Prospero's Prosperity: Spanish Habsburgs Don't Die Out 1700

Chapter XVI: A Retrospective

The Infante Felipe Prospero inherited the thrones of Spain and its vast overseas empire as King Felipe V on the 24th September 1665. He was an epileptic and sickly boy of eight. His dying father entrusted the regency and full royal authority in the now Dowager Queen, Ana Maria Luisa d'Orléans, famously known as La Grand Maidemoiselle.

His reign began on rocky terrain and would continue to trail a difficult and unsteady path for the entirety of his minority. Her first act as Regent was to declare another moratorium on the Kingdom's astronomical debts.

The Queens' Peace (1665) saw Spain officially recognize the independence of Portugal under the Braganzas, receiving in indemnity the Madeiras, Ceuta and Cape Verde. The Spanish simultaneously flexed their political muscles orchestrating the deposition of King Afonso and his minister Castelomelhor, the departure of an English army of auxiliaries commanded by Schomberg, the succession of King Pedro, his marriage to the Dowager Queen's sister and the betrothal of his as-of-yet-unborn heir to a Spanish infanta, in whose name Évora and Portalegre would remain garrisoned by the Spanish.

There followed a period of reform and consolidation, marked by the abolition of the vellón and internal tariffs among the composite kingdoms of Spain, the implementation of the system of denuncia de realengo (by which denounced lands which were found to be un- or under-used escheated to the crown and were subsequently auctioned off, often with accompanying titles of nobility) and the sale of several asientos providing for a sharp increase in the sale of slave negroes in Spain itself. The cultivation of alfafa, corn and tobacco were encouraged where possible and local privileges and eccentricities curbed in favour of the crown's policies.

Events forced Spain to join the fray during the Great War (war was declared against France and her allies, bar Portugal, in April 1667, after the Dowager realized France meant to betray a recent pact between them) and empty its already depleted coffers to take on the rampaging assault of the Dowager's own cousin, King Louis XIV. This conflict served as a catalyst to the ratification of two royal unions: that of the Infanta Margarita Theresa with the Emperor Leopold, and that of the Archduchess Maria Anna Josepha of Austria with the young King Felipe V.

The Treaty of Breda at year's end saw the English abandon the French alliance in great dissatisfaction and cut a separate three-way accord with the Dutch and Portuguese. It served as a mirror to the Peace of Wismar (1668), which saw Sweden similarly abandon the French and make a peace of its own with the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At great personal cost and sacrifice of land and income and property La Grand Maidemoiselle joined the Emperor's peace with France (ratified January 1669). France gained Zeelandic Flanders from the Dutch and Cambrai, Bregues and what remained of the old Imperial county of Artois from the Spanish. La Grand Maidemoiselle lost all of her vast French inheritance and possessions, save for Dombes and Andorra, and her daughter the Infanta Leopoldina was betrothed to the Dauphin at the cost of a grandiose dowry Spain could not afford to pay. The promised acquisition of Maastricht (seized by the Austrians from the Dutch, and now promised as dowry for a newborn Archduchess) by her eldest son the Infante Luís Diego and the projected succession of the Infante Pedro, her second son, to the Prince-Bishopric of Liége (to which he had been elected coadjutor) were little compensation.

