I think the Selurong(which results from Northern Luzon accepting islam) will use Spanish Manila as a buffer against the Imperialist Bruneians, since Manila will give them an incentive to break their marriage ties with the Bruneians.
La republica comunera de Castilla (a succesful comunero revolt)
- Thread starter Padilla
- Start date
The Guzmán family, Gaspar de Guzmán and the 1612 crisis
Background of the merchant aristocrats
Castillian society of the XV century
After the end of the comunero revolt most nobles had lost their main source of income as feudal rights and the clienteral state in which nobles could obtain more land or titles through their service to the monarchy had been abolished.
Conquest of Andalucia
As the nobility in the northern part of the peninsula was weaker their influence was easily replaced by the institutions that alredy existed.But this wasn't the case on the south of the peninsula for historical reasons.Andalucia and La Mancha were conquered on a really short period of time compared to the rest of the Peninsula.King Ferdinand of Castille conquered hundred and twenty thousand kilometers squares in less than 20 years which was aproximatly 1/3 of all the territories that he ruled.As the land was so vast the land was splitted on massive states.This nobility in Andalusia was extremelly wealthy and as such started diversifying their revenues and invested in other affairs like commerce. This merchant nobility had a strong presence in Cadiz,Seville and Huelva and would be crucial for controlling the south for the young republic.
Merchant aristocrats
As such the laws of Avila would abolish the feudal rights that all nobles had but not their commercial rights.As such this nobles that obtained most of their income through commerce and trade were able to amass large furtunes due they concessions that they owned on the ports and trade of commodities like vinager and oil.
With time this former nobles settled in the major commercial cities of Andalucia depending on the trading rights that they had and started diversifying their sources of income .This lead to the creation of the first comercial companies which appeared due the laxer regulations that the republic had on overseas trade compare the old monarchs .The compañias were the first instance of a stock system being created,an idea of the Genovese merchants in Seville to get more financement.The stock of the compañias was owned by multple investors but as time went by the stocks concentrated mostly on the hands of this merchant aristocracy.
The main compañias at the end of the XVI century were the compañia americana which was controlled and founded by the Ponces de León,the compañia mediterranea and the compañia de las indias which was mostly owned by the Guzmán family
The Guzmán family
The III duke of Medina Sidonia was the head of the Guzman family and he was one of the most powerful members of the Castillian nobility.The III duke of Medina Sidonia had multiple sons and daughters from his first marriage which were Enrique Pérez de Guzmán y Fernández de Velasco, IV duque de Medina Sidonia, y Leonor Pérez de Guzmán, which all males would tragically die at a young age and from his second marriage the main sons would be Alonso which would become the V duque de Medina Sidonia, Juan Alonso which would be his succesor as he died without siblings and Pedro.
Alonso who would become the leader of the family during the comunero revolts at first supported king Charles but after burning the town of Medina del Campo and the support towards the revolt in his concejo he decided to join the revolt.This decission would grant him multiple priviledges after king Charles was overthrown and he managed to keep the priviledges of his father in the ports of Sevilla and Cadiz.Alonso,Juan Alonso and Pedro would join la hermandad de las marismas and would found amongst other people the compañia de las Indias.Alonso as the head of the house of Guzman would live in Seville,while Juan Alonso would rule Cadiz (later on making it the center of operations of the Guzman's family) while Pedro would move to Ciudad Morga for the family to have a presence on the city.
Pedro angry at first to the decission of going to the middle of nowhere accepted his role in the family and became one of the founders of the city with his wife Francisca.
After the purchase of the stocks of the compañia de indias to the Ponces de León the Guzmán family became the biggest shareholders of the compañia de indias which has had a meteoric expansion since its creation.
Marriage of Maynila
Under the Guzman's the compañia saw a slight shift from the spice trade to the trade of commodities with China.After aquiring the rights on Manila and securing Luzon through the marriage of Maynila (between Martin de Loyola y Guzmán and the daughter of Rajah Sulayman of Maynila) the compañia had obtained a permanent base for the trade with the Chinese that produced commodities that were on high demand in Europe.Despite this the compañia kept trading with the sultanate of Tidore.
The increase of the importance of the company fructificated in a significant growth of Cadiz and Ciudad Morga (which would be coloquially be known as Ciudad Guzmán due the power of the family there). This made the sons of Juan Alonso and Pedro amongst the wealthiest people in the Castillian republic.
Pedro's son ,Enrique, would have 3 sons. Baltasar,Jerónimo and Gaspar.
Gaspar de Guzmán
Gaspar de Guzmán
"Short,ugly,cripple,fat and with broad shoulders,but the smartest and most capable of my sons"
That is how Enrique de Guzmán described his third son to his relative in Salamanca Francisco Diego López de Zuñiga,after formally asking to take him in his house to pursue his studies at the university of Salamanca. Eventhough Enrique had the freedom to split his inheritance as he pleased the Guzmán family followed the old succession laws for their inheritance and as such Gaspar would be left out of his inheritance as Baltasar would inherit his properties and position in Ciudad Morga while Jerónimo would inherit and move to the lands that Enrique had bought in Ciudad del Cabo to stablish a strong presence there for his family.
As Gaspar would be left without any inheritance Enrique had the plan of making him a cardinal and a powerful polititian for the benefit of the Guzmán family.As such Gaspar would study theology at Salamanca.
From a young age Gaspar recieved an strict education compared to most aristocrats of the time.His father ordered him to spend 5 hours for general studies (theology,astronomy,history,law,mathematics or basic economics) while spending another 3 hours cultivating his phisique hunting,riding horses or swimming.
At the age of 8 he felt from his horse and became lame which stopped his physical training which made his father change his scheduale to focus those 3 hours in studying literature and art which he would become really fond of.
In 1601 he moved to Salamanca to start his eclesiastical carrer,settling in the house of his uncle Francisco.His teachers were impressed of his knowledge,his rhetoric and inteligence and with the influence of his uncle Francisco who was one of the most powerful men in Salamanca he became one of the rectors of the university at the yound age of 15.Gaspar's teachers were convinced that he could become a cardinal and a great expert on law which they comunicated to his father that would start sending gifts to the Pope from that point on.But something that Enrique hadn't taken into account was Gaspar's interest in women.
Gaspar had always been the most godfearing of his sons and he had never had any lover or concubine unlike his siblings that were alredy having bastards at the young age of 14.After his injury Gaspar believed that no women would ever appreciate him as he was always reminded how ugly he was by his family.But after one of the debates that he had amongst his uncle's friends ,that had grown found fond of Gaspar's opinion and rhetoric, he meet María Hernandez Perez the daughter of the treasurer of the comunidad de Salamanca.
Gaspar would describe María to his dad as "A woman of great beauty and inteligence".As most wealthy women in Salamanca María recieved an education that most men or women wouldn't recieve.The people of Salamanca had grown to value intelectual matters much more than the people of the rest of Castile and as such it was crucial for any social event for every member of the family to be able to hold a conversation of substance.Eventhough some women found this education and tedious María greatly enjoyed her classes and usually participated in debates for men.When she heard Gaspar she quickly grew an interest on him as his rhetoric and knowledge were impressive specially for his age and they started seeing each other.At the age of 17 Gaspar would ask Maria´s father for her hand to marry her which he gladly accepted.
Eventhough his uncle and his friends were happy about the arrangement Enrique was greatly angered when he heared the news and would later declare that he only had 2 sons and none was in Castile.
Alonso Perez de Guzmán
Gaspar after dropped his eclessiastical carrer and stopping recieving his father's payment moved with María to Cadiz were the head of the Guzmán family Alonso Pérez de Gúzman offered him a job as his secretary.
Gaspar would quickly become the right hand of his relative due his knowledge in law and economics and his unquestionable work ethic.Soon Gaspar would have a sit in the concejo of Palos and Niebla were he was known for his rhetoric and achieving for the first time in 37 years to break the old republicans reign in the comunidad appointing his cousin as the regidor of the comunidad.This years were the best years of Gaspar's life.Personally he had his first daughter María (1607).Professionally he was the most prominent polititian of Cadiz that had become the capital of Palos and Niebla after the construction of its cathedral that had been privatly financed by the Guzmán family.He had also managed to improve the relationship between the Guzmán family and the Ponce de León one creating el consorcio del mar in which multiple compañias would discuss posible ways to cooperate and to share common information.
After the emperor Charles the VI declared the war to Castile Gaspar managed to raise founds for the war effort which were crucial for the defence of Veracruz and la Habana.During the plagues of 1611 María felt ill and died soonly when she was pregnant of 7 months and his son died with her in which Alonso Perez de Gumán wrote to his son:"I will never forget the sadness and how misserable my dear nephew was that day.I entered in his office and he was working as usual he was crying and sobbing "it was a boy María.A boy"".
Despite his personal trouble Gaspar kept working for the republic during the war against the emperor and when news came about the peace treaty Gaspar was enraged and called a meeting of the consorcio del mar.
The 1612 crisis
After the news that Florida and all the antilles except Cuba had been given away after just 2 years of war the general opinion about the junta was an all time law.The decadence of the republic was papable and a lot of people saw that all the holdings of the republic and the existance of it would dissapear in their lifetimes.As people saw the situation as critical a lot of powerful and wealthy men from Castille started to act.The hermandad de las marismas called the combention of Aranda in which all the arbitristas were called to discuss possible solutions for the republic.
The most important meeting would be the calling of the consorcio del mar in which the richest merchants of the republic met and discussed the war.At the end after a brilliant speech by Gaspar de Guzmán which concluded with "¿Roma o Italia?" were all the members started chanting "Rome,Rome,Rome!" were the merchants decided that the status quo wasn't acceptable.
After their decission the consorcio del mar and its president, Gaspar de Guzmán, met with the regidores of all the comunidades at what would later be known as the reunión de los concejos in which Gaspar managed to convince the members of 12 out of the 15 comunidades to activate the state of emergency that Vitoria had provided during his reign and on the 12 of Octuber of 1612 Gaspar entered with an army and the letter signed by the regidores to the junta dissolving it and proclaiming himself director general de los asuntos de estado after giving and speech to the representatives of the junta and burning a replika of the laws of Ávila.
Director general de los asuntos de estado Gaspar de Guzmán
Castillian society of the XV century
After the end of the comunero revolt most nobles had lost their main source of income as feudal rights and the clienteral state in which nobles could obtain more land or titles through their service to the monarchy had been abolished.
Conquest of Andalucia
Merchant aristocrats
As such the laws of Avila would abolish the feudal rights that all nobles had but not their commercial rights.As such this nobles that obtained most of their income through commerce and trade were able to amass large furtunes due they concessions that they owned on the ports and trade of commodities like vinager and oil.
With time this former nobles settled in the major commercial cities of Andalucia depending on the trading rights that they had and started diversifying their sources of income .This lead to the creation of the first comercial companies which appeared due the laxer regulations that the republic had on overseas trade compare the old monarchs .The compañias were the first instance of a stock system being created,an idea of the Genovese merchants in Seville to get more financement.The stock of the compañias was owned by multple investors but as time went by the stocks concentrated mostly on the hands of this merchant aristocracy.
The main compañias at the end of the XVI century were the compañia americana which was controlled and founded by the Ponces de León,the compañia mediterranea and the compañia de las indias which was mostly owned by the Guzmán family
The Guzmán family
Alonso who would become the leader of the family during the comunero revolts at first supported king Charles but after burning the town of Medina del Campo and the support towards the revolt in his concejo he decided to join the revolt.This decission would grant him multiple priviledges after king Charles was overthrown and he managed to keep the priviledges of his father in the ports of Sevilla and Cadiz.Alonso,Juan Alonso and Pedro would join la hermandad de las marismas and would found amongst other people the compañia de las Indias.Alonso as the head of the house of Guzman would live in Seville,while Juan Alonso would rule Cadiz (later on making it the center of operations of the Guzman's family) while Pedro would move to Ciudad Morga for the family to have a presence on the city.
Pedro angry at first to the decission of going to the middle of nowhere accepted his role in the family and became one of the founders of the city with his wife Francisca.
After the purchase of the stocks of the compañia de indias to the Ponces de León the Guzmán family became the biggest shareholders of the compañia de indias which has had a meteoric expansion since its creation.
Marriage of Maynila
The increase of the importance of the company fructificated in a significant growth of Cadiz and Ciudad Morga (which would be coloquially be known as Ciudad Guzmán due the power of the family there). This made the sons of Juan Alonso and Pedro amongst the wealthiest people in the Castillian republic.
Pedro's son ,Enrique, would have 3 sons. Baltasar,Jerónimo and Gaspar.
Gaspar de Guzmán
Gaspar de Guzmán
"Short,ugly,cripple,fat and with broad shoulders,but the smartest and most capable of my sons"
That is how Enrique de Guzmán described his third son to his relative in Salamanca Francisco Diego López de Zuñiga,after formally asking to take him in his house to pursue his studies at the university of Salamanca. Eventhough Enrique had the freedom to split his inheritance as he pleased the Guzmán family followed the old succession laws for their inheritance and as such Gaspar would be left out of his inheritance as Baltasar would inherit his properties and position in Ciudad Morga while Jerónimo would inherit and move to the lands that Enrique had bought in Ciudad del Cabo to stablish a strong presence there for his family.
As Gaspar would be left without any inheritance Enrique had the plan of making him a cardinal and a powerful polititian for the benefit of the Guzmán family.As such Gaspar would study theology at Salamanca.
