The Kingdom of Spain () entered a new era with the death of Charles II, the last Spanish Habsburg monarch, who died childless in 1700. The War of the Spanish Succession was fought between proponents of a Bourbon prince, Philip of Anjou, and the Austrian Hapsburg claimant, Archduke Charles. After the wars were ended with the Peace of Utrecht, Philip V's rule began in 1715, although he had to renounce his place in the succession of the French throne.
Spain entered a period of reform and renewal, as well as continued decline. Ideas of the Age of Enlightenment entered Spain and Spanish America during the eighteenth century. The invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Peninsular War upended the stability of the Spanish state and empire and although France was defeated, the turmoil in Spain led to the Spanish American wars of independence.
The 18th century in Spanish historiography is often referred to as Bourbon Spain, but the Spanish Bourbons continued to reign from 1814 to 1868 (following the restoration of Ferdinand VII), from 1874 to 1931, and since 1975.
Philip V, first Spanish Bourbon monarch (1700–1724, 1724–1746) and Louis I (1724–1724)
War of the Spanish Succession
The last few years of the rule of the mentally challenged and childless Spanish Habsburg Charles II, were dominated by the politics of who would succeed the unfortunate monarch, the last Spanish king of the Hapsburg dynasty. Spain was at the center of this political crisis, but it was the "object not the arbiter." Economic troubles, the decay of the Spanish bureaucracy, a series of defeats in wars against France, and the erosion of imperial institutions in the seventeenth century had left Charles the king of a declining empire, and his physical and mental weakness provided him with little ability to reverse the course of his country. The vastness and wealth of the ultramarine Spanish Empire in the New World and the Philippines, along with her naval resources, had made Spain a vital part of European power politics. If the throne of Spain was to go to a relative of the king of France, or if the two countries were to be united, the balance of power in Europe would shift in France's favor. The wealth of the Spanish overseas empire would flow to France. If it remained in the hands of another member of the anti-French, Austrian Hapsburg dynasty, the status quo would remain. European politics at the end of the 16th century became dominated by establishing an orderly succession in Spain that would not alter the balance between Europe's great powers.
Bourbon France and Hapsburg Austria and its allies went to war to determine the successor to Charles. The prize was the wealth of the Spanish Empire. The War of the Spanish Succession (1702–14) was won by France, but by the Treaty of Utrecht ending the conflict, the French and Spanish Bourbon dynasties pledged not to unite formally. Louis XIV of France's exclamation that the "Now there are no more Pyrenees!" now that his grandson was Spain's monarch did not come to pass. Although Charles II's chosen heir inaugurated a new dynastic house in Spain, the Hapsburg Spanish empire in Europe was reduced to the Iberian peninsula itself, with the loss of Spanish Italy and the Spanish Netherlands, and Britain captured Gibraltar and the island of Menorca as well. The Treaty of Utrecht ended the conflict and Philip V of Spain renounced any claims to the French throne. Before the conflict ended, Philip's young wife, Maria Louisa of Savoy (1688–1714) died, but the Bourbon royal succession was assured with the birth of two sons.
Changes in government under Philip
Philip V proved an effective administrator, centralizing the Spanish authority by eliminating regional cortes (parliaments) and beginning a process of making uniform the laws among the various regions of Spain's empire by eliminating special privileges (fueros). The Nueva Planta decrees (1716) dismantled the composite system of rule in Spain, and replaced it with rule from Madrid and unitary Castilian values. If the Austrian Hapsburgs had won the War of the Spanish Succession, Habsburg pluralism promised to be continued, leading Aragon to support the losing Habsburg cause. The Nueva Planta decrees eliminated that regional autonomy. "The most enduring achievement of the reign of Philip V was to establish, for the first time since the Romans, a single, united polity."