Spain's Road to Empire

by Henry Kamen

  The manning of ships was a constant headache, for it was always difficult to find experienced crews among Castilians (see Chapter 9). It was a problem that affected all sea-going nations. The captain of a fleet preparing to cross the Atlantic in 1555 complained that ‘it will be impossible to find sailing men other than Portuguese, Netherlanders and some from the Adriatic’.76 Significantly, the two pilots used by the captain on this voyage were both Portuguese. In 1558 a royal decree recognized that foreigners would have to be allowed to enlist as crew for ships going to America, ‘because no others can be found’.77 In the same way, galleys were useless without oarsmen. In the history of naval empires too little attention is given to the men whose labours made possible the survival of naval power.78 Galleys in the Mediterranean traditionally drew their rowers from slaves and convicted criminals. In the sixteenth century the slaves were usually Muslim, taken in raids on Muslim coastal areas or in sea battles against Muslim ships. Ironically, therefore, captive Muslims helped to sustain the naval might of the Christian powers. In early modern times, they supplied around a quarter of the rowers in ships controlled by the papacy, Sicily and Genoa, half of the rowers in the ships of Tuscan ports, and up to three-quarters in ships run by the Knights of Malta.79 As time went on, the supply of such slaves and also of convicts dwindled. The authorities therefore resorted to seizing gypsies for galley service, and also Christian prisoners of war if all else failed.

  Constructing imperial authority in home waters was, for Philip II, a novelty. Under his father the several states of the monarchy had collaborated together without any major difficulties. There seemed to be no need for more centralized control; the emperor, with the help of his officials and a good postal system, had been able to make decisions for Flanders in Castile, in Castile for Germany, in Germany for America. On returning to Castile in 1559, the new king saw matters differently. The disaster at Djerba induced him to make the rebuilding of naval power in the Mediterranean an urgent priority. The shipbuilders of Naples and Messina, with help from Barcelona, set their hands to the construction programme. Between 1560 and 1574 about three hundred galleys were built, principally in the Italian states controlled by Spain, giving new strength to naval expeditions in those years.80 Arrangements were also made with Italian allies: for example in 1564 Cosimo de' Medici of Florence, who soon after assumed the novel title of ‘Grand Duke’ of Tuscany, contracted ten of his galleys to the king of Spain for a period of five years. The great test for this resurgence of naval power was the unavoidable head-on clash with the irresistible Turkish navy.

  The close collaboration established between Spaniards and Italians during these years of anxiety in the face of the Turkish threat was of course a continuation of the policy handed down by Ferdinand the Catholic, but it remained a cornerstone of Spain's imperial power for two centuries after the reign of Philip II. In order to facilitate decision-making, the business for Italian states was transferred to a new council of Italy, set up in Spain in 1555 and formally organized four years later. Of its six councillors, three had to be natives of Sicily, Naples and Milan. Italy became, even more than it had been under Charles V, the core of Spain's power.81 Italian financiers (mainly from Milan and Genoa) directed and organized the credit employed by the crown; Italian generals and soldiers served in its armies throughout Europe, including the Spanish peninsula; Italian vessels were the basis of Spain's naval power. Spain's principal military base in Europe was the duchy of Milan, which by its geographical position blocked French expansion into Italy. The duchy was used as a military centre where units from Naples and the Iberian peninsula could conveniently rendezvous, prior to departing for northern Europe. There were two overland routes to the north: one through the western Alpine passes and Savoy down to the Rhine, a route known as the ‘Spanish road’, and one eastward through the Swiss Valtelline and thence into the Habsburg lands of central Europe. The duchy was also, with its flourishing armaments industry, a major source of war material; and its fortress was the ‘strong-box of the monarchy’,82 a Fort Knox where Spain kept its bullion reserves.

