Aragon: a bridge of blue sea (Book II)


Carlos I of Spain (Barcelona 1558 — Barcelona 1640)
called "the Great" (Spanish: el Grande, Catalan "el Gran"),
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

Christian IV's military effort was help by two elements: the monetary support of France and the mistakes of Ferdinand II. The Danish king marched south with a small army that was reinforced by mercenaries and his Protestant allies, as well as Mansfeld army, that left the Netherlands to join hand with the Danish king. To fight Christian, Ferdinand II employed the military help of Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman who had made himself rich from the confiscated estates of his countrymen.

Wallenstein began by defeating Mansfeld at Dessau. However, when he turned to face Christian, the Danish king was retreating towards his country after being crushed by Tilly at Lutter. With Wallenstein and Tilly marching towards Denmark, Christian sued for peace. The Treaty of Lübeck (1627) removed Denmark form the fight.

Then, as Ferdinand II was preparing his Edict of Restitution, he received news from Barcelona. Carlos knew too well that this Edict was going to make Germany to explode and help Gustavus Adolphus to enter the fray. Thus, as the lack of funds had crippled Christian's war efforts, Carlos threatened Ferdinand to cut any help, military and economical, to Ferdinand if he went on with his present policies.

Carlos knew that France could not financially support neither Sweden nor Denmark, and he also knew that Ferdinand depended too much of the Spanish gold from the colonies to go on. Tired of war, Carlos I had in mind a quite novel idea in his mind. Peace for Europe, never mind of religious ideas. First he would take care of Louis and then come to terms with Ferdinand.

The Spanish king, that was 69 years old by 1627, had grown weary of wars, and, in the last two decades of his life, tried to solve problems by diplomatic means. He saw himself as the "judge" of Europe, as the gold from the Americas (even if he was aware that so many decades of fighting were beginning to damage the economy of his empire) and the power of his Tercios give him the chance. And to prove it, he selected poor Louis XIV to make an example of what he meant.

While mustering his army, King Louis XIV had in mind an almost utopian plan. It was scheme of such dimensions that lesser men would find it impossible. Of course, Louis think otherwise. Before going south to hit hard Spain before turning west to break the Habsburg iron grip over the Protestants of Germany, he met in Paris with the German princes and proposed them a new Europe. He offered to his allies the chance to redraw the map of the old world completely. There were to fight a war against Austria and Spain as one until they gave in to the demands of the protestants. The goal was the liberation of the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns and the destruction of the Habsburg dominated Empire.

The idea did not please at all the German Princes, Bavaria among them. They liked to have France suporting them and they saw Louis as a way to counterbalance Ferdinand. But destroying the Habsburg and Spanish power would meant to be left alone with an allmighty France, and that meant just changing a master for another. Thus, the German princes promised little and aimed to fulfill no promise to the French king, while pressing Gustavus Adolphus to enter the fray.

Then the Spanish Tercios crossed the Pyrénees for the last time and Louis had to hurry south again. He took with him L’armée des Flandres (the Army of Flanders) to join the forces already deployed in the south, that is, L'Armée Royale (The Royal Army) was the largest of the great armies of France. All in all, Louis massed L’armée des Flandres (the Army of Flanders) under the King numbered 23,000 horsemen, 24,000 infantry and 200 guns. Against him Carlos mustered 32,000 cavalry, 26,000 infantry (includes 8,000 German mercenaries) and 260 guns.

The Spanish king was determined to bring the war to and end for good.

The battle began after dawn, Mary 19, 1628. The French army attacked, but the French infantry in the centre were bested by the Spanish Tercios. The cavalry on the French left was also thrown back. But the cavalry on the French right, under the command of Jean de Gassion, routed the Spanish cavalry opposite. Louise sense that he could attack the exposed left flank of the Spanish infantry and rout the whole army. Before he could react, the Spanish cavalry made a successful counter-attack to drive off the French enemies.

Then the Tercios began to move forwards. The rumble of the drums sounded in the eerie quite morning. The French guns fired at the stubborn Spanish squares, but the Tercios kept advacing. Louis send the cavalry against them. The Tercios stopped, readied their muskets and fired against the French cavalry. Despiste of the loses, the French horsemen charged four times against the tercios, unable to break their formation not even with their heavy artillery support.

After the last charge was broke, the Spanish squares resumed their advance, again, in silence, with the drums beating. When the Tercios lowered their pikes and closed against the French army, Louis soldiers began to loose heart. Part of the French army of Flanders fled from the battlefield, while those whoh remained on the field with their King repulsed two Spanish assaults until they were broken by the third.

