Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559): End of the Italian Wars

The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was a pair of peace agreements signed on 2 and 3 April 1559 that ended the Italian Wars, the long struggle between France and the Habsburgs that had begun in 1494. France gave up its claims in Italy, leaving Spain the dominant power there, while keeping Calais and the Three Bishoprics on its eastern border. Weeks later, celebrations of the peace led to the accidental death of Henry II of France.

Background

The Italian Wars began when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 to claim the Kingdom of Naples. For the next 65 years French kings fought first Italian states and then the Habsburgs, especially Emperor Charles V, for control of Naples and Milan. Highlights included the French defeat at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and the Sack of Rome in 1527.

The final round began in 1551 and continued under Charles V’s son Philip II. Spanish forces, with English support, crushed a French army at St Quentin on 10 August 1557 and captured the Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency. The French recovered by taking Calais in January 1558, as described in the loss of Calais, but suffered another defeat at Gravelines in July 1558.

By then both monarchies were financially exhausted. Both the Spanish and French crowns had defaulted on their debts in 1557, and both kings were worried about the spread of Protestantism in their lands.

The negotiations

Talks began in October 1558 and moved to Le Cateau-Cambrésis, a small town in the prince-bishopric of Cambrai. The French side included Montmorency, still technically a prisoner, and the Cardinal of Lorraine. Philip II’s negotiators included the Duke of Alba, Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle and William of Orange.

England’s position changed during the talks. Mary I died in November 1558, and her successor Elizabeth I negotiated separately. The main obstacle was Calais, which France refused to return.

The terms

The two treaties contained these main provisions:

• France and England (2 April): France would keep Calais for eight years and then return it or pay 500,000 crowns. It was never returned.
• Savoy and Piedmont: France restored most of the lands of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, who had commanded Philip’s army at St Quentin, while keeping Turin and several other fortresses for a time.
• Italy: France abandoned its claims to Milan and Naples, restored Corsica to Genoa and returned territory in Montferrat to the Duke of Mantua.
• The north: Spain returned St Quentin and other captured towns to France. France kept Metz, Toul and Verdun, occupied in 1552.
• Marriages: Philip II, widowed by Mary I’s death, would marry Henry II’s daughter Elisabeth of Valois, and Emmanuel Philibert would marry Henry’s sister Marguerite.

The death of Henry II

Paris celebrated the treaty and the marriages with a great tournament in the rue Saint-Antoine, near the Hôtel des Tournelles. On 30 June 1559 Henry II, aged 40, rode against Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, captain of his Scots Guard. Montgomery’s lance shattered, and a splinter passed through the king’s visor and wounded him in and near the eye.

The leading surgeon Ambroise Paré and the anatomist Andreas Vesalius were among those who attended him, but the king died on 10 July 1559. His death left France to his 15-year-old son, Francis II, and soon to a series of weak minorities that opened the way to the French Wars of Religion.

A popular later story claims that Nostradamus predicted Henry’s death in one of his verses. The link was made only after the event, and the verse is vague enough to fit many interpretations.

Consequences

The treaty confirmed Spanish control of Milan, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, and Spain remained the leading power in Italy for about 150 years. Savoy re-emerged as an independent state and soon moved its capital to Turin.

France lost its Italian ambitions but gained a more defensible frontier. Its religious divisions, however, soon turned into civil war, removing it as a serious rival to Spain for decades.

Contemporaries also believed that the two kings had privately agreed to work together against heresy. Whether or not any formal pact existed, both Henry II and Philip II stepped up the persecution of Protestants in 1559, and Protestants in France and the Netherlands came to see the peace as a threat to their survival.

Timeline

• 1494, September: Charles VIII of France invades Italy.
• 1557, 10 August: Spain defeats France at St Quentin.
• 1558, 7 January: France captures Calais.
• 1558, 13 July: France is defeated at Gravelines.
• 1559, 2 April: France and England sign their treaty.
• 1559, 3 April: France and Spain sign their treaty.
• 1559, 30 June: Henry II is fatally wounded in a tournament.
• 1559, 10 July: Henry II dies in Paris.

Why it matters

Cateau-Cambrésis ended more than six decades of war over Italy and set the balance of power in western Europe for a generation. The accidental death that followed it left France leaderless just as religious conflict was about to explode.