  The kingdom of Naples contributed through its military recruits, shipbuilding and taxes to Spain's potential as a great power. Many Italians, quite justifiably, saw this as part of a scheme to exploit their resources in favour of the imperial ambitions of Spain. Those who were able to take a broader view, however, adopted a different perspective. The monarchy, Philip II insisted, did not intend to exploit. ‘Except in the most urgent cases,’ he observed in 1589, ‘it is not the custom to transfer the burdens of one kingdom to another. But since God has entrusted me with so many kingdoms, and since in the defence of one all are preserved, it is just that all should help me.’83 His views were echoed by an Italian general, Marcantonio Colonna, who felt that all the king's dominions formed one body, whose members must help each other as much as they could.84 In the event, the continuous menace from Islamic naval power in the middle years of the sixteenth century obliged Spain to make constant and heavy demands on Naples, Milan and Sicily, with the result that the people of these states continued to feel that the empire was an alien and oppressive institution.

  The Italian states, of course, were free and sovereign territories with their own governments, laws, coinage and institutions. Spain had not conquered them, nor ever possessed the means to do so. How then did Spain manage to maintain imperial control? It was a question the Italians often asked themselves, and they did not like the answer. The Republic of Venice, and the papacy, were the two largest non-Spanish states in the peninsula, and their spokesmen affirmed roundly, generation after generation, that the failure of Italians to unite among themselves had given birth to the foreign invasions and the domination of barbarians. Machiavelli was the best-known spokesman of this point of view, but there were very many others.

  In administrative terms Spanish control as exercised through the viceroy was efficient largely at the upper level. The local nobility in their regions continued to direct virtually all aspects of law and order.85 So long as the territories complied with the obligations they had to shoulder within the imperial system, Spain recognized willingly that the Italian aristocracy were those best equipped to guarantee order and stability.86 But these local élites competed among themselves for the privileges offered by the viceroy, and in that way made it possible for Spanish influence to be exercised through a network of clients that extended through the country. From the time of Charles V, the military leaders of Italy, notably from the families of Gonzaga, Colonna and Medici, took service with the Spanish crown and helped to impose Spanish influence over the Italian states. At the same time, these military leaders strengthened the links of the Crown with local governing élites. The efficiency of the council of Italy lay in the fact that it was linked to a network of influence that spread throughout Italy.87 The community of interest, therefore, between local nobility and the distant crown, made it possible for a system of ‘empire’ to develop whereby the ruling circles benefited considerably from the Spanish presence, at the same time as they sought to make that presence less onerous. The crown had two powerful inducements it could use. It could offer posts in the bureaucracy to local nobility and thereby confirm their power; it could also distribute honours, titles, privileges and pensions, and in that way build up a network of eager clients.88 Even states that were not under Spanish control collaborated fully. In 1599 the Gonzaga duke of Mantua reminded Madrid that his territory had contributed by its policy to the stability of neighbouring Milan, and that he had made possible the unimpeded recruitment of soldiers in Italy for service in Germany.89

  The Italian states, as allies in the empire, were normally not under occupation by Spanish troops, who were (as we have seen) 90 too few in number to have any decisive role. The only significant exception was the state of Milan, whose strategic situation made it the ideal place to station and convene troops. Under Philip II the normal number of Spanish soldiers stationed in Milan were the three thousand of the tercio of Lombardy, an
d a further one thousand or so in fortress garrisons.91 However, Spain could offer further military support where needed, and also maintained small garrisons in key points at the request of local rulers. From the 1520s, for example, the emperor had agreed to protect the small city state of Piombino, whose port was considered of strategic importance for the naval route between Naples and Genoa. In 1529 a fleet of five Muslim ships had sailed without resistance into the harbour, occupied the port and seized an Imperial vessel. In the time of Philip II its small garrison, all Spaniards, amounted to two hundred men. During the reign Spanish troops carried out possibly their only direct act of annexation in Europe. It occurred in 1570, when the army from Milan marched in and occupied the coastal territory of Finale to prevent its strategic port falling into French hands. Its ruling family eventually ceded the city formally to Spain in 1598.