Part of the French army, surrounding their king, withdraw in close order, still facing the enemy, with deployed flags, as in a parade, under the punishing fire of the Spanish guns.

The total French losses were about 15,000 dead, wounded, or captured. Spanish losses were about 4,000.

The French power was broken for good in the fields of Barrois.

Note: I'm sorry for the bit of, perhaps, excessive Spanishwank here, but I couldn't miss the chance of avenging Alatriste and Melo:D I promise to be less wankist and more logical from now on ;)

Great update and about apologies at least in my opinion are not necessary ...

Although you would have to correct a small typo (underlined ).

Maybe you should make a note to clarify his reference to Alatriste, Pérez-Reverte anti-hero of that maybe can be a bit obscure to some readers.
 
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Indeed, Xenophonte! Mistakes corrected, thanks!

Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, known as «capitán Alatriste» (Captain Alatriste) is the main character of a series of novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. They deals with the adventures of Alatristre, a Spanish soldier and man of fortune living in the 17th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Alatriste
 
Ah cool thanks for the clarification XD

I'm pretty sure we need a map :p But thanks Carlos for putting his foot down in regards to Ferdinand now maybe the HRE under the Habsburgs can finally settle down.
 

Carlos I of Spain (Barcelona 1558 — Barcelona 1640)
called "the Great" (Spanish: el Grande, Catalan "el Gran"),
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had been sitting on the fence for a while, trying to find the right moment to join the war aginst the Habsburgs. When the French army was defeated at Barrois, in spite of this, he decided to invade Germany and help his brethern in faith there.

Swedish forces entered the Holy Roman Empire via the Duchy of Pomerania, which served as the Swedish bridgehead since the Treaty of Stettin (1630) and advanced to the south. At the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), Gustavus Adolphus's forces defeated the Catholic League led by Tilly. This defeat forcerd Ferdinand to rely on the Spanish forces send by his more than reluctant ally. Gustav's success encouraged several other princes to join the cause of the Swedish king. During 1632, Hannover, the Hessian dukes, Brandenburg and Saxony were officially aligned against the empire. However, the Gustavus Adolphus was short of money, a constant of his campaign. Then, the reconstituted Imperial and Catholic League forces faced him again in the field.

In 1634 the Protestant alliance's army met the Austro-Spanish forces at Lutzen. The battle was a blessed defeat for Carlos, as Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein were killed in the battle. Two weeks later, Ferdinand II died. To this day, his death remains a mistery. His son Ferdinand was crowned as Ferdinand III. On 1635, the Swedish army was finally smashed by the Spanish-Imperial forces commanded by Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand at Nördlingen. By the Spring of 1637, all Swedish resistance in the south of Germany had ended. After that, the Imperialist and the Protestant German sides met for negotiations, which resulted in the Peace of Prague (1638).

The Habsburg Empire was at peace, finally. Ferdinand III did not force a draconian peace over the defeated Protestand princes. The Edict of Restitution was effectively revoked, with the terms of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 being re-established as at 12 November 1627. It allowed Protestant rulers to retain secularized bishoprics held by them in 1627. This protected the Lutheran rulers of northeastern Germany, but not those in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy. An amnesty was granted to those princes who had fought against Imperial troops, with the exception of the exiled descendants of Frederick V.
 

Gian

Banned
So Ferdinand II dies and his son takes his place. I actually hope he would be (at the very least) be tolerant of the Protestants of Bohemia.
 
Yes, he will be. I "killed" his father just because of that. I needed him making peace to avoid Germany becomig the Wasteland.
 

Carlos I of Spain (Barcelona 1558 — Barcelona 1640)
called "the Great" (Spanish: el Grande, Catalan "el Gran"),
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

The last decade of Carlos I's reign was marked by reforms. It began with the military. The feared tercios had proved to be too inflexible and outmoded in the face of the new Swedish and Dutch formations with a higher proportion of musketeers. Carlos attempted to address this weaknesses by first renewing the leadership. He also began to increase the size of his fleets, as he had already done in the 1620s. He now doubled again the size of the naval budget and ensured ministerial attention for the navy. In 1640, de Haro was personally involved in supplying and equipping the Atlantic fleet from Cadiz.

