Imperial Spain 1469-1716

by John H. Elliott

  Satisfactory as was the bloodless reacquisition of Rosselló and Cerdanya, Charles VIII's invasion of Italy represented a new, and more serious, threat to the Crown of Aragon. Sicily was an Aragonese possession, while the kingdom of Naples belonged to a junior branch of the house of Aragon. A European coalition was needed to check the advance of Charles VIII; and the achievement of this coalition in 1495 in the shape of a Holy League between England, Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy, was one of the greatest triumphs of Ferdinand's foreign policy. In building up this coalition, Ferdinand laid the foundations of a diplomatic system that was to maintain and extend Spanish power throughout the sixteenth century. The success of the missions he sent to the various European capitals in pursuit of a Holy League had helped persuade him of the value of the resident ambassador – a figure increasingly employed by certain Italian states in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During the 1480s and 1490s, in his efforts to secure the diplomatic encirclement of France, Ferdinand established five resident embassies, at Rome, Venice, London, Brussels, and the migratory Austrian Court.1 These resident embassies, which were to become permanent fixtures in Spain's diplomatic network, played a vital part in furthering the success of Spanish foreign policy. The men chosen to occupy them, like Dr Rodrigo de Puebla, the ambassador in London, were men of considerable ability, drawn from the same legally or clerically trained professional class which provided Ferdinand and Isabella with their councillors, judges, and administrators. Francisco de Rojas, who served in Rome and elsewhere, was a hidalgo of moderate means; de Puebla was a low-born converso with legal training, and a former corregidor. Both were Castilians, who were, in fact, much better represented in Ferdinand's foreign service than might have been expected in the light of the Crown of Aragon's much longer diplomatic tradition. They and their colleagues served Ferdinand with a loyalty that was by no means fully repaid. Invaluable as he found the reports of his resident ambassadors, he often failed to send them instructions, neglected to pay them, and not infrequently double-crossed them. There were, too, grave deficiencies in the whole organization of the Spanish foreign service. The absence of a fixed capital meant that diplomatic documents were scattered across Spain in a chaotic trail of papers which marked the route taken by Ferdinand on his travels. Letters went unanswered, treaties were lost. But the efficiency of the service increased as the reign went on, and if it was not yet as professional as that of some of the Italian states, it was far superior to the diplomatic services of the majority of Ferdinand's enemies and allies.

  With the entry of Charles VIII into Naples in 1495, however, it became clear that diplomacy must yield precedence to war. An expedition which had been sent to Sicily under the distinguished commander in the Granada campaign, the Great Captain Gonzalo de Córdoba, crossed over to Calabria in 1495. During his Italian campaigns of 1495–7 and 1501–4 Gonzalo was to show himself a commander of genius, quick to learn the lessons taught him by the enemy, and to apply them to his own troops. As a result, just as these years saw the creation of a professional diplomatic service that would serve Spain well for many years to come, so also they saw the creation of a professional army, whose skill and esprit de corps were to win Spain its great victories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  During the Reconquista the Castilians had tended to develop their light cavalry at the expense of their infantry. Light cavalry, however, proved unsuitable for bearing the brunt of the war in Italy; and after his defeat at Seminara, the first battle of his Italian campaign, Gonzalo began to search for new formations capable of withstanding the assault of Swiss pikes. It was clearly necessary to build up the infantry arm and to increase the number of arquebusiers. Borrowing both from the Swiss and the Italians, Gonzalo managed to revolutionize his army by the time of his triumphant battle of Cerignola in 1503, turning it essentially into an infantry army. In the Granada campaign the Spanish infantrymen, although still despised, had already shown their individual valour and their capacity for rapid movement, but against the French and Swiss they were far too lightly armed and inadequately protected. It was necessary to provide them with better protection, while somehow at the same time allowing them to maintain the speed and suppleness which could give them superiority over the more cumbersome ranks of the Swiss. This was finally achieved by equipping them with better protective armour – light helmets and cuirasses – and better offensive weapons, so that half were equipped with long pikes, a third with short sword and javelin, and the remaining sixth with arquebuses. At the same time the formations were entirely reorganized. The ancient units, the companies, too small for modern warfare, were now grouped into coronelías of perhaps four companies, each coronelía being supported by cavalry and artillery.