From a young age Gaspar recieved an strict education compared to most aristocrats of the time.His father ordered him to spend 5 hours for general studies (theology,astronomy,history,law,mathematics or basic economics) while spending another 3 hours cultivating his phisique hunting,riding horses or swimming.
At the age of 8 he felt from his horse and became lame which stopped his physical training which made his father change his scheduale to focus those 3 hours in studying literature and art which he would become really fond of.
In 1601 he moved to Salamanca to start his eclesiastical carrer,settling in the house of his uncle Francisco.His teachers were impressed of his knowledge,his rhetoric and inteligence and with the influence of his uncle Francisco who was one of the most powerful men in Salamanca he became one of the rectors of the university at the yound age of 15.Gaspar's teachers were convinced that he could become a cardinal and a great expert on law which they comunicated to his father that would start sending gifts to the Pope from that point on.But something that Enrique hadn't taken into account was Gaspar's interest in women.
Gaspar had always been the most godfearing of his sons and he had never had any lover or concubine unlike his siblings that were alredy having bastards at the young age of 14.After his injury Gaspar believed that no women would ever appreciate him as he was always reminded how ugly he was by his family.But after one of the debates that he had amongst his uncle's friends ,that had grown found fond of Gaspar's opinion and rhetoric, he meet María Hernandez Perez the daughter of the treasurer of the comunidad de Salamanca.
Gaspar would describe María to his dad as "A woman of great beauty and inteligence".As most wealthy women in Salamanca María recieved an education that most men or women wouldn't recieve.The people of Salamanca had grown to value intelectual matters much more than the people of the rest of Castile and as such it was crucial for any social event for every member of the family to be able to hold a conversation of substance.Eventhough some women found this education and tedious María greatly enjoyed her classes and usually participated in debates for men.When she heard Gaspar she quickly grew an interest on him as his rhetoric and knowledge were impressive specially for his age and they started seeing each other.At the age of 17 Gaspar would ask Maria´s father for her hand to marry her which he gladly accepted.
Eventhough his uncle and his friends were happy about the arrangement Enrique was greatly angered when he heared the news and would later declare that he only had 2 sons and none was in Castile.
Alonso Perez de Guzmán
Gaspar after dropped his eclessiastical carrer and stopping recieving his father's payment moved with María to Cadiz were the head of the Guzmán family Alonso Pérez de Gúzman offered him a job as his secretary.
Gaspar would quickly become the right hand of his relative due his knowledge in law and economics and his unquestionable work ethic.Soon Gaspar would have a sit in the concejo of Palos and Niebla were he was known for his rhetoric and achieving for the first time in 37 years to break the old republicans reign in the comunidad appointing his cousin as the regidor of the comunidad.This years were the best years of Gaspar's life.Personally he had his first daughter María (1607).Professionally he was the most prominent polititian of Cadiz that had become the capital of Palos and Niebla after the construction of its cathedral that had been privatly financed by the Guzmán family.He had also managed to improve the relationship between the Guzmán family and the Ponce de León one creating el consorcio del mar in which multiple compañias would discuss posible ways to cooperate and to share common information.
After the emperor Charles the VI declared the war to Castile Gaspar managed to raise founds for the war effort which were crucial for the defence of Veracruz and la Habana.During the plagues of 1611 María felt ill and died soonly when she was pregnant of 7 months and his son died with her in which Alonso Perez de Gumán wrote to his son:"I will never forget the sadness and how misserable my dear nephew was that day.I entered in his office and he was working as usual he was crying and sobbing "it was a boy María.A boy"".
Despite his personal trouble Gaspar kept working for the republic during the war against the emperor and when news came about the peace treaty Gaspar was enraged and called a meeting of the consorcio del mar.
The 1612 crisis
After the news that Florida and all the antilles except Cuba had been given away after just 2 years of war the general opinion about the junta was an all time law.The decadence of the republic was papable and a lot of people saw that all the holdings of the republic and the existance of it would dissapear in their lifetimes.As people saw the situation as critical a lot of powerful and wealthy men from Castille started to act.The hermandad de las marismas called the combention of Aranda in which all the arbitristas were called to discuss possible solutions for the republic.
The most important meeting would be the calling of the consorcio del mar in which the richest merchants of the republic met and discussed the war.At the end after a brilliant speech by Gaspar de Guzmán which concluded with "¿Roma o Italia?" were all the members started chanting "Rome,Rome,Rome!" were the merchants decided that the status quo wasn't acceptable.
After their decission the consorcio del mar and its president, Gaspar de Guzmán, met with the regidores of all the comunidades at what would later be known as the reunión de los concejos in which Gaspar managed to convince the members of 12 out of the 15 comunidades to activate the state of emergency that Vitoria had provided during his reign and on the 12 of Octuber of 1612 Gaspar entered with an army and the letter signed by the regidores to the junta dissolving it and proclaiming himself director general de los asuntos de estado after giving and speech to the representatives of the junta and burning a replika of the laws of Ávila.
Director general de los asuntos de estado Gaspar de Guzmán
The later reign of Charles the VI
Finances during Charles' reign
The imperial policy of interventionism and resputation that the Habsburgs had stablished under the reign of king Phillip came at a very high cost.Gold.Charles and Phillip's armies only accepted the payments in gold and none of Phillip's reigns were rich in gold outside of Brazil which had smaller gold reserves than Pernambuco or California. Even then most of the gold that was circulated in Europe was introduced by Venice with its trade with Alexandria. As gold was scarce obtaining it was extremelly costly.
The Castillian junta had been able to hoard gold as a desperate measure to make up for its lack of revenue through taxes.The different jewish and Genovese bankers that run the finances of the republic had come up with different ways on transforming silver into gold.
The sephardic jews which had a vast experience in banking and finance and adviced the junta to give concessions to commercial companies in exchange of a taxes towards their sales during the fairs creating el ciclo de la plata which consisted on trading the american silver for commodities of east asia and then selling the commodities for gold and the compañias would use part of the gold to buy silver to trade back in asia.
The Genovese on the other hand figured out that using the reedemable bonds that could be bought in silver but recieved anual interests in gold until the loan was paid back.
On the other hand the imperial finances relied on Holland due the reforms pursued by Charles V. Charles V needed to increase the borrowing capacity of his government to finance his many military adventures. To that end it was necessary to put in place a number of fiscal reforms that would ensure that the public debt could be adequately serviced (thereby increasing the creditworthiness of his government). In 1542 the president of the Habsburg Council of State, Lodewijk van Schoor, proposed the levy of a number of taxes throughout the Habsburg Netherlands: a Tenth Penny (10 percent tax) on the income from real property and private loans, and excise taxes on beer, wine, and woollen cloth. These permanent taxes, collected by the individual provinces, would enable the provinces to pay enlarged subsidies to the central government, and (by issuing bonds secured by the revenue of these taxes) finance extraordinary levies (beden in old Dutch) in time of war. Other than expected, these reforms strengthened the position of the provinces, especially Holland, because as a condition of agreeing to the reform the States of Holland demanded and got total control of the disbursement of the taxes.
Old town of AmsterdamHolland was now able to establish credit of its own, as the province was able to retire bond loans previously placed under compulsion as enforced loans. By this it demonstrated to potential creditors it was worthy of trust. This brought a market for voluntary credit into being that previously did not exist. This enabled Holland, and other provinces, to float bonds at a reasonable interest rate in a large pool of voluntary investors.
As Holland was its only reliable source of gold the emperors started using their debt bonds to finance their campaigns which became costlier as the emperors needed more gold for his campaigns.During the fake regency of Elizabeth of England Charles had signed a law which forbid the goverment of Holland of raising interests which drove back the private investors and dried their gold reserves.
To combat this the count of Nassau defended a less interventionistic foreign policy,austerity and increasing taxes in all the kingdoms to repay the loans to Holland.This measures were heavily unpopular eventhough the count of Nassau managed to get new taxes from the English parliament he was unable to increase the taxes from the other domains of the emperor.
Lord of Essex
Seeing that austerity was not an option the Lord of Essex came up with a more ambitious plan that convinced Charles VI.The lord of Essex believe that the problem with Charles VI empire wasn't the lack of taxes but the lack of gold in his kingdoms:
To achieve this he proposed a quick war against Castile to achieve this goals:
Charles the VIEmperor Charles followed the advice of Lord Essex and declare war against Castile.Eventhough the war had been a success it was clear that Lord Essex had understimated the Castillian republic and the war became way more costly than he had previously claimed and if it wasn't for the plagues the emperor could have even lost a war that was meant to last 5 months.
The war lasting 5 times as long as Essex had predicted would have catastrophic effects on the treasury finances.The treasury was alredy heavy endebted and a war would only increase the deficit which lead to more debt and interests.The delay on achieving the war goals also delayed the spice cycle that lord Essex had predicted which made impossible to pay for the interests of the loans.At last lord Essex spice cycle also overstimated the amount of gold it would attract and the treasury just increased slightly the amount of gold that it had.
In the end emperor Charles was forced to declare bankruptcy and to adjust the payment of the interests.This bankruptcy just hurted the trust of the imperial debt but as it still had massive assets the imperial treasury could still ask for loans to foreign bankers.The main repercussion of the recession was in Holland and Flanders.The few private investors that the goverment of Holland retreated their investments and the treasury of Holland was empty.A lot of the private enterprises of the empire had been also financed by the public debt of Holland and the bankruptcy drove a lot of those business that could not finance themselves with the debt of Holland to close or run out of business.Charles to stop the economic collapsed raised extraordinary taxes on Flanders to rescue the goverment of Holland.
In the end the bankruptcy would be the knail in the coffin on the economy of Holland and later on Flanders as it raised the inflation and its ability to compete against Italian,German and Castillian artisians and bankers.This meant that fewer taxes were collected in the region which carried the biggest tax burden of the imperial posessions.Despite this the fiscal decline was slow which made Charles ignore the problem until it became irreversible.
The prostestant union and the rebellions in Transylvania and Bohemia
Thomas Howard Suffolk
After the death of the Lord Essex died Thomas Howard Suffolk became the strong men in Charles' goverment.Suffolk political plan consisted on reforming the different kingdoms to homogenized their laws during a period of 10 years before returning to the policy of interventionism that the lord of Essex and emperor Phillip supported.Thomas Howard Suffolk sent envoys to all the kingdoms of Charles trying to pass the stability and finance act in which the taxes would be raised if the funds of the imperial treasury were low.This propossal was a massive failure and non of the peripherial kingdoms approve the measures as they argued that they needed the money to fight the Ottomans which had grown stronger in influence and power in the mediterranean while the emperor did nothing.Then in 1615 Suffolk modify his proposal law to adjust to the demands of the peripherial kingdom.In his new law named the the Extraordinary tax act in which taxes would be raised if there was a war.The bill would have to be modified again and in 1617 making the raise of taxes only in case of direct threat of the empire the bill only passed in Naples and Aragon while being rejected in Portugal and Catalonia.
Suffolk seeing the rebellious nature of the courts of Portugal and Catalonia suggested Charles to plot against the generalitat through a peasant revolt as it had been done by his great great grand father king Ferdinand and to give some concessions to the Portuguese in the spice islands in exchange of passing some reforms which Charles largely ignored.
During Suffolk's years on the top the protestants from the empire formed the protestant union which was a political alliance between the protestant princes of northern Germany with the supervision of Denmark and Sweden which were the biggest protestant states in Europe.As Suffolk tried to avoid a war to pass his reforms he just created a catholic league resembling that of France to counter the protestant union but outside of the bishops of the empire no other principality joined the league.
In 1618 the Bohemian nobles disatisfied with the abolishment of the elective monarchy decided to rise in arms against the Habsburgs.Matthias of Habsburgs personally leaded and army and faced the noble revolt.Matthias army was succesfully defeated at the battle of Ostrava in which he died.The defeat of the Habsburgs leaded to massive uprise against the Habsburgs in all of Bohemia and the restauration of the elective monarchy.The Bohemian electors picked the prince of the Palatinate as their new king which infurated Charles.Suffolk decided it was time to stop his widely unsuccesful period of reforms and the Habsburgs restarted their policy of interventionism.
Ferdinand of Austria
The first thing that Suffolk's goverment did was to invade the palatinate which the Flemish army did in 1619 widely unopposed under the orders of Ferdinand of Austria which became the new prince of the Palatinate.Charles argued that Frederick was a lutheran and a false catholic so he decided to strip him of his title.While having no evidence this was the perfect excuse to give his favourite bastard son a title and to further secure the imperial succession. Frederick refusing to accept this decission fled to Bohemia and ask other princes for his support against the Habsburgs.The protestant union joined Frederick caused which legitimized Charle's claim. Despite this supposed legetimacy Charles nepotism and power grabs were not seen with good eyes in the empire and a lot of catholic princes joined Frederick and the protestant union against Charles tiranny.
Gabriel Bethen leader of the Transylvanian revoltIn 1619 Ferdinand of Hungrary suffered a protestant revolt in Transilvanya fueled and supported by the Ottoman empire that wanted to restart its hostilities with the empire.Ferdinand cautius about the revolt unlike his death father.The state of Transilvanya under Gabriel Brethen pledge the Ottomans to pay a tribute in exchange of their protection.The Ottomans offered a force of 60,000 cavalry to Frederick and Gabriel and plans were made for an invasion of Poland with 400,000 troops, in exchange for the payment of an annual tribute to the sultan.These negotiations triggered the Polish–Ottoman War which effectively neutralize a possible Ottoman intervention in the comflict and allowed Ferdinand to crush Gabriel and put his eyes on Bohemia.
The emperor's army of Austria joined forces with the loyal Hungarian army and assaulted Prague which was under control of Frederick.After succesfully crushing the rebellion Frederick was executed without trial (against King Ferdinand's own advice) which triggered a massive revolt inside the empire and the protestant union asking for the intervention of Castile,Sweden and Denmark into the conflict.
Emperor Phillip the II
Soon after his success in Bohemia Charles died from a heart attack while hunting (officially) and with him Suffolk felt of favour.The new emperor Phillip the II was crown in 1621 and with him the rise of his childhood friend Rovert Devereux the third Earl of Essex as his favourite
Third earl of Essex
The imperial policy of interventionism and resputation that the Habsburgs had stablished under the reign of king Phillip came at a very high cost.Gold.Charles and Phillip's armies only accepted the payments in gold and none of Phillip's reigns were rich in gold outside of Brazil which had smaller gold reserves than Pernambuco or California. Even then most of the gold that was circulated in Europe was introduced by Venice with its trade with Alexandria. As gold was scarce obtaining it was extremelly costly.
The Castillian junta had been able to hoard gold as a desperate measure to make up for its lack of revenue through taxes.The different jewish and Genovese bankers that run the finances of the republic had come up with different ways on transforming silver into gold.
The sephardic jews which had a vast experience in banking and finance and adviced the junta to give concessions to commercial companies in exchange of a taxes towards their sales during the fairs creating el ciclo de la plata which consisted on trading the american silver for commodities of east asia and then selling the commodities for gold and the compañias would use part of the gold to buy silver to trade back in asia.
The Genovese on the other hand figured out that using the reedemable bonds that could be bought in silver but recieved anual interests in gold until the loan was paid back.
On the other hand the imperial finances relied on Holland due the reforms pursued by Charles V. Charles V needed to increase the borrowing capacity of his government to finance his many military adventures. To that end it was necessary to put in place a number of fiscal reforms that would ensure that the public debt could be adequately serviced (thereby increasing the creditworthiness of his government). In 1542 the president of the Habsburg Council of State, Lodewijk van Schoor, proposed the levy of a number of taxes throughout the Habsburg Netherlands: a Tenth Penny (10 percent tax) on the income from real property and private loans, and excise taxes on beer, wine, and woollen cloth. These permanent taxes, collected by the individual provinces, would enable the provinces to pay enlarged subsidies to the central government, and (by issuing bonds secured by the revenue of these taxes) finance extraordinary levies (beden in old Dutch) in time of war. Other than expected, these reforms strengthened the position of the provinces, especially Holland, because as a condition of agreeing to the reform the States of Holland demanded and got total control of the disbursement of the taxes.
Old town of Amsterdam
As Holland was its only reliable source of gold the emperors started using their debt bonds to finance their campaigns which became costlier as the emperors needed more gold for his campaigns.During the fake regency of Elizabeth of England Charles had signed a law which forbid the goverment of Holland of raising interests which drove back the private investors and dried their gold reserves.
To combat this the count of Nassau defended a less interventionistic foreign policy,austerity and increasing taxes in all the kingdoms to repay the loans to Holland.This measures were heavily unpopular eventhough the count of Nassau managed to get new taxes from the English parliament he was unable to increase the taxes from the other domains of the emperor.
Lord of Essex
Seeing that austerity was not an option the Lord of Essex came up with a more ambitious plan that convinced Charles VI.The lord of Essex believe that the problem with Charles VI empire wasn't the lack of taxes but the lack of gold in his kingdoms:
"His majesty has domains all over the planet.To keep your most rightful claim over them there is a need of skill warriors and sailors that take gold as no other payment.But this honorable and brave men don't spend their gold on your kingdoms but abroad.These men have needs and in their spare time they need beer;which they pay in gold,they need a good meal;which they pay in gold, and some need the warmth of a women;which they pay in gold. When they return to England most of this gold has stayed in Germany,Serbia or Venice and never comes back to your reigns"
To solve this the Lord of Essex proposed a cicle of spices obtaining a monopoly on them:
"The Castillians go to China or Tidore and exchange all their silver,which is not as valueable as gold, for goods that are very worth their price in gold; and with the gold that they obtain they buy more silver at a cheaper price to increase their reserves of gold.The reigns of his majesty are blessed with many resources and silver is not one of them. But there is something that doesn't require trade to produce.Spices..."
"If his majesty accomplishes to get all the tropical land fit for the cultivation of sugar,tobacco or caffe and consolidate the factories in the Malaccas soon a monopoly in these goods could be obtained and with it an influx of gold which could be effectively taxed to fill our reserves"
"If his majesty accomplishes to get all the tropical land fit for the cultivation of sugar,tobacco or caffe and consolidate the factories in the Malaccas soon a monopoly in these goods could be obtained and with it an influx of gold which could be effectively taxed to fill our reserves"
To achieve this he proposed a quick war against Castile to achieve this goals:
"The republic of Castile is an inofensive sheep in a land full of starving wolves and if his grace doesn't attack first this wolve will starve to death..."
"In less than 5 months his grace could be king of all the Antilles and the Maluccas as the Castillian navy is no match against ours and with only 5 months of sacrifice his majesty would have the keys to all the wealth of America and a monopoly on spices"
Bankruptcy of the imperial treasury"In less than 5 months his grace could be king of all the Antilles and the Maluccas as the Castillian navy is no match against ours and with only 5 months of sacrifice his majesty would have the keys to all the wealth of America and a monopoly on spices"
Charles the VI
The war lasting 5 times as long as Essex had predicted would have catastrophic effects on the treasury finances.The treasury was alredy heavy endebted and a war would only increase the deficit which lead to more debt and interests.The delay on achieving the war goals also delayed the spice cycle that lord Essex had predicted which made impossible to pay for the interests of the loans.At last lord Essex spice cycle also overstimated the amount of gold it would attract and the treasury just increased slightly the amount of gold that it had.
In the end emperor Charles was forced to declare bankruptcy and to adjust the payment of the interests.This bankruptcy just hurted the trust of the imperial debt but as it still had massive assets the imperial treasury could still ask for loans to foreign bankers.The main repercussion of the recession was in Holland and Flanders.The few private investors that the goverment of Holland retreated their investments and the treasury of Holland was empty.A lot of the private enterprises of the empire had been also financed by the public debt of Holland and the bankruptcy drove a lot of those business that could not finance themselves with the debt of Holland to close or run out of business.Charles to stop the economic collapsed raised extraordinary taxes on Flanders to rescue the goverment of Holland.
In the end the bankruptcy would be the knail in the coffin on the economy of Holland and later on Flanders as it raised the inflation and its ability to compete against Italian,German and Castillian artisians and bankers.This meant that fewer taxes were collected in the region which carried the biggest tax burden of the imperial posessions.Despite this the fiscal decline was slow which made Charles ignore the problem until it became irreversible.
The prostestant union and the rebellions in Transylvania and Bohemia
Thomas Howard Suffolk
After the death of the Lord Essex died Thomas Howard Suffolk became the strong men in Charles' goverment.Suffolk political plan consisted on reforming the different kingdoms to homogenized their laws during a period of 10 years before returning to the policy of interventionism that the lord of Essex and emperor Phillip supported.Thomas Howard Suffolk sent envoys to all the kingdoms of Charles trying to pass the stability and finance act in which the taxes would be raised if the funds of the imperial treasury were low.This propossal was a massive failure and non of the peripherial kingdoms approve the measures as they argued that they needed the money to fight the Ottomans which had grown stronger in influence and power in the mediterranean while the emperor did nothing.Then in 1615 Suffolk modify his proposal law to adjust to the demands of the peripherial kingdom.In his new law named the the Extraordinary tax act in which taxes would be raised if there was a war.The bill would have to be modified again and in 1617 making the raise of taxes only in case of direct threat of the empire the bill only passed in Naples and Aragon while being rejected in Portugal and Catalonia.
Suffolk seeing the rebellious nature of the courts of Portugal and Catalonia suggested Charles to plot against the generalitat through a peasant revolt as it had been done by his great great grand father king Ferdinand and to give some concessions to the Portuguese in the spice islands in exchange of passing some reforms which Charles largely ignored.
During Suffolk's years on the top the protestants from the empire formed the protestant union which was a political alliance between the protestant princes of northern Germany with the supervision of Denmark and Sweden which were the biggest protestant states in Europe.As Suffolk tried to avoid a war to pass his reforms he just created a catholic league resembling that of France to counter the protestant union but outside of the bishops of the empire no other principality joined the league.
In 1618 the Bohemian nobles disatisfied with the abolishment of the elective monarchy decided to rise in arms against the Habsburgs.Matthias of Habsburgs personally leaded and army and faced the noble revolt.Matthias army was succesfully defeated at the battle of Ostrava in which he died.The defeat of the Habsburgs leaded to massive uprise against the Habsburgs in all of Bohemia and the restauration of the elective monarchy.The Bohemian electors picked the prince of the Palatinate as their new king which infurated Charles.Suffolk decided it was time to stop his widely unsuccesful period of reforms and the Habsburgs restarted their policy of interventionism.
Ferdinand of Austria
The first thing that Suffolk's goverment did was to invade the palatinate which the Flemish army did in 1619 widely unopposed under the orders of Ferdinand of Austria which became the new prince of the Palatinate.Charles argued that Frederick was a lutheran and a false catholic so he decided to strip him of his title.While having no evidence this was the perfect excuse to give his favourite bastard son a title and to further secure the imperial succession. Frederick refusing to accept this decission fled to Bohemia and ask other princes for his support against the Habsburgs.The protestant union joined Frederick caused which legitimized Charle's claim. Despite this supposed legetimacy Charles nepotism and power grabs were not seen with good eyes in the empire and a lot of catholic princes joined Frederick and the protestant union against Charles tiranny.
Gabriel Bethen leader of the Transylvanian revolt
King Ferdinand of Hungary
The emperor's army of Austria joined forces with the loyal Hungarian army and assaulted Prague which was under control of Frederick.After succesfully crushing the rebellion Frederick was executed without trial (against King Ferdinand's own advice) which triggered a massive revolt inside the empire and the protestant union asking for the intervention of Castile,Sweden and Denmark into the conflict.
Emperor Phillip the II
Soon after his success in Bohemia Charles died from a heart attack while hunting (officially) and with him Suffolk felt of favour.The new emperor Phillip the II was crown in 1621 and with him the rise of his childhood friend Rovert Devereux the third Earl of Essex as his favourite
Third earl of Essex
Time of reforms
The first thing that Gaspar did was to change the structures of power.He abolished the junta and las camaras territoriales for consejos territoriales and el consejo de estado.
Every comunidad and capitanía had its own consejo territorial that would inform the consejo de Estado about their internal issues or corncerns.The consejos territoriales didn't hold any power and were for the most part just to inform or advice the consejo de estado that would need to meet them every time that they wanted outside of meetings of the consejo de estado itself.
The members of the consejo de estado were appointed by Gaspar himself and its members would be called ministros as each was responsible of informing and solving of a particular matter corncerning the republic.The ministros had autonomy over all matters related to their area of expertice but ultimately their decission could be overran by Gaspar.There was 7 seats in the consejo de estad
ne was for Gaspar and the rest for the 6 ministers(ministro de interior(internal affairs),ministro de marina(in charge of the navy),ministro de guerra(in charge of the army and when to declare war),ministro de diplomacia (in charge of appointing the ambassadors and meeting with the foreing ambassadors),ministro de hacienda (in charge of the treasury),ministro de economía (incharge of protecting the economy) and the ministro de leyes (in charge of changing and proposing new laws)).The consejos were placed in Valladolid which would de facto become the capital of the republic.Gaspar chose Valladolid as the capital for multiple reasons.He argued that the was well connected with the rest of the republic and that the city was one of the wealthiest in the country and the core of its inovation.But in reality Gaspar settled the consejos in Valladolid because the young prince Louis of France was residing in the city.
Fiscal and economic reforms
Moises Leví
Moises Leví,ministro de hacienda del consejo de Estado, was a sephardic jew that had worked from the previous junta and understood the complicated fiscal scheme that he had helped to create.
Acknowledging that the comunidades had beeing accumulating a lot of wealth due their lax fiscal responsibilities decided to put a tax on reserves of gold and silver bigger than two barrels for personal accounts and 10 for comunal accounts.The republic would tax gold and silver that wasn't in circulation and ordered all gold and silver reserves to be declared.If a certain gold or silver deposit wasn't declared the person responsible of hiding the reserves would be charge by treason which meant death or paying a fee proportional to the quantity hidden.
This new tax put more money in circulation as the comunidades and particulars preffered to invest their gold and silver rather than paying a tax and seeing how their wealth decreased with time. This investments created economic activities that the junta taxed increasing indirectly the revenue of the republic and its gold reserves.This measure also made sure that people didn't cash out their letras de deuda as the gold would be taxed as soon as it was pulled out.
On the other the increase in gold and silver in circulation created some inflation which saw prices rising and an increase in expending on bureacrats as enforcing the law was increasingly hard as fraud was hard to control.
Cosme Ruíz
Cosme Ruíz,ministro de economía del consejo de estado, pushed for the creation of the bank of Castile centralizing the junta's offices into a single one that would regulate the payment of debt of the republic,setting the interests of the debt and the creation of the letras de deuda.Cosme himself would become the first president of the bank which would have its head quarters in Valladolid.
Cosme also proposed a centralized collection of taxes and then a redistribution of them to the comunidades in exchange of the comunidades paying a tool to the junta.Cosme's propossal wasn't well recieved by the comunidades and Gaspar would postpone its implementation.
Reforms of the army and navy
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,ministro de guerra
From the start it was clear that Gaspar wanted a strong and proffessional army under the command of the republic which was a hard task.Eventhough he had control over the santas hermandades and could name the maesters of the military orders the core of the Castillian army was under the hand of the comunidades that had allowed him to rule but hold the power to overthrow him in any moment.Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,ministro de guerra del consejo de estado argued to just make the Santa Hermandad a permanent military force to which all comunidades should contribute proportional to their ability.In such a way that all comunidades would need a minimum number of people conscripted in the Santa Hermandad which in times of peace would act as a police corp.
Santiago Ponce de León
For the navy Santiago Ponce de León,ministro de marina, Santiago Ponce de León believed that the republic had the perfect opportunity of modernizing the navy after its destruction under the hands of the Anglo-flemish fleet.Santiago propossed to put all the galleys of the mediterranean to be replaced by ships of higher tonnelage like the ones used in the Atlantic.All new ships would have incorporated the auxiliary movement device that Ayanz (with the improvements made by the compañia de indias) into their ships to increase mobility.To finance the project Gaspar would sign el decreto de las practicas marinas in which all new ships that desired to trade within Castillian territory should have to be built in Castille and have a certificate from the newly created sociedad marinera which would be in charge of giving sailing license to any sailor.
Internal reforms
Juan Manuel de Guzmán
The biggest and most ambitious reform that Gaspar wanted to implement was la reforma agraria which wanted to break up the land of the concejalías into smaller states which would be privatly owned by farmers.The reason why Gaspar wanted to implement this reform were diverse.
The first one was simple production.The land of the republic that had been rented to individual families had much greater production proportionally than the land of the concejalias as Covarrubias and Luis de Molina had predicted.The families that owned their own the land and kept all the benefits had invested more money on modernizing their agricultural methods to maximize their production,some of this families had been able to grow big fortunes due the increase in population and during the plagues and kept reinvesting in new tools or trying to rent new lands.
The second one was to dismantle el gremio de la tierra which Gaspar saw as the main impidement of progress in Castile.While the cities and the small farm owners were open to more reforms, the gremio de la tierra was formed by really agrarian people that recieved most of their information by the church.Eventhogh literacy had risen in the countryside amongst men,the literacy rates in the deeply rural areas were still low and even the people that knew how to read would recieve news from the church.
To install his agrarian reform Gaspar would search aid in the cities and big towns of the republic.The burgouis which was more open to new ideas and saw how el gremio slew down progress in their own comunidades were happy to aid Gaspar in his reform.
The alumbrados and molinistas through all the kingdom also supported Gaspar's reform as Molina had argued in favour of private property over comunal land.
The opponets of such an ambitious reform was the church and el gremio de la tierra which own vast states and their privatization would mean a huge lose in revenue for the church and power for el gremio de la tierra.
Martín Gonzalez de Ceñorigo
To trigger the agrarian reform Gaspar thought that introducing Molinism in the rural areas would create a counterweight against the catholic church in rural areas and causing and split on el gremio de la tierra.To do this Martín Gonzalez de Ceñorigo,ministro de leyes del consejo del estado, would pass La ley universal del sujeto humano in which all adult people of the republic were granted a series of rights and amongst others the rights of freedom of all christian men (including protestants) of processing their faith in all of Castile.This law allowed protestants to process their faith freely in every city,but most importantly it would allow Molina's followers to preach freely in the countryside.
Los cuelgamientos del 13 de Marzo 1617
Mota del Cuervo
When news came about the incident the Santa Hermandad went into the village and tried to arrest the people responsible for the incident.When the officers came to the village they were brutally attacked with rocks and were all murdered and declare an open rebellion against the new goverment.
Juan de Mariana
Oligarchisation and the Guzman dynasty are plausible developments. Will republicanism bounce back? And if it does, will the modernization measures survive?
Or do we see a back-and-forth between the two camps? And to what extent will the alumbrados remain aligned with authoritarian centralism?
Or do we see a back-and-forth between the two camps? And to what extent will the alumbrados remain aligned with authoritarian centralism?
In theory Gaspar has just activated the emergency measures set by Vitoria with the support of the comunidades.I am not going to spoil anything because I need to think through some stuff before I finish this ark of the TL.It is the most important development in the republic since Vitoria and the school of Salamanca appeared so it is definetly going to make a permanent impact on the republic.
The alumbrados' interest is related to that of the bourgouis,bankers and merchants.They will remained allign with the new goverment as long as their religious rights and money is secure
The north awakens
Charles IX
King Charles IX
In 1568 he was the real leader of the rebellion against Eric XIV. However, he took no part in the designs of his brother John III against the unhappy king after his deposition. Charles's relations with John were always more or less strained. He had no sympathy with John's High-Church tendencies on the one hand, and he sturdily resisted all the king's endeavours to restrict his authority as Duke of Södermanland on the other. The nobility and the majority of the Riksdag of the Estates supported John. However, in his endeavours to unify the realm, and Charles had consequently (1587) to resign his pretensions to autonomy within his duchy. But, steadfast Calvinist as he was, on the religious question he was immovable. The matter came to a crisis on the death of John III in 1592. The heir to the throne was John's eldest son, Sigismund III Vasa, already king of Poland and a devoted Catholic. The fear that Sigismund might re-catholicize the land alarmed the Protestant majority in Sweden and kick out king James of Scotland and his army of Scots that had come to Sweden after the invasion of Scotland by Phillip I.
It was due entirely to him that Sigismund as king-elect was forced to confirm the resolutions at the Uppsala Synod in 1593, thereby recognizing the fact that Sweden was essentially a Lutheran Protestant state. Under the agreement, Charles and the Swedish Privy Council shared power and ruled in Sigismund's place since he resided in Poland. In the ensuing years 1593—1595, Charles's task was extraordinarily difficult. He had steadily to oppose Sigismund's reactionary tendencies and directives; he had also to curb the nobility which sought to increase their power at the expense of the absent king, which he did with cruel rigor.
Necessity compelled him to work with the clergy and people rather than the gentry; hence it was that the Riksens ständer (Riksdag) assumed under his regency government a power and an importance which it had never possessed before. In 1595, the Riksdag of Söderköping elected Charles regent, and his attempt to force Klas Flemming, governor of Österland (Finland of the day), to submit to his authority, rather than to that of the king, provoked a civil war. Charles sought to increase his power and the king attempted to manage the situation by diplomacy over several years, until fed up, Sigismund got permission from the Commonwealth's legislature to pursue the matters dividing his Swedish subjects, and invaded with a mercenary army.
Technically Charles was, without doubt, guilty of high treason, and the considerable minority of all classes which adhered to Sigismund on his landing in Sweden in 1598 indisputably behaved like loyal subjects. In the events that followed, despite some initial successes, Sigismund lost the crucial Battle of Stångebro, and was captured himself, as well as being forced to deliver up certain Swedish noblemen who were named traitor by Charles and the Riksens ständer. With Sigismund defeated and exiled, as both an alien and a heretic to the majority of the Swedish nation, and his formal deposition by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1599 was, in effect, a natural vindication and ex post facto legitimization of Charles's position all along, for the same session of the Riksens ständer named him as the ruler as regent.
Finally, the Riksdag at Linköping, 24 February 1604 declared that Sigismund abdicated the Swedish throne, that duke Charles was recognized as the sovereign. He was declared king as Karl IX.
Polish Swedish war
Sigmund the III of Poland
Sigismund did not give up on regaining the Swedish throne. From then on, most of his policies would revolve around his attempts to conquer Sweden, even though Commonwealth nobility had little will for such a long and bloody conflict. Sigismund began his plans, when he confirmed the pacta conventa. These documents, signed when he was elected as a King of Poland, promised that the then-Swedish territory of Estonia would become part of the Commonwealth.
Polish nobility, the szlachta, supported this particular conflict, assuming it would be limited to Estonia only, and expecting many gains in form of new lands and increases of grain export through access to Estonian ports on the Baltic Sea. In addition, szlachta did not think highly of the Swedes, and did not expect this war to drag long or be difficult. They grossly underestimated their opponent, thinking that Poland, having been nearly undefeated in battle for over a hundred years, would be easily able to parry any attacks of the Scandinavians. The Commonwealth had nearly 10 million inhabitants, almost 10 times that of 1 million in Sweden. On the other hand, szlachta forgot that the Commonwealth had one of the smallest military to population ratios in Europe, and that Sweden was able to draft a large army much more quickly than the Commonwealth, due to its centralized government and obligatory draft of free peasants.
The Commonwealth was forced to fight on two fronts, as its armies were also needed south to deal with the Moldavian Magnate Wars, and Swedish forces quickly gained 3:1 numerical superiority. In the beginning of the war, in 1600, although a Commonwealth army under Krzysztof Mikołaj "Piorun" Radziwiłł striking first was able to deal the Swedish forces several defeats in the open fields, Swedes took control not only of Estonia, but of most of Livonia, the Commonwealth territory south of Estonia (the entire region was known in Poland as Inflanty (German: Livland)). The Polish parliament, the Sejm, reacted by increasing funds for the army and recalling forces and commanders from the southern front (deemed less important as most of that war took part outside Commonwealth territory) to the threatened north.
In 1601 Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz and Polish chancellor Jan Zamoyski, recalled from Moldavia, arrived in Lithuania to fight the Swedish incursion, which now threatened not only the Estonia promised by Sigismund, but older Polish territories south of it. Chodkiewicz and Radziwiłł were defeated by the Swedes in the first major open battle of this war at Kokenhusen in early 1601 due the brilliant performance of the Scottish army .Soon afterwards, Jan Zamoyski, fresh from his victory against the Moldavians, came in to help against the Swedes, with 12,000 men, and 50 artillery pieces, 15 of which were classified as heavy. Charles was unable to deal effectively with such an army and was forced to retreat. However, during the retreat he left sizable numbers of defenders at various captured fortresses in Livonia. Zamoyski now took to siege warfare instead of chasing the retreating King, soon capturing Wolmar (Valmiera) and Fellin (Viljandi, Felin). By 1602, the Swedes were only left with control of Reval (Tallinn, Talin, Rewl), Pernau (Pärnu, Parnau, Parnawa), Hapsal (Haapsalu, Hapsalu) and Dorpat (Tartu). However, Zamoyski, now 60 years old, had fallen ill and Chodkiewicz took command and laid siege to Dorpat. At Wesenberg (Rakvere), he defeated a Swedish reinforcement force under Arvid Eriksson Stålarm sent to relieve the Swedish troops in Dorpat. The town surrendered in April 1603.
In 1605 the Swedes again spent large sums of money to conscript a new massive army. The Riksdag spent much cash on conscripting new formations and as well as this, Russian tsar Boris Godunov gave the Swedes much financial help, likely attempting to keep both Sweden and the Commonwealth busy during the Time of Troubles. The Swedes were able to hire large numbers of mercenaries, as well as hiring many siege engineers from all over Europe.
James VI of Scotland
In 1605, a few miles from Reval, a 5,000 strong army led by Anders Lennartson of Forstena landed in Estonia again. Several days later another Swedish expedition, numbering around 4,000 and led by Count Frederick Joachim Mansfeld, landed near and besieged the fortress of Dünamünde (Daugavgrīva, Dynemunt) near Riga, although without any success. After this setback they now began laying siege to Riga. Their main mission was to capture this important city, one of the largest Baltic ports.
Chodkiewicz moved in to relieve the garrison at Riga, but found out that the Swedes were also sending in reinforcements under Lennartson. Chodkiewicz moved in on Lennartson however he decided not to allow for open battle and retreated into a fortress. On finding out that Charles himself was now marching in with yet more reinforcements (around 5,000), Lennartson decided to link up with the king and assault Riga together.
Chodkiewicz, who failed to prevent the Swedish forces from joining, moved from Cēsis (Wenden) to near Salaspils (Kircholm) and Ikšķile (Üxküll), where he built a small fortified camp. Charles, who has arrived at Riga on 23 September, learned of the Chodkiewicz force nearby and decided to destroy it with an attack of majority of Swedish force within the area. On the 27 September Swedish force under king Charles moved towards Kircholm.
The Battle of Kircholm (Salaspils) on September 27, 1605, near Düna (Daugava, Dvina, Dźwina, Väinä) River would be Charles and James final blow to the Commonwealth. Chodkiewicz, having smaller forces (approximately at 1:3 disadvantage again) lost bravely against the army of the Sweden that almost collapsed but were saved by the discipline Scottish forces.
Chodkiewicz's own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last en masse in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. With tiny, inadequate forces, Chodkiewicz nonetheless prevented Swedes from overrunning the entire Inflanty (Latgale) region, helped by a relative inaction of Swedish commanders until 1608. Chodkiewicz, who was one of the magnates who remained loyal to the king, had to divide his attention between the rebellion against Sigismund in the Commonwealth (the Zebrzydowski Rebellion, 1606–1609) and a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes led by Mansfeld in 1608.
