of Tuscany. No peace was to be made without measures having been first adopted to prevent France and Spain from being ever united under the same king, to hinder the French from becoming masters of the Spanish Indies, and to insure to the English and Dutch the same commercial privileges in all the Spanish dominions which they had enjoyed under the late King of Spain. The German Empire was to be particularly invited to accede to this treaty, as interested in the recovery of certain fiefs that had been detached from it.20

War, however, was not yet declared against France, and might perhaps have been long deferred had not Louis committed the mistake already mentioned of recognising as king of England the son of James II. In consequence of this step an article was added to the treaty (March 1702), by which the Emperor engaged not to make peace with France till Great Britain had received satisfaction for this injury.21 William III., availing himself of the feeling excited in England by Louis's act, summoned a new Parliament, which approved his now openly-avowed negociations and policy, and granted liberal supplies of men and money to carry them out; attainted the pretended Prince of Wales, and by the Act of Abjuration for ever excluded the Stuarts from the throne of Great Britain. But at the moment when he had thus matured and organised the great league for resisting the ambition of France, he was prevented by death from directing, as he had purposed, the operations of the war (March 19th 1702). His successor, Queen Anne, however, pursued the same line of policy which he had already chalked out; and the military affairs of the Grand Alliance probably suffered no detriment from being conducted, instead of the King, by the Earl of Marlborough, whom William had already despatched with 10,000 men to Holland. In the United Netherlands, also, the death of William occasioned no change of foreign policy, although it was followed by a species of domestic revolution. A little before his death William had endeavoured to procure the nomination of his cousin Friso of Nassau, who was already hereditary Stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, as his successor in the Stadtholdership of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, and Overyssel; but that dignity was now abolished in these five provinces, which resumed the republican form of government established in the time of De Witt. The chief share in the direction of the affairs of the United Netherlands now fell to Daniel Heinsius, Grand Pensionary of Holland. Heinsius, Marlborough, and Eugene formed 21 Ibid. p. 91.

20 Dumont, t. viii. pt. i. p. 89.

180

BAVARIA SIDES WITH FRANCE.

[BOOK V. the soul of the Grand Alliance, and obtained the name of the Triumvirate of the Coalition. Louis XIV. had endeavoured to take advantage of the death of William to seduce the Dutch from their allies; but Heinsius was a devoted adherent to the system of that politic prince, and the States-General indignantly repulsed the advances of France. 22 The three allied Powers declared war against France and Spain in May 1702.23

Leopold used every endeavour to engage the confederated body of the German Empire in the war; and in the preceding March he had succeeded in obtaining the accession of the five circles of Suabia, Franconia, the Upper and Lower Rhine, and Austria, to the Grand Alliance.24 This example was soon afterwards followed by the Elector of Trèves and the Circle of Westphalia. Suabia, Franconia, and the Rhenish circles had previously belonged to a union, formed by the Elector of Bavaria, at the instigation of Louis XIV., in the summer of 1701, for the purpose of maintaining their neutrality in the quarrel between the Emperor and Louis. 25 The Elector of Bavaria also engaged in the cause of France and Spain his brother, the Elector of Cologne, that very Joseph Clement whose investiture had been so strenuously resisted by Louis, and had been the immediate cause of the war of 1688. Joseph Clement admitted French garrisons into the fortresses of his Electorate and into the citadel of Liége, while the Elector of Bavaria continued to affect neutrality, and to negociate with the Emperor; but in June 1702 he concluded a secret treaty with Louis XIV. and Philip V., who promised him the hereditary government of the Netherlands. In Lower Saxony the two malcontent Dukes of Brunswick Wolfenbüttel had raised an army of 12,000 men, and given the command to a Frenchman; but the Elector of Hanover entered their dominions with a stronger force (March 1702), and compelled them to disarm; and the Emperor afterwards found means to separate the brothers by promising the sole sovereignty to the elder.

On September 8th the Elector of Bavaria at length threw off the mask, and obtained possession of the imperial city of Ulm by sending into it, on the previous evening, soldiers disguised as peasants, who opened the gates to their comrades. Maximilian refused to give it up, in spite of a decree of the Diet of Ratisbon, as well as a remonstrance addressed to him by his father-in-law,

22 Martin, t. xiv. p. 385.

23 See their Manifestoes in Dumont, t. viii. pt. i. pp. 112, 115.

21 Ibid. p. 104.

25 Coxe (Bourbon Kings of Spain,

vol. i. ch. 7) erroneously represents the Emperor as having "forced the Elector of Bavaria into a treaty of neutrality;" whereas the union was accomplished at the desire of Louis XIV.

the Emperor; and he proceeded to seize Memmingen and other places necessary to secure his communication with the French. The Emperor, having a majority in the Diet at Ratisbon, now issued a declaration of war against France in the name of the Empire (October 6th 1702), which differed little in essential points from that which he had already published as sovereign of Austria. The Diet also empowered the Emperor to adopt against Bavaria all the measures permitted by the constitution of the Empire; in consequence of which proclamations were issued commanding all subjects of the Empire, on pain of ban and over ban-that is, of death-to quit the service of the Elector, and to enter that of the Emperor and his allies. And a few weeks later the subjects of the Elector were released by Imperial letters patent from their allegiance to their sovereign.26

Before these occurrences, the war, which in the previous year had been confined to Lombardy, had already become general. It is not our intention, however, to enter into its details, but, as we have before done, to give a brief chronicle of the principal events of each campaign.

