FELIPE IV DE ESPAÑA

  

FELIPE IV

BIOGRAFHY

Felipe IV of Spain, called "the Great" or "the Planet King" (Valladolid, April 8, 1605-Madrid, September 17, 1665),

was King of Spain from March 31, 1621 until his death, and of Portugal from the same date to December 1640. His reign of 44 years and 170 days was the longest of the Austrian house and the third in Spanish history, being surpassed only by Felipe V and Alfonso XIII, although the first sixteen years of the reign of the latter were under regency.

During the first stage of his reign, he shared responsibility for State affairs with Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, who deployed an ambitious warmongering policy abroad and a reformist policy in the interior that sought to maintain Spanish hegemony in Europe.

 

INTERNAL POLITIC

Domestic policy

The uprisings in Catalonia and Portugal continued, to which Aragon joined.

In Naples, in 1647, there was an uprising due to lack of food, which spread through Sicily, but the mutineers were controlled by the local authorities.

 

In Catalonia, the war lasted until in 1652, after a 15-month siege, Felipe IV managed to take Barcelona.

That same year in Andalusian cities there were small uprisings due to lack of bread, discontent over the alteration of the currency - fleece currency -, tax pressure and levies

EXTERNAL POLITIC

After the fall of Olivares, the Spanish thirds were defeated by the French at the Battle of Rocroi in 1643. By the Treaty of Westphalia, Spain recognized the independence of the United Provinces and the preservation of Flanders.

 

He  war in France continued because of demands made on Flanders, Franche-Comté, and Roussillon. As a civil war broke out in France and peace with Holland had already been signed, the balance was equalized and the Spanish defeated the French at Valenciennes in 1656