15 November
Admiral Leake relieves Gibraltar
28 November
Allies capture Landau
20 December
Allies take Trarbach
1705
20 March
Second relief of Gibraltar by Leake
5 May
Death of Emperor Leopold I of Austria. Emperor Joseph I succeeds his father
10 June
French capture Huy
11 July
Allies re-take Huy
18 July
French defeated in battle at Elixheim
18 August
Abortive allied attempt to attack the French at the Yssche stream
22 August
Allied forces land in eastern Spain
6 September
Allies capture Leau
14 October
Barcelona captured by allies. Carlos III proclaimed.
December
Allies occupy Valencia
1706
6 January
French capture Nice
3 April
French besiege Barcelona
22 May
Barcelona relieved of French siege by a naval squadron
23 May
French defeated at battle of Ramillies
28 May
French abandon Brussels
17 June
Antwerp taken by allies
23 June
Allies occupy Cartagena
27 June
Anglo-Portuguese army enters Madrid
9 July
Ostend captured by allies.
Peace proposal tentatively made by Louis XIV
4 August
Allies evacuate Madrid
22 August
Menin captured by allies
7 September
French defeated at the battle of Turin
8 September
Alicante captured by allies
13 September
Majorca and Ibiza occupied by Anglo-Dutch forces
24 September
Charles XII of Sweden invades Saxony
11 November
Franco-Spanish forces re-take Cartagena
1707
1 January
King Pedro II of Portugal dies, succeeded by John V
13 February
France and Austria agree to de-militarise northern Italy
25 April
Allies defeated at Almanza in Spain
22 May
Lines of Stollhofen on the Rhine stormed by the French.
Marshal Villars raids southern Germany
July
Imperial troops occupy Naples
22 August
Allied attempt to take Toulon fails
4 October
Ciudad Rodrigo captured from Portuguese
14 November
Lerida captured by French and Spanish forces
1708
16 April
Allies surrender Alicante
30 April
Imperial troops under von Starhemberg arrive in Catalonia
May
Jacobite invasion of Scotland fails
5 July
French capture Bruges
7 July
French seize Ghent
11 July
French defeated at the battle of Oudenarde
August
Confidential peace negotiations opened
11 August
Sardinia occupied by the allies
29 August
Minorca captured by the allies
August–
December
Allied siege of Lille
28 September
French defeat at battle of Wynendael
18 November
Denia capitulates to French forces
9 December
Citadel of Lille captured by allies
1709
2 January
Allies recapture Ghent and Bruges
February
Charles XII attacks Russia
9 April
Louis XIV declares intention to remove troops from Spain
7 May
Allies defeated at battle of Caya/Val Gudina in Portugal
May
Louis XIV agrees allied terms for peace, apart from one clause
July
Charles XII defeated at Poltava in Russia
3 September
Tournai captured by allies
11 September
Battle of Malplaquet
20 October
Mons taken by the allies
29 October
First Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty agreed
1710
25 June
Allies capture Douai
27 July
Allied victory at battle of Almenara
20 August
Allied victory at battle of Saragossa
28 August
Bethune captured by the allies
September
Carlos III enters Madrid
29 September
Allies capture St Venant
8 November
Aire taken by the allies
9 December
British army defeated at Brihuega.
Philip V re-enters Madrid
10 December
Franco-Spanish success at battle of Villaviciosa
1711
25 January
Gerona captured by Franco-Spanish forces
14 April
Death of the Dauphin of France
17 April
Death of Emperor Joseph, succeeded by his brother Archduke Charles (Carlos III/Charles VI)
7 August
Lines of Non Plus Ultra breached by Marlborough
14 September
Capture of Bouchain by the allies
22 September
Archduke Charles leaves Barcelona – elected as Emperor Charles VI
8 October
Preliminary Articles for Peace agreed between France and Great Britain
31 December
O.S.)
Marlborough dismissed by Queen Anne
1712
12 January
Congress for a peace opened at Utrecht
8 February
Death of the Duc de Bourgogne
21 May
Restraining Orders issued to the Duke of Ormonde
4 July
Le Quesnoy captured by the allies
16 July
British troops removed from active operations
24 July
Allied troops defeated at Denain by the French
30 July
French capture Marchiennes
2 August
Allies fail to capture Landrecies
8 September
French re-capture Douai
2 October
Hostilities suspended in Spain
3 October
Le Quesnoy re-taken by the French
19 October
French re-capture Bouchain
2 November
Philip V renounces any claim to the French throne
3 November
Hostilities suspended in Portugal
1713
30 January
Second Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty agreed
11 April
Treaty of Utrecht agreed between France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy
May
French re-capture Landau
26 June
Holland concludes Treaty of Utrecht
9 July
Barcelona declares support for King Carlos III
13 July
Anglo-Spanish Treaty agreed
1714
6 March
Treaty of Rastadt agreed between France and Austria
26 June
Treaty agreed between Holland and Spain
1 August
Death of Queen Anne, accession of King George I
18 Se
ptember
Treaty of Baden agreed between France and the Austrian Empire.
