THE SPANISH PENINSULA AND ITS COLONIES.
♦Analogy between Spain and Scandinavia.♦
The great peninsula of the West has much in common with the great
peninsula of the North. ♦Slight relations with the Empire.♦ Save Sweden
and Norway, no part of Western Europe has had so little to do with the
later Empire as Spain. ♦Break between earlier and later history.♦ And
in no land that formed part of the earlier Empire, save our own island,
is the later history so completely cut off from the earlier history.
The modern kingdoms of Spain have still less claim to represent the
West-Gothic kingdom than the modern kingdom of France had to represent
the Frankish kingdom. ♦Modern Spanish history begins with the Saracen
conquest.♦ The history of Spain, as an element in the European system,
begins with the Saracen invasion. For a hundred years before that time
all trace of dependence on the elder Empire had passed away. With the
later Western Empire Spain had nothing to do after the days of Charles
the Great and his immediate successors. Their claims over a small part
of the country passed away from the Empire to the kings of Karolingia.
♦Analogy between Spain and South-eastern Europe.♦
With the Eastern Empire and the states which grew out of it Spain
has the closest connexion in the way of analogy. ♦Comparison of the
effects of conquest and deliverance in each.♦ Each was a Christian land
conquered from the Mussulman. Each has been wholly or partially won
back from him. But the deliverance of south-western Europe was mainly
the work of its own people, and its deliverance was nearly ended when
the bondage of south-eastern Europe was only beginning. Again, in
south-eastern Europe the nations were fully formed before the Mussulman
conquest, and they have lived through it. ♦The Spanish nation formed
by the war with the Mussulmans.♦ In Spain the Mussulman conquest cut
short the West-Gothic power just as it was growing into a new Romance
nation; the actual Romance nation of Spain was formed by the work of
withstanding the invaders. ♦Analogy between Spain and Russia.♦ The
closest analogy of all is between Spain and Russia. Each was delivered
by its own people. In each case, long after the main deliverance had
been wrought, long after the liberated nation had begun again to take
its place in Europe, the ransomed land was still cut off, by a fragment
of its old enemies, from the coasts of its own southern sea.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the West-Gothic and the Saracen dominions.♦
The Saracen dominion in the West, as established by the first
conquerors, answered very nearly to the West-Gothic kingdom, as it
then stood: but it did not exactly answer to _Spain_, either in the
geographical or in the later Roman sense.[79] When the Saracen came,
the Empire, not the Goth, still held the Balearic Isles, and the
fortresses of _Tangier_ and _Ceuta_ on the Mauretanian side of the
strait. On the other hand, the Goth did not hold quite the whole
of the peninsula, while his dominion took in the Gaulish land of
_Septimania_. Strictly speaking, the conquest was one, not of Spain
geographically, but of the West-Gothic dominions in and out of Spain,
and of the outlying Imperial possessions in their neighbourhood. ♦Two
centres of deliverance.♦ It was from the lands which hindered both
the West-Gothic and the Saracen dominion from exactly answering to
geographical Spain that deliverance came, and it came in two forms.
♦The independent lands.♦ From the land to the north-west, which held
out against both Goth and Saracen, came that form of deliverance which
was strictly native. ♦The Frankish dominion. 752-759.♦ At the other
end, the Frank first won back for Christendom the Saracen province
in Gaul, and then carried his arms into the neighbouring corner of
Spain. ♦778.♦ Thus we get two centres of deliverance, two groups of
states which did the work. There are the north-western lands, whose
history is purely Spanish, which simply withstood the Saracen, and
the north-eastern lands, which were first won from the Saracen by the
Frank, and which gradually freed themselves from their deliverer.
♦Represented severally by Castile and Portugal, and by Aragon.♦ The
former class are represented in later Spanish history by the kingdoms
of Castile and Portugal, the latter by the kingdom of Aragon. Navarre
lies between the two, and shares in the history of both. The former
start geographically from the mountain region washed by the Ocean.
The latter start geographically from the mountains which divide
Gaul and Spain, and which stretch westward to the Mediterranean.
The geographical position of the regions foreshadows their later
history.[80] ♦Later history of Aragon.♦ It was Aragon, looking to the
East, which first played a great part in European affairs, and which
carried Spanish influence and dominion into Gaul, Sicily, Italy, and
Greece. ♦Of Castile and Portugal.♦ It was Portugal and Castile, looking
to the West, which established an Iberian dominion beyond the bounds
of Europe. The fact that a Queen of Castile in the fifteenth century
married a King of Aragon and not a King of Portugal has led us to
speak of the peninsular kingdoms as ‘_Spain_ and _Portugal_.’[81] For
some ages ‘Spain and Aragon’ would have been a more natural division.
