The 100 years war occurs between England and France, a war of European hegemony. At various points, England controls Paris and more of France than France itself, but in the end, the French win with Scottish help. The Burgundians switch sides multiple times and benefit off both sides' victories, these Burgundians ruled both the eastern parts of France, and the "Leo Belgicus", or the Netherlands in its entirety. The massive Burgundian gains allowed lands west and east of the Rhine to travel easier, meaning that northern and eastern France were far more Germanic than they are now; these subjects, of mixed Frankish, Frisian, and Saxon origins were called "Deutscher" and in English, "Dutch". Flanders, a province heavily tied to England since before the Anglo-Saxon invasion and thus a natural ally of the English falls to the Burgundians. The Burgundian mantle is a red St. Andrew's cross on a white banner. These Burgundians married into the Habsburg family, originally Swiss mountian-jews but they were kicked out and had better luck Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Castile and Aragon (a state that at the time, controlled southern Italy, parts of Greece and as the "Catalan company", even parts of Armenia, with high ties to the Byzantine empire ever since the Komnenos dynasty), anti-English French allies were also on the winning side of the 100 years war, and so once they united, and after the Castilians finally destroy Granada (which was just a Spanish vassal state anyways, which is why its destruction "makes no sense" as a certain Gerry noted), the now ultra-powerful Spaniards married into the ultra-powerful Habsburgs who in-turn married into the ultra-powerful Burgundians, and these Habsburgs also became the Holy Roman emperor, basically ruling all of Germany, Italy, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, etc.. In short, winners on all sides unite, their only real threat now being the Ottomans and now, France as they're realiisng their former allies are all teaming up. After the "discovery" of the New World and overthrow of the Aztecs and Incas as well as the Philippines, as well as having the pope give them along with the Portuguese all of the New World, the Habsburgs became the most powerful nation in the world. However, then the Protestant reformation happened, and now northern Europe stopped being papist. Southern France and the Netherlands in particular became a hotbed for radical Calvinism, whereas England became Anglican after his king hated his Spanish wife, whom his pope jewed him after divorcing her. Thus England now hated Spain, and since Flanders was formerly the closest nation to England and is also becoming Protestant, and antagonistic to Spain, they decided to fund them and the princes of Orange-Nassau (formerly all part of Burgundy) went against Spain. Spain first won, and beat the shit out of them, but later on the Dutch started beating the shit out of them. After Bloody Mary married the king of Spain, Spain claimed England and after Elizabeth I (who may have been a man) took power, sent a massive armada to destroy them, but that got annihilated, and eventually ended up in Ireland creating the black Irish. Now England doubled down on funding the Dutch, eventually Flanders was divided between the Spanish crown (which would eventually become the country known as "Belgium" today) and the Netherlands, but there was still an unending war between Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Eventually the Ottomans also took much of Hungary from the Habsburgs and besieged Vienna, and France was still trying to invade Italy in the Italian wars (where the Habsburg emperor betrayed the king of England in his promise to give him all of France, why England went against them in the first place), the Dutch were able to take New York, steal Brazil, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and all from the Portuguese, and also hired privateers including jewish ones to harass Spanish shipping. Eventually (long after William of Orange died).