CHAP. XXXIX.] EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 439 guen, except certain towns and villages which Louis pretended to be dependencies of Charlemont, Maubeuge, and other towns previously ceded to him. By a separate article Leopold and the Empire were allowed all the month of October to accede to the ultimatum, and a suspension of arms was granted for the same period. The Imperial plenipotentiaries signed a treaty with France, October 30th, on the basis of those of Westphalia and Nimeguen. Louis restored all the places which had been reunited to his Crown with the exception of those in Alsace; and thus the Bishop of Strasburg, the nobles of Higher and Lower Alsace, the ten Imperial cities, and the immediate nobility of Lower Alsace, became thenceforward the vassals and subjects of France. The Duke of Lorraine' was restored to his dominions, with the reservation of Sarre Louis. The Bavarian Prince, Joseph Clement, remained in possession of the Electorate of Cologue; while the Elector Palatine engaged to pay the Duchess of Orleans 200,000 francs per annum till the Pope should have pronounced his arbitration.2 At the last moment before the treaty was signed, the French ministers, under threats of renewing the war, effected the insertion of the following clause into the fourth article: "That the Roman Catholic religion should remain, in the places restored, on the same footing as it then was.' In the numerous Protestant towns and villages which the French had reunited, they had introduced the Roman Catholic service, and had compelled the Protestants to lend their churches for that purpose. This clause laid the foundation for new dissensions between the Catholics and Protestants of Germany.3 Thus a war which had lasted nine years, and which had been carried on with such mighty efforts on all sides, produced not consequences so important as might have been expected. For the first time since the ministry of Richelieu France had lost ground, and, with the exception of Strasburg, had abandoned the acquisitions of 1684 for the limits prescribed by the Peace of Nimeguen in 1678. For Europe in general the most important result was 'Leopold, who became the stem of the new House of Austria, which mounted the Imperial throne after the extinction of the male line of the House of Habsburg in 1745. We have already mentioned the death of Leopold's father, Charles V., in 1690. Charles died with a great reputation as a man of learning, an able general, and good diplomatist. Louis XIV. said of him :-"Qu'il était le plus grand, le plus sage, et le plus généreux de ses ennemies." - His Testament Politique, which appeared in the midst of the negotiations for the Peace of Ryswick, produced a great sensation in Europe. 2 Dumont, t. vii. pt. ii. p. 421. 3 See Menzel, Neuere Gesch. der Deutschen, B. iv. Kap. 50. 440 EFFECTS OF THE WAR. [CHAP. XXXIX. that the Stuarts were for ever deprived of the throne of England; and that country, liberated from French influence, became the counterpoise of France in the European system. From this period the continental relations of England became permanent; and she adopted, for the most part, the policy of allying herself with those countries which had reason to dread the ambition of France. CHAP. XL.] CHARLES II. OF SPAIN. 441 CHAPTER XL. HE question of the Spanish Succession, the chief motive with Louis XIV. for concluding the somewhat disadvantageous Peace of Ryswick, engrossed, towards the close of the seventeenth century, the attention of European statesmen. An attack of tertian fever, in 1697, had still further shattered the feeble constitution of Charles II.; and though he survived three or four years a disorder which had threatened to be fatal, the effects of it at length brought him to the tomb. Feeble both in body and mind, his life had been nothing but a protracted malady, in which the last descendant of the Emperor Charles V. seemed to typify the declining kingdom over which he reigned. The majority of Charles II. had been fixed at the age of fifteen, and the first act of his accession had been a kind of revolution. Maria Anna, the Queen Dowager, after the expulsion of Niethard (supra, p. 361 sq.) had created Valenzuelo a Marquis and grandee of the first class, and at length made him prime minister; while Don John of Austria was condemned to a sort of banishment in his governments of Aragon and Catalonia. But in 1677, when Charles II. attained his majority, he recalled Don John to Court; the Queen was shut up in a convent at Toledo, and Valenzuelo banished to the Philippine Islands. Don John's administration, however, did not answer to the opinion which had been formed of his abilities. He found Spain involved in a ruinous war with France, which he was forced to terminate by acceding to the humiliating Peace of Nimeguen; and he further alienated the affections of the Spaniards, who detested the French, by negotiating a marriage between Charles II. and Maria Louisa of Orleans, niece of Louis XIV. This union, which was celebrated at Quintanapulla, in October, 1679, he did not live to see. He died in the preceding month, in his fiftieth year, worn out, it is said, by chagrin at his unpopularity and by the anxiety occasioned by the machinations of the Queen's friends. The Queen Dowager was now recalled; but, having grown cautious from her late misfortunes, took but little part in the conduct of affairs. 