Spanish History · Chronicle V of X

The Spanish Empire & Golden Age

Monarchía Hispánica

The empire on which the sun never set: Cortés, Lepanto, Velázquez, and slow decline.

Span: 1492 – 1700
Entries: 15
Next: Bourbon Reforms & Decline of Empire

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Entry 1 of 15

1494
The world dividedPolitical
The Treaty of Tordesillas
Mediated by Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Spain and Portugal divide the unconquered world along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands — granting Brazil to Portugal and the rest of the Americas to Castile.
Meanwhile, elsewhere
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1516
Habsburg successionPolitical
Charles of Ghent inherits Spain
At sixteen, the Burgundian-born Charles of Habsburg — grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy — becomes king of Castile and Aragon. Three years later he is elected Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V, and a worldwide monarchy is born.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1521
Conquest of MexicoMilitary
Cortés takes Tenochtitlán
On 13 August, after a three-month siege, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán falls to Hernán Cortés and his coalition of Spaniards and Tlaxcalan allies. The lake-city is razed, the emperor Cuauhtémoc captured, and the empire of Moctezuma extinguished.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1533
Conquest of PeruMilitary
Pizarro executes Atahualpa
Six months after seizing him at Cajamarca, Francisco Pizarro has the captive Inca emperor Atahualpa garrotted in the public square — the famous 'room of gold' ransom paid in vain. In November the Spaniards enter Cuzco and the Inca empire passes to Castile.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1556
Philip IIPolitical
Charles V abdicates
Worn out by gout and forty years of war, Charles V hands the crowns of Spain, the Indies, Naples, Sicily, and the Netherlands to his son Philip II, and retires to the monastery of Yuste in Extremadura to die two years later.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1571
LepantoMilitary
Don John at Lepanto
On 7 October, the galleys of the Holy League, commanded by Philip II's half-brother Don John of Austria, annihilate the Ottoman fleet of Ali Pasha in the Gulf of Patras. Some thirty thousand Turks die in a single afternoon; fifteen thousand Christian galley-slaves are freed.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1580
Iberian UnionPolitical
Philip II inherits Portugal
After King Sebastian of Portugal dies childless at Alcácer Quibir and his great-uncle Cardinal Henry follows in 1580, Philip II claims the Portuguese crown by inheritance, takes Lisbon, and unites the two Iberian monarchies and their overseas empires under a single dynasty.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1588
The ArmadaMilitary
The Invincible Armada
Philip II's great fleet of one hundred and thirty ships sails from Lisbon to escort the army of Flanders across the Channel to England. Storms, English fireships, and dogged Dutch and English gunnery wreck it in the Channel, the North Sea, and off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1605
Siglo de OroCultural
Don Quixote, Part I
From a Madrid press in January appears El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. By summer the knight-errant and his squire are being recognised in the streets of Spanish cities; within a few years the book is translated across Europe.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1609
Expulsion of the MoriscosReligious
Philip III expels the Moriscos
Beginning in Valencia in September, royal decrees order the expulsion of every Morisco — Christian descendants of Iberian Muslims — from Spain. Over five years some three hundred thousand are shipped to North Africa, depopulating Valencian and Aragonese countryside.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1640
Crisis of the monarchyPolitical
Catalonia and Portugal revolt
In June, Catalan reapers rise against billeted Castilian troops and murder the viceroy in Barcelona. In December, the Duke of Braganza is proclaimed João IV of Portugal at Lisbon. The count-duke of Olivares's grand project of a unitary Spanish monarchy collapses.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1643
RocroiMilitary
The tercios broken at Rocroi
On 19 May, the twenty-one-year-old duc d'Enghien — the future Great Condé — breaks the Spanish tercios on the field of Rocroi in the Ardennes. The legend of the invincible Spanish infantry, undefeated for a century, ends in a single afternoon.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1656
The court of Philip IVCultural
Velázquez paints Las Meninas
In his studio in the royal alcázar of Madrid, the king's painter Diego Velázquez completes The Family of Philip IV — Las Meninas — a vast canvas of the Infanta Margarita, her ladies, dwarves, dog, the painter himself at his easel, and the king and queen reflected in a mirror at the far wall.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1659
Peace of the PyreneesPolitical
Peace on the Isle of Pheasants
On the river Bidasoa between France and Spain, the chief ministers Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro sign the Peace of the Pyrenees, ending twenty-four years of Franco-Spanish war and arranging the marriage of Louis XIV to the Infanta María Teresa.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1700
End of Habsburg SpainPolitical
The death of Carlos the Bewitched
On 1 November, the childless and physically broken Carlos II dies at the alcázar of Madrid. By his last testament he leaves the entire Spanish inheritance to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV — and the Spanish Succession war opens within months.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
7 more entries, to 1700

The Spanish Empire & Golden Age

The Treaty of Tordesillas

Charles of Ghent inherits Spain

Cortés takes Tenochtitlán

Pizarro executes Atahualpa

Charles V abdicates

Don John at Lepanto

Philip II inherits Portugal

The Invincible Armada

Don Quixote, Part I

Philip III expels the Moriscos

Catalonia and Portugal revolt

The tercios broken at Rocroi

Velázquez paints Las Meninas

Peace on the Isle of Pheasants

The death of Carlos the Bewitched