The Catholic Monarchs

1474 to 1516: During the reign of Isabel and Fernando, the outstanding elements are:

1. The taking of Granada (that completed in 1492, January 2nd, the Christian Reconquest against Muslim rule in Spain.
2. The Discovery of America (12 October 1492) by Christopher Columbus.
3. The setting up of the Inquisition: a Tribunal that not only had religious implications, but was also an instrument allowing royal power to reinforce the authority of the State. The unity of Spain was possible after the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs in 1464.
4. The expulsion of the Jews. The search for unity did not stop with the final military gesture of 1492 but was prolonged in pursuit of religious and cultural uniformity, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews who refused to convert in the same year that the Reconquest was completed, and in the ensuing expulsion of the Muslims.
5. The pacification of the kingdoms. They tried to reinforce the state apparatus and royal authority to do so and they used the juridical and administrative institutions already existing. The Spanish monarchy appears then as one of the first modern states of Renaissance Europe.
6. An international policy of marriage alliances to consolidate Spanish power. The Spanish monarchy had a foreign policy influenced by the creation of a permanent state, served by functionaries and diplomats, shaped by a unitarian concept, which was both flexible and confederal, of the monarchical institution.

One of the most significant dates during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs was 12th October 1492: the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

The fact that Christopher Columbus (who was not originally Spanish) appealed to a foreign court to offer his services proved that the discovery of America was not incidental.

Portugal and Castilla (Spain) were well-advanced in the exploration of overseas mercantile routes and Sevilla, a wealthy and populous Spanish city, was by then an important commercial centre. We know that the African routes were closed to Castilla in favour of Portugal, In 1479, under the Treaty of Alcacoba, Alfonso V of Portugal renounced his claims to Castilla and recognized the rights of Castilla over the Canary Islands, while Castilla recognized the rights of Portugal over the Azores, Cape Verde and Madeira.

The Canary Islands were an excellent bridgehead for alternate routes. This is what Christopher Columbus offered and he offered it to a State that needed them, but which was also accustomed to and prepared for this type of venture. Unified Spain possessed in 1492 a powerful war machine, a solid economy, an exterior projection, naval experience including the exploration of trade routes and notable scientific-technical potential mathematicians, geographers, astronomers and shipbuilders who had been formed in a melting-pot of three cultures (Jews, Muslims and Christians). Its only rival was its neighbour, Portugal, which, as we know, had put a stop to Spanish expansion in Africa.

Columbus' offer was rapidly accepted in spite of his acknowledged errors. But during his journey to Asia his caravels unexpectedly came across the American continent.

The Spanish were especially well prepared by history to conquer, occupy, populate and exploit new lands and assimilate new people. America thus became the new frontier-land for those people used to its ways and with the military, diplomats and administrative arms at their disposal to face the challenge. By the middle of the 16th century, they had settled in the two most important viceroyalties, Mexico on the Atlantic, and Peru on the Pacific.

The rise and fall of the Spanish Empire

1516: On the death of Fernando of Aragon, the Spanish Crown goes to Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, who unites under a single sceptre the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, plus the Italian and European dominions of the Habsburgs.

1519: Charles is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (June 28th), which involves Spain in endless wars; the monarch confronts the Ottoman Empire, takes Francois I of France prisoner at Pavia and tries to solve the serious problem of the Reformation.

1556: Charles abdicates and enters the monastery of Yuste (where he dies two years later), dividing his dominions between his son Philip II and his younger brother Ferdinand I. Most of the Empire remains in the hands of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria.

1571: Don Juan de Austria, the half-brother of Philip II, defeats the Turks in the naval battle of Lepanto.

1588: Disaster of the Invencible Armada against England. The decline of Spains becomes more noticeable.

1700: With the death of Charles II, the dinasty of the Habsburg comes to an end and the War of the Spanish Succession breaks out, in which France, England and Austria are involved.

1714: The war ends. France imposes Philip of Anjou (Philip V), the grandson of Louis XIV, as king of Spain. Spain loses Belgium, Luxemburg, Milan, Naples, Sardinia, Minorca and Gibraltar.

The Bourbons and the Enlightment

Carlos II, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg, left no direct descendants, but named as his successor a grandson of his sister Maria Teresa and Louis XIV of France, Felipe of Anjou. Crown as King of Spain and the Indes, Felipe V was the first Spanish Bourbon King inaugurating with his reign the Spain of the Enlightenment, an epoch of hamonious foreign relations, reform and interior development.

The reign of Felipe V can be deivided into three clearly different phases: first, that of tutelage from France, then independence, and finally, that of an equilibrium with the great neighbouring nation.

1759 to 1788: During the reign of Charles III, the policies of the Primer Minister, Floridablanca, kept Spain out of the conflict in spite of a cautious intervention in the American War of Independence. Charles III carried out a profound reorganisation of the nation, reformed its agriculture and introduced the very latest in urban concepts from his native Naples. This was the time when Madrid was transformed from just another town in La Mancha into a modern city, replete with elegant buildings on a par with Paris, Milan and Naples. It was equiped with running water, a sewage system, street lighting and a court of great style and splendour.

Although there was considerable resistance to the introduction of new concepts at grass roots level, the nation's intellectuals were receptive to the ideas of the Enlightment and of Diderot's Encyclopedie. Spain began to produce architects, engineers, geographers and naturalists. Later, the democratic ideas engendered by the French Revolution were to reach Spain, though not to be adopted by the ruling or political classes.

After a brief period of enforced alliance with France, which cultimated in the British defeat of a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon's troops invaded Spain. The bloody six-year war which followed - the Peninsular War, known in Spain as the War of Independence - in which guerrilla tactics and a scorched-earth policy were applied, dealt a death blow to the Spanish economy.