It may be well here to give a brief review of the larger politics of Spain in Europe during and after the Thirty Years’ War, though fuller details must be looked for in the histories of France and the other countries concerned.[a]
THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR AND THE TREATY OF THE PYRENEES
[1619-1659 A.D.]
The incessant efforts of the Austrian princes to cement the union of their families, and secure the reciprocal succession to their respective dominions, had been no less sedulously opposed by France, than their projects of conquest and aggrandisement. In the pursuit of this object, the address and good fortune of the French repeatedly triumphed over the inveterate hostility of the rival house; and by dexterously availing themselves of times and circumstances, they succeeded in forming frequent marriages between the two families of France and Spain. Philip II espoused Isabella, a princess of France; a double match was also concluded between the infanta Anne, daughter of Philip III, and Louis XIII, and between Isabella, sister of the French monarch, and the prince of Asturias, afterwards Philip IV. To obviate, however, the mischiefs likely to ensue from these occasional aberrations of policy, the Austrian sovereigns endeavoured to guard and fortify their respective pretensions to the family inheritance, by renunciations, compacts, and treaties.
These marriages and arrangements formed only temporary suspensions of hostility. In 1619, the long and eventful contest of the Thirty Years’ War commenced. The Spanish monarchy, already weakened by past disasters, was shaken to its foundations. Exactions rendered necessary by the diminished resources of the government, joined with the abuses inseparable from delegated power, excited civil troubles: the progress of its decline was marked by a rebellion in Catalonia; by the temporary insurrection which rendered Masaniello, a simple fisherman, master of Naples; and by the revolution which placed the family of Braganza on the throne of Portugal. The event of this direct conflict was the degradation of the Austrian house in both its branches, and the partial accomplishment of those extensive designs which France had long meditated against the remnant of the Burgundian inheritance, and even against Spain itself. The Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, opened passages into Germany and Italy, reduced the empire to an aristocracy, and destroyed the union of the Germanic body, by the establishment of a religious and political schism.
But even after the emperor Ferdinand III had been forced to withdraw from the contest, and to submit to the reduction of his power and influence, Philip IV was induced to continue the war, from the consciousness of past greatness, the hope of drawing advantage from the civil discords which arose in France during the minority of Louis XIV, and above all from an unwillingness to give his eldest daughter in marriage to the French monarch, which was exacted as the price of peace. During this interval, he not only resolved to affiance his daughter to the archduke Leopold; but having become a widower, he cemented his connection with the German branch by espousing Maria Anna, daughter of Frederick III. At length, his increasing embarrassments; the loss of Jamaica and Dunkirk, wrested from him by the successful hostility of Cromwell; the birth of a son, Philip Prospero; and another pregnancy of his queen, induced him to accept the proposals of France. Accordingly, preliminaries were signed at Paris, November 7th, 1659, and a treaty of peace was arranged by the two prime ministers of France, Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro, in the Isle of Pheasants, a small islet in the river Bidassoa, which divides the two kingdoms.
Costume of a Young Spanish Woman, early Seventeenth Century
[1659-1664 A.D.]
This celebrated act, which has been termed the Treaty of the Pyrenees, sowed the germ of future wars, and produced to France no less important advantages on the side of the peninsula and Flanders, than the Peace of Westphalia had produced to Austria on that of the empire. To France, Spain ceded Roussillon with part of Conflans and Cerdagne, of Flanders and Hainault, and all Artois, except the towns and districts of St. Omer and Aire. The pretensions of France to Navarre were reserved; Dunkirk and Jamaica were yielded to England: and the duke of Lorraine, the last remaining ally of Spain, was reduced to dependence, by dismantling the fortifications of Nancy, and by the compulsory cession of Moyenvic and Bar. Finally, the king of Spain consented to give in marriage his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to Louis XIV; but under the express condition that she should, for herself and issue, renounce all right to her paternal inheritance. In return, the king of France restored all his conquests in the Netherlands, Italy, and Catalonia, and agreed not to assist the Portuguese. Accordingly, the signature of the treaty was followed by the celebration of the marriage, June 2nd, 1660, before which the infanta renounced for herself and her posterity all right and title to every part of the Spanish dominions in the strongest terms which ingenuity could devise. Her renunciation was afterwards ratified with equal solemnity by Louis XIV, for himself and his heirs, and confirmed by the cortes then assembled at Madrid. The French court, however, made a mockery of such engagements; and the well-known observation of Mazarin to the plenipotentiaries employed in negotiating the treaty shows at once the most shameless perfidy and the ultimate object of this connection: “Let the match be concluded, and no renunciation can prevent the king from pretending to the succession of Spain.”