The years 1670-71 were dominated by renewed focus on the New World, where the Irish privateer Henry Morgan served the English by disrupting Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. The Spanish built a fort on the Cayman Islands and harassed the English in Jamaica by aiding and abetting the Jamaican Maroons (heterogeneous groups of runaway slaves, mulattoes and natives who raided the English and fomented slave rebellions & escapes). A settlement was sought, predicated on the betrothal of the Infanta Leopoldina and the Prince of Wales, but the Spanish prevaricated over breaking the girl's prior contract with the Dauphin and had not yet reached a decision when the young Prince James Stuart died in mid-1671. La Grand Mademoiselle eagerly latched on to the possibilities offered by a potential match between one of her sons and the Princess Catherine Louise Stuart, the new heiress apparent to England and all of its dependencies. The Spanish alliance was heralded as a traditional and welcome one by the English, and the Stuarts secure enough on their throne to transmit the crown to a girl, if it came to it, but the dreaded prospect of a Roman Catholic succession (and the likely restoration of ties with the Holy See) imperilled the King's very life and crown. La Grand Maidemoiselle used the prospect of uniting England with the Spanish Netherlands as bait, but the English were nonplussed and favoured a match elsewhere. The rival candidate was himself half-English and of the right (Protestant) religion - Prince William of Orange, a man grown at twenty-one and a dutiful Calvinist of very different make to his wayward English uncles, with all their drinking and whoring. King Charles' attempt to grant religious liberty to Protestant nonconformists and Catholics in all his domains fanned the flames of anti-Catholic hysteria in Parliament and among the people. The death of his only legitimate son, his own wife's Catholicism and the rumoured Catholicism of the Duke of York only worsened the King's position. His 'Royal Declaration of Indulgence' was promptly revoked and replaced by the first of the Test Acts, which imposed various civil limitations on said nonconformists and Catholics, especially those in civil service. Rumours of a Popish plot against the King took wind and the King was forced to assuage public and Parliamentary sentiment by promising Protestant marriages for the Princess Catherine and the Duke of York's two daughters. By January 1672 the Princess Catherine, a child of only three, was betrothed to Frederick Charles of Verden, son of the King's popular cousin and war hero Prince Rupert, and Princess Mary of York, a girl of ten, was affianced to Prince William of Orange, twelve years her senior (King Charles rightly fearing the possible challenge Prince William could mount to his authority if he should marry the royal heiress and become the head of popular, Parliamentary, Protestant sentiment in England). King Charles subsequently floated the idea of a betrothal between the Princess Anne of York and one of the Infantes, to the Dowager's chagrin giving undue consideration to the Infante Carlos 'the Bewitched', a child so sickly and deformed many expected him to be passed over altogether should anything befall his elder brother Felipe, the Virgin King. The Treaty of Madrid (1672) ended the various disputes over territory and commerce without touching on the topic of marriage, providing amongst other things for the complete transferral of the Cayman Islands to the English and the limitation of Spanish interference in Jamaica, where the Spanish were given a foot-hold upon which to settle their maroon allies (and thus, hopefully, end the latter's raiding against the English).
 
I'd love to see this TL cont'd or rebooted? Is this going to happen? I hate to be that person, but this was a really interesting TL

Well, here's a slight retrospective and gentle move forward. I find the general concept of this TL intriguing still, but the sheer amount of details and cause-consequences all over the place is really hard to keep track of, especially for someone with very limited knowledge of this epoch.
 
I remember this TL. Hope this stays alive and hope the recent posts aren't just necros. Give this baord a surviving Spanish Hapsburgs TL, yeah!:cool:
 
Thanks guys.

I like this TL's concept, I just find it a bit overwhelming to tie up all the loose ends. Things like technology and colonial affairs and economy matters are all very complex and hard to parse out accurately. Plus it's been a while since I've really written a TL with any regularity.

Any thoughts on my handling of an England where Catherine of Braganza produced living children? (Well, child, since the little Prince of Wales died young).
 
Interesting state of things. Especially the Verden Wittelsbachs de-facto being declared heirs:)
Finally logged in after a few days of account needing to have a password changed.
 
Interesting state of things. Especially the Verden Wittelsbachs de-facto being declared heirs:)
Finally logged in after a few days of account needing to have a password changed.

Of course, a three year old's betrothal, especially in this era, is far from setting anything to stone. Prince Rupert having issue alone is quite the game-changer, going forward.
 
I like this TL's concept, I just find it a bit overwhelming to tie up all the loose ends. Things like technology and colonial affairs and economy matters are all very complex and hard to parse out accurately. Plus it's been a while since I've really written a TL with any regularity.

In my reading on technology during this period, I've come to the opinion that it would take extremely large divergences to cause appreciable changes to technological progress. The diffusion of technology might change a little, but not that much I think - even the strongest governments in this period just weren't strong enough to aid or impede diffusion by much.

Similarly, I don't think it's easy to cause any great changes economically (for similar reasons to technology not being strongly changed by most PoDs). The largest change to economics will come from who has more peace or more war relative to OTL.

As to colonial affairs... Well, my knowledge of Spanish colonial history is more than most, but it is generally very localized - I'm still working on building an understanding of it as a whole system. So I can help you less here.

I'm afraid I don't have any thoughts on what would happen with the English royals.

fasquardon
 

Mrstrategy

Banned
Money is the key to Spanish survival if they can balance the budget and pay off its debt they have a better chance of stability and survival as an empire and world power.perhaps they should create the commonwealth of new Spain also the commonwealth of new Granada keeping Cuba and the other caribean islands for the crown
 
Last edited:
Top