by Henry Kamen
Mary had intimated that she also wished to resign. Charles accordingly appointed as governor of the Netherlands the young duke of Savoy, Emanuele Filiberto. The remaining acts of abdication were made much later. On 16 January 1556 Eraso notarised the act transferring Spain and its dominions. Subsequently, in a confidential document, Charles passed to his son authority over the territories of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy. This (as Perrenot explained carefully many years later) was in contravention of the agreement made at Augsburg, by which only Ferdinand could concede the ‘vicariate’. Aware of this, Philip never made use of the privilege.73 In Spain the absent Philip was proclaimed king on 28 March, in the town square of Valladolid. On 5 February Charles transferred to him the province of Franche-Comté, the other integral part of the duchy of Burgundy. Formal abdication of the imperial crown to Charles's brother Ferdinand did not take place until May 1558. From the spring of 1556, Philip was ruler of the most extensive empire in the world, comprising Spain, England, America, the Netherlands with Franche-Comté, and half of Italy.
Philip's prolonged stay in the Netherlands was dominated by two items of business: the contribution of the States General to Imperial finances, and the settling of differences with the pope. Behind both problems, however, loomed the shadow of France. Surrounded on all sides by the Habsburgs, Henry II of France looked for support to the papacy, headed since May 1555 by the eighty-year-old and violently anti-Spanish Paul IV. In December 1555 both signed a treaty directed against Imperial power. But France was also deeply involved in the Netherlands, a French sphere of influence where the leading nobles were blood relatives of the French aristocracy. In taking over the western inheritance of his father, Philip was also plunging himself into a potential war with France.
War was the last thing he wanted. After his constant strictures to Charles, he knew only too well that the treasury could not finance a conflict. In February 1556 he brought off a surprising peace agreement with France (the treaty of Vaucelles). The core problem remained Italy. At the end of 1555 the duke of Alba had been appointed viceroy of Naples. In September 1556, after months of provocations and sparring between Paul IV and the Habsburg authorities, Philip ordered Alba in to harass the papal states. The pope managed to win French support, in January 1557 the duke of Guise invaded Italy in the pope's interest, while the Admiral of France, Coligny, attacked the Netherlands. The war became general.
The complex diplomatic moves involving France and the papacy exercised an enduring influence on the soldiers, courtiers and diplomats assembled in Brussels.74 It was unlikely that Germans, Flemings, Franche- Comtois, English, French, Italians and Spaniards would see eye to eye over matters of policy. Many Flemish nobles, among them Egmont, found common ground with Ruy Gómez and other Spaniards in Philip's retinue. Ruy Gómez and the Flemings, for their part, disagreed profoundly with Antoine Perrenot's political approach. The seeds were sown for serious contention in the future.
Philip could, at least, count on the unwavering support of his cousin Maximilian. On 17 July the king and queen of Bohemia came to Brussels. Philip demonstrated his sincere affection for them, and fêted them with dinners and tourneys during the three weeks they spent there. Apart from wishing to take his leave of Charles, Maximilian came with a special request from his father: that the emperor not abdicate yet in Germany, since the political situation there was still uncertain.75
On 17 September 1556, two weeks after Alba marched into the papal states, the emperor Charles V sailed from Vlissingen for Spain. He was accompanied by his two sisters, Mary of Hungary and Eleanor of France. On the twenty-eighth the little fleet of Flemish, English and Spanish ships arrived at Laredo. From here the Imperial party made their way slowly south. After the obligatory stops to meet Juana and other officials, they arrived at the monastery of Yuste (Extremadura) late in November. Charles travelled sometimes in a chair, sometimes in a litter. The construction of the little palace he had planned was not complete, and he did not move into his apartments there until February 1557.
When he came to Yuste Charles had no intention whatever of continuing his political role. Bit by bit, however, he drifted back into touch, conducting an active correspondence on a broad range of matters. In May 1558, for example, he alerted Juana to the need for a hard line against the Lutheran cells discovered in Castile. Meanwhile he relaxed, took the sunshine, and ate like a horse, to the dismay of his medical advisers. At the end of August 1558 he was taken seriously ill, and in the early hours of 21 September he died, holding in his hand the crucifix which his wife Isabel had held when she died.