  There were evidently negative aspects to the imperial relationship with Italians. The impact of Spain was felt for the most part in finance, specifically affecting soldiers, ships and exterior trade. In Sicily local taxes had to pay for the upkeep of the Spanish tercio of three thousand men that protected the country from invasion, and for the galleys that guarded the coasts and were periodically incorporated into the Mediterranean fleets of Spain. Spaniards, however, were not the only participants in this imperial scenario. Virtually the entire financial and commercial machinery of Sicily was in the hands of other Italians, mainly Genoese and Venetians. ‘Outsiders’, reported a contemporary, ‘make off every day in this kingdom with the most important and richest goods of those who live here.’92 Spaniards could not and did not compete with this situation. The island, which was not over-burdened by its imperial rulers, never deteriorated to the status of an imperial colony.

  Even its critics had to concede that the Spanish presence in the sixteenth century guaranteed peace and order in Italy. The Castilian historian Antonio de Herrera claimed proudly that in Italy Philip II ‘maintained peace and liberty for a longer time than any other prince had ever done’.93 However, the southern Mediterranean was not an area of natural wealth, and the Spanish presence did not contribute in any way to solve its inherent economic and social problems.94 Western Europe appreciated the wheat supplies it received from the area. But Naples, for example, was dependent on foreign imports for most of its raw materials and industrial goods, and faced serious problems when bad harvests (as in 1585 and the 1590s) caused a lack of ready cash. Despite this, the Spanish crown asked the kingdom to contribute more and more to war expenses. From around 15 60 the burden rose significantly. The minimum war costs of the Crown in Naples, paid for by local taxes, doubled between 15 60 and 1604. In the latter year the two biggest military expenses of the crown in Naples were the tercio (twenty-seven companies) of Spanish infantry, and the twenty-six galleys of the kingdom.95 Next in importance came the upkeep of the twenty companies of Italian infantry and cavalry. The burden of the galleys may be gauged by the estimate, made around 1560, that it cost as much to maintain a galley for one year as it did to build one. In the same period, around four hundred men were employed in the shipbuilding arsenal of the city. The kingdom, clearly, was contributing handsomely to maintaining the power of Spain.

  But the cost of war did not necessarily impoverish the Italian states. The Neapolitan writer Antonio Serra in 1613 observed that ‘the income of His Catholic Majesty is all spent within the kingdom; he reaps no part of it and often sends millions in cash’.96 Spain regularly sent silver into the states to cover expenses. In Milan, the Spanish presence not only attracted necessary quantities of bullion from Spain, it stimulated economic activity in the duchy and boosted the armaments industry.97 The benefits of interior peace and tranquillity enjoyed under Philip II by Spain's Italian allies cannot be minimized.98 In Naples, none the less, the imperial system had negative effects on financial stability. Large sums of money were periodically sent out of the realm to pay for military expenses.99 A report on the treasury of Naples in the late 1620s pinpointed a problem that brought serious consequences: ‘the certain ruin of everything we have here, is to burden it daily with the special expenses of troops in Germany, Flanders, Milan and Genoa’.100

  The gravest challenge faced by Spain in the great age of empire was the rebellion of the homeland of Charles V, the Netherlands. Prior to 1555, when Charles V included them in the package of territories that he handed down to Philip II, they had not involved any cost to Spain. The seventeen provinces recognized Philip II as their ruler but were in no sense part of Spain's empire and had no constitutional or tax obligations to Spain. Indeed, one of the first requests they made to Philip after recognizing him as sovereign was that he remove from their soil the Spanish troops stationed there. The demand did not affect the close and cordial links that had always existed between the two peoples. Philip had a deep affection for the culture and people of the Netherlands, but during his long years there (1555–9) soon recognized the problems posed by the independent spirit of the provinces and the ambitions of their nobility.

  Disputes in the Brussels government, which was directed by Philip's half-sister Margaret of Parma, caused the nobles to oppose the administrators headed by Cardinal Granvelle. In 1564 the king agreed reluctantly to Granvelle's dismissal, but opposition then centred on the proposal to reform the Church in the Netherlands by creating more bishops and strengthening the heresy laws. The count of Egmont made a special visit in 1565 to Madrid, from which he returned with the impression that Philip had agreed to relax the persecution of heretics. But the king had never even entertained the possibility, and wrote to Margaret confirming the need to continue with the death penalty for heresy. His letter arrived in Brussels, where all the higher nobility were gathered to celebrate the wedding of Margaret's son Alessandro, and sparked off indignation. As he left a meeting of the council of state the prince of Orange whispered to a friend: ‘We shall soon see the beginning of a fine tragedy!’101 Early in 1566 the aristocracy went on strike by resigning their offices, and a group of lower nobility demanded religious freedom and the suppression of the Netherlands Inquisition (set up by the pope in 1522 at the request of Charles V). In August 1566 mobs of Calvinists ranged through the major cities of the Netherlands, desecrating churches and smashing images.

  A military solution to this chaos became inevitable, particularly when the king learned that Calvinist nobles were making military alliances with German Lutherans. Philip appointed the duke of Alba to lead an expeditionary force to take charge of the situation. Alba left Spain in April 1567 to join the army in Italy. His force of ten thousand men set out from Milan, took the Alpine passes down into the Rhine valley, and then marched through the corridor known as the Spanish Road, arriving in Brussels on 22 August. Brantôme reported that ‘I saw them as they passed through Lorraine’, where he greeted several officers he had known from the days of the Peñón de Vélez. Most of the soldiers were Castilians, from the tercios of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and Lombardy; ‘and with them went four hundred courtesans on horse, as fair and gallant as princesses, as well as eight hundred on foot’.102 As they had done on the expedition to Vienna in 1532 and would continue to do for at least another half-century,103 the tercios still took their women with them.

  In retrospect it may seem easier to understand why the king acted as he did, but at the time it was a wholly unprecedented decision to send an army into a friendly state in time of peace. The Netherlanders had always prided themselves on being free subjects of the king, unlike the Neapolitans who (they felt) had been occupied by force. The reference came up frequently in later years. The emperor Maximilian II, Philip's brother-in-law, himself reminded Philip that ‘anyone who thinks he can control and govern Flanders like Italy is very much deceived’.104 The Netherlanders did not understand now what an army might achieve. The country already belonged to the king, so why send an army there? ‘What can an army do?’, Egmont asked Margaret scornfully, ‘kill two hundred thousand Netherlanders?’ Spanish intentions soon became clear. The duke of Alba
was there to restore order, arrest dissidents and check the growth of heresy. It was the first time that heresy in another country had ever appeared as a concern of the Spanish crown. But Philip II met the problem head-on. ‘If possible’, he stated, ‘I shall attempt to settle affairs of religion in those states without the use of arms, because I know that it would be their total destruction to resort to them. But if matters cannot be settled as I wish without using arms, then I am determined to resort to them.’

  Alba carried out his programme with efficiency. He made it clear that ‘in this question of Flanders the issue is not one of taking steps against their religion but simply against rebels’. On 9 September he began the great repression by arresting Egmont, Homes and a number of other Flemish notables. ‘With the energy and vigour you are applying to affairs’, the king wrote to him, ‘I feel that their resolution is in sight.’ ‘The king has no intention’, Alba reassured a correspondent, ‘of shedding blood. If he can find another way of resolving this business, he will take it.’ The same day he told the king that ‘the peace of these states cannot be achieved by cutting off heads’. The statements are important evidence that neither Philip nor Alba intended a systematic repression in the Netherlands. But events quickly flew out of control, into an unending spiral of repression, rebellion and war that left its mark on the history of the Netherlands and of Western Europe.