However, there were problems in his empire. The long years of wars in Europe had caused his reigns to become angered by the taxation needed to keep the armies on foot. When the war came to an end, the taxes were lowered, but the anger remained in place, as the privileged position of the Aragonese nobility at all senior levels of royal appointment was a contentious issue for the less favoured provinces. Thus, Carlos had to handle the Castillian issues with care.

Meanwhile, he had clear intentions to try to control the Spanish currency, which had began to become unstable during the reign of his father. However, inflation kept rising. Partly this was because in 1627 Carlos had attempted to deal with his problems with the Genoese bankers — who had proved uncooperative in recent years — by declaring a state bankruptcy. With the Genoese debt now removed, Olivares hoped to turn to indigenous bankers for renewed funds. For the time on, the plan worked well.

Then, in 1636 the Andalusian independentist conspiracy borke. It was an alleged conspiracy of Andalusian nobility for Andalusia to secede from Spain. The alleged architects of the conspiracy were Gaspar Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Ninth Duke of Medina Sidonia, and Francisco Manuel Silvestre de Guzmán, Sixth Marquis of Ayamonte. It has been interpreted that their intent was to lead an Andalusian uprising against Carls I of Spain and to install as monarch of Andalusia the duke himself, a member of one of Spain's oldest noble families, the House of Medina Sidonia.

In this strange event, Medina Sidonia and Ayamonte were arrested by the King. Carlos did not condemn them to death, but neither did he forget. They were exiled from court and never obtained permission to return to their Andalusian dominions.

With this odd chapter, the reign of Carlos I ended, as he died on July 12, 1640. He was succeded by this elder son, Carlos.

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Children of Carlos I of Spain & Margaret of Austria

Carlos II of Spain (1601-1643). Married Anne of Austria in 1615
Isabel, Queen of Portugal (1602-1644). Married Teodosio II, King of Portugal, in 1615
Enric, Duke of Girona (1607-1611)
Guillem, Duke of Granada (1608-1660) Married Marie de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier, in 1626
Maria, Queen of England (1609-1669) Married Charles I, King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland, in 1625
 
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Carlos II of Spain (Valencia 1601 — Burgos 1643)
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

Carlos II was hardly king of the united Spain for three years. A flamboyant character, he had trully believed that his father was to outlive him so, when he had given several possible heirs to the realm, he began a life of debauchery and excess that angered his father and shortened his life.

Thus, when he found himself king of Spain, he went pale with horror. He was lucky because he was married with the most formidable Queen that neither Aragon nor Castille had: Queen Elisabeth Sofie von Brandenburg (1605-1671) who, as soon as his father in law was dead, had his will annulled by the Parliament of Barcelona and the Parliament of Burgos (a judicial body comprising mostly nobles and high clergymen) and made her Regent of her husband.

To say that Carlos was more than happy with this arrangement it's hardly needed. He did not care if the world considered him to be mad, lazy or whatever. He could go back to his pleasures (hunting, dancing, sex and food), and so he did until his early death.

Meanwhile, his wife ruled. Isabel began with a warning: the exile of some of her husband's ministers and mistress and nominating his own men for the cabinet. Her mos important decisions was to nominate Cardinal Alonso Henríquez de Santo Tomás (1611 - 1672), as her chief minister, because of his ability and his total dependence on her.

Then, when Carlos died on 1643, Spain breathed in relief.


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Children of Carlos II of Spain & Elisabeth Sofie von Brandenburg

Alfonso XII (1621-1691)
Ana Isabel (1622)
Felipe, duke of Zaragoza (1624-1671).
Ramon Berenguer, duke of Sevilla (1625-1702)
 
The truth is, I wanted to write until 1690 or so, but I think that, by 1640, the story I wanted to tell was told, so... well, I'll try to write some kind of last chapter to complete the timeline.
 

Gian

Banned
The truth is, I wanted to write until 1690 or so, but I think that, by 1640, the story I wanted to tell was told, so... well, I'll try to write some kind of last chapter to complete the timeline.

Can I at least see what happens to the Bohemian Protestants in that last chapter.
 

Alfonso XII of Spain (1621-1691)
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

If the death of Carlos II had proved to be a releif for many, that his wife Elisabeth Sofie von Brandenburg was still alive and determined to make his will count proved to be a headache for many.

Alfonso XII was born in Valladolid. At the age of 23, when he became king of the united kingdoms of Castille and Catalonia, he fet terrified, as he hoped that his father was still to life for some more years. Thus, he felt awfully unprepared. Thankfully for him, he had his mother to help. However, his nobleman and his council didn't liked the idea too much.