Ingrian wars
The Ingrian War between Sweden and Russia, which lasted between 1610 and 1617 and can be seen as part of Russia's Time of Troubles, is mainly remembered for the attempt to put a Swedish duke on the Russian throne. It ended with a large Swedish territorial gain in the Treaty of Stolbovo, which laid an important foundation to Sweden's Age of Greatness.
During Russia's Time of Troubles, Vasily IV of Russia, besieged in Moscow by the Tushino gang and driven to despair by the ongoing Polish intervention, entered an alliance with Charles IX of Sweden, who was also waging war against Poland. The tsar promised to cede Korela Fortress to Sweden in recompense for military support against False Dmitry II and the Poles. Thereupon the Swedish commander Jacob de la Gardie joined his forces with the Russian commander Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky and marched from Novgorod towards Moscow in order to relieve the tsar.
Sweden's involvement in Russian affairs gave King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland a pretext to declare war on Russia. The Poles engaged the combined Russo-Swedish forces at Klushino and destroyed most of the Russian force; the Swedish mercenaries taking part in the De la Gardie Campaign (July 1610) surrendered. The battle had serious consequences for Russia, as the tsar was deposed by boyars and the Poles occupied the Kremlin.
Battle of Nogorov
In 1611 a Swedish expeditionary corps under Jacob De la Gardie captured Novgorod. The Novgorodians asked the Swedish king to install one of his sons — Carl Filip or Gustavus Adolphus — as their monarch.
In the meantime, Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the Swedish throne. The young king decided to press his brother's claim to the Russian throne even after the Poles had been expelled from Moscow by a patriotic uprising of 1612 and Mikhail Romanov had been elected a new tsar.
While the Swedish statesmen envisaged the creation of a Trans-Baltic dominion extending northwards to Archangelsk and eastwards to Vologda, De la Gardie and other Swedish soldiers, still holding Novgorod and Ingria, saw the war as a reaction for their forces not receiving payment for their succour during the De la Gardie Campaign.
In 1613 they advanced towards Tikhvin and laid a siege to the city, but were repelled. The Russian counter-offensive failed to regain Novgorod, however. The Russian tsar refused to commit his troops to battle and the war lumbered on until 1614, when the Swedes captured Gdov.
The following year they laid siege to Pskov but Russian generals Morozov and Buturlin held their own until 27 February 1617, when the Treaty of Stolbovo stripped Russia of its access to the Baltic Sea and awarded to Sweden the province of Ingria with the townships of Ivangorod, Jama, Koporye and Noteborg. Novgorod and Gdov were to be restituted to Russia.
As a result of the war, Russia was denied access to the Baltic sea for about a century, despite its persistent efforts to reverse the situation. This led to the increased importance of Arkhangelsk for its trading connections with Western Europe.
Treaty of Stolbovo
In the resulting peace treaty, the tsar,King Sigsmund the III of Poland and the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus agreed to the following terms:
The second Kalmar war
Christian IV of Denmark
After its major victories in Poland and Russia Gustavus Adolphus decided to declare war on Denmark-Norway which had defeated him and his father in the first Kalmar war decided that the polished Swedish army could take on the army of Christian IV of Denmark to secure Sweden's supremacy over the Baltic sea and all its trade.Gustavus acknowledged the Danish supperiority on the seas and needed to land a blow to the Danish navy before he could become the dominant power in the Baltic sea.Gustavus pledged the Castillian fleet to aid him in the war which Gaspar de Guzmán would approve of.
The Castillian newly formed fleet soundly the Danish navy at the battle of Kattegat in which the higher mobility and firepower of the Castillian fleet proved to be over overwhelming.
After cutting eastern Denmark from Copenaghe and Jutland the Swedish army were able to secure Lapland,Jämtland, Härjedalen, Idre, Särna, Gotland, Saaremaa and Halland.After failing to conquer Oslo Gustavus decided on giving on conquering the entirety of Norway and decided to put his eyes in Skane.
After 6 months in the 23 of June of 1623 Sweden finally conquered Malmö Sweden finally secured the region.
Gustavus would try to conquer Copenhage and give a final blow to Denmark.The Castillian navy would secure Gustavus army passage to Copenhague after landing in the island the Danish army that been holding all its forces in the capital managed to repel the invasion thanks to the support of the inhabitants of the city that rose up to defeat the invaders. Gustavus Adolphus seeing that he wouldn't be able to annex all of Denmark decided to sue for peace.Denmark powerless to do anything recognized Sweden's sovereignity over all its conquests.
Sweden after the second Kalmar war
After this streak of victories Gustavus Adolphus decided to protect the protestant union and decided to go to war against the emperor Phillip the II with the aid of King James VI army and the financial support of Castile in 1625 at the surprise of emperor Phillip which had been dominating the conflict ever since he took power
King Gustavus Adolphus
King Charles IX
In 1568 he was the real leader of the rebellion against Eric XIV. However, he took no part in the designs of his brother John III against the unhappy king after his deposition. Charles's relations with John were always more or less strained. He had no sympathy with John's High-Church tendencies on the one hand, and he sturdily resisted all the king's endeavours to restrict his authority as Duke of Södermanland on the other. The nobility and the majority of the Riksdag of the Estates supported John. However, in his endeavours to unify the realm, and Charles had consequently (1587) to resign his pretensions to autonomy within his duchy. But, steadfast Calvinist as he was, on the religious question he was immovable. The matter came to a crisis on the death of John III in 1592. The heir to the throne was John's eldest son, Sigismund III Vasa, already king of Poland and a devoted Catholic. The fear that Sigismund might re-catholicize the land alarmed the Protestant majority in Sweden and kick out king James of Scotland and his army of Scots that had come to Sweden after the invasion of Scotland by Phillip I.
It was due entirely to him that Sigismund as king-elect was forced to confirm the resolutions at the Uppsala Synod in 1593, thereby recognizing the fact that Sweden was essentially a Lutheran Protestant state. Under the agreement, Charles and the Swedish Privy Council shared power and ruled in Sigismund's place since he resided in Poland. In the ensuing years 1593—1595, Charles's task was extraordinarily difficult. He had steadily to oppose Sigismund's reactionary tendencies and directives; he had also to curb the nobility which sought to increase their power at the expense of the absent king, which he did with cruel rigor.
Necessity compelled him to work with the clergy and people rather than the gentry; hence it was that the Riksens ständer (Riksdag) assumed under his regency government a power and an importance which it had never possessed before. In 1595, the Riksdag of Söderköping elected Charles regent, and his attempt to force Klas Flemming, governor of Österland (Finland of the day), to submit to his authority, rather than to that of the king, provoked a civil war. Charles sought to increase his power and the king attempted to manage the situation by diplomacy over several years, until fed up, Sigismund got permission from the Commonwealth's legislature to pursue the matters dividing his Swedish subjects, and invaded with a mercenary army.
Technically Charles was, without doubt, guilty of high treason, and the considerable minority of all classes which adhered to Sigismund on his landing in Sweden in 1598 indisputably behaved like loyal subjects. In the events that followed, despite some initial successes, Sigismund lost the crucial Battle of Stångebro, and was captured himself, as well as being forced to deliver up certain Swedish noblemen who were named traitor by Charles and the Riksens ständer. With Sigismund defeated and exiled, as both an alien and a heretic to the majority of the Swedish nation, and his formal deposition by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1599 was, in effect, a natural vindication and ex post facto legitimization of Charles's position all along, for the same session of the Riksens ständer named him as the ruler as regent.
Finally, the Riksdag at Linköping, 24 February 1604 declared that Sigismund abdicated the Swedish throne, that duke Charles was recognized as the sovereign. He was declared king as Karl IX.
Polish Swedish war
Sigmund the III of Poland
Polish nobility, the szlachta, supported this particular conflict, assuming it would be limited to Estonia only, and expecting many gains in form of new lands and increases of grain export through access to Estonian ports on the Baltic Sea. In addition, szlachta did not think highly of the Swedes, and did not expect this war to drag long or be difficult. They grossly underestimated their opponent, thinking that Poland, having been nearly undefeated in battle for over a hundred years, would be easily able to parry any attacks of the Scandinavians. The Commonwealth had nearly 10 million inhabitants, almost 10 times that of 1 million in Sweden. On the other hand, szlachta forgot that the Commonwealth had one of the smallest military to population ratios in Europe, and that Sweden was able to draft a large army much more quickly than the Commonwealth, due to its centralized government and obligatory draft of free peasants.
The Commonwealth was forced to fight on two fronts, as its armies were also needed south to deal with the Moldavian Magnate Wars, and Swedish forces quickly gained 3:1 numerical superiority. In the beginning of the war, in 1600, although a Commonwealth army under Krzysztof Mikołaj "Piorun" Radziwiłł striking first was able to deal the Swedish forces several defeats in the open fields, Swedes took control not only of Estonia, but of most of Livonia, the Commonwealth territory south of Estonia (the entire region was known in Poland as Inflanty (German: Livland)). The Polish parliament, the Sejm, reacted by increasing funds for the army and recalling forces and commanders from the southern front (deemed less important as most of that war took part outside Commonwealth territory) to the threatened north.
In 1601 Lithuanian hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz and Polish chancellor Jan Zamoyski, recalled from Moldavia, arrived in Lithuania to fight the Swedish incursion, which now threatened not only the Estonia promised by Sigismund, but older Polish territories south of it. Chodkiewicz and Radziwiłł were defeated by the Swedes in the first major open battle of this war at Kokenhusen in early 1601 due the brilliant performance of the Scottish army .Soon afterwards, Jan Zamoyski, fresh from his victory against the Moldavians, came in to help against the Swedes, with 12,000 men, and 50 artillery pieces, 15 of which were classified as heavy. Charles was unable to deal effectively with such an army and was forced to retreat. However, during the retreat he left sizable numbers of defenders at various captured fortresses in Livonia. Zamoyski now took to siege warfare instead of chasing the retreating King, soon capturing Wolmar (Valmiera) and Fellin (Viljandi, Felin). By 1602, the Swedes were only left with control of Reval (Tallinn, Talin, Rewl), Pernau (Pärnu, Parnau, Parnawa), Hapsal (Haapsalu, Hapsalu) and Dorpat (Tartu). However, Zamoyski, now 60 years old, had fallen ill and Chodkiewicz took command and laid siege to Dorpat. At Wesenberg (Rakvere), he defeated a Swedish reinforcement force under Arvid Eriksson Stålarm sent to relieve the Swedish troops in Dorpat. The town surrendered in April 1603.
In 1605 the Swedes again spent large sums of money to conscript a new massive army. The Riksdag spent much cash on conscripting new formations and as well as this, Russian tsar Boris Godunov gave the Swedes much financial help, likely attempting to keep both Sweden and the Commonwealth busy during the Time of Troubles. The Swedes were able to hire large numbers of mercenaries, as well as hiring many siege engineers from all over Europe.
James VI of Scotland
In 1605, a few miles from Reval, a 5,000 strong army led by Anders Lennartson of Forstena landed in Estonia again. Several days later another Swedish expedition, numbering around 4,000 and led by Count Frederick Joachim Mansfeld, landed near and besieged the fortress of Dünamünde (Daugavgrīva, Dynemunt) near Riga, although without any success. After this setback they now began laying siege to Riga. Their main mission was to capture this important city, one of the largest Baltic ports.
Chodkiewicz moved in to relieve the garrison at Riga, but found out that the Swedes were also sending in reinforcements under Lennartson. Chodkiewicz moved in on Lennartson however he decided not to allow for open battle and retreated into a fortress. On finding out that Charles himself was now marching in with yet more reinforcements (around 5,000), Lennartson decided to link up with the king and assault Riga together.
Chodkiewicz, who failed to prevent the Swedish forces from joining, moved from Cēsis (Wenden) to near Salaspils (Kircholm) and Ikšķile (Üxküll), where he built a small fortified camp. Charles, who has arrived at Riga on 23 September, learned of the Chodkiewicz force nearby and decided to destroy it with an attack of majority of Swedish force within the area. On the 27 September Swedish force under king Charles moved towards Kircholm.
The Battle of Kircholm (Salaspils) on September 27, 1605, near Düna (Daugava, Dvina, Dźwina, Väinä) River would be Charles and James final blow to the Commonwealth. Chodkiewicz, having smaller forces (approximately at 1:3 disadvantage again) lost bravely against the army of the Sweden that almost collapsed but were saved by the discipline Scottish forces.
Chodkiewicz's own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last en masse in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. With tiny, inadequate forces, Chodkiewicz nonetheless prevented Swedes from overrunning the entire Inflanty (Latgale) region, helped by a relative inaction of Swedish commanders until 1608. Chodkiewicz, who was one of the magnates who remained loyal to the king, had to divide his attention between the rebellion against Sigismund in the Commonwealth (the Zebrzydowski Rebellion, 1606–1609) and a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes led by Mansfeld in 1608.
Ingrian wars
The Ingrian War between Sweden and Russia, which lasted between 1610 and 1617 and can be seen as part of Russia's Time of Troubles, is mainly remembered for the attempt to put a Swedish duke on the Russian throne. It ended with a large Swedish territorial gain in the Treaty of Stolbovo, which laid an important foundation to Sweden's Age of Greatness.
During Russia's Time of Troubles, Vasily IV of Russia, besieged in Moscow by the Tushino gang and driven to despair by the ongoing Polish intervention, entered an alliance with Charles IX of Sweden, who was also waging war against Poland. The tsar promised to cede Korela Fortress to Sweden in recompense for military support against False Dmitry II and the Poles. Thereupon the Swedish commander Jacob de la Gardie joined his forces with the Russian commander Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky and marched from Novgorod towards Moscow in order to relieve the tsar.