  It was this organization, devised by the Great Captain, which provided the basis for the further development of the Spanish army during the sixteenth century. In 1534 the army was grouped into new model units called tercios, about three times the size of the coronelías. The ‘sword and buckler men’ of the Italian wars had now disappeared, and the tercios were composed only of arquebusiers and pikemen. A tercio generally consisted of twelve companies of about 250 men each, so that it was about 3,000 men strong, and it proved to be an extremely effective fighting force. It was less wasteful of manpower than the Swiss system, had greater fire-power, and was superb in defence, since attacking cavalry would break on the phalanx of pikes, which was deep enough to face an attack from every side. As a formation it dominated the battlefields of Europe for over a century, and its very success helped to reinforce the self-confidence of a fighting force which was, and knew itself to be, the best in the world.

  Renaissance Italy therefore proved to be an ideal testing-ground both for Spanish diplomacy and for the Spanish military system; and if these were still imperfect instruments in the reign of Ferdinand, they none the less between them won him striking successes. Not only were the French defeated on the battlefield, but a combination of guile and diplomacy enabled Ferdinand to ease the Neapolitan dynasty off its throne. In 1504 the defeated French recognized the Spaniards as the lawful possessors of Naples. Naples thus rejoined Sicily and Sardinia as an Aragonese possession, and was brought, like them, under the government of viceroys and the jurisdiction of the Council of Aragon.

  The winning of Naples was a triumph of the first magnitude for Ferdinand's ‘Aragonese’ foreign policy, in the furtherance of which he successfully engaged the resources of Castile. But the diplomatic manoeuvres which preceded and accompanied it were to have, for Spain in general and Castile in particular, consequences both unforeseen and unwanted. In the customary manner, Ferdinand had sealed his alliances with dynastic marriages. In order to reinforce the English alliance, a marriage was arranged between Catherine of Aragon and Arthur, Prince of Wales; and in 1496–7 the alliance between Spain and the Empire was solomnized in a double marriage between their two royal houses. The Infante Juan, the only son of the Catholic Kings and heir to the Spanish throne, married Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, while their daughter Juana married Maximilian's son, the Archduke Philip. Juan, however, died six months after his marriage, and when Margaret was delivered of a still-born child any hope of a direct succession from Ferdinand and Isabella in the male line was destroyed. The succession would now devolve upon their eldest daughter Isabella of Portugal and her children by Emmanuel of Portugal, but Isabella's death in 1498, followed by that of her son Miguel in 1500, put an end also to this possibility. This meant that, from 1500, the succession, in a manner totally unforeseen, would go to the Infanta Juana, and eventually to her eldest son Charles, who would inherit both Spain and the Habsburg hereditary possessions.

  The Union of Spain and the Habsburg lands was the last thing that Ferdinand and Isabella would have wished, but there now seemed no possibility of averting it. When Isabella died in November 1504 it was in the bitter knowledge that the government of her beloved Castile would go to a mentally unstable daughter, and to an incapable son-in-law
who knew nothing of Spain and its ways, and showed no desire to learn. Ferdinand's foreign policy, which had begun by attempting to win allies for Spain in its struggle with the French, had ended by placing the Spanish inheritance in the hands of a foreign dynasty.

  2. THE HABSBURG SUCCESSION

  The twelve years separating the death of Isabella in 1504 from that of her husband in 1516 are incomprehensible in terms of purely Spanish history. From the moment of Isabella's death the fate of Spain was intimately connected with events in the court of Burgundy, where Juana and the Archduke Philip were waiting to take up their Spanish inheritance. During the following years there was a constant traffic between Castile and the Netherlands – a traffic of place-hunters and secret agents, participators in a squalid drama whose outcome determined the future of Spain.

