'Give no quarter': Representations of War and Peace in Lope de Vega's Carlos V en Francia (1604)

Spanish Golden Age drama often put on stage representations of the various past and present wars that marked the nation's history. This was especially true in the theatrical model of essentially profane plays known as the comedia nueva, but also (in a more openly metaphysical manner) in the allegorical auto sacramental, where historical conflicts were used to explain articles of faith. Battles were either narrated through the imaginative device of teichoscopy1 or enacted, depending on whether the theatre troupes could muster sufficient people. They were extremely popular on a stage that not only celebrated great victories over the heathen or over Protestant princes, but also served as an active vehicle for propaganda in defence of the Habsburg's military campaigns. Ongoing conflicts were also used as backdrops to difficult love stories or took on greater importance as elements more central to the plot.2 The Spanish kingdoms had been at war in places as far afield as the American continent and the woods of Bohemia as well as North Africa, the Mediterranean, or Flanders.3 Conflicts were also domestic: in Castile and Aragon, civil strife had been a way of life for several centuries until the end of the fifteenth century, with some outbreaks still occurring well into the sixteenth century, as shown by the comuneros, the germanias revolts, and the second Alpujarras insurrection, to quote but a few.

From Miguel de Cervantes to Calderón de la Barca, many plays use war and its counterpart, peace, or that first step towards it, truce. This article explores the treatment of the temporary interruption of hostilities between two antagonistic forces, taking as a yardstick Lope de Vega's early play, Carlos Ven Francia (Charles Vin France), written in 1604. Although other plays dramatized Charles's reign,4 this play is of some importance as its date of composition corresponds to Philip Ill's accession to the Spanish throne in 1598. His reign was characterised by a quest for peace following decades of war between the Spanish Crown and almost every major state of Europe - as well as further afield. Philip II had been at war with the Turks in the Mediterranean; with the English with whom peace was concluded in the summer of 1604; with the French (with whom the occasion for peace arose in 1598 with the Treaty of Vervins and once again in 1610 after Henri IV's assassination); with the United Provinces where a truce was agreed in 1609 and lasted until 1621. Philip's father, Charles V, had essentially fought against three foes: the Turks in the Mediterranean, North Africa and Central and Southern Europe, the French in Spain and Italy, and the Protestants in German principalities. These two kings had spent just about all of their adult lives at war.

Most of the major conflicts of the sixteenth century were staged in Spanish drama. Miguel de Cervantes's theatrical corpus contains at least two plays concerning captivity ensuing from battle, Los tratos de Argel and Los baños de Argel,5 both published in 1615 but written probably at the end of the sixteenth century. Amongst the long list of war-plays, we should note Calderón de la Barca's El sitio de Bredá (c. 1626-28), where the dramatist celebrated, shortly after the events themselves, the taking of the city of Breda by Ambrogio Spinola in the Low Countries in 1625.6 The play precedes by nearly a decade Velazquez's painting La rendición de Bredá, popularly known as Las lanzas, painted in the mid-163 Os, in what was another artistic contribution to propaganda surrounding the unpopular Flanders campaigns.7 Lope de Vega was a pioneer with El asalto de Mastrique (The Maastricht offensive), that dramatised the famous battle of 1579. The play was printed in 1614 during the period of the Twelve Years' Truce,8 perhaps with a view to keeping up some degree of public interest in the affairs of those rebellious northern states of the Habsburgs' vast empire.

At a time when war was so unpopular, due to the heavy taxation on the Castilian peasantry and lower-class citizens, not to mention the number of victims, plays that presented not-so-distant victories might have served the purpose of constructing a Spanish national pride using military exploits.9 Plays featuring the virtues of honour and valour against fearful odds, and the representation of kings preoccupied with their soldiers' fate would have triggered a high degree of patriotic fervour in the audience. The fact that there were no major revolts against the levies or taxation seems to reflect the general acceptance by commoners of the crown's projects in maintaining Spanish hegemony. In Walter Cohen's words, 'most of the comedies performed between 1597 and 1606 in both England and Spain take national unity for granted'.10 Because it was dangerous to do otherwise, the Spanish Habsburgs are treated with great respect in all the plays mentioned, including in Carlos Ven Francia. Any criticism appears to have been confined to arbitrista literature and the minutes of the Cortes.11

The action of Carlos V en Francia takes place in the late 1530s when Charles V was engaged in a bitter struggle with Francis I of France, his old rival for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Both monarchs had already crossed swords in the early and mid-15208 on the Spanish mainland and in the Italian Peninsula, the latter conflict being referred to in several scenes. Carlos V en Francia, a succinct yet mostly accurate history lesson,12 specifically stages the conversations that took place between the two kings, Pope Paul III, and a host of other characters,13 such as the French Duke of Montmorency (hispanicised to 'Memoranse' in the play), the Spanish Duke of Alba, Charles's ally, the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, and even the finest of Renaissance poets, Garcilaso de la Vega,14 whose life was cut short by the French whilst engaged in the siege of the Muy fortress, near Fréjus in 1536. Apart from some events alluded to which can be precisely dated to 1538, most of the events represented in the play concern the period comprised between 26 November 1539 and 20 January 1540, as Araceli Guillaume-Alonso has pointed out.15 This article is a case-study of the war theme in Carlos V en Francia. It aims to show how Spanish drama mirrored the Crown's strategic changes at the turn of the seventeenth century and progressively shifts its focus from a strategy of war to a strategy of peace through the introduction of the trope of truce.

