Charles II, the product of generations of inbreeding, was unable to rule and remained childless. The line of Spanish Habsburgs came to an end at his death. Habsburg partisans argued for allocating succession to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty, but Charles II, in one of his last official acts, left Spain to his nephew, Philip of Anjou, a Bourbon and the grandson of Louis XIV. This solution appealed to Castilian legitimists because it complied with the principle of succession to the next in the bloodline. Spanish officials had been concerned with providing for the succession in such a way as to guarantee an integral, independent Spanish state that, along with its possessions in the Netherlands and in Italy, would not become part of either a pan-Bourbon or a pan-Habsburg empire. "The Pyrenees are no more," Louis XIV rejoiced at his grandson's accession as Philip V (r. 1700-24; 1725-46). The prospect of the Spanish Netherlands falling into French hands, however, alarmed the British and the Dutch.

HISTORY CONTENTS
IBERIA
HISPANIA
AL ANDALUS
CASTILE AND ARAGON
THE GOLDEN AGE
Ferdinand and Isabella
Charles V and Philip II
Spain in Decline
BOURBON SPAIN
War of the Spanish Succession
The Enlightenment
The Napoleonic Era
THE LIBERAL ASCENDANCY
The Cadiz Cortes
Rule by Pronunciamiento
Liberal Rule
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
The Cuban Disaster
The African War
REPUBLICAN SPAIN
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
THE FRANCO YEARS
Franco's Political System
Policies, Programs, and Growing Popular Unrest
Foreign Policy under Franco
THE POST-FRANCO ERA
Transition to Democracy
Disenchantment with UCD Leadership
Growth of the PSOE
Foreign Policy in the Post-Franco Period

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress