by Henry Kamen
The success at Breda, a largely Belgian–Italian victory financed in part by Spain, which Castilians would always insist on claiming as uniquely their own109 because of the masterly canvas subsequently painted by Velázquez, was only one of the impressive triad of successes that the monarchy managed to achieve in the memorable year 1625. Just as it could count on the Belgians and Italians to achieve victory at Breda, so it could count on the Portuguese, who were profoundly alarmed by the inroads being made by the Dutch into their overseas territories. Even while the siege of Breda was in progress, the Portuguese were taking measures to remedy the loss of Bahia. They withdrew men from the North African garrisons in Tangiers and Ceuta, and put together a fleet of twenty-two ships, which they placed at the disposal of the Madrid government.
Early in 1625 an impressive Portuguese–Spanish armada of 56 vessels, carrying 12,500 men (three-quarters of them Spaniards, the remainder Portuguese) and some 1,200 guns, under the command of Fadrique de Toledo, set out from the peninsula. It was the largest European naval force to have crossed the Atlantic, the first of its kind ever dispatched by Spain. The armada appeared before Bahia on 30 March, Easter Eve, and had no difficulty in achieving within four weeks the surrender of the town, garrisoned by 2,300 men under Dutch command. A relief force from Holland arrived at the end of May, only to sail away after seeing the Spanish flag flying above the town and a formidable formation of fifty vessels at anchor in the bay. The recovery was with reason celebrated by Spain, and Olivares commissioned a huge canvas from the artist Juan Bautista Maino, taking care that he should figure prominently in the painting, which was hung in the royal palace of Buen Retiro. Bahia had been made possible by the fruitful collaboration of Portuguese and Spaniards, a superb example of imperial partnership. Particularly extraordinary was the number and the enthusiasm of the higher Portuguese nobility who took part. Possibly not since the ill-fated expedition of King Sebastián in 1578 had so many nobles ventured their lives, and this time with success, on an imperial enterprise.110
The satisfaction that year was interrupted by the unwelcome declaration of hostilities by England, where war fever gripped all sections of opinion and a leading politician called for ‘peace with all the world but war with Spain’. The English government was angry at the failure of the secret mission to Madrid in 1623 of the Prince of Wales, the future Charles I, to court the Infanta. The Parliament also wished to rescue the Palatinate from occupation by the army of Flanders. In August preparations were being made together with the Dutch for a joint attack on a Spanish port. At the beginning of October 1625 an Anglo-Dutch fleet, consisting of twenty Dutch vessels with ten English warships and seventy transport ships, sailed from Plymouth. Once out at sea the decision was made to attack Cadiz, other alternatives having been rejected. Cadiz was the hub of the American trade, and no doubt memories were stirred of the highly successful attack on the port in 1596. This time, however, the whole action was botched, and an attempt to seize the silver fleet failed dismally. Four weeks later the expedition commander, Sir Edward Cecil, called off the venture and gave orders to sail for home. While the Spaniards congratulated themselves on their good fortune, it was the turn of the English to lament, in the words of a member of Parliament, that ‘our honour is ruined, our ships are sunk, our men perished’. In Brussels, Spinola commented to Rubens that the expedition had been ‘utterly foolhardy; the English apparently thought they could take all Spain with twelve thousand infantry and a few horsemen’.111
The triple success of 1625, a miraculous year in which Castilians, Portuguese, Belgians and Italians had together demonstrated their ability to stand up to the challenge of war, would not be repeated for a generation. Olivares learned an important lesson from the annus mirabilis. He evolved the idea of a monarchy that could defend itself by using local resources rather than having to call on those of Madrid. The plan was for a Union of Arms, in which each member state would at its own expense raise and maintain a body of troops. Castile and America, for example, would between them recruit forty-four thousand men, Catalonia sixteen thousand, and Milan eight thousand. If all the states co-operated, the empire would be able to dispose of up to 140,000 men. From 1626 the count duke began taking measures to put the idea into effect. Carried along on the same tide of optimism, the king addressed an optimistic message to the Council of Castile:
Our prestige has been immensely improved. We have had all Europe against us but we have not been defeated nor have our allies lost, while our enemies have sued me for peace. The fleet, which consisted of only seven vessels on my accession, rose at one time in 1625 to 108 ships of war at sea, without counting the vessels at Flanders. If we lacked this maritime strength not only would we lose the kingdoms we possess but in Madrid itself religion would perish, which is the principal question we should consider. This very year of 1626 we have had two royal armies in Flanders and one in the Palatinate, and all the power of France, England, Sweden, Venice, Savoy, Denmark, Holland, Brandenburg, and Saxony could not save Breda from our victorious arms.112
The speech, packed with half-truths and resonant with chauvinist echoes of victory, was a typical vision of the empire as seen from Madrid. In practice, as subsequent events in that year of 1626 showed, no victory of any sort was possible without the willing collaboration of allies, who were suspicious of the implications of Olivares's policies. The Union of Arms was immediately recognized for what it really was, an attempt to shift the burden of defence on to the member states of the monarchy. The Catalans refused to have anything to do with it. In Brussels the authorities paid lip-service but murmured privately against it. Rubens remarked angrily that the Union proposed that ‘our country must serve as the battlefield’, fighting Spain's battles while Spain got off scot-free.113
The contribution of Belgium to the defence of empire was, of course, not simply the work of Spinola. His brother Federigo had pioneered the brilliant policy of attacking the enemy by sea, and the archduchess gave her full support to the war effort. Since the death of Archduke Albert in 1621, the southern Netherlands had in theory reverted to full Spanish control. In practice Isabel was very much in control until her death in 1633, and among her first responsibilities was to try and remain on working terms with Philip IV's chief minister Olivares, whose schemes for imperial recovery were already creating tension. She and her advisers had to contend with the presence at Brussels of insistent Spanish officials, among them the ambassador, Alonso de la Cueva, marquis of Bedmar. The Netherlands was crucial to both the naval and the military effort in northern Europe, and Spain had no intention of losing control of decision-making.
It is easy to overlook the tremendous effort made by the people and government of the southern Netherlands in helping to maintain Spanish power in Europe. The military forces stationed there were in the service of Spain, but were only partly paid for by the Spanish, whose troops were always in a minority. Spain continued to make extensive use of the naval, industrial and cultural resources of Belgium, but was seldom able to keep up with its payments. In the year 1627, Rubens expressed the discontent of the government in Brussels at the lack of money. ‘We are exhausted’, he wrote, ‘not so much by the trials of war, as by the perpetual difficulty of obtaining necessary supplies from Spain.’ Shortly after, he commented that ‘it appears strange that Spain, which provides so little for the needs of this country that it can barely defend it, has an abundance of means to wage an offensive war elsewhere’.114
Thanks in part to their linguistic ability, Netherlanders became invaluable members of the imperial diplomatic service, serving Spain in areas of the continent from which Castilians were excluded by their ignorance of the languages. Among the diplomats was Gabriel de Roy, a noble of Artois who had through extensive travels in every corner of Europe made himself into a superb linguist and a mine of information on all matters. In the years 1602–8 he was in Madrid; subsequently he returned to the Netherlands and worked with Spinola. Other leading Belgian diplomats of the period included Ja
cques Bruneau, who represented Spain in London, Jean de Croy, count of Solre, accredited to Poland, and the artist Peter Paul Rubens. Apart from advice and co-operation, the Southern Netherlands during Isabel's government was the spearhead of a twin military effort, by sea and by land.
