<P> Traditionally, historians mark the Battle of Rocroi (1643) as the end of Spanish dominance in Europe . But the war was not finished, and after a severe setback, more Spanish victories followed . Supported by the French, the Catalans, Neapolitans, and Portuguese rose up in revolt against the Spanish in the 1640s . With the Spanish Netherlands caught between the tightening grip of French and Dutch forces after the Battle of Lens in 1648, the Spanish made peace with the Dutch and recognized the independent United Provinces in the Peace of Westphalia that ended both the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War . </P> <P> War with France continued for eleven more years . Although France suffered from a civil war from 1648 to 1652 (see Wars of the Fronde), Spain had been exhausted by the Thirty Years' War and the ongoing revolts . With the war against the United Provinces at an end in 1648, the Spanish drove the French out of Naples and Catalonia in 1652, recaptured Dunkirk, and occupied several northern French forts that they held until peace was made . The war came to an end soon after the Battle of the Dunes (1658), where the French army under Viscount Turenne retook Dunkirk . Spain agreed to the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 that ceded to France the Spanish Netherlands territory of Artois and the northern Catalan county of Roussillon . </P> <P> Portugal had rebelled in 1640 under the leadership of John of Braganza, a pretender to the throne . He had received widespread support from the Portuguese people, and Spain--which had to deal with rebellions elsewhere, along with the war against France--was unable to respond adequately . John mounted the throne as King John IV of Portugal, and the Spanish and Portuguese co-existed in a de facto state of peace from 1644 to 1656 . When John died in 1656, the Spanish attempted to wrest Portugal from his son Alfonso VI of Portugal but were defeated at Ameixial (1663) and Montes Claros (1665), leading to Spain's recognition of Portugal's independence in 1668 . </P> <P> Spain still had a huge overseas empire, but France was now the dominant power on continental Europe, and the United Provinces were dominant in the Atlantic . The Great Plague of Seville (1647--1652) killed up to 25% of Seville's population . Sevilla, and indeed the economy of Andalucía, would never recover from such complete devastation . Altogether Spain was thought to have lost 500,000 people, out of a population of slightly fewer than 10,000,000, or nearly 5% of its entire population . Historians reckon the total cost in human lives due to these plagues throughout Spain, throughout the entire 17th century, to be a minimum of nearly 1.25 million . </P>

The spanish were able to maintain control of their colonies in the americas