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The war in the Netherlands was an even more painful issue for Philip
III. His father had sworn never to reign over heretics, thus vowing a
permanent conflict with the Calvinists who were trying to snatch his
Burgundian heritage away from him. Although the old king had made
headway in the southern provinces by the time of his death, the Dutch
Calvinists of the north not only continued to challenge Spanish author-
ity but began harassing the sea-lanes and threatening colonial posses-
sions of both Spain and Portugal. Although Philip III continued
operations against the Dutch, his generals sustained a series of defeats,
and his administrators in the Netherlands began pressing for a cease-
fire in order to renew Spanish strength and consider alternative
approaches. Finally in 1609 a 12-years' truce was agreed upon, to the
indignation of the war party and the relief of those who insisted that
Spain needed time to put her internal affairs in order.
Thus, with the English and Dutch enemies no longer in the field and
the worrisome revival of France interrupted by the death of Henry IV
in 1610, Philip III found himself presiding over a nation at peace. To be
sure Spain had achieved no victories; moreover there were still skir-
mishes going on in northern Italy under the direction of local com-
manders, and diplomatic initiatives against the Ottoman Empire,
including attempts to incite the shah of Persia to attack the sultan.
Philip III was now the most powerful monarch in the world, presiding
over a vast empire, won by force during the reigns of his grandfather
and father and now subject to a Pax Hispanica such as they had never
been able to impose. The last half of his reign offered him an opportu-
nity to focus his attention on desperately needed internal reforms.
An outbreak of the plague in Castile in 1599 and a steady immigra-
tion to the colonies diminished the population during the first years of
Philip's reign, a situation exacerbated by the expulsion of the Moriscos
between 1609 and 1614. These “new Christians” were the survivors of
two earlier purges of Spain's Islamic elements, in the reigns of Ferdi-
nand and Isabella and Philip II, respectively. Avowedly Catholic, the
Moriscos were still regarded in the early 17th century as “the enemy
within.” They were generally believed to adhere secretly to Islam and
to regard the Ottoman sultan as their true sovereign. Although many
of them were laborers, mule drivers, and small craftsmen, their sheer
numbers (some 250,000 scattered across Castile and Aragon in a total
population of 7 million) represented not merely a political danger but
a potential economic loss. Nevertheless, public opinion, urged on by the
clergy, demanded their expulsion. As soon as the fighting in the Neth-
erlands was over, a royal decree was promulgated ordering all those of
Muslim descent to depart from the peninsula. In a process that stretched
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