Barcelona taken by Franco-Spanish forces under Berwick
1715
6 February
Treaty agreed between Spain and Portugal
1 September
Death of Louis XIV, succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV (as a minor)
15 November
Barrier Treaty agreed between Holland, France and Austria
Map 1: Spain in the early eighteenth century.
Chapter 1
This is the King of Spain
‘He lingered till November 1700.’1
In November 1659, long before the ill-health of an invalid king in Madrid became the matter for international concern, peace had come to the warring nations of France and Spain with the conclusion of the Treaty of the Pyrenees; this welcome event coincided with an agreement for the marriage of the young French King, Louis XIV, and the Spanish Infanta Maria-Theresa, the eldest daughter of King Philip IV. The details of both the treaty and the marriage were confirmed and ratified at Toulouse and Madrid at the end of the same month. As a part of the marriage settlement. Maria-Theresa renounced any claim she or any children she bore might have to succeed to the Spanish throne, receiving in recognition of this renunciation a dowry set at the fabulous sum of 500,000 gold crowns, all to be paid within eighteen months of the date of the marriage. The royal couple were married on 9 June 1660, at Bayonne close to the Franco-Spanish border. Within twelve months, Louis XIV was sounding opinion in Madrid whether the renunciation of the succession to the throne was valid, and in particular that any child or grandchild of Maria-Theresa might, despite the explicit terms of the marriage settlement, be eligible. Philip IV proved incapable of paying the huge dowry for his daughter, which might well have been expected, and this gave Louis XIV the excuse he needed to embark on a course of territorial aggrandisement at the expense of Spain. It also could be argued, just, that the failure to pay the money made the renunciations in the marriage settlement ineligible, but this was a weak and highly debateable point, as the renunciations had not been dependent upon actual payment of the huge dowry. The seeds of future trouble had, however, been sown.
An heir to the Spanish throne was born to Philip IV and his Austrian-born second wife Marie-Ann, on 6 November 1661, and was named Carlos, a sickly and weak child from the start who was not expected to live all that long. Louis XIV, meanwhile, embarked on a war to seize Spanish territory in the Low Countries, claiming his wife’s ‘rights’ and unpaid dowry in the matter as rather spurious justification for his aggression. The king also concluded a confidential treaty with Emperor Leopold I of Austria who, like Louis XIV, was a grandson of Philip III of Spain. They would divide the Spanish inheritance and empire should, as widely anticipated, the young Spanish king, who had succeeded his father in 1665 at the tender age of four, not live long or be survived by an heir of his own. In effect, the treaty terms allowed for the emperor to succeed to the Spanish throne, together with the Spanish-held territories in Italy and the Indies, while Louis XIV would gain the southern Netherlands for France. In this way, the French king had no fear of renewed Habsburg encirclement such as had been achieved by Emperor Charles V many years before; he would, however, have gained extensive new territories in Flanders, Brabant, Guelders and Luxembourg. Understandably, Spanish opinion in the matter was not taken into account, and the whole arrangement was spoiled when Carlos II lived on much longer than had been thought likely. Diplomatic tensions, and intermittent wars waged by Louis XIV in order to expand his territories on the north-eastern borders of France, complicated the scene, and in growing concern the emperor sought the aid of England and Holland, the Maritime Powers as they were known, to counterbalance growing French power and influence.
William of Orange, the Dutch Stadtholder, replaced James II as King of England in 1688, becoming by Act of Parliament William III and ruling with his wife Mary, the elder daughter of the exiled king. The following year, England and Holland agreed to guarantee that Emperor Leopold should succeed Carlos II if he had no heir. The emperor’s position was strengthened by the marriage in that same year of his sister-in-law, Maria Ana of Neuburg, to the feeble Spanish king, but ruinously expensive war came to western Europe in 1689, which trundled aimlessly on and was only brought to a tired end with the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. In the process, an apparently neat solution to the tricky problem of the succession had been devised by Louis XIV and his old opponent, William III, without, it should be said once again, consulting the Spanish nobility or their people on a matter of such importance to them. A Partition Treaty, one element of the negotiations to bring an end to the Nine Years War, was agreed between France, Holland and England in September 1698, and provided that the young son of the Elector of Bavaria, Joseph-Ferdinand Wittelsbach, should succeed to the throne in Madrid once Carlos was in his grave. The electoral prince was the grandson of Emperor Leopold I, who would be expected to set aside his own claim and that of his immediate family, as would Louis XIV and his own son and three grandsons. Joseph-Ferdinand was, in effect, a neutral choice, being the grandson of Carlos II’s younger sister, Margareta-Theresa, who had been the first wife of Emperor Leopold. In this way, by putting Joseph-Ferdinand on the throne once it became vacant it was intended that neither Imperial Austria or France would gain too great an accretion of power.
