Generalitat de Catalunya

Between 1599, at the outset of the reign of Phillip II (III of Castille), and 1701, following the enthronement of Phillip IV (V), the first king of the Bourbon dynasty, the Corts were not held again until that of 1626 - interrupted and reconvened in 1632, yet in the end this proved to be inconclusive due to the lack of possibility of agreement between the monarch and the representatives of Catalan society. In many aspects therefore, the final stone in Catalonia’s constitutional edifice was laid at the General Cort in Barcelona in 1599. In fact, before Catalonia’s normal political functions were interrupted, this Cort, with the prescriptive presence of the monarch, already underlined the constitutional conflict which would escalate at the beginning of the following reign, that of Phillip III (IV) in 1622: The kings, physically distanced from Catalonia, wanted the Catalan institutions to accept the delegates of the royal power – lieutenant and captain generals – before the new monarchy had sworn in the constitutions. In 1623, after a lengthy resistance, an acting lieutenant was accepted and was to last over three years until the monarch complied with the constitutional requirement of swearing in, as a result of the beginning of the unsuccessful Cort of 1626.

Although in 1599 the intention to levy a fifth of the income of municipalities was suspended, the monarchy’s taxation pressure on Catalonia continued to increase, and the attempts to levy this fifth would be renewed in 1611 and would come to affect the city of Barcelona in 1620. The resistance of the municipalities was supported by the Generalitat, which declared both the tax itself and the drastic measures used to collect it, to be unconstitutional. Also considered an infraction were the repeated viceregal attempts to prohibit the possession of certain weapons, called for as a result of the serious problem of banditry and the need to establish public safety, while the Generalitat was encouraging communities to form their own defence corps. Another reason for dissent was the country’s external defence and co-operation with the monarchy’s military designs. That same 1599, the Generalitat armed two galleys to defend the Catalan coasts, but it was soon discovered that the Captain General was using them to transport troops to Italy, and once they had been captured by the Algerians in 1623, the Catalan representation in the Cort of 1626 took the opportunity to insist on the private jurisdiction of the king in matters of defence. In this parliamentary meeting, the Catalan faction opposed the minister Olivares’s project for the Union of Arms, which envisaged the keeping of a standing army of 16,000 men to be paid for by the Generalitat. The breakdown of parliamentary negotiations, brought about by this and other conflicts, halted the passing of new laws designed to extend the Generalitat’s representative base and set up the Hall of Saint George, a constitutional reform court charged with reforming the Observance.

The progression from latent to open war with France in 1635 made Catalonia a military frontier and logistical base. The billeting of the kings troops, together with the press ganging, the increase in tax pressure and other abuses, plus the prohibition of commercial contacts with France, formed the background to the three-yearly period begun in the summer of 1638 by the members of parliament Pau Claris (a cleric and therefore president of the institution for ceremonial purposes), Francesc de Tamarit (military) and Josep Quintana (popular). Accusations of infractions caused by the billeting were considered to be responsible for the peasants’ revolt of 1640, which led to the imprisonment of Tamarit, which in turn further inflamed the revolt, whose followers entered Barcelona on May 22nd bent on liberating the city. During the course of the riot of June 7th (Corpus de Sang - blood-stained Corpus Christi), the viceroy, Count Santa de Coloma, was killed with members of parliament and ministers looking on passively. This act triggered the outbreak of the War of the Reapers.

On September 7th 1640 the Generalitat signed the Pact of Ceret with France, by which Catalonia was to receive military support, it would separate itself from the Spanish Monarchy and would take the form of a free republic under the protection of the French king. Pau Claris called a General Assembly of the Braços, which set itself up as the institution in charge of the new situation, officially ratified the commitments with France and the Secession, and issued public debt bonds to finance military expenses. The victorious advances of Castilian troops through Cambrils and Tarragona forced the Assembly to cede to French pressure and proclaim Louis XIII Count of Barcelona on January 23rd 1641, three days before the battle of Montjuic, which halted the attack on Barcelona. Although the Pact of Peronne signed on September 19th 1641 respected the constitutions and the system of pacts, abuses against the Catalan population and institutions, far from decreasing, continued to rise considerably throughout the years of French rule, while the war continued in Catalan territory until the weakness caused by the fact that Louis XIV was still a minor, plus the institutional breakup of the Generalitat encouraged successes in the Castilian offensive led by John Joseph of Austria, who entered Barcelona. The war dragged on until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 sanctioned the annexing by France of Roselló, Conflent, Vallespir and a part of the Cerdanya.