Esta tesis doctoral analiza la evolución urbanística de Santander, Laredo, Castro Urdiales y San Vicente de la Barquera, relacionándola con el desarrollo de la arquitectura civil y religiosa de la Edad Moderna. Este trabajo, que abarca los siglos XVI, XVII y primera mitad del XVIII, completa la visión indiviudalizada que hasta ahota existía del desarrollo urbanístico y de la arquitectura de la cada una de las Cuatro Villas de la Costa de la Mar, principales centros urbanos de la Cantabria de la Edad Moderna. Nuestro estudio pretende mostrar una visión global y comparativa de las Cuatro Villas y no una sucesión de la realidad urbanística de cada una de ellas, exponiendo los aspectos comunes y diferenciadores que caracterizaron la evolución de sus infraestructuras y de su arquitectura. El análisis de la arquitectura y de la esctructura urbana trata de ir más allá de cuestiones meramente estilísticas y morfológicas, deteniéndose en aspectos sociales, políticos y económicos, poniendo así de manifiesto los motivos o decisiones que se encontraban detrás de cada construcción o intervención urbnística. / This doctoral thesis shows the evolution of Santander, Laredo, Castro Urdiales and San Vicente de la Barquera urban structure, bearing in mind the development in civil and religious architecture during Modern Age. The study, which includes XVI, XVII and first half of XVIII Century, completes a singled knowledge that until now existed about town planning and architecture of each of Cuatro Villas de la Costa, main urban centres in Cantabria during the Early Modern Age.It shows a global and comparative sight of Cuatro Villas, showing common and different elements which typified the evolution of their infrastructure and architecture, moving away from a stylistic and morphological analysis, and showing social-economical, political and cultural questions that could be found behind of each building or urban control.

This thesis transcribes and translates the war correspondence of King Philip II from the year 1592. The original manuscripts are held at the Harold B. Lee Library in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections (Brigham Young University, Provo, UT). The original manuscripts have been diplomatically transcribed meaning that the transcription respects the original orthography, accentuation, abbreviations, and word divisions. For easy comparison, a facsimile of each manuscript has been provided and appears before its corresponding transcription. The translation strategy used is a modified version of a “fluent translation” as described by Lawrence Venuti. Instead of removing all foreign aspects of the source language (Spanish), some political and monetary terms have been borrowed because of a lack of a cultural and lexical equivalent in the target language (English). The definitions of these words have been provided at the end of the translation section. Also provided is a brief history about Philip II and his rise to being king of Spain along with his political ideologies and policies towards the Netherlands and England. This biography provides the historical context to better understand the content of the letters and their impact on history.