CHAP. XL.]

HOUSE OF BOURBON IN SPAIN.

449

on the Pyrenees.' The chancellor merely summed up the arguments without pronouncing any opinion; while the Dauphin, with unwonted energy, demanded the acceptance of the will, and declared that he would not renounce his claims except in favour of his son, the Duke of Anjou.

This discussion seems to have been a mere farcical ceremony for the sake of appearances, and it is probable, as we have already said, that Louis XIV. had signified his assent to the will before its execution. Louis carried out the farce by not declaring his resolution till three days after the meeting of the Council; when, in the presence of the Spanish ambassador, at Versailles, he announced it by addressing the Duke of Anjou as follows: "Sir, the King of Spain has made you a King. The grandees demand you, the people of Spain desire you, and I give my consent." The Spanish ambassador, on his knees, then saluted and complimented his new master as “Philip V.,” the folding doors were thrown open, Louis presented his grandson to the assembled courtiers with the words, "Sirs, here is the King of Spain," and the ceremony ended by Louis exhorting Philip to be a good Spaniard, but at the same time to remember that he was born a Frenchman-exhortations which, from their contradictory nature, it might be sometimes difficult to reconcile.

By character, however, Philip V. might easily have been a lineal descendant of Philip IV., so closely did his habits resemble those of the hereditary Spanish House. Shy, hypochondriac, docile, monotonously regular, dotingly uxorious, without either great faults or striking virtues, he was fit only to be governed, as his predecessors had been before him. At the time of his accession, indeed, being then only seventeen years of age, Philip's character was as yet undeveloped, and consequently unknown to the Spaniards; with whom, however, it might perhaps have been only an additional recommendation. Immediately on receipt of Louis XIV.'s answer, the Junta caused Philip V. to be proclaimed at Madrid, and addressed a letter to the Most Christian King, in which they begged him to dispose of everything in Spain, and assured him that his orders should be as exactly obeyed as in France. Philip passed the Bidasoa January 22nd, 1701, and on February 18th entered Madrid, where he was received with the acclamations of the people. All the European provinces, all the American and Asiatic possessions, of the vast Spanish Empire immediately recognized the new Monarch; nor was his title at For the arguments, see Mignet, Négociations, &c.

450

WILLIAM III. ACKNOWLEDGES PHILIP V. [CHAP. XL. first disputed by the greater part of the European Powers. The Elector of Bavaria, then resident at Brussels as governor of the Catholic Netherlands-a dignity which had been procured for him by William III.—was the first prince who recognized Philip V.; both from hatred of the Emperor, whom he suspected of having poisoned his son, and from the hope that Louis would convert his government in the Netherlands into an hereditary one. Louis XIV., as was indeed his interest, showed every disposition to conciliate the Courts of Europe. His minister at the Hague was instructed to insist on the sacrifices which the French King had made in not accepting the Partition Treaty, which would have aggrandized France by the addition of so many fine provinces; to declare that he had renounced these advantages rather than cause a war which would disturb the repose of Europe; and to point out that had he adhered to the Treaty, a war must have inevitably ensued both with Spain and Austria; the former nation being determined that their monarchy should not be divided, which, in the event of his refusal to accept it, would have been offered to the Archduke Charles.1

Although this reasoning did not satisfy William III., he was compelled for a time, by the force of circumstances, to acquiesce in it. In England, William's government was not popular, owing to the Treaty of Partition; the nation was at that time averse to a war with France, and it would have been impossible for him to obtain from Parliament the necessary supplies for carrying it on. With regard to Holland, Louis clinched his reasonings by an ap peal to force. By virtue of a convention with Philip II., some of the cities of the Spanish Netherlands, as Antwerp, Namur, Charleroi, and others, were garrisoned by Dutch troops, in order that they might serve as a barrier against France. But Louis, having obtained from Madrid authority to take such measures as he should deem necessary for the public good, the Elector of Bavaria, as governor of the Netherlands, was instructed to pay the same deference to his orders as to those of Philip V.; and the Elector. who, as we have said, was well inclined to France, readily permitted French troops to enter the towns garrisoned by the Dutch. On the pretence that the States-General were preparing a league. in conjunction with England, against Philip V. and France, the Dutch were now required to evacuate these towns; and they were not even allowed a free retreat till the States, alarmed at the force which menaced their frontier, consented to acknowledge Philip Mémoires de Lamberty, t. i. p. 221; Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings Spain, ch. ii.

CHAP. XL.]

MARRIAGE OF PHILIP V.

451

V. as King of Spain.1 resistance, found it expedient to follow this example. In April, 1701, he addressed a letter to Philip V., in which he congratulated "his very dear brother" on his happy accession.2