But the very difference in the fields of action of Castile and Aragon
hindered any such strong opposition. Between Castile and Portugal, on
the other hand, a marked rivalry arose in the field which was common to
both.
♦The more strictly native centre foremost in the work of deliverance.♦
Of these two centres, one purely Spanish, the other brought for a
long time under a greater or less degree of foreign influence, the
more strictly native region was foremost in the work of national
deliverance. How far western Spain stood in advance of eastern Spain is
shown by the speaking fact that Toledo, so much further to the south,
was won by Castile a generation before Zaragoza was won by Aragon.
♦Relations of Castile and Aragon towards Navarre.♦ But both Castile and
Aragon, as powers, grew out of the break-up of a momentary dominion in
the land which lay between them, and whose later history is much less
illustrious than theirs. In the second quarter of the eleventh century
the kingdom of _Pampeluna_ or _Navarre_ had, by the energy of a single
man, the Sviatopluk or Stephen Dushan of his little realm, risen to the
first place among the Christian powers of Spain. Castile and Aragon do
not appear with kingly rank till both had passed under the momentary
rule of a neighbour which in after times seemed so small beside either
of them. And the name of _Castile_, whether as county, kingdom, or
empire, marks a comparatively late stage of Christian advance. We must
here go back for a moment to those early days of the long crusade of
eight hundred years at which we have already slightly glanced.[82]
§ 1. _The Foundation of the Spanish Kingdoms._
♦Founding of the kingdom of Leon. 753. | 916.♦
We have seen how the union of the small independent lands of the north,
_Asturia_ and _Cantabria_, grew into the kingdom, first of _Oviedo_
and then of _Leon_. _Gallicia_, on the one side, representing in some
sort the old Suevian kingdom, _Bardulia_ or the oldest _Castile_, the
land of Burgos, on the other side, were lands which were early inclined
to fall away. ♦Christian advance.♦ The growth of the Christian powers
on this side was favoured by internal events among the Mussulmans, by
famines and revolts which left a desert border between the hostile
powers. ♦The Ommiad emirate. 755.♦ The Ommiad emirate, afterwards
caliphate, was established almost at the moment of the Saracen loss
of Septimania. ♦The Spanish March. 778-801.♦ Then came the _Spanish
March_ of Charles the Great, which brought part of northern Spain once
more within the bounds of the new Western Empire, as the conquests of
Justinian had brought back part of southern Spain within the bounds of
the undivided Empire. ♦Its extent.♦ This march, at its greatest extent,
took in Pampeluna at one end and Barcelona at the other, with the
intermediate lands of _Aragon_, _Ripacurcia_, and _Sobrarbe_. But the
Frankish dominion soon passed away from Aragon, and still sooner from
Pampeluna. ♦Its division.♦ The western part of the march, which still
acknowledged the superiority of the Kings of Karolingia, split up into
a number of practically independent counties, which made hardly any
advance against the common enemy.
Meanwhile the land of Pampeluna became, at the beginning of the
eleventh century, an independent and powerful kingdom. ♦Navarre under
Sancho the Great. 1000-1035.♦ The Navarre of Sancho the Great stretched
some way beyond the Ebro; to the west it took in the ocean lands of
_Biscay_ and _Guipuzcoa_, with the original Castile; to the east it
took in _Aragon_, _Ripacurcia_, and _Sobrarbe_. The two Christian
kingdoms of Navarre and Leon took in all north-eastern Spain. The
Douro was reached and crossed; the Tagus itself was not far from the
Christian boundary; but the states which owned the superiority of the
power which we may now call _France_ were still far from the lower Ebro.
♦Break-up of the kingdom of Navarre (1035), and of the Ommiad caliphate
(1028).♦
At the death of Sancho the Great his momentary dominion broke up.
Seven years earlier the dominion of the Ommiad caliphs had broken up
also. These two events, so near together, form the turning-point in
the history of the peninsula. Instead of the one Ommiad caliphate,
there arose a crowd of separate Mussulman kingdoms, which had to call
for help to their Mussulman brethren in Africa. ♦Invasion of the
Almoravides. 1086-1110.♦ This led to what was really a new African
conquest of Mussulman Spain. The new deliverers or conquerors spread
their dominion over all the Mussulman powers, save only Zaragoza.
