biography
| name: |
Charles II (of Spain)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1661–1700)
|
| biography:
| King of Spain (1665–1700), the last ruler of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, born in Madrid, Spain. The congenitally handicapped son of Philip IV (reigned 1621–65), he presided over the final decline of Spanish hegemony. Under him Spain joined the League of Augsburg (1686) and the ensuing hostilities against France. To prevent the dismemberment of his patrimony, he bequeathed the entire Spanish Habsburg inheritance to Louis XIV's younger grandson, Philip of Anjou, in 1700, although his intentions were subsequently thwarted by the War of the Spanish Succession and the territorial settlement of Utrecht (1713). |
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