Let's imagine what it would mean for England. Unification of France and Germany into a single country. Or for the USA, the creation of a “superstate” from China and Russia. Well, it meant something similar for London and for the rest of Christendom Union in the 17th century of Portugal and Spain. And that is why British diplomats conspired to the end to prevent the Portuguese and Spanish from uniting their countries under a single crown, not only on this side of the sea, but especially on the other side of the Atlantic.
We are in 1640. Portugal has 80 years on behalf of the Spanish House of Austria in a dynastic union under the rule of Philip II of Spain (Philip I in Portugal, 1580-1598), Philip III. of Spain (Philip II in Portugal, 1598-1621) and Philip IV of Spain (Philip III in Portugal, 1621-1640). The syndicate began after the Portuguese Succession Crisis and War and created the largest superpower ever known, stretching from the Americas to the Far East of Asia, including possessions in Africa and India.
But when the Spanish monarchy emerged, everything went wrong The Catalan Uprising opened a front in the Mediterranean. which encouraged a faction of the Portuguese royal family to also rise up against the Habsburgs. And London had a lot to do with it, applying the divide and conquer principle that has produced such good returns in other parts of the world.
The English envoys took advantage of the social discontent due to demands for higher taxes to stop the Catalan rebellion in order to restart (in October 1640) the candidacy of a king from the House of Braganza for the throne, which he managed to do in just two months the coup. Drive out the supporters of a weakened Felipe IV and proclaim himself the new king under the name Juan IV. Facing the Catalan and Portuguese flanks at the same time is too much for Spain. He kept the first but lost the second. And it had to give up being the great power with only one country on the Iberian Peninsula.
Portugal and Spain, brother nations
As historian Marcelo Gullo Omodeo claims, The rebellion of the Duke of Braganza was encouraged in the shadow of the English, which warmed up the masses and gave the new monarch the support he needed. And it is not so clear that the revolt corresponded to a desire of the people, but rather the opposite: Portugal and Spain were brother nations and could have remained so much longer.
“The Portuguese elite have falsified the history of Portugal and erased the fact from the historical narrative Portugal and Castile were twin brothers They were born from the same womb and, by making the Castilians appear as historical enemies of the Lusitanian people, they tried to remove the idea of the reunification of the Iberian Peninsula from the hearts of the Portuguese people,” explains the historian in his book “Motherland”.
Without the shadow conspiracies of England (from then on Portugal's loyal ally), Spain's history might have been very different.