The most notable contribution of the Belgians to Spain's war effort was made by the port of Dunkirk, where from 1621, when the truce with the Dutch expired, the authorities gave their support to a campaign of naval privateering directed against the enemy, including the French and English. Around 1600, as we have seen, Federigo Spinola had operated a similar scheme. In 1620 Carlos Coloma in Brussels suggested that the vessels then under construction in Ostend and Dunkirk be used against the enemy ‘like pirates’. By 1621 the Spaniards and Belgians were ready to attack the Dutch in their own sphere, the waters of the North Sea. The first engagements were not entirely successful, but as the months advanced the experience of the corsairs improved. Moreover a number of independent merchants also took the opportunity to engage in the officially sanctioned piracy, and made profits from it. At the same time the government in Spain extended the pirate war to all the seas of Europe. The success of the Dunkirkers was impressive, particularly in the annus mirabilis 1625. When the archduchess Isabel heard of the proposed English descent on Spain that year she went to Dunkirk to join Spinola and see how the ships were doing. ‘The Infanta and the marquis are still in Dunkirk’, Rubens reported in October 1625, ‘devoting themselves to the building and arming of ships. At the time of my departure I saw in the port of Mardijk a fleet of twenty-one well-armed ships.’ ‘Our ships from Dunkirk’, he added a month later, ‘have ruined the herring-fishing [of the Dutch] for this year. They have sent to the bottom a number of fishing-boats, but with the express order of the Infanta to save all the men and treat them well.’115 The primary target of the Dunkirkers was the Dutch fishing fleet, the basic element in the economy of the United Provinces. In practice, as happened that year, the ferocity practised on the Dutch fishermen exceeded the limits of civilized conduct, and Isabel was concerned to avoid reprisals by the Dutch.
In the light of the naval successes of 1625 around the seas of the world the king was inspired to claim in his 1626 speech to the council of Castile that ‘the war at sea has much advanced the reputation of Spain’. It was true, but a good part of the credit went to the Belgians. The activities of the Dunkirkers in the Channel during 1625–6 cost the British merchant marine the loss of around three hundred vessels, representing up to one-fifth of their entire fleet.116 The Dutch were under constant pressure: in 1627 the Dunkirk ships captured forty-five Dutch vessels and sank sixty-eight; in the same year the privateers working with them also took forty-nine vessels and sank seventeen.117 The following year they took even more. ‘Who can doubt’, commented Olivares, ‘that if we continue along the present lines, cutting our enemies' links, their power will decline while that of Spain will increase?’118 He began to dedicate time and attention to a serious plan to ally with the emperor and establish Spanish naval power on the coast of the Baltic, with the aim of cutting off the Dutch from access to naval supplies and wheat.
But despite successes at sea, the military machine was running into serious trouble. Spinola had seen the impending threat when in January 1627 the Madrid government suspended payment of its debts. He complained from Brussels that the army there, with 68,000 on the payroll though only 47,500 were fighting soldiers, was in peril, and emphasized ‘the great risk of losing everything here’.119 At the end of 1627 he was given permission to go to Madrid and present his case directly to the government. As it happened, Spinola's concerns were not simply for the state of the army. The 1627 suspension, which had serious consequences for Italian financiers, affected him directly as a Genoese banker. He wished to negotiate repayment of his extensive loans to the crown. At the same time he urged a policy of military retrenchment: changing the objectives in the Netherlands in favour of a negotiated solution, and withdrawing from engagements in Italy.
The Spanish empire in Asia had never been in any position to defend itself, and benefited very little from the Twelve Years’ Truce. European states tended to take the view that conditions of peace and war in Europe did not affect their overseas territories. The Dutch certainly saw no reason to extend the peace in Europe to the overseas empire. Throughout the years of truce, therefore, they continued to promote their interests in Asia, regardless of possible conflicts with Spain. The principal victim of this situation turned out to be Portugal, which found itself in the unwelcome position of defender of the Spanish empire in Asia.
On the expiry of the truce in 1621 the VOC, from its base at Batavia and under the leadership of the creator of Dutch power in the east, Jan Pietersz Coen, made serious plans to take over the trading concerns of the Iberians. Manila in 1621 was in the heyday of its Pacific trade but in no condition to present itself as a military power. The Spanish colony no longer thought in terms of the conquest or conversion of Asia. The number of Spaniards on Luzon was inadequate for ambitious enterprises, and commerce had become limited to the vital activity of the annual galleon. For all practical purposes, Manila ceased to be an outpost of the empire. Instead, many of the Spaniards dedicated themselves to their own little undertakings, and the city became a sort of open mart, where Europeans and Asians mixed freely. The Augustinian archbishop of Manila in 1621 complained to the crown that the active men who should have been there to protect the city were scattered through Melaka, Macao, Thailand, Cambodia and Japan, engaged in contraband on their own behalf.120
The Dutch took limited action against Manila, attempting for instance to blockade its bay in 1621, but their real effort was directed against the far richer booty to be had from the Portuguese territories. In 1623 Dutch strength in East Asia amounted to some ninety vessels and two thousand men garrisoning forts at Batavia, Amboina and Ternate.121 With these forces, actions were taken against the Portuguese bases at Goa, Melaka and above all Macao. An ambitious expedition launched against the Portuguese at Macao in 1622 failed, principally because the Chinese helped to repel the invasion. By way of compensation the Dutch were obliged to settle for a base on Taiwan (see Chapter 9), where they soon developed a profitable sugar industry and eventually expelled the few Spaniards that had also managed to establish themselves on the island. Though the aggressions could never be more than piecemeal, in view of the few resources available to the Dutch and the extensive distances involved, the consequences were decidedly depressing for the Portuguese. Their trade was reduced and the viceroy in Goa even contemplated making a separate peace agreement with the Dutch.
