who had no children, was in feeble health, and at his death it was probable that Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou, would receive the crown. If that happened, Louis XIV, who was then the most powerful prince in Europe, would obtain the control of the Spanish dominions, which, besides Spain, comprised a large part of the Netherlands,1 parts of Italy, and immense provinces in North and South America. The possession of such an empire would make Louis irresistible in Europe, and the little, free Protestant states of Holland could not hope to stand before him.

Not long afterwards, the King of Spain died and bequeathed the crown to Philip of Anjou. When Philip left Paris for Madrid, Louis XIV exultingly exclaimed, "The Pyrenees no longer exist.” That was simply his short way of saying, Now France and Spain are made one, and France is that one.2

Louis at once put French garrisons in the border towns of the Spanish Netherlands, and he thus had a force ready at any moment to march across the frontier into Holland. Finally, on the death of the royal refugee, James II (§ 491), which occurred shortly before King William's death, Louis XIV publicly acknowledged the exiled monarch's son, James Edward, the so-called “ Old Pretender" (§§ 490, 491), as rightful sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

This effectually roused the English people; they were preparing for hostilities when William's sudden death occurred (§ 504). Immediately after Anne came to the throne (1702) war with France was declared, and since it had grown out of Louis's designs on the crown of Spain, it was called the "War of the Spanish Succession."

The contest was begun by England, mainly to prevent the French King from carrying out his threat of placing the so-called "Pretender," son of the late James II, on the English throne and so

1 The whole of the Netherlands at one time belonged to Spain, but the northern part, or Holland, had succeeded in establishing its independence, and was protected on the southern frontier by a line of fortified towns.

2 When Philip of Anjou went to Spain, Louis XIV, by letters patent, conditionally reserved the succession to the Spanish throne to France, thus virtually uniting the two countries, so that the Pyrenees Mountains would no longer have any political meaning as a boundary between the two countries.

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overturning the Bill of Rights (§ 497) and the Act of Settlement (§ 497), and thereby restoring the country to the Roman Catholic Stuarts. Later, the war came to have two other important objects. The first of these was to defend Holland, now a most valuable ally; the second was to protect the colonies of Virginia and New England against the power of France, which threatened, through its own American colonies and through the extensive Spanish possessions it expected to acquire, to get control of the whole of the New World.1

Thus England had three objects at stake:

(1) The maintenance of Protestant government at home. (2) The maintenance of the Protestant power of Holland. (3) The retention of a large part of the American continent. For this reason the War of the Spanish Succession may be regarded as the beginning of a second Hundred Years' War between England and France (§ 237),2 one destined to decide which was to build up the great empire of the future in the western hemisphere.3

509. Marlborough; Blenheim, Gibraltar, and Other Victories (1702-1709). John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough ($491), commanded the English and Dutch forces, and had for his ally Prince Eugene of Savoy, who led the German armies. The Duke, who was known in the enemy's camps by the flattering name of the handsome Englishman," had risen from obscurity. He owed the beginning of his success to his good looks and a court intrigue. In politics he sympathized chiefly with the Tories (§ 479), but his interests in the war led him to support the Whigs ($ 479).

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He was avaricious, unscrupulous, and treacherous. James II trusted him, and he deceived him and went over to William (§ 491); William trusted him, and he deceived him and opened a treasonable correspondence with the dethroned James; Anne trusted him, and he would undoubtedly have betrayed her if the so-called

1 At this time England had twelve American colonies extending from New England to South Carolina, inclusive, with part of Newfoundland. France and Spain claimed all the rest of the continent.

2 During the next eighty years fighting was going on between England and France, directly or indirectly, for a great part of the time.

3 Seeley's "Expansion of England."

"Pretender" (§§ 490, 491) had been able to bid high enough, or if he could have shown him that his cause was likely to be successful. In his greed for money the Duke hesitated at nothing; he took bribes from army contractors, and robbed his soldiers of their pay.1

As a soldier, Marlborough had no equal. Voltaire says of him with truth that "he never besieged a fortress which he did not take, nor fought a battle which he did not win." This man, at once so able and so false, to whom war was a private speculation, rather than a contest for right or principle, now opened the campaign. He captured those fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands which Louis XIV had garrisoned with French troops to menace Holland, but he could not induce the enemy to risk a battle in the open field.

2

At length, Marlborough, by a brilliant movement (1704), changed the scene of the war from the Netherlands to Bavaria in southern Germany. There, at the little village of Blenheim, he, with Prince Eugene, gained a victory over the French which saved Germany from the power of Louis XIV. (See map opposite.) England, out of gratitude for the humiliation of her powerful enemy, presented the Duke with the ancient royal Park of Woodstock, near Oxford, and built for him the palace of Blenheim, which the architect called "the biggest house for the biggest man in England." It is still occupied by descendants of the Duke's family. A few days before the battle of Blenheim, a powerful English fleet had attacked and taken Gibraltar (1704). England thus gained and still holds the command of the great inland sea of the Mediterranean. In the course of the next five years Marlborough fought three great battles, by which he drove the French out of the Netherlands once for all,. and finally beat them on a hotly contested field in northern France. The power of Louis XIV was now so far broken that England no longer felt any fear that he would overcome her colonies in America (§ 508).

1 See Hallam, Macaulay; and Thackeray's "Henry Esmond."

2 Blenheim: The palace grounds are nearly twelve miles in circumference. The Marlborough family hold Blenheim on condition that they present a flag every year (August 2) to the English sovereign at Windsor Castle.

3 Ramillies (1706); Oudenarde (1708); Malplaquet (1709).