The seventeenth century in Spain is a period of unremitting political, military, economic, and social decline.

Neither Philip III (r. 1598- 1621) nor Philip IV (r. 1621-65) is competent to give the kind of clear direction that Philip II had provided.

Responsibility passes to aristocratic advisers.

Gaspar de Guzmán, count-duke of Olivares, attempts and fails to establish the centralized administration that his famous contemporary, Cardinal Richelieu, had introduced in France.

In reaction to Guzman's bureaucratic absolutism, Catalonia revolts and is virtually annexed by France.

Portugal, with English aid, reasserts its independence in 1640, and an attempt is made to separate Andalusia from Spain.

In 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, Spain assents to the emperor's accommodation with the German Protestants, and in 1654 it recognizes the independence of the northern Netherlands.

The Generalitat of Catalonia stems from the medieval institution which had ruled, in the name of the King of the Crown of Aragon, some aspects of the administration of the Principality of Catalonia.

Pau Claris i Casademunt, ninety-fourth President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, has avoided an official proclamation of the Republic, perhaps to leave the possibility of a negotiated peace.

The creation of a republic has been promoted by Richelieu as a solution to the conflict, but his representative, B. Du Plessis-Besançon, ensures that French support is deliberately insufficient and ambiguous until the 23rd of January, when, with the Castilian army at the gates of Barcelona, the Catalan authorities agree to place the Principality under the sovereignty of Louis XIII of France.

A Spanish force under Pedro Fajardo on January 26 launches an attack on a Catalan force, made up mainly of Miquelet militias led by Francesc de Tamarit, and their French allies.

The Catalans have taken up position on the heights of Montjuïc, which dominate the city of Barcelona, and continually repulse  several concerted attempts by the Spanish to capture Montjuïc Castle..

Finally a large force of Catalans counterattacks from the direction of Barcelona; large numbers of Spanish troops are killed and the remainder withdraw along the coast to Tarragona.