and form a junction with the Duke of Parma. But being attacked by the English Admiral, and after several engagements driven toward Orkney, the fleet was so effectually scattered by a tempest, that the Duke returned to Spain with not more than sixty shattered vessels.
In 1596, war being formally declared, the Spaniards seized Calais, with other walled towns; and in alarm Queen Elizabeth dispatched a fleet to Cadiz, under the young and accomplished Earl of Essex. Landing in spite of the fire from the forts and battlements, the English forced the town to capitulate, made the inhabitants pay for their lives, razed the fortifications, and burned the houses. In revenge, Philip sent ships to threaten the English coast, though without any success; and at length, satiated with the blood which had been shed in promotion of his various ambitious designs, he signed the Peace of Vervins. On the eve of the battle of St. Quentin, Philip vowed, in the event of victory, to build, in honor of St. Lawrence, a church, a monastery and a palace, and in fulfillment of this vow, he erected near Madrid the magnificent palace of the Escurial, which contained the residence and mausoleum of the sovereigns of Spain. Expiring in 1598, he was laid in the cemetry which he had formed beneath the pavement of the church; and his son, Philip III, ascended the throne.
From that period Spain declined in power and importance, though her empire was long, to outward appearance, great and magnificent. The new king, who was not less bigoted than his gloomy sire, prosecuted the war against the United Provinces, but, in 1609, was forced to conclude a treaty at the Hague, which secured civil and religious freedom to the new republic, and restored the confiscated estates of the house of Orange. Yet, untaught by experience, and under the inspiration of his minister, the Duke of Lerma, he issued an edict, ordering the Morescoes, or descendants of the Moors, to leave the kingdom within thirty days, and thus farther enfeebled a state which war and emigration had previously deprived of so many energetic and industrious inhabitants. The Morescoes had been conspicuous for their skill and ingenuity in arts and manufactures, and this depopulation produced a most baneful effect.
Philip IV succeeded, on his father's decease, to an empire more extensive indeed than the realms of the Grand Monarch, but corrupt in all its parts, and in a state of hopeless prostration. The result soon appeared. Brazil was taken by the Dutch; Catalonia revolted to France; and to suppress the rebellion, the Portuguese were intrusted with arms. The latter turning against their oppressive governors, placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne; and Philip was one of the last personages in Europe who heard of the important event. Shut up in the recesses of the Escurial, he was indulging in licentious dissipation, when one day his able and artful minister, Olivarez, craved an audience. 'I bring,' said he, 'good news to your majesty. The Duke of Braganza's whole fortune is yours. He has presumptuously got himself declared King of Portugal, and, consequently, you are entitled to the forfeiture of all his estates.' Philip, lost in luxurious enjoyment, only replied, 'Let the sequestration be ordered.' And Portugal was lost to him beyond the hope of recovery.
A war which broke out with France was terminated, in 1659, by the Peace of the Pyrenees, which was negotiated by the crafty Mazarin; and by this treaty it was stipulated that Louis XIV should espouse the King's eldest daughter, she renouncing all claim to the succession.
