The Greatest Story in the World, Period 3 by Horace G. Hutchinson

We may probably say that no other man has made so great a difference / to the history of the world, by his last will and testament, as did / the King of Spain by that will which left all his monarchy to the / grandson of him who already was so great as to be called the Grand / Monarque. He willed away his vast territories, as it had been a / five-acre field, and his subjects, of many nationalities, as they had / been the sheep or cattle thereon.

And the Grand Monarque, by accepting the gift on behalf of his infant / grandson, united his enemies so that they forgot their own mutual / quarrels and formed a great alliance against him.

But he was very strong. He had a huge army, he had great wealth, and / he had the advantage of being at the centre of the theatre of / conflict, while his foes were on the circumference.

The most formidable in the alliance against him were the English and / the Dutch. William III., husband of Mary, daughter of James II., was / on the English throne. As Protestants and Stuarts, Mary and her / sister Anne, who succeeded in 1702, in some degree conciliated both / parties in England. William III., besides being married to England's / queen, was himself of the English Royal line, being a grandson of / Charles I. An Act of Settlement, as it was called, {110} had been / passed by the English Parliament which should exclude, after Anne's / death, a son born to James II. by a second marriage. This son, a / Catholic, thus excluded, received welcome at the French Court and / became the centre of Jacobite intrigues for the Crown of England. It / was his recognition as King of England by Louis XIV. which determined / William III. to support with all his forces what came to be known as / the Grand Alliance against France. William, however, died suddenly / as the result of an accident before the war really began.

Queen Anne then, came to the throne, and the command of the allied / English and Dutch forces was taken by John Churchill, later Duke of / Marlborough. He proved himself a great general. His first great / victory was in the battle of Blenheim in 1704, followed by that of / Ramillies two years later. The French had received so heavy a / beating that the Grand Monarque sought peace; but the terms offered / did not satisfy the victors.

The war was not restricted to the Netherlands. The little country of / Portugal was in the alliance; so too was, for a while, another small / country, the Duchy of Savoy in the north-west corner of Italy. Later / Savoy went over to the Habsburg party. The Emperor was on the side / of the allies.

Besides the Netherlands, the allies were victorious in Bavaria, in / Italy, and for a moment in Spain itself. The approach of an English / army to Madrid actually forced the king to leave his throne and his / capital; but that advance was not maintained, the allies were / defeated in Spain, and he was re-established. Between English and / French, the war was fought so far from home as Canada -- much to the / English advantage in the peace by which it was concluded. But before / Louis would make peace on terms that the allies were willing to / accept, his armies had to suffer further defeat in the {111} / Netherlands at the hands of Marlborough. Oudenarde in 1708 and / Malplaquet in the following year are the places and dates of these / two English victories which were really decisive of the war.

Marlborough's success and the ascendancy which he and his duchess had / gained over the queen, made him many enemies at home. We begin about / this time to hear of the two great political parties, Tories and / Whigs. Marlborough was of the latter party, which was in power till / 1710, in which year they lost place to the former. Marlborough was / dismissed from his command in the year following; and with his / dismissal negotiations for peace were renewed.

[Sidenote: Peace of Utrecht]

It was not until 1713 that its terms were finally agreed, in the / Peace of Utrecht; and in the main it gave the allies what they had / fought for. Certain frontier fortress towns were ceded to the / Netherlands by France. Louis, as representing the Habsburg house, / gave up all claim to the Spanish Netherlands. The King of Spain was / recognised as ruler in his own country, but renounced all right to / the French Crown. On the other hand, it was the Peace of Utrecht / that made Austria dominant for many years in Italy. In Canada, / England gained a large territory from the French.

Look where we may on the scene of the great story in this period, we / find great misery everywhere. No sooner had the wars of religion / ceased than there began those wars over the succession to the thrones / of the newly formed or forming nations. It seems that as soon as the / people began to have any sense of nationality, as we say -- any feeling / that as a nation they had an existence free and independent of the / others -- they at once found themselves faced by the danger of some one / nation, or some one Royal house ruling several nations, becoming so / strong as to take their liberty from them. First were the Habsburgs / {112} and next the power of Spain, then that of France: nor have we / even so by any means come to the end of these wars of succession. We / have to hear of more. The nations could no longer endure the idea of / an empire such as Charlemagne's, with authority over them.

The Emperor, still so-called, had little power: it was scarcely more / than nominal over the German States by which he was elected. About / the date of the Peace of Utrecht, an event took place in those German / States which was to be of much importance in the future. That was / the accession of the Elector -- the ruler who had a vote for the / election of the Emperor -- of Brandenburg, to the throne of Prussia. / Its import, of course, was not seen at the time, but it was the / beginning of the dominance of Prussia over Germany.