The Drama of War: Meeting Audiences' Expectations

As hinted in the title, the general context of the play is that of the Franco-Spanish conflict. The play could have staged any of the many incursions of the Spanish and Imperial armies into France, as shown by the opening stage direction: 'Pacheco soldado, la espada en la mano, quatro franzesses sobre él y un capitán' ['[Enter] The soldier Pacheco with drawn sword, four Frenchmen and a captain attacking him'].16 Pacheco, a Spanish soldier, is seen fighting a crowd of Frenchmen and making his way into Francis I's tent. The mood is that of blood and guts fighting, no quarter given, with a little bit of French-bashing, as the Spaniard boasts of his superiority over his foes. The play then gives way to a great deal of talking and a rather awkward (and protracted) love story involving an Italian woman who wants to become Charles's mistress. Not amused by her presence, the Emperor dismisses her advances, thus proving to the Spanish audience that he was not only an excellent soldier, a just emperor, and a fine orator, but also a morally flawless king. Lope de Vega is perfectly true to his own precepts here. He respects the necessary decorum when dealing with monarchs and characters in high office: 'Si hablare el rey, imite cuanto pueda / la gravedad real' [And if the king should speak, let him imitate as much as possible / regal dignity].17

The play makes several references to the many conflicts that Charles V encountered in his forty-year reign (1516-1556) as well as his military capabilities. In keeping with the monarch's character that transpires from his profuse correspondence, the play depicts a king that is given no choice when it comes to war. Charles wrote a letter dated 26 April 1536, to his wife, Isabel of Portugal, regent of Castile in his absence:

Having found sufficient means and assurances for peace, we shall make it our duty to work in this direction, as we have proposed, but things have gone so far that there is little hope for peace. Thus, we have urged that all the necessary preparations for war be made. Four thousand Germans are on the march from Germany towards Milan, and this force shall be used for whatever is necessary, so that we are ready as is befitting.18

His peaceful nature and noble intentions are thwarted by bellicose neighbours and warring adversaries. Strangely enough, the play under study echoes Charles' letter. In a very telling short speech, delivered just after having the Duque del Ynfantado arrested for stabbing an officer of the law (1513), the audience rapidly realises the extent of Charles's war effort:

Esme forzosa la guerra, porque es en toda la tierra único amparo mi nombre. Los daños de Barbarroja, de lo de Túnez corrido, y los del turco atreuido que la Transiluania enoja, corren ya por cuenta mía. (11.1547-54)

I have no choice but loathsome war to make

Since all around the world my very name

Helps the oppressed some comfort there to take.

And what of Barbarossa's current wrongs,

From his defeat at Tunis quite distraught?

And let's not count all that the Turk has wrought

In troubled Transylvania with his throngs!

All this misfortune rests upon my head.

The Constable of Castile answers:

Señor, todo se ha de hazer, pues solo vuestro poder ampara a Ytalia y a Vngría (II. 1555-7)

Sire, in all these wars you'll be victorious,

Y our power, might and armies glorious

Free Italy and Hungary from dread.

The dialogue lists the conflicts both in Central and Eastern Europe, where Charles's armies became the major obstacle to Ottoman expansion.19 The references to Hungary and Transylvania probably concern the campaigns against the Ottomans, not the wars against the Protestants. There are few references to that conflict, though Pacheco, who seems to have served Charles on all fronts, says: 'y quando emprendiste el fin / de la lutherana seta' (I. 171-172) ['when you undertook to defeat the Lutheran sect']. The sheer scale of his military conflicts is reflected in the allusion to Mediterranean battles concerning North Africa and the defence and attacks of prized coastal cities such as Tunis and Algiers. Similarly the mention of the legendary corsair Khizir Khayr ad-Din, known as 'Redbeard' (Barbarroja), reinforces the war setting.

Allusions to the various episodes in the Franco-Spanish wars are frequent in the play, as well as the tense state of affairs between both nations. The latter is recreated in the script and most particularly in Bisanzón's speech. The soldier Bisanzón (Besançon?) is described as being a 'tudesco', which contemporary dictionaries describe as south German ('es lo mesmo que Alemán' [another way of saying a German], states Covarrubias in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana, 1611)).20 Probably acting as a mercenary, Bisanzón tells Charles V:

En la Guerra de Paula quando a Francisco prendistes por vuestra dicha venzistes y tardastes por la mía. Treynta españoles maté: las vandas de todos tengo. (III. 2440-5)

In the Pavia war of excellent renown

Where Francis king of France was prisoner made

And Fortune for your victory displayed

Though rather slowly profiting my own.

Of Spanish soldiers thirty did I slay

As these fine sashes certainly display.

Line 2441 refers to Francis I's capture on the battlefield of Pavia in 1525,21 a feat of arms that the Spanish propagandists were not going to forget easily. This imprisonment put an end to this Italian war and made way for French promises of non-aggression that were broken almost as soon as Francis was set free from his Madrid prison and found himself safely back on French soil. Prudencio de Sandoval, Lope's contemporary, writes about Francis's change of attitude in his History of the life and exploits of the Emperor Charles V (1614):

While the Emperor was in Granada he learned that the King of France had organized a solemn act in Paris during which the members of his Parliament and Council declared null and void the treaty that the King had signed in Madrid, on the grounds that he had agreed to it whilst imprisoned and deprived of his liberty and that consequently he was in no obligation to comply.22

Perhaps to set the mood, Lope had alluded to the broken treaty earlier in the play, 'por no haber cunplido / Francisco la palabra en Madrid puesta' [because Francis had not kept his word, given in Madrid] (1.277-78). There is also an allusion in the same speech, according to Garcilaso de la Vega, to Charles V's famous appearance before the Pope on 17 April 1536: 'Después que Carlos [...] de Paulo Terzio en Roma reciuido/ con tantos arcos, regocijo y fiesta, / hizo aquella oración que al mundo ha sido / por sus graues palabras manifiesta' [After Charles [...] received was by Paul III in Rome / with victory arches, festivities, joy / where he did utter such a famous speech / with gravest words renowned in all the world] (I. 277-82).

