Peace of Cateau-Cambresis

April 3, 1559

After sixty years of Habsburg-Valois war in Italy, France and Spain signed a peace at Cateau-Cambresis. France renounced its Italian claims; Spain confirmed its grip on Milan, Naples, and Sicily. The Italian Wars were over, and Spanish hegemony over Italy would last for a century and a half. Henry II's accidental death at the peace tournament plunged France into Catherine de Medici's regency and religious civil war.