between France and Spain, since Philip IV left his throne to a helpless child of four years, whose brother–in–law was King Louis XIV. But Louis the despot was a law unto himself. He no sooner saw the opportunity, with Spain powerless to oppose him, and his hands free in other directions, than he promptly sent his armies into the Netherlands. Alarmed at his schemes of conquest, England, Sweden, and Holland joined together in the “Triple Alliance,” which for a while held him in check, until they tied his hands again in 1668 by the Treaty of Aix–la–Chapelle. At the Spanish court, meanwhile, affairs were in a scandalous condition, for the queen regent was ruled at first by a German Jesuit, and later foisted into favour an agreeable young man who had been merely a page, and whose highest conception of pleasure was to occupy the place of honour at a bullfight. If it may be said of the reign of Philip IV that it was the most disastrous to Spain since that of King Roderick the Goth, little more can be claimed for that of Charles II, his son, who came into the succession in 1675, at the age of fourteen. Like all the issue of Philip II, he was weak almost to idiocy, and so superstitious that in later life he had himself exorcised for witchcraft. His uncle, Don John, at first assisted him with his counsels, but after his death a favourite named Eguya succeeded him, to be followed by the Duke of Medina Celi, then by the Count of Oropesa; and none of them laboured for the aggrandizement of Spain. By the Treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, and by the Twenty Years’ Truce of Ratisbon, Louis XIV should have abstained from further aggressions, but his mischief–loving spirit was not to be curbed. He invaded Catalonia in 1689, bombarded Alicante and Barcelona, capturing the latter, and acted in a manner altogether in keeping with the character of this treacherous and unfaithful monarch, whose long life is but a record of infamy. By the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, Louis unexpectedly gave back to Spain all the territory he had conquered, an act inexplicable until the terms of the secret “Partition Treaty” became known, when it was found that he had arranged for the partition of Spain, with the assistance of other powers, by which his son the dauphin was to have the bulk of the dominions, including the Italian possessions.