Carlos II

Charles Ii

The Bewitched

start

Index

1. Introduction

6. Titles

2. Reign of Mariana of Austria

7. Will

8. Autopsy

3. Society

9. Thanks

4. Economy

5. Favorites

10. Fonts

Introduction

We are going to talk about Charles II, the last king of the Habsburg Dynasty. He was born the 6th of November 1661 and he died when he was 38 , the 1st of November 1700. He reign between 17th of September 1665 and 1st November 1700. He was the son of Philipe IV and Mariana of Austria. He was the last king of the Hamburg's Dynasty, because he had a problem of infertility. He had two wifes: María Luisa of Orleans (1662-1689) and Mariana of Neoburgo (1667- 1740). He had the nickname of ``The Bewitched´´ because of his phisical problems.

Reign of mariana of austria

Charles II's father, Philip IV, had previously married Isabella of France (died 1644) and only had one son: Prince Baltasar, but he also died in 1646, which caused the king to return to Spain. marry Archduchess Mariana of Austria, who was his niece. Only the Infanta Margarita Teresa and the last of the male children survived from this union: Charles II. Philip IV died in 1665, which caused Mariana of Austria to become regent for Charles II, who was only three years old at the time.

Then, in the year 1675, Charles II was declared of age, at that time he was 14 years old, but his mother continued to govern for him with her favorite, Fernando de Valenzuela. For this reason, in 1677, his half-brother Juan José de Austria entered in Madrid with a small army and took control of the Court. Mariana of Austria was separated from her son, and her favorite was exiled. Juan José of Austria became a favorite of Charles II and from there he began to have greater autonomy.

The regent governed assisted by a Regency Board. One of the members of the board died, he was the Archbishop of Toledo, and was replaced by the priest Juan Everardo Nithard, a Jesuit. Thus, Father Nithard became a favorite, and reached the position of Inquisitor General (1666-1669), but he had many problems for being a foreigner. He was the one who finally recognized the independence of Portugal, which was qualified as a failure.

sOCIETY

Society in the time of Charles II maintained the same structure as throughout the 17th century and the previous one. The first social division was based on privileges, the main of which was exemption from direct taxes. Thus, the members of the nobility and the Clergy formed the two privileged classes. The rest of society, all the people who were not nobles or ecclesiastics, together formed the third estate of direct tax payers.

sOCIETY

But this division into three estates does not mean that the members who made up each estate were of the same social category. In the third estate there were rich people and poor people: the rich were the owners of many or enough lands who did not need to work them, but rented them to others, thus living off the income; also the great merchants and bankers; there was also an intermediate category of landowners, small merchants, men with university or college education, doctors, who had intermediate levels of wealth; and finally the poor, peasants without land, day laborers, artisans...

Nor were the privileged classes homogeneous. There was a very rich high nobility, who had large possessions of land (property or lordship), an intermediate nobility, with a smaller amount of wealth, and a lower nobility of very modest wealth in many cases. The members of the clergy had the wealth that was associated with their position or with their monastery, parish, chapel... Thus the lands and income associated with a bishopric were much greater than those associated with a chapel, and there were rich parishes and poor parishes.

The Marquis of Varinas was a senior colonial official, that look in the year 1687, that the empire continued to exist in its present form because only the Dutch, English and French put in more cheaply. In response, debtors were given three months to repay government debts using the existing rate, later extended to six months. Having stabilised the position, in 1686. In the 1680s, Spanish officials took steps to restore faith in the currency and issued a series of drastic deflationary decrees, revaluing the coinage at 25% of its previous value.

eCONOMY

The economy was bad for few reasons, for example: epidemics in that time, that reduce the number of population and the wars in France. This produces a constant drain on public expenditure.In 1663, Philip IV had converted state debt into government bonds, or juros, but a history of default required high rates of interest, meaning taxes were often assigned to creditors years in advance to pay current liabilities. In 1670 the foreing trade was controle by Dutch and English merchants, while the nacional econmy relied on French labour and imported wheat.

Favorites:

As Charles II was incapable of governing by himself, he continued to trusts his power to valids such as:

Duke of Medinaceli (1680-1685)

Conde of Oropesa (1685-1691) (1695-1699)

Cardinal Fernandez of Portocarrero (1699-1700)

Duke of Milan

titles

King of Spain, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia

Sovereign of the Netherlands and Duke of Burgundy

---------------WILL---------------

When Carlos II died he didnt have any soucesor because he coudn´t have any kids because all of his health problems. He gave all his territory to Philip of Anjou in his testament but Archduke Carlos wasn´t in favour this started LA GUERRA DE SUCESION This was basically a war between France and Spain versus Netherlands and UK. It´s true that in spain there were also some wars between La Corona de Castilla and La Corona de Aragon. This war ended in 1713 with the victory of Philip V. Fun fact for English people and sad fact for Spanish community is that in this war Spain lost Gibraltar.

AUTOPSY

The autopsy of Carlos II revaled hi had " a very small hart, bad condition lungs, three stones in his kidney and one testicle that was black as coal ".

Thanks!!!

Made by Leo, Marcelo and Héctor.