The decline of Spain, the once great country, began with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. After that, many factors aided in the decline of the Spanish, including, the fact that the kings had always been spendthrifts and their empire had grown too vast to protect it all, and were constantly at war with their neighbors. Because Spain had been engaged in tons of expensive warfare, it had thus drained its economy. Disease in the form of The Plague wiped out much of the populace in waves, in the early, mid, and late 1600s. The Spanish colonies in the new world began to run dry of gold at this point. Spain’s economy was no longer filled with New World gold. Additionally, the government gave favors to monopolies which favored the government in a vicious cycle. Then, to top it all off, Spain exiled thousands of productive workers by sending away the Moriscos. These people, or their ancestors, had at one point been Islamic, but had converted to Christianity. The rulers of Spain had decided that they were only pretending to be Christian, and thus unjustly banished them. Spain had always enforced religious uniformity, killing any non-Catholics that could be found. By the end of the 1600’s, Spain, the former great power, was in full decline.