Alpha Book

[Sidenote: The Spanish Succession]
Now it happened that the Spanish Habsburgs were dying out in the male
line. Charles II was himself without children or brothers. Of his
sisters, the elder was the wife of Louis XIV and the younger was
married to the Emperor Leopold, the heir of the Austrian Habsburgs.
Louis XIV had renounced by the peace of the Pyrenees (1659) all claims
to the Spanish throne on condition that a large dowry be paid him, but
the impoverished state of the Spanish exchequer had prevented the
payment of the dowry. Louis, therefore, might lay claim to the whole
inheritance of Charles II and entertain the hope of seeing the Bourbons
supplant the Habsburgs in some of the fairest lands of Christendom. In
opposition to the French contention, the emperor was properly moved by
family pride to put forth the claim of his wife and that of himself as
the nearest male relative of the Spanish king. If the contention of
Leopold were sustained, a single Habsburg ruler might once more unite
an empire as vast as that which the Emperor Charles V had once ruled.


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