Sweden's involvement in Russian affairs gave King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland a pretext to declare war on Russia. The Poles engaged the combined Russo-Swedish forces at Klushino and destroyed most of the Russian force; the Swedish mercenaries taking part in the De la Gardie Campaign (July 1610) surrendered. The battle had serious consequences for Russia, as the tsar was deposed by boyars and the Poles occupied the Kremlin.
Battle of Nogorov
In the meantime, Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the Swedish throne. The young king decided to press his brother's claim to the Russian throne even after the Poles had been expelled from Moscow by a patriotic uprising of 1612 and Mikhail Romanov had been elected a new tsar.
While the Swedish statesmen envisaged the creation of a Trans-Baltic dominion extending northwards to Archangelsk and eastwards to Vologda, De la Gardie and other Swedish soldiers, still holding Novgorod and Ingria, saw the war as a reaction for their forces not receiving payment for their succour during the De la Gardie Campaign.
In 1613 they advanced towards Tikhvin and laid a siege to the city, but were repelled. The Russian counter-offensive failed to regain Novgorod, however. The Russian tsar refused to commit his troops to battle and the war lumbered on until 1614, when the Swedes captured Gdov.
The following year they laid siege to Pskov but Russian generals Morozov and Buturlin held their own until 27 February 1617, when the Treaty of Stolbovo stripped Russia of its access to the Baltic Sea and awarded to Sweden the province of Ingria with the townships of Ivangorod, Jama, Koporye and Noteborg. Novgorod and Gdov were to be restituted to Russia.
As a result of the war, Russia was denied access to the Baltic sea for about a century, despite its persistent efforts to reverse the situation. This led to the increased importance of Arkhangelsk for its trading connections with Western Europe.
Treaty of Stolbovo
In the resulting peace treaty, the tsar,King Sigsmund the III of Poland and the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus agreed to the following terms:
- Sweden gained the province and fortress of Kexholm (Käkisalmi) (now Priozersk), south-west Karelia and the province of Ingria — including the fortress of Nöteborg, known as "the key to Finland"
- Members of the upper classes in these conquered areas were allowed to migrate within 14 days, if they wished to, a right not granted to regular priests and farmers
- Russia and the Polish-Lithuania commonwealth renounced to all claims to Estonia and Livonia
- Russia would pay Sweden war indemnities of 20,000 rubles
- Novgorod and other Swedish territorial gains during the war would be returned to Russia
- Sweden had the right to keep all spoils of war collected before 20 November 1616
- The Russian city of Gdov was to remain in Swedish hands until the peace had been confirmed and the borders fully established
- Sweden recognized Michael Romanov as the rightful tsar of Russia, putting an end to further Swedish claims in Russia
- Russia and the Commonwealth were allowed free trade at normal trade tariffs, making sure Sweden could not cripple Russia completely
- Russia was allowed to establish merchant houses in Stockholm, Reval (Tallinn) and Viborg in exchange for Sweden being allowed to establish merchant houses in Novgorod, Pskov, and Moscow.
The second Kalmar war
Christian IV of Denmark
The Castillian newly formed fleet soundly the Danish navy at the battle of Kattegat in which the higher mobility and firepower of the Castillian fleet proved to be over overwhelming.
After cutting eastern Denmark from Copenaghe and Jutland the Swedish army were able to secure Lapland,Jämtland, Härjedalen, Idre, Särna, Gotland, Saaremaa and Halland.After failing to conquer Oslo Gustavus decided on giving on conquering the entirety of Norway and decided to put his eyes in Skane.
After 6 months in the 23 of June of 1623 Sweden finally conquered Malmö Sweden finally secured the region.
Gustavus would try to conquer Copenhage and give a final blow to Denmark.The Castillian navy would secure Gustavus army passage to Copenhague after landing in the island the Danish army that been holding all its forces in the capital managed to repel the invasion thanks to the support of the inhabitants of the city that rose up to defeat the invaders. Gustavus Adolphus seeing that he wouldn't be able to annex all of Denmark decided to sue for peace.Denmark powerless to do anything recognized Sweden's sovereignity over all its conquests.
Sweden after the second Kalmar war
After this streak of victories Gustavus Adolphus decided to protect the protestant union and decided to go to war against the emperor Phillip the II with the aid of King James VI army and the financial support of Castile in 1625 at the surprise of emperor Phillip which had been dominating the conflict ever since he took power
King Gustavus Adolphus
Sulayman is not the paramount ruler in Luzon but he is the leader of the Bruneian Scions there, having him break with the Bruneians will make the Northern former Majapahit vassals which are in process of unification a new breath of fresh air..
Is the Commonwealth going to get its shit together in this timeline? or is it doomed to be partitioned.
Well, this seems like a very interesting timeline.
Hernan Cortez would have been right in the middle of conquering the Aztecs when the Communeros took over, right? What became of Spanish Mexico in this TL? Are more Maya states still independent?
Hernan Cortez would have been right in the middle of conquering the Aztecs when the Communeros took over, right? What became of Spanish Mexico in this TL? Are more Maya states still independent?
For the moment very few things have changed for the commonwealth
- Heny III of France becomes king of the Commonwealth
- The Scottish army of king James shift the war in favour of Sweden
- The war against the Ottomans is lasting longer
The conquest of Mexico is practically the same as it waps basically a private affair which had little to do with the revolt. The conquest of the inca empire is totally different though and they have a king of their own
What he is getting is the alliance of the Bruneian scions in Luzon not the ones like in Kaboloan, Faru and Macabebe or Northern Luzon which is backwater even to the chinese.
The people's crusade
Juan de Mariana
Juan de Mariana
He was the natural son of the dean of the collegiate church of Talavera de la Reina, Juan Martínez de Mariana and Bernardina Rodríguez, and was baptized by him in La Pueblanueva, a village of his judicial term, on April 2, 1536.
At seventeen he went to study Arts and Theology in Alcalá de Henares, in an atmosphere saturated with Humanism.The same day he made his registration he entered the novitiate of the jesuitas.He was under the tutelage of San Francisco de Borja and professed in 1554 in Simancas. He finished his priestly formation at the Jesuit school in Rome, where from 1561 he was one of his best teachers, counting among his students the future cardinal Belarmino, who would be Francisco Suarez's protector. Four years later he went to Loreto and then was sent as a teacher to Palermo in Sicily, spending eight years in Italy. In 1569 he went to Paris, where he received the degree of doctor and spent five years teaching Thomistic Theology at the Sorbonne, especially at Saint Barthélemy; there he attended in 1572 the Matanza de San Bartolomé, in which many Huguenots were killed; two years later, in 1574, they accepted his resignation from the chair for health reasons and returned to Spain.
He settled in the school of the Company in Toledo and in that semi-retreat he devoted himself to the writing of his books. In 1578 he was commissioned to report on the presumed heterodoxy of the eight volumes of the polyglot Biblia regia whose edition had been directed in Antwerp between 1568 and 1572 by the humanist Benito Arias Montano, in particular on the Syriac version of the New Testament.His report, which took him two years of study, was favorable. At that time he made friends with the García Loaysa y Girón, who will be his disciple, friend and protector . He gained a great reputation from his works and for this reason he was entrusted with other similar and equally delicate works, such as the supervision of the Manual for the administration of the sacraments, the reworking of the Acts of the diocesan councils of Toledo of 1582 and the redaction of the Expurgatory Index of 1584.
In 1599 Mariana would start developing a reactionary philosophy criticizes the prince of Machiavelli and vales such as tolerance and liberty in his book Princeps christianus adversus Nicholaus Machiavelum.
"If every prince left its people to choose about religious matters, how could there be harmony and unity among all nations? How would the German think the same way about God than the Spaniard? What about the inmortality of the soul? How could the Italians,English,Sicilians or French share the same thoughts and words? Should not it happen soon that there were so many religious opinions scattered throughout the world, so many sacred rites, so varies the form of ecclesiastical organization as several and diverse are the judgments of men? For this reason the need to establish a single head has to be recognized, to whom the organization of the Church has been entrusted, the preservation of the ancient ceremonies and the defense of the laws, head to which all the princes of the earth obeyed and respected all"
Mariana then abdocated for a moral goverment in contrast of the machiavelan one to which it should be encomended the defence of a common religion that would be the
vehicle of diplomacy and international relationships.
The rise of Gaspar de Guzmán which represented everything a moral ruler should be lead to the creation of his final work in 1616 In defensionem populi adversus tiranicidio:
"The tyrant appropriates the goods of the individuals and squanders them, possessed as it is by the ignoble vices of greedcruelty and fraud (...) Tyrants like our "Director" Gaspar, in truth, try to harm and ruin everyone, but they direct his attack especially against honest men throughout the republic and giving the money of the honest people to the thugs that keep him in power. They consider the good more suspect than the bad and the virtue that they lack is more formidable (...) They expel the best men of the community under the principle that whoever is exalted in the republic must be overthrown (...) They squeeze out all the rest, so that they can not join, demanding new tributes on a daily basis, promoting fights between citizens and uniting one war with another. They build great works at the expense and suffering of citizens.The tyrant necessarily fears that those who terrorize and keep as slaves try to overthrow him (...) So he forbids citizens to gather, assemblies and the common discussion of community affairs, removing them by methods of secret police the opportunity to speak and listen freely, so that they are not even allowed to complain freely. "
Molina also argued in this book about land and property and some consider this the birth of anarchism and the collectivists.
After the outbreak of the hangings of Mota del Cuervo Mariana in his birthplace of Talavera de la Reina wrote a letter to all the bishops and the gremio de la tierra to rise in arms against Gaspar and his tyranical rule.
The beginning of the people's crusade
From the start Gaspar had been trying to find a conflict to impose his absolute will over all his oponents.And a reactionary uprise seemed like the perfect opportunity for it.Mariana's followers were seeing in the cities with repulse as they often argued for the collectivization and distribution of not only the land but also trade and taxation which would quickly raly against Gaspar which was seen as the lesser evil.The farmers that rented their lands to the junta also sided with Gaspar as there wealth was largely at risk.The protestants and specially the alumbrados rallied in Gaspar's support.
Acknowledging the advantage that big population centers had over smaller populations Gaspar quickly raised the armies from the cities and at the surprise of many decided to confiscate the land of the peninsular bishops first:
This power grab angered the gremio de la tierra which was controlled mostly by high ranks of the catholic church through soft influence over the lower clergy.The gremio de la tierra would prove a fierce rival to Gaspar's goverment and the uprise would lead to massive chaos throughout the republic.The uprise gained special strength in the south and the interior of Galicia while being crushed or simply failed for the most part of the northern Castillian plateau and the shores of the cantabric
Zones controlled by el gremio de la tierraThe revolt failed to attract any cities to its cause and made the figure of the comunidades largely useless as the divide between the rural and urban areas basically made the concejos into powerless entities.
The crusader's as they called themselves managed to raise large armies but lacked leadership and equipment.On the other hand Gaspar's army was centralize and had a clear leader,himself.
The central army under Gaspar had a decessive victory at Talavera de la Reina which would secure the weapons supply from Toledo amd the large properties of the cardenal principado that were financing the war.The battle of Talavera was the first battle in which the primitive Torriani machine guns were used by the central goverment.The heavy machine guns could fire up to 7 bullets a minute,but their weight and slow recharge speed would deem the weapon "mostly inneficient unless there is a charge or the army is in a defensive position".
On the other hand the army sent to Galicia lost against the militia in the battle of the Rias Baixas.The Galicians started spreading the rumor that Santiago had come from heaven and leaded the rebel army to victory,which increased the size of the Galician army.
The tide of the war would turn to Guzman's favour in 1619 when the maester of Santiago and Calatrave died and he named himself maester of both orders.
Gaspar de Guzmán maestro de Santiago y Calatrava
The military orders that had been neutral throughout the comflict had a large presence in rural areas and would give Gaspar's armies enough men to defeat the revolts in Cuenca and Valencia and in Andalucia after the decessive army of Aguilar de la frontera in which over 60,000 crusaders were murdered.
After securing the south Gaspar marched north and entered Galicia triunphal defeating the Galician army at the battle of Lugo.After crushing the revolt Gaspar would go to Santiago and kiss the apostle's grave shouting "I knew you were always on my side!"
After the conflict the comunidades had been heavily weakened and the concejos lost most of their power and so did the bishops and cardinals that became little more than glorified priests in Castile.The gremio de la tierra was dissolved and to eradicate all its influence Gaspar ordered the execution of all the 15000 officials that had been bribed by it.
After capturing Mariana,Gaspar gave him a pardon and stopped his execution which raised lots of attention and surprised most members of the consejo de estado.Gaspar only ever answered once to that question brought by Juan Manuel de Guzmán which Gaspar would simply answered "He did more for the republic than anyone else since its creation."
With no political opponents after the war Gaspar would start focusing on his reforms (the application of the tax and agrarian revolt) and the beginning of his diplomatic schemings and his project of La gran España
Juan de Mariana
He was the natural son of the dean of the collegiate church of Talavera de la Reina, Juan Martínez de Mariana and Bernardina Rodríguez, and was baptized by him in La Pueblanueva, a village of his judicial term, on April 2, 1536.
