England and Spain in the Early Modern Era

Royal Love, Diplomacy, Trade and Naval Relations 1604-25

Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781350245303
• eBook ISBN: 9781350133426
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The early 17th century was a time of great literature the era of Cervantes and Shakespeare but also of international tension and heightened diplomacy. This book looks at the relations between Spain under Philip III and Philip IV and England under James I in the period 1603-1625. It examines the essential issues that established the framework for diplomatic relations between the two states, looking not only at questions of war and peace, but also of trade and piracy. Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández expertly argues that the diplomatic relationship was vital to the strategic interests of both powers and also played a highly significant role in the domestic agendas of each country. Based on Spanish and English archival sources, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era provides, for the first time, a clear picture of diplomacy between England and Spain in the early modern era.

1

The English crossroads: The debates and dilemmas of the Spanish foreign policy

New monarchs, newcomers, old friends and royal favourites

Monarchs and newcomers

The seventeenth century brought changes to the European political scenario that was unimaginable only fifty years earlier. The 1550s had witnessed key events for the European future: the abdication of Emperor Charles V and the ascension to the throne of his son Philip II (16 January 1556), that of Elizabeth I Tudor (15 January 1559), the peace of Cateau–Cambresis (2–3 April 1559) and the appointment of William of Orange as Stadthoulder of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht (1559).

By 1598 everything had changed in Europe. Spain found itself fighting simultaneously against the Dutch rebels from 1568, against England (from 1585) and intervening in France since 1589 (against Henry IV). For political reasons, English, Dutch and French challenged the Spanish political hegemony in Europe. For religious reasons, Protestantism was fighting Spanish Catholicism. And for economic purposes, Dutch and English were undermining the ultramarine Spanish–Portuguese empires, whose overseas monopoly was agreed since 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain (and blessed by the pope).

During 1598–1609, new leading figures appeared on the European scene. Phillip III, James I, Henry IV, Archduke Albert of Austria, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the three great diplomatic agreements of that decade.¹ Spain entered into diplomatic negotiations to emerge from the conflict with France (Treaty of Vervins, in 1598), with England (1604) and with the Dutch rebels (Truce of 1609). These main peace treaties were part of the European efforts to finish the general bloodshed of the second part of the sixteenth century, including around thirteen diplomatic agreements involving all the main European powers at that time.² In addition, the sovereignty of the Catholic and Spanish Netherlands was transferred to the archdukes Albert and Isabella in 1598 by Phillip II. In this way, an autonomous Flanders became another partner between the great European powers, tempering and taking the initiative in international politics (until 1621). As for France, this kingdom emerged as a great power that needed time to recover its strength after the bloody wars of religion. Henry IV gave France this respite until 1610. The French crown needed time until 1635 to challenge Spain as a great continental power.

From the late sixteenth century, the French, the English and the Dutch wanted their share of the overseas expansion, and this was presented bluntly at the negotiating table in 1598, 1604 and 1609. Spain was not in a position to accept such demands, so it was decided not to mention them at all in the treaties. At least it was achieved that these overseas clashes would not be casus belli in Europe. Spain would have to use its warships and guns to stop the overseas expansion of the newcomers. Commercial and financial capitalism began to work in England and the Netherlands (and also to arm itself with trading companies). The age of piracy and privateering of the second half of the sixteenth century would be replaced now by the era of overseas maritime companies. The captain of fortune was replaced by the merchant.

In 1600, the French sent two ships to Asia to explore and trade.³ In that year, the East India Company was founded in England.⁴ In 1602 the Dutch trading company followed, although the first Dutch expedition to Asia took place in 1595, successfully returning by 1597.⁵ In 1609, the Bank of Amsterdam was created. None of these three institutions can be explained without the overseas expansion of these powers at the expense of Spain and (especially) Portugal. The weakness of the Portuguese empire in Asia explains not only the treaty between Spain and the Dutch as a simple temporary truce in 1609 but also the failure of the Spanish–Dutch diplomatic negotiations in order to turn the truce into a permanent diplomatic treaty; it also explains that in 1621 the war against the Netherlands was resumed by the Spaniards.⁶ From 1614 onwards, the Dutch East India company was on the offensive again in Asia. There were heavy combats in Philippines in 1614 and again in 1617, but the Spanish resisted successfully.⁷ A worse fate was to befall Malacca, a Portuguese post.⁸ Portugal (and its empire) was breaking a hole in the Spanish overseas defence system.

