Charles assumed the government, and took Don John as his chief adviser. Still Spain continued to suffer in the great European contest; and in 1678 she was forced, in the treaty of Nimeguen, to cede Franche-Comte and several considerable towns in the Low Countries to France. In the nsxt year she sustained another serious loss in the death of her ablest minister, Don John. Immediately after the treaty of Nimeguen, Charles espoused Louisa of Orleans, a niece of- Louis XIV., who for the next eleven years maintained harmony between Spain and France. The queen-mother now left the retirement of the convent in which she had been placed, and once more, amid the empty folly of the king and the court, assumed considerable authority. After the death of Louisa, Charles married Anne, a sister of the Emperor Leopold I.; and in 1694 he joined the country of his wife and of his mother in declaring war against France. But he effected nothing, and the French troops had reached Barcelona, when Spain was saved by the treaty of Ryswick (1697). As the king was childless, negotiations concerning the succession occu pied the last years of his life, and after leaning for a long time to the side of Austria, at last, a month before his death in 1 700, greatly through the influence of the Pope, he left the crown to Philip Bourbon, grandson of
Louis XIV., who succeeded as Philip V.
See Spain under Charles II. ; extracts from the correspondence of Alexander Stanhope, British ambassador at Madrid from 1690 to 1700, edited by Mahon (Loud. 1840), and Mignet s Negotiations relatives a la succession d Espagnc.
CHARLES III. (1716-1788), king of Spain, was the second son of Philip V. Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany, having fallen into the hands of Spain, were bestowed upon Charles, who at the age of fifteen was furnished with an army, and sent to take possession of his principality. At eighteen he conquered the two Sicilies, and the emperor was obliged to recognize him as king. In 1759, by the death of his brother, Charles succeeded to the throne of his native country. His reign was a useful one ; for he was a man of ability and of liberal temper, and he was served by such ministers as Aranda, Grimaldi, and Florida Blanca. The administration of the finances was reformed, and a bank was instituted at the capital. The Jesuits were banished, and an attempt, which was not, however, suc cessful, was made to bring the Inquisition under the power of the civil government. Something was done to abolish brigandage ; and on two occasions Charles endeavoured to repress the piracy of the Algerines ; he interested himself greatly in the development of commerce, science, and art ; and, lastly, he did much to strengthen the army and navy. The wars, however, which he carried on with England, in alliance with the French, brought him little success. In 1763 he ceded Florida to the English in exchange for Cuba. He joined France in sending assistance to the United States during the War of Independence; and in the peace which was concluded after that war, he recovered Florida, and also gained Minorca. But his attack on Gibraltar was unsuccessful, and the English refused to treat for its restoration. Charles died at Madrid in 1788, after a reign of twenty-nine years. See the Elogio of Cabarrus, and the accounts of the reign by Beccatini and Roy.
CHARLES IV. (1748-1819), king of Spain, was the son of Charles III., whom he succeeded in 1788. He was married while very young to his cousin, Maria Louisa of Parma, who soon acquired the greatest influence over him. His most remarkable minister was Manuel Godoy, a good looking guardsman, who gained the friendship of both the queen and her husband, rose from the ranks to the position of lieutenant-general, and was made duke of Alcudia, and minister of foreign affairs. In 1795 Godoy concluded a treaty of peace with the French Republic at Basel, after an unsuccessful attempt by the king to aid his relative, Louis XVI. Soon after the peace an offensive and defen sive alliance was entered into with France ; and Spain was thus involved in a short war with Portugal and a longer struggle with England, during which Nelson shattered the Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar (1805). In 1807 Charles made a secret treaty with Napoleon, according to which Portugal was to be seized by the French and Spaniards, and the greater part divided between Godoy and the queen of Etruria, and Charles was to assume the title of emperor of America. At the same time 16,000 Spanish troops were sent to assist the French in Denmark, Meanwhile Napoleon also carried on intrigues with Don Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, who was soon after discovered in a plot to assassinate his father. Though pardoned, Ferdinand continued to do all that he could to arouse ill feeling against the court ; and in 1808 Charles was so alarmed by disturbances in Madrid, that he abdicated in his favour. He declared almost immediately that the act wa"s not voluntary; but the matter was decided by a meeting with Napoleon at Bayonne. Urged by Godoy, who was moved by his fear of Ferdinand, and also by the queen, Charles surrendered the crown to Napoleon, who gave him a pension of 6,000,000 francs with the castle and grounds of Chambord ; and from that time he lived in retirement with his wife and the favourite, refusing to return to the throne, even when he might have done so with safety on account of the great unpopularity of his son. He died at Rome, soon after the decease of his wife, iii 1819.
CHARLES IX. (1550-1611), king of Sweden, was the fourth son of Gustavus Vasa. His nephew, Sigismund, king of Poland, who inherited the crown in 1592, being a Roman Catholic, Charles was appointed to direct the govern ment, till Sigismund signed a decree establishing Luther- auisin as the religion of Sweden. There was also a general feeling against the occupation of the throne of Sweden by a Polish king, and, after several fruitless attempts at accom modation, Sigismuud was deposed and Charles elected king in 1604. He carried on a vigorous war with Poland, Russia, and Denmark with varying success ; and at the age of sixty he challenged (though without result) Christian IV., the king of the last-named country, to single combat. Many of his domestic measures were very beneficial. He founded the university of Gothenburg, and otherwise furthered the spread of education ; and he drew up a new code of laws. He left a rhymed chronicle, and a number of letters addressed to Henry IV. of France and others, on the subject of the war with Poland, which were printed in German at Amsterdam in 1608. He died in 1611.
CHARLES GUSTAVUS X. (1622-1660), king of Sweden, was the son of John Casimir, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and of Catherine, daughter of Charles IX. of Sweden. He studied at Upsala, and travelled in France and Germany, took part in the Thirty Years War, and fought at Leipsic and elsewhere. On his return to Sweden he sought the hand of his eccentric cousin, Queen Christina, whom he professed to love sincerely. He was rejected ; but in 1654 she voluntarily abdicated the throne, and was succeeded by him. He had now an opportunity of gratifying his passion for war. In 1655 he overran Poland, on the pretext that the king had protested against his accession and desired to supplant him. The kingdom of Poland, and after that the dukedom of Prussia, were com pelled to swear allegiance to him, and Charles next seized the continental territory of Denmark. He proposed to Holland and England a plan for dividing Denmark among the three nations, but Cromwell scornfully refused to share in the robbery. Charles was still fighting against Denmark when he died at Gothenburg-(1660) in his 38th year.