442 QUESTION OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. [CHAP. XL. The young King, who was himself incapable of business, successively intrusted the administration to a secretary named Eguia, to the Duke of Medina Celi, the Counts of Oropesa and Melgar, the Dukes of Sessa and Infantado, and the Count of Monterey; but these ministers, though differing in talent, all proved unequal to the task of raising Spain from the misery into which she was sunk, which was aggravated, not only by bad fiscal measures, but also by the natural calamities of earthquakes, hurricanes, inundations, and famines. The death of Charles II.'s consort, Maria Louisa, in 1689, and his marriage the following year with Mary Anne, of Neuburg, a sister of the Empress, naturally tended to draw him under the influence of the Austrian Court; especially as Mary Anne, after the death of the Queen Dowager, in 1696, obtained more undivided sway over her husband. This circumstance favoured the Imperial claims to the Spanish succession; but in order to understand that question, and the politics of the different parties concerned in it, we must here give an account of the origin of their claims. The three principal claimants were, first, the Dauphin of France, as son of the elder sister of Charles II.; second, Joseph Ferdinand, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, as grandson of his second sister; and third, the Emperor Leopold. The Emperor at first claimed, as male representative of the younger branch of the House of Austria, being descended from Ferdinand, second son of Philip and Joanna of Castile; and he alleged, in support of his claim, the family conventions entered into by the House of Austria; by which, if the males of one branch became extinct, the succession was to pass to the males of the next branch, to the exclusion of females, who could not succeed except in default of heirs male of all the branches. But as it was replied, that particular arrangements among mem bers of the House of Austria could not abrogate the fundamental laws of Spain, by which direct female heirs were preferred to collateral male heirs, Leopold withdrew this argument and substituted another claim in right of his mother, Maria Anna, daughter of Philip III. of Spain, who had done no act to invalidate her succession to the Spanish Crown. In preferring this claim, Leopold became the rival of his own There were two or three other claimants, whom it is scarcely necessary to mention, viz., Victor Amadeus of Savoy, as descended from Catharine, second daughter of Philip II.; and the Duke of Orleans, as son of Anne of Austria. eldest daughter of Philip III. and wife Louis XIII. The latter claim would ev dently vest in Louis XIV. Also, Don Pedro II. of Portugal. CHAP. XL.] VARIOUS CLAIMANTS. 443 grandson, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. Leopold had married for his first wife, Margaret, second daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and younger sister of Maria Theresa, Queen of Louis XIV.; and as Margaret had made no renunciation of the Spanish Crown, and had been named among his heirs by Philip IV., she seemed to have a preferable title to her elder sister. Leopold had had by her an only daughter, Mary Antoinette, now dead, who had married Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, and had had by him Joseph Ferdinand, the Electoral Prince in question, who, if the rights of his mother were admitted, was entitled to the Spanish throne. But Leopold, to guard against any claim which might divert the Spanish succession from the House of Austria to that of Bavaria, had caused his daughter to execute an act of renunciation at the time of her marriage, which, however, had never been ratified either by the King of Spain or by the Cortes. It was plain, however, that a question of such vast European importance would not be decided by the strict rules of hereditary succession, but must become a subject of negotiation, and even of war. The European Powers would hardly stand quietly by and see the vast dominions of Spain annexed to the already overgrown power of the Emperor; and Leopold, to evade this objection, transferred his claim to the Archduke Charles, his second son by his marriage with Eleanor Magdalene, Princess Palatine of Neuburg: his eldest son Joseph, by the same marriage, having been elected King of the Romans, in 1690, and thus destined to succeed him on the Imperial throne. In like manner, to obviate any objection to the union of France and Spain, Louis ultimately proposed to give the crown of the latter country to Philip, Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin. The King of Spain's second consort, Mary Anne of Neuburg, being a sister of the Empress, naturally promoted the views of Leopold; in which, however, she was opposed by the QueenMother, Mary Anne of Austria, who was in favour of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria; while the imbecile and unfortunate Charles, incapable of forming a judgment, or maintaining an opinion of his own, was drawn to either side alternately.' The Austrian 1 Louis XIV., in his Instruction to the Marquis d'Harcourt. gives the following description of Charles II.:-"Ce prince a passé sa vie dans une profonde ignorance; jamais ses propres intérêts ne lui ont été expliqués, et l'extrême aversion qu'on avait pris soin de lui inspirer pour la France est la seule maxime dont on ait prétendu l'instruire. Sa propre inclina. tion l'a éloigné des affaires, sa timidité lui a fait hair le monde; son tempérament est prompt, colère, et le porte à une extrême mélancolie," &c. Ap. Garden, Hist. des Traités, t. ii. p. 187. Charles's ignorance was such that, when Louis XIV. took Mons, he thought that the place had been captured from William III. instead of himself. |