*
England was not left out of the developing struggle in western Europe. In the king's absence Mary had been managing the government, and cardinal Pole the restoration of the old Church. Constant messages were sent by the lovelorn queen urging her husband to return and attend to affairs. She had need of his support, particularly after the death in November 1555 of her chief councillor the bishop of Winchester. Philip wrote back explaining that the conflicts with France and the pope tied him down in the Netherlands. His commitments were not all war and politics. He had, according to unverifiable reports by ambassadors, at least two love affairs. He also performed good works. The month of December 1556 was bitterly cold and the rivers froze; the poor died in the streets. Philip organised emergency relief in Brussels. ‘He had some wooden shelters built for 800 of them and ordered distribution of bread, beer, straw and firewood.’76 The unaccustomed climate encouraged the Spanish lords in Philip's retinue to try skating on the frozen lake in the park in Brussels. The king looked on and laughed.77
In February 1557 he sent Ruy Gómez back to Spain to see what money was available for the war. It was also now important to get some military help from the English. On 18 March 1557 he sailed for England from Calais. On St George's Day he held a splendid ceremony of the Order of the Garter. But while he assisted at ceremonies, in an attempt to win English support for the war, the situation in the country was slowly slipping from his grasp. Mary was ill. There were plots brewing. One of these, fomented by Henry II, finally persuaded the Privy Council on 7 June to declare war on France. It was still an age in which the rituals of chivalry were practised. The declaration of war was taken overland by a herald, who recited it to the face of Henry II at Rheims. Philip hoped with the help of the English to bring about a final drive that would end in peace. He had virtually no claims on France, and even less on the papacy. But only a show of force could impose peace. ‘He knows very well,’ his ambassador in England declared, ‘that war in Italy is contrary to his interest, for if he loses his states are lost, and if victorious he conquers nothing’, since the papacy could not be touched.78 Agreement was reached on the military help to be given by the English and Philip took his leave again in the first week of July. Mary accompanied him this time as far as Sittingbourne, where they spent the night. He took his leave of her there, and went on to Canterbury. On 6 July he sailed from Dover just before dawn. It was to be his last sight of England and of the queen.
In Brussels he was plunged directly into the war. Charles V had made sure that his son would be brought up as a soldier. Philip's entire training, his long familiarity with tourneys and games of war, his skill at hunting, meant that he could adapt easily to a military role. He had, for all that, never been in action. The emperor gloried in war as a dimension of personal prowess, participating personally in campaigns, sieges and voyages. In this (as in many other respects) Philip differed from his father. He preferred the model of his great-grandfather Ferdinand the Catholic, who commanded armies but did not commit his own person.79 That at least was his opinion in 1555. It may be that he forgot it during the enthusiasm of the summer of 1557. The young nobles who gathered in Brussels were eager for action and Philip, exactly thirty years old, was in his prime. The regent of the Netherlands and commander of its forces, Emanuele Filiberto, duke of Savoy and first cousin to Philip, was twenty-eight and had just (in 1553) succeeded his father in the title. Slim,
austere and excitable, with a commanding presence,80 Savoy was an exile from his homeland, which was occupied by the French. He was eager to strike at the enemy, and the opportunity soon arose when the French chose to launch a surprise assault upon the border towns of the Netherlands.
Among the invading army figured the most illustrious of France's aristocracy. The forces were commanded by the Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, with the support of the Admiral of France, Gaspard de Coligny, and the Marshal Saint-André. In the ranks served dukes and princes such as Montpensier and Nevers, Enghien and Condé. Philip had, by mid-July, assembled a counter-force of 35,000 under the orders of Savoy, seconded by the prince of Orange and all the nobles of the Netherlands. The cavalry were entrusted to Lamoral, count of Egmont.
In Brussels Philip combined the roles of commander-in-chief and paymaster-general. He coordinated the movement of all the troops and their supplies, planned strategy with a council of war, and scrupulously doled out the little money available for the campaign. After a few days of indecisive campaigning in the borderlands of France and the Netherlands, it was decided to make a stand. Philip and his advisers had at first thought of doing this at the nearby town of Rocroi, but Savoy dissuaded them. ‘Taking into account all opinions,’ the king wrote to Savoy, ‘and the difficulties that you say exist over Rocroi, and the debates that we have had here, it was decided that the most convenient and suitable move is to invest St Quentin.’81 The latter town was defended by troops under Coligny. By a strange twist of fate, Rocroi nearly a century later was to be the scene of a historic French victory over the army of Spain.
St Quentin was seen to be crucial, both for blocking the French advance and for clearing the way for a march on Paris and the king threw himself into the campaign with energy.82 In the last week of July he was busily organising for the scattered Italian and German troops under his command to rendezvous at St Quentin. He also made scrupulous arrangements for supplies of munitions and food to be available. He cancelled all other plans and decided that ‘I shall go straight to Cambrai. And I shall prepare myself immediately in order to arrive in good time at the camp, which I think will be on Tuesday.’83 The timetable he set himself could not be kept to. After one week in Cambrai, as he informed Savoy on 6 August, he was still waiting for the English troops under the earl of Pembroke to join him. After his efforts to obtain English help, courtesy required that he not engage in action without them. He made use of the delay to arrange for further cavalry and cannons to be sent on, and for field-kitchens to be prepared for making bread for the troops. ‘It greatly distresses me,’ he wrote in his own hand at the end of the despatch, ‘not to be able to come today as I intended. But in order not to hold up these men I am sending them without me, and shall await the others and bring with me the rest of the artillery.’84
The next day, Saturday the seventh, he was deeply worried. In moments of personal anxiety, he always wrote his letters in his own hand. He did so now to Savoy. ‘I am extremely displeased at not being able to come nor is it possible to come soon, for the English have written that they will not arrive here until Tuesday, although I have urged them to hurry up.’ And there were other troops, Germans, who could not arrive before the tenth. ‘I am quite desperate.’85 On Monday he received news at last that the English were arriving, but would need one day to rest. ‘I shall leave on Wednesday’, with the English, a German regiment, and a troop of Walloon archers. He knew however that a French relief force might provoke Savoy into a military action. He adjured the duke: ‘Touching your point about engaging in battle in the event that they provoke it, what I can say is that the first concern must be to take care that they do not relieve the town. Unless absolutely necessary to prevent them relieving it, you must avoid engaging in battle until I arrive.’86 If, however, there was no option, Savoy must decide as seemed best. The haunting fear that there might be a battle without him, made him add in his own hand:
If there is no way to avoid an engagement before I arrive, I cannot enjoin you too strongly to inform me post haste, so as to give me the means and opportunity to arrive in time. Since I know that you desire my company in such an eventuality, I do not wish to press you further, but I beg you to have spare horses waiting day and night to be able to inform me.
‘Seeing that the late arrival of Münchhausen with his regiment,’ Savoy wrote back on the eighth, ‘has forced Your Majesty to delay coming until the English arrive, I can only say that it is infinitely important that Your Majesty cut the delay as short as possible.’87 ‘Make all possible haste,’ he also wrote to secretary Eraso, ‘so that His Majesty comes immediately.’88
Events turned out as the king feared. In the afternoon of the ninth he learned that Montmorency had set out with a large force to relieve St Quentin. Without knowing the precise location of the French troops, Philip dared not move. On Tuesday, 10 August, the feast of St Lawrence, the Constable with some 22,000 infantry and cavalry advanced upon Savoy's positions before St Quentin. In a short but bloody action the troops under Savoy and Egmont routed and destroyed the Constable's army. A contemporary estimate put the number of dead in the French army at 5,200, with thousands taken prisoner. Possibly no more than 500 of Savoy's army lost their lives.
It took some time to appreciate the scale of the victory. Philip first heard of it at 11 p.m. He remained awake until around three in the morning, receiving further despatches. Early on the eleventh, encamped at the village of Beaurevoir, he finally wrote to the emperor to confirm the news. ‘I arrived here today and will be in the camp tomorrow,’ he wrote. ‘I found here a message from my cousin [Savoy] telling me that he has seen the Constable and that the rest are prisoners.’89 The victors were unsure who had been taken prisoner. When they received details, they could hardly believe it. The prisoners included Montmorency and three of his sons, together with the Marshal Saint-André, the duke of Montpensier, the prince of Condé, and the duke of Longueville. The French dead included the duke d'Enghien and viscount Turenne. The king arrived at the camp on the thirteenth, but with no signs of disappointment. He had been handed one of the most brilliant military victories of the age. On the battlefield before St Quentin, ‘accompanied by the princes and commanders of his army in full military regalia’ and flanked by the captured French standards, he proceeded slowly down the long lines of distinguished prisoners and paid his respects to each of them.
Official mythology later claimed the victory as Spanish. It was far from being that.90 Of Philip's total army of some 48,000 – not all of whom took part in the battle – only 12 per cent were Spaniards. Fifty-three per cent were Germans, 23 per cent were Netherlanders, and 12 per cent were English. All the chief commanders were non-Spaniards. They included Savoy, Egmont, duke Eric of Brunswick and baron von Müchhausen.
The week after, Ruy Gómez, freshly returned from Spain, remarked that the victory had evidently been of God, since it had been won ‘without experience, without troops, and without money’.91 The comment reflected a real problem about what could practicably be done next. Philip, advised by his close friend Ferrante Gonzaga,92 favoured an immediate exploitation of the victory by an advance on Paris. All the other members of the Netherlands council of State were opposed. There was no money to pay for a further campaign, the Netherlanders were reluctant to go on the offensive, and France had more forces in reserve. Philip was assured that there was nothing more honourable than retreat when victorious. The arguments seemed irrefutable. He duly accepted the advice, returning to Brussels ‘sound, cheerful and full of glory, and to universal satisfaction’.93 When his council some weeks later told him that nothing more could be done, Philip replied angrily: ‘Yes, at present nothing else can be done, but at the time much might have been achieved.’94 There was, all the same, every reason for satisfaction.
Just under two weeks later the town of St Quentin, defended by a very small force under Admiral Coligny, fell to the renewed siege. Philip led the assault. ‘In the afternoon of the twenty-seventh,’ accor
ding to his own account, ‘we entered in strength … from every side, killing all the defenders.’95 It was his first direct experience of the brutal carnage of war. Despite the king's efforts, the town was sacked by the German mercenaries who, reported the earl of Bedford, accompanying the victors, ‘showed such cruelty as the like hath not been seen’.96 Admiral Coligny was made prisoner. With both the Constable and the Admiral in his power, Philip had a strong negotiating hand. He had also, as he informed his sister Juana, won his spurs. ‘Our Lord in his goodness has desired to grant me these victories within a few days of the beginning of my reign, with all the honour and reputación that follow from them.’97
In October the English troops went home, and the king prepared to wind down the campaign. The autumn was one of torrential rain, completely unsuited to any military action.98 The king returned to Brussels where he met the States General. The immediate problem was money for the troops. Already in 1556 – omen of much graver events to come – a Spanish regiment had mutinied when not paid. ‘I am extremely sorry,’ Philip wrote to the duke of Savoy, ‘not to be able to send you the money for paying off this army, but I simply do not have it. You can see that the only possibility is to negotiate with the Fuggers.’99
The costs of war, not only in the Netherlands but also in Italy, were already insupportable. In letter after letter, he had pleaded to Juana from England and the Low Countries for more money. In May 1558 he insisted that if urgent needs were not met, peace could not be made and he could not go home to Spain. And he wanted to return, ‘and leave matters here settled so that I am not obliged to come back’. ‘The lack of money is so great that I don't know what to say,’ he wrote apologetically. ‘I am in worse straits that you could possibly imagine.’100