UsefulNotes / Charles II of Spain

This is believed to be one of his least embellished portraits — and still probably depicts him better than he looked.

"We are dealing with a man who died of poison two hundred years before he was born. If birth is a beginning, of no man was it more true to say that in his beginning was his end. From the day of his birth they were waiting for his death."

—John Langdon-Davis, Carlos, the king who would not die

Charles II of Spain (6 November 1661 – 1 November 1700), best known as El Hechizado ("The Bewitched"), was the King of Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, as well as Duke of Milan, Lord of the Netherlands and Count of Burgundy. Son of Philip IV, he was the last Spanish Habsburg ruler, ending the two-century dynasty by his inability to produce an heir.

You may know him infinitely better as the poster boy of Royally Screwed Up, being essentially a poor, genetically deformed creature placed on the throne of the "empire on which the sun never set" by circumstances completely beyond his control. His historical legacy, however, is much more complicated and ambiguous than it looks at first sight, and assessments have varied through the centuries. He used to be considered a mentally disabled person and an ineffectual ruler, but historians now entertain that, terrible health aside, he was actually a regular, even surprisingly sensible monarch, who knew his limitations and uncommonly handpicked his ministers on their talent rather than their nobility status. The fact that the Bewitched and his circle managed to hold the Spanish Empire mostly together and actually improve things, saving it from the economic collapse ensured by his predecessors' endless wars, might be one of the greatest cases of Inspirationally Disadvantaged in real life.

Charles was the inevitable culmination of the Habsburgs' Royal Inbreeding. In order to maximize Altar Diplomacy to its fullest and keep alliances within their bounds, they practiced generation upon generation of cousin and uncle/niece marriages, none of them genetically catastrophic in isolation, but cumulatively another story. Modern DNA research has proved that Charles's quotient of consanguinity was higher than what we would expect to find in a case of either Brother–Sister Incest or Parental Incest — however his older sister Margaret Theresa was apparently perfectly healthy, showing how random and complicated this all is.^note Doctors are still unsure of what exactly was up with him, or even whether his inbreeding was directly related or only worsened unrelated problems: theories range from Klinefelter syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, combined pituitary hormone deficiency, distal renal tubular acidosis, or perhaps a severe herpetic infection after birth. In any case, Charles was short, lame, slow-minded, and extremely sickly, with an oddly-shaped head and a Habsburgian mandibular prognathism even worse than that of his ancestor Charles V, to the point he could barely chew at all. A French ambassador once stated to be downright terrified of how ugly Charles was. In a famous 20th-century quote, Charles was "always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffled Christendom by continuing to live."

However, contrary to popular belief and traditional academia, modern research has also strongly suggested that he was neither mentally or physically disabled, as he participated actively in politics in front of foreign envoys and was a prolific hunter.^note His weak will has instead been attributed more to growing up to become a terribly shy, insecure person due to his multiple conditions, as well as the neglect of a Decadent Court that never expected him to inherit the throne, and also the sheer weight of an empire of his shoulders — all of which combined were inarguably worse. He gained his nickname of "Bewitched" by popular superstition believing he was the target of Satanic influence, and Charles himself came to believe it as well, following in the line of so many Habsburgs who were into mysticism, which only added to his torments.

Charles has been traditionally considered the embodiment of the decadence of Habsburg Spain, and modern readers could be hardly blamed for getting this impression — but again, today's historiography believes his historical image became as twisted as his body due to the influence of his successors. He was a transitional king in the most extreme sense, the last ruler of a dynasty that ended up being replaced by their ancestral enemies, the French Bourbons, who naturally had several good reasons to make him look as bad as possible so they could present themselves as the saviors and uplifters of the empire. This also added a ton of fuel to the Spanish Black Legend, as the conquest of America and the empire's European military exploits were largely accomplishments of the Habsburg dynasty that the Bourbons didn't want to be remembered in a good light. In reality, Charles' reign would have an uncredited role in planting the seeds of its future revitalization under the Bourbons.

His father died when Charles was three, so a regency was maintained by his mother, Mariana of Austria, who struggled against her hated illegitimate stepson John Joseph of Austria for the control of the empire. It was a convoluted time for the Spanish monarchy, as the dubious competence of the previous three generations had finally dethroned the Habsburgs as European hegemons, losing Portugal and handing supremacy to the rising absolutist France of Louis XIV, who already had a hand in Spain by being John Joseph's backer and Charles's own brother-in-law. Mariana had trust on her valido or royal minister, Fernando de Valenzuela, to fix things, but their regency, although moderately successful, was unpopular, and many preferred the royal bastard to grab the reins. This led eventually to John Joseph to take over and proclaim himself Charles' Big Brother Mentor, transitioning into his minister when Charles came of age. His first measure, after finishing the fruitless attempt to limit French expansion that was the Franco-Dutch War (this had been the Dutch's turn to get picked on by the French, requiring the Habsburgs bail them out), was to broker a marriage between Charles and Louis XIV's niece Marie Louise. Although John Joseph died shortly after, depriving them of a promising planner who embodied a possible alliance with France, the marriage was a true case of Ugly Guy, Hot Wife that lit up a bit Charles' life.^note

Over the years Charles failed to produce an heir, being possibly sterile (he also suffered from premature ejaculation), and the court's efforts to ease things by administrating weird potions to the couple only caused them both literal and figurative pain. It was even rumored that Olympia Mancini, Countess of Soissons, a purported sorceress later involved in the infamous "Affair of the Poisons" in Paris, was using spells to keep Marie Louise from getting pregnant. When many holy relics and magical remedies of varied bizarreness failed to dispel it, a Bohemian astrologer convinced Charles that this and his other misfortunes were actually a divine punishment for having been too young to be on his father's deathbed, so the king tried to remedy this by having the corpse exhumed and begging for its forgiveness. Evidently, the rotting Philip was not in the mood.

However, as the king was also conscious of his unexperience and lack of ruling ability, especially in a situation that would have proved taxing to even the most capable monarch, he was quick to entrust his kingdom to a new valido, the shrewd Juan de la Cerda, Duke of Medinaceli, who in a few years achieved what some have considered one of the most impressive economic deflations in history. His ministry was only marred by two wars against France: the War of Devolution, where Louis invaded some Habsburg territories and forced Spain into an awkward alliance with England and the Dutch, and later the War of the Reunions, in which France grabbed some territory from the Habsburgs themselves. By this point, Spain was almost militarily defenseless, with their legendary tercios eroded into nothing by a whole century of attrition in manpower, money and talent, so fighting defensively in grand alliances with the rest of Europe was all they could do against the hitherto unfearsome France (without mentioning the Forever War with the Muslims in Northern Africa, where the emergent Morocco capitalized on the chance to snatch a couple of Spain's local ports). Medinaceli had to resign due to his own bad health, but he was successful in forming a sort of technocracy to keep things running, being succeeded by his equally capable lieutenant Manuel Joaquín Álvarez de Toledo, Count of Oropesa, whom Charles became a great friend of.

The influence of France was strong enough for Charles's administration to re-structure the regional disposition of the empire after the French national model, which included teaching more intensely the empire's lingua franca (which put an end to native languages as co-official to Spanish as they were since 1570, although in legal practice they remained well-established and continued until today). Against this fad, however, Charles also issued a revolutionary law forbidding religious orders from barring entry to Indians, a topic debated due to their recent evangelizations,^note and also promoted a radical royal decree granting free citizenship to all runaway black slaves from the British and French colonies who took refuge in the Spanish viceroyalties, already a quite common occurrence back then due to Spain's laws making it easy for slaves to buy their freedom and ascend socially.^note This decree, which only required slaves to become Catholic and join possible war efforts, led later to the Fuerte Mosé of Florida, the first settlement of free Black men in the current territory of the United States.

Charles also put an end to the Habsburgs' boneheaded bad opinion on privateering, which they saw as beneath them despite the fact that the Muslims, French, English and Dutch had been shamelessly using it against Spain for centuries. Up to the point, only Basques and Flemish had been allowed to practice it in the Spanish Empire, with great success but still a very small scale for a state with so much manpower, coastal territory and maritime activity. After Henry Morgan sacked Maracaibo in 1669, the crown pulled all stops and gave birth to the guarda-costa, infamously savage pirate hunters who would wage what was essentially a non-declared, irregular warfare against other European nations in the Atlantic (to the point they would cause an actual war the following century). However, more faithful to other Habsburg military customs, Charles also sent help to recover territory from the Ottomans after the Siege of Vienna in Central Europe, where the tercios, possibly in their true swan song, spearheaded the re-conquest of Buda (now Budapest) in 1686.^note

The biggest challenge came in 1688 with the Nine Years' War, possibly the first world war, which saw France at its pre-Napoleonic historical peak fighting to a decade-long stalemate with the Habsburgs, England, the Netherlands and Savoy all at once. At its beginning, however, Charles' life received an even worse punch to the gut with the death of Marie Louise, apparently due to apendicitis (with the obligatory rumors of her being poisoned), knocking him into a long depression.^note The lack of an heir and his failing health forced him to half-voluntarily become a Henpecked Husband to a domineering and unpopular new wife, Maria Anna of Neuburg, sister-in-law to his cousin Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, who had been chosen for the high fertility of her family in an attempt to get kids already — but again, to no success. Increasingly disturbed, Charles remembered his nickname and ordered in 1689 a Paranormal Investigation to find out whether it was really black magic which was screwing him up. His friar confessor Froilán Díaz supposedly found out, after consulting the devils of three possessed nuns, that all of his ordeals came from a Satanic conspiracy having poisoned his chocolate with cursed corpse brains many years earlier. This sounded worringly believable enough to Charles that he had himself exorcized and administered more magical potions, which probably worsened his health further.^note

Oropesa fell in disgrace due to the Nine Years' War, but having probably learned the ropes a bit better, Charles was now more personally involved in actually governing and didn't depend so much on his cabinet. In any case, it was clear he would not be alive to reign for much more time, and his increasingly urgent succession turned out to be a problem. He tried to find a heir who could inherit the unpartitioned Spanish Empire, which clashed with the intentions of all the other European nations, each of whom wanted some or another piece, if not the entire cake. Ultimately, after oddly outliving several candidates, among a competitive field of heirs presumptive, and under pressure from the Francophile factions (which still believed in a "if you can't beat them, join them" with France), he sided with his half-sister Maria Theresa, Louis XIV's queen, and appointed her grandson Philip of Anjou as heir to the throne. Charles' Austrian relatives were livid, as they had expected he would appoint Leopold's son, Archduke Charles, to keep things in the family — but at the time, and in all likehood, abandoning the Habsburg ship was probably the best option to save the unity of the Spanish Empire and hopefully one day restore its status in Europe. It might be ironic, or perhaps just natural, that a man cursed by generations of strategic planning would go out derailing all those plans forever.

Having become so sick by this point that he barely could walk or talk, the Bewitched died of his last illness at the young age of 38, finally released from his tortuous existence. An autopsy report claimed that his body "did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water." If this contains even the slightest bit of truth, it might suffice again to show the state of things of this poor man.

Naturally, the House of Habsburg was not going to let the Spanish Empire go so easily, and when combined with a host of other European countries fearing the emergence of a Bourbon superstate out of Spain and France,^note things ultimately spiraled into the War of the Spanish Succession. The conflict ended up placing the Bourbons in the throne of Spain in the form of Philip V, who would ironically turn out a much worse and more embarrassing monarch than Charles ever was by virtue of being literally Driven to Madness by the job's pressure shortly after reaching the throne. The idea of Spain and France merging into a single empire would be as dead as Louis XIV by this point, although Philip's ambitious queen Elisabeth Farnese (ironically, a descendant of a family previously vassal to the Habsburgs) would participate in a last attempt to appoint Philip regent of France that backfired rather badly.

If you're looking for the other Charles II, the British one about one generation older, he is here.