Peace treaties freed Spain to expel its internal enemies

Evidence

Perhaps even more important is the fact that the accession of this Scottish king to the English throne and his decision in 1604 by the Treaty of London to put an end to the long period of hostilities between England and Spain had disastrous implications for the Moriscos. In the absence of externally generated dangers, Spain could now safely switch resources from its overseas commitments to deal with its internal problems. Very soon another peace, or rather truce, sealed the Moriscos’ fate. In 1609 was signed the Twelve-Years Truce between Spain and the Netherlands. The decks had now been cleared. A solution, a Final Solution, was now possible in Spain. No state in Western Europe was at this juncture willing to befriend Spain’s internal enemies. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1621

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the general pattern of states turning on internal minorities once foreign threats recede — echoes Milgrom’s institutional logic in reverse (peace dissolves the external constraints that once kept Spain occupied).