Though the play stages cordial and even tender scenes of kingly relationships, a reminder of Francis's humiliating capture must have entertained the audience at the same time as it reminded them that the French king's word meant little. Charles, rather surprisingly for the Spanish audience, rewards the boastful German soldier Bisanzón,23 who tells of his own personal prowess against the Spanish army in such brutal terms. Though the mercenary's name certainly has a marked French sonority, the town Besançon is actually in Franche-Comté (modern-day eastern France). At the time of the play's action it was a region that was under the rule of Charles V. At the time of composition, the region had only just come out of a period of war after the invasion by the French in the late 1590s. Many Spanish writers of the period spelled foreign names in a more or less phonetic way (e.g., Memoranse), with some more well-known towns or names being completely hispanicised. Sometimes it simply favoured a quicker and easier understanding, but in the case of the Low Countries, one might suppose that it allowed Spanish readers or listeners to actually identify their kings' possessions and, in some way, to include them into the Spanish Empire. Why Lope should choose such a name for his mercenary is baffling, since it does not immediately seem to evoke Germanic origin. If the audience was able to link the name with the territory of Franche-Comté, then its use would have acquired a more poignant meaning. Bisanzón, a mercenary on the French payroll, is Charles's own subject from another realm (also disputed by the French). Thus, he would have been seen as having killed, as enemies, other subjects of his own Emperor. That he is rewarded for so doing would have made the situation all the more ironic.

The boasts of the German soldier are only matched by the equally boastful comic figure of Pacheco who, in the bombastic style of the miles gloriosus, states: '¿Sabes que en Pauta maté / mil tudescos en un día?' [Don't you know that in Pavia in one day / One thousand Germans I alone did slay?] (III. 2494-2495). A fight ensues in which Pacheco ends up striking him such a blow on the head with a belt that onstage witnesses (and thus the audience) believe it to be a fatal wound. Faced with this act of violence while he is at the French court, Charles immediately orders Pacheco to be hanged,24 only, minutes later, to congratulate him privately for doing what he could not publicly do himself: punish the slayer of Spanish soldiers. He is thus able to redress here what must have been seen earlier as the king's uncharacteristic failure to defend Spanish interests. A more critical audience would probably have been able to discern the public figure of the Emperor compelled to act impartially on French soil from the private thoughts of the Spanish king. For the audience, Charles's words betray the heavy underlying tensions between the French (here represented by a German mercenary on their payroll) and the Spanish. Besides, they reveal his inner feelings. In this speech, he discloses to Pacheco his deep anger at the loss of his soldiers:

Bien as dicho y negociado ni hay de castigarte ley que al príncipe defendiste. Y así el príncipe te abona y te absuelve y te perdona de la muerte que le diste. Enójeme de manera, quando el tudesco decía que hauía muerto en Pauía

Oh, you have bargained and have said so well

That consequently punishment's not due

Since you have undertaken my defence.

And thus this well-defended prince resolves

To pardon you, and so your acts absolves,

This fateful death and any other offence.

The anger that I felt on hearing how

This German brute in Pavia has killed

My thirty Spaniards, all their life blood spilled,

treynta españoles que fuera, Pacheco, a no ser quien soy, a canpaña y me matara con él.

(III. 2526-38)

That were I not, Pacheco, who I am now

I would have challenged him to a duel

Unto the death.

Although we learn later on that the German soldier did not die, the point is made. Even though the monarchs are brokering peace, violence between the troops of either side is never far from the surface in the play, and references to past, but very recent, wars abound. In a play in which Lope treats the French with considerable respect, one might be tempted to see in the 'tudesco' some kind of scapegoat. The French soldiers at the beginning of the play are unable physically to overwhelm Pacheco, whereas Bisanzón boasts of having killed thirty Spanish captains in a battle that the French themselves lost. It might also be possible that despite the playwright's apparent benevolence, Bisanzón's bombastic nature on stage actually illustrates French military weakness for the audience. However, real accounts of the battlefield show the mercenary troops to be somewhat untrustworthy in the heat of the action. Juan de Ochoa in his Caroleo Inchiridon narrates how the Swiss escaped whilst their German brothers in arms mainly died on the battlefield after the attack of the Spanish harquebusiers: 'Ya en este tiempo en diuersas partes de la batalla los Suiços eran puestos en huyda, y los más Tudescos muertos' [At that time, in various parts of the battlefield, the Swiss were forced to flee, and many a German lay dead] (fol. 145v).

Pacheco is involved in the two skirmishes that Lope dramatizes. Yet he is not vanquished by the four French soldiers and is able, all alone, to inflict a near-fatal wound on one of their mercenaries. The basic conclusion for the audience, as Pacheco himself points out, is that he alone is worth a whole company of enemies, be they French or German in Francis I's payroll. Despite the knowledge of real past warring and this dramatized background of violence, the two monarchs as presented by Lope put on a fine display of tender brotherly love. This leads me to analyse the play's underlying idea which seems to be the shared quest for peace, however unstable.

