Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Diplomacia caníbal: España y Gran Bretaña en la pugna por el dominio del mundo, 1638–1660, by Ángel Alloza Aparicio

2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 132; Issue: 557 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ehr/cex171

1477-4534

John S. Edwards,

Latin American history and culture

For many years, Spanish historiography has generally been as insular in its approach to Britain as its British equivalent has often been in return, but that is now beginning to change. Thus, in this scholarly and lively study, Professor Alloza has brought a Spanish insight to a pivotal period in British, and indeed world, history. In his preface, he describes how he initially pictured Spain and Britain, in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as being engaged in a deadly struggle for empire, in which they intended to devour each other—hence the word ‘cannibal’ in the book’s title. However, having done further work, he then added a more descriptive subtitle, which refers to the conflict itself and represents well the contents of the book. A major source is the writing of Philip IV’s ambassador in London, Alonso de Cárdenas, who, amazingly, served in that post continuously for seventeen years from 1638, thus seeing the reign and death of Charles I, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Cárdenas’ reports to Spain form the backbone of the study, but Alloza has successfully combined these and other Spanish sources with considerable use of English documents, as well as engaging fully with the debates among English historians of the period, both recent and less recent. He largely adopts a chronological approach, with his first chapter covering the build-up to the English Civil War, the second following developments in the war itself (1640–47) and the third covering the period of the Commonwealth. His fourth chapter is more thematic in character, tracing the ups and downs of Anglo-Spanish trade between the Treaty of Medina del Campo, made in 1489 between Henry VII of England and the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and 1655, when Ambassador Cárdenas left London for Brussels. Chapter Five provides a fascinating account, based on sources from both sides, of the English attack on Spanish possessions in the West Indies (in particular Santo Domingo and Jamaica), while the final chapter deals with the consequent Spanish embargo on the trade and possessions of English residents in Spain, and the complexities of the period between the death of Cromwell and the return of Charles II. According to the Spanish, but unfortunately not the British, custom, there is also a section of original documents, some in English and others in Spanish, which refer to diplomatic developments in the period. They include the accounts of Cárdenas’ stewardship, with the details of the many ‘pensions’ that he doled out to Englishmen.