At seventeen he went to study Arts and Theology in Alcalá de Henares, in an atmosphere saturated with Humanism.The same day he made his registration he entered the novitiate of the jesuitas.He was under the tutelage of San Francisco de Borja and professed in 1554 in Simancas. He finished his priestly formation at the Jesuit school in Rome, where from 1561 he was one of his best teachers, counting among his students the future cardinal Belarmino, who would be Francisco Suarez's protector. Four years later he went to Loreto and then was sent as a teacher to Palermo in Sicily, spending eight years in Italy. In 1569 he went to Paris, where he received the degree of doctor and spent five years teaching Thomistic Theology at the Sorbonne, especially at Saint Barthélemy; there he attended in 1572 the Matanza de San Bartolomé, in which many Huguenots were killed; two years later, in 1574, they accepted his resignation from the chair for health reasons and returned to Spain.
He settled in the school of the Company in Toledo and in that semi-retreat he devoted himself to the writing of his books. In 1578 he was commissioned to report on the presumed heterodoxy of the eight volumes of the polyglot Biblia regia whose edition had been directed in Antwerp between 1568 and 1572 by the humanist Benito Arias Montano, in particular on the Syriac version of the New Testament.His report, which took him two years of study, was favorable. At that time he made friends with the García Loaysa y Girón, who will be his disciple, friend and protector . He gained a great reputation from his works and for this reason he was entrusted with other similar and equally delicate works, such as the supervision of the Manual for the administration of the sacraments, the reworking of the Acts of the diocesan councils of Toledo of 1582 and the redaction of the Expurgatory Index of 1584.
In 1599 Mariana would start developing a reactionary philosophy criticizes the prince of Machiavelli and vales such as tolerance and liberty in his book Princeps christianus adversus Nicholaus Machiavelum.
"If every prince left its people to choose about religious matters, how could there be harmony and unity among all nations? How would the German think the same way about God than the Spaniard? What about the inmortality of the soul? How could the Italians,English,Sicilians or French share the same thoughts and words? Should not it happen soon that there were so many religious opinions scattered throughout the world, so many sacred rites, so varies the form of ecclesiastical organization as several and diverse are the judgments of men? For this reason the need to establish a single head has to be recognized, to whom the organization of the Church has been entrusted, the preservation of the ancient ceremonies and the defense of the laws, head to which all the princes of the earth obeyed and respected all"
Mariana then abdocated for a moral goverment in contrast of the machiavelan one to which it should be encomended the defence of a common religion that would be the
vehicle of diplomacy and international relationships.
The rise of Gaspar de Guzmán which represented everything a moral ruler should be lead to the creation of his final work in 1616 In defensionem populi adversus tiranicidio:
"The tyrant appropriates the goods of the individuals and squanders them, possessed as it is by the ignoble vices of greedcruelty and fraud (...) Tyrants like our "Director" Gaspar, in truth, try to harm and ruin everyone, but they direct his attack especially against honest men throughout the republic and giving the money of the honest people to the thugs that keep him in power. They consider the good more suspect than the bad and the virtue that they lack is more formidable (...) They expel the best men of the community under the principle that whoever is exalted in the republic must be overthrown (...) They squeeze out all the rest, so that they can not join, demanding new tributes on a daily basis, promoting fights between citizens and uniting one war with another. They build great works at the expense and suffering of citizens.The tyrant necessarily fears that those who terrorize and keep as slaves try to overthrow him (...) So he forbids citizens to gather, assemblies and the common discussion of community affairs, removing them by methods of secret police the opportunity to speak and listen freely, so that they are not even allowed to complain freely. "
While Gaspar banned this book to be published throughout the republic word spread about Mariana's work who had identify the intentions of Gaspar to consolidate his power through conflict,property reforms,increased taxation and pharaonic projects.The ban itself was also seeing as a sign of tyranny which didn't please a lot of comunidades that had have freedom of press since their conception.Molina also argued in this book about land and property and some consider this the birth of anarchism and the collectivists.
After the outbreak of the hangings of Mota del Cuervo Mariana in his birthplace of Talavera de la Reina wrote a letter to all the bishops and the gremio de la tierra to rise in arms against Gaspar and his tyranical rule.
The beginning of the people's crusade
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"Against brutality one can only argue with iron and blood.No one will question my authority of that of my men and even so a hicks that murder in the name of hate and disobedience"
Juan Manuel de Guzmán,ministro del interior:"A brutal answer could scalate the conflic.Does this land deserve another war? Another famine?"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"It seems like it"
Juan Manuel de Guzmán,ministro del interior:"A brutal answer could scalate the conflic.Does this land deserve another war? Another famine?"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"It seems like it"
Archivo de Simancas.Reunión del consejo de estado del 8 de Abril de 1617
From the start Gaspar had been trying to find a conflict to impose his absolute will over all his oponents.And a reactionary uprise seemed like the perfect opportunity for it.Mariana's followers were seeing in the cities with repulse as they often argued for the collectivization and distribution of not only the land but also trade and taxation which would quickly raly against Gaspar which was seen as the lesser evil.The farmers that rented their lands to the junta also sided with Gaspar as there wealth was largely at risk.The protestants and specially the alumbrados rallied in Gaspar's support.
Acknowledging the advantage that big population centers had over smaller populations Gaspar quickly raised the armies from the cities and at the surprise of many decided to confiscate the land of the peninsular bishops first:
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,ministro de guerra:"The threat of the popular uprising seems a big of a threat sir.Do you also want to start a war with the church?"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"Bishops have declare war on our rightful goverment through silence and contempt with the rebels.They had been plotting against our reforms since the start and I as all of you know they had been distributing all of Mariana's letters and books through the repblic against my wishes."
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,ministro de guerra:"They will be a fierceful rival,sir"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"They won't if we take their states and wealth before they can react"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"Bishops have declare war on our rightful goverment through silence and contempt with the rebels.They had been plotting against our reforms since the start and I as all of you know they had been distributing all of Mariana's letters and books through the repblic against my wishes."
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,ministro de guerra:"They will be a fierceful rival,sir"
Gaspar de Guzmán,Director general de los asuntos de estado:"They won't if we take their states and wealth before they can react"
Archivo de Simancas.Reunión del consejo de estado del 12 de Mayo de 1617
Gaspar's armies were able to confiscate the states of most bishops with ease as the information always came first to the cities before it arrived to the rural areas.The move was shocking as most bishops would have probably opposed the revolt that would have seriously halt their power and wealth.Obtaining this massive states gave Gaspar vasts amounts of wealth and land,and to please his supporters he would start renting the farms to the free man that would support his cause.This single move would increase the land of the junta by 10 as the bishops and the church held 1/3 of the land in Castile at the time and renting so much land gave the central goverment a vast new source of income which it could rely on.This power grab angered the gremio de la tierra which was controlled mostly by high ranks of the catholic church through soft influence over the lower clergy.The gremio de la tierra would prove a fierce rival to Gaspar's goverment and the uprise would lead to massive chaos throughout the republic.The uprise gained special strength in the south and the interior of Galicia while being crushed or simply failed for the most part of the northern Castillian plateau and the shores of the cantabric
Zones controlled by el gremio de la tierra
The crusader's as they called themselves managed to raise large armies but lacked leadership and equipment.On the other hand Gaspar's army was centralize and had a clear leader,himself.
The central army under Gaspar had a decessive victory at Talavera de la Reina which would secure the weapons supply from Toledo amd the large properties of the cardenal principado that were financing the war.The battle of Talavera was the first battle in which the primitive Torriani machine guns were used by the central goverment.The heavy machine guns could fire up to 7 bullets a minute,but their weight and slow recharge speed would deem the weapon "mostly inneficient unless there is a charge or the army is in a defensive position".
On the other hand the army sent to Galicia lost against the militia in the battle of the Rias Baixas.The Galicians started spreading the rumor that Santiago had come from heaven and leaded the rebel army to victory,which increased the size of the Galician army.
The tide of the war would turn to Guzman's favour in 1619 when the maester of Santiago and Calatrave died and he named himself maester of both orders.
Gaspar de Guzmán maestro de Santiago y Calatrava
The military orders that had been neutral throughout the comflict had a large presence in rural areas and would give Gaspar's armies enough men to defeat the revolts in Cuenca and Valencia and in Andalucia after the decessive army of Aguilar de la frontera in which over 60,000 crusaders were murdered.
After securing the south Gaspar marched north and entered Galicia triunphal defeating the Galician army at the battle of Lugo.After crushing the revolt Gaspar would go to Santiago and kiss the apostle's grave shouting "I knew you were always on my side!"
After the conflict the comunidades had been heavily weakened and the concejos lost most of their power and so did the bishops and cardinals that became little more than glorified priests in Castile.The gremio de la tierra was dissolved and to eradicate all its influence Gaspar ordered the execution of all the 15000 officials that had been bribed by it.
After capturing Mariana,Gaspar gave him a pardon and stopped his execution which raised lots of attention and surprised most members of the consejo de estado.Gaspar only ever answered once to that question brought by Juan Manuel de Guzmán which Gaspar would simply answered "He did more for the republic than anyone else since its creation."
With no political opponents after the war Gaspar would start focusing on his reforms (the application of the tax and agrarian revolt) and the beginning of his diplomatic schemings and his project of La gran España
The first years of Phillip II
Early years
Emperor Phillip the IIPhillip was the only legimate male offspring of Charles VI and like his other 4 sisters,22 half brothers and 16 half sisters he never recieved much attention from his father.As such Phillip was raised by his father's favourite the second earl of Essex until he passed away when he was just 16 years of age.The influence of the second earl of Essex on the prince would be clear from the start and since the beginning he would defend and agressive foreign policy in detriment of the more conservative approach of the the Lord of Suffolk.After the Portuguese parlament rejected the very mild reforms of the lord of Essex Phillip understood that his empire needed some deep reforms and said reforms didn't pass through the many parlamanents of his domains.
Third earl of Essex
Phillip's main advisor was his childhood friend the third earl of Essex,who shared his same views politically.The reliance on the third Earl of Essex,the lack of any known lover or bastard and the effeminate nature of Phillip earned him the reputation of being a homosexual and his manerisms were often mocked at court.
After his father's death Phillip was crown emperor of the Holy Roman empire due the tight control that the Habsburgs had after putting Ferdinad of Austria as the elector of the Palatinate.
Phillip's reign
Phillip would have to deal with a plot to depose him pretty early on his reign as some members of the parlament in Weestminster believed that his half brother Ferdinand would be a better king than him,which were called the Fernandines.The Fernandines would start plotting against the king under the leadership of the Lord of Suffolk that loathed Phillip and wanting to remain in charge.The Fernandine cause would fall under its own weight once Ferdinand himself heard about the plot and informed his half brother Phillip.
Phillip would order the arrest of the Lord of Suffolk and his followers who were jailed in the tower of London and after visiting prision Phillip ordered the execution of all them withouth giving any explanation.
After securing his throne Phillip would start rulling with an iron fist ordering the executions of over 100,000 protestants in Scotland,the Palatinate and Zealand for refusing to convert to catholicism.While the witch hunt was succesful in the Palatinate and Zealand,the Scottish were able to organize some revolts and some were able to flee to Sweden to serve their exiled king.
Hanged people in the PalatinateIn 1622 the third earl of Essex managed to get Bavaria into the catholic league promising Duke Maximilian of Bavaria the status of electorate and a generous dowry for the marriage of Charles' future daughter and his son Ferdinand Maria.
The agressive stance of Phillip under the protestant union saw some major victories of his armies at the battle of Lüneburg (1623) were Ferdinand would defeat the protestant union for the first time,the siege of Göttingen(1623) and the victory over the Ottomans at the battle of Khotyn were the Polish army joined the imperial army leaded by the mercenary Albert von Wallestein
Battle of KhotynAfter the success of his field army the earl of Essex brought to Phillip's attention the lack of contribution of the iberian crowns to the imperial treasury.While fiscal reforms were succesfully introduce in England increasing its revenue from a mere 400,000 pounds to almost 2,000,000 pounds under the leadership of Phillip the I and the count of Nassau the kingdoms of Portugal,Aragon,Naples and the principality of Catalonia combined could barely amass 200,000 pounds in total revenue,while having a combined population similar to that of England.Phillip would order a massive tax reform in this regions which were all denied by the parlaments.Angry at the passivity of the parlaments Phillip would encourage English and Flemish traders commercial rights on Brazil,India,the Malaccas and the mediterranean which angered the Portuguese,the Catalans and the Neopolitans which saw their commercial rights in danger.
The Portuguese rose in arms on the summer of 1624 but the Anglo-Flemish army managed to crush the uprise under the command of Maurice of Orange. After the victory Phillip punished the Portuguese dissolving the parlament and raising taxes.
Charles X king of FranceIn this year Phillip agreed to aid Charles the X of France after ignoring his plees to gain exhert its control over the south of France that had been dominated by the protestants after la grande émigration.Phillip's army would join Charles' army in Paris but soon it would withdraw its support after hearing the news that the king Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had invaded Poland with the assistance of the Ottoman army leaving Charles and the French on their own while the rumors of the young prince Louis of Bourbon crossing the border were spreading throughout the country.
Emperor Phillip the II
Third earl of Essex
Phillip's main advisor was his childhood friend the third earl of Essex,who shared his same views politically.The reliance on the third Earl of Essex,the lack of any known lover or bastard and the effeminate nature of Phillip earned him the reputation of being a homosexual and his manerisms were often mocked at court.