Regarding Spanish America, the Dutch refused to abandon their commercial expansion in Asia, and the resumption of the war led them to found in 1621 the trading company of the West Indies in order to attack the Spanish domains in America. In spite of the Truce of 1609, the Dutch did not stop sending expeditions to America and the Caribbean Sea, exploiting the sea salt of the Venezuelan coasts since 1599, competing with the Portuguese for the Guinean slave trade with America or attacking Trinidad island (1613), the coasts of Chile and Peru in 1615 through the Strait of Magellan, or the establishments in the zone of the Amazon River.⁹ As for the salt, apparently the Dutch stopped their incursions on the Caribbean area from 1606 due to the powerful Spanish naval counterattacks. They resumed again in 1621, with the end of the truce.¹⁰

Peace with the Stuarts, Spanish luck

In 1622, the English Catholic adventurer Sir Anthony Sherley sent a treatise on international policy to the Count-Duke of Olivares, prime minister of Philip IV. The work ‘Peso político de todo el mundo’ was a geopolitical study of the rivals of the Spanish monarchy and how Spain should be governed in order to continue its global hegemony.¹¹ Sherley wrote that Spain should pray to God for a long life of James, as with him on the English throne, no threat could come from England. Four months before Sherley finished his book, James told the Spanish ambassador that Phillip IV should wish very much the Stuarts a long and healthy life, since without them, England would be a great rival for Spain.¹² Apparently, the apostle ‘Santiago’, saint of Spain, was reincarnated as the British ‘Santiago’, James (Stuart).¹³

The conquest of Ostend (20 September 1604), the offensive of Ambrogio Spinola in Flanders during the years 1605–6, the ceasefire of 1607 and the Truce of 1609 with the Dutch rebels could not be understood without the peace with England in 1604. The influence of this war on the negotiations between the Spaniards and the English is clear. The Spanish defeat of Nieuwpoort (2 July 1600) strengthened the English position in Boulogne, which in the end came to the break. In August 1604, the Constable of Castile wrote to Philip III that the negotiations in London had to be hurried so that no bad events in the Flanders (Spanish defeats) would harden the English position.¹⁴

During the years 1603–7, the Spanish reputation in Europe improved with respect to the situation back in 1598. On 18 January 1606, Johann van Oldenbarnevelt (Land’s Advocate of Holland) wrote a letter to the Dutch ambassador in Paris (Van Aerssen) showing the difficult situation of the Netherlands by the international agreements of 1598 and 1604. In July and August 1607 the Dutch delegates had declared in London that they could not continue the war against Spain without the English support.¹⁵ There is a parallelism between the years 1603–7 and 1621–5 regarding the displaying of the Spanish might in Northern Europe. In both periods there was peace with England, which allowed Spain to focus on fighting the Dutch. There were notable partial military successes in Europe (and other parts of the world), but finally financial problems and exhaustion led to the end of the offensive. The bankruptcies of the Spanish royal finances in 1607 and 1627 were the consequence and the brake of such Spanish advances.

The hangman and the road to war in Europe

However everything positive the general peace brought to Europe, between the years 1618 and 1621, the public executions of three famous and powerful personages shook up the public opinion in the continent. These deaths shaped the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War and the conflict in Flanders. It looked like the hangman paved the path of war in Western Europe after two decades of unstable and difficult peaceful political relations between the main powers.¹⁶ The convicts who stepped up to the gallows were one Anglican, one Calvinist and one Catholic. Sir Walter Raleigh (an Elizabethan aristocrat, a captain of fortune, someone misplaced in the Stuart Court) was beheaded in London on 29 October 1618; Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (Land’s Advocate of Holland, leader of the diplomatic dealings with Spain) suffered the same fate in The Hague on 13 May 1619; finally, Don Rodrigo Calderón, Count of Oliva (Lerma’s favourite, royal secretary of Phillip III), got his throat cut at the Plaza Mayor, in Madrid, on 21 October 1621.

These political deaths in England, the Dutch Republic and Spain linked to one another. The last words of Oldenbarnevelt, Raleigh and Calderón to the executioner at the scaffold showed the different attitudes of their countries towards the storm that was about to break up all over Europe by 1618. Oldenbarnevelt wanted a quick execution.¹⁷ Raleigh wanted to make clear to everybody that he did not have any fear before the axe.¹⁸ As for Calderón, he was not a traitor and he would face the knife of the hangman with God’s name in his mouth.¹⁹

For the English, the problem was fear. A reluctant James refused to get England involved in the Thirty Years’ War or the Palatinate conflict, not to mention that he was in the middle of the dealings for the Spanish Match. In England, the supporters of the war against Spain and a more firm position regarding German Protestants and the Dutch destabilized James’s last years. They even proposed his daughter Elizabeth and his son-in-law Frederick as James’s successors on the throne, stepping over the Prince of Wales (at least until 1623). It was the same people who accused the Spaniards of being scared of the powerful England by 1603 and, therefore, begging for peace signed in 1604. From 1618 onwards, James would be considered a ‘coward’ and ‘subjected’ by them too.²⁰

For the Dutch, the key point by 1619 was speed. Fourteen years earlier, the Spanish were in a hurry to finish the diplomatic dealings before any defeat against the Dutch could make the English demands tougher.²¹ After Oldenbarnevelt’s execution, it was a matter of time, fast time, until 1621 that the war would break up again, as both sides were not ready for making concessions.²² Since 1621, the Dutch hurried to put pressure on James to be involved in their fight against the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface to the English edition (2020)
• Acknowledgements
• Spellings and conventions
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: Rethinking Spanish diplomacy with early Stuart England
• 1 The English crossroads: The debates and dilemmas of the Spanish foreign policy
• 2 Spanish diplomatic finances in Jacobean Great Britain (1603–25)
• 3 War and trade: The Spanish embassy in England – lighthouse and fortress
• Conclusion: Habsburgs and Stuarts – seduction as diplomacy, love as marriage, heartbreak as war
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright