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Whether the treaty was judiciously framed is quite another question. We
disapprove of the stipulations. But we disapprove of them, not because we think
them bad, but because we think that there was no chance of their being executed.
Lewis was the most faithless of politicians. He hated the Dutch. He hated the
Government which the Revolution had established in England. He had every
disposition to quarrel with his new allies. It was quite certain that he would
not observe his engagements, if it should be for his interest to violate them.
Even if it should be for his interest to observe them, it might well be doubted
whether the strongest and clearest interest would induce a man so haughty and
self-willed to co-operate heartily with two governments which had always been
the objects of his scorn and aversion.
When intelligence of the second Partition Treaty arrived at Madrid, it roused to
momentary energy the languishing ruler of a languishing state. The Spanish
ambassador at the Court of London was directed to remonstrate with the
Government of William; and his remonstrances were so insolent that he was
commanded to leave England. Charles retaliated by dismissing the English and
Dutch ambassadors. The French King, though the chief author of the Partition
Treaty, succeeded in turning the whole wrath of Charles and of the Spanish
people from himself, and in directing it against the two maritime powers. Those
powers had now no agent at Madrid. Their perfidious ally was at liberty to carry
on his intrigues unchecked; and he fully availed himself of this advantage.
A long contest was maintained with varying success by the factions which
surrounded the miserable King. On the side of the Imperial family was the Queen,
herself a Princess of that family. With her were allied the confessor of the
King, and most of the ministers. On the other side were two of the most
dexterous politicians of that age, Cardinal Porto Carrero, Archbishop of Toledo,
and Harcourt, the ambassador of Lewis.
Harcourt was a noble specimen of the French aristocracy in the days of its
highest splendor, a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a skilful
diplomatist. His courteous and insinuating manners, his Parisian vivacity
tempered with Castilian gravity, made him the favorite of the whole Court. He
became intimate with the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He dazzled the
multitude by his magnificent style of living. The prejudices which the people of
Madrid had conceived against the French character, the vindictive feelings
generated during centuries of national rivalry, gradually yielded to his arts;
while the Austrian ambassador, a surly, pompous, niggardly German, made himself
and his country more and more unpopular every day.
Harcourt won over the Court and the city: Porto Carrero managed the King. Never
were knave and dupe better suited to each other. Charles was sick, nervous, and
extravagantly superstitious. Porto Carrero had learned in the exercise of his
profession the art of exciting and soothing such minds; and he employed that art
with the calm and demure cruelty which is the characteristic of wicked and
ambitious priests.
He first supplanted the confessor. The state of the poor King, during the
conflict between his two spiritual advisers, was horrible. At one time he was
induced to believe that his malady was the same with that of the wretches
described in the New Testament, who dwelt among the tombs, whom no chains could
bind, and whom no man dared to approach. At another time a sorceress who lived
in the mountains of the Asturias was consulted about his malady. Several persons
were accused of having bewitched him. Porto Carrero recommended the appalling
rite of exorcism, which was actually performed. The ceremony made the poor King
more nervous and miserable than ever. But it served the turn of the Cardinal,
who, after much secret trickery, succeeded in casting out, not the devil, but
the confessor.
