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The War of Devolution (1667–68) saw Louis XIV's French armies overrun the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands and the Franche-Comté, but forced to give most of it back by a Triple Alliance of England, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. ==Background== Upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, Louis XIV, who had nominally been king since 1643, began to rule France in his own right.〔Lynn (1999), p. 6.〕 Having been raised in a culture that expected young princes to seek "glory" on the battlefield, Louis was looking for an opportunity to go to war. In 1665, Louis believed that he had a pretext to go to war with Spain and allow him to claim the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium). However, Louis's claims to the Spanish Netherlands were tenuous: in 1659, France and Spain had concluded the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which ended 24 years of war between the two states. With the Treaty, King Philip IV of Spain had to cede certain territories, and also had to consent to the marriage of his daughter Maria Theresa of Spain to the young Louis XIV of France.〔Lynn (1999), p. 105.〕 Furthermore, it was agreed that with this marriage, Maria Theresa explicitly renounced all rights to her father's inheritance. As compensation, a dowry of 500,000 gold écus was promised to the Bourbon Louis XIV; this was not paid, however. When Philip IV died on 17 September 1665, the French king immediately laid claim to parts of the Spanish Netherlands:〔Wolf, p. 316.〕 the Duchies of Brabant and Limburg, Cambrai, the marquessate of Antwerpen, the Lordship of Mechelen, Guelders, the counties of Namur, Artois and Hainaut, a third of the County of Burgundy and a quarter of the Duchy of Luxembourg.〔Lynn (1999), p. 33.〕 Louis XIV justified this with the fact that the promised dowry had not been paid and that the French Queen's renunciation of her Spanish inheritance was therefore invalid. Accordingly, Louis argued, his wife's prior claims to her father's estate, properly "devolved" to her.〔Wolf, p. 316.〕 French legal scholars concluded from this and the clause of 'devolution' that the Spanish Netherlands should not go to the still-underage heir to the Spanish throne, Charles II, since he had been born as a result of the second marriage of Philip IV. Maria Theresa on the other hand was a result of his first marriage and was therefore entitled to the inheritance in Brabant, and, through her, Louis XIV. The Queen could not renounce this natural right for her children as well. Maria Theresa's stepmother, Queen Mariana of Spain, who was taking care of government business for her underage son along with her confessor Cardinal Johann Eberhard Neidhardt, rejected these claims, referring to the renunciation by Maria Theresa of all inheritance rights. At this, the French king began preparations for a new campaign against Spain. France was in a period of tremendous economic expansion and growth in the seventeenth century.〔Wolf, pp. 314–315.〕 Louis was able to take advantage of this new economic condition in France, and- with his able financial minister Colbert- reorganised the government's finances〔Lynn (1999), p. 112.〕 to improve and expand the army from 50,000 to 80,000 men.〔Lynn (1999), p. 106.〕 Spain, on the other hand, was a fragmented nation struggling to cope with major economic problems. The discovery of gold in Spanish America〔Gibson, p. 53.〕 and the importation of at least 9000 kilograms of gold into the Spanish economy〔Thomas, p. 424.〕 had caused ruinous inflation (rising 100% during the first half of the sixteenth century〔Gibson, p. 103.〕) in the Spanish economy throughout the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.〔Peterson, p. 31.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「War of Devolution」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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