♦Use of the name _Moors_.♦ This settlement, with other later ones of
the same kind, gives a specially African look to the later history
of Mahometan Spain, and has doubtless helped to give the Spanish
Mussulmans the common name of _Moors_. But their language and culture
remained Arabic, and the revolution caused by the African settlers
among the ruins of the Western caliphate was far from being so great as
the revolution caused by the Turkish settlers among the ruins of the
Eastern caliphate.
♦New kingdoms, Castile, Aragon, and Sobrarbe 1035.♦
Out of the break-up of the dominion of Sancho came out the separate
kingdom of Navarre, and the new kingdoms of _Castile_, _Aragon_, and
_Sobrarbe_. ♦Union of Aragon and Sobrarbe. 1040.♦ Of these the two last
were presently united, thus beginning the advance of Aragon. Thus we
come to four of the five historic kingdoms of Spain—Navarre, Castile,
Aragon, and Leon, whose unions and divisions are endless. ♦Shiftings
of Castile and Leon. 1037. | 1065-1073.♦ The first king Ferdinand of
Castile united Castile and Leon; Castile, Leon, and Gallicia were
again for a moment separated under his son. ♦1076-1134.♦ Aragon and
Navarre were united for nearly sixty years. ♦The Emperor Alfonso
1135.♦ Presently Spain has an Emperor in Alfonso of Castile, Leon, and
Gallicia. ♦1157.♦ But Empire and kingdom were split asunder. Leon and
Castile became separate kingdoms under the sons of Alfonso, and they
remained separate for more than sixty years. ♦Final union of Castile
and Leon. 1230.♦ Their final union created the great Christian power of
Spain.
♦Decline of Navarre.♦
Navarre meanwhile, cut short by the advance of Castile, shorn of its
lands on the Ocean and beyond the Ebro, lost all hope of any commanding
position in the peninsula. ♦1234.♦ It passed to a succession of French
kings, and for a long time it had no share in the geographical history
of Spain. ♦Growth of Aragon.♦ But the power of Aragon grew, partly by
conquests from the Mussulmans, partly by union with the French fiefs
to the east. ♦Union with Barcelona. 1131.♦ The first union between
the crown of Aragon and the county of _Barcelona_ led to the great
growth of the power of Aragon on both sides of the Pyrenees and even
beyond the Rhone.[83] ♦1213.♦ This power was broken by the overthrow of
King Pedro at Muret. ♦Settlement with France. 1258.♦ But by the final
arrangement which freed _Barcelona_, _Roussillon_, and _Cerdagne_, from
all homage to France, all trace of foreign superiority passed away from
Christian Spain. The independent kingdom of Aragon stretched on both
sides of the Pyrenees, a faint reminder of the days of the West-Gothic
kings.
On the other side of the peninsula the lands between Douro and Minho
began to form a separate state. ♦County of Portugal. 1094.♦ The county
of _Portugal_ was held by princes of the royal house of France, as a
fief of the crown of Castile and Leon. ♦Kingdom, 1139.♦ The county
became a kingdom, and its growth cut off Leon, as distinguished from
Castile, from any advance against the Mussulmans. Navarre was cut off
already. But the three kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were
all ready for the work. A restored Western Christendom was growing
up to balance the falling away in the East. ♦Beginning of the great
Christian advance.♦ The first great advance of the Christians in Spain
began about the time of the Seljuk conquests from the Eastern Empire.
The work of deliverance was not ended till the Ottoman had been for
forty years established in the New Rome.
* * * * *
The Christian powers however were disunited, while the Mussulmans
had again gained, though at a heavy price, the advantage of union.
♦Conquest of Toledo. 1085.♦ Alfonso the Sixth, commanding the powers
of Castile and Leon, pressed far to the south, and won the old Gothic
capital of _Toledo_. ♦Battle of Zalacca. 1086.♦ But his further
advance was checked by the African invaders at the battle of Zalacca.
♦Advance of the Almoravides. | Advance of Aragon.♦ The Almoravide
power was too strong for any present hope of conquests on the part
of Castile; but the one independent Mussulman state at _Zaragoza_
lay open to the Christians of the north-east. ♦Conquest of Zaragoza.
1118. | Of Tarragona.♦ Zaragoza itself was taken by the king of Aragon,
and _Tarragona_ by the Count of Barcelona. ♦Of Tortosa. 1148.♦ Both
these powers advanced, and the conquest of _Tortosa_ made the Ebro
the Christian boundary. ♦Advance of Portugal.♦ As the power of the
Almoravides weakened, Castile and Portugal again advanced on their
side. ♦Conquest of Lisbon. 1147. | Of Silvas. 1191.♦ The latter kingdom
made the great acquisition of its future capital _Lisbon_, and a
generation later, it reached the southern coast by the conquest of
_Silvas_ in Algarve. ♦Advance of Castile. 1147-1166.♦ Castile meanwhile
pressed to the Guadiana and beyond, counting _Calatrava_ and _Badajoz_
among its cities. The line of struggle had advanced in about a century
from the land between Douro and Tagus to the land between Guadiana and
Guadalquivir.
This second great Christian advance in the twelfth, century was again
checked in the same way in which the advance in the eleventh century
had been. ♦Invasion of the Almohades. 1146.♦ A new settlement of
African conquerors, the _Almohades_, won back a large territory from
both Castile and Portugal. ♦Battle of Alarcos. | 1196.♦ The battle
of Alarcos broke for a while the power of Castile, and the Almohade
dominion stretched beyond the lower Tagus. To the east, the lands
south of Ebro remained an independent Mussulman state. ♦Decline of
the Almohades.♦ But, as the Almohades were of doubtful Mahometan
orthodoxy, their hold on Spain was weaker than that of any other
Mahometan conquerors. ♦Battle of Navas de Tolosa. 1211.♦ Their power
broke up, and the battle of Navas de Tolosa ruled that Spain should be
a Christian land. All three kingdoms advanced, and within forty years
the Mussulman power in the peninsula was cut down to a mere survival.
♦Conquest of the Balearic Isles. 1228-1236. | Of Valencia. 1237-1305.♦
Aragon won the _Balearic Isles_ and formed her kingdom of _Valencia_.
♦Of Murcia. 1243-1253.♦ But as Castile, by the incorporation of
_Murcia_, reached to the Mediterranean, any further advance in the
peninsula was forbidden to Aragon. ♦Advance of Portugal. 1217-1256.♦ On
the eastern side Portugal won back her lost lands, reached her southern
coast, kept all the land west of the lower Guadiana and some points to
the east of it. ♦Kingdom of Algarve.♦ To the kingdom of Portugal was
added the kingdom of _Algarve_.
But the central power of Castile pressed on faster still. ♦Conquest
of Castile under Saint Ferdinand.♦ Under Saint Ferdinand began the
recovery of the great cities along the Guadalquivir. ♦Conquest of
Cordova. 1236. | Of Jaen. 1246. | Of Seville. 1248.♦ _Cordova_, the
city of the caliphs, was won; _Jaen_ followed; then more famous
_Seville_; and _Cadiz_, eldest of Western cities, passed again, as when
she first entered the Roman world, from Semitic into Aryan hands. ♦Of
Nibla. 1257. | Of Tarifa. 1285.♦ The conquest of _Nibla_ and _Tarifa_
at last made the completion of the work only a question of time.
No one in the middle of the twelfth century could have dreamed that
a Mussulman power would live on in Spain till the last years of
the fifteenth. ♦Kingdom of Granada. 1238.♦ This was the kingdom of
_Granada_, which began, amid the conquests of Saint Ferdinand, as a
vassal state of Castile. ♦Reconquered from Castile. 1298.♦ Yet, sixty
years later, it was able to win back a considerable territory from its
overlord. ♦Recovery by Castile. 1316. | 1430.♦ Part of the land now
gained was soon lost again; but part, with the city of _Huascar_, was
kept by the Mussulmans far into the fifteenth century. ♦Gibraltar lost
and won. 1309. 1333. 1344.♦ Meanwhile, on the strait between the ocean
and the Mediterranean, _Gibraltar_ was won by Castile, lost, and won
again.