Dramatizing Amity

In Lope's play, the two kings finally meet in a rather rare, for the Spanish stage, naval scene. Charles is on one of his galleys with Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, and an unspecified number of princes. A rowing boat approaches and, to everyone's surprise Francis I arrives with just two accompanying oarsmen. The contrast could not be greater between the pageant-like splendour of the Spanish monarch and the representation of his court, and the lack of pomp with which the French king arrives:

Andrea: ¡El rey de Francia señor!

Carlos: Notable amor y valor.

La barca aborde la galera

Francisco: Tu magestad sacra sea a mi tierra bien venido.

Carlos: ¡Jesús, señor!

Francisco: ¡Llega aquí!

Carlos: ¿Vuestra Magestad ansí?

Francisco: Hermano, la mano os pido.

Dádmela, dádmela, hermano.

Véisme aquí en vuestra prisión segunda vez.

Carlos: Estas son de un príncipe soberano hazañas de eterna gloria.

[...]

Andrea: ¡Qué amistad! (I. 943-52, 961)

[Andrea: My Lord, my Lord, it is the King of France!

Carlos: What noteworthy bravery, and what love.

The rowing boat comes alongside the galley.

Francisco: Holy majesty, welcome to my lands.

Carlos: Christ's blood, my Lord!

Francisco: Oh, come hither to me!

Carlos: Your Majesty has come here in this way?

Francisco: My brother, I implore you, please, your hand.

Give it to me, my brother, please, your hand.

Behold me here once more your prisoner.

Carlos: For a sovereign prince these certainly are

Exploits that will assure eternal fame.

[...]

ANDREA: What friendship!]

The scene is interesting on several accounts. It immediately highlights to the audience the degree of professional cordiality between the two monarchs as the French king comes in all humility, acknowledging Charles's superiority as Emperor, visually underlined by the difference in size of the vessels and accompaniment. The humble arrival receives immediate acknowledgement in Charles's opening words ('What noteworthy bravery, and what love'). A moment before the scene takes place Lope de Vega had made clear that the French king's action was to be seen as being sincere, as the latter stated to Memoranse: 'Oy quiero que mi amor conozca Carlos' [I want Charles to witness my love today] (1.921). Both kings' good intentions are further confirmed in the ensuing conversation and gestures. Charles is flabbergasted by the occasion, and Francis, after the initial political address 'Magestad', calls him 'Hermano' (brother) twice and asks to take his hand. Semantically, the action (which remains unspecified) could be interpreted in two ways. The most obvious, given the context, is of Francis's submission to Charles. Nonetheless, the fact that the French king alludes to his captivity in Madrid, leaving to one side the possible comic effect that it might have produced,25 reflects another type of hand-shaking, the one that symbolically seals a pact or an agreement, or even a peace treaty such as the one agreed on in Madrid in the wake of Francis's defeat at Pavia in 1525.26 The scene significantly closes act I when Charles invites Francis to his table in a fine example of role reversal in the protocol of their new peace-brokering relationship. As he is the host, one might have expected the invitation to come from Francis. This reversal of roles is of great importance in setting the tone for the play in general. It reflects the desire that old quarrels should be forgotten, as Francis had suggested at the beginning of the play, after the skirmish between Pacheco and the French soldiers: 'Ya pasaron los enojos / ya la enemistad también' [Anger is a thing of the past, as is enmity] (I. 123-4).

The play is replete with allusions to the cessation of hostilities between Charles and Francis. This is true from the beginning. One of the first mentions of the peace negotiations comes (in retrospect quite surprisingly) from the unruly Pacheco who tells Francis:

Repliqué: 'El emperador tiene la paz por diuisa y solo ha venido a Nisa a confirmarla mexor [...]'

I answered so: 'The Emperor my lord

Has as his moto nothing else but 'peace'

And this indeed is what brought him to Nice

So it might be confirmed and underscored [...]'

(1.81-4)

Francis in turn echoes:

Que pues yo venido a Nisa a hazer con el César paz tras el odio pertinaz, (1.117-19)

Of all the strife and hate a little tired

I, king of France, myself, have come to Nice

To make amends with Caesar, sue for peace.

And, just to make sure, a captain of the guard confirms:

Oy que dos reyes cristianos a firmar las pazes uienen oy que el papa los juntó aquí en Nisa de Proenza un soldado sin vergüenza a romper la paz llegó. (1.135-40)

Today when two almighty Christian kings

Have come together so as to sign a truce

United by our Holy Father Paul

In of Provence this proud city of Nice

A shameless foolish soldier breaks the peace

And jeopardises the efforts of all.

The word 'peace' is repeated by practically all the characters, especially the principal ones or those of historical relevance, such as the Pope. A detailed reading of the first act reveals that the word 'paz' ('peace'), in its singular or plural forms, is pronounced no less than twenty-four times. To these can be added mentions of associated words such as 'concierto', 'capitulaciones', 'concordia', and 'remedio', all of them more or less related to peace terms or capitulation in the sense of agreement (to stop hostilities), not in the more modern usage of surrender or acceptance of military defeat. 'Capitulaciones', in particular, is most relevant: 'Hacer pactos y conciertos sobre alguna dependencia' [To make a pact or agreement as regards a given question], Covarrubias, in the Tesoro de la lengua, offers the following definition: 'Los conciertos condiciones o pactos que se dan por escrito' [The agreements or conditions or pacts set down in writing]. The word 'tregua' [truce] is mentioned just once after a scene where the use of the word 'paz' peaks. Pope Paul III, the architect of the peace process, states: 'Despacio lo trataremos; / las treguas por los diez años / por lo menos confirmemos' [Let us now proceed to treat this calmly; / and decide on a formal ten year truce] (v. 678-80). The word 'paz' had been used nine times (lines 628, 632, 638, 645, 653, 658, and after the Pope's words on line 682 - and inferred on line 640 'confirmarZu', and 653 'Oyr/a' \my emphasis]). In contrast, the word 'guerra' appears seventeen times in the script. All quotations but one are located in the first two acts of the play where the atmosphere of conflict is patent. There are of course many references to bellicose actions as shown by the recurrences of words such as 'herir', 'matar', 'defender', and 'armas' (wound, kill, defend, arms).

Dramatizing the Truce

Spanish drama was well established at that period and any more-or-less well-acquainted theatregoer was able to pick up on the smallest of details in connection with an arsenal of well-known dramatic conventions. For instance, night was conveyed on stage by the mere mention of a setting sun, or by a reference to darkness, or the entrance of a character wearing a colourful cloak, or with a lantern in his hand. Social condition was similarly codified. Concepts and abstractions were thus turned into or translated by dramatic devices. So when the word 'peace' is used 24 times in a play - and this is only as regards the mention of the word itself without taking into account what is actually said about it - it is bound to raise the audience's attention. In turn, we should ask what purpose the insistence on the word 'peace' in the first act serves.

There are two competing messages in the play. The first conveys the official discourse of the monarchs Charles and Francis who, under papal control and supervision, are at last putting their personal rivalry to one side so as to permit a lasting peace which, as the play explains, will greatly benefit Christendom and harm Turkish interests. This discourse is maintained by both characters for most of the play. The Spanish grandees and the French nobility more-or-less follow this line in spite of occasional violent actions. The latter do not necessarily jeopardise the fragile attempt to sign a treaty, though. The second discourse is openly violent. It is that of secondary characters, essentially soldiers of a lesser social condition. One might assume that this type of speech might have appealed to anybody with an even lukewarm sense of patriotic interest. This violent discourse is for the most part anti-French.

Nationalistic impulse is, however, greater than raison d'état. The play offers several scenes of explicit violence between such members of society, in stark contrast to the official irenic line. Repeating the word is necessary for the message to get across in an almost subliminal manner as the objective to be achieved is put at risk by the less peaceful actions of other forces depicted in the play. Nevertheless, in order to fully understand this apparent dichotomy, we should take into account two factors.

First, in the play, Charles V displays a fluctuating attitude towards violence. When it comes to the wounded law officer, he first takes his side, as a just king informed of the stabbing, only to exonerate the offending nobleman, in a later display of what might be termed esprit de corps protectionism. Indeed, the officer of the law had persistently goaded the nobleman to the point of eliciting a violent reproach from the Duke who considered himself offended by someone of a lower class. Another example of ambivalent response concerns Charles's public attitude toward the German mercenary. His attitude is one of apparent conciliation and reward. Yet his private response is much more in tune with his 'Spanishness', which would have him seek vengeance for his soldiers' deaths.

The second factor is that the play was written when Hapsburg Spain was in the sixth year of Philip Ill's rule, and peace would be agreed with the English shortly thereafter during the Somerset House conference on 19 August 1604. The monarchy was striving to limit its bellicose actions elsewhere, in an attempt to give the royal treasury a rest and take pressure off the population of Castile. The latter was under severe economic and demographic strain after the various campaigns in Europe and North Africa under the reigns of Charles and his son Philip II. The new policy would lead respectively to a truce with the Dutch rebels from 1609 to 1621 and a peace with the French in the 1610s.

Lope's play might well want to take part in this general wave of peace-seeking, and it is possible that he is trying to give credit to the idea that the Spanish monarchs were particularly peaceful in the face of foreign aggression. Nevertheless, even though Lope's Francis I is surprisingly pleasant, given the rivalry between him and Charles described by Spanish chroniclers,27 the playwright's depiction of the Hapsburg emperor is remarkably true to character. In public, Charles is the perfect Christian prince. He is the one who had so passionately declared his desire for peace before the Pope a few years earlier than the events dramatized in Lope's play: 'Que quiero paz, que quiero paz, que quiero paz' (I want peace! I want peace! I want peace!).28 Behind the scenes, the Emperor reveals a more violent temper, as he readily admits his desire to challenge a boastful German soldier to a duel: 'I would have challenged him to a duel / Unto the death'. On that occasion Lope characterises Charles in a true-to-life manner, as the Emperor had in fact challenged Francis I to single combat in his speech before the Pope. I rather doubt that any self-respecting Spaniard at the corral performance would have missed the possible joke here that alludes to that very same 'peace, peace, peace' speech in Rome where an exasperated Charles provided three possible issues for the secular conflict between France and Spain: continued war, a negotiated peace, or a personal duel between the two monarchs, the choice of place, time, and arms being left to the French king.

