♦Little geographical change after the thirteenth century.♦

After the thirteenth century the strictly geographical changes within the Spanish peninsula were but few. The boundaries of the kingdoms changed but little towards one another, and not much towards France, their only neighbour from the fifteenth century onwards. But the five kingdoms were gradually grouped under two kings, for a while under one only. ♦Territories beyond the peninsula.♦ The external geography, so to speak, forms a longer story. We have to trace out the acquisition of territory within Europe, first by Aragon and then by Castile, and the acquisition of territory out of Europe, first by Portugal and then by Castile. ♦The great Spanish Monarchy.♦ The permanent union of the dominions of Castile and Aragon, the temporary union of the dominions of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, formed that great Spanish Monarchy which in the sixteenth century was the wonder and terror of Europe, which lost important possessions in the sixteenth and in the seventeenth century, and which was finally partitioned in the beginning of the eighteenth.

♦1410-1430.♦

Within the peninsula we have seen Castile, in the first half of the fifteenth century, win back the lands which had been lost to Granada at the end of the fourteenth. ♦Conquest of Granada. 1492.♦ The last decade of the fifteenth saw the ending of the struggle. Men fondly deemed that the recovery of Granada balanced the loss of Constantinople. ♦End of Mussulman rule in Spain.♦ But the last Moorish prince still kept for a moment a small tributary dominion in the Alpujarras, and it was the purchase of this last remnant which finally put an end to the long rule of the Mussulman in Spain.

The conquest of Granada was the joint work of a queen of Castile and a king of Aragon. ♦1469.♦ But the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel did not at once unite their crowns. ♦Union of Castile and Aragon. 1506.♦ That union may be dated from the beginning of Ferdinand’s second reign in Castile. ♦Loss and recovery of Roussillon. 1462-1493.♦ Meanwhile Roussillon and Cerdagne had been, after thirty years’ French occupation, won back by Aragon. ♦Conquest of Navarre. 1513.♦ Then came the conquest of Navarre south of the Pyrenees, which left only the small part on the Gaulish side to pass to the French kings of the House of Bourbon. Portugal was now the only separate kingdom in the peninsula, and the tendency to look on the peninsula as made up of Spain and Portugal was of course strengthened. ♦Annexation and separation of Portugal. 1581-1640.♦ But later in the century Portugal itself was for sixty years united with Castile and Aragon. ♦Final loss of Roussillon. 1659.♦ Portugal won back its independence; and the Spanish dominion was further cut short by the final loss of Roussillon. The Pyrenees were now the boundary of France and Spain, except so far as the line may be held to be broken by the French right of patronage over Andorra.[84] Since the Peace of the Pyrenees, the peninsula itself has seen hardly any strictly geographical change. ♦Gibraltar lost to England, 1704-1713.♦ Gibraltar has been for nearly a hundred and eighty years occupied by England. ♦Oliverca. 1801.♦ The fortress of Oliverca has been yielded by Portugal to Spain. ♦Minorca.♦ And during the last century Minorca passed to and fro between Spain and England more times than it is easy to remember.[85]

♦Advance of Aragon beyond the peninsula.♦

The acquisition of territory beyond the peninsula naturally began with Aragon. The acquisition of the Balearic isles may pass as the enlargement of a peninsular kingdom; but before that happened, Aragon had won and lost what was practically a great dominion north of the Pyrenees. But this dominion was continuous with its Spanish territory. ♦Union of Aragon and Sicily. 1282-1285.♦ The real beginning of Aragonese dominion beyond the sea was when the war of the Vespers for a moment united the crowns of Aragon and the insular Sicily. ♦Second union of Aragon and Sicily. 1409.♦ Then the island crown was held by independent Aragonese princes, and lastly was again united to the Aragonese crown. ♦Union of Aragon and continental Sicily. 1442-1458.♦ The continental Sicily had, during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous, a common king with Aragon and the island. ♦Continental Sicily under Aragonese princes.
Final union of Aragon and the Sicilies. 1503.♦ Then the continental kingdom was—save during the momentary French occupations—held by Aragonese princes till the final union of the crowns of Aragon and the Two Sicilies. ♦War of Sardinia. 1309-1428.♦ Meanwhile a war of more than a hundred years gave to Aragon the island of Sardinia as a new kingdom. Thus, at the final union of Castile and Aragon, Aragon brought with it the outlying crowns of the Two Sicilies and of Sardinia. ♦1530.♦ The insular Sicilian kingdom was slightly lessened by the grant of Malta and Gozo to the Knights of Saint John. ♦1557.♦ The continental kingdom was increased by the addition of a small Tuscan territory.

♦Difference between the outlying possessions of Aragon and those of Castile.♦

The outlying possessions of Aragon were thus strictly acquisitions made by the Kings of Aragon on behalf of the crown of Aragon. ♦The Burgundian inheritance. 1504.♦ But the extension of Castilian dominion over distant parts of Europe was due only to the fact that the crown of Castile passed to an Austrian prince who had inherited the greater part of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy. But thereby the Netherlands and the counties of Burgundy and Charolois became appendages to Castile, and went to swell the great Spanish Monarchy. ♦Duchy of Milan. 1535.
1555.♦ The duchy of Milan too, in whatever character the Emperor Charles held it, became a Spanish dependency when it passed to his son Philip.