* * * * *
♦Geographical position of the four kingdoms.♦
Thus, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, the peninsula
of Spain was very unequally divided between one Mussulman and four
Christian states. Aragon on the one side, Portugal on the other, were
kingdoms with a coast line out of all proportion to their extent
inwards. Aragon had become a triangle, Portugal a long parallelogram,
cut off on each side from the great trapezium formed by the whole
peninsula. Between these two lay the central power of Castile, with
Christian Navarre still separate at one corner and Mussulman Granada
still separate at another. Of these five kingdoms, Navarre and Aragon
alone marched to any considerable extent on any state beyond the
peninsula. Castile barely touched the Aquitanian dominions of England,
while Navarre and Aragon, both stretching north of the Pyrenees, had
together a considerable frontier towards Aquitaine and France. Navarre
and Aragon again marched on one another, while Portugal and Granada
marched only on Castile, the common neighbour of all. The destiny of
all was written on the map. Navarre at one end, Granada at the other,
were to be swallowed up by the great central power. Aragon, after
gaining a high European position, was to be united with Castile under
a single sovereign. Portugal alone was to become distinctly a rival of
Castile, but wholly in lands beyond the bounds of Europe.
♦Title of ‘King of Spain.’♦
Of the five Spanish powers Castile so far outtopped the rest that
its sovereign was often spoken of in other lands as _King of Spain_.
But Spain contained more kingdoms than it contained kings. ♦The
lesser kingdoms.♦ Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were all formed by
a succession of unions and conquests, each of which commonly gave
their kings a new title. The central power was still the power of
_Castile and Leon_, not of Castile only. _Leon_ was made up of the
kingdoms of _Leon_ and _Gallicia_. Castile took in Castile proper or
_Old Castile_, with the principality of the _Asturias_, and the free
lands of _Biscay_, _Guipuzcoa_, and _Alava_. To the south it took
in the kingdoms—each marking a stage of advance—of _Toledo_ or _New
Castile_, of _Cordova_, _Jaen_, _Seville_, and _Murcia_. The sovereign
of Portugal held his two kingdoms of _Portugal_ and _Algarve_. ♦1262.♦
The sovereign of Aragon, besides his enlarged kingdom of _Aragon_ and
his counties of _Catalonia_, _Roussillon_, and _Cerdagne_, held his
kingdom of _Valencia_ on the mainland, while the Balearic Isles formed
the kingdom of _Majorca_. ♦1349.♦ This last, first granted as a vassal
kingdom to a branch of the royal house, was afterwards incorporated
with the Aragonese state.
§ 2. _Growth and Partition of the Great Spanish Monarchy._
♦Little geographical change after the thirteenth century.♦
After the thirteenth century the strictly geographical changes within
the Spanish peninsula were but few. The boundaries of the kingdoms
changed but little towards one another, and not much towards France,
their only neighbour from the fifteenth century onwards. But the five
kingdoms were gradually grouped under two kings, for a while under one
only. ♦Territories beyond the peninsula.♦ The external geography, so
to speak, forms a longer story. We have to trace out the acquisition
of territory within Europe, first by Aragon and then by Castile, and
the acquisition of territory out of Europe, first by Portugal and
then by Castile. ♦The great Spanish Monarchy.♦ The permanent union
of the dominions of Castile and Aragon, the temporary union of the
dominions of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, formed that great _Spanish
Monarchy_ which in the sixteenth century was the wonder and terror of
Europe, which lost important possessions in the sixteenth and in the
seventeenth century, and which was finally partitioned in the beginning
of the eighteenth.
* * * * *
♦1410-1430.♦
Within the peninsula we have seen Castile, in the first half of
the fifteenth century, win back the lands which had been lost to
Granada at the end of the fourteenth. ♦Conquest of Granada. 1492.♦
The last decade of the fifteenth saw the ending of the struggle.
Men fondly deemed that the recovery of Granada balanced the loss of
Constantinople. ♦End of Mussulman rule in Spain.♦ But the last Moorish
prince still kept for a moment a small tributary dominion in the
Alpujarras, and it was the purchase of this last remnant which finally
put an end to the long rule of the Mussulman in Spain.
The conquest of Granada was the joint work of a queen of Castile and
a king of Aragon. ♦1469.♦ But the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel
did not at once unite their crowns. ♦Union of Castile and Aragon.
1506.♦ That union may be dated from the beginning of Ferdinand’s
second reign in Castile. ♦Loss and recovery of Roussillon. 1462-1493.♦
Meanwhile _Roussillon_ and _Cerdagne_ had been, after thirty years’
French occupation, won back by Aragon. ♦Conquest of Navarre. 1513.♦
Then came the conquest of _Navarre_ south of the Pyrenees, which left
only the small part on the Gaulish side to pass to the French kings
of the House of Bourbon. Portugal was now the only separate kingdom
in the peninsula, and the tendency to look on the peninsula as made
up of _Spain_ and _Portugal_ was of course strengthened. ♦Annexation
and separation of Portugal. 1581-1640.♦ But later in the century
Portugal itself was for sixty years united with Castile and Aragon.
