Early Relations
The entire mainlands of both France and Spain were possessions of the Roman Empire. In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees ceded the Spanish-possessed Catalan county of Roussillon to the French king Louis XIII, who had supported the Catalans in a revolt against the Spanish crown. In 1701, after the death of the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, the French House of Bourbon, led by Louis XIV, staked a claim to the Spanish throne. The war ended with the Bourbon Phillip V being recognised as King of Spain.
Revolutionary France and Bourbon Spain signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1796 as part of their shared opposition to Britain. The relationship strained after defeat in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar, and in 1808, French Emperor Napoleon named his brother Joseph as King of Spain as part of a plan to get closer to invading Britain's ally, Portugal. The Bourbon king Ferdinand VII was imprisoned by Napoleon, but still remained recognised as Spanish monarch by Napoleon's adversaries. He returned to the throne in 1813 after Britain and Portugal's victory in the Peninsular War.
Read more about this topic: Franco-Spanish Relations
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