If in his grandfather's days the royal court had been dominated by the earl of Denia, Alfonso XII began under the influence of his mother, who regarded it as essential that no noble faction was able to gain an influence over the king. Then she took care that his son behaved as a true king. Elisabeth, indeed, had too present the careless way of being of his late husband.

Thus, until the death of the Queen Mother (1671), everything kept quiet. From then on, the failures of Alfonso XII came to the light: he lacked the energy for the and fell back on personal favorites, whim, simple mulishness, and other devices to rule as an absolulte monarch but without having too much to do about it.

Meanwhile, Europe came back to normal. Bohemia began to recover from the war with the peace given by the Habsburg emperor that allowed Protestantism to survive. However, the large years of war had decimated the population, even more as many Protestant decided to abandon the country in search for safer areas, althought there was to be a return of the descendentas of those emigrées towards 1780s. However, Protestantism in Bohemia was to remain a minority, with less that 25% of its inhabitants professing that faith today.

Then, troubles in France kicked the bucket, as some would say.
 

Alfonso XII of Spain (1621-1691)
King of the United Kingdom of Aragon, Castille, Navarre,
Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.

Louis XVI of France has passed into history as one of the most important revolutionary leaders of France, even if his actions were aimed at the opposite objective.

An ultra-catholic, it had come to a surprise to his father and his kingdom, as he broke suddenly from his protestant origins and embraced the most extreme version of Catholicism. And to make it worse, he decided that, as he was the king, the kingdom would have to follow him. Ironically, he was applying a rule that had used the Protestant rulers to reform the religion of their countries since the Peace of Ausburg of 1555: cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion").

However, what it was right for the small German states, it was not so good for the French kingdom. Thus, when in 1665 the Edict of Paris was published, ending the political and religious freedom of the French Hugenots, a turmoil ensued. Louis excluded Protestants from office, constrained the meeting of synods, closed churches outside the estipulated areas, banned Protestant outdoor preaches, and prohibited domestic Protestant migration and Protestant-Catholic intermarriages . This discrimination faced a fierce much Protestant resistance and, for a while, there were fears of another civil war in Europe.

In 1671, Louis dramatically increased his persecution of Protestants. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio generally had also meant that subjects who refused to convert could emigrate, but Louis went even further by sending into exile to all those Protestants who didn't wanted to convert. Then, the Hugenots threatened to use violent means to defend themselves.

When France seemed to be on the verge of civil war, the Elector Palatine, Karl II died (1682) and Louis XVI pressed to have Louis's sister-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte, Karl's only family, to have her elected. German law ostensibly barred her from succeeding to her brother's lands and electoral dignity and Louis XVI resorted to war. Louis's actions were perceived as aggressive and created concern and alarm in much of Europe. This led to the formation of the 1683 Grand Alliance by the Holy Roman Emperor, England, Spain, Sweden, Saxony, and Bavaria.

The quality of French generals such as Condé's famous pupil, François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, duc de Luxembourg preserved France from invasion. By 1685 an stalemate had ensued. Both sides wanted war, but the Grand Alliance was determined not to have it with Louis XVI. As France became restless, a conspiracy began to take form.

Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, Marquis of Pomponne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, worried for the international situation, started to conspire against the king. As the war began to take a turn for the worse as the enemy armies massed along the French borders, there were increasingly loud calls for him to convoke the Estates-General, which had not met since 1614. Then, Pomponne, blocked the votation of the Liste Civile and Louis XVI saw himself force to call the Estates General.

Because it had been so long since the Estates-General had been convened, there was some debate as to which procedures should be followed and the Estates General began to be delayed. Then Condé's famous pupil, François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, duc de Luxembourg, was defeated at Landen (1684) and Louis found himnself without money to raise a new army. In this situation the Estates General began. Louis's attempts to control it resulted in failure. Politely, Pomponne told the king that, with another king, perhaps the Estates General would act otherwise. Flabbegasted, the king demurred for some days, until the duc de Luxembourg told him that "we have no army to stop the enemy if they want to conquer us".

Thus, on 20 June 1684, Louis XVI abdicated on behalf of his son Charles (1661-1722), who would reign as Charles X.
 
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Gian

Banned
Wait, unless I missed something, the French king is Louis XVI (aka the Sun King), not the XV.

EDIT: Goofed (again). It's actually the XIV
 
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