♦Final loss of Roussillon. 1659.♦ Portugal won back its independence;
and the Spanish dominion was further cut short by the final loss of
_Roussillon_. The Pyrenees were now the boundary of France and Spain,
except so far as the line may be held to be broken by the French right
of patronage over _Andorra_.[84] Since the Peace of the Pyrenees, the
peninsula itself has seen hardly any strictly geographical change.
♦Gibraltar lost to England, 1704-1713.♦ _Gibraltar_ has been for nearly
a hundred and eighty years occupied by England. ♦Oliverca. 1801.♦
The fortress of _Oliverca_ has been yielded by Portugal to Spain.
♦Minorca.♦ And during the last century _Minorca_ passed to and fro
between Spain and England more times than it is easy to remember.[85]
* * * * *
♦Advance of Aragon beyond the peninsula.♦
The acquisition of territory beyond the peninsula naturally began
with Aragon. The acquisition of the Balearic isles may pass as the
enlargement of a peninsular kingdom; but before that happened,
Aragon had won and lost what was practically a great dominion north
of the Pyrenees. But this dominion was continuous with its Spanish
territory. ♦Union of Aragon and Sicily. 1282-1285.♦ The real beginning
of Aragonese dominion beyond the sea was when the war of the Vespers
for a moment united the crowns of Aragon and the insular Sicily.
♦Second union of Aragon and Sicily. 1409.♦ Then the island crown was
held by independent Aragonese princes, and lastly was again united
to the Aragonese crown. ♦Union of Aragon and continental Sicily.
1442-1458.♦ The continental Sicily had, during the reign of Alfonso the
Magnanimous, a common king with Aragon and the island. ♦Continental
Sicily under Aragonese princes. | Final union of Aragon and the
Sicilies. 1503.♦ Then the continental kingdom was—save during the
momentary French occupations—held by Aragonese princes till the final
union of the crowns of Aragon and the Two Sicilies. ♦War of Sardinia.
1309-1428.♦ Meanwhile a war of more than a hundred years gave to Aragon
the island of _Sardinia_ as a new kingdom. Thus, at the final union of
Castile and Aragon, Aragon brought with it the outlying crowns of the
Two Sicilies and of Sardinia. ♦1530.♦ The insular Sicilian kingdom was
slightly lessened by the grant of _Malta_ and _Gozo_ to the Knights
of Saint John. ♦1557.♦ The continental kingdom was increased by the
addition of a small Tuscan territory.
♦Difference between the outlying possessions of Aragon and those of
Castile.♦
The outlying possessions of Aragon were thus strictly acquisitions
made by the Kings of Aragon on behalf of the crown of Aragon. ♦The
Burgundian inheritance. 1504.♦ But the extension of Castilian dominion
over distant parts of Europe was due only to the fact that the crown
of Castile passed to an Austrian prince who had inherited the greater
part of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy. But thereby the
_Netherlands_ and the counties of _Burgundy_ and _Charolois_ became
appendages to Castile, and went to swell the great Spanish Monarchy.
♦Duchy of Milan. 1535. | 1555.♦ The duchy of _Milan_ too, in whatever
character the Emperor Charles held it, became a Spanish dependency when
it passed to his son Philip.
♦Extent of the Spanish Monarchy.♦
The European possessions of the Spanish Monarchy thus took in, at the
time of their greatest extent, the whole peninsula, the Netherlands
and the other Burgundian lands of the Austrian house, Roussillon,
the Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan. ♦Loss of the United Netherlands.
1578-1609.♦ But this whole dominion was never held at once, unless for
form’s sake we count the United Netherlands as Spanish territory till
the Twelve Years’ Truce. Holland and its fellows had become practically
independent before Portugal was won. ♦Lands lost to France. 1659-1677.♦
But it was not till after the loss of Portugal that Spain suffered her
great losses on the side of France, when the conquests of Lewis the
Fourteenth cost her Roussillon, Cerdagne, Charolois, the County of
Burgundy, Artois, and other parts of the Netherlands. The remainder of
the Netherlands, with Milan and the three outlying Aragonese kingdoms,
were kept till the partitions in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. ♦Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. 1713.♦ The final results
of so much fighting and treaty-making was to take away all the outlying
possessions of both Aragon and Castile, and to confine the Spanish
kingdom to the peninsula and the Balearic isles, less Portugal and
Gibraltar for ever, and less Minorca for a season. ♦Recovery of Sicily.