The French king’s eldest son, the Dauphin, born of Carlos II’s older half-sister Maria-Theresa, would receive Sicily, Naples and certain Italian territories, and Archduke Charles of Austria, the emperor’s younger son by his second wife, would get Luxembourg and the Milanese region in northern Italy, as compensation for any disappointed hopes they may have. England and Holland would have better trading rights in the wide Spanish Empire of the Indies; the French king wrote to the Comte de Tallard, his ambassador in London:
I have examined with great attention all the problems that one could foresee either by suspending the negotiations with the King of England or concluding them. The first seems to me to be the greater [danger]. In breaking with that Prince we should indirectly decide to force him to enter relations with Bavaria, and the other princes of the Empire … it would be easy for him to draw out their ideas and treaties could be signed during his stay in Holland.2
Louis XIV wanted no more wars with powerful coalitions, the experience of the hard years between 1688 to 1697 had made him wary, and in any case his treasury would probably not bear renewed conflict. ‘When one begins a war’ he added ‘one does not know the finish.’ By this treaty of partition, judiciously arrived at but without reference to the Spanish king and nobility, England and Holland also hoped to avert complications which could arise from whatever Carlos II might do about the inheritance. In this way, a new king acceptable to both Versailles and Vienna, and to the Maritime Powers, would be on the throne, and the Spanish Empire would be divided on terms which might in a favourable light be seen as being equitable between the rival parties.
Emperor Leopold was ill at ease when he learned of what was intended, recalling his earlier agreement with William III, and believing that far too much was being given away without reference to him. Equally unhappy were the Spanish nobility, whose firm intent was that the empire should not be divided at all, certainly not at the wish of foreign rulers more concerned with their own interests than those of Spain. Accordingly, on 14 November 1698, Carlos II signed and declared a new will, leaving the throne to young Joseph-Ferdinand of Bavaria on his death, together with the Spanish Empire in its entirety. This declaration had a logic that defied argument and plainly had legitimacy, certainly more so than what had been proposed under the recently concluded Partition Treaty. A sensible and workable solution, it seemed, had been reached by the Spanish monarch without reference to the opinions of the other powers in western Europe.
All might yet have been well, for despite the emperor’s ill-feeling over the issue it seemed unlikely that he could over-turn the will, either by negotiati
on of by force, and Austria, with many distractions in eastern Europe, would not go to war over the issue without the active participation of firm allies. Then fate intervened dramatically, and the young Bavarian prince, heir now to the vast Spanish Empire, suddenly caught smallpox while visiting the Spanish Netherlands where his father was governor-general, and died on 6 February 1699. Dark suspicions were raised at this unexpected and curious turn of events, perhaps so fortunate for Austrian hopes of gaining the throne in Madrid, but nothing could be proved, and there it was. A convenient solution to a thorny problem had now passed by, and the whole matter was again alive and would soon trouble Europe for another fifteen years.
Once more Louis XIV and William III were active over the question, and a second Partition Treaty, agreed on 11 June 1699, named the young Archduke Charles of Austria, second son of the emperor, as heir to the throne, as long as Spain was never to be united with the Empire. The Dauphin of France would receive Sicily, Naples and the Milanese as recompense for setting aside his own claim. Typically, Emperor Leopold, despite the glittering offer for his young son, was still reluctant to agree, concerned at such a growth in French power and influence in Italy, and he perversely refused to ratify the new treaty, England, France and Holland doing so alone on 25 March 1700, No amount of persuasion by England and Holland would move him, as his mind was set on gaining territories in Italy. ‘Our condition would be very wretched if we were to give France what she asks.’3 In this respect Leopold might be thought that he had played his hand high and that he lost equally high, for the terms were patently generous to Austria, which for the moment was not in conflict with the Ottoman Turks, and the prospect of war with France loomed as a result of his stubborn stand, but all that was yet to be seen with any clarity. The French king was alert to the danger, and he noted that an offer that had been made to his distant cousin Duke Victor-Amadeus II of Savoy, to transfer certain territories around Nice on the border with France and receive in their place the Duchy of Milan, had not been accepted. The duke could also advance a claim to the throne in Madrid based on his grandmother, the Spanish Infanta Catherina Michelle having been the daughter of King Philip II of Spain, and whose dowry was, just like that of Marie-Theresa, never paid. Victor-Amadeus appeared to be playing for time, that was his nature, and although the French offer had advantages for Savoy he was, like the emperor, perhaps aiming for higher stakes, ‘There is reason to believe,’ Louis XIV wrote, ‘that the Duke of Savoy, seeing himself the immediate successor to the Archduke [Charles] will lie up with the Emperor to obtain execution of the testament and the favour of the Emperor as soon as my grandchildren will have abandoned the new right that they could obtain from the testament.’4
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) Page 2