The French are not badly treated in this play, they are neither severely mocked nor beaten; at worst they are submitted to some goading by the comic character Pacheco. The wrath of the Spaniards, as represented by Pacheco, falls rather surprisingly on a German mercenary who perhaps for many playwrights, theatregoers, statesmen, and kings, had the most to lose from any lasting peace treaty: after all, no war, no sword for hire. There might indeed be some form of criticism levelled at those people that sell their sword to the highest bidder, whereas others (the French and the Spanish soldiers of our play) fight and are willing to lay down their lives pro patria and not for base pecuniary reasons. Our German friend would probably have found some pleasure in the knowledge that this hard-to-come-by peace treaty lasted only four of the ten years initially provided in the agreement, as the French once more broke their word, making for another costly and bloody Italian war between these two larger-than-life monarchs.

I briefly mentioned, at the beginning of this article, the awkward love story that does not seem to fit in with the political context of the rest of the action. The mad and hopeless love that Leonor professes for the Emperor, who remains adamant against her pleas, might just symbolically represent the search for peace that Charles had such a hard time acquiring, but for which he publicly strove. He is constant in his rejection of her repeatedly aggressive 'love', just as he states being constant in his rejection of war. Elaine Bunn finds an explanation for the Leonor plot that seems a rather protracted loose end in the play: 'As a native of Italy she represents disputed territory, and later as madwoman, her proximity to and defiance of the Emperor trivializes and humanizes the very serious political straggle between the monarchs'.29 Bunn, followed by Capique Schneider, posits that ' Leonor's railing against the Spanish monarch's excessive ambition would have struck a chord in the hearts of the contemporary audiences'.30 Her first assertion is flawed in that Leonor is not desired by Charles V, and is unequivocally rejected. As stated earlier she is used as a fairly well-informed source of details for Charles's numerous military campaigns. If the Emperor is unmoved by her advances, Francis has even less to do with her, and the play never allows for the amorous triangulation of the traditional comedia plots, often consisting in a woman desired by two men, an element that, were it present, would lend weight to Bunn's hypothesis. As regards the second idea, the Spanish audience of the time probably had less direct knowledge of Charles's overabundant spending. In the event that it was common knowledge, it probably had less importance than his aura as one of the country's great kings, as Holy Roman Emperor, and monarch of the new overseas possessions both in Africa and in America. Leonor is aggressive, and Charles rejects aggression and eventually finds a solution for the problem, whilst maintaining his regal calm and chastity. If anything, in his reaction to the impulsive Leonor, Charles puts himself well above human nature as an example to be followed by his less scrupulous grandson Philip III. The two kings could not be compared, as one of them builds an empire whilst the latter heralds the beginning of Spanish decline. The analogies then between the search for peace in the subplot and in the main plot are rather superficial, and Bunn's arguments remain essentially unconvincing.

Conclusion

As the world of the comedia nueva would lead us to expect, the play ends happily with an acclamation of the treaty and the yearning for a long-lasting peace. Everybody in the playhouse was aware of the fragile nature of the treaty, since it was well-known history. The ink was barely dry when the first blood began to ran again in the battlefields of Italy, as the various skirmishes in the play had seemed to foreshadow from the beginning. All the trappings, political and diplomatic language, could not prevent the renewal of hostilities that provided ongoing inspiration for generations of dramatists. Lope de Vega's play, written when peace with some very old enemies such as England and France was at last achieved, offers the audience a degree of information concerning past conflicts. It also gives a view of peace-seeking Spanish monarchs, both respected and feared in Europe, who sought, at least in their rhetoric, to make war only when compelled to or when they believed it to be justified.

As the very audience of the play in the Madrid playhouses was probably made up of the people who had financially contributed to the war effort, and whose male members had perhaps even participated in various wars, the representation of Spanish bravery and of Spanish intentions favouring a lasting peace must have profoundly stirred the hearts of all spectators. One might even suggest that Lope de Vega, as a veteran soldier, wrote the play bearing in mind his own military experiences in the years when Spain enjoyed its first peace in his own lifetime, and that both playwright and audiences wanted to believe in the possibility that the new century was starting off in a direction that seemed to bode well for the nation - even if the treaty between Francis and Charles had not lasted long. Carlos V en Francia certainly seeks to show regal efforts to broker peace.

Leadership is paramount as the two sovereigns, relying on their force of character, control belligerent elements and violent actions. Francis I rescues the reckless Pacheco from his soldiers' wrath, Charles rewards the brutal Bisanzón. Nobles are drawn into the general brotherly relationship that can be best symbolised by the naval meeting. The trust shown by Francis in approaching Charles and his court unarmed is matched by the munificence of Charles's welcome. They are role models to be followed. Although history had, without a shadow of a doubt, informed the Spanish playgoers that what they were witnessing - the beginning of the ten-year truce between two warrior kings - had been short-lived, Lope decides to end his play with the optimistic treaty, rather than with the truth of renewed hostilities. Even if war makes for good drama and although the play features violent skirmishes, Lope shuns war in order to concentrate on the well-meaning peace efforts in a play. Carlos V en Francia was certainly in tune with its time when old enemies buried the hatchet and took some time off from their territorial ambitions in order to broker a truce and enjoy what was supposed to be a long-standing period of tranquillity and peace.

Footnote

1 A term based on the Greek words for 'wall' and 'see': it means literally 'to see from the wall or over the wall'. The technique consists in a character describing from the stage events that take place off stage and that thus remain unseen to other characters and public alike.

2 See Guerra y paz en la comedia española. XXIX Jornadas de teatro clásico de Almagro, 4-6 July 2006, ed. by Felipe B. Pedraza, Rafael González Cañal and Elena Marcello (Almagro: Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, 2007). See also Rafael Valladares, Teatro en la guerra: imágenes de principes y restauración de Portugal (Badajoz: Diputación de Badajoz, 2002), David García Hernán, La cultura de guerra y el teatro en el Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Sílex, 2006), and Walter Cohen, Drama of a Nation: Public Theater in Renaissance England and Spain (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1982).

3 About the war in Flanders, Alexander Samson points out: 'hubo una plaga de obras de teatro sobre Flandes' ('there was a plague of plays concerning Flanders'), p. 123. He goes on to list up to ten comedias in which the war is depicted. See Alexander Samson, '¿Rebeldes o luchadores por la libertad?; Los amotinados de F I andes', in La leyenda negra en el crisol de la comedia. El teatro del Siglo de Oro frente a los estereotipos antihispánicos, ed. by Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez and Antonio Sánchez Jiménez (Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2016), pp. 121-39.

4 See for example Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla's El desafío de Carlos Quinto, composed around 1634 according to Oscar García Fernández, 'Estudio, anotación y edición crítica de El desafío de Carlos Quinto de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla', doctoral dissertation (León: Universidad de León, 2016); or later José de Cañizares' Carlos Quinto sobre Túnez (Valencia: Joseph de Orga, 1770).

5 See Aurelio González, 'El cautiverio: historia y construcción dramática. Cervantes y Lope', in Tiempo e historia en el teatro del Siglo de Oro: Actas selectas del XVI Congreso Internacional, ed. Rouane, Soupault and Meunier (Aix-en-Pro vence: Presses universitaires de Provence, 2015): <http://books.openedition.org/pup/4551>]

6 The play has attracted much attention. For a recent contribution, see Cyril Mérique, 'L'exaltation d'une figure historique au théâtre : le général Spinola dans El sitio de Bredá de Calderón de la Barca', Les Cahiers de Framespa, 19 (2015): https://journals.openedition.org/framespa/3385

7 See for example Désirée Pérez Fernández, 'Una guerra sobre las tablas: Los amotinados de Flandes, de Luis Vélez de Guevara', in Guerra y paz, pp. 87-104.

8 See Jorge Checa, 'El asalto de Mastrique-. Lope de Vega y la 'Communitas' militar', Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 58.2 (2010), pp. 583-617.

9 Cohen, p. 224.

10 Ibid, pp. 122-3.

11 As regards political treatises in which the delicate theme of tyranicide was considered, for example, especially during the reign of Phillip III, see Francisco Javier Burguillo, 'De la interpretación política a la lectura cultural en los dramas españoles de la generación de 1580', Romanistisches Jarhbuch (2011), 354-79 (pp. 378-79).

12 Historical accuracy has been studied by Araceli Guillaume-Alonso in her well-documented article 'Historicité et dramaturgie dans Carlos V en Francia de Lope de Vega': 'Ce qui frappe, c'est la connaissance qu'avait Lope de tous ces faits, tels qu'ils sont rapportés dans les chroniques' [Lope de Vega's knowledge of all these events, as described in the chronicles, is admirable], in Charles Quint et la monarchie universelle, cd. by Annie Molinié-Bertrand and Jean-Paul Duviols (Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2001), pp. 126-44 (p. 131).

13 In Elaine Bunn's words, 'an august cast of historical figures', in 'Negotiating Empire and Desire in Lope de Vega's Carlos V en Francia", Hispanic Review, 71.2 (2004), pp. 29-42 (p. 29).

14 There seems to be little doubt that Lope de Vega is talking about the poet here. Luc Capique Schneider seems to harbour no doubts about the character's identity: 'Estudio introductorio y edición de Carlos V en Francia de Lope de Vega', doctoral dissertation (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra and Pau: Université de Pau et des Pays de 1'Adour, 2014), p. 6. Even though he had died two years before the events depicted in the play, Garcilaso somehow symbolizes the losses of the Spanish crown in its interminable struggle with the French in the Italian wars. It was too good an opportunity to miss by Lope who, like any other Golden Age writer, greatly admired Garcilaso's verses. Lope places Garcilaso in the action, even though it is no more than a cameo appearance, as one of the most well-known protagonists of these wars, as a homage to the dead poet, and as a poke at the French, slayers of one of Spain's finest writers. Guillaume-Alonso speaks of homonymy and of the possibility of the audience establishing little difference between the dead poet and the character bearing the same name in Lope's drama (p. 131). If such is the case one might suppose that we are in fact to take the character as the original Garcilaso and not just another homonymous character. What would be the point of depicting another 'Garcilaso', not the poet himself, on stage, only two years after the poet's death? José Elias Gutierrez Meza criticises scholars condemning Calderon de la Barca's historical inaccuracy: 'Calderón parece hacerse eco [in La aurora en Copacabana] del deslinde entre poesía e historia. Su obligación no es escribir la historia, sino poetizarla' [Calderón seems to echo the separation between poetry and history. He is not obliged to write history, but rather to render it poetic], La aurora de Copacabana (una comedia sobre el Perú), ed. by José Elias Gutiérrez Meza, Biblioteca Aurea Hispánica, 119 (Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2018), p. 34.

15 Guillaume-Alonso, 'Estudio introductorio y edición de Carlos Ven Francia de Lope de Vega', p. 130.

16 Lope de Vega, Carlos V en Francia, ed. by Arnold G. Reichenberger (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), p. 9; My translation (I have tried, not always successfully, to translate the varying Spanish verse forms into standard decasyllabic verse). Hereafter I shall cite the text giving act and verse numbers after the Spanish original.