1718, 1735.♦ Since then Spain has never won back any part of the lost
possessions of Castile; but she has more than once won back the lost
possessions of Aragon, insular Sicily twice, continental Sicily once.
♦Spanish kings of the Two Sicilies. 1735-1860. | Duchy of Parma,
1731-1860.♦ And if the Sicilies were not kept as part of the Spanish
dominions, they passed to a branch of the Spanish royal house, as the
duchies of _Parma_ and _Piacenza_ passed to another.
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of Spain and Portugal._
The distinction between Spain and Portugal is most strikingly marked in
the dominion of the two powers beyond the bounds of Europe. ♦Character
of the Portuguese dominion out of Europe.♦ Portugal led the way among
European states to conquest and colonization out of Europe. She had a
geographical and historical call so to do. Her dominion out of Europe
was not indeed a matter of necessity like that of Russia, but it stood
on a different ground from that of England, France, or Holland. It
was not actually continuous with her own European territory, but it
began near to it, and it was a natural consequence and extension of
her European advance. The Asiatic and American dominion of Portugal
grew out of her African dominion, and her African dominion was the
continuation of her growth in her own peninsula.
When the Moor was driven out of Spain, it was natural to follow him
across the narrow seas into a land which lay so near to Spain, and
which in earlier geography had passed as a Spanish land. ♦Portugal
fully formed in the thirteenth century.♦ But as far as Castile was
concerned, the Moor was not driven out till late in the fifteenth
century; as far as Portugal was concerned, he was driven out in the
thirteenth. Portugal had then reached her full extent in the peninsula,
and she could no longer advance against the misbelievers by land. One
is tempted to wonder that her advance beyond sea did not begin sooner.
♦Her African conquests, 1415-1471.♦ It came in the fifteenth century,
when fifty years of conquest gave to Portugal her kingdom of _Algarve
beyond the Sea_, an African dominion older than the Castilian conquest
of Granada. ♦The Algarves.♦ The king of _Portugal and the Algarves_
thus held the southern pillar of Hercules, while Castile held the
northern. ♦Loss of African dominion, 1578.♦ The greater part of this
African kingdom was lost after the fall of Sebastian. ♦Ceuta Spanish.♦
_Ceuta_ remained a Spanish possession after the dominion of Portugal,
so that Spain now holds the southern pillar and England the northern.
♦Tangier English, 1662-1683.♦ _Tangier_ too once passed from Portugal
to England as a marriage gift, and was presently forsaken as useless.
♦Advance in Africa and the islands.♦
But before the kingdom of Algarve beyond the sea had passed away,
its establishment had led to the discovery of the whole coast of the
African continent, and to the growth of a vast Portuguese dominion in
various parts of the world. ♦Madeira, 1419. | Azores and Cape Verde
Islands. 1448-1454.♦ _Madeira_ was the first insular possession,
followed by the _Azores_ and _Cape Verde Islands_. Gradually, under the
care of Don Henry, the Portuguese power spread along the north-west
coast of Africa. ♦Cape of Good Hope, 1497. | Dominion of Arabia and
India.♦ The work went on: Vasco de Gama made his great discovery of the
Cape of Good Hope; the road to India was opened; dominion on the coasts
of Arabia and India, and even in the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
was added to dominion on the coast of Africa. This dominion perished
through the annexation of Portugal by Spain. Since the restoration
of Portuguese independence, only fragments of this great African and
Indian dominion have been kept. ♦Modern extent of Portuguese dominion
abroad.♦ But Portugal still holds the Atlantic islands, various points
and coasts in Africa, and a small territory in India and the Eastern
islands.
But Portuguese enterprise led also to a more lasting work, to the
creation of a new European nation beyond the Ocean, the single European
monarchy which has taken root in the New World. ♦Discovery of Brazil,
1500. | 1531.♦ _Brazil_ was discovered by Portuguese sailors at the end
of the fifteenth century; it was settled as a Portuguese possession
early in the sixteenth. ♦1624-1654.♦ During the union of Portugal with
Spain the Dutch won for a while a large part of the country, but the
whole was won back by independent Portugal. The peculiar position of
Portugal, ever threatened by a more powerful neighbour, gave her great
Transatlantic dominion a special importance. ♦1807.♦ It was looked to
as possible place for shelter, which it actually became during the
French invasion of Portugal. ♦Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, 1813.♦
The Portuguese dominions took the style of ‘the United Kingdom of
Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve.’ Nine years later these kingdoms were
separated, and Brazil became an independent state. ♦Empire of Brazil,
1822.♦ But it remains a monarchy with the title of Empire, and it is
still ruled by the direct representative of the Portuguese royal house,
while Portugal itself has passed away from the native line by the
accidents of female succession.
