The peace policy of Spain 1596-1600

Abstract

The Peace Policy of Spain, 1596-16CU. is an examination of the motives of the government of Philip II and of Philip III in bringing to an end a long and exhausting war with three enemies - France, England and the United Provinces. It is based almost entirely upon original manuscript sources, most of which have not previously been studied in depth or for the period as a whole. The intellectual climate in which decisions were made, the political state of the Court, the efficiency of the handling of foreign affairs, the dramatis personae and their attitude towards Spain and her resources are first described by way of introduction. Relations with the Low Countries are then examined so as to provide the back-cloth to the rest of the foreign policy, and the war against the Dutch is shown as being Spain's true priority. The chapters on the negotiations that led up to the Treaty of Vervins (1598), on the Saluzzo crisis (1600) and on the cold war that culminated in the Biron conspiracy (l602) shew the working-out of a new policy towards France. Anglo-Spanish affairs occupy the chapters on the failure to find a naval or, in the English succession question, a diplomatic solution to the problem of England's hostility, and those on the preliminaries and course of the Treaty of London (1604.). New light is thrown on to the efficiency and range of Spain's governmental and diplomatic machinery, as on to her sense of imperial mission; some of the customary strictures upon the government's vapidity and indifference are strongly criticized; and Spain's great reluctance to face the economic and military fact that she had outgrown her strength emerges with clarity.