Battle of Pamplona, battle on May 20, 1521, during the war between France and the Hapsburgs from 1521 to 1526. Spain, part of the Habsburg Empire, had conquered part of Navarre in 1512, but in 1521 it rebelled with French backing. The Navarrese captured Pamplona by defeating the Spanish garrison, which included Iñigo López de Loyola, now better known asIgnatius of Loyola, who subsequently founded the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuit order.
Navarre, an ancient Basque realm, had straddled the Pyrenees until Spain conquered the Iberian part of the kingdom in 1512. Henry d’Albret—the son of the last king of Navarre before the Spanish annexation—was eager to reclaim his lands. When war between France and Spain started in 1521, Henry crossed the Pyrenees with a strong French army. This ignited revolt across Spanish Navarre.
The most important position was Pamplona, the capital of Navarre. When the town rose up, with assistance from the French army, the Spanish governor wanted to surrender immediately. Loyola—a Basque soldier who had more than a decade of military experience—opposed this, arguing that the garrison should attempt to hold out. The Spanish retreated to the citadel of the fortress, where a Franco-Navarrese force besieged their position. On May 20, after a six-hour bombardment, a cannonball severely wounded Loyola as he patrolled the ramparts. Ricocheting off a thick stone wall, it passed through his legs, badly wounding the left one and shattering the right. Shortly afterward, the defenders surrendered and Pamplona was lost.
After being cared for by French doctors for several weeks, Loyola was allowed to return home. During his convalescence, he underwent a religious conversion and wrote a manual called Spiritual Exercises, eventually founding the soldierly Jesuit order, and, after his death, being canonized as Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Spain was able to reverse its setback after Pamplona and recapture the southern part of Navarre that year, with the kingdom north of the Pyrenees only enduring as a French client state.
Losses: Unknown.