Peace of Madrid (1630)

During his stay in England Peter Paul Rubens painted the painting “A Landscape with Saint George and the Dragon ”. It shows King Charles I as Saints George and Henrietta Maria. In the depiction, Charles brought peace to the country, which is an allusion to the Peace of Madrid.

The Treaty of Madrid on November 15, 1630 ended the Anglo-Spanish War of 1625-1630.

The war was started by England primarily to support the Protestant party in the German Empire and the Netherlands against Catholic Spain. The conflict, which was mainly carried out at sea, never reached a particularly high intensity and ultimately ebbed almost completely after both England (→ Anglo-French War ) and Spain (→ War of the Mantuan Succession ) became involved in other wars. This was the decisive factor in the beginning of peace negotiations and the mutual exchange of envoys, including the painter Peter Paul Rubens .

In early 1630, the former ambassador Sir Francis Cottington (1579–1652) traveled to Madrid, where he negotiated for nine months. The basis for the negotiations was to be the Peace of London of 1604, although with regard to trade with the West Indies it was demanded that English traders should not be placed in a worse position than those of other nations. Furthermore, King Charles I insisted on his actual war goal: the evacuation of the Electoral Palatinate from Spanish troops.

Only when this point was dropped by the English side was it finally possible to agree. They largely returned to pre-war conditions by, with a few modifications, returning to the Peace of London. The contract was signed on November 5th ^. / November 15, 1630 ^greg. completed, on December 5th, ^July / December 15, 1630 ^greg. made known and ratified two days later by the respective monarchs. It was significant that the English saw the agreements for the first time also for the far-off colonies as binding. Previously, in line with the well-known saying no peace beyond the line, it was assumed that treaties in Europe would not affect colonial realities.

literature

• Frances Gardiner Davenport (Ed.): European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648 , Vol. 1, Clark / New Jersey 2004, pp. 305-314. ISBN 1-58477-422-3

Web links

• English text of the peace treaty of November 15, 1630 , on: www.british-history.ac.uk (as of July 14, 2013)