In the sixteenth century Brazil held a wholly exceptional position.
It was the only settlement of Portugal, it was the only considerable
settlement of any European power, in a region which Spain claimed as
her exclusive dominion. ♦Division of the Indies between Spain and
Portugal. 1494.♦ By Papal authority Spain was to have all the newly
found lands that lay to the west, and Portugal all that lay to the
east, of a line on the map, drawn at 370 leagues west of the Cape
Verde Islands. Spain thus held the whole South American continent, with
the exception of Brazil, together with that part of the North American
continent which is most closely connected with the southern. While the
non-European dominion of Portugal was primarily African and Indian, the
non-European dominion of Spain was primarily American. It did not in
the same way spring out of the European history of the country; it was
rather suggested by rivalry of Portugal. ♦Oran, 1516-1708. 1732-1791.♦
In Africa the Spanish dominion hardly went beyond the possession of
_Oran_ and the more lasting possession of _Ceuta_. ♦Tunis, 1531.♦
The conquest of _Tunis_ by Charles the Fifth[86] was made rather in
his Sicilian than in his Castilian character. Within the range of
Portuguese dominion the settlements of Spain were exceptional. But
they took in the _Canaries_ off the Atlantic coast of Africa, and the
_Philippine Islands_ in the extreme eastern Archipelago. ♦Insular
possessions of Spain.♦ These insular possessions Spain still keeps.
♦Spanish dominion in America.♦
Meanwhile the great Spanish dominion in the New World, in both Americas
and in the adjoining islands of the West Indies, has risen and fallen.
♦Hispaniola, 1492.♦ It began with the first conquest of Columbus,
_Hispaniola_ or Saint _Domingo_. Thus the dominion of Castile beyond
the Ocean began at the very moment when she reached the full extent
of her own Mediterranean coast. ♦1519. | 1532.♦ Then followed the
great continental dominion in _Mexico_, _Peru_, and the other lands
on or south of the isthmus which joins the two western continents.
But into the body of the North American continent, the land which was
to be disputed between France and England, Spain never spread. _New
Mexico_, _California_, _Florida_, barely stretched along its western
and southern coasts. ♦Revolutions of the Spanish colonies.♦ The whole
of this continental dominion passed away in a series of revolutions
within our own century. While Portugal and England have really founded
new European nations beyond the Ocean, the result of Spanish rule in
America has been to create a number of states of ever shifting extent
and constitution, keeping the Spanish language, but some of which are
as much native American as Spanish. ♦Mexico.♦ Of these _Mexico_ is
the one which has had most to do with the general history of Europe
and European America. ♦Two Mexican Empires, 1822-1823. | 1866-1867.♦ It
has twice taken the name of Empire, once under a native, once under a
foreign, adventurer. And vast provinces, once under its nominal rule,
have passed to the United States. ♦Cessions to the United States.♦ The
loss of _Texas_, _New Mexico_, and _Upper California_, has cut down the
present Mexico nearly to the extent of the first Spanish conquests.
♦Spanish West India islands. | Jamaica, 1655.♦
Of the Spanish West India islands, some, like _Jamaica_ and _Trinidad_,
have passed to other European powers. ♦Saint Domingo, 1864.♦ The oldest
possession of all, the Spanish part of Hispaniola, has become a state
distinct from that of Hayti in the same island. ♦Puerto Rico.♦ _Puerto
Rico_ remains a real Spanish possession. ♦Cuba.♦ The allegiance of
_Cuba_ is always doubtful. In short, the dominion of Spain out of
Europe has followed its European dominion out of Spain. The eighteenth
century destroyed the one; the nineteenth century has cut down the
other to mere fragments.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] See above, p. 154.
[80] See above, p. 155.
[81] See above, p. 4.
[82] See above, p. 154.
[83] See above, p. 335.
[84] See above, p. 343.
[85] Conquered by England 1708. Ceded 1713. Recovered 1756. Ceded to
England 1763. Recovered 1782. Conquered by England 1798. Recovered 1802.
[86] See above, p. 447.