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inevitably shared the blame for the loss of
Spain's remaining colonies with Cánovas,
who had done so much to provoke Ameri-
can enmity. Like his conservative rival,
Sagasta was also blamed for the cynical pol-
icy of rotating Liberals and Conservatives in
control of the government that undercut
constitutionalism and produced the politi-
cal sterility that frustrated the development
of Spanish democracy.
dian Netherlands in summer 1557 included
not only Spanish and Burgundian units but
also a large contingent of English troops
supplied by his wife, Queen Mary (the
Tudor sovereign who had temporarily
restored Catholic rule in England). He con-
fided the chief field command to Emmanu-
ele Filiberto, duke of Savoy, and the key
role of leading the cavalry spearhead to the
count of Egmont (in later years to be one of
Philip's chief antagonists in the R
EVOLT
OF
THE
N
ETHERLANDS
). The Spanish army
directed its advance on the northern French
city of St. Quentin, to which a part of its
forces laid siege. When the greater part of
France's available troops had been drawn in
to break the siege, they were attacked and
overwhelmed by Philip's army on August 9,
1557. The victory was undeniable, with
some of the leading French generals among
the dead.
To commemorate this victory, on the
feast of St. Lawrence, Philip pledged the
building of a monastery church in Spain
that would later grow into the great church-
palace of San Lorenzo de E
L
E
SCORIAL
.
Although the French attempted to continue
the war for a few months more, the com-
pleteness of Spain's victory was finally
acknowledged in the Treaty of Cateau-
Cambrésis in 1559. Philip II had achieved
that which his father had never been able
to accomplish—Spain's mastery of Europe.
St. Quentin, Battle of
(1557)
This climactic battle of the I
TALIAN
W
ARS
(1494-1559) was fought in August 1557.
The seemingly inexhaustible determination
of successive French monarchs to resist
Spain's claims to the mastery of Europe had
continued through decades of campaigns,
truces, and treaties. Henri II had followed
in the footsteps of his predecessors by sup-
porting the enemies of C
HARLES
I in the lat-
ter's role as Holy Roman Emperor Charles
V. After the emperor's settlement with the
German Protestant princes and his weary
abdication in 1556, P
HILIP
II ascended the
Spanish throne, and the imperial crown
passed to the Austrian branch of the House
of H
ABSBURG
. Henri II agreed to a cessation
of hostilities but was clearly waiting for an
opportunity to renew France's rivalry with
Spain. The new pope, Paul IV, offered him
such an opportunity when he proposed an
alliance to curb Spanish pretensions in Italy.
Their plans were disrupted when Philip II
launched a powerful attack against French
forces, moving to protect the papal domin-
ions. The Spanish monarch then began
assembling a large multinational force to
deliver a blow that he hoped would elimi-
nate the French challenge once and for all.
The army that he assembled in the Burgun-
Salamanca
This city in northwestern Spain and the
province that surrounds it are part of the
old kingdom of L
EÓN
and are adjacent to
Portugal. Inhabited by the Celt-Iberians and
seized by Hannibal in the third century
B
.
C
.
as the western outpost of the Carthaginian
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