British-Spanish relations

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**British-Spanish relations**


United Kingdom	Spain

British-Spanish relations are the bilateral international relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Kingdom of Spain.

1 History
2 Royal Marriages
3 Armed conflict
4 Present day
- 4.1 Gibraltar
- 4.2 Fishing Dispute
5 International organisations
6 Trade
7 References
8 See also

[edit] History

The history of Anglo-Spanish relations is complicated by the political heritage of the two countries. Neither the United Kingdom nor Spain has a unique constitutional ancestor; the United Kingdom was originally created by a union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland (and later joined by Ireland), whilst the Kingdom of Spain was initially created by a union of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. they have also been complicated by the fact that both the United Kingdom and Spain were both imperial powers, after the same land, an occurrence which is still being played out to this day with disputed ownership/status of Gibraltar.

[edit] Anglo-Portuguese Alliance

João I of Portugal entertaining John of Gaunt in the early years of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.

For centuries, the role of England, and subsequently the United Kingdom, in Iberia was coloured by the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, under which the independence of Portugal was guaranteed. Relations with Portugal always have been closer than those with Spain, and twice have Spain and Portugal's guarantor gone to war over Spain's neighbour's independence.

In 1384, at the height of the Hundred Years' War, England provided reinforcements to King João I to thwart a French-backed Castilian invasion. These forces saw action at the decisive battles of Trancoso and Aljubarrota, and proved to be vital in securing the continued independence of Portugal from its larger neighbours.

The alliance submerged into crisis when Portugal support Joan of Castile instead of her aunt Isabella I of Castile during the War of the Castilian Succession of 1474-1479, because France also supported Joan candidature. In the following years, the English collaborated with the Catholic Monarchs, there were weddings between English and Spanish heir princes and even a small group of English soldiers fought in the Castilian side during the conquest of Granada. However, the struggle of Elizabeth I of England against Philip II of Spain in the 16th century led to the new English support of Portuguese independent movement, that finished in 1640 with the crowning of king João IV of Portugal (non recognized by Spain until 1668). In the following centuries, Portugal and the United Kingdom were closely allies in their politics and wars against Spain, who become a closely collaborator of France after the Spanish War of Succession (1700-1714) that established the House of Bourbon in the Spanish throne.

[edit] Age of Exploration

Henry VIII of England, who had made a political match with Catherine of Aragon (a marriage that was later annulled by Henry), made a series of short-lived alliances with Carlos I against France during the Italian War of 1521 and the Italian War of 1542. Phillip II of Spain married Mary I of England, making them King and Queen of Spain and of England and Ireland, each monarch of one and consort of the other. Mary's early death without issue prevented a closer personal union of the countries.

The late sixteenth century saw England and Spain at war again. For the main part, the Anglo-Spanish War was caused by religious differences, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots and the raging Eighty Years' War, but it came at a time of Spanish occupation and near-annexation of Portugal, which was undergoing a succession crisis of its own. Although most battles were fought in the Caribbean, it is best remembered for the fate of the Spanish Armada, the defeat of which is seen by many Britons as the watershed of Spanish power in Europe, even though the war petered out into a stalemate.

[edit] The French Wars

The War of the Spanish Succession saw France and its allies install the House of Bourbon on the Spanish throne against the wishes of England and its allies. In this war, Spain lost Gibraltar and Minorca. This set the scene for Spanish alliances with France against the United Kingdom in the later wars of the 18th century. The strength of the British navy tended to weaken Spain's control over its international empire.

At the start of the Napoleonic Wars, Spain again found itself allied with France, and again found itself outgunned at sea, notably at the Battle of Trafalgar. The first formal invocation of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance then came, when Napoleon invaded Iberia to force Portugal to accept the Continental System, and to place his brother on the Spanish throne. Unlike the two previous occasions of intervention, the British and (most) Spanish ended up on the same side, united against French invasion. A united British-Spanish-Portuguese command, under the strategic command of the Duke of Wellington, saw victory at several key battles: Talavera, Barrosa, Albuera, Salamanca, Vitoria, and Sorauren.

[edit] Atlantic Slave Trade

In the 19th Century, the British Empire was at the height of its power, and the United Kingdom used its global dominance to force upon other nations its moral and economic opposition to slavery, which was one of the economic and social mainstays of Spain's crumbling empire. Before the institution of slavery itself could be attacked, the United Kingdom sought to end the Atlantic slave trade, the process by which slave stocks in the Americas were replenished and enlarged, which the United Kingdom had outlawed in 1807.

