III.12 Hobelt_Maquetación 1 04/05/11 13:05 Página 1421 “Madrid vaut bien une guerre?”: Marriage Negotiations between the Habsburg Courts 1653-1657 Lothar Höbelt THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA: SEPARATION – OR A WAY TO PREVENT ‘ALL SEPARATION’? The cohesion of the House of Habsburg was a salient feature of 17th century politics. In Philipp II’s era, relations with both his brother-in-law Maximilian and his nephew Rudolph had been notably lacking in warmth. When the Dutch rebellion erupted, the Emperor withdrew into what was at best benevolent neutrality. After 1619 all that changed – the Styrian cadet branch that took over was willing to acknowledge the senior position of its Madrid cousins. For many, then and now, Spanish influence (or the so-called “Spanish party” at the Vienna Court) was synonymous with religious intransigence. That may have been true in 1618, but in the long run there was a curious dialectic at work: Ferdinand II had to rely on Spanish help because he was challenged by the Protestants; but because he had to rely on Spain, the war that ensued turned from a conflict with strong religious overtones to a war of hegemony, with France as the “fountain of all evil”, and at least some of the Protestants increasingly seen as potential allies. Coalition warfare is hardly ever free from tensions; especially when one of the two partners is clearly in the position of the junior partner. Tensions there were within the Habsburg “family compact”; but the basic solidarity was never called into question. During the later stages of the Thirty Years War, the conflict almost assumed the character of one family fighting against the rest of the world. It needed the combined power of France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic, with their very different types of strength, to fight the Habsburgs to 1421 III.12 Hobelt_Maquetación 1 04/05/11 13:05 Página 1422 Lothar Höbelt a standstill, and gain a certain degree of preponderance during the 1640’s, after the Catalan segadors and the “tyrant” of Portugal had joined them. Moreover, the assumption of Habsburg solidarity was probably one of the factors that made peace-making more difficult: The anti-Habsburg alliance might have been on its way to winning the war; but its members were afraid they were going to lose the peace. The anti-Habsburg alliance was a child of circumstance; once their partnership was dissolved, they would not meet again – and they knew it. They had differing priorities: Even before 1648, the Dutch had fought the Portuguese in Brazil and the Swedes the Danes in the Baltic, rather than coordinate and concentrate their efforts against the Habsburgs. But the Habsburgs would fight another day – and deal with their enemies separately, unless a formula could be found to prevent that backlash. “Spanish decadence”, whether reality or myth, was not something politicians were willing to take for granted in 1648 1. For the Habsburgs on the other hand, that degree of family solidarity was not just a foreign policy move, let alone a matter of sentiment; it gained its imperative character from the ever-present danger that one of them might die without male heirs. In such an eventuality, you had to be close enough to each other to prevent a hostile takeover. The German branch had come to rely on Spanish help to about the same extent Sweden relied on French subsidies. Dreams of grandeur apart, it simply could not afford to let the Spanish inheritance fall into different –and thus indifferent– hands. After all, it was only a combination of Turkish collapse and Anglo-Dutch money instead of the silver fleet that contrived to keep the German Habsburgs in the running for the first few decades after 1700. The dreaded dynastic “window of vulnerability” opened with the death of Philip IV’s heir, Balthasar Carlos, in October, 1646 that left his eight-year old sister Maria Teresa as the sole heiress of an Empire that spanned half the world. The looming threat was summed up by a loyal and acute observer: “God forbid the king should die before peace is concluded and ere the infanta is married” 2. Apart from the Emperor’s two sons, Ferdinand IV (born in 1633) and Leopold Ignaz (born in 1640), there simply were no safe contenders for the Spanish 1 For a nuanced discussion of the decadence myth see Ch. STORRS: The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665-1700, Oxford 2006. 2 HHStA, Kriegsakten 179, fol. 174, Schwarzenberg to Kurz, 8 October, 1648. 1422 III.12 Hobelt_Maquetación 1 04/05/11 13:05 Página 1423 “Madrid, vaut bien une guerre?”