There were important repercussions in Madrid, where the council of Portugal in 1623 advised Philip IV to ‘seek an agreement with Holland, since the prospects for war become daily more unrealizable’.122 One Portuguese minister had already insisted to the government that ‘war waged against the rebels in the east will have more useful effects than that now waged in the Netherlands’.123 What he was asking for, and the Portuguese continued to demand, was that some portion of the vast quantities of silver being poured into the Flanders campaign be diverted to Asia, where the need was no less great and the returns might be more adequate. The Portuguese were equally concerned for the security of Brazil and the Caribbean, where enemy attacks severely affected commerce and resulted periodically in the loss of vessels: the Dutch West India Company claimed to have captured fifty-five Portuguese and Spanish ships during the year 1627.
The successes registered by the empire in 1625 and 1626 had therefore to be set against serious difficulties in areas where the Spanish were exceptionally weak. The dominance of the Dutch by sea was unquestionable. In 1628 they accomplished one of the great feats of the age, an unprecedented blow against Spain's silver lifeline: they captured the entire treasure fleet. That autumn admiral Piet Heyn, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, sailed for the Caribbean with a fleet of 32 ships armed with 700 cannon and carrying 3,500 men. On 8 September he encountered the New
Spain treasure ships as they made for their rendezvous at Havana. The silver fleet, consisting in all of fifteen vessels under the command of Admiral Juan de Benavides, tried to shelter in Matanzas Bay, to the east of Havana. Heyn sailed in and captured all fifteen ships, burning half of them and absorbing the rest into his fleet. The treasure taken, in gold, silver (177,537 pounds), silks and other goods, was valued at some 4.8 million silver pesos. That year the fortunate shareholders of the West India Company received dividends of over seventy-five per cent. Heyn became rich, but not for long; he died the following year in a naval action against the Spaniards in Flanders.
Heyn's exploit provoked anger in Madrid and fury in the government. Such was the division of feelings and opinions among those in power, however, that an outsider who was there got the impression only of immense satisfaction at the disaster. Peter Paul Rubens reported that ‘almost everyone here is very glad about it, feeling that this public calamity can be set down as a disgrace to their rulers. So great is the power of hate that they overlook their own ills for the mere pleasure of vengeance.’124 The feeling of helplessness in the government was reflected in Philip IV's panic-stricken order to the archduchess in 1629 to send the whole Dunkirk-Ostend fleet, the ‘armada of Flanders’, to Spain together with three units of Belgian troops, in order to defend the peninsula and reinforce troops in Italy. Nothing was done, for there was no money to pay for the expedition.
The unique success achieved at Matanzas encouraged the Dutch West India Company to look for a more permanent base for its activities, an objective that obviously brought it into full collision with the Spanish empire. It was also looking for more profits for its shareholders. The plans bore fruit in a war fleet it financed, of sixty-seven ships with seven thousand men, which attacked Brazil's northeast coast in February 1630 and occupied the town of Pernambuco. The success was the beginning of a rapid and successful Dutch drive in the Atlantic. Over the next seven years the Dutch took over four of the provinces of northern Brazil, occupied Curaçao and other points in the Caribbean, and finally in 1637 seized the slave fort of São Jorge da Mina on the African coast from the Portuguese.