The next object was to get rid of the ministers. Madrid was supplied with
provisions by a monopoly. The Government looked after this most delicate concern
as it looked after everything else. The partisans of the House of Bourbon took
advantage of the negligence of the administration. On a sudden the supply of
food failed. Exorbitant prices were demanded. The people rose. The royal
residence was surrounded by an immense multitude. The Queen harangued them. The
priests exhibited the host. All was in vain. It was necessary to awaken the King
from his uneasy sleep, and to carry him to the balcony. There a solemn promise
was given that the unpopular advisers of the Crown should be forthwith
dismissed. The mob left the palace and proceeded to pull down the houses of the
ministers. The adherents of the Austrian line were thus driven from power, and
the government was entrusted to the creatures of Porto Carrero. The King left
the city in which he had suffered so cruel an insult for the magnificent retreat
of the Escurial. Here his hypochondriac fancy took a new turn. Like his ancestor
Charles the Fifth, he was haunted by the strange curiosity to pry into the
secrets of that grave to which he was hastening. In the cemetery which Philip
the Second had formed beneath the pavement of the church of St. Lawrence,
reposed three generations of Castilian princes. Into these dark vaults the
unhappy monarch descended by torchlight, and penetrated to that superb and
gloomy chamber where, round the great black crucifix, were ranged the coffins of
the kings and queens of Spain. There he commanded his attendants to open the
massy chests of bronze in which the relics of his predecessors decayed. He
looked on the ghastly spectacle with little emotion till the coffin of his first
wife was unclosed, and she appeared before him--such was the skill of the
embalmer--in all her well-remembered beauty. He cast one glance on those beloved
features, unseen for eighteen years, those features over which corruption seemed
to have no power, and rushed from the vault, exclaiming, "She is with God; and I
shall soon be with her." The awful sight completed the ruin of his body and
mind. The Escurial became hateful to him; and he hastened to Aranjuez. But the
shades and waters of that delicious island-garden, so fondly celebrated in the
sparkling verse of Calderon, brought no solace to their unfortunate master.
Having tried medicine, exercise, and amusement in, vain, he returned to Madrid
to die.
He was now beset on every side by the bold and skilful agents of the House of
Bourbon. The leading politicians of his Court assured him that Lewis, and Lewis
alone, was sufficiently powerful to preserve the Spanish monarchy undivided, and
that Austria would be utterly unable to prevent the Treaty of Partition from
being carried into effect. Some celebrated lawyers gave it as their opinion that
the act of renunciation executed by the late Queen of France ought to be
construed according to the spirit, and not according to the letter. The letter
undoubtedly excluded the French princes. The spirit was merely this, that ample
security should be taken against the union of the French and Spanish Crowns on
one head.
In all probability, neither political nor legal reasonings would have sufficed
to overcome the partiality which Charles felt for the House of Austria. There
had always been a close connection between the two great royal lines which
sprang from the marriage of Philip and Juana. Both had always regarded the
French as their natural enemies. It was necessary to have recourse to religious
terrors; and Porto Carrero employed those terrors with true professional skill.
The King's life was drawing to a close. Would the most Catholic prince commit a
great sin on the brink of the grave? And what could be a greater sin than, from
an unreasonable attachment to a family name, from an unchristian antipathy to a
rival house, to set aside the rightful heir of an immense monarchy? The tender
conscience and the feeble intellect of Charles were strongly wrought upon by
these appeals. At length Porto Carrero ventured on a master-stroke. He advised
Charles to apply for counsel to the Pope. The King, who, in the simplicity of
his heart, considered the successor of St. Peter as an infallible guide in
spiritual matters, adopted the suggestion; and Porto Carrero, who knew that his
Holiness was a mere tool of France, awaited with perfect confidence the result
of the application. In the answer which arrived from Rome, the King was solemnly
reminded of the great account which he was soon to render, and cautioned against
the flagrant injustice which he was tempted to commit. He was assured that the
right was with the House of Bourbon, and reminded that his own salvation ought
to be dearer to him than the House of Austria. Yet he still continued
irresolute. His attachment to his family, his aversion to France, were not to be
overcome even by Papal authority. At length he thought himself actually dying.
Then the cardinal redoubled his efforts. Divine after divine, well tutored for
the occasion, was brought to the bed of the trembling penitent. He was dying in
the commission of known sin. He was defrauding his relatives. He was bequeathing
civil war to his people. He yielded, and signed that memorable testament, the
cause of many calamities to Europe. As he affixed his name to the instrument, he
burst into tears. "God," he said, "gives kingdoms and takes them away. I am
already one of the dead."
The will was kept secret during the short remainder of his life. On the third of
November 1700 he expired. All Madrid crowded to the palace. The gates were
thronged. The antechamber was filled with ambassadors and grandees, eager to
learn what dispositions the deceased sovereign had made. At length the folding
doors were flung open. The Duke of Abrantes came forth, and announced that the
whole Spanish monarchy was bequeathed to Philip, Duke of Anjou. Charles had
directed that, during the interval which might elapse between his death and the
arrival of his successor, the government should be administered by a council, of
which Porto Carrero was the chief member.