After his father's death Phillip was crown emperor of the Holy Roman empire due the tight control that the Habsburgs had after putting Ferdinad of Austria as the elector of the Palatinate.
Phillip's reign
Phillip would have to deal with a plot to depose him pretty early on his reign as some members of the parlament in Weestminster believed that his half brother Ferdinand would be a better king than him,which were called the Fernandines.The Fernandines would start plotting against the king under the leadership of the Lord of Suffolk that loathed Phillip and wanting to remain in charge.The Fernandine cause would fall under its own weight once Ferdinand himself heard about the plot and informed his half brother Phillip.
Phillip would order the arrest of the Lord of Suffolk and his followers who were jailed in the tower of London and after visiting prision Phillip ordered the execution of all them withouth giving any explanation.
After securing his throne Phillip would start rulling with an iron fist ordering the executions of over 100,000 protestants in Scotland,the Palatinate and Zealand for refusing to convert to catholicism.While the witch hunt was succesful in the Palatinate and Zealand,the Scottish were able to organize some revolts and some were able to flee to Sweden to serve their exiled king.
Hanged people in the Palatinate
The agressive stance of Phillip under the protestant union saw some major victories of his armies at the battle of Lüneburg (1623) were Ferdinand would defeat the protestant union for the first time,the siege of Göttingen(1623) and the victory over the Ottomans at the battle of Khotyn were the Polish army joined the imperial army leaded by the mercenary Albert von Wallestein
Battle of Khotyn
Charles X king of France
La gran España
After consolidating his power internally and passing his reforms Gaspar shifted the focus of the consejo de estado outside of Castile consolidating the diplomatic position of the republic.
The republic of Castile was seen as a middle ranking power that had degenerated from a powerful military nation into a country of artisans and merchants.During the period of the comunidades the republic had lost most of its influence in Italy and north Africa while getting surprassed in the atlantic by the emperor navies and in the mediterranean by the Ottomans that had an undisputed domination of the mediterranean that had been uncontested for over one hundred years.
After the defeat of the republic against the empire at the start of the century consolidated the image of a weak state which king Charles X of France planed to invade until another protestant revolt appeared in the south of France.
Gaspar's diplomatic agenda which he often refered as la política de la gran España consisted on making the republic a first order power in Europe which could rival the empire,the Ottomans or France on its own right.
Enrique de Zuñiga believe that for Castile to become a major player in European politics the republic had to incorporate Portugal,Aragon and Cataluña under its domains:
The second point of the policy of la gran España consisted on creating a balance of power in Europe to stop any country from posing a threat to the republic:
And the third point of la gran España was to increase the involvement of las Españas in the maintenance of the republic:
The republic needed to test its new ships to make sure that the naval reform should continue.As such Gaspar and his consejo de estado decided to declare war on the Ottomans and piracy,which were too busy fighting the commonwealth and the Habsburgs to start any offensive action against the republic. Francisco de Rivera would be incharge of 6 ships with Ayanz's engines with the objective to sink any possible ship that could disturbe "Castillian trade interests". Francisco's flotilla was able to sunk 7 pirate ships close to the Tyrrehian sea and then decided to secure Malta which brought the attention of the Ottomans who sent a fleet to defeat it under Bey of Rhodes.
The two fleets met on the cape of Celidonia close to the shores of Chipre in which the battle of Cape Celidonia was fought.
The Castillian flotilla destroyed the way more numerous Ottoman fleet.This victory was recieved with joy in all of Castile as the Ottomans had been finally trumped at sea with just 6 ships and less than 2000 men.Investors from la compañía mediterranea starting ordering the construction of this new ships that the Junta and the compañia de indias had been working on.The victory also caused joy in the Vatican which lead to the Pope giving the golden rose to Gaspar.This decission greatly angered the Castillian high clergy but the Pope only replied to them:"I needed a butcher not a saint and thanks to the Director Gaspar now we are all free from the saracen yoke"
These two victories led to the republic investing 40% of its budget on building the new fleet while the empire was at war and at the end of 1625 85 of this ships had been constructed between ordered between the republic's navy and private investors mostly from commercial companies.
In 1623 the Castillian republic and the Ottoman empire signed the peace treaty of Valencia which would be broke by the Swedish ambassador in Castile and under the supervision of the claimant to the throne of France king Louis of Bourbon that was in exhile in Valladolid.The treaty openly was to discuss piracy in the mediterranean sea,but it had some secret clauses which made the treaty had an importance that it didn't had on the surface.
Discussion of the treaty of Valencia.Ottoman ambassador to the right,Gaspar de Guzmán to its left shaking the hand of Damián Ruiz tutor of Louis XIII and in the far left the Swedish ambassador
The treaty of Valencia is seeing as the scalation of the conflict from a simple religious revellion into the biggest international war of the century.
The republic of Castile was seen as a middle ranking power that had degenerated from a powerful military nation into a country of artisans and merchants.During the period of the comunidades the republic had lost most of its influence in Italy and north Africa while getting surprassed in the atlantic by the emperor navies and in the mediterranean by the Ottomans that had an undisputed domination of the mediterranean that had been uncontested for over one hundred years.
After the defeat of the republic against the empire at the start of the century consolidated the image of a weak state which king Charles X of France planed to invade until another protestant revolt appeared in the south of France.
Gaspar's diplomatic agenda which he often refered as la política de la gran España consisted on making the republic a first order power in Europe which could rival the empire,the Ottomans or France on its own right.
Enrique de Zuñiga believe that for Castile to become a major player in European politics the republic had to incorporate Portugal,Aragon and Cataluña under its domains:
"What is Castile? It is the trunk of Spain,a land fracture and mutilated by its enemies that don't want it to prosper and grow.The posession of the emperor over Portugal,Aragón and Cataluña is nothing more than a direct attack of our rightful sovereignty,under the fear that the kingdom of Don Rodrigo can come at once all together (..).Portugal's and Aragon's have become just a stopple over the Atlantic and our trade with our brothers in France (..). There is no other alternative than to annex what is us by natural right as if it is not done the republic would never be able to look to the eyes to all the giants that are trying to tread down on us "
Carta de Enrique de Zuñiga a Gaspar de Guzmán,archivo de Simancas
The second point of the policy of la gran España consisted on creating a balance of power in Europe to stop any country from posing a threat to the republic:
"The nature of Spain is no other than the seas.God has placed our land as a junction of the old sea with the new ocean and its frontier.Only trade,wealth,growth and prosperity comes from the sea,so having a domain over it is instrumental for our republic(..).To rule the seas,there must be a fleet,and to maintain a fleet there must be sailors.But the protection of our land we need an army,which requires soldies.Both soldiers and sailors are men(...).What would happen if we have few sailors and a small navy but a strong army? That our wealth,growth and relations with the Spaniards of other hemispheres might be broken for ever,and with fewer wealth there would be no option than to reduce the size of our army(..).What would happen if we have few soldiers and a small army but a big fleet with plenty of sailors? That the sovereignity of our republic and all what we stand for will perish and we would just become subjects to foreign powers like it happened to our brothers in Italy.What would happen if both our armies and navies are strong? Than there would be no men working in our industries and fields which is not an option(..)"
"The task is ardous but God has given us a gift to protect our people from a land invasion.The Pyrenees.Spain is an appendix in Europe and not part of its core,but what it might seem like a disadvantage is a clear advantage(...). If we consolidate our relations with France we should not fear any invasion but since the rise of the Dukes of Guise as the kings of France there is a need for an army.As the Pyrenees forces any land invasion to pass through Guipuzcoa or the Rosellón these areas must be heavily protected and fortified.But as our army can't have the size of that of the French quality and training must be the strenght of our land forces(...).If France fights our wars in land and while we rule the seas the republic will grow to unprecendented lenght and its power will trump that of Rome itself and then we should build an army according to our status(...).But we need France which now is captive (...).But it France trumps the empire they might grow tired of us and decide to invade us.And if England loses its ties in Europe it will start expanding agressively overseas as they don't need an army.Therefor there must be a balance in Europe that ties both the emperor and France to the continent and not overseas(...)"
"The task is ardous but God has given us a gift to protect our people from a land invasion.The Pyrenees.Spain is an appendix in Europe and not part of its core,but what it might seem like a disadvantage is a clear advantage(...). If we consolidate our relations with France we should not fear any invasion but since the rise of the Dukes of Guise as the kings of France there is a need for an army.As the Pyrenees forces any land invasion to pass through Guipuzcoa or the Rosellón these areas must be heavily protected and fortified.But as our army can't have the size of that of the French quality and training must be the strenght of our land forces(...).If France fights our wars in land and while we rule the seas the republic will grow to unprecendented lenght and its power will trump that of Rome itself and then we should build an army according to our status(...).But we need France which now is captive (...).But it France trumps the empire they might grow tired of us and decide to invade us.And if England loses its ties in Europe it will start expanding agressively overseas as they don't need an army.Therefor there must be a balance in Europe that ties both the emperor and France to the continent and not overseas(...)"
Carta de Gaspar de Guzmán a Enrique de Zuñiga,archivo de Simancas
And the third point of la gran España was to increase the involvement of las Españas in the maintenance of the republic:
"Spain was born in Europe but its people are globing through all the hemispheres.It is nothing but fair for the Spaniards of the other hemispheres to aid its mother in its objectives.Chinos,mestizos,indios y criollos and all good christians should all start serving in the army and navy so all the people in our republic can be save to pursue their personal goals and not be under the constant threat of an invation(...)
Carta de Enrique de Zuñiga a Gaspar de Guzmán,archivo de Simancas
Diplomatic moves of Gaspar de Guzmán between 1620 to 1625The republic needed to test its new ships to make sure that the naval reform should continue.As such Gaspar and his consejo de estado decided to declare war on the Ottomans and piracy,which were too busy fighting the commonwealth and the Habsburgs to start any offensive action against the republic. Francisco de Rivera would be incharge of 6 ships with Ayanz's engines with the objective to sink any possible ship that could disturbe "Castillian trade interests". Francisco's flotilla was able to sunk 7 pirate ships close to the Tyrrehian sea and then decided to secure Malta which brought the attention of the Ottomans who sent a fleet to defeat it under Bey of Rhodes.
The two fleets met on the cape of Celidonia close to the shores of Chipre in which the battle of Cape Celidonia was fought.
This victory encouraged Gaspar to support the Swedish adventures which lead to the victory of the northern sea in which the new ships came victorious again.These two victories led to the republic investing 40% of its budget on building the new fleet while the empire was at war and at the end of 1625 85 of this ships had been constructed between ordered between the republic's navy and private investors mostly from commercial companies.
In 1623 the Castillian republic and the Ottoman empire signed the peace treaty of Valencia which would be broke by the Swedish ambassador in Castile and under the supervision of the claimant to the throne of France king Louis of Bourbon that was in exhile in Valladolid.The treaty openly was to discuss piracy in the mediterranean sea,but it had some secret clauses which made the treaty had an importance that it didn't had on the surface.
Discussion of the treaty of Valencia.Ottoman ambassador to the right,Gaspar de Guzmán to its left shaking the hand of Damián Ruiz tutor of Louis XIII and in the far left the Swedish ambassador
- France,the Ottoman empire and Sweden would recognize the soverignity of Castile over all Spain.
- Castile,France and the Ottoman empire would recognize the leadership of Sweden of the protestant union.
- Castille,Sweden and France would recognize Ottoman sovereignity over Serbia and Transylvania.
- Castile,Sweden and the Ottoman empire would support and recognize Louis XIII as the rightful ruler of France
- All parties would recognize King James and his line as rightful rulers of Scotland
- Castile would give financial support to Sweden in exchange of mining rights over copper and iron mines in Sweden.
The treaty of Valencia is seeing as the scalation of the conflict from a simple religious revellion into the biggest international war of the century.
Last edited:
The lion of the north
Gustavus Adolphus
Gustavus's wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg was the sister of the elector of Brandenburg-Prussia,George William, that had swear his alligiance to the king of Poland after his victory at Khotyn and had remained neutral on the war despite rulling a Lutheran principality.George William refused to support his brother in law as he wanted to keep Brandenburg-Prussia out of the conflict and Gustavus knew that he had to force him to chose his side for his ambitions in Germany.
Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg
The Swedish army would march from Prussia to Warsaw were it would defeat a small Polish army at the battle of Olsztyn and two months later would lay siege to Warsaw.Segismund and his army could not relieve the city as his army was fighting against Ottoman foces in the south that had launched a new invasion on the Commonwealth.After the indecesive battle of Uzhhorod (1626) the Polish army was force to focus most of its forces on the southern borther.After 3 months the Swedish army had been able to capture Warsaw and sack the city.
The capture of Warsaw pushed George William stoped paying his feudal homage to the king of Poland and started doing it for his brother in law Gustavus Adolphus.Seeing how catastrophic the war against Sweden culd be Segismund decided to sue for peace and accepted the lose of the duchy of Prussia which would now pass to Sweden.
In the mean time Tilly's army had been able to push into Saxony and the elector John George had pledge for the aid of Gustavus Adolphus.The Swedish army which fight alongside the Scottish army leaded by Charles I of Scotland after the death of king James and the army of his brother in law,George William, would march in the aid of Saxony and were able to defeat Tilly's troops at the battle of Leipzig were the agressive tactics of the Swedish army combined with the use of mobile artillery landed a crushing defeat on the Habsburgs troops that had lost the first major battle in the conflict.
Celebaration after the victory at Lützen
King Charles I of Scotland