... crown – unless you counted either Leopold Wilhelm, the Emperor’s younger brother (even though, he happened to be a man of the Church) or as a last resort the Tyrolean branch of the family: Archdukes Ferdinand Karl and Sigismund, the sons of Claudia de Medici – a prospect that was viewed with misgivings by the Vienna court, however. (As a sort of consolation price, Ferdinand III married a Tyrolean archduchess as his second wife in 1648.) The ancient motto, associated with the rise of the Habsburg dynasty to European prominence, had of course, always been: “Tu, felix Austria, nube!” The misleading part of that verse had always been the line before: “Bella gerant alii”. The Habsburg experience did not lend itself to a Beatles-style summing-up of “Make love not war”. On the contrary, starting with the Burgundian match of 1477 that unleashed their antagonism with France, the Habsburgs had usually been forced to fight for their inheritance. That remained true in 1646, too – the only difference was: In the old days marriage had come first, wars later. Now the order was reversed. The Emperor had to continue fighting at Spain’s side if he wanted one of his sons to be rewarded with the Infanta’s hand. The autumn of 1646 thus witnessed a tightening of dynastic bonds: Balthasar Carlos had been engaged to be married to the Emperor’s daughter Maria Ana; in a surprise move, Philipp IV decided to enter into that marriage contract himself. A few weeks earlier, in September 1646, he had offered the governorship of the Netherlands to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. While their advisors were still working out the details of the Archduke’s commission, Peñaranda managed to clinch the deal with the Dutch and sign an armistice in January, 1647: Once he arrived in Brussels, Leopold Wilhelm would no longer be faced with a war on two fronts 3. The truce with the Dutch gave hard-liners the upper hand: To Peñaranda’s dismay, Count Maximilian Trauttmansdorff, Ferdinand III’s chief minister, had come close to settling the Emperor’s disputes with both France and Sweden in 1646. A split had opened between the policy of the two Habsburg Courts, or at least between their representatives in Münster. Yet, family 3 M. ROHRSCHNEIDER: Der gescheiterte Frieden von Münster. Spaniens Ringen mit Frankreich auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongreß, Münster 2007; P. SONNINO: Mazarin’s Quest. The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde, Cambridge (Mass.) 2008; O. VAN NIMWEGEN: ‘Deser landen crijchsvolck’. Het Staatse leger en de militaire revoluties 1588- 1688, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 231-238; on L. WILHELM in the Netherlands see also VERMEIR’s contribution in this volume. 1423 III.12 Hobelt_Maquetación 1 04/05/11 13:05 Página 1424 Lothar Höbelt solidarity called for a continuation of the war – unless Spain was willing to sign the peace treaty, too, the Emperor would not dare offend his Spanish cousins at such a critical juncture by parting ways with Madrid. In the summer of 1648 Philipp IV and Haro even suggested the Emperor should withdraw his plenipotentiaries from Münster altogether. The money saved, it was argued, could better be spent by raising new regiments 4. There might well have been no Westphalian peace if it had not been for another series of Swedish successes. The elite of the Vienna court was heavily hit when the Swedes surprised Prague and captured a number of their relatives, in July, 1648. Ferdinand was compelled to stop fighting, after all, for fear of further losses. The news of the Westphalian treaty arrived at a crucial moment, just as Philip IV’s bride Maria Ana, now thirteen-and-a-half, was about to leave Vienna, with her elder brother Ferdinand eager to come along and establish himself as the heir apparent of the Spanish monarchy. The invitation extended to young Ferdinand (IV) had always been a half-hearted one even at the best of times: Madrid did want to retain the option of marrying the Infanta to a French prince, just in case. Even worse, in case the Emperor signed the peace, both the Spanish ambassadors in Vienna –Terranova, who was leaving, and Lumiares, who had just arrived– had strict instructions to prevent Ferdinand’s journey. At most, Ferdinand IV might have been allowed to accompany his sister across the Mediterranean but would have to turn back after a meeting with Philip IV in a port town, e.g. Malaga. Madrid regarded the Westphalian treaty as a separation, a breach of trust, as the treaty expressly forbade the Emperor to support Spain any longer in its war with France. When he received the hapless Imperial ambassador, Caretto, Philip IV pretended he could not even believe the news of his cousin’s desertion, at first. Ferdinand III, of course, tried to put things in a more favourable light: As he was unable to help his cousins right now, with the enemy at the gate, Spain had not lost anything materially; on the other hand, as soon as his position improved, he hinted, he could just as easily circumvent the neutrality clauses by donning another crown and offering help in his capacity as King of Hungary.