  Ferdinand himself, although not always the leading actor, was never

  Table 2 THE SPANISH HABSURGS (Names of Emperors in small capitals)

  far from the centre of the stage. The ‘old Catalan’, as his enemies called him, had been placed in an unenviable position by his wife's will. Deprived of the rank and title of King of Castile, he was graciously permitted to govern the country during the absence of the new ‘Queen Proprietress’ Juana, or, in the event of her unwillingness to govern it herself, until her son Charles should reach the age of twenty. His new position as a mere administrator was not one to which Ferdinand could easily reconcile himself, and although he was prepared to give Philip the style of king in his correspondence, he none the less had Castilian coins stamped with the legend ‘Ferdinand and Juana, King and Queen of Castile, León and Aragon’. But Philip, infirm in almost every purpose, was at least determined not to let his new inheritance go by default, and he could count on the support of many Castilian nobles, who hated Ferdinand as a strong ruler and also as a Catalan, and hoped to see him replaced by the compliant Philip. These nobles had valuable allies at the Burgundian Court, well placed to bring heavy pressure to bear on the Archduke. Juana's marriage, in particular, had brought to the Court several members of influential Spanish families, like her maid of honour, Maria Manuel, whose brother, Juan Manuel, related to great Castilian families like the Córdobas, the Silvas and the Mendozas, acted as the go-between for Philip's Burgundian advisers and the Castilian grandees.

  While aristocratic intrigue was active in promoting the effective succession of Philip and Juana, there was, however, another, and perhaps more potent force operating in favour of a closer association between Castile and the Habsburgs' Burgundian possessions. The development of the Castilian wool trade had made the economies of Castile and the Low Countries mutually interdependent: indeed, by the middle of the sixteenth century nearly half of Spain's export trade was with the Netherlands, which in turn sent a third of its exports to Spain. The discovery of the Indies made the Spanish connexion all the more valuable to Netherlands merchants, in that colonial products and American silver were now added to the traditional Spanish exports of wool, wine, and oil. Economic considerations thus joined aristocratic ambition in producing a movement for closer Spanish-Habsburg ties.

  Ferdinand was well aware of the danger, but could do little to avert it. The voice of aristocratic faction was being heard again in Castile, and the supporters of Ferdinand were few. While he persuaded the Cortes of Toro in January 1505 to ratify his title to the regency, his position was becoming increasingly insecure and would be untenable if ever Philip and Juana set foot on Castilian soil. In an effort to ward off the moment of disaster, he now totally reversed his traditional foreign policy, and made a bid for French support, which led to the treaty of Blois with Louis XII in October 1505. By this treaty, Ferdinand was to marry Louis's niece, Germaine de Foix. Ferdinand's remarriage, while part of the diplomatic game, had also a deeper purpose. If Germaine were to produce an heir, the whole question of the succession would be dramatically reopened. It might be possible to put forward the child as a rival to the Habsburg candidature for the throne of a united Spain; and if this manoeuvre should prove unsuccessful, at least the Crown of Aragon could be saved from the hands of a foreign dynasty. While the crown of a united Spain was naturally a much more desirable prize, Ferdinand was perfectly capable, if circumstances required it, of turning his back on his life's work and dissolving a union between Castile and Aragon which had always been purely personal in character. But, in the event, neither the hopes nor the fears aroused by Ferdinand's remarriage were to be realized. Germaine did, in fact, bear a son in 1509, but he lived only a few hours. With the death of this child the last real possibility of a new fragmentation of Spain was effectively removed. The Union of the Crowns was, after all, to be permanent.

