ABSTRACT
The death of Philip IV in September 1665 left the monarchy inprofound crisis. His son Charles II was only four years old, and the succession of a child as king (it was the first royal minority in Spain’s history) inevitably created problems. Power was vested in queen Mariana as regent and in a five-member committee of government; they were to rule until the king reached his official coming of age at fourteen. Because Mariana had little experience of ruling, decisions tended to be made by pressure groups among the grandees, of whom the most powerful up to 1668 was of the count of Castrillo, who had engineered the fall of Olivares. The king, an invalid since birth, was never a significant force. He remained chronically ill throughout his life, and proved unable to father an heir. When he was 25 the papal nuncio reported that ‘he is as weak in body as in mind. Now and then he gives signs of intelligence, memory and a certain liveliness; usually he shows himself slow and indifferent, torpid and indolent. One can do with him what one wishes because he lacks his own will’.