At the 1817 London Conference, the British pressured the major European colonial powers, including Spain, to agree to abolish the slave trade. Under the agreement, Spain agreed to end the slave trade north of the equator immediately, and south of the Equator by 1820. British naval vessels were given the right to search suspected slavers. Despite overwhelming British naval supremacy, the trade continued. In 1835, the Anglo-Spanish agreement on the slave trade was renewed, and the rights of British captains to board and search Spanish ships were expanded. Mixed British-Spanish commissions were established at Freetown and Havana. Vessels carrying specified 'equipment articles' (including extra mess gear, lumber, foodstuffs) were declared prima facie to be slavers. However, after the First Carlist War, the leverage afforded by British political support for the Spanish government declined, and the British abolitionist movement focused on the United States and Brazil. Slavery was abolished in Spain's main Caribbean colony, Cuba, in 1888, over fifty years after the institution was outlawed across the British Empire.

[edit] Carlist Wars

Don Carlos, the first Carlist Pretender.

During the Carlist Wars, Spain was wracked by civil war, as a result of a power struggle between the ruling Bourbon dynasty and Carlists, led by the Pretender, Don Carlos. Fearing a resurgent theocratic Spain, the possible re-emergence of long-silent pretenders to the British throne, a new Spanish Monarch that might refuse to accept the independence of Spain's lost Latin American colonies, and domestic secessionism (particularly amongst Irish Catholics), the United Kingdom steadfastly supported the reigning Bourbon dynasty.

In 1835, the United Kingdom instigated the foundation of the Quadruple Alliance, between the UK, Spain, France, and Portugal, which supported Queen Isabella's reign. During the First Carlist War, the United Kingdom subsidised the Spanish armed forces, just as it had done during the Peninsular War. This was vital to the Spanish war economy, as, since the Napoleonic Wars, the Spanish armed forces had been poorly funded, a legacy of the loss of the majority of Spain's colonial empire. Furthermore, the UK provided a large direct military contribution; the 10,000-strong British Legion, led by George de Lacy Evans, saw action in Navarre and contributed greatly to the suppression of the revolt.

[edit] Royal Marriages

[edit] Armed conflict

Wars between the British and the Spanish include:

First War of Portuguese Independence of 1383-1385
Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604 was part of the Eighty Years' War.

Spanish Armada (1588)
English Armada (1589)

Anglo-Spanish War of 1625-1630 was part of the Thirty Years' War.
Anglo-Spanish War of 1654-1660 included the capture of Jamaica.
War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713)
War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720)
War of Jenkins' Ear (1739-1742), which later merged into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
Anglo-Spanish War of 1761-1763 was part of the Seven Years' War
Anglo-Spanish War of 1779-1783 was part of the American Revolutionary War.
Anglo-Spanish War of 1804-1807 was part of the Napoleonic Wars

[edit] Present day

[edit] Gibraltar

The Rock of Gibraltar.

Main article: Disputed status of Gibraltar

The status of Gibraltar is a perennial issue in relations between the two nations, dating back to the original conflicts and treaties in the early 18th Century. The current status of the Rock is that it is a British overseas territory. It is claimed by the British that Spain gave up forever any claim to the land in 1713 by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, although this is disputed by the Spanish. Polls, and even official referenda, have shown that the people of Gibraltar decisively reject any plans for a transfer or attempts at joint sovereignty with Spain.

[edit] Fishing Dispute

The United Kingdom and Spain have had several recent disputes over fishing rights, particularly with regards to the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy. When Spain acceded to the European Union, in 1982, Spain had the world's sixth largest fishing fleet,^[1] and much of the economies of Galicia, Asturias, and Cantabria depended upon catches by Spanish boats outside Spain's national Exclusive Economic Zone, just as they do today.

To prevent the fleets of other EU members (particularly Spain) taking up the UK's Common Fisheries Policy quota, the UK sought to create a framework that discriminated between British- and Spanish-owned boats, regardless of flag flown, so that its waters wouldn't be over-fished by foreign-owned trawlers. Due to fishing's importance to some of the regional economies of Spain, the Spanish government protested vehemently, but had no power to prevent the UK determining its own domestic policies. However, when the Single European Act was implemented, in 1987, this became illegal under EU law, and a Spanish company successfully challenged the right of the British government to prevent Spanish fishermen taking up the British quota in what has now become known as the Factortame case. In total, £55m has been paid out by the British government to Spanish parties (both public and private) for loss of earnings. ^[2]

To this day, the large Spanish fishing fleet does the majority of its fishing outside Spain's EEZ, as far away as Canada and Namibia.^[3] Nonetheless, a large part of its business comes from fishing in the waters of northern Europe, particularly those of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. At times of debate of the United Kingdom's declining fish stocks, this has caused strained relations between Spain and the UK, and particularly between Spain and the membership of the devolved Scottish institutions, since Scotland is more dependent upon fishing than the rest of the UK.

[edit] International organisations

Both Spain and the United Kingdom are members of many international organisations. Those listed in bold are organisations to which both countries are party.

Spain: