Spanish Match

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The Spanish Match describes the diplomatic negotiations regarding a proposed marriage of Prince Charles, the son of King James I of England, to Maria Anna, Infanta of Spain. The project, unpopular with England's Protestant House of Commons, where the defeat of the Spanish Armada was within living memory, was initiated during Spain's famous embassy to England of Gondomar, who arrived in London in 1614 with a very interesting offer: that Spain would not interfere with James's troubled rule in Ireland if James would restrain the English "privateers" in Spanish American waters. Further, he proposed a marriage alliance, offering a dowry of £500,000 (later increased to £600,000), which seemed especially attractive to James after the failure of the Parliament of 1614 to provide for his requirements.

The climax of the ensuing decade of high-level negotiation to secure a marriage between the leading Protestant and Catholic royal families of Europe occurred in 1623 in Madrid, with the embassy of the Prince Charles and James's favorite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. The wedding never took place despite the signing of a marriage contract by King James; criticism instead led to the dissolution of Parliament.

[edit] Further reading

  • Glyn Redworth, 2003. The Prince and the Infanta: The Cultural Politics of the Spanish Match (New Haven: Yale University Press) ISBN 0-300-10198-8 (Review)
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