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Pyrenees, Peace of the

(Encyclopedia)Pyrenees, Peace of the, 1659, treaty ending the warfare between France and Spain that, continuing after the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, had been complicated by French interv...

Mary of England

(Encyclopedia)Mary of England (Mary Tudor), 1496–1533, queen consort of Louis XII of France, daughter of Henry VII of England and sister of Henry VIII. She was betrothed in 1507 to the future Holy Roman Emperor C...

Devolution, War of

(Encyclopedia)Devolution, War of, 1667–68, undertaken by Louis XIV for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. On her marriage to Louis, Marie Thérèse, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, had renounced her rights ...

Malplaquet, battle of

(Encyclopedia)Malplaquet, battle of mälpläkāˈ [key], a major engagement in the War of the Spanish Succession (see Spanish Succession, War of the). On Sept. 11, 1709, the combined forces of England and the Holy ...

Dunes, Battle of the

(Encyclopedia)Dunes, Battle of the, 1658, decisive engagement fought near Dunkirk in the struggle between France and Spain that had resulted from Spanish intervention in the Fronde. The Spanish under the command of...

Catherine of Braganza

(Encyclopedia)Catherine of Braganza brəgănˈzə [key], 1638–1705, queen consort of Charles II of England, daughter of John IV of Portugal. She was married to Charles in 1662. As part of her dowry England secure...

Eleanor of Provence

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Provence prôväNsˈ [key], d. 1291, queen consort of Henry III of England. The daughter of Raymond Berengar, count of Provence, she was married to Henry in 1236. She was a vigorous and inc...

Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of hĕˈbərn, bŏthˈwəl [key], 1536?–1578, Scottish nobleman; third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. Though a Protestant, he was a strong partisan of the Catholic...

Cortes

(Encyclopedia)Cortes kôrˈtĕz, Span. kōrˈtās [key], representative assembly in Spain. The institution originated (12th–13th cent.) in various Spanish regions with the Christian reconquest; until the 19th cen...

Alfonso IV, king of Portugal

(Encyclopedia)Alfonso IV, 1291–1357, king of Portugal (1325–57), son and successor of Diniz. Disgruntled by the favoritism his father showed toward Alfonso's illegitimate half-brothers, Alfonso rose in revolt i...