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conquer Spain itself; that they would be justi- | the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He fied in attempting to put, not merely the pas- dazzled the multitude by his magnificent style sive Flemings and Italians, but the reluctant of living. The prejudices which the people of Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion Madrid had conceived against the French chaof a stranger. The danger against which the racter, the vindictive feelings generated during Partition Treaty was intended to guard was centuries of national rivalry, gradually yielded precisely the same danger which afterwards to his arts; while the Austrian ambassador, a was made the ground of war. It will be diffi- surly, pompous, niggardly German, made himcult to prove, that a danger which was suffi- self and his country more and more unpopular cient to justify the war, was insufficient to every day. justify the provisions of the treaty. If, as Lord Mahon contends, it was better that Spain should be subjugated by main force than that she should be governed by a Bourbon, it was surely better that she should be deprived of Lombardy and the Milanese than that she should be governed by a Bourbon.

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. Louis 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 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 Louis.

Harcourt was a noble specimen of the French aristocracy in the days of its highest splendour 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 favourite of the whole court. He became intimate with

Harcourt won over the court and 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 every thing 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 gover. ment was intrusted to the creatures of Porto Carrero. The king left the city in which he had suffered so cruel an insult, for the magni ficent retreat of the Escurial. Here his hypochondriac fancy took a new turn. Like his ancestor, Charles the Fifth, he was haunted by a 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, are 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 islandgarden, 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 Louis, and Louis 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 prince. 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 sprung 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 would 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 heritage? 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 infalible 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 Roine, 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, when 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 as good as dead."

The will was kept secret during the short remainder of his life. On the 3d 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 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.

Louis 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 Louis, "have ceased to exist." Those very Pyrenees, a few years later, were the theatre of a war between the heir of Louis 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 re

was," as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to William, "a deadness and want c spirit in the nation_universally."

axation, 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 Every thing in England was going on as amidst the dull magnificence of Versailles. His Louis could have wished. The leaders of the grandfather was as imperious and as ostenta- Whig party had retired from power, and were lious in his intercourse with the royal family extremely unpopular on account of the unfor as in public acts. All those who grew up im- tunate issue of the Partition Treaty. The Tomediately under the eye of Louis, had the ries, some of whom still cast a lingering look manners of persons who had never known towards St. Germains, were in office, and had what it was to be at ease. They were all a decided majority in the House of Commons. taciturn, shy, and awkward. In all of them, William was so much embarrassed by the except the Duke of Burgundy, the evil went state of parties in England, that he could not further than the manners. The Dauphin, the venture to make war on the house of Bourbon. Duke of Berri, Philip of Anjou, were men of He was suffering under a complication of seinsignificant characters. They had no energy, vere and incurable diseases. There was every no force of will. They had been so little ac- reason to believe that a few months would customed to judge or to act for themselves, dissolve the fragile tie, which bound up that that implicit dependence had become neces-feeble body with that ardent and unconquerasary to their comfort. The new King of Spain, ble soul. If Louis could succeed in preserving emancipated from control, resembled that peace for a short time, it was probable that wretched German captive, who, when the irons all his vast designs would be securely accomwhich he had worn for years were knocked plished. Just at this crisis, the most importoff, fell prostrate on the floor of his prison. ant crisis of his life, his pride and his passions The restraints which had enfeebled the mind hurried him into an error, which undid all that of the young prince were required to support forty years of victory and intrigue had done; it. Till he had a wife he could do nothing; which produced the dismemberment of the and when he had a wife he did whatever she kingdom of his grandson, and brought invachose. sion, bankruptcy, and famine on his own.

James the second died at St. Germains.

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 neighbour 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 force 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 remodelled 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.

While this lounging, moping boy was on his way to Madrid, his grandfather was all acti-Louis paid him a farewell visit, and was so vity. Louis 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 Louis; 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 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 favoured by the court-the moneyed 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

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 15th 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 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 cha

racter.

king sate eating and drinking all night, and 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.

Louis 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. This lady 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.

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 it 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 We have not time to relate how she obtainwhich he showed when placed at the head of ed, and how she preserved her empire over an empire. On what grounds Lord Mahon the young couple in whose household she was represents the cardinal as a man "of splendid placed; how she became so powerful, that genius," "of vast abilities," we are unable to neither minister of Spain nor ambassador discover. Louis was of a very different opi- from France could stand against her; how nion, and Louis was very seldom mistaken Louis himself was compelled to court her; in his judgment of character. "Everybody," how she received orders from Versailles to says he, in a letter to his ambassador, "knows retire; how the queen took part with the fahow incapable the cardinal is. He is an ob-vourite attendant; how the king took part with ject 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 he 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, hom the countrymen of the new sovereign cheat and insult with impunity. The

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.

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, there 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 gallcons had occasioned a great deficiency in the revenue. The Admiral of Castile, one of the greatest subjects in Europe, had fied 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.

In August, 1702, an armament, under the command of the Duke of Ormond, appeared off Calais. The Spanish authorities had no guards and no regular troops. The national spirit, however, supplied in some degree what was wanting. The nobles and peasantry 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 vigour 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 ge-ance of his grandson an army of 12,000 men, neral, was sulky and perverse; according to Lord Mahon, because he was a citizen of a republic. Bellasys, the English general, embezzled the stores; we suppose, because he was the subject of a monarchy. 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 treasureships from America had just arrived in Europe, and had, in order to avoid his armament, repaired to the harbour 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 defence were made. Two ruined towers at the mouth of the bay were garrisoned by a few ill-armed and untrained rustics; a boom was thrown across the entrance of the bay; and some French ships of war, which had convoyed the galleons from America, were moored in the basin 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

VOL. II.-2

On the other side, Louis sent to the assistcommanded 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 honours 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 profes sional honour 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 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 neighbourhood of that port to a French squadron, and after a doubtful action returned to England.

But greater events were at hand. The English government had determined to send an expedition to Spain, under the command of Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough. This man was, if not the greatest, yet assuredly h

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