Changes

With Philip IV, el ''Rey Sol'' Spanish power was expected to increase. In the Thirty Years’ War, which began in Germany (1618) between Catholic and Protestant princes, Spanish-Austrian victories followed one another. Denmark, Norway and Sweden were unable to offset the balance until, in 1635, faced with the enormous power of the Habsburgs, France entered the war, supported by the United Provinces (Holland), England and Scotland. The triumphs gave way to defeats (the resounding disaster at [https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocroi,_el_último_tercio#/media/Archivo:Rocroi,_el_último_tercio,_por_Augusto_Ferrer-Dalmau.jpg Rocroi] in 1643 was one of them). Spain is forced to sign the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) which meant its loss of territories, the recognition of the independence of Holland and the replacement of Spain in the European hegemony by a new great power: France.<br>

From 1621, the Conde-Duque de Olivares was the Royal favourite, who failed in his attempt to involve all the kingdoms of the Crown in fiscal and military policies ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA9QFRQtRBM ''Unión de Armas''], a military and administrative unification project), because the public finances of the kingdom of Castile had more expenses than incomes and it was impossible to obtain more money from it. American mines were exhausted. Military defeats were profuse. Portugal saw its possessions attacked because of the Spanish wars. Moreover, international credit was fleeing, as Spain could not repay the loans. This terrible situation gave rise to ''The 1640 Crisis'', with plots and rebellions in most of the kingdoms. In Catalonia, the abuses of the quartered troops was the excuse for some reapers (''segadors''), in the ''Corpus'' procession (''the Corpus of Blood'') to assassinate the viceroy. The Canon Pau Claris proclaimed the Catalan republic and offered the throne to Louis XIII, whose troops occupied Catalonia committing even more excesses. Barcelona was conquered by the king in 1652 but France stayed in the Catalan north Pyrenees. In Portugal, on December 1 (still a national holiday), the Duque de Bragança João IV, was proclaimed king after assassinating the Secretary of State Vasconcelos and arresting the vicereine. Portugal won resounding victories against all the Spanish armies and finally saw its independence recognised in 1668.<br>

In 1700, Charles II died, a physically and mentally handicapped king who had bequeathed the Crown to a grandson of Louis XIV of France. All of Europe rises up against a hegemony, this time of the Bourbons, who would reign in France and Spain. Once again, ''foralistas'' and autonomist criteria were confronted, defended by Charles of Austria, pretender to the throne, against the centralists of the ''enlightened despotism'', typical of the Bourbons. Most of the Crown of Aragon was in favour of the Habsburgs in a European Succession War that ended when Don Carlos inherited the imperial crown following the treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt (1713-1715), rigged by Louis XIV without consulting the Spaniards. Europe accepted the Bourbons in Spain in exchange for cutting down the Spanish European power, which resulted in the loss of Flanders, Luxembourg, Milan, Naples, Sardinia, Sicily, Gibraltar and Minorca, and in the commercial concessions to Great Britain in America. The new king, Philip V, issued the unifying [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTaq6N-xmoo ''Decretos de Nueva Planta''] (new administrative and tax organization). Among other provisions, the Cortes de Castilla incorporated cities from the Cortes de Aragón.