Nueva Planta decrees

Once upon a time, Spain was like a big family with different rooms, each with its own special rules. But King Philip V, who was the first king from a new family called the Bourbons, decided to change things! Between 1707 and 1716, he made special orders called the Nueva Planta decrees.

These decrees were like a giant eraser, wiping away the old rules and making everything more uniform, like everyone wearing the same uniform to school!

These decrees were born out of a big fight called the War of the Spanish Succession. It was a bit like a playground dispute where different groups wanted their own way. When King Philip V won, he wanted to make sure Spain was united and strong, like a super team.

So, he took the lands that used to have their own special ways of doing things, like Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca, and brought them all under one set of rules, making Spain more like one big, unified kingdom.

These decrees were super important because they changed Spain forever! Before, different parts of Spain had their own laws and governments, like having different teachers for different subjects. The Nueva Planta decrees got rid of that, making Spain more like a single country with one central government, similar to how your school has one principal.

This helped create the Spain we know today, with a more unified system.

King Philip V used these decrees to take away the old ways of governing in places like Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca. He basically said, 'From now on, we will all follow the rules of Castile.' This meant that these regions lost their own separate governments and laws. It was like a game where one player's rules suddenly applied to everyone, making the game simpler but changing how it was played.