William, having at present no means of

The situation of the rest of Europe was also, on the whole, at first favourable to Philip V. The Northern and Eastern Powers were occupied with the great war that had broken out among them, as related in a preceding chapter. The greater part of the German princes, struck with astonishment that the Treaty of Partition, to which they had been so earnestly pressed to accede, should have been so suddenly abandoned, remained silent and inactive. The Emperor Leopold was threatened in his hereditary States by a Hungarian insurrection, while the Empire was in the throes of a crisis occasioned by the erection of the Hanoverian Electorate; the States confederated against this innovation were arming, and the Diet had been compelled to suspend its deliberations. Some of the German princes, as the Electors of Bavaria, and Cologne, the Dukes of Brunswick Wolfenbüttel, and Saxe Gotha, and the Bishop of Münster, declared for France; and in March, 1701, Bavaria concluded a formal treaty of alliance with Louis. The Duke of Savoy, already connected with France by the marriage of his daughter Adelaide to the Duke of Burgundy, and now further gained by the union of his younger daughter, Louisa Gabriella, with Philip V., as well as by the post of generalissimo of the Crowns of France and SpaiL in Italy, was among the first to recognize the new King of Spain; and he also engaged to allow the French troops at all times free passage into Italy. The marriage of Philip and the Piedmontese Princess was celebrated at Figueras in September, 1701. The bride was only in her fourteenth year, and as her extreme youth naturally gave rise to the expectation that she would be governed by some adviser, the Court of Versailles selected as her Camerera Mayor, or chief lady of her household, the celebrated Princess Orsini (or Des Ursins), who had gained. the friendship and confidence of Madame de Maintenon, and who was deemed well fitted to promote French interests at the Spanish Court. The example of Victor Amadeus was followed by the Duke of Mantua (February, 1701). Portugal also pronounced itself in favour of the new Spanish dynasty, and ultimately a treaty was concluded at Lisbon between that Power and Spain (June, 1701); by which Portugal engaged to support the succession of Thucelii, Des heiligen Röm. Reichs Staats Acta, t. i. p. 366. 2 La Torre, ap. Martin, t. xiv. p. 372.

452

ALLIANCES AGAINST LOUIS XIV.

[CHAP. XL. Philip V., and to shut its ports against every nation that should attempt to hinder it by arms.1

Under these circumstances, it is possible that if Louis had actel with moderation and judgment he might have prevented or frustrated the great coalition which was at length formed against him. But his measures were such as to excite suspicion and mistrust, while they offended by their arrogance. One of his first steps after the departure of the Duke of Anjou for Spain was to send him letters patent reserving his rights to the French crown in default of the Duke of Burgundy and his male heirs, and without any stipulation that he must choose between the crowns of France and Spain; thus renewing the fears respecting the union of those crowns on the same head. These letters were all the more impolitic from being superfluous, since the Duke of Anjou's accession to the Spanish throne did not invalidate his rights to that of France; as appears in the instance of Henry III., who, though he had been King of Poland, succeeded his brother, Charles IX. Besides this measure, which concerned all Europe, he adopted others which irritated and alarmed particular States. The Dutch were injured in their commerce by Louis supplanting them in the Spanish Asiento, or monopoly of the slave trade; while at the same time the new works which he constructed within sight of their fortresses, and the increase of his army, excited their apprehensions that he contemplated renewing his former hostilities. The English, besides their commerce being injured, like that of the Dutch, by the exclusion of the ships of both those nations from Spanish ports. were further insulted by an open and flagrant violation of the Peace of Ryswick. James II. having died at St. Germain, September, 1701, Louis, in contravention of that treaty, openly gave James's son the title of King of England. The indignation which this act excited in England at length enabled William III. to bring to a practical issue the negotiations which he had been long conducting with the Emperor.

3

When the testament of Charles II. was declared, Count Harrach. the Imperial ambassador, quitted Madrid, after entering a formal protest against it. The protest was renewed at Vienna, and early in 1701 the Emperor entered into secret negotiations with William III. with a view to overthrow the will. England and Holland also concluded an alliance with Denmark (January 20th,

1 Dumont, t. viii pt. i. p. 31.

2 Dumont, t. vii. pt. ii. p. 494; Lamberty, Mémoires, t. i. p. 388.

Lord Mahon, War of the Succession

in Spain, p. 42.

St. Pierre, Ann. Politiques, t.. p. 21; Lord Mahon, ibid. p. 43.

CHAP. XL.]

PRUSSIA BECOMES A KINGDOM.

453

1701), by which, in case of hostilities breaking out, that Power engaged to shut all her ports against ships of war, and in consideration of a subsidy, to place a certain number of troops at the disposal of the allies.' After the occupation of the Flemish fortresses by the French troops, William even obtained some supplies from the English Parliament; but the nation was not yet prepared to enter into a general war, and William had been compelled to content himself with some fruitless negotiations with Louis XIV.; for, though very equitable conditions were offered, the French King would not listen to them. Leopold, however, drew the sword without waiting for the alliance of the Maritime Powers. That Upper Italy and Belgium should be in the hands of the French, appeared to Prince Eugene, Leopold's counsellor as well as general, so pregnant with danger to Germany that he pressed the Emperor to assert his right to the Spanish inheritance, and undertook himself to open the war in Italy with 30,000 men. Leopold determined to follow Eugene's advice, although all his other counsellors dissuaded him from it, and represented Austria as so overloaded with debt that she could not maintain an army of 15,000 men in the field. Austria, indeed, was not in a condition to oppose alone the united power of France and Spain; but Leopold was encouraged by the hope of the ultimate aid of England and Holland, as well as of the Empire. And although some of the minor Princes of the Empire, offended by the affair of the Hanoverian Electorate, had combined against the Emperor, and even appealed to France and Sweden, as guarantors of the Peace of Westphalia, yet all the Electors, except Bavaria and Cologne, were devoted to Leopold. George Lewis of Hanover, as we have already seen, was bound to him by a formal treaty; and Leopold now enticed the much more powerful prince, Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg, into a similar engagement, by conferring upon him the title of King.

Frederick's temper led him to attach much weight to the outward symbols of greatness. It was not without some feelings of envy that he had seen the Prince of Orange raised to the English throne, and Augustus of Saxony to that of Poland; and in an interview with William III., at the Hague, his pride had been not a little hurt that he had been forced to content himself with a common chair, while an arm-chair had been set for the King! He had been several years negotiating with the Emperor on this subject; but his elevation to the royal dignity had been warmly 1 Dumont, t. viii. pt. i. p. 1.