Carlos II
Charles II: Goyeneche’s past and the beginning of the War of Succession
Charles II, also known as “the Bewitched”, was born on 6 November 1661. He was the son of Philip IV and Mariana of Austria. Upon his father’s death, he inherited all the possessions of the Spanish Habsburgs, including Sicily, and he reigned as King of Spain from 1665 to 1700.
Of a sickly and weak constitution, and king at barely four years old from 1665, his mother acted as regent until 1675, entrusting the government to favourites such as the German Jesuit Nithard until 1669 and Fernando de Valenzuela. From 1677 to 1679, Juan José of Austria, an enemy of the queen mother, governed, and later, until 1685, the Duke of Medinaceli and the Count of Oropesa.
Crisis in the kingdom
The disastrous economic situation and the political and social crisis inherited from the reign of his father Philip IV, together with the inefficiency and incapacity of the rulers, worsened Spain’s critical situation—especially in Castile—leading to a series of currency devaluations that reached their peak with the deflation of the copper coinage in 1680 and the subsequent decline in economic activity. The royal favourites in charge of government did nothing to improve this situation; only the Count of Oropesa pursued a firm policy of tax reductions and restraint in public spending.
However, in the territories of the Crown of Aragon there was some recovery, as the internal crisis had fostered the decentralisation of territories through a neo-foralist programme and the development of independent economic structures.
During the reign of Charles II, between 1684 and 1697, three wars would be fought against France, despite the signing of a twenty-year truce in 1684 at Regensburg, which was broken shortly afterwards when an alliance was concluded between Spain, England, the Netherlands and the Empire. The last war ended with the Peace of Ryswick, marking a defeat for Louis XIV’s policy, which was beginning to show an interest in securing the succession to the Spanish throne for the Bourbons.
Charles II married for the first time in 1679, at the age of 18, to Marie Louise of Orléans, daughter of Duke Philippe of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV, and Henrietta Anne of England. Ten years later the queen died, and in 1690 the monarch’s second marriage took place with Mariana of Neuburg, daughter of Elector Philip William of the Palatinate, Duke of Neuburg.
However, Charles II had no offspring with either of his two wives, giving rise to the succession problem that resulted in the end of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty.
War of Succession
The final years of Charles II’s reign were marked by the monarch’s madness, the result of political pressure and palace intrigues, and by the succession problem, as a consequence of having no children. Faced with this situation, a struggle intensified to seize the throne and its inheritance. At first, the designated candidate was Joseph Ferdinand Maximilian, son of the Elector of Bavaria, but he died in 1699, and the problem of choosing between Archduke Charles, son of Emperor Leopold and great-grandson of Philip III, and Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV and great-grandson of Philip IV, arose once again.
The Court split into two factions: on one side, the queen supported the Austrian candidate, and on the other, Charles, who believed that only France’s support could ensure the preservation of the monarchy in all its territorial integrity. All of this led him to choose Philip, and without yielding to pressure he maintained his choice until the end, setting it down in writing on 2 October 1700 in the will he made a month before his death.
Therefore, Charles II died in Madrid at the age of forty, leaving a succession will that would provoke a war, the War of Succession, which would usher in a new dynasty in the Spanish monarchy: the Bourbons.
