The House of Habsburg, also officially called the House of Austria, was one of the most influential and distinguished royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1440 until their extinction in the male line in 1740 and after the death of Francis I from 1765 until its dissolution in 1806.
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands and historically called the Netherlands, Flanders, or Belgica, refers to a coastal lowland region in northwestern Europe forming the lower basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Geographically and historically, the area includes also parts of France and Germany such as the French Flanders and the German regions of East Frisia and Cleves. During the Middle Ages, the Low Countries were divided in numerous semi-independent principalities.
Philip III was King of Spain. He was also, as Philip II, King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621.
Philip IV was King of Spain and Portugal. He ascended the thrones in 1621 and reigned in Portugal until 1640, and in Spain until his death in 1665. Philip is remembered for his patronage of the arts, including such artists as Diego Velázquez, and his rule over Spain during the Thirty Years' War.
A military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term junta means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808. The term is now used to refer to an authoritarian form of government characterized by oligarchic military dictatorship, as distinguished from other categories of authoritarian rule, specifically strongman ; machine ; and bossism.
The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, was the part of the Low Countries largely controlled by Spain (1556–1714), later Austria (1714–1794), and occupied then annexed by France (1794–1815). The region also included a number of smaller states that were never ruled by Spain or Austria: the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Imperial Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy, the County of Bouillon, the County of Horne and the Princely Abbey of Thorn. The Southern Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire until the whole area was annexed by Revolutionary France.
Duke of Burgundy was a title used by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, from its establishment in 843 to its annexation by France in 1477, and later by Habsburg sovereigns of the Low Countries (1482–1556).
Archduke was the title borne from 1358 by the Habsburg rulers of the Archduchy of Austria, and later by all senior members of that dynasty. It denotes a rank within the former Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), which was below that of Emperor and King but above that of a Grand Duke (debatably), Prince and Duke.
Spain - Habsburg was the Spain of the 16th and 17th centuries (1516–1700) when it was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg. The Habsburg rulers reached the zenith of their influence and power. They controlled territory that included the Americas, the East Indies, the Low Countries, Belgium, Luxembourg and territories now in Italy, France and Germany in Europe, the Portuguese Empire from 1580 to 1640, and various other territories such as small enclaves like Ceuta and Oran in North Africa. This period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the "Age of Expansion".
Habsburg Monarchy or Habsburg Empire is an umbrella term coined by historians to denote the numerous lands and kingdoms of the Habsburg dynasty, especially for those of the Austrian line. Although from 1438 to 1806, a member of the House of Habsburg was also Holy Roman Emperor, the Holy Roman Empire itself, over which the emperor exercised only very limited authority, was not considered to be part of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Spanish Netherlands was the name for the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries held in personal union by the Spanish Crown. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany with the capital being Brussels.
The Iberian Union was the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Portugal under the Spanish Crown that existed between 1580 and 1640, and which brought the entire Iberian Peninsula, as well as Portuguese overseas possessions, under the Spanish Habsburg kings Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV. The union began following the Portuguese crisis of succession and the ensuing War of the Portuguese Succession, and lasted until the Portuguese Restoration War in which the House of Braganza was established as Portugal's new ruling dynasty.
The Philippine Dynasty, also known as the House of Habsburg in Portugal, was the third royal house of Portugal. It was named after the three Spanish kings who ruled Portugal between 1581 and 1640 in a dynastic union of the two crowns. The three kings, all named Philip, were from the House of Habsburg.
The Duchy of Luxemburg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire, the ancestral homeland of the noble House of Luxembourg. The House of Luxembourg, now Duke of Limburg, became one of the most important political forces in the 14th century, competing against the House of Habsburg for supremacy in Central Europe. They would be the heirs to the Přemyslid dynasty in the Kingdom of Bohemia, succeeding the Kingdom of Hungary and contributing four Holy Roman Emperors until their own line of male heirs came to an end and the House of Habsburg got the pieces that the two Houses had originally agreed upon in the Treaty of Brünn in 1364.
Habsburg Netherlands, in Latin referred to as Belgica, is the collective name of Renaissance period fiefs in the Low Countries held by the Holy Roman Empire's House of Habsburg. The rule began in 1482, when the last Valois-Burgundy ruler of the Netherlands, Mary, wife of Maximilian I of Austria, died. Their grandson, Emperor Charles V, was born in the Habsburg Netherlands and made Brussels one of his capitals.
The royalists were the Latin American and European supporters of the various governing bodies of the Spanish Monarchy, during the Spanish American wars of independence, which lasted from 1808 until the king's death in 1833. In the early years of the conflict, when King Ferdinand VII was captive in France, royalists supported the authority in the Americas of the Supreme Central Junta of Spain and the Indies and the Cortes of Cádiz that ruled in the King's name during the Peninsular War. After the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, royalists supported his claim to rule Spanish America, but were split between those that supported his insistence to rule under traditional law and liberals, who sought to reinstate the reforms enacted by the Cortes of Cádiz.
The flag of Castile and León is the official flag of the Spanish autonomous community of Castile and León. It consists of the quartered coats of arms of Castile, represented by a castle, and León, represented by a lion.
The Spanish American wars of independence were the numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America during the early 19th century. With the aim of political independence, these began shortly after the French invasion of Spain in 1807 during Europe's Napoleonic Wars. Although there has been research on the idea of a separate Spanish American ("creole") identity separate from that of Iberia, political independence was not initially the aim of most Spanish Americans, nor was it necessarily inevitable. With the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, the King rejected any type of popular sovereignty, as seen in the Spanish Constitution of 1812 passed by the Cortes of Cádiz – the parliamentary Regency in place while Ferdinand VII was deposed. The Liberal Triennium of 1820 also did not change the position of the Cádiz constitution against separatism, while Latin Americans were increasingly radicalized seeking political independence.
Junta is a Spanish, Portuguese and Italian (giunta) term for a civil deliberative or administrative council. In English, Military Junta predominantly refers to the government of an authoritarian state run by high-ranking officers of a military.
