The war of words over the rocky outcrop is only the latest spat in 500 years of squabbling between the two countries

Brexit began in 1527. It was, in essence, a spat with Spain. The man responsible for this dramatic and deeply unsettling change in Britain’s constitution was a fat, childish and overindulged English monarch called Henry VIII, who became obsessed by something we might call “control”.

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Henry seemed like a jolly chap. He liked music, drank beer, danced a good jig and also liked women – although he was somewhat scared of them, which explains why he chopped off their heads. He came from an England with big ideas about itself, but which was essentially in decline. It had lost most of its territory in France and, in comparison to bold and dynamic Spain, was decidedly puny.

The Columbus family had tried but failed to interest the Tudors in exploring the Atlantic Ocean and backing a venture that would change the next 500 years of world history. But the Tudors were inward-looking, insular types. Instead, a female Spanish monarch – Isabella of Castile – backed Christopher Columbus. The next two centuries of European history, and the first global empire on which the sun did not set, belonged to Spain – “which, to say truly, is a beam of glory,” as Francis Bacon later observed.

It is not surprising that the insecure Tudors were thrilled when Isabella’s daughter, Catherine of Aragon, arrived in England as a young bride-to-be. It meant that they had managed a tie-up with the great Spanish royal family. Whereas England was in retreat, Spain was widely admired as a nation of plucky fighters who had just conquered the Muslim kingdom of Granada.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Henry VIII, as painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Photograph: De Agostini/Getty Images

Henry VIII’s first major decision as monarch was to marry Catherine, who was his brother Arthur’s widow, and maintain the Spanish alliance. But Henry also saw himself as a manly man – and one who needed another man to reign after him. Catherine, however, failed to produced a son.

Henry thought he was cleverer than those in charge of the great European union of the time. This was known as Christendom and was run from a foreign capital by the pope. Most importantly, England had recognised for centuries that the senior court for matters such as divorce also lay in Rome. A self-deluding Henry thought he could out-argue Catherine, but she was smarter and stronger. Henry was always going to lose, but the absurdly high esteem in which he held both himself and English history made him blind to this. In the end, Catharine won the argument and the pope refused him a divorce. A petulant Henry cursed wretched foreigners and launched his own Brexit by leaving the church of Rome. Bloodshed followed as the English turned on one another and squabbled over the country’s new, non-European identity.

While Spain swam in wealth from South America, it took Britain centuries to achieve global prominence. Only bad weather helped it avert a true disaster when the Spanish armada tried to invade in 1588. Eventually, however, England grew and spoiled Spain went into decline. In 1704, a combined Dutch-English force took Gibraltar – a barren rock of limited material value, but one that provided a key strategic port at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.

Spain’s decline coincided with Britain’s rise, but they were united by a hatred of the French. When Napoleon’s troops invaded and the brave Spaniards turned on his troops, inventing guerrilla warfare, Britain sent an army to help. Wellington achieved handsome victories in what became known as the war of independence in Spain and the peninsula war in Britain. Drunken British troops murdered or raped much of the population of Badajoz and gained a reputation for heroic, foolish failure at Corunna (now La Coruña). But Spain was glad to win the war and, with the exception of Gibraltar, largely remained a friend. Wellington walked away with a lot of great paintings – especially by Velazquez – but cultured Spain had lots more, and greater painters than England, so it did not really miss them.

Things were mostly rosy from then on. British mining companies showed the Spaniards how to play soccer – and they learned well. The only real black spot was that a cowardly Britain stood by in the 1930s and allowed Hitler and Mussolini to help General Franco win the Spanish civil war, pushing it into dictatorship and encouraging Nazi Germany to launch the second world war. Many Britons died as a result, while Spanish republicans (the same people Britain had refused to help) volunteered to fight the Nazis and were the first to enter Paris.

There was, however, one major problem. General Franco wanted Gibraltar. He closed the frontier for many years, bringing suffering to the poor people of Gibraltar and preventing the Royal Navy from sneaking over the border for tapas. The rest of the world generally agreed that this was an absurd spat. What sort of people would get belligerent over Gibraltar?

Of all the big countries in Europe, Spain is now the one most enamoured of Britain. It wants a soft Brexit. It owns British banks, tolerates drunken tourists and is happy to have large populations of English people who do not speak its language – some of them undocumented, so much like illegal immigrants – on its coasts. It is, in other words, highly tolerant. But it still wants Gibraltar.

This does not mean it is about to invade. In fact, all it wants is a veto on future deals between Gibraltar and the EU. Thanks to Brexit, it now has that. Sensible Gibraltarians knew the risk – and voted massively to stay in the EU. The suggestion that all this might now get out of hand and that gunboats should be used is a purely British one. Which seems as absurd now as Franco’s decisions to close the border did back then.

Giles Tremlett is the author of Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen, published by Bloomsbury