ABSTRACT
The almost interminable wars between the Habsburgs and the French monarchy were settled by the Peace o f Cateau-Cambresis (1-3 April 1559). Christianitas afflicta was to be finally healed by peace and a common front o f the great Catholic powers against the further spread o f heresy. In traditional style the peace was sealed by dynastic marriages: o f Philip II with Henry IPs daughter, Elizabeth, and o f Emmanuel Philibert o f PiedmontSavoy with H enry’s sister, Margaret. But the rest o f the terms made it clear that the treaty o f Cateau-Cambresis was a powerpolitical arrangement between France and Spain. The French withdrew from Piedmont, some two-thirds o f which they had held since 1536, except for garrisons in Saluzzo and five other cities. Spain was left supreme in Italy, with Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Milan and five coastal fortresses in Tuscany under her direct control. The Neapolitan Pope Paul IV who, in his almost insane hatred o f the Spaniards, had provoked the last round o f the Habsburg-Valois wars (1556), had suffered humiliating defeat. Emmanuel Philibert, despite his French marriage, owed his return to Savoy to Spanish arms and so, earlier, did the Medici dukes o f Florence who were allowed to keep their recent conquest o f Siena - another Italian city republic which had fallen to outside attack (1555). The Doria family had bound Genoa by financial and political bonds indissolubly to Spain. O f all the Italian states, only Venice remained truly independent. But France kept Calais, which the duke o f Guise had conquered from the English in 1558,
at a time when Philip II was husband o f Mary Tudor and joint king o f England. France also kept Metz, Toul and Verdun. To obtain peace Philip II had thus unsentimentally liquidated the last remnants o f his father’s imperial plans and obligations. His own subjects in the Netherlands were not slow to draw the conclusion that they had been made to fight France so that Spain should win Italy.