1702.-In Italy, Prince Eugene opened the campaign at the beginning of February by surprising Cremona, the French headquarters. His troops, however, were at length repulsed, but carried off prisoner Marshal Villeroi, the French commander-in-chief, who was replaced by the Duke of Vendôme. Vendôme compelled Eugene to raise the siege of Mantua (May). Philip V., who had landed at Naples in the spring, joined Vendôme at Cremona in July, to take the command of the army in person. The combined forces-Philip V. had brought a few thousand Spaniards-attacked Eugene near Luzzara, and captured that town (August). After this action, which was the last of any importance, Philip V. set off for Spain, on the news of a descent of the English and Dutch near Cadiz.

On the Lower Rhine, the English and Dutch, under Marlborough as commander-in-chief, began the campaign in April by an attack on the Electorate of Cologne, in execution of an Imperial monitory against the Elector Joseph Clement. In this quarter the French were nominally under the command of the Duke of Burgundy, but were really led by Marshal Boufflers. The allies successively took Kaiserswerth, Venloo, Stephanswerth, and Ruremonde; and Marlborough, being thus master of the Lower Meuse, marched on and captured Liége, October 23rd.

On the Upper Rhine the Imperialists were commanded by

Theatr. Europ., t. xvi. p. 590; Zschokke, Baierische Gesch. B. iii. S. 437. Anm. 216.

182

ORMOND'S DESCENT AT CADIZ.

[Book V. Joseph, King of the Romans, and by Prince Louis of Baden, while the command of the French had been given to Catinat. It was with much reluctance and after long deliberation that Leopold had appointed his son Joseph to this post, out of anxiety for the life of his successor; and the King of the Romans proceeded to the army with so much pomp and so long a train, that it was near the end of July before he joined the camp at Landau. That place, the boulevard of Alsace,27 which had been already invested during several months by Prince Louis of Baden, capitulated September 9th, the day after the surprise of Ulm by the Elector of Bavaria. In the following month, Prince Louis was defeated at Friedlingen by Villars, who had joined the French army in Alsace, and was endeavouring to form a junction with the Elector of Bavaria (October 14th); but though this victory obtained for Villars the bâton of marshal, it led to no result.

In the autumn of this year an armament under the command of the Duke of Ormond, consisting of a combined English and Dutch fleet of fifty sail of the line, besides smaller vessels and transports, under Sir George Rooke, and having on board 14,000 soldiers under Sir H. Bellasis, attempted a descent at Cadiz, but were repulsed by the Marquis of Villadarias, "with a great deal of plunder and infamy," to use the expression of Colonel Stanhope, who took part in the expedition.28 The allies were, however, in some degree consoled for their ill success by destroying the Spanish West India fleet, which had put into the Bay of Vigo (October 22nd). Seven French men-of-war, which formed part of its escort, and six galleons were captured, and many more were destroyed. The victors obtained a large treasure in bullion; and a still greater sum went to the bottom of the sea, a terrible loss for the Spanish finances.

1703.-Marlborough, who had now been made a duke, returned into the Netherlands with reinforcements in the spring of 1703; where he was opposed by Villeroi, who had been ransomed, as commander-in-chief of the French army, and under him by Marshal Boufflers. The allies took Bonn (May 15th), thus completing the conquest of the Electorate of Cologne; but Marlborough's enterprises were checked by the delegates of the StatesGeneral, and little else of importance was done in this quarter. The campaign ended by the allies capturing Limbourg and Gelders.

27 Landau had been fortified by Vauban after the Peace of Nimeguen.

29 See Lord Mahon's War of the Succession in Spain, p. 59; which work con

tains the best account of those occurrences of the war which took place in Spain itself.

The campaign in Germany had been more active. The Imperial forces had not been hitherto strong enough to take the offensive against the Elector of Bavaria; the Elector of Saxony, who was also King of Poland, and the King of Prussia, having been compelled to withhold their contingents in consequence of the invasion of Poland by the Swedes. But this spring, Count Schlick, the Austrian commander, and Count Styrum, general of the army of the Circles, invaded the Bavarian dominions; the former on the side of the Inn, whilst Styrum attacked the Upper Palatinate. But the Elector having defeated Schlick at Scharding (March 11th), and compelled Styrum to retire into Suabia, hastened to Ratisbon, and seized that important imperial city, the seat of the German Diet. Marshal Villars, who had made himself master of Kehl, now resolved to form a junction with the Elector, which was effected at Ehingen (May). But instead of adopting the suggestion of Villars and marching upon Vienna, the capture of which might probably have been easily effected, the Elector preferred to attack the Tyrol, where Vendôme, marching by way of Trent with half the army of Italy, was to form a junction with him. The Elector penetrated by Kufstein and Innsbrück to the foot of the Brenner, while Vendôme, who had been somewhat slow in his movements, was bombarding Trent. But the peasants of the Tyrol having risen against the Bavarians, whilst the Austrians had invaded Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, the Elector was compelled to retreat and abandon the enterprise. Many misunderstandings ensued between the Elector and Villars, which prevented them from acting cordially together; but at length having formed a junction at Nordendorf, they inflicted a severe defeat on the Imperialists in the plain of Höchstedt (September 20th). New differences, however, arose between the two commanders, and Villars in disgust obtained his recall. He was replaced by Marshal Marsin, one of whose first exploits was to take Augsburg, which had been occupied by the Imperialists. Another opportunity now presented itself of marching upon Vienna. The insurrection in Hungary, led by Francis Ragotski, had assumed colossal proportions; the Hungarian light cavalry even threatened Vienna, and the Emperor was obliged to withdraw the garrisons from Passau and Pressburg in order to defend his capital. At the pressing instance of Louis XIV., the Elector now, when it was too late in the season, undertook to invade Austria, took Passau, and pressed on to Enns in the Austrian dominions; but the rigour of the season compelled him to desist, and he returned to Munich (January 20th, 1694).