History of Europe and its lands. The European religious wars between German and Spanish rulers. The Reconquista ended Muslim rule in Iberia. By the 1490s a series of oceanic explorations marked the Age of Discovery, establishing direct links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Religious wars continued to be fought in Europe, until the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The Spanish crown maintained its hegemony in Europe and was the leading power on the continent until the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which ended a conflict between Spain and France that had begun during the Thirty Years' War. An unprecedented series of
Hessian War Peace Congress mediated by Duke Ernest of Saxe-Gotha and which resulted in a unification and peace treaty that was sealed in April 1648, ahead of the Treaty of Westphalia itself. Before the Westphalian Peace Treaty, Cassel fought one last time against the imperial side, winning the Battle of Wevelinghoven in the Rhineland, together with other Protestant troops. Darmstadt, however, was not involved in this battle. Under the Unification Treaty between Cassel and Darmstadt, Upper Hesse was permanently divided. Darmstadt had to give up a significant part of Upper Hesse to Cassel, not least Marburg and other occupied territories, including the