  Ferdinand's second marriage merely strengthened the ties between the grandees and the Archduke Philip, who had now decided to make the journey to Spain. In preparation for his arrival he patched up a compromise with Ferdinand in November 1505, for a tripartite government of Ferdinand, Juana, and himself. Leaving Guillaume de Croy, Sieur de Chièvres, to govern the Netherlands in his absence, he sailed from Flanders on 10 January 1506, only to be wrecked off the coast of England. It was not until 21 April that he was able to set sail again, and in the meantime the Castilian nobility had profited from the weakness of government to reopen its old feuds. In spite of the agreement between the two rulers, neither had the slightest confidence in the other's promises, and Philip seems to have toyed with the idea of landing in Andalusia and summoning the nobles to take up arms against Ferdinand. But second thoughts prevailed, and he chose instead to land at Corunna and to seek a peaceful agreement with his father-in-law. Ferdinand for his part was preparing for armed resistance, but as soon as Philip landed on 26 April almost the entire higher nobility went over to him, leaving Ferdinand bereft of influential supporters. There was nothing for it now but to play for time. The two men met on 20 June 1506, and signed an agreement seven days later at Villafáfila, whereby Ferdinand handed over the government of Castile to his ‘most beloved children’, and promised to retire to Aragon. At the same time Philip and Ferdinand agreed that Juana's mental infirmities made her incapable of government, and signed a second treaty excluding her from it. The same afternoon Ferdinand announced that he refused to recognize the validity of the agreements, and that his daughter should never be deprived of her rights as Queen Proprietress of Castile. A fortnight later, having won complete freedom of action to interfere in the Castilian succession question whenever he wished, he left Castile, to await better times.

  By September he was in Naples, where he relieved the Castilian officials, including the viceroy, Gonzalo de Córdoba, of their offices. But if he thought that his long association with Castile had finally ended, he was soon proved wrong. On 25 September the Archduke Philip suddenly died. His death pushed his grief-stricken widow over the brink into open insanity, and left his six-year-old son, Charles of Ghent, who was still in Flanders, as heir to the Spanish throne. A regency council was set up under the presidency of Archbishop Cisneros, but in face of the growing public disorder in Castile, Cisneros and others appealed to Ferdinand to return. The old King was careful to bide his time. Nearly a year elapsed before he came back to Castile, where he moved with great care, slowly consolidating his position before rounding on factious nobles like the Marquis of Priego. In 1509 his daughter, now utterly mad, retired with her husband's corpse to Tordesillas, where she was to pass the remaining forty-six years of her life in a state of deep deranged melancholy shot through with sudden moments of lucidity – Queen of Castile to the end of her days. In view of her obvious unfitness to govern, the Cortes of Castile named Ferdinand administrator of the kingdom in 1510.

  Any satisfaction that Ferdinand may have felt at his re-establishment in the government of Castile is likely to have been mitigated by rueful contemplation of the future that awaited his kingdoms. He may have cherished hopes that his grandson Ferdinand, who was being educated in Spain, would somehow eventually assume the government instead of his elder brother Charles of
Ghent, to whom Ferdinand had transferred the animosity he had previously felt for Philip. But short of an act of providence – of which there had admittedly been a singular number in his lifetime – the prospects appeared unfavourable. Perhaps despairing of the future, he chose to leave the government of Castile largely in the hands of Cisneros, and to devote himself instead to foreign policy, and in particular to the perennial Italian question.

  During the last years of his life, Ferdinand's diplomatic ability was revealed at its greatest, and won further advantages for a Spain he had already served so long and so well. As always, his aim was to preserve the Aragonese possessions in Italy and to prevent any further expansion of French power, but he also seems to have looked beyond this to the establishment of a general European peace which would enable him to undertake a crusade for the conquest of Egypt and the recovery of Jerusalem. This perhaps rather unexpected ambition remained unfulfilled, and was transmitted, along with the rivalry with France, to the Flemish grandson whom Ferdinand so heartily disliked.

  He did, however, achieve a more restricted, and perhaps more useful, ambition in these final years. He had long wanted to round off his conquests with the acquisition of the little independent kingdom of Navarre, of which his father, John II of Aragon, had once been king. Since then, Navarre had passed in turn to the families of Foix and Albret. Claiming that a secret alliance between the Albrets and France included a provision for a joint French-Navarrese invasion of Castile, Ferdinand sent an army into Navarre under the command of the Duke of Alba in July 1512. The country was occupied without difficulty, and Ferdinand made use of his alliance with the Papacy to obtain the formal deposition of the Albrets and the removal of their sovereign rights.