17 Lope de Vega, Arte Nuevo de hacer comedias, ed. by Evangelina Rodríguez (Madrid, Castalia, 2011), p. 324,11. 269-70.

18 'Hallándose medios y seguridades conuenientes para la paz, no dexaremos de ponernos por nuestra parte en todo dener y justificación, como lo tenemos offresęido, pero las cosas están ya tan adelante que no se tiene mucha sperança della, y assy hazemos dar gran diligencia en todas las prouisiones necesarias para la guerra, y ya son baxados de Alemana y están en el camino de Milán otros quatro mili alemanes y se vsará delia en todo lo demás que es menester, para hallarnos proueydo como conuiene'. The text can be found in Manuel Fernández Alvarez (ed.), Corpus documental de Carlos V: vol. I (1516-1539) (Salamanca, CSIC/Universidad de Salamanca/Fundación Juan March, 1973), p. 492.

19 Rather strangely, the deranged woman who courts Charles gives an account of the Emperor's military successes (II. 1632-59).

20 Sebastián de Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, ed. Ignacio Arellano and Rafael Zafra (Madrid/Francfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2006). Interestingly enough, in the play the word is also associated with Protestantism: 'los / tudescos hereges' (lines 13 and 14 of the conditions set out in prose of the peace treaty following lines 657).

21 The battle took place on 24 February 1525.

22 'Estando el Emperador en Granada supo cómo el rey de Francia había hecho en París un acto solemne en que los del su Parlamento o Consejo daban por nula la concordia que el rey había hecho en Madrid, atento que la hizo estando preso y sin libertad, y que así no era obligado a la cumplir', Prudencio de Sandoval, Historia de la vida y hechos del Emperador Carlos V, máximo, fortisimo rey de España y de las Indias, Islas y Tierra Firme del mar Océano (1614), Book 15, chap. 8. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/historia-de-la-vida-v-hechos-del-emperador-carlos-v-2/

23 Juan Ochoa de Salde, referring to a battle in 1524 around Pavia, where there were German mercenaries on both sides, speaks of 'Tudescos de insolente condición' (Germans of an insolent nature), a perfect description of Bisanzón's attitude. See Primera parte de la Carolea Inchiridon, que trata de la Vida y hechos del invictissimo emperador Carlos Quinto de este nombre y de muchas cosas notables en ella sucedida hasta 1555 (Lisbon, n. pr., 1585), fol. 138r.

24 Charles had earlier ordered that Pacheco be hanged for fighting against the French (I. 191). It seems to be a running joke in the play.

25 Francis had alluded to his captivity about one hundred verses earlier (v. 892), an allusion repeated in a veiled manner by Memoranse a few lines later: 'Señor, ¿qué dizes? Mira no te lieben / otra vez donde...' [What are you saying, Sire? Take heed in case / you're taken once again where...] (I. 925-6). Four references in the first act to Francis's imprisonment seem to be quite heavy-handed and one must consider that, as with the repeated threat to execute Pacheco, this historical event proved comic to the audience, although its dramatic uses were undoubtedly multiple.

26 On the symbolic importance of hands in truce-making and peace-making, see Jeanne Mathieu's and Nathalie Rivère de Carles's articles in this issue.

27 See for example, Juan Ochoa de la Salde: 'Tratándose por la muerte de Maximiliano en Alemana hazer nueuo Emperador, nasció grande conpetencia con el Rey de Francia, procurando corromper por dinero los electores' (After the death of Maximilian, when a new Emperor had to be found, a great rivalry arose with the King of France, who sought to bribe the electors), fol. 99v. In Ochoa's description of the 1525 battle of Pavia, he praises Francis I's valour on the battlefield, fols. 145 and following. Pedro Girón (in a text prior to 1543) spites Francis I's rather reprehensible attitude: 'Y si el Rey de Francia, pues tiene nombre de Cristianíssimo, considerara esto más cristianamente, más justo fuera aceptar las condiciones de paz tan justas, y el Ducado de Milán para Mosior de Angulema, su hijo, que el Emperador le offrecie el año pasado de treinta y seis, que no llamar al Turco, enemigo de su Dios y de su fe y de su Iglesia por defendedor en tanta mengua de su autoridad y en tanto daño de su ánima' [And if the King of France, since he is called most Christian, thought about the matter in a more Christian manner, he would find that it was more fitting to accept the conditions for a peace treaty, and the Duchy of Milan for his son Monsieur ď Angouleme, proposed by the Emperor in the year thirty six, rather than calling the Turk to his side, that enemy of his God, and of his Faith, and of his Church, in detriment of his own authority and producing such harm to his soul] Crónica del Emperador Carlos V, ed. by Juan Sánchez Montes (Madrid, CSIC, 1964), pp. 113-14.

28 Most of the speech is published in Alfred Morel-Fatio, 'L'espagnol langue universelle', Bulletin Hispanique 15.2 (1913), 207-25. See also the Cervantes virtual website for full text: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/bib/historia/CarlosV/9 l 3 .shtml

29 Elaine Bunn, 'Negotiating Empire and Desire in Lope De Vega's Carlos Ven Francia', Hispanic Review 72.1 (2004), 29-42 (p. 30).

30 Luc Capique Schneider, 'Estudio introductorio y edición de Carlos V en Francia de Lope de Vega', p. 48 and following; Bunn, 'Negotiating Empire' (pp. 36-7).