Lewis acted, as the English ministers might have guessed that he would act. With
scarcely the show of hesitation, he broke through all the obligations of the
Partition Treaty, and accepted for his grandson the splendid legacy of Charles.
The new sovereign hastened to take possession of his dominions. The whole Court
of France accompanied him to Sceaux. His brothers escorted him to that frontier
which, as they weakly imagined, was to be a frontier no longer. "The Pyrenees,"
said Lewis, "have ceased to exist." Those very Pyrenees, a few years later, were
the theatre of a war between the heir of Lewis and the prince whom France was
now sending to govern Spain.
If Charles had ransacked Europe to find a successor whose moral and intellectual
character resembled his own, he could not have chosen better. Philip was not so
sickly as his predecessor, but he was quite as weak, as indolent, and as
superstitious; he very soon became quite as hypochondriacal and eccentric; and
he was even more uxorious. He was indeed a husband of ten thousand. His first
object, when he became King of Spain, was to procure a wife. From the day of his
marriage to the day of her death, his first object was to have her near him, and
to do what she wished. As soon as his wife died, his first object was to procure
another. Another was found, as unlike the former as possible. But she was a
wife; and Philip was content. Neither by day nor by night, neither in sickness
nor in health, neither in time of business nor in time of relaxation, did he
ever suffer her to be absent from him for half an hour. His mind was naturally
feeble; and he had received an enfeebling education. He had been brought up
amidst the dull magnificence of Versailles. His grandfather was as imperious and
as ostentatious in his intercourse with the royal family as in public acts. All
those who grew up immediately under the eye of Lewis had the manners of persons
who had never known what it was to be at ease. They were all taciturn, shy, and
awkward. In all of them, except the Duke of Burgundy, the evil went further than
the manners. The Dauphin, the Duke Of Berri, Philip of Anjou, were men of
insignificant characters.
They had no energy, no force of will. They had been so little accustomed to
judge or to act for themselves that implicit dependence had become necessary to
their comfort. The new King of Spain, emancipated from control, resembled that
wretched German captive who, when the irons which he had worn for years were
knocked off, fell prostrate on the floor of his prison. The restraints which had
enfeebled the mind of the young Prince were required to support it. Till he had
a wife he could do nothing; and when he had a wife he did whatever she chose.
While this lounging, moping boy was on his way to Madrid, his grandfather was
all activity. Lewis had no reason to fear a contest with the Empire
single-handed. He made vigorous preparations to encounter Leopold. He overawed
the States-General by means of a great army. He attempted to soothe the English
Government by fair professions. William was not deceived. He fully returned the
hatred of Lewis; and, if he had been free to act according to his own
inclinations, he would have declared war as soon as the contents of the will
were known. But he was bound by constitutional restraints. Both his person and
his measures were unpopular in England. His secluded life and his cold manners
disgusted a people accustomed to the graceful affability of Charles the Second.
His foreign accent and his foreign attachments were offensive to the national
prejudices. His reign had been a season of distress, following a season of
rapidly increasing prosperity. The burdens of the late war and the expense of
restoring the currency had been severely felt. Nine clergymen out of ten were
Jacobites at heart, and had sworn allegiance to the new dynasty, only in order
to save their benefices. A large proportion of the country gentlemen belonged to
the same party. The whole body of agricultural proprietors was hostile to that
interest which the creation of the national debt had brought into notice, and
which was believed to be peculiarly favored by the Court, the monied interest.
The middle classes were fully determined to keep out James and his family. But
they regarded William only as the less of two evils; and, as long as there was
no imminent danger of a counter-revolution, were disposed to thwart and mortify
the sovereign by whom they were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of
necessity, with their lives and fortunes. They were sullen and dissatisfied.
"There was," as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to William, "a
deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally."
Everything in England was going on as Lewis could have wished. The leaders of
the Whig party had retired from power, and were extremely unpopular on account
of the unfortunate issue of the Partition Treaty. The Tories, some of whom still
cast a lingering look towards St. Germains, were in office, and had a decided
majority in the House of Commons. William was so much embarrassed by the state
of parties in England that he could not venture to make war on the House of
Bourbon. He was suffering under a complication of severe and incurable diseases.
There was every reason to believe that a few months would dissolve the fragile
tie which bound up that feeble body with that ardent and unconquerable soul. If
Lewis could succeed in preserving peace for a short time, it was probable that
all his vast designs would be securely accomplished. Just at this crisis, the
most important crisis of his life, his pride and his passions hurried him into
an error, which undid all that forty years of victory and intrigue had done,
which produced the dismemberment of the kingdom of his grandson, and brought
invasion, bankruptcy, and famine on his own.
James the Second died at St. Germains. Lewis paid him a farewell visit, and was
so much moved by the solemn parting, and by the grief of the exiled queen, that,
losing sight of all considerations of policy, and actuated, as it should seem,
merely by compassion and by a not ungenerous vanity, he acknowledged the Prince
of Wales as King of England.
The indignation which the Castilians had felt when they heard that three foreign
powers had undertaken to regulate the Spanish succession was nothing to the rage
with which the English learned that their good neighbor had taken the trouble to
provide them with a king. Whigs and Tories joined in condemning the proceedings
of the French Court. The cry for war was raised by the city of London, and
echoed and re-echoed from every corner of the realm. William saw that his time
was come. Though his wasted and suffering body could hardly move without
support, his spirit was as energetic and resolute as when, at twenty-three, he
bade defiance to the combined forces of England and France. He left the Hague,
where he had been engaged in negotiating with the States and the Emperor a
defensive treaty against the ambitious designs of the Bourbons. He flew to
London. He remodeled the Ministry. He dissolved the Parliament. The majority of
the new House of Commons was with the King; and the most vigorous preparations
were made for war.
Before the commencement of active hostilities William was no more. But the Grand
Alliance of the European Princes against the Bourbons was already constructed.
"The master workman died," says Mr. Burke; "but the work was formed on true
mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought." On the fifteenth of May,
1702, war was proclaimed by concert at Vienna, at London, and at the Hague.
Thus commenced that great struggle by which Europe, from the Vistula to the
Atlantic Ocean, was agitated during twelve years. The two hostile coalitions
were, in respect of territory, wealth, and population, not unequally matched. On
the one side were France, Spain, and Bavaria; on the other, England, Holland,
the Empire, and a crowd of inferior Powers.
That part of the war which Lord Mahon has undertaken to relate, though not the
least important, is certainly the least attractive. In Italy, in Germany, and in
the Netherlands, great means were at the disposal of great generals. Mighty
battles were fought. Fortress after fortress was subdued. The iron chain of the
Belgian strongholds was broken. By a regular and connected series of operations
extending through several years, the French were driven back from the Danube and
the Po into their own provinces. The war in Spain, on the contrary, is made up
of events which seem to have no dependence on each other. The turns of fortune
resemble those which take place in a dream. Victory and defeat are not followed
by their usual consequences. Armies spring out of nothing, and melt into
nothing. Yet, to judicious readers of history, the Spanish conflict is perhaps
more interesting than the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene. The fate of the
Milanese and of the Low Countries was decided by military skill. The fate of
Spain was decided by the peculiarities of the national character.
When the war commenced, the young King was in a most deplorable situation. On
his arrival at Madrid, he found Porto Carrero at the head of affairs, and he did
not think fit to displace the man to whom he owed his crown. The Cardinal was a
mere intriguer, and in no sense a statesman. He had acquired, in the Court and
in the confessional, a rare degree of skill in all the tricks by which. weak
minds are managed. But of the noble science of government, of the sources of
national prosperity, of the causes of national decay, he knew no more than his
master. It is curious to observe the contrast between the dexterity with which
he ruled the conscience of a foolish valetudinarian, and the imbecility which he
showed when placed at the head of an empire. On what grounds Lord Mahon
represents the Cardinal as a man "of splendid genius," "of vast abilities," we
are unable to discover. Lewis was of a very different opinion, and Lewis was
very seldom mistaken in his judgment of character. "Everybody," says he, in a
letter to his ambassador, "knows how incapable the Cardinal is. He is an object
of contempt to his countrymen."
A few miserable savings were made, which ruined individuals without producing
any perceptible benefit to the State. The police became more and more
inefficient. The disorders of the capital were increased by the arrival of
French adventurers, the refuse of Parisian brothels and gaming-houses. These
wretches considered the Spaniards as a subjugated race whom the countrymen of
the new sovereign might cheat and insult with impunity. The King sate eating and
drinking all night, lay in bed all day, yawned at the council table, and
suffered the most important papers to lie unopened for weeks. At length he was
roused by the only excitement of which his sluggish nature was susceptible. His
grandfather consented to let him have a wife. The choice was fortunate. Maria
Louisa, Princess of Savoy, a beautiful and graceful girl of thirteen, already a
woman in person and mind at an age when the females of colder climates are still
children, was the person selected. The King resolved to give her the meeting in
Catalonia. He left his capital, of which he was already thoroughly tired. At
setting out he was mobbed by a gang of beggars. He, however, made his way
through them, and repaired to Barcelona.
Lewis was perfectly aware that the Queen would govern Philip. He, accordingly,
looked about for somebody to govern the Queen. He selected the Princess Orsini
to be first lady of the bedchamber, no insignificant post in the household of a
very young wife, and a very uxorious husband. The Princess was the daughter of a
French peer, and the widow of a Spanish grandee. She was, therefore, admirably
fitted by her position to be the instrument of the Court of Versailles at the
Court of Madrid. The Duke of Orleans called her, in words too coarse for
translation, the Lieutenant of Captain Maintenon: and the appellation was well
deserved. She aspired to play in Spain the part which Madame de Maintenon had
played in France. But, though at least equal to her model in wit, information,
and talents for intrigue, she had not that self-command, that patience, that
imperturbable evenness of temper, which had raised the widow of a buffoon to be
the consort of the proudest of kings. The Princess was more than fifty years
old, but was still vain of her fine eyes, and her fine shape; she still dressed
in the style of a girl; and she still carried her flirtations so far as to give
occasion for scandal. She was, however, polite, eloquent, and not deficient in
strength of mind. The bitter Saint Simon owns that no person whom she wished to
attach could long resist the graces of her manners and of her conversation.
We have not time to relate how she obtained, and how she preserved, her empire
over the young couple in whose household she was placed, how she became so
powerful, that neither minister of Spain nor ambassador from France could stand
against her, how Lewis himself was compelled to court her, how she received
orders from Versailles to retire, how the Queen took part with her favorite
attendant, how the King took part with the Queen, and how, after much
squabbling, lying, shuffling, bullying, and coaxing, the dispute was adjusted.
We turn to the events of the war.
When hostilities were proclaimed at London, Vienna, and the Hague, Philip was at
Naples. He had been with great difficulty prevailed upon, by the most urgent
representations from Versailles, to separate himself from his wife, and to
repair without her to his Italian dominions, which were then menaced by the
Emperor. The Queen acted as Regent, and, child as she was, seems to have been
quite as competent to govern the kingdom as her husband or any of his ministers.
In August 1702, an armament, under the command of the Duke of Ormond, appeared
off Cadiz. The Spanish authorities had no funds and no regular troops. The
national spirit, however, supplied, in some degree, what was wanting. The nobles
and farmers advanced money. The peasantry were formed into what the Spanish
writers call bands of heroic patriots, and what General Stanhope calls "a
rascally foot militia." If the invaders had acted with vigor and judgment, Cadiz
would probably have fallen. But the chiefs of the expedition were divided by
national and professional feelings, Dutch against English, and land against sea.
Sparre, the Dutch general, was sulky and perverse. Bellasys, the English
general, embezzled the stores. Lord Mahon imputes the ill-temper of Sparre to
the influence of the republican institutions of Holland. By parity of reason, we
suppose that he would impute the peculations of Bellasys to the influence of the
monarchical and aristocratical institutions of England. The Duke of Ormond, who
had the command of the whole expedition, proved on this occasion, as on every
other, destitute of the qualities which great emergencies require. No discipline
was kept; the soldiers were suffered to rob and insult those whom it was most
desirable to conciliate. Churches were robbed, images were pulled down; nuns
were violated. The officers shared the spoil instead of punishing the spoilers;
and at last the armament, loaded, to use the words of Stanhope, "with a great
deal of plunder and infamy," quitted the scene of Essex's glory, leaving the
only Spaniard of note who had declared for them to be hanged by his countrymen.
The fleet was off the coast of Portugal, on the way back to England, when the
Duke of Ormond received intelligence that the treasure-ships from America had
just arrived in Europe, and had, in order to avoid his armament, repaired to the
harbor of Vigo. The cargo consisted, it was said, of more than three millions
sterling in gold and silver, besides much valuable merchandise. The prospect of
plunder reconciled all disputes. Dutch and English admirals and generals, were
equally eager for action. The Spaniards might with the greatest ease have
secured the treasure by simply landing it; but it was a fundamental law of
Spanish trade that the galleons should unload at Cadiz, and at Cadiz only. The
Chamber of Commerce at Cadiz, in the true spirit of monopoly, refused, even at
this conjuncture, to bate one jot of its privilege. The matter was referred to
the Council of the Indies. That body deliberated and hesitated just a day too
long. Some feeble preparations for defense were made. Two ruined towers at the
mouth of the bay of Vigo were garrisoned by a few ill-armed and untrained
rustics; a boom was thrown across the entrance of the basin; and a few French
ships of war, which had convoyed the galleons from America, were moored within.
But all was to no purpose. The English ships broke the boom; Ormond and his
soldiers scaled the forts; the French burned their ships, and escaped to the
shore. The conquerors shared some millions of dollars; some millions more were
sunk. When all the galleons had been captured or destroyed came an order in due
form allowing them to unload.
When Philip returned to Madrid in the beginning of 1703, he found the finances
more embarrassed, the people more discontented and the hostile coalition more
formidable than ever. The loss of the galleons had occasioned a great deficiency
in the revenue. The Admiral of Castile, one of the greatest subjects in Europe,
had fled to Lisbon and sworn allegiance to the Archduke. The King of Portugal
soon after acknowledged Charles as King of Spain, and prepared to support the
title of the House of Austria by arms.
On the other side, Lewis sent to the assistance of his grandson an army of
12,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Berwick. Berwick was the son of James the
Second and Arabella Churchill. He had been brought up to expect the highest
honors which an English subject could enjoy; but the whole course of his life
was changed by the revolution which overthrew his infatuated father. Berwick
became an exile, a man without a country; and from that time forward his camp
was to him in the place of a country, and professional honor was his patriotism.
He ennobled his wretched calling. There was a stern, cold, Brutus-like virtue in
the manner in which he discharged the duties of a soldier of fortune. His
military fidelity was tried by the strongest temptations, and was found
invincible. At one time he fought against his uncle; at another time he fought
against the cause of his brother; yet he was never suspected of treachery or
even of slackness.
Early in 1704 an army, composed of English, Dutch, and Portuguese, was assembled
on the western frontier of Spain. The Archduke Charles had arrived at Lisbon,
and appeared in person at the head of his troops. The military skill of Berwick
held the Allies, who were commanded by Lord Galway, in check through the whole
campaign. On the south, however, a great blow was struck. An English fleet,
under Sir George Rooke, having on board several regiments commanded by the
Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, appeared before the rock of Gibraltar. That
celebrated stronghold, which nature has made all but impregnable, and against
which all the resources of the military art have been employed in vain, was
taken as easily as if it had been an open village in a plain. The garrison went
to say their prayers instead of standing on their guard. A few English sailors
climbed the rock. The Spaniards capitulated; and the British flag was placed on
those ramparts from which the combined armies and navies of France and Spain
have never been able to pull it down. Rooke proceeded to Malaga, gave battle in
the neighborhood of that port to a French squadron, and after a doubtful action
returned to England.
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