Philip IV (of Spain, Naples, and Sicily)

Philip IV (of Spain, Naples, and Sicily) (1605-1665), king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily (1621-1665), and, as Philip III, king of Portugal (1621-1640), the eldest son of Philip III, king of Spain, born in Valladolid. A weak ruler, like his father, he entrusted the administration of affairs to others, initially to his prime minister, Gaspar de Guzmán, conde de Olivares. During Philip's reign the political and economic decline of Spain was accelerated by exhausting wars with Portugal, the Netherlands, and France and by the policy of supporting the Habsburg cause in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. His reign was marked by the loss of Portugal in 1640, by revolt in Catalonia from 1640 to 1653, and by a rebellion in Naples in 1647. By the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Spain was forced to recognize the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which consisted of the seven northern provinces. In 1659 Spain ceded Roussillon and part of the Spanish Netherlands to France under the terms of the Peace of the Pyrenees. A patron of arts and letters, Philip encouraged the work of the painter Velázquez, the dramatist Lope de Vega, and the poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca.