Cateau-Cambrésis (1559)

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CATEAU-CAMBRÉSIS (1559)

CATEAU-CAMBRÉSIS (1559). Cateau-Cambrésis is a town in northern France where a treaty was signed ending the last English foothold on the Continent. On 2 April 1559, Henry II of France (ruled 1547–1559) accepted terms that brought the Habsburg-Valois Wars to a close. After a truce in 1556, war had resumed in 1557 and subsequent successes helped determine the nature of the peace. The Spanish forces that invaded France from the Low Countries in 1557 won an important victory at Saint-Quentin (10 August 1557), when a relieving army for the besieged fortress was heavily defeated. In the battle, the Spaniards made effective use of their cavalry, especially of pistoleers, in which they outnumbered the French. Philip II of Spain (ruled 1556–1598) organized the campaign that led to this victory and followed it up by leading the successful storming of Arras.

The following January, however, French forces bombarded Calais, England's last foothold on mainland France, into surrender in a campaign characterized by bold French generalship: Mary Tudor, queen of England (ruled 1553–1558), was the wife of Philip II, and she had declared war on France in June 1557. The French pressed on to try to take Dunkirk by surprise attack, but they were defeated at Gravelines on 13 July 1558. The Spanish pistoleers again outnumbered their French counterparts; they both won the cavalry fight and hit the French pike, who were also affected by Spanish harquebus power.

Aside from being defeated in battle, Henry II was also bankrupted by the heavy cost of the war and alarmed by the spread of Protestantism in France. The ability of the Spaniards to advance into France meant that Henry could not finance his army by ravaging the Spanish Netherlands. The Religious Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which Henry's German allies had settled their differences with the Habsburgs, had also weakened Henry's position. As a result, he accepted a treaty that left France bereft of what her monarchs had fought for since 1494. Spain was left in control of Milan, Naples, and Sicily, the key positions that established Spanish power in Italy, and that at a time when Italy was the center of the Christian world.

In addition, the French had to yield their positions in Tuscany, which was now securely dominated by the Medici rulers of Florence, allies of Spain, while Savoy and Piedmont, which France had seized in 1536, were returned to Duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, a Spanish client. The French, however, kept Calais, and this marked the end of the pursuit by English monarchs of territorial gains in France.

French failure ensured that there was no reversal in the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis of the removal (by treaties in 1525 and 1529) of Artois and Flanders from the suzerainty of the French crown. This was the first major retreat of the French crown from the frontier originally designated in 843 when Charlemagne's inheritance was lastingly divided. The frontier between the Valois and Habsburg territories in the Low Countries had become that between France and the empire.

This settlement was not to be seriously challenged until the 1640s, in large part because of the weakness of the French monarchy after the death of Henry II following a jousting accident in 1559. This, indeed, ensures that Cateau-Cambrésis is well known, whereas earlier peaces between Philip II's father, Charles V, and French monarchs, such as the Treaty of Madrid (14 January 1526), the Treaty of Cambrai (3 August 1529), and the Peace of Crépy (18 September 1544), are largely forgotten. However, had Henry lived, or been succeeded by another vigorous monarch, France would have tried to contest the settlement. Indeed, in 1572, Gaspar de Coligny, the Huguenot leader, sought to unite France behind a plan for intervening against the Spaniards in the Netherlands. This was preempted when Charles IX turned against the Huguenots, but the policy was to be resumed by Henry IV (ruled 1589–1610). Cateau-Cambrésis should therefore be seen as a stage, not a definitive settlement.