Peace of the Pyrenees

Peace of the Pyrenees, peace treaty that was agreed to on November 7, 1659, by Louis XIV of France and Philip IV of Spain. It ended the Franco-Spanish War of 1648–59, and it is often understood as the beginning of French hegemony in Europe.

During the years from the end of the Thirty Years’ War until 1659, Spain and France engaged in almost continuous warfare. During the struggle Spain found itself also involved in hostilities with England. Any assistance that might have been hoped for from the Holy Roman emperor was prevented by the formation of leagues of German princes—lay and ecclesiastical—in 1657 and 1658, which had the full support of France. The effect of the formation of the second league (the Rheinbund) was immediate: all hope of assistance to Spain from the emperor was seen to have disappeared. After Spain’s defeat at the Battle of the Dunes in June 1658, progress toward a peace settlement between France and Spain was accelerated.

According to the Peace of the Pyrenees—which was negotiated on a small island known in English as Pheasant Island, in the Bidasoa River between Irun in Spain’s Basque Country and Hendaye in France—the regions of Roussillon and Artois, with a line of strongholds constituting a formidable northern frontier, were ceded to France. The French acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine under certain conditions was also ratified. All French conquests in Catalonia were restored to Spain, and le Grand Condé—Louis II de Bourbon, prince of Condé, who had been siding with the Spanish—was pardoned and taken into favor. Finally, the treaty involved a marriage compact between Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse, the daughter of Philip IV. The actual marriage, which took place the next year, was garnished with a dowry (never paid) and with a renunciation by Marie-Thérèse of all her rights to the Spanish crown or Spanish possessions. (This latter proviso was ignored in 1667, when Louis XIV began a war to claim the Spanish Netherlands, and 40 years later, when he sought the crown of Spain for his young grandson Philip.) The Peace of the Pyrenees and this Spanish marriage firmly established